In this final part of our series, we’ll be discussing the importance of client involvement throughout the project.

Delivery has been uppermost in my mind recently. My wife is expecting a second child but this one decided he doesn’t want to head in the right direction. Next week he’ll be “from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d”. Consequently I’ve been thinking heavily both about caesarean delivery and about a number of projects which now share a common delivery date. If I were project managing this birth, I’d just be cajoling the baby to get into position but quite frankly wouldn’t be offering much value. Is this the same for web projects? Do project managers actually help and how can you get more out of them?

According to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the population of planet Earth was formed by a spaceship full of middle managers, hairdressers, marketeers and account executives. It’s easy to lump project managers into this mix. When Ford Prefect complains about this group’s inability to get stuff done — “This is futile! 573 committee meetings, and you haven’t even discovered fire yet!” — you can be sure that a project manager was there, maintaining the rolling action item log.

This is often exacerbated by project methodologies that foster a generic culture of project management, where all project management problems are essentially the same and if you can fix the issues around business case, stakeholders, executive sponsorship and resources you’re well on the way to project failure prevention. I’ve no doubt that these rules do apply for all projects, but I wonder that if you have a culture of just focussing on these issues you simply encourage project management by numbers where you get unthinking, standardised responses. As usual, Scot Adams got there first:

Even where you have a good project manger trying to help, it’s usually soft skills. Plant any management consultant in there and there’ll come up with the same answers without really having to get to grips with the fundamental issues. Why is the project struggling? Let’s not call lack of sponsorship a root cause when it’s just a symptom.

Sponsors are reluctant when they don’t understand project goals. You can see this for nearly any social media project. The business case is difficult to prove, the executive don’t buy into social media as reducing costs or increasing revenue, and the rigid formulae of business case definition help no one. This isn’t a sponsorship failure where the project manager can go in and mitigate against lack of funding. It’s fundamentally about whether an organisation is culturally ready to adopt social media and understand how they might use it. The project manager can facilitate this debate, but really you need a subject matter expert rather than a journalist who has read a couple of reports from the big analyst firms.

Jerry Manas recently wrote an article in which he suggests that project managers who run agile projects bring a completely different style to the table that’s much more concrete than traditional approaches. While I don’t agree with the entirety of his article, I think the main hypothesis is right. If you can get project managers who are close to the stakeholders, intimate with the issues and prove that they’re not just some glorified secretary, they can bring real value. Specialist projects require specialist experience and expertise and the world (of IT in particular) is littered with projects that have been delivered to industry best practice, but to abject failure.

The better generic project managers will continue to mitigate against failure and they’ll deliver their projects. But it the end, you’ll be judged on what you’ve delivered, not how you delivered it, and that’s where domain knowledge is essential.

My son will be just as precious to me whether he comes via forceps or scalpel. But it’s the people with the hard skills, not the soft skills, whom I’ll to put my faith in to ensure that he gets delivered safely.

Further reading

A recent presentation I made to the J. Boye community of practice on speeding up project delivery using techniques from Scrum and Prince2.

Integrating Microsoft ASP.NET into RedDot CMS
Learn it the right way here

Is it easy to integrate .NET into your RedDot CMS project? Yes it is, if you know how and obey some simple rules. This article gives you a best practice on how to include any .NET functionality for your published website within your RedDot CMS templates.

If you can avoid using inline code within your RedDot Content Classes then do it

Inline code within a content class can’t be versioned as it could be with a version control system when developing standard .NET solutions outside of any CMS. You can’t develop or test properly using inline code within the CMS. Whenever you have to change the .NET part of your project you would need a RedDot Consultant or some of their knowledge and hence your project doubles up on resources. Don’t integrate inline code within your CMS.

