Intranet Rebuild - Where to start

[TekSupporter]

I am in the process of revamping our corporate intranet site. It was built long ago and uses asp to talk to a database. In addition, it runs on Microsoft IIS.

I would like the new site to have an admin panel where non-techy employees can upload photos and make content changes. Therefore, a CMS style site would seem best.

I've built a couple sites off Wordpress and am familiar with its themes and such. So, am entertaining that solution.

I've read about some other options for IIS, particularly DotNetNuke. However,it seems rather involved, and perhaps overkill for a simple site like ours.

I am asking you, the community, for any opinions or suggestions on which route to take for this. I am looking for simplicity and ease of use, as I'm not a code warrior.

What options should I consider.

A wysiwyg /drag and drop solution to build the page would be great, but I am familiar enough to realize that at the end of the day, your will still have to get your hands a bit dirty with the code.

I run Dreamweaver for our internet site, and that works fine for that, but a CMS seems to be the solution If I need to make restricted accounts for people and have an admin side for them to make updates.

Thank You all

TekSupporter
MCP, A+, CNA

 

[Bubbalouie]

I'm in the same boat as you and am kinda unsure of where to go.

I did go to Bitnami.com and download a couple of their VM stacks and load into VirtualBox just to check them out. I'm running virtual appliances of KnowledgeTree and SugarCRM right now just to check out what they can do. I'm going to check out their Alfresco stack soon too.

Turnkey.com has some pretty neat virtual appliances too. All are accessed through a web interface so it would be easy to integrate into an intranet. These all have a linux OS so you do have to be ready for that.

I know my users though. They are going to want to be able to click a file, edit it and then save. I'm not sure I see that ability in any of those apps though.

If you come up with anything let me know and I'll do the same!

 

[Bubbalouie]

oh yeah, one of the other things I'm looking to be able to is have a user scan documents into an app and then have another user stamp it with an electronic signature as a means of showing approval for an invoice for example.

haven't really seen that capability yet either. or at least I haven't recognized that feature yet...

 

[TekSupporter]

Bitnami looks like a easy way to install those web apps. Currently, I am using Windows Platform installer and have installed Wordpress and am working with that.

For electronic signature stamps, on a smaller scame, we scan our docs to pdf, and use Adobe Standards signature stamp features to time stamp docs.

TekSupporter
MCP, A+, CNA

 

[kjv1611]

Have you looked at SharePoint yet? SharePoint seems to work REALLY well for corporate type Intranet solutions. That's what we have wehre I work. They originally built the Intranet on Plone and something else, I think, but the SharePoint solution has been FAR superior.

Otherwise, you could look at Drupal or Joomla as well.

SharePoint has the best document handling out of the box, though. It is specifically geared towards corporate document handling and sharing, and integration with Office apps, MS SQL Server, etc.

But if you have no plans to integrate with Office nor SQL Server, then it may not be as much of a win-win for SharePoint over others.

 

[Bubbalouie]

I actually installed SharePoint on a webserver that I was going to migrate my existing hand made intranet to. I also had a couple of existing web apps on this webserver, including a web based time clock.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but after installing SharePoint I couldn't access any web site on the server. I had managers yelling at me so I had to uninstall. I think Sharepoint took over Port 80.

 

[TekSupporter]

I ended up customizing a wordpress install, and kept it simple. Sharepoint I've heard can be a great solution, but its a different animal alltogether

TekSupporter
MCP, A+, CNA

 

[kjv1611]

Yep, you've definitely got to learn all the ins and outs of whatever system you go with.

Bubbalouie, That would sound to me like an issue with the server firewall if I had to guess. I had at least one Drupal site with issues that were caused by the web host's firewall. A quick change or two to their firewall settings, and all was well.