Managing Web Content with Microsoft SharePoint: Possibilities and Parameters

Managing Web Content with Microsoft SharePoint: Possibilities and Parameters Examining the Challenges of Applying Enterprise Technology to Dynamic Web Environments Subtitle A Whitepaper by Sitecore

Copyright Copyright 2011 Sitecore. All Rights Reserved. Restricted Rights Legend This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore. Trademarks Sitecore is a registered trademark of Sitecore. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. 2

Table of Contents Strategizing for Growth: Web Choices and Their Impact 4 SharePoint and Sitecore: Compare and Contrast 5 Factoring in future needs 5 Sitecore: Optimized for web marketing and change 6 Key Differentiators: A Technical Comparison 8 Search engine optimization (SEO) 9 Internationalization 10 Multiple device support 11 Multiple websites 12 Information architecture 12 Page architecture 12 Development capabilities 13 Assessing the Impact on Innovation: Cost, Time and Complexity 13 Summary 15 About Sitecore 16 3

Strategizing for Growth: Web Choices and Their Impact Websites, like companies, are constantly evolving. As companies evolve their websites beyond basic brochureware, relying on them to attract and retain new customers, the application used to manage a website s content is a critical determinant in any success. Because a web content management (WCM) system is so fundamental to a site s functionality, it s essential for any company, in any industry, to choose a solution that meets immediate requirements and supports longer-term, strategic business needs for change and growth. Some organizations instinctively opt to use Microsoft SharePoint, a family of software products for collaboration, file sharing and web publishing, to manage their web content. SharePoint is widely installed, as many enterprises routinely acquire it as part of their standard Microsoft software infrastructure. But while SharePoint is well suited for document-oriented enterprise content management (ECM), can it grow to deliver the advanced digital marketing capabilities that are needed, if not now, in the near future? Increasingly, companies are looking to their websites to be a destination where customers can engage, 24/7. This whitepaper takes a look at the strategic impact of choosing a full-fledged, future-proof WCM solution such as Sitecore, in comparison to pressing an ECM application, such as SharePoint, into duty for web content management. It presents a feature-by-feature comparison, and examines the downstream impact of this choice on the IT organization, in the context of two critical business issues: What is the true total cost of ownership (TCO) of using SharePoint, compared to Sitecore, to manage web content? Applications like Sitecore are elevating the status of the modern web content management system from utilitarian to business application. What is the opportunity cost of choosing SharePoint over a marketingoriented WCM solution such as Sitecore, which is designed to grow with future needs? This paper also discusses optimal scenarios for SharePoint, and how Sitecore and SharePoint can co-exist, helping companies to extract maximum value from their investments in both providers solutions. 4

SharePoint and Sitecore: Compare and Contrast Microsoft SharePoint takes a suite approach to Enterprise Content Management, allowing users to set up websites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions. 1 In addition to offering strong integration with Microsoft Office applications, SharePoint s product highlights include: Core web content management capabilities Document Management with Records Management Data integration Integrated search Built in security. These capabilities, as delivered through the SharePoint portal, make for an outstanding ad-hoc collaboration environment, with strong data integration and reporting tools. For many companies, SharePoint provides sufficient ECM capabilities, largely based on its Document Management and Records Management functionality. And because SharePoint is readily available in most companies, and is easy to get started with, many organizations default to it for not just ECM, but for web content management, as well. Factoring in future needs While SharePoint addresses many immediate needs, companies that choose it may not be viewing their WCM requirements in the context of using their website as a customer engagement platform. There are many WCM choices in the marketplace, each offering some type of specialization to address specific scenarios. Before choosing any WCM foundation, it s important to map application requirements to the business needs and issues that must be addressed. Increasingly, companies are looking for their websites to do more than provide basic information. The analyst firm Gartner reports, In more than 80% of the inquiries that Gartner has received about WCM since 2H09, clients sought higher business value from their online presence, be it Internet, extranet or intranet. As a result, many enterprises replace their existing technology, in some cases, to interoperate with other components of their Web environment, such as Web analytics, an e-commerce engine or in-house business applications. In fact, we urge those [enterprises] with WCM technology that is more than four years old to reevaluate their online strategies because the technology has changed so much recently. 2 1 Source: Microsoft 2 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management, Gartner G00201300 by Mick MacComascaigh, et. al., August 19, 2010. 5

