Its common practise in many workplaces to store documents, spreadsheets and the like on the local network as a central repository, benefits include the ability to organise, share, collaborate, avoid duplication, archive and backup to name but a few.  Many organisations also require greater functionality such as version control, online availability, complex workflow, a user interface and the ability to structure content taxonomically and add bespoke metadata such as Publication Date, and Sensitivity etc in addition to the common Title, Description, and Keywords.  All of which is encompassed in SharePoint 2010.

In the same fashion many organisations’ require the same enterprise functionality of their public facing website and so work with Nvisage to develop an Ektron CMS400.NET solution.

The challenge

Publishing content such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, PDFs, Images and Flash etc to an organisation’s website can often present considerable workflow challenges and many organisations undergo laborious processes, often recreating content and its metadata and configuration.

Nvisage set out to simplify this process and develop an intelligent solution to automate the conversion, configuration and publishing of an organisation’s content to their website.

The solution

SharePoint 2010 and Ektron integration

Nvisage has developed a solution that makes publishing from SharePoint 2010 to Ektron CMS400.NET as easy as 123 and completely eradicates the need to re-enter any content, metadata or configuration.

Automatic content configuration

When associates publish content from SharePoint to Ektron, we convert Microsoft Office and PDF files to XHTML, upload any images, and then using the SharePoint API we send the content’s Meta and taxonomical data to an Nvisage Web Service which automatically configures the content within Ektron.  Using this data the Ektron API we tag and classify the content, determine which Ektron Templates and Smart Forms to use and which dynamic functionality to display on the webpage and how, such as chronological paging and contextual links.  Associates are only required to create content once and can seamlessly publish from SharePoint to the public facing website within 2 clicks.

Style

Having removed Office’s superfluous data from the SharePoint content and converted it to XHTML, its presentation is automatically styled by the website’s style sheets (CSS) to maintain a consistent and easily modifiable brand across companywide content.

Workflow

Publishing from SharePoint to Ektron adheres to the same workflow had the associate created the content manually within Ektron and so the same permissions, version control, history, information architecture (IA) and approval processes all still apply.

Nvisage’s Business Analysis team works closely with organisations to develop their processes and workflow to ensure optimum content management.

Integrating with other systems

This solution is extremely versatile and can be integrated with many bespoke applications and third-party solutions other than SharePoint for example box, huddle, Basecamp, Microsoft Windows and many more.

Technologies

• ASP.NET
• C#
• Win 2008 R2
• SQL 2008
• Ektron CMS400.NET
• SharePoint 2010
• Microsoft Office

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