Let the CMS handle content – Don’t care about the rest

There is a clear understanding of what your CMS should handle for you – your content – and what it should not take care of – styling and dynamic functionality may it be Javascript, .NET or any other scripting technology. The CMS is your data storage and management layer, the web server is your presentation and visualization layer and hence it is the point where dynamic functionality, styling and user interaction takes place. By keeping those parts separate you ensure to have a stable, scalable and furthermore easily maintain- and upgradeable Content Management Solution. Read more on this topic here

Example – How to integrate .Net properly using User Controls

Instead of just adding a page directive followed by your inline code you should use user controls. Given that your code will be used on your website and not within the Open Text CMS ASP.NET User Controls are the best way to embedded dynamic functionality within your project.
There are basically two points where .NET is included in your template. The first one needs to be in every template which uses User Controls unless you integrate it using a container. The second one works as placeholder for the .NET functionality:

1. Reference the .ascx file at the very top of the template

<reddot:cms><if><query valuea="Context:CurrentRenderMode" operator="==" valueb="Int:2"><htmltext>
<%@ page language="C#" %>
<%@ Register Src="~/UserControls/Search.ascx" TagName="Search" TagPrefix="uc" %>
</htmltext></query></if></reddot:cms>

This example references a code behind file for a search used on the web server. It is placed in the top of every page instance created with this template. This way you only have to integrate the .NET reference once in each template. You can break it down to once per project if you use a container approach.

2. Place the User control tags as placeholder for the .NET functionality

<body>
  <div id="site">
    <div id="header">
<reddot:cms><if><query valuea="Context:CurrentRenderMode" operator="==" valueb="Int:2"><htmltext>
      <uc:Search ID="Search" runat="server"/>
</htmltext></query></if></reddot:cms>

This is the ASP.NET User Control for your search interface. Since you don’t run the search inside of your CMS project we have used a Render Tag to exclude this block from showing up within the CMS. If you want to be fancy you can put some placeholder content here by using a different Context:CurrentRenderMode block where you use valuea=”Context:CurrentRenderMode” operator=”<>” valueb=”Int:2″ to show HTML code only on the CMS server, you can read more about this here.

Maintain & edit your ASP.NET code outside of the CMS

By following the example above whenever you have to update your .NET code you just have to change your .ascx file, there is no need to touch or even deploy the .ascx file to the CMS server. There is an approach of using the built-in .Net folder within RedDot CMS but since you might as well just upload your files manually I dare to say – Why bother? Ok, you should bother in a clustered server system where you publish to multiple publishing targets, but for a simple one CMS one web server setup you might as well just stick to manual deployments.

Changing ASP.NET properties and influencing your .NET from within the CMS

In RedDot we are able to insert User Control tag into any area of a page. If you have to influence settings or content areas you can use several ways to generate content and integrate those within .Net applications. You can use XML files published by RedDot CMS or user attributes with inline edited content to changed and/or edit properties. Those can be passed through to your User Controls. No need to use the CMS as IDE for your .NET solutions, keep all parts of your project separate and everything is just fine.
Are you interested in how to integrate CSS files within the CMS? Read this article here or on a high level understanding and “how to” for CSS and CMS in general this article here.

And you?

How do you integrate ASP.NET in your RedDot CMS projects?

Read more RedDot CMS best practice articles here.

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All Drupal developers have experienced this nightmare. You have been creating a great project, now it’s time to deploy it. No one wants to deal with it. No one wants to be the responsible of doing it.

If you are building a simple site, and there’s only a one time deployment, it’s not a big deal. You just have to follow the largely discussed and know simple rules.

The Rules:

1. Use SVN (or CVS) to keep your code updated among the developers
2. Deploy to production by backing up/restoring the database
3. Create scripts to make the deployment process automatic

That’s all, the unique problem you could have is maybe that you will have to delete the test content/users and change some settings before going live, but in summary, it’s pretty easy.

When it’s about deploying code, it’s still easy to do if you followed the simple rules. You will have only to update your SVN branch and you are done.

When the nightmare begins?

The problem is deploying changes made in the CMS, but without wiping all the existing data. In other words, merging the database changes, the settings and content stored in the database.

Scenario 1: Big (or huge) Drupal projects

You have to deploy a project in multiple phases. So while the first phase is deployed and working in production, you have a bunch of developers working on the next phase (this means, implementing new code, creating new nodes, creating new views, editing existing ones, changing settings, users, permissions, etc.)

Read more of Cesar Salazar’s take on: Enterprise Drupal: Project Configuration Management and Release Management.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is out with fresh survey data on how Americans consume their news.

The findings have big implications for any organization for which content management and content strategy play a role in supporting, interacting with and delivering information to customers. Read: this has tentacles that reach far beyond news organizations and news consumers, deep into the evolving behaviors of all consumers in the age of iPhone and Twitter.

