Developing Enterprise Search Strategy

During last ten years the volume and diversity of digital content grew at unprecedented rates. There is an increased use of departmental network drives, collaboration tools, content management systems, messaging systems with file attachments, corporate blogs and wikis, and databases. There are duplicate and untraceable documents that crowd valuable information needed to get work done.

Unfortunately, not all content makes into it into a managed content repository, like a portal or a content management system. Some companies have more than one content management system. Having a search solution that could search across all content repositories becomes very important.

Expectations for quality search continue to rise. Many users like to use an expression: "we would like a search like Google". So, how do we formulate a search strategy?

Here are few key points:

• Security within enterprise search strategies should be carefully designed. Information like employee pay rates, financial information, or confidential communications should not end up in a general search results. 
• Search results should deliver high quality, authoritative, up-to-date information. Obsolete information should not end up in the search results. 
• Search results should be highly relevant to keywords entered in a search box. 
• The ability to limit the search should be included.

Steps to Develop an Enterprise Search Strategy

Step 1: Define Specific Objectives for Your Search Strategy

People don’t search for the sake of searching. They search because they are looking to find and use information to get their jobs done. Answer these questions:

1. Who is searching? Which roles within the organization are using the search function, and what requirements do they have?

For example, a corporate librarian is likely familiar with Boolean search and using advanced search forms, while a layperson searcher likely prefers a simple search box. A sales professional may need an instant access to past proposals for an upcoming meeting, but compliance professionals conducting investigations often use deep search across massive message archiving and records management systems.

2. What categories of information are they looking for?

Define the big buckets of information that are the most relevant to different roles. Realize that not all roles need all information. Part of why desktop search tools are popular is they inherently define a bucket called "stuff on my machine". Defining categories for searching project information, employee information, sales tools, and news helps searchers formulate the right query for the right type of search.

3. What are they likely to do with the information when they find it? After defining broad information categories, work to understand context and answer the question: why are people searching?

For example, if a marketer is collecting information on a particular competitor by searching on the company’s name, it is often useful to expand that query to include related information, like other competitors in the industry, specific business units or product lines, pricing information, past financial performance. Related information can be included in search experiences through a variety of methods, including the search results themselves or methods like faceted navigation.

It is impossible to account for every type of information that users may be looking for, but defining broad user roles, like sales professionals or market researchers and identifying their most common search scenarios is a great way to create the scope of a search project. Use such methods as personas, use cases, interview users to validate assumptions about what processes they are involved in, and identify the information that is most useful to support those processes.

Step 2: Define the Desired Scope and Inventory Repositories

When using the search function built into a particular content management system, the product itself limits the scope of the search to whatever is stored in this system. Search engines such as Autonomy, Endeca Technologies, Google, Vivisimo, and others will search across multiple content management systems and databases. Increasingly, portal products and collaboration platforms from companies like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Open Text will also let you search content that is stored inside and outside of their systems.

Use search to reach outside the confines of a single repository. Cross-repository search becomes essential when companies use different content repositories for different purposes.

Match roles and search categories to relevant content sources. Search requirements often include multiple repositories, such as document libraries, file systems, databases, etc. These repositories usually consist of multiple technology products, such as Lotus Notes, EMC Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, and others. Using the roles and types of searches you are looking to support, identify all of the relevant repositories necessary to achieve your desired search scope.

Create an inventory of required repositories. When creating your inventory, document the name of each repository, a repository owner, a description of its content, an assessment of the quality of this content, and the quantity and rate of growth of content in each repository. Also document the technology product used as well as any specific security access policies in place.

Consider a phased rollout and select simple but telling data source repositories for kick-off. When rolling out a project such as search strategy that involves disparate sources and complex UIs, a phased rollout may be preferable depending upon factors such as resource constraints and time-to-launch pressure. By approaching the project in phases, you can vet the process and workflow while familiarizing users with the objectives.

Inventory and prioritize the repositories at the start of your project so that you can identify and start with the repositories that will have a big impact. For example, basic queries into a CRM system can add a lot of value while remaining relatively straightforward. Throughout this process, it is important to set expectations with your users, since this approach may lengthen their involvement with the project.

Documenting your repositories lets software vendors effectively size and bid on your project. Most search software gets priced based on the number of documents (or data items) in the index plus additional fees for premium connectors that ingest content from repositories like enterprise content management systems.

For example, strategies that require a limited set of commodity connectors are priced altogether differently than those with premium connectors for content management systems and enterprise applications. Thus, knowing which repositories are relevant and understanding the rate of content growth within them can help avoid unnecessary overspending.

Step 3: Evaluate and Select the Best Method for Enriching Content

When addressing content with very little descriptive text and metadata, evaluate several methods for enriching the content to improve the search experience. Methods range from manual application of metadata to automatic categorization. Some companies use a mix of both methods.

Step 4: Define Requirements and List Products and Vendors to Consider

After specifying a search scope, define requirements for users. The most important is not to get distracted with irrelevant features, but instead to focus on products that adequately meet the organization’s requirements over a specified time period. Consider factors like ease of implementation, product strategy, and market presence in any product evaluation.

Score and select vendors on criteria that are relevant for your needs. There are many vendors to choose from. Search vendors include Autonomy, Coveo Solutions, Endeca Technologies, Exalead, Google Enterprise, ISYS Search Software, Recommind, Thunderstone Software, Vivisimo, and others. Also large software providers such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP have one or more search products on the market.

Product capabilities range from highly sophisticated, large-scale, secure searches that mix advanced navigation and filtering, to basic keyword searches across file systems. Products differ depending on whether the content being searched consists primarily of data. For example, high-end search companies like Endeca offer robust tools for searching structured data from databases, while small-scale basic file system search needs can be met with products like the Google Mini or the IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition.

