Using Tridion for document managment

Question

I am thinking using Tridion to manage our downloads (PDF, drivers, tutorials). What are the best practices of using Tridion for simple document management? We don't need complex workflow or digital rights management.

Answer 1

It really depends on how you wish for them to be displayed/interacted with by the user.

In its simplest form, the mentioned items are just binary (multimedia) files that can be uploaded to Tridion as Multimedia components and attached to content components as any other. e.g. list of resources

If you wish to do more advanced things, like included them in search, create a filter page, include them on pages dynamically etc.. you may wish to assign a metadata schema so that you can include them dynamically on the Content Delivery side. I would use suggest considering a multimedia schema per type (PDF, Driver etc..) so that they are easy to group, control permissions on etc.. An alternative to this is to tag items with their type via Taxonomy.

So an example maybe: If I am on a page about Printer A I want to show an area on the page with all the supporting documents/binaries (PDF, drivers, tutorials) about Printer A. This could be done with dynamic components and a query to the Content Delivery API for all items tagged as Printer A.

I think the only "best practice" consideration I would mention is to consider re-use. Take the simplest example, an image. You may decide to have a metadata field on the image component for the alt text, height and width. However, you must consider the contexts that the image will be used in. So on Page A and Page B, displaying the same image, the context may be different and therefore the metadata may be different.

Answer 2

In addition to the tagging, display and re-use issues mentioned by Chris, you may want to consider the following:

1. Content Delivery

Pure Document Management (DM) systems often use some form of Content Delivery Network (CDN) system to ensure the fast and reliable delivery of the documents and (product) videos to the audience. You will not get this out of the box with Tridion, so you may need to consider if this functionality is required.

2. Content Manager Structure

Presumably, there is a many-to-many relationship between documentation and products. For example, one Driver may be used by many printers, and equally, there many be many compatible Drivers for an individual printer. Because of this, you will need to think carefully about the Folder structure that you use within the CMS. You may want to:

• Enforce a particular Schema use within specific Folders
• Use Bundles or Search Folders (a.k.a. Virtual Folders)

You need to ensure that the CMS structure is logical and as simple as possible to navigate for your editors.

3. Translation and content re-use

If your document content needs to be translated or re-used independently of the main corporate website (e.g. by 3rd party suppliers or resellers, RSS feeds, etc.), then you may need to consider having a dedicated Publication for these documents.

4. Security

Related to Folder Structure and BluePrinting, you will need to consider the security of documents that you store within Tridion. Given the recent controversies surrounding hardware companies, you can ill-afford for a 'compromised' driver or executable to come from your site.

Whilst access to the content within Tridion can be controlled at a very fine grained level, and only authorised users have access to the system, you do not get two-factor authentication with Tridion and will need to ensure the the binaries are secure throughout the whole storage and delivery process. For example:

• Limit access to the CMS to within the LAN (or VLAN) if possible. If not, then ensure that all communication with the CMS (either to the Content Management Explorer (CME) or Core Service) is over HTTPS
• Ensure that only users that need access to the CMS have it. For example, ensure that employees that have left the company are removed/disables from the CMS (as well as Active Directory)
• Only publish the content over a secure channel (e.g. Secure FTP, HTTPs, etc.)
• Only distribute the content from a HTTPS enabled website

I am sure that there are lots more things (other than the 'advanced' DMS features that you mentioned), I hope this helps.