Company content management via website?

[hamudm]

So! I'm just concluding a company rebrand which is kicking off with the launch of our new website in a couple of weeks.

Considering that this is my first step towards creating a culture shift within our small organization (50 employees across Canada), we want to also begin leveraging our brand internally as well as externally, in essence using it as a symbol our people can rally behind.

Some of our current operational issues stem from a lack of organization and discipline, hence us hoping to consolidate a lot of our forms, etc... In a controlled manner. I.e. Instead of letting people upload things to an FTP all willy nilly, we wish to provide one way controlled access to certain key forms through our website.

Can someone direct me to a few options on how to achieve this via our website?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Well, what kinds of forms are we talking about? Are these paper forms meant to be printed, or online forms you would fill out and have stored in a database?

I guess what I need is a lot more detail about what you're hoping to accomplish.

 

[hamudm]

We're probably looking at simple Excel forms, PDF files, etc... For example, we deal with new items that need to ship to a variety of customers from a variety of manufacturers on whose behalf we process orders. To make this happen, each Account Manager has to fill out a "New Item Form." As this is an Excel file, every time there is a change based on either internal requirements or throughout the supply chain, our guys keep using using old forms because they're confused simply due to the sheer amount of junk saved on our FTP. This leads to all sorts of orders when it comes to reconciliation of POs, invoicing, P&Ls etc... because incomplete information is submitted sometimes.

I would like to centrally control the content via a web login so that there is only ONE form (the most recent update). We would leave the FTP up for other purposes.

Sorry about the lack of detail in my first post, but typing huge things on the ipad while watching TV is not ideal

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Aha, so what you're talking about is more of a web-based document management system that you can use as a master repository for all your forms. Yeah, that's not too big a deal.

Are you wanting to use free/open source tools for this, or is your company interested in buying a pre-packaged/hosted solution, or do they not care either way?

 

[hamudm]

Well both options could be considered. Obviously it would be a question of overall utility based on cost vs. functionality and ease of use. We do have two terminal servers already in our office, one for our order processing/ap/ar system and one for a specialized retail auditing software package -- we could use the latter to host ourselves if necessary. Although having it hosted could also be a possibility.

I'd say I'm fairly technically capable as I'm a "young'un," (I'm 28), but most of the rest of our organization (our whole industry actually) is men in their 40's, 50's and 60's with minimal education. Initially, I would take responsibility for maintaining and servicing any solution we went with until such a time when it made sense to pass the task on to someone else.

Thanks for the feedback by the way!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Hey, we're the same age! And no problem, I like helping people solve problems like this.

Where is your website hosted? You mentioned having some terminal services for special applications, but it's not a good idea to put all this on the same server, so if you have a separate Web server that would be ideal. It could even be a virtual server, it's just that a Web server has different requirements than an application server and it's wise to keep them separate. But that's another argument, I suppose.

Anyway, a content management system would solve this problem nicely. Joomla has a lot of corporate support, is fast and stable, and with a few plugins would fit the bill perfectly. It's also free and open source.

Drupal is another option, but it is so powerful and heavy it doesn't seem worth the overhead if all you're going to use it for is to provide document upload/download/management.

Check out Joomla and have a glance at the file management plugins for it. I think they would fill your needs without too much hassle.

 

[hamudm]

^Awesome and thank you! I'll check it out.

Our website is going to be hosted by a separate company that we deal with for our FTP (Groupdrive) as well as our email accounts. I've thought about switching to Google for e-mail (I like the search engine integration), but that may be a ways off.

So, if I'm hearing you right, one of these plugins will allow me to create a link on my corporate website, i.e. "Employee Login, Click Here" and employees will be directed to login and they will be able to view a list of (possibly categorized) files available to download?

Thanks again and I may pick your brain again sometime in the near future once I have a chance to absorb some of the info

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Would anyone outside the company ever need access to the blank forms? If not, I would suggest setting this up on an internal website. Then, you wouldn't have to put things behind a user login--it would just be on your corporate intranet and it would be one less layer to hassle with. You would only need the login to manage the files (upload new versions, add, delete, etc.) but anyone on your intranet could download.

I think that would be the simplest way to set this up. You would, of course, need an internal web server, however you could do this on an old PC or something if it's not going to be a critical system.

 

[Marc]

Would anyone outside the company ever need access to the blank forms? If not, I would suggest setting this up on an internal website. Then, you wouldn't have to put things behind a user login--it would just be on your corporate intranet and it would be one less layer to hassle with. You would only need the login to manage the files (upload new versions, add, delete, etc.) but anyone on your intranet could download.

I think that would be the simplest way to set this up. You would, of course, need an internal web server, however you could do this on an old PC or something if it's not going to be a critical system.

If they are using MS Office products then it might be worthwhile giving Sharepoint a look into. Microsoft have just released the 2010 verions with Sharepoint Foundations replacing Windows Sharepoint Services. Foundations can downloaded free of cost from Microsoft and implemented. Only catch is you need to have a system running Windows Server.

Joomla etc might do the trick no problems - Sharepoint's big advantage is that it integrated with Word, Excel, Outlook etc etc

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Would anyone outside the company ever need access to the blank forms? If not, I would suggest setting this up on an internal website. Then, you wouldn't have to put things behind a user login--it would just be on your corporate intranet and it would be one less layer to hassle with. You would only need the login to manage the files (upload new versions, add, delete, etc.) but anyone on your intranet could download.

I think that would be the simplest way to set this up. You would, of course, need an internal web server, however you could do this on an old PC or something if it's not going to be a critical system.

If they are using MS Office products then it might be worthwhile giving Sharepoint a look into. Microsoft have just released the 2010 verions with Sharepoint Foundations replacing Windows Sharepoint Services. Foundations can downloaded free of cost from Microsoft and implemented. Only catch is you need to have a system running Windows Server.

Joomla etc might do the trick no problems - Sharepoint's big advantage is that it integrated with Word, Excel, Outlook etc etc

Yeah, that's true. I don't know how much it costs, though. I know my employer won't spring for it because they found the price prohibitive, but your mileage may vary, hamudm. Wouldn't hurt to take a look at it!

 

[Marc]

Would anyone outside the company ever need access to the blank forms? If not, I would suggest setting this up on an internal website. Then, you wouldn't have to put things behind a user login--it would just be on your corporate intranet and it would be one less layer to hassle with. You would only need the login to manage the files (upload new versions, add, delete, etc.) but anyone on your intranet could download.

I think that would be the simplest way to set this up. You would, of course, need an internal web server, however you could do this on an old PC or something if it's not going to be a critical system.

If they are using MS Office products then it might be worthwhile giving Sharepoint a look into. Microsoft have just released the 2010 verions with Sharepoint Foundations replacing Windows Sharepoint Services. Foundations can downloaded free of cost from Microsoft and implemented. Only catch is you need to have a system running Windows Server.

Joomla etc might do the trick no problems - Sharepoint's big advantage is that it integrated with Word, Excel, Outlook etc etc

Yeah, that's true. I don't know how much it costs, though. I know my employer won't spring for it because they found the price prohibitive, but your mileage may vary, hamudm. Wouldn't hurt to take a look at it!

For the full version of Sharepoint it's case of bend over and take it but the Foundations version is available for free.

 

[hamudm]

Excellent. I will consider this option as well.