Step 5: Define a Taxonomy of Logical Types of Searches

While it is impossible to predict and account for everything people search for, it is possible to organize the search experience so it is intuitive to use. Start with defining logical types of searches. For example:

People Search. Searching for employees has gained acceptance as a valuable type of search within enterprises for finding expertise on a subject. A search for people, whether it is a simple name look-up or more advanced expertise search, requires attention to everything from how the query gets processed to how results appear in the interface. For example, searchers typically want to see an alphabetical list of names in a people search results as opposed to results ranked by relevance.

Product Search. A search for products frequently needs to include product brand names (e.g., Trek), concepts and terms related to the product (e.g., bike, bicycle, road race, touring), product description, and specific product attributes, like frame size, material, and color. Knowing where all of this information is stored and how it should be optimally presented to end users is essential.

Customer Search. It is now possible to search and return results for virtually any logical item in an enterprise, like orders, customers, products, and places. You should look into sources like enterprise data warehouses, ERP systems, order histories, and others to create a full picture of the items that is being searched.

Documents Search. Documents usually reside in few repositories, so be sure to include them in your search sources. Users expect search results to be highly relevant with most relevant to be on the top of the search results list.

By bucketing types of searches into logical categories, you can also improve the quality of those searches. Several methods include applying type specific thesaurus, taxonomies, and controlled vocabularies.

Administrators can influence the relevance algorithm in a way that returns the right information the right way, like weighting hits in a product description more heavily than a product attribute field.

Step 6: Plan for a Relevant User Experience

Recognize that not all search experiences should be the same. Google, Yahoo!, and MSN’s popularity on the Web have generated strong interest in offering simple-to-use wide search boxes and tabbed interfaces within the enterprise. But in the enterprise, it is often helpful to use more advanced interface techniques to clarify what users are looking for, including:

Faceted navigation adds precision to search. It exposes attributes of the items returned to an end user directly into the interface. For example, a search through a product information database for "electrical cables" might return cables organized by gauge, casing materials, insulation, color, and length, giving an engineer clues to find exactly what he is looking for.

Statistical clustering methods remove ambiguity. Methods like statistical clustering automatically organize search results by frequently occurring concepts. Clusters provide higher level groupings of information than the individual results can provide, and can make lists of millions of documents easier to scan and navigate.

Best bets guide users to specific information they need. Creating best bets is the process of writing a specific rule that says something like: "when a person enters the term "401K plan" into the search box on the corporate intranet, they should see a link to the "401K plan" page on the intranet".

Additionally, products like Google OneBox and SAP’s Enterpise Search Appliance enable retrieval of frequently searched facts, such as sales forecast data, dashboards, and partner information from back-end ERP systems. Best bets help users avoid a lot of irrelevant results and are very effective for frequently executed queries.

Use basic interface mock-ups and pilot efforts to test, refine, and make these concepts useful for employees in your organization. Many companies use a "Google Labs" style page on their intranets to test out search user interface concepts and tools prior to exposing them more broadly to the enterprise.

Step 7: Implement, Monitor, and Improve

For large projects, allow a lot of time for change management. Teams should maintain the interface between the search engine and all of its back-end content sources.

It is essential to keep IT individuals informed of product evaluation and selection plans so that the final implementation supports security and regulatory policies that are in place for these systems.

Create a plan for ongoing maintenance of search indexing processes and exceptions. Create a monthly reporting plan that lists most frequent searches performed, searches that did not retrieve results, and overall usage of the search function. This can help you troubleshoot existing implementations and drive future decisions on how to enhance the search experience over time.

Enhancements typically include adding types of searches to the experience, further enriching content assets for better retrieval, and incorporating new, valuable content into the overall experience.

In my future posts, I will describe search products such as Autonomy, Coveo Solutions, Endeca Technologies, Exalead, ISYS Search Software, Recommind, Thunderstone Software, Vivisimo, and others.

SharePoint - Workflows

Workflow is the automated movement of documents through a sequence of actions or tasks. Workflows streamline the cost and time required to coordinate business processes, such as project approval or document review by managing and tracking the human tasks involved with these processes.

Rather than going to a person to get the document approved, you can use the workflow feature of SharePoint to accomplish this task. Workflows also encourage collaboration on documents.

Workflow Types

Workflows available in SharePoint are: approval, collect feedback, collect signatures, disposition approval, three-state.

Approval - this workflow routes a document or an item to a group of people for approval. The "approval" workflow is associated with the document content type, and thus it is available in document libraries. A version of the approval workflow is also associated with the pages library in a publishing site, and it can be used to manage the approval process for the publication of web pages.

Collect Feedback - this workflow routes a document or an item to a group of people for feedback. Reviewers can provide feedback, which is then compiled and sent to the person who initiated the workflow. The "collect feedback" workflow is associated with the document content type, and thus it is available in document libraries.

Collect Signatures workflow routes a document to people to collect their digital signatures. This workflow must be started in a application that is part of the 2007 Office release. Participants must complete their signature tasks by adding their digital signature to the document in the relevant Microsoft Office application. The "collect signatures" workflow is associated with the document content type, and thus it is available in document libraries. However, this workflow appears for a document in the document library only if that document contains one or more Microsoft Office signature Lines.

Disposition Approval - this workflow, which supports records management processes, manages documents expiration and retention by allowing participants to decide whether to retain or delete expired documents. This workflow is intended for use primarily within a records Center site.

Three-state - this workflow can be used to manage business processes that require organizations to track a high volume of issues or items, such as customer support issues, sales leads, or project tasks. It can also be used to manage documents expiration and retention.

Translation Management - this workflow manages the manual document translation process by creating copies of the document to be translated and assigning translation tasks to translators. This workflow is available only for translation management libraries.

