Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Credits

About the Authors

About the Technical Editors

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Getting Started

Chapter 1: Introducing Ektron

Ektron: The Company

Ektron's Community, Support, and Services

Ektron, the Framework

Who Uses Ektron?

Take Home Points

Chapter 2: The Ektron Web Project Methodology

Iterative/Waterfall versus Agile Approaches

The Business Case: Where It All Starts

Understanding the Implementation Process

The Discovery Phase

The Implementation Phase

The Quality Assurance Phase

Take Home Points

Chapter 3: The Implementation Guide

The Ektron Approach

Implementation Guide

The OnTrek Implementation Guide

Take Home Points: Best Practices for Creating an Implementation Guide

Chapter 4: Configuring Your Development Environment

What You Need to Configure Your Machine

Installing the Framework

Further Tips

Take Home Points

Part II: Building the TechPoint Site

Chapter 5: Understanding Content Management Fundamentals

Login and Workarea

Content Entry and Display

Folders and the Library

Permissions, Approvals, and Roles

Take Home Points

Chapter 6: Configuring Commonly Used Components

Understanding the Technology

Smart Forms

Taxonomy

Aliasing

Multilingual Sites

Take Home Points

Chapter 7: The Homepage

Use Case

Technology

Rich Interaction Using jQuery, Smart Forms, and Handlers

Using Menus for Navigation

Using Search for Navigation

Sitemap and Breadcrumbs

Registration

Take Home Points

Chapter 8: Reaching Prospects

Use Case

Technology

ListSummary

Calendars

Video/Customer Testimonials

Take Home Points

Chapter 9: Generating Leads through Campaign Optimization

Use Case

Understanding the Technology

Implementation Using Collections

PageBuilder

Widgets

HTML Forms

Web Analytics

Take Home Points

Additional Practice Steps

Chapter 10: Supporting Customers

Understanding the Technology

Use Case

Building Forums

Blogs

Wikis

The SocialBar Server Control

Content Flagging and Content Review

Take Home Points

Chapter 11: Implementing the OnTrek Social Network

The Importance of Social Networking

Technology

Users, Friends, and Profiles

Community Groups

Dashboards

Activity Streams

Micro-Messaging

Take Home Points

Chapter 12: Creating the Catalog of Products for the eCommerce Storefront

Use Case

Understanding the Technology

Configuring eCommerce

Creating a Catalog and Product

Coupons

Product Reports and Order Management

Take Home Points

Chapter 13: Constructing the Online Storefront with eCommerce

Use Case

eCommerce Server Controls and Implementation

Custom Order Workflow

Building a Payment Gateway Provider

Take Home Points

Part III: Deploying the TechPoint Site

Chapter 14: Deploying Your Website

Pre-Conditions for a Successful Deployment

Understanding the Different Deployment Scenarios

Moving Content with or without eSync

The Deployment

Take Home Points

Chapter 15: Maintaining Your Website

Creating an Effective Maintenance Plan

Maintaining Content Freshness

Maintaining Availability

Maintaining Performance

Maintaining Usability

Maintaining (and Building) Reach

Maintaining Calm During Disaster Recovery

Take Home Points

Chapter 16: Next Steps

Reviewing What You Learned

Connecting with Ektron and the Online Community

Utilizing Ektron's Professional Services and Training Packages

Leveraging Online Developer Resources

Take Home Points

Part IV: Appendixes

Appendix A: CMS Extensions

Benefits of Ektron Framework, Version 8

Building Your Extension

Appendix B: Framework API

Working with the Framework API

CRUD Operations on Content

Take Home Points

Appendix C: Performance Checklist

Hardware Requirements

Appropriate SQL Server Deployment

Appropriate and Judicious Caching

Code Profiling

Compiled Site

Event Error Maintenance

Gzip Response Compression

Externalize Resources and Use CDNs Where Applicable

Request Minimization

Glossary

Index

Ektron Developer's Guide: Building an Ektron Powered Website

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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Indianapolis, IN 46256

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-88569-7

ISBN: 978-1-118-05800-8 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-05801-5 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-05802-2 (ebk)

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifi cally disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fi tness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (877) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010941222

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Wrox Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affi liates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Microsoft and Access are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Dedicated to the Ektron team, each and every person makes a significant difference.

Credits

Acquisitions Editor

Paul Reese

Project Editor

Maureen Spears

Technical Editors

Jