Is Concrete5 the right CMS for me?
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Hello all,
I have recently discovered Concrete5 as I am working on two different web sites: one is a simple corporate site, and Concrete5 is perfect for it, but the other one is a bit specific and I need a bit of advice on how to build it. It is a community-based site for a community of interest, specifically, the alumni association of a small masters program. There will be about 500 members, the majority of which is NOT tech-savvy, and the functionality will be very partcipative / collaborative:
- discussion forum
- event calendar where ANY MEMBER can post an event
- participative blog / news feed where any member can post a link / article.
My only requirement is that logging in / posting an event / posting news has to be an absolute no-brainer. If it's not perfectly intuitive, a significant number of people won't participate.
I would really like to use Concrete5 because I really like the look and feel and functionality as an administrator, but will it work for all my members? I have seen the Forum add-on which will work; I found calendar add-ons, although I'm not entirely sure that they can be collaborative. But I'm unsure as to whether any member can add a blog post without entering the admin interface, which is probably a little too much functionality for my basic contributor.
Any ideas? Are there add-ons that I can use? Or should I look at a different CMS entirely for this kind of project?
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Kind regards,
Axel
I have recently discovered Concrete5 as I am working on two different web sites: one is a simple corporate site, and Concrete5 is perfect for it, but the other one is a bit specific and I need a bit of advice on how to build it. It is a community-based site for a community of interest, specifically, the alumni association of a small masters program. There will be about 500 members, the majority of which is NOT tech-savvy, and the functionality will be very partcipative / collaborative:
- discussion forum
- event calendar where ANY MEMBER can post an event
- participative blog / news feed where any member can post a link / article.
My only requirement is that logging in / posting an event / posting news has to be an absolute no-brainer. If it's not perfectly intuitive, a significant number of people won't participate.
I would really like to use Concrete5 because I really like the look and feel and functionality as an administrator, but will it work for all my members? I have seen the Forum add-on which will work; I found calendar add-ons, although I'm not entirely sure that they can be collaborative. But I'm unsure as to whether any member can add a blog post without entering the admin interface, which is probably a little too much functionality for my basic contributor.
Any ideas? Are there add-ons that I can use? Or should I look at a different CMS entirely for this kind of project?
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Kind regards,
Axel
hi there,
Both ProEvents and ProBlog have front end "add post/event" buttons if you simply designate users as a "blog editor" or "event manager".
I think c5 would do nicely with this.
Best
Chad
Both ProEvents and ProBlog have front end "add post/event" buttons if you simply designate users as a "blog editor" or "event manager".
I think c5 would do nicely with this.
Best
Chad
Thank you guys for your very helpful input and guidance. I'm glad that you think Concrete5 will work for this project. I'll look at the documentation about advanced permissions, and will check out ProEvents and ProBlog - and I'll possibly come back with more specific questions, particularly for Chad who I'm sure will be able to answer any question about the latter two add-ons :-)
Cheers
Axel
Cheers
Axel
Be sure to become familiar with switching to "Advanced Permissions". This can allow/restrict members editing only on pages/blocks that you enable for their particular user group. This will allow you to "spoon feed" only the amount of interaction to members they are best able to deal with.
We've tried it on a couple of non-profit sites with good success and are now working it into a commercial trucking company's site to allow participation from their clients.
So far... so good
video info found at http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/designers/using-adva...