The most typical translation of higher business value means that companies want to leverage their websites to move beyond a basic online presence and prospecting to, ultimately, fostering intimate customer relationships. To accomplish this ambitious goal, they require their WCM to drive transformative online experiences that fully engage customers with their brand and communities of like-minded customers, to bring everyone back for more. Figure 1: As companies invest more in their web presence to drive customer intimacy, they can expect to receive substantially greater business value. As companies strive to reach the fourth phase of this model, Customer Engagement, they are looking to use their websites as critical business assets. To accomplish this ambitious goal, Marketing organizations require their WCM to deliver integrated capabilities such as advanced anonymous user profiling and content targeting, and a suite of web marketing functions including website metrics, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, multi-channel campaign management, integrated analytics and multivariate testing. Sitecore: Optimized for web marketing and change Sitecore is a web content management system that is purpose-built to deliver highimpact web experiences a product charter that aligns exceptionally well with web marketing scenarios, and positions the WCM as a central business application. 6

Web marketing sites are significantly different than static brochureware sites, requiring additional capabilities beyond traditional publishing. Specifically, successful web marketing demands a high degree of brand control and adaptation, which is enabled by strong modularity of content and functionality. Change is constant. Marketers and other business units, not the IT group, must be able to fully control the site with diverse publishing tools and asset management support. Change occurs in marketing websites in multiple ways. In addition to content and functionality changes, the site must be continuously optimized for search (SEO), and adapted to address market changes and the intelligence gathered from the site. Likewise, the WCM solution must deliver strong campaign support and analytics feedback is gathered by integrated capabilities such as A/B and multivariate testing, while analytics interpret results and present actionable insight. Finally, over time, as marketing-driven companies expand their presence to new devices and in new geographies, multi-device and multi-language support becomes of paramount importance. Beyond the core WCM features that both SharePoint and Sitecore offer, the Sitecore solution exceeds SharePoint s traditional, document-based publishing orientation in numerous ways. Specifically, SharePoint does not offer: SEO tools that are inline Campaign tools that allow companies to get to know their prospects, provide them with personalized content and ultimately convert them Website optimization through easily accessed metrics; built-in multivariate testing tools; and fast, easy content changes by direct marketers, brand managers and content editors Integrated web analytics that allow marketers that constantly aggregate performance statistics and help business users to quickly make decisions to improve the visitor experience Lead scoring, anonymous profiling and content targeting that provide an unprecedented ability to track campaigns and deliver an optimal, individualized user experience. Figure 2 provides a succinct visual comparison of SharePoint s rudimentary WCM capabilities with Sitecore Sitecore delivers WCM and far more, by managing the content of all the online channels that intersect with the website. 7

Figure 2: Beyond SharePoint s basic document and content management (DCM), traditional publishing-oriented WCM technology has evolved into a more flexible and accessible solution. Today, Sitecore tightly integrates the website with a wider online marketing landscape, delivering vanguard WCM functionality for marketing-oriented, change-driven websites. Key Differentiators: A Technical Comparison SharePoint s focus on conventional publishing translates into several key technical shortcomings. Pages and sites are oriented toward the document model, while branding controls, the editing environment, content re-use, and multi-device and multi-language support are all limited. The table below summarizes key differences between SharePoint and Sitecore in these and other critical areas; in-depth analysis of these points follows. 8

Search engine optimization (SEO) Effective SEO requires clean, concise URLs that are search word-friendly. As content is added to Sitecore, natural words and keywords can be used to name the sections and items within the site, so that page titles and URLs reflect the best keywords for SEO. 9

For example, as a steel fabrication company adds content to its web site, Sitecore automatically generates appropriate keywords in the URLs. New content about high-strength components would generate the URL www.yourfactory.com/steelproducts/high-strength, which contains popular descriptive terms that will index well with the search engines. However, without customizing SharePoint, all URLs contain the string /pages, which is not meaningful to search engines. This string often causes the home page to redirect to a URL such as /pages/index.aspx. Within SharePoint, all pages for a single website must reside directly under /pages, with no additional levels to indicate information architecture. Each additional level in the URL, such as /news (which must be /news/pages), does not correspond to a level in the information architecture within a single website. Instead, it corresponds to an additional website, requiring extra development and administration. Internationalization As companies expand their presence to new countries, providing local-language content becomes a critical part of doing business. Sitecore enables translation of content into multiple languages simultaneously, from the same website. This provides for better search engine results, greater flexibility, and consistency of content. Sitecore also supports translating only certain relevant parts of the site, or creating micro-sites for certain countries. In comparison, SharePoint uses variants to implement multiple languages and alternative layouts, such as those required by mobile devices. (See section below.) SharePoint developers must create a new variant for each and every language and presentation combination. Variants complicate the information architecture by requiring multiple levels, and the use of multiple web applications. Figure 3: Using SharePoint for internationalization requires a separate variant of the data structure for each language. 10