Setting up Workflows

Before a workflow can be used, it must be added to a list, library, or content type to make it available for documents or items in a specific location.

The availability of a workflow within a site varies, depending on where it is added:

If you add a workflow directly to a list or library, it is available only for items in that list or library.

If you add a workflow to a list content type (an instance of a site content type that was added to a specific list or library), it is available only for items of that content type in the specific list or library with which that content type is associated.

If you add a workflow to a site content type, that workflow is available for any items of that content type in every list and library to which an instance of that site content type was added. If you want a workflow to be widely available across lists or libraries in a site collection for items of a specific content type, the most efficient way to achieve this result is by adding that workflow directly to a site content type.

When you add a workflow to a list, library, or content type, you can customize the workflow for its specific location by specifying various options:

• the name for this instance of the workflow The tasks list where workflow-related tasks are stored; 
• the history list that records all of the events that are related to the workflow;
• the way that you want the workflow to be started;
• additional options that are specific to the individual workflow, for example, how tasks are routed to participants, what circumstances complete the workflow, and what actions occur after the workflow is completed.

When you add a workflow to a list, library, or content type, you make it available for documents or items in a specific location, you do not start the actual workflow.

Starting a Workflow

After a workflow is added to a list, library, or content type and thereby made available for use, you can start this workflow on a document or item.

To start a workflow, you select the workflow that you want from the list of workflows available for the document or item. If necessary, you may also need to fill out a form with the information that the workflow requires. Depending on how the workflow was designed and configured, you might have the option to further customize the workflow when you start it on a document or item by customizing such options as participants, due date, and task instructions.

Workflows can be customized in several ways. For example, when you add a workflow to a list, library, or content type to make it available for use on documents or items, you can customize the tasks lists and history lists where information about the workflow is stored. When a site user starts a workflow on a document or item, the user may have the option to further customize the workflow by specifying the list of participants, a due date, and task instructions.

Modifying a Workflow

After a workflow is started on an item, you may need to make changes to how the workflow behaves. For example, after a workflow starts, the person who started the workflow might need to add additional participants. Or a workflow participant might need to reassign his or her task to another person or request a change to the document or item that is the focus of the workflow.

Completing Workflow Tasks

When a workflow assigns a task to a workflow participant, the task recipient can either complete that task or request changes to the workflow itself by editing the workflow task form. Workflow participants can complete workflow tasks on a SharePoint site or directly within a client program that is part of the Microsoft Office.

For example, you can add a workflow to a document library that routes a document to a group of people for approval. When the document author starts this workflow on a document in that library, the workflow creates document approval tasks, assigns these tasks to the workflow participants, and then sends e-mail alerts to the participants with task instructions and a link to the document to be approved.

When a workflow participant completes a workflow task or requests a change to the workflow, this prompts the system to move the workflow to the next relevant step. When the workflow participants complete their workflow tasks, the workflow ends, and the workflow owner is automatically notified that the workflow has completed.

Tracking the Status of Workflows

While the workflow is in progress, the workflow owner (in this case, the document author) or the workflow participants can check the workflow status page that is associated with the workflow to see which participants have completed their workflow tasks. The status page includes status information about outstanding workflow tasks. It also includes history information that is relevant to the workflow.

There are also reporting tools that provide an aggregate analysis of workflows history. Organizations can use this analysis to locate bottlenecks in processes or to determine whether a group is meeting the performance targets for a given business process. SharePoint includes Excel reports that can be used with any workflow. Additionally, workflow history information is available.

Custom Workflows

Your organization may choose to design and develop workflows that are unique to the business processes in the organization. Workflows can be as simple or complex as the business processes require. Developers can create workflows that are started by people who use a site, or they can create workflows that start automatically based on an event, such as when a list item is created or changed. If your organization has developed and deployed custom workflows, these workflows may be available in addition to or instead of the predefined workflows already described.

There are two ways in which custom workflows can be created:

Professional software developers can create workflows by using the Visual Studio. These workflows contain custom code and workflow activities. After a professional developer creates custom workflows, a server administrator can deploy them across multiple sites.

Web designers can design no-code workflows for use in a specific list or library by using SharePoint Designer. These workflows are created from a list of available workflow activities, and the web designer who creates the workflow can deploy the workflows directly to the list or library where they will be used.

Here are few screenshots demonstrating workflows.

In the 1st step, you set up workflows for a content type. Click on "workflows settings":

Set up the workflow:

You can use the page below to manage workflow settings:

It is now available to start on a document or an item in a library or a list:

On the next screen, you can check the status of the workflow:

Now you can have efficiency in your business processes!

Information Architecture Components – Labeling Systems

In my last post about information architecture, I mentioned that information architecture includes four components - organization systems, labeling systems, navigation systems, and searching systems and I described organization systems.

In this post, I am going to describe labeling systems.

Labeling is a form of representation. Labels represent a relationship between users and content. So, the goal of a label is to communicate information efficiently that is without taking too much of a web page space or of a user's time. Labels show the user your organization and navigation systems. Unprofessional labels of a web site can destroy a user's confidence in that organization.

There are two types of labels: textual and iconic labels.

Textual Labels

Textual are the most common labels. Types of textual labels include: contextual links, headings, navigation system choices, and index terms.

Contextual links are the text withing the body of a document or chunk of information. They are usually used to create a connection between different pages of a site. These links rely on context. To ensure that contextual links labels are representational, ask yourself a question: "what kind of information will the user expect to be taken to?"

Labels as headings are used to establish a hierarchy within the text. The hierarchical relationships between headings are usually established visually through consistent use of numbering, font sizes, colors and styles, whitespace, and indentation or combination of these parts. It is a good idea to present these headings as a hierarchy. It is important to maintain consistency. Heading labels should be obvious and should convey the sequence. These labels need to tell the user where to start, where to go next, and what action will be involved in each step along the way.

