[Web4lib] Questions for Plone Users

[Bollinger,Stephen]

Hi Annie,

We migrated our library website from a flat-file
HTML/Dreamweaver-managed setup into Plone last November.  I've typed my
responses below.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Annie Platoff
>Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:26 PM
>Subject: [Web4lib] Questions for Plone Users
>
>1.  How did you migrate your existing site into Plone?  Was your site
made up of static HTML 
>pages or did you migrate from another CMS?

After debating trying to script or otherwise automate portions of the
migration, we finally went with the "copy & paste" route.  We use the
FCK editor rather than Plone's default of Kupu, and it did a decent job
when we pasted content in from Dreamweaver.  We used this as an
opportunity to refresh a lot of our content and re-architect much of the
site, so it made more sense to copy and paste the selected snippets of
the old site into the new rather than copy it wholesale.

>2.  What kind of documentation do you have for your content creators
and content managers?  
>Are there any books or guides that you would recommend related to using
Plone?

Either Kupu or FCK has been sufficiently similar to Word or Dreamweaver
so that we haven't needed to produce documentation yet, although we are
starting to now (some 9 months after staff began using Plone).  We
actually have not had any requests for documentation from our staff but
are creating the documentation for training purposes.

What we really have needed to document were style guides and content
guidelines, not technical documentation.  I have a few snippets in this
vein that I can share if you're interested.

>3.  How many people do you have on your staff dedicated to working with
Plone?

I have one half-time developer and myself.  We share Zope/Plone
administrative responsibilities for one production and one test server.
We have a systems administrator who handles the OS and hardware for the
servers, as well as the tape backups.

We have ten staff members who are actively developing content on the
website, and about ten more who contribute to our community information
directory (which is a custom application we developed on top of
Zope/Plone).

>4.  Are you happy with your decision to migrate to Plone?

Very happy, our library staff and management also seems pleased.

>5.  How do you handle redundancy and backups?  What kind of hardware
are you using for your
>Plone site? 

Our production server is backed up nightly to tape, it runs on a
rack-mounted Dell server along with our Intranet (which *sigh* is still
a flat-file Dreamweaver affair).  Out test server is on an old Gateway
box, it is backed up irregularly.  We also often export the ZODB as a
form of backup.

>6.  Have you hired a consultant to set up your Plone site?  If so,
would you recommend them?  
>Or, is there anyone out there who consults for these services?

We hired a consultant for a one-day "Zope/Plone Bootcamp" to help us
bootstrap our development effort shortly after we installed and
configured our first test server.  He is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan
and we would recommend him, but I do not believe that he is open to
extensive travel or long engagements.  There are consultancies out there
for Plone, I think Enfold does this sort of work, but we haven't dealt
with them.

Hope this helps,
-Steve

Stephen Bollinger
Internet Specialist
CAPITAL AREA DISTRICT LIBRARY
401 South Capitol Avenue
Lansing, MI  48901-7919
http://www.cadl.org/