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The Artemis Project web site has over 2,000 HTML documents and nearly 1,000 GIF and JPEG images. The site (http://www.asi.org) is maintained by more than 50 contributing members of Artemis Society International (ASI), the non-profit, non-commercial component of the Artemis Project, a private effort to establish a permanent lunar base. During the past three years, the web site and its team members have expanded worldwide at an astronomical rate. I am a contributing member of the ASI Web Team. Maintaining the Artemis Project web site involves extensive communication, document revision, and adhering to a meticulous approval process. Sound like an impossible task with lots of wasted effort, lost time, and duplicated work? Without WebSite Director, that might actually be the case. In the beginning... When I first joined the ASI Web Team three years ago, there were only 10 of us. Those of us doing the actual page authoring used text editors to compose our HTML documents. Contributors who weren't actually content authors submitted their ideas using whatever media was best suited to their location and environment. These contributors sent their ideas via phone, FAX, e-mail, and sometimes even more creative means. Although we were never short of content, we had no workflow management to track it. As our web site grew, so did the number of people required to keep the content current and interesting. With more team members came the additional issue of different computing platforms. Some of us used PCs, others used Macs and, still others used different types of UNIX workstations. So communicating ideas, reviewing and approving documents, posting final documents to the web site, and creating a consistent look and feel for the web site became a daunting if not impossible task. At first, team members could only submit their content ideas or HTML documents to one of the authors or a content designer who would format them for review by the team. Reviewing these documents often meant either circulating the document to different reviewers via e-mail, or posting the document to a private directory and receiving comments by e-mail, phone, or fax. This review process had to be repeated many times until the document was approved and published to the web site. To make things more interesting, each team member had a favorite authoring tool, such as Microsoft FrontPage (which I use), an HTML plug-in like Internet Assistant, or a plain text editor. We realized that we needed a powerful, web-based application that would solve our approval process and communication problems. We also needed a tool that would track reviewer comments and save them in a history file. More importantly, in a geographically dispersed environment spanning almost all of the continents, we desperately needed the ability to let anyone submit ideas directly into the workflow process by e-mail. Additionally, we needed to simplify the process of creating a consistent look and feel for the Artemis Project web site, while still letting each member continue using his/her favorite HTML editor. In short, we needed a web-based content workflow management tool. While it's a bit easier these days to create and publish HTML documents with such tools as Microsoft FrontPage and Netscape Composer, there are still significant shortcomings in the areas of workflow management and content submission. These tools have made large strides in helping us build great-looking content, but still don't help us manage the complete publishing process. Enter CyberTeams' WebSite Director The strategic plan for CyberTeams' WebSite Director came from the experiences of Randall Severy, Chairman of the Artemis Project Electronic Communications Technical Committee. To solve the communications problems surrounding the Artemis Project, Randall began developing new software tools to support large distributed teams of people. His goal was to develop a product that would support a large number of users working via the Internet. He also faced the challenge of making the product as accessible as possible to anyone on the Internet who wanted to submit content or ideas. Randall decided that the best solution was to have a product that resided on a web server, could be accessed through any standard web browser, and would support e-mail submissions. After a period of intense debugging and testing, the BETA version of what is now known as WebSite Director (WSD) was released in 1996. The full commercial version was completed in October 1997. There was also a demand for a product that would support document sharing among teams, but did not need the full range of features. WebSite Director Lite, a product meeting that demand, was completed in early 1997. Randall and Greg Bennett, founder of the Artemis Project, formed CyberTeams to develop and market those products. How WSD Helps the ASI Web Team WSD provides the Artemis web site administrators with the ability to control the various design, review and approval functions so that the final content posted on the site is what was actually requested. WSD also addresses our security concerns. WSD lets web site contributors submit articles to a designated entry point in the ASI process. Only the webmaster needs direct login access to the web server. Designated administrators use the WSD User Administration utility to control access to the web pages. This utility lets administrators add and delete users as well as change user permissions. In our case, these administrators are located around the world; they are NOT at the server site in Texas performing these administrative duties. Which brings me to my next point. One of the best things about WSD is that I only need a web browser to complete my responsibilities from anywhere in the world. For example, while vacationing in New York to visit family, I was able to review and approve a handful of documents for the Artemis Project web site even though I was not at my own computer. I usually use Netscape, but my parents' computer had Internet Explorer. No matter. I still logged in as myself and processed the approvals. Because of this flexibility, the members of the ASI Web Team can use just about any computing platform (Windows, Macintosh, UNIX clients, etc.) so long as they have a web browser. Other competitive products, like MKS Web Integrity or NetObjects TeamFusion, require a client-side application to be distributed to each workstation. This means that each team member's workstation would need the correct client-side application installed. Naturally, this restriction would impede the ASI Web Team's productivity, as in my example above, and increase the cost of the tools needed to get the job done. Another key benefit of WSD is that any ASI Web Team member can submit content by e-mail. We can either send text as part of a message, or in an attached file. What's more, non-WSD users can submit content without having direct access to WSD. This is a useful security feature because it prevents unauthorized access to WSD while still letting non-WSD users contribute ideas. Meanwhile, authorized WSD users, such as the ASI Web Team, can submit content via their web browser. In the case of the ASI Web Team, WSD automatically notifies us as a document passes through the various review, editing, and approval stages. WSD also provides three ways to designate when to publish a document or page to the web site. After the final approvals are applied, WSD can publish documents immediately, overnight, or on a designated date. Our teams find this particularly useful because we can complete our work ahead of schedule, knowing that it will be published at the designated time without human intervention. Here are some other WSD benefits that help us maintain the web site:
WebSite Director is not meant to replace popular HTML authoring tools like FrontPage and TeamFusion. Instead, it is meant to enhance them by providing web-based workflow management. With WSD, you can still keep using your favorite authoring tool and submit content from anywhere in the world. WSD includes a basic text editor that lets you edit documents online. You can also download documents, edit them offline, then upload them for approval processing. Speaking of approvals, all you need is a web browser to review, edit, and approve documents for your web site. And if you're not an authorized WSD user, that's okay. You can still submit ideas by e-mail. Further, WSD's approval stage support lets you create an approval process to suit your needs, and you can change it as often as you need. Because WSD resides on a web server, you only need a web browser to access its many features, including the User Administration utility which lets you add or delete users, and change their permissions. You can also create groups and assign approval permissions for those groups. For example, you can create a Marketing group and Engineering group and assign different users and approval permissions to each group. WSD also supports templates so you can easily create a consistent look and feel for your web site. What's more, you can tell WSD when to publish a document once it's been approved. You can either publish it immediately, overnight, or at a desired date. This feature is useful for press releases that need to go out at a certain time. You can prepare a press release for publishing, approve it ahead of time, and then let WSD automatically publish it to your web site on the date and time you set! In short, WSD is a new breed of application geared toward the workforce of the future. WSD takes the headache out of managing the Artemis Project web site, and makes this otherwise daunting task rewarding, efficient, and most of all, fun for all of us on the ASI Web Team. |