Navigation system labels require more consistency that any other type of label. Users rely on a navigation system to be "rational" through consistent page location and look. So, these labels should be no different. Effectively designed labels are integral to building a sense of familiarity, so they should not change from page to page. Here are some examples of this type labels: Home, Search, Site Map, Contact Us, About Us, News and Events, Announcements. Do not use the same label for a different purpose.

Labels as index terms are often referred to as keywords, descriptive metadata, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies. These labels are used to describe any type of content: sites, pages, content components, etc. Index terms support precise searching. Index terms can also make browsing easier: the metadata from a collection of documents can serve as the source of browsable lists or menus. A very good example of these labels is an index of a site with links to each page.

Iconic Labels

These labels most often used as navigation system labels. They can sometimes serve as headings. The problem with iconic labels is that they present a much more limited language than text. That is why they used for navigation system or small organization system labels where the list of options is small. But they are still risky to use because a user can get confused.

General Guidelines For Creating Labels

Context, content, and users are three key principles that affect all aspects of information architecture including labels. Narrow the scope of your labels whenever possible. Use narrow business context. Keep labels simple and focused.

A good rule is to design labels that speak the same language as a site's users while reflecting its content. If there is a confusion over label, there should be an explanation. On the main page, labels should stand out to users. Labels should clearly represent the content.

Consistency is extremely important. Why? Because consistency means predictability and predictable systems are easier to use. Consistency is affected by few issues: style, presentation, syntax, granularity, comprehensiveness, audience.

Points to consider:

• Consider writing all your labels in a list to get the visual representation of them. You might sort this list alphabetically - this way you may see some duplicates. Then review the list for consistency of usage, punctuation, letter case, etc.
• Establish naming conventions.
• Consider using a controlled vocabulary to maintain consistent terms.
• Analyze your content and create categories.
• Do user-side testing and please do not underestimate it.
• Perform card sort exercises.
• Use search log for analysis.
• Anticipate the growth of the site and plan ahead so that labels you might add in the future don't disagree with the current labels.
• Decisions about which terms to include in a labeling system need to be made in the context of how broad and how large is your site.
• Labeling systems may need to be adjusted as necessary.

Have fun labeling!

Case Study - Applied Biosystems - Enabling Website Search

In the "Case Studies" series of my posts, I describe the projects that I worked on and lessons learned from them. In this post, I am going to describe the project of enabling website search in Applied Biosystems.

Applied Biosystems website included the search of the company products. There was a search field where a user would enter keywords hoping to retrieve the company products. However, this was not the case. Entering keywords in the search field was not retrieving any results.

My question for the company's webmaster was: what data source feeds this web site? I was told that there was a Lotus Notes database which contained products information and which fed the website and enables search. I asked to take a look at this database. When I looked at this database, I noticed a couple of metadata fields that were not populated: keywords and related terms.

I told the webmaster that this was the reason why company products were not retrievable on the website. This did not sound credible so I set out to prove it. I populated these two metadata fields in dozen of records and asked the webmaster to re-set the crawler. After this was done, those dozen products were retrievable from the company website. As the result, my diagnosis and solution proved to be correct.

I created a controlled vocabulary of terms and related terms with which records in this database should be indexed, i.e. entered into the keywords and related terms field. I also created a customized taxonomy to categorize company products on the web site and make them browsable through this database. I indexed all records in this database with terms from my controlled vocabulary. And so browsing and search of company products were enabled.

Lessons Learned

• Never underestimate the value of metadata. It is absolutely invaluable in enabling search.
• Metadata values should be consistent. If you decide to call a portable computer "laptop", you must continue to use this term in all your records. In order to maintain the consistency, create controlled vocabulary.
• Use related terms in enabling search.
• Provide two access points to any system: one is search, another is browse. When a user knows exactly what they are looking for, they are going to use the search. If they don't know what they are looking for, they are going to browse. Some time during browsing, they may switch to search and then back to browsing.
• Search is iterative and interactive process. Provide means for it to be such.

SharePoint - Content Types

One of biggest success stories of the last few years is the overwhelming adoption of Microsoft's collaboration and content management platform SharePoint. Because it is so popular and important, I thought that I would post series of topics about SharePoint. In my today's post, I am going to describe content types.

A content type is a group of settings that describe the shared behavior of a specific group of documents. Content types make it possible to organize and manage documents in a consistent way across a site. In the course of a single project, a company might produce several different kinds of content, for example SOPs, Work Instructions, White Papers, Articles. Although these documents might be stored together because they are related to a single project, they can be created, used, shared, and retained in different ways.

To define content types review your documents and divide them by categories: SOPs, Work Instructions, Specifications, White Papers, etc. Each document category would be a content type. You can also define content types by the requirements that each document category needs to have. For example, SOPs might be controlled documents and if so they would need to go through the approval workflow. It would be a good idea to define SOPs as the separate content type.

Content types are organized into a hierarchy that allows one content type to inherit its characteristics from another content type. This allows categories of documents to share attributes across an organization, while allowing teams to customize these attributes for particular libraries or lists.

Content types are first defined centrally in the site level for a site. Content types that are defined at the site level are called site content types. Site content types are available for use in any sub-sites, libraries, and lists of the site for which they have been created. If a content type has been created in a site collection level, it is available for use in lists and libraries in all of the sites in that site collection.

When you define a new custom site content type in the Site Content Type Gallery for a site, you start by choosing an existing parent site content type in the Site Content Type Gallery as your starting point. The new site content type that you create inherits all of the attributes of its parent site content type, such as its document template, workflows, and metadata. After you create this new site content type, you can make changes to any of these attributes.