Multiple device support Websites are increasingly being updated by RSS feeds, viewed through a range of browser types, and accessed via smart mobile devices such as the iphone, ipad, Android, Blackberry and other handhelds. For the same architectural reasons described earlier, it is cumbersome to support multiple devices in SharePoint. Due to both screen size limitations and lack of support for certain capabilities, such as Flash images in handheld devices, SharePoint requires an entirely different page presentation for each supported device. This means the entire site must be rerendered to present properly. Figure 4 shows the multiple variants of the data structure required to support multiple devices in SharePoint. When multiple languages on multiple devices need to be supported, the number of separate data structures grows large and unwieldy. Figure 4: Using SharePoint to support multiple devices requires a separate variant for each device. Taking this analysis on step further, the interplay of SharePoint s separate-variant requirement across multiple languages and multiple devices drives a geometric increase in the number of websites that must be supported; an IT organization responsible for a robust multi-language, multi-device web presence could easily find itself managing 60, 70 or even more variants. Using SharePoint to support a website that is 12 languages x 5 display devices = managing 60 variants of the site In contrast, a dynamic WCM like Sitecore separates content from presentation, allowing the same site to easily be optimized for multiple devices. With Sitecore, a single structure can support multiple languages and devices. 11

Multiple websites Within a given organization, different countries or different divisions often request their own sub-domain. For example, the United Kingdom office of the steel company may want to use UK.yourfactory.com as its sub-domain, or perhaps a product division needs to use hotrolled.yourfactory.com for a particular product offering. With SharePoint, each sub-domain involves a new web application, which requires configuration, hardware resources and ongoing management. This approach further complicates content sharing. When creating links between sites, SharePoint WCM users must enter the exact URL of the other website, instead of simply selecting a content item on the multi-site website. This is one of many complications that can arise from having to organize and update multiple web applications under SharePoint. In comparison, Sitecore easily accommodates sub-domains, plus the sharing of content and code between them. Information architecture As websites grow more complex, so do their structures, which need more granular ways to store and represent data. Concurrently, as complexity rises, the ability to reuse content on the website becomes critical. Efficiency dictates that content be reused across sites and devices, as well as personalization to allow certain levels of detail to be exposed only when appropriate. SharePoint s information architecture does not allow organizations to easily reuse data types and fragments of data types. This shortcoming can result in inconsistencies and longer development times. Sitecore information architecture provides broad support for data types, thereby ensuring consistency, saving time and providing future flexibility. For instance, to make changes or updates throughout the website content, such as applying new metadata fields, one simply creates a separate metadata template and establishes an inheritance relationship between the desired data template and the metadata template. The change is applied across the website, without needing to return to every data template on the site to add or modify this new field. SharePoint does not offer this level of flexibility, resulting in considerable additional work. Page architecture Sitecore website pages are dynamically created at a granular level by assembling each piece of data (content) for that page. Like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, the content presented on one page can easily be reused and redisplayed on dozens of other pages, and in different ways or combinations, as appropriate. Content can comprise text, images, video, tables or other content format. In this way, the content is separated from the presentation, for ultimate flexibility and scalability. SharePoint uses a page-based approach to bind content to its presentation. This is a static assembly approach, though components within the page can be dynamic. The 12

SharePoint architecture directly produces development challenges, which include requirements to: Implement multiple websites Support multiple output devices Update the look-and-feel of the website Reuse content and presentation components for multiple pages or multiple output devices Translate websites into multiple languages. Sitecore has a large number of tools, controls and capabilities needed to speed development and improve developer productivity. For example, the Sitecore Template Builder provides a simple, browser-based user interface to define and maintain data structures. The Sitecore Developer Center provides a browser-based tool to develop and maintain presentation components. Many developers prefer to use Visual Studio.NET, with which Sitecore integrates seamlessly. Development capabilities The Sitecore architecture allows developers to focus on components of the published website instead of customizing the content management system. As such, Sitecore leverages developers existing ASP.NET and, optionally, XSL skills. With SharePoint, developers must perform some tasks in Visual Studio and other tasks in SharePoint Designer. When creating a new page, it is often not clear which tools the developer should use. SharePoint developers must also spend a great deal of time maintaining XML configuration files, and must learn to use web parts instead of standard ASP.NET controls. Additionally, SharePoint developers are limited to master pages, which are less flexible than Sitecore s declarative, componentoriented layout settings. Assessing the Impact on Innovation: Cost, Time and Complexity The technical discussion above underscores the notion that agile, adaptable websites which reflect their companies intrinsic innovation and nimbleness require a web content management system that is similarly innovative and nimble. Sitecore provides the proper foundation for today s dynamic, marketing-oriented websites, delivering the growth, flexibility and scalability that innovative companies require. As a result, applications like Sitecore are elevating the status of the modern web content management system from utilitarian to business application. SharePoint can seem like a natural choice for WCM, because it is readily available and part of many enterprises existing Microsoft environments. But as the detailed technical comparison shows, it is best suited for static, brochureware websites and 13

