September 17, 2008

Include WordPress in a list of content management solutions and the “WordPress aint a CMS” comments will surge forth as inevitably as water flows toward the sea. But what is it that makes one piece of software a Content Management System, and another a lowly blogging tool?

My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that people expect a CMS to have feature X or N and as a result will classify any software that doesn’t have it as something else, but is that a mistake? I have always been in the camp that says that if you can manage content with it, it is a content management system, and therin lies the problem. Can you manage content with WordPress, or just publish it?

Before I go any further it is worth considering what the owner needs. For a very small business most traditional content management systems are massively over-specified. I think this is probably true for most small and medium sized companies as well. As you look at the features WordPress lacks consider what kinds of business are actually going to benefit from them.

With that said, let’s move on.

User management

The most obvious requirement is good user controls. With WordPress you can specify who can create a page and not publish it. This is a start, but can you limit an individual to posts within a particular topic, give them publish access in some places but not others?

There is certainly scope for better controls, but for small businesses the controls that are already there may well be sufficient.

Version Control

WordPress was long criticised for the lack of version control, and it now has it, but it is fairly basic. While WordPress can certainly help make sure nothing is lost, and allow you to compare one to the other as an audit tool it is limited.

Again a good question is how much control is needed? If you want to use your CMS as your audit trail then WordPress won’t cut it, otherwise it is probably enough.

Workflow Management

A key part of a content management system is the workflow tools. WordPress separates writing and editing but there may be more steps in the process: author, designer (editor, formatter, call it what you will), PR sign off, information architecture, etc. Larger businesses may have several different people that must sign off on the content. You may also need review and expiry dates when content is automaticlaly removed. WordPress doesn’t do that.

One workflow feature that I have always wanted (although not enough to develop it myself) is the ability to create an entire site based on draft content. Financial services firms (an no doubt many other industries) must gain approval from a qualified person within an organisation before publishing. If you make big changes, looking at a page at a time without the ability to navigate around can be painful.

Once again though, how many businesses actually need this, and how many only want it because it is available from other systems?

Menu Control

This for me is a biggie. Where is the option to create and control site menus? Listing all the pages is not an option in a working site as there will inevitably be pages you do not want in the list. If I used WordPress for a client CMS this is something I would need to create before going any further.

Form Builder

There is a great plugin that does everything you would ever want to do so it isn’t an issue, but the fact that it isn’t in core when many more basic things are being added tell you that WordPress isn’t moving toward business users, but away from them.

In writing this I looked at a lot of other functionality offered by content management systems but frankly most of it seems to be very situation specific. The kind of features that no one knows they want until they are offered it. How many companies really need banner ad management?

So, having considered these things do I still think that WordPress is a content management system? No. I think it is a content control system, or a content publishing system, but I do think it is enough for most companies provided they can put in place their own management processes. Having said that, blog content is still content, no? My opinion on most complicated CMS systems is that they are trying to throw a software solution at a people problem. WordPress can do anything you want with the right plugins but even without them I would take it over the alternatives.