Site content types can be added individually to lists or libraries and customized for use in those lists or libraries. When an instance of a site content type is added to a list or library, it is called a list or library content type. List and library content types are children of the site content types from which they were created.

If a child content type has been customized with additional attributes that the parent content type does not have (for example, extra columns), these customizations are not overwritten in the parent content type when the child content type is updated.

If you assign metadata, workflows, and policies to a site content type, all libraries will inherit this metadata, workflows, and policies.

When you create libraries, select the site content type for this library – metadata, workflows, policies, any other settings will apply to all libraries where you selected this content type.

If you need to change settings for many libraries, change it on the content type level. If you need to change settings for one library only, change it on the library level. You can customize any library, this will not affect the parent content type.

Below are few screenshots on how you create content types.

1st step: in the site settings, click on the Site Content Types under Galleries heading:

Click "Create" in the next screen:

Enter the metadata about your new content type:

Next screen shows your new content type. From this screen you can set up metadata for this content type, workflows, and change any other settings:

When you populate the metadata for an item in a list or a library, select your content type and metadata will be populated automatically:

Now you can have consistency in your documents!

Information Architecture Components – Organization Systems

Information architecture components can be divided into four categories:

Organization systems – how do we categorize information, for example by subject or date.

Labeling systems – how do we represent information, for example scientific or folk terminology.

Navigation Systems – how do we browse or move through information, for example clicking through a hierarchy.

Searching systems – how do we search information, for example executing a search query against an index.

In my today’s post, I am going to describe organization systems component of information architecture. Organization systems are composed of organization schemes and organization structures.

An organization scheme defines the shared characteristics of content items and influences the logical grouping of those items. An organization structure defines the types of relationships between content items and groups. Organization systems form the foundation for navigation and labeling systems.

Organization Schemes

There are exact and ambiguous organization schemes.

Exact organization schemes divide information into well defined and mutually exclusive sections. For example, alphabetical order of a phone book. If you know the person’s last name, you can look in that letter of the alphabetical list. This is called known-item searching. You know what you are looking for and it is obvious how to find it. The problem with exact organization schemes is that they require a user to know the specific name of the object they are looking for. Exact organization schemes are easy to design, maintain, and use.

Types of exact organization schemes include alphabetical, chronological, and geographical.

Ambiguous organization schemes divide information into categories that defy exact definition. They are difficult to design and maintain, and they can be difficult to use. Is tomato a vegetable or a fruit? However, they are often more important and useful than exact organization schemes. Why? Because users don’t always know what they are looking for. Information seeking is often iterative and interactive. What you find in the beginning of the search may influence what you look for and find later in your search.

Ambiguous organization supports the method or grouping items in meaningful ways. Therefore, while ambiguous organization schemes require more work, they often are more valuable to the user than exact schemes. The success of these schemes depends of the quality of the scheme and the placement of items within this scheme. User testing is very important for this type of scheme. There is ongoing need for classifying new items and for modifying the organization scheme to reflect changes in the scheme.

Types of ambiguous schemes include are topic or subject, task, audience, metaphor, hybrids.

Topical schemes organize content into subjects.

Task scheme organize content by processes, functions, or tasks. Most common example of web sites using this scheme is e-commerce sites where a user interaction is centered on tasks, for example buy, sell, pay, etc.

Audience oriented schemes are useful for sites that are frequented by repeat visitors of a certain audience. For example, Dell web site separates its content into "Home" and "Business". Audience schemes can be open or closed. An open scheme would allow users of one audience to access content or another audience. A closed scheme would prevent users from using content of another audience.

Metaphor schemes use association with known subjects. They should be used with caution. They must be familiar to users.

Hybrids combine elements of multiple schemes.

Organization Structures

The structure of information defines the ways in which users can navigate. Major structures are hierarchy, the database-oriented model, and hypertext.

The foundation of almost all good information architecture is a well designed hierarchy or taxonomy. In creating a taxonomy, it is important to not make categories mutually exclusive. You need to balance between exclusivity and inclusivity. Sometimes an item may belong in more than one place. It is also important to balance between breadth and depth in the taxonomy. Breadth refers to the number of options at each level of the hierarchy. Depth refers to the number of levels in the hierarchy.

If a hierarchy is too narrow and deep, users have to click through a lot of levels to find what they are looking for. If a hierarchy is too broad and shallow, users are presented with too many options on the main menu and the lack of content once they get to the option level.

Consider the following: recognize the danger of overloading users with too many options; group and structure information on the page level; subject the design to user testing. For new web sites, lean towards a broad and shallow hierarchy. This allows the addition of content. Be conservative in adding more depth as you need to prevent uses to make too many clicks.

In a database-oriented model we structure the data using metadata. Metadata links the information architecture to the design of database schema. By tagging information with metadata, we enable searching and browsing.

A hypertext system involves two primary types of components to be linked. These components can from systems that connect text, data, image, video, and audio. This structure provides flexibility but also causes users confusion because hypertextual links are often personal by nature. This structure is good to use to compliment the hierarchical or database models.

It is very important to provide multiple ways to access the same information. Large web sites would require all three types of structure. The top level will be hierarchical, sub-sites are good candidates for database model, and less structured relationships between content can be handled by hypertext.

Content Management Systems Reviews - Oracle UCM

Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM), formerly Stellent, is a component CMS and supports the entire content lifecycle. Component CMS manages content at a component level rather than at the document level.

Oracle UCM manages the entire spectrum of unstructured content - from documents, graphics, and Web pages to scanned images, e-mail, and records.

Oracle UCM converts over 500 file formats to web-ready formats such as HTML, XML, GIF and PDF, and delivers content via web sites, desktops, syndication feeds, mobile devices, and web services.