First, the key findings: the Internet, according to Pew’s research, is now the third most popular news platform, behind only local and national TV news. It’s ahead of newspapers and radio – no surprise there.

But the more compelling info relates to the Three P’s of the research study’s findings. According to Pew:

‘The internet and mobile technologies are at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. In today’s new multi-platform media environment, news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:

• Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
• Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
• Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.’

For news and non-news organizations, the Three P’s pose many questions around content (and content management) that beg answers and point to opportunities:

• Do you have an effective strategy for delivering mobile content to your diverse audiences? With the rise of the iPhone, iPad and other phone and reader devices, what is your plan, and will you get left behind as your readers/customers move their experience to these platforms? Content management platforms are part of the solution here, but require extensive planning and prioritization to prepare to roll out effective content experiences tailored to these platforms.

• Do you have an effective strategy for personalizing the online content experience? This question also goes far beyond the personalized news feeds or news content tailored to your preferences – if you’re a corporation, or a brand, or a college, or a non-profit: are you prepared for this inexorable shift to more personalized content experiences? The good news is CMS platforms are working overtime to deliver on the promise of if not personalized then (at least) lightly customized content experiences.

• Do you have an effective strategy for utilizing social networks for connecting your information to readers/customers? Implicit in Pew’s research is that social networks have fast become not just platforms for dissemination of information, but also effective filters on the river of news and information that flows toward us all. Your trusted friends (even the 1,000 people you follow on Twitter) serve as unofficial editors delivering their ‘best of’ links and news and content they think you should know about. It’s a stark wake up call to traditional publishers and communicators whose branded influence (hello, networks and newspapers) are waning perhaps even faster than they think. The opportunity if you’re a corporation or brand is to determine how best to harness social networks and turn these trusted sources of information into active distribution channels for your content.

Related posts:

1. Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery
2. The increasing importance of global content accessibility
3. The sweet spot for WCM services

Merging HTML, CSS and RedDot templates
Read how to do it the right way.

This article covers the key factors for successful CSS and HTML integration into your RedDot CMS Open Text Content Management Server project. This best practice article outlines the major points to pay attention to when implementing your HTML into the CMS.

What you should do when you integrate HTML and CSS into your content class templates

1. If you can avoid it, do not create templates for your CSS or Javascript files. A detailed post can be found here.
2. Don’t target HTML elements directly within the CSS. Always use classes. Specifically with anchor, image and span tags. If you target HTML elements directly this might affect the red dots which will be placed inside the templates because they are anchors, images and spans.
3. Always target the ‘first’ item in a collection of items (lists, repeating blocks, …) by using a CSS class. Within the RedDot CMS you can identify the first item in a list using ASP and PreExecute script blocks but not always can you identify the last item. Especially when the amount of items is varying and you cannot utilize Render Tags.
4. Ensure dynamic HTML is accessible when switched off. Using Javascript code within the CMS editing view can be problematic because it can hide editable content. Ensure that when using dynamic scripts the content is also visible when Javascript is deactivated. For example when you are using jQuery with tabs and your CMS editor changes content, the page reloads when the element is being saved and the user has to open the tab again. It’s better to deactivate the tabs when the page is ‘open’ and in SmartEdit editing mode.
5. Files such as background images, styles heets, javascript and others need to be referenced relative (../mystyle.css) rather than root or absolute referencing (/cms/projectfolder/folder-not-working-on-live-site/mystyle.css). RedDot CMS has its own folder and sub folder structure and during editing it can’t use absolute referenced style or JS files and will mix those up.

Summary

RedDot CMS is a fairly easy to use system when it comes down to templating. I am not saying it’s straight forward or a technological top notch solution. It also is not meant to be an IDE. The good thing to say about the CMS is that the elements are modularized to each single HTML object and can be used in an infinite number of ways. Pay attention to the best practice rules above and think about where your files and references will be used. When using the guidance above the HTML of your project will run smoothly on any platform and publishing target.

What is your RedDot CMS Consultant integration experience?
How do you use HTML and CSS within the RedDot CMS?
Have you ever had any trouble or even an “CMS integration epiphany”?
Read more RedDot CMS best practice articles here.