conventional publishing needs within a corporate environment. SharePoint s document-oriented architecture adequately supports intranets and extranets, and its page-based approach works well when page structures have limited complexity. However, companies that try to use SharePoint to build global, marketing-driven websites will quickly run into two issues: Hidden total cost of ownership (TCO): Although SharePoint may initially be low-cost or even free, it quickly becomes very expensive in terms of real costs, time and resources. Expanding SharePoint-based websites beyond a single enterprise instance will incur additional license fees, and ongoing administrative burden in their management. In terms of time, SharePoint s architectural and design inflexibility requires constant reworking of layouts and content, even for simple site updates. Finally, the programming skills required to make routine changes in SharePoint translate into a heavy IT burden, since business users typically do not have these skills. Figure 5 conceptually illustrates the complexity that develops when using SharePoint as a WCM for anything more than simple, internally focused websites. Figure 5: With SharePoint, website development and management overhead quickly escalates when multiple languages, devices and sites must be accommodated. 14

In terms of real development dollars, using SharePoint for enterprise-class website needs drives a geometric increase in complexity because each language variant and each device variant must exist as an independent site. So, using SharePoint as a WCM to support a corporate website that is available in 12 languages, and can be displayed across five devices, entails managing 60 variants of the site. By comparison, the same capabilities, as enabled by Sitecore, can be delivered with one variant of the site. High opportunity cost: SharePoint carries a high opportunity cost because it effectively eliminates companies ability to leverage their website as a marketing platform. SharePoint does not support search engine optimization, nor can it provide customer intelligence or analytics, integration with email and other marketing tools, or personalization. In addition, it has no multi-channel, multidevice or multi-language capabilities; these, and social media and mobile functions, must be built in-house, or cobbled together using third party solutions all of which carry license costs and management overhead. However, SharePoint and Sitecore can easily co-exist within the same organization and, in fact, do so at many companies. SharePoint is a platform that was designed to work with best of breed technologies, including Sitecore. Solutions like Sitecore extend SharePoint investments by seamlessly integrating with SharePoint to repurpose any content to the web. Content is transparently available within Sitecore, and can be deployed just in time or staged locally in Sitecore. Through Sitecore, SharePoint content and documents also can be deployed to any website. By leveraging Sitecore s capabilities to their fullest, companies can receive the full value of their investments in both SharePoint and Sitecore. SharePoint 2010: Facts and Implications Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is a 64-bit only product, requiring 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2. It also requires 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005. Companies considering using SharePoint 2010 as a WCM should: Understand the investment they may have to make in order to use SharePoint 2010. Do compatibility testing on third-party applications and web components that may need to be integrated. Consider SharePoint 2007 if budgets are limited, keeping in mind that the site must be kept relatively static; otherwise, significant IT resources will be required to make ongoing changes. Summary SharePoint is a rich and powerful platform, particularly for internal collaboration and document management but its utility for websites has limitations. When used as a WCM, SharePoint is optimized for sites that can be supported by conventional 15

publishing approaches, such as intranets, extranets and brochureware sites of low/moderate visual complexity, with infrequent updates. But as companies increasingly rely on their websites as critical vehicles to attract and retain customers, generate revenues and drive strategic business growth, new WCM solutions are required. Today s marketing-oriented sites require far more than a generalized content management system they need a WCM system that is fully optimized for online marketing. Sitecore delivers the fundamental architecture and enterprise-class capabilities needed to achieve content- and experience-rich, marketing-driven websites. From an architecture perspective, Sitecore offers essential functionality including: Many-to-any language change support, with integrated translation management system control The ability to maintain devices (alternative layouts) and languages independently, automatically sensing and delivering the right presentation for a given device The ability to manage and use site content features and layout, quickly and easily, across many sites. Sitecore also delivers necessary tools for marketing, customer retention and overall business growth, including: SEO optimization Campaign tools Website optimization Integrated marketing analytics Lead scoring and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems Cross-channel content targeting Integrated email marketing Integrated e-commerce Integrated marketing automation. For more information about Sitecore, please visit www.sitecore.net. About Sitecore Sitecore redefines how organizations engage with their customers online, powering experiences that can sense and adapt to a customer s needs to increase revenue and 16

customer lifetime value and satisfaction. Sitecore was the first Web Content Management system (WCM) to incorporate marketing automation, intranet portal, e-commerce, web optimization, social media and campaign management technologies into a cohesive, integrated open platform. Sitecore s software makes it easy for businesses to identify, serve, engage and convert new customers online. Sitecore s broad choice of capabilities enable marketing professionals, business stakeholders and information technology teams to rapidly implement, measure and manage a successful website and online business strategy. Its powerful development platform, integrated marketing automation tools and intuitive editing workspace enables successful websites of all types. Thousands of public and private organizations have created and now manage more than 24,000 dynamic websites with Sitecore including ATP World Tour, Computer Associates, ISS, Lloyd s of London, Microsoft, Omni Hotels, Siemens, Thomas Cook and The Knot. 17