It integrates with Microsoft Office, Outlook, AutoCAD, Lotus Notes. It includes multi-site web content management, document and image management, digital asset management, records and retention management, personalized content delivery, categorization, portal integration, SharePoint integration, document capture and scanning integration, content conversion and transformation.

Unified CMS offers the same set of common functionality in one product for all content types. This eliminates the requirement for integrations between various ECM components. All managed content and services can be accessed from a common user and administrator interface. Features included are search, security, workflow, revision control, content conversion for all types of content, web based authoring and version control.

It includes the following key features: 

• in-context web site contribution, preview, updates, and approvals;
• e-mail notifications during workflows;
• library services, including full-text search, check-in, check-out, and version control;
• flexible metadata and security;
• template-based pages;
• libraries of reusable components and XML-based fragments;
• native content conversion to web viewable formats, including HTML, XML, and PDF;
• dynamic delivery and scheduled publishing models;
• personalized content delivery;
• scheduled content release and expiration;
• full digital asset and records management features.

Consolidating the overall architecture on a single code base, security model, and API eliminates the need for integration, leverages a common IT infrastructure, minimizes application development and support costs, enables simple upgrades, maintenance, and training.

Although each type of content requires some unique functionality, such as file plan management or warehouse management for digital and physical records, robust transformation for video files or for digital assets (such as taking Adobe Photoshop files and transforming them to different formats, resolutions, and sizes), and WYSIWYG editors, layouts, and templates, or dynamic and static publishing models for web sites, these independent content management systems all share a common set of services and functionality.

Any of the content management features can be enabled or disabled within the Oracle WebCenter Content platform. The same content publishing capabilities used to build web sites also work with digital asset management, so the customer’s images and videos can be transformed and added to the site. The same document management system also works with records management.

Benefits of a Single Platform

• Users can create content in Microsoft Word, Visio, or Adobe Photoshop. Whether they are adding content to a web site or collaborating on a presentation, the functions they need stay constant and that is the ability to find content easily, collaborate efficiently, securely store and transform content from one form to another, and deploy it wherever it is needed.
• A unified architecture offers graphical user interfaces with a common look and feel.
• Ease-of-use, because document and imaging management, digital asset management, web content management, and records management functions are on the same web interface.
• Higher productivity because users can perform all content related functions in one place.
• Consolidating the overall architecture on a single code base, security model, and API eliminates integration, leverages a common IT infrastructure, and minimizes application development and support costs.
• Dramatically reduced implementation and setup time compared with rolling out separate or integrated systems.
• Simpler upgrades because all updates occur on a single platform.
• The unified architecture of Oracle WebCenter Content ensures all ECM applications can be deployed on the same platform, and specific content management capabilities are interchangeable, extensible, and complementary to each other.
• Oracle WebCenter Content’s unified architecture ensures all ECM applications can be deployed on the same platform, and specific content management capabilities are interchangeable, extensible, and complementary to each other. This single architecture approach allows users to access all content, applications, and content services from a common user interface.

Case Study – Immersion Corporation - SharePoint Deployment

In the "Case Studies" series of my posts, I will describe the projects that I worked on and lessons learned from them. In this post, I am going to describe the project of SharePoint deployment in the Immersion Corporation.

Immersion Corporation is an electronics company specializing in haptics. The company’s content was stored in multiple shared network drives, wiki systems, CVS systems, and personal computers. In addition, documents in hard format are being used because they are not available in electronic format. There is no unified place for storing and accessing content.

Spreading out content in multiple locations made it difficult to find, re-use, and update. This also discouraged further adding of the new content and thus created areas where no documentation existed and the knowledge instead of being shared was being stored in personal computers. Storing the content in personal computers presented a risk of it being lost because it was not backed-up.

Existing content storage systems did not meet users’ requirements. The existing content was not categorized optimally and therefore the browsing function was inefficient. There was no search mechanism to search shared network drives.

Wiki and CVS systems search function was ineffective because of either wrong metadata or its lack. All current content storage systems did not have version control and audit trails necessary to control documents changes. There were no workflows in these systems. It was not possible to set up optimal security permissions in these systems.

There was a lot of obsolete content because no content owners have been formally identified and no retention schedule has been set up. In addition current storage systems did not have functions that would flag the obsolete content.

Collaborative work on the documents and projects was accomplished by sending documents as an email attachment which was inefficient and time consuming. There were no functions for project management.

I performed the users study. I identified stakeholders within each Immersion team and created the questionnaire for collecting teams’ requirements for a content management system and the usability issues. I held meetings with all teams’ stakeholders, managers and individual contributors. In some cases, I held few meetings were with one team.

Since Immersion used Agile software for the document control purpose, CRM for its customers management, Oracle system for financial operations, I also held meetings with Agile and CRM stakeholders and users. During these meetings I asked team members about their existing methods of finding the information and collaborating on documents and projects.

All users unanimously stated that:

• the information was spread out among few places and that it should be in one place; 
• it was very difficult and took a long time to find the information; 
• users had to ask somebody where the information was if they could not find it; if this somebody was not available, they would either try to re-create the information or would give up and try to work without the information; 
• it would have been very helpful and made their job easier to have a content management system to manage documents and records and collaborate on projects and documents; 
• the system for managing documents should have optimal browse and search functions, version control, audit trails, workflows, and optimal security permissions; 
• content should be organized and consistent in its structure; 
• the system should have high-relevance search; obsolete documents are present and are not being updated and there are areas where no documents exist; 
• the content management system should be administered by a content manager to oversee the quality of the content and metadata, the content organization, and the system content functions.

