Benefits of the Plone CMS through Openscape

Manage your content from anywhere:

You can access all your information from a normal web browser - Plone is viewable in all kinds of browsers, even mobile phone browsers.

This means that you can manage your intranet and public web site from a web browser anywhere in the world.

The web site is updated from within the site itself - no specialised tools are needed, just a web browser. It even works with older browsers, so even if your organisation does not use the latest in web technology, Plone is still usable.

All content in Plone is indexed and searchable.

It also supports pluggable stemming and splitter options, which enables useful searching in languages like Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

Designed by usability professionals:

Because much care and thought has gone into the user interface, employees will be able to utilise it with minimal training.

Facilitates collaboration:

When editing and publishing content, you can assign other participants local roles within projects, with versioning and staging of content.

Easy management and configuration:

The administration and configuration of Plone is done through the web, and no access to the file system is needed after the system is set up. This makes for a very secure system - even in a worst-case scenario where somebody gains access to the Zope instance, they can't access anything outside the closed environment in which Zope and Plone runs.

Single sign-on:

Plone has a centralised sign-on mechanism, which prevents users from having to log on to each area separately. Security is controlled centrally. This is also easily integrated with the existing user authentication mechanisms in the company - be it LDAP, Active Directory, Novell, Windows, UNIX/Linux or other database-based authentication systems.

Accessibility:

Special care has been taken to let the web design adjust flexibly to users with impaired eyesight and/or motor skill challenges.

Encourages ownership:

Users add content and managers manage. Letting users edit and add content lets them feel ownership towards the intranet, and encourages content production.

Powerful pluggable workflow system:

Plone has built-in support for administrative workflow and approval mechanisms. It supports both action-based and entity-based workflow paradigms, and has a pluggable architecture to allow you to plug in your own workflow systems, if required.

SQL connectivity:

As Plone is based on Zope, you can connect to any relational database that Zope supports. All the major databases are supported - both commercial (Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MS SQL, SAP, Interbase, etc) and open source (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc).

Lightweight XHTML:

The XHTML interface of Plone is very lightweight, which is a feature you will appreciate if you are ever using it from a mobile phone connection or directly from a mobile phone browser. It's also a big advantage if you want to build on and extend the interface later on.

Activation date and expiration dates:

Every content item has attributes that control its lifespan, and ensures that the content is posted and retired on time.

Topics and Topic Map technologies:

To enable efficient aggregation of content, you can use using hierarchical topic systems to help you grow the knowledge in the system while maintaining structure and control.

Powerful template system:

Plone utilizes the industry's first XML standards-compliant templating language, ZPT. This templating system works well with a wide range of editors, including visual web editors like Dreamweaver.

For More Information, or to book an appointment to discuss your project, please contact Openscape on 0121 687 4004 or by email sales@openscape.co.uk