I'm interested in evaluating a few diferent systems by which small
companies (90 people or so-- 7 or 8 departments)can regularly and
efficiently update a hundred-page, high-traffic, highly positioned
website which is updated daily.
By "update" I mean add new information according to what makes content
providers happy, as it becomes avaliable with the appropiate approval
process, including designing new pages and integrating them into the
site when necessary.
I am trying to improve on the current system which, although it
changes rather frequently which is part of the problem, is right now
like the following:
The website is composed of diffferent sections, with different
departments responsible for providing content for each section.
1. Content providers (most of whom are technically unksilled as far as
web design but can use Windows and MS Office)provide some kind of
draft of their content, usually in either MS Word with images attached
to an email, or MS Publisher converted to HTML, sometimes in MS
FrontPage Express. There is no set content submission format or time
schedule for web updating--content providers submit content whenever
they get it ready, in whatever MS based format they are comfortable
with (leaving IT to sort it out later).
2. The content providers forward their material to the Media Dept.,
who approves all content for suitability with regard to corporate
policy, look-and-feel, gramatical errors, etc. Media also forwards
associated images to the Photo dept. which is repsonsible for image
processing--basically, compressing images to make them web-friendly.
3.Media forwards the approved content to the IT dept., who is
responsibe for actually integrating it into both the intranet mirror
and the live website--inserting hyperlinks, creating file directories
for images, coding new pages if necessary, upating the site map, and
FTPing files.
There is usually a lot of e-mailing back and forth between media, IT
and Photo , wondering if such-and-such photo has been approved for the
site, it hasn't been compressed enough, these instructions for
so-and-so's new page aren't clear....
I'm wondering what types of processes other companies use, or are these
hassles typically everywhere and basically unavoidable? I have heard it
proposed at our company that every dept. be completely repsonsible for
creating/maintaining their own pages--by using FrontPage templates of
the live pages, everything except FTPing which IT would do, but no one
has ever been able to get this to work because after the template is
set up, the users inevitaby alter the hyperlinks, rename files, etc.,
which breaks the site when those pages are added.
I was thinking that one way to smooth things out might be to organize it
more like a software build cycle, where the site is updated every 2
weeks no matter what, with a deadline of 3 days prior to the "upload day" for all
content to come in to IT pre-approved by Media. That way, everyone
knows when the next day new conent will be uploaded to the web and
when they have to have it in by. Ofcourse, some things have to be
updated daily, such as important, unexpected annoucnements, job
openings, paid ads, etc., but the bulk of the randomness might be cut
down this way, I suppose.
What are your ideas, comments? Please provide as many as you can. If
possible, also point me to some resources where I might read up on
this subject. What is this subject referred to as in the computer
world? Web upating protocols? Workflow porcess? How would I refer to
this type of problem, terminology-wise, it if I were to seek a
professional consultant?
Thank you for your help. |