Since the company has already acquired SharePoint, during these meetings I gave teams an overview of SharePoint features and benefits and the overview of SharePoint itself. I asked teams if they would use the system. Each team expressed an interest in using SharePoint as the tool for document management, records management, project management, collaboration, and business solutions. All teams agreed that SharePoint would make them more efficient and productive.

A representative within each team was identified to be the primary contact between their team and myself, and for the purpose of getting the feedback from their teams, collecting teams’ requirements, and determining usability issues. The questionnaire for collecting teams’ requirements for SharePoint and the usability study was distributed to teams. Responses to the questionnaire were submitted to me which along with meetings findings served as the base for the functional requirements for the CMS deployment.

Since teams expressed interest in using SharePoint, I recommended to the management to proceed with its deployment. The project was approved. I created functional requirements which were submitted to IT. I have reviewed the document with the IT staff so that we would be in agreement about functional requirements and users’ needs.

IT staff has brought in a SharePoint architect to help to install SharePoint hardware and the architecture. SharePoint was installed. After it was installed, Immersion IT and I started working on setting up information architecture, taxonomy, metadata, content functions, and search.

Based on stakeholders’ feedback, I defined and created the information architecture, taxonomy, metadata, and content types. A decision was made on how SharePoint would integrate with Agile software, Oracle system, CRM, etc. as well on defining document types that would be uploaded into each system.

Then I created sites, libraries, and lists. Metadata, workflows, and information management policies were set up for each content type. I have created advanced search and configured metadata for it. IT has configured the metadata and the crawler on the server level. IT has also set up all applications functions on the server.

Document owners for each document were identified and entered into metadata. Retention schedule was identified for each content type and three-state workflow was set up to flag the content that would reach an expiration date.

Upon the reaching the expiration date of a document, a document owner and me would get an email-alert from the system that this has reached an expiration date. This alert would allow the content administrator, in this case me, to contact the document owner for the decision on what should be done with this document: review and update, move to an archive, or delete.

Based on department managers’ decision, security permissions for documents were set up. The system was set up for content approval before it is published which provided assurance that documents are uploaded in the correct place and the correct metadata is populated. I was approving content before it was published. Procedures for information governance were defined and supported by the company management.

User acceptance testing of the system was performed. Users were satisfied with the system set up and functions and it was deployed. Information governance was set up from the very beginning. Group and individual training was conducted on ongoing basis.

After the SharePoint was deployed, users started uploading their documents into it. The plan was created for migrating content from network drives and other systems into SharePoint.

The project was a success. Company management and users were very cooperative in helping to make this project a success.

SharePoint deployment helped to increase efficiency and productivity and thus saved Immersion cost because employees did not waste any time on searching for documents or recreating documents that already exist. The system later was adapted by multiple users for multiple purposes.

Lessons learned

1. User-centered design is paramount to the project success. When you design and build the system based on users’ requirements, they are going to use it. Users have the sense of ownership of the system which provides excellent starting point. They know that the system you are building will be what they need. 
2. Top-down support is critical for the project success. Management support is a huge factor in employees' encouragement to use the system and in setting up and enforcing procedures for information governance. 
3. Assurance of users from the very beginning that they will not be left alone with the system provided their cooperation. 
4. User acceptance testing helped to encourage employees to start using the system. When they participate in this process, this gives them the feeling of ownership of the system. 
5. Ongoing training after the system deployment made user adoption smooth.

User Adoption Strategies

Here is the situation. Your documents are stored on your network drives and you are contemplating to implement a content management initiative. At the same time you have an apprehension about how your users will adopt to your content management system (CMS).

Well, your apprehension is very much valid. User adoption task is not to be taken lightly. So, what do you do?

Good news is that it is possible to have your users to adopt to your content management systems. What are the strategies do accomplish user adoption? Let's look at them.

1. Point out benefits and usefulness – how it is better than what a user is doing now before you even started working on your deployment. This would create a good start to your project. It would prepare your users that the change is coming. The change is difficult to accept and so the earlier you start preparing for it, the easier it will be for you to implement it.

2. Collect user requirements and create use cases. Select your system and deploy it based on these requirements and use cases. I preach user-centered design. User-centered design is a cornerstone of user adoption. Never underestimate user-centered design. You deploy the system for users, make it they way they need it as much as possible.

3. Provide assurance of training and assistance from the beginning of your project. Let your users have confidence in you from the very beginning that they are not going to be left alone when the system is in place.

4. Make everything very easy and very intuitive.

5. User acceptance testing is paramount to user adoption.

6. Provide training early on.

7. Provide documentation describing in detail how the system works, what are the new procedures, etc.

8. Demonstrate that it is easy and consistent with what the user already knows or already does.

9. Let the user try it in safe, verifiable increments. Do not ask the user to make immediate switch from his accustomed way of work to your new system. Do it gradually.

10. Accept that user adoption is not a single event or decision on the part of a user. It happens in phases, which are affected by the frequency of product use. Use progressive user adoption strategy.

11. A progressive user adoption strategy consciously moves a user to new levels of product acceptance over time, through an orchestrated sequence of exposures to the product’s functionality.

The overall strategy for progressive user adoption starts with the solid foundation of a satisfying user experience of a product’s core functionality, then builds a logical progression from that base by identifying moments of opportunity and appropriate interventions.

12. Consider the following steps.

Identify core functionality. Core functionality is the basic functionality that, if not achieved, will guarantee the user will reject the product.

Make the core functionality bulletproof from a usability perspective. From a product design perspective, initially, the main goal should be to optimize the user experience that touches the core functionality.

The unspoken rule here is this: "Don’t break the core functionality as you add features". Promoting or adding advanced features can also add real or perceived complexity, disrupt compatibility with users’ established routines, and increase a sense of risk. All three of these consequences can stop adoption.

