P.G. Daly's Intranet Talk :

How Others Create and Manage Intranet Content

By P.G. Daly

My two recent articles on creating and managing intranet content ("Creating and Managing Content" and "Authoring Tool Standards& Critical? Or Form Over Function?") generated an overwhelming response from readers. In this column, I'd like to share some of the most helpful comments and insights.

The most common response I got was the "oh my, it sounds like you are describing my company, thank god I'm not the only one in this predicament" response. Misery loves company, and it appears that there are a lot of intranet web folks in the same boat. So for all you webmasters out there -- take heart, you're not alone, and it's not your fault that you struggle with your web authors. This realization alone goes a long way towards reducing frustration and stress.

The most beneficial responses I received related to making as much of your content as possible database driven. These responses reinforced what I have recently started experiencing firsthand. That is, the least sophisticated method you can give users to publish information, the more effective it will be. In addition, the greater number of people with the capability to publish content, the more ownership they feel and the more likely it is for information to be published right from the source.

For those of you who understand conceptually that database-driven is the way to go, but can't quite put your fingers on the "how", here's a brief summary that will hopefully shed some light for you the way a gracious reader did for me. Basically, you can use the tools you are already most familiar with (such as Cold Fusion or Active Server Pages) for creating web interfaces to existing databases. In this case, you design a database for the strict purpose of publishing content to a particular area(s) of your site (for example, press releases and announcements). Using an HTML form as the user interface, you obtain the content from the user through the browser. The information you obtain and store can be as simple as a document title and a memo field for the actual article or can include fancier attributes such as archive dates and attachments. When the user submits this form, it adds this information to the database, and then outputs a page to the web browser "previewing" the page for the user. Then, based on the other logic you have created on your site, this content is automatically linked up and published (for example, the new article title is added to your press release page and links to the full text of the article). The best advice I got from a reader is to start off with a small application using this, and then add additional features and capabilities as you learn by trial and error. It most definitely seems that trial and error is the name of the game for building this sort of publishing mechanism, but the readers who have implemented this report nothing but success (increased content, more efficiency, less webmaster bottleneck/overload, and a more dynamic site).

As I mentioned in the two previous articles, I have been implementing more and more database driven content with much success. In the near future, I plan to take what I have learned from these reader's responses and move some of my most actively changing straight-HTML content (such as press releases, organizational announcements, etc.) to this type of interface. I'll let you know how it goes& .

Intranet Talk also received a wide variety of "off the shelf" package recommendations from readers and vendors. Though I don't feel comfortable listing them here (since I haven't done any due diligence research on these particular products), I suggest that when you search around the Internet and look through various trade magazines for recommendations (don't forget Intranet Journal's Tools of the Trade) you consider taking the products for a test drive as I'm sure capabilities and prices vary widely. One of the best places for advice on intranet content management products is Intranet Journal's own Intranet eXchange, where beginners and experts share their experiences as well as ask and answer questions about a whole range of intranet related issues.

As always, I welcome your comments and experiences at paulag@enter.net.

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The Author

P.G. Daly is Webmaster for the intranet of a large durable goods manufacturing company. In addition, P.G. writes for several online publications and does freelance web design and consulting. P.G. welcomes your feedback at paulag@enter.net .