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Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

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At CentreSource, we have a motto that “outcomes always outweigh the output.”  Through this, we try to focus on meeting the individual goals of our clients, versus focusing on the process of how they get done.  One goal we often hear is that our clients would like an easy way to update the website themselves.  By using a Content Management System (CMS), we enable our clients to accomplish this — without having to install anything on their computers, or know too much about how websites work.

Over the history of CentreSource, we’ve worked hard to choose the perfect CMS to be able to meet the individual needs of each client and project that comes our way.  There was always a balance that had to be struck — it couldn’t be too cookie-cutter, or else we wouldn’t be able to do everything that the client was asking.  Conversely, it wouldn’t be cost efficient if we had to custom build a CMS for our clients each time.  By focusing on the outcome  (the client’s goal of an easy-to-update website), we decided that the best single CMS option was not a single option at all, but instead a “toolbox” approach that would allow us to use the appropriate tool for each unique job.

WordPress

For basic blog / news sites with a few “static” pages, there is no better option out there than the open source platform, WordPress.  WordPress has a simple, intuitive administrative interface, and is designed and built around the concept of two types of content: posts and pages.  Thanks to their fairly extensive documentation and an incredible user community, there are thousands of WordPress tutorials, examples, and plugins available that can help you to maximize the capabilities of WordPress to it’s fullest.  Although there are some plugins out there (one in particular called Flutter) that allow you to expand WordPress into a more feature-rich CMS (with multiple content types, for example), we have found that doing so is like pushing a boulder uphill.  It can be done, but it’s more work than it’s worth — especially with other, more feature-rich CMSes out there (see below).  All in all, though, WordPress is an excellent basic tool for basic websites.

Sitemason

Next in our toolbox is a local company that CentreSource has used since we first open our doors, and has never let us down since.  Sitemason is a proprietary CMS that has expanded over the years to allow its users to edit pages, news, forms, polls, photos, and calendars.  Once you’re trained on their administrative interface, adding and editing content is a breeze, as heavy-hitter clients like Vanderbilt University, ABHOW (American Baptist Homes of the West)Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, or TrustCore Financial can attest to.  Their team of developers are constantly refining and adding to their tools, taking guidance and recommendations from the users and developers that use their system.  As a result, Sitemason has proven to be an invaluable tool for our low- to mid-level sites.

Drupal

Over the past few years, Drupal has taken off as the de facto CMS for open source developers.  Advertising itself as not only a CMS platform, but also a CMS framework, Drupal has an extensively flexible core that can be used to build modules to do just about anything you might want.  Drupal’s bread and butter is its ability to create custom content types (a piece of content with defined custom fields), and then a system to view the content in many different ways (lists, grids, tables, blocks, etc).  Additionally, Drupal specializes in social-based tools, making it a perfect platform for bands, politicians, or churches.  For any high-level content-based site that is too demanding for WordPress or SiteMason, Drupal is the perfect tool for the job.

Symfony

While not really a CMS, the Symfony framework allows us to custom build anything that can’t be done with the tools above.  Symfony is a PHP framework that provides an architecture for developers to build complex web applications faster.  Using Symfony allows us to build the exact tool that our client is wanting — something that is necessary in circumstances where the workflow is just as important as the final outcome.  Using Symfony, we’ve been able to build complex order and shipment fulfillment systems and social-based file sharing and recommendation systems — sites that would not have been able to be found “out-of-the-box,” but that were needed based on our client’s goals.


The largest advantage of having a full toolbox at our disposal is that as we approach planning for each new project, we are able to choose a tool in response to the needs of the client, instead of trying to force the client’s needs into a preselected (and potentially limiting) option.  Each of the tools that we use help to cover the full gamut of price, time, and complexity, allowing us optimally serve the client with the best tool for the job.

The post Choosing the Right Tool for the Job appeared first on centresource blog.


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