Identify sequences that go from core functions to advanced functions. Identify the next layers of features and functionality that could represent logical steps for users to take over time, once they have increased familiarity with the product.

Construct product interventions to move users to advanced functionality. An important goal of this step is to identify moments of opportunity that indicate readiness on a user’s part to advance to a new level of functionality. You must make it easy for a user to ignore the intervention.

What is of tantamount importance is that the intervention not be overly intrusive, impacting the core functionality. By all means, make it noticeable but don’t force users to change their habitual task flows in order to reject the option or suggestion. Not disrupting the core user experience is a key requirement for those interventions.

I will give you two examples of a progressive adoption strategy.

Banking industry has created online banking and invited us to use it. It was very much optional. Then they said that we can choose between paper statements and electronic statements. And then they said that there will be no more paper statements any longer and that we must go online to see our statements. So, the online banking has now become mandatory.

Similar example can be used in content management. When you have a CMS in place, announce to your users that they can choose where they can store their documents - either on network drives or in your CMS. But point out benefits of your CMS as compared to network drives. In your next step, announce to your users that certain types of documents must now be stored in your CMS. Provide continuous training and one-to-one assistance if necessary.

In the following step, announce to them that you are closing network drives and that all documents must now be stored in your CMS. After they got used to basic documents uploading into your CMS, you can introduce other features of your CMS, like Wikis, blogs, personalized sites, etc.

Do You Really Need a Content Strategy?

The answer is Yes.

You have many discussions about content activities, methodologies, and deliverables. But if you don’t have a conceptual framework for those activities, you are not practicing content strategy.

It is impossible to design a great user experience for bad content. If you are passionate about creating better user experiences, you can't help but care about delivering useful, usable, engaging content.

Content strategy is not a single solution or deliverable. It is a process and a mindset. If you approach your content management initiative knowing that it will constantly evolve, and that you are guiding its evolution, then you are practicing content strategy.

Content strategy evaluates business and customer needs and provides strategic direction on how improved content and content processes can help to achieve specific objectives. It’s a continual process of improvement.

Content strategy requires more time and resources upfront, but your content management initiative is much more likely to succeed with a solid strategy supporting it. Content strategy activities are scalable and can be modified to fit any budget. You don’t necessarily need a large, formal content strategy. You just need to take the time to think things through and determine your goals, resourcing, workflow, and success metrics, which can save you from the high cost of ineffective content.

You can’t expect to get where you want to go if you don’t know where that is, what you need to do to get there, or how to even recognize it if you stumble across it.

Content strategy starts with the big picture and then drills down to a granular level that can be implemented and measured. It encompasses everything that impacts content, including workflow and governance.

The content-strategy process is not so much circular as it is spiral, starting at the big vision and then repeating at each stage as you drill down to more details. To make matters worse (or more fun!), content strategies, tactics, processes, and even specific pieces of content are often shared between projects, products and business units.

A good content strategy looks across organizational silos and integrates the different business needs, goals, and tactics. It makes sure that the end product promotes consistent, effective and efficient user experiences and business processes.

Reasons for developing a content strategy:

1. Better Content

Developing a content strategy will enable you to create content that will be more engaging. A content strategy will allow you to clearly identify the elements that will add more value and create more interesting experiences for your users over time.

2. Consistency in Messaging

This is traditionally done within a marketing strategy, but the problem is that content extends beyond the marketing department. Within a content strategy you can outline guidelines,standards, quality control processes, branding, voice tone and messaging, so that anyone creating content of any format has some rules for the road.

3. Optimization

A content strategy will help you optimize your content. When developing content, it is critical to identify user personas, and create individual content paths for each of them (all fitting into one content strategy). Since each has their own questions, concerns and interests, you’ll need to develop content around these specific characteristics. By doing so, you will optimize for search by using the right keywords, and your content will be more relevant to those searching for it. The reason you need to consider this within your entire content strategy is because your content lives in various locations; your website, social networks, press, etc.

4. Limitation of Friction

A content strategy will help you to avoid friction in your content management system. You want to facilitate an engaging environment, so if there are disconnects between your information architecture or formats, you will create discomfort and stress for your users. You want to make sure their experience is easy. This ease will come from clearly defined goals, research, content paths, content processes, and the tactics that have been identified by the content strategy. This will also ensure that everyone responsible for content creation is on the same page, even if they are not on the same team or in the same department.

5. Improve efficiency

There are many ways to re-use content, like posting a blog post into a web site or a series of documents, or maybe an ebook. The idea is that you repurpose content to be consumed in various way, so you can always reach who you want while staying relevant and adding value. A content strategy outlines the thematic content and how it can be used throughout the year so you are not constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. It will help you organize an inventory and plan for releasing various kinds of content throughout the year, as well as streamline the internal processes needed to achieve the content goals.

Things to think about when developing your strategy:

There are many elements you will need to consider. You will need to know what content you have, what content you will need, who your users are, how they like to consume information, and who will be responsible for what. All of these things will be important in developing a realistic strategy for your content.

Here is a brief list of questions to ask:

• What content do we have? 
• Who are the content sources? 
• What does the current content creation process look like? 
• What are the content channels? External web: website, social media, partner sites, email, webinars. Internal: intranets, wikis, training sessions, seminars. Traditional: PR, print, events, outdoor, direct mail. The reasoning behind a content strategy is to make informed recommendations about the creation, delivery and governance of content. 

 Your content strategy should outline the following:

• current content and what you will need;
• how content should be structured in various formats Long-term plan–starting point and ending point What will this mean in terms of business objectives?

With the current proliferation of social media, and web based tools, including your web site, it is very important to have a content strategy. It is important that everyone is on the same page. This is difficult for most companies, but the development of a strategy and plan will only help things run smoothly, and actually have the business impact you are looking to achieve.