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The Open Source Way is a great resource for developers who want to start their own open source project. It is a wiki of lessons learned and best practices gathered primarily from experiences working on the RedHat and Fedora projects. One page that I find particularly interesting is “How to tell if a [...]

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Would you like to give your editors the possibility to add Youtube videos to your RedDot CMS project?
But you don’t want them to be able to edit the HTML directly to enter the iframe tag that youtube provides and you don’t just want to add a link to the youtube URL because that would drive content from your site to youtube and the marketing department definitely wants visitors to stay on your site, right? Right.

Well, use this template, inspired by Kim Dezen to embed yutube videos by just entering the URL. The ASP code strips out everything but the video-ID and embeds the content into your project page without editors touching the HTML.

Explanation
<%stf_youTubeURL%> – Holds the complete URL to the youtube video.
This part removes the URL and returns just the youtube video id used for the embedded object tag.

<%
  youTubeID = Mid("<%stf_youTubeURL%>", InStrRev("<%stf_youTubeURL%>", "?")+3)
%>

Get the code

Donate a dollar or $2 and then download the template here. The code is a plain text file for you to copy and paste, you still have to create the element(s) yourself and do some thinking around this.

Licensing

YouTube video template for RedDot CMS by Kim Dezen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at www.reddotcmsblog.com.

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Reddot CMS Consultants / RedDot LiveServer Consultants
RedDot beads – Where else would you find them?

This is a non-technical article, you can skip it or skim it to get an idea how to get experienced RedDot staff and/or more traction for your RedDot business. Beside these facts this site is a big teaser page to our job and RedDot project work section.

You might have come across the RedDot CMS consultant corner we’ve set up here a few months ago.

Have you seen the RedDot Consultant job corner?

If you are looking for a LiveServer consultant, a RedDot Contractor to solve your CMS project tasks or a worldwide group of Open Text Partners you wish to respond to your Request for Proposal then the job section is the right place for you.

Are you a RedDot CMS Consultant looking for work?

If you are a RedDot CMS consultant and want to upload your profile fee free to do so. There are plenty of new project out there waiting to get done. Why not publishing your CV and your RedDot CMS consultant eperience and get more job enquiries? Every you will get people visiting this site. Placing your Reddot Consultant profile up here is the next logical step to push your reputation.

Do you need a RedDot LiveServer Consultants?

If you are looking for a RedDot LiveServer consultant and want to advertise your job you can easily do that too. LiveServer experience is rare these days and there are a few chosen RedDot CMS and LiveServer experts out there able to help you. If you can’t find them here it is unlikely you will find them somewhere else.

Open Text RedDot Web Solutions Experts find and search projects here

Are you looking for the right ressource to complement your team? Do you have project work?
Would like to get an overview which capable RedDot agencies and consultants are out there and available for you?

Our visitors are the elite of Open Text consultants. They are exchanging ideas, solutions, tipps and tricks every day on this site from all over the world. This gives you the opportunity to find the matching development and consulting ressource in your country but also compare worldwide market rates.

RedDot CMS consultant work can often be done remotely and doesn’t necessarily require onsite work during the whole project cycle. A project can be set up and tested locally, then being imported to your UAT environment. You can have a RedDot consultant working for you from everywhere on this planet. All you need to do is find them.

Oh and yes, it’s free. Uploading your profile, adding a RFP(Request For Proposal) or entering any sort of RedDot job description is generally free of charge. You can get your own login and participate on the forum. You also can get us to do the work for you and it is still free.
Have a look at it, now.

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XOOPS Projects is enjoying an impressive increase in popularity, measured by number of new users, as well as new developers joining the XOOPS Team. This is confirmed by Alexa.com, showing a very strong 2009 increase in percent of global Internet users who visit www.xoops.org

Thanks to the influx of new developers, XOOPS Project has been able to release updates to its CMS on a monthly basis since August 2008, and to start parallel development of new versions. While one team was focusing on the maintenance of 2.4.x series, another team from France and Switzerland worked on the XOOPS 2.5.x series, with main focus on redesigning the Admin with jQuery. At the same time, the work continues on revising architecture for the new XOOPS 3.0 version, led by Dr. Taiwen Jiang, the Project Leader. 

The XOOPS 2.5 Alpha has been released on February 1, 2010, only one week after the 2.4.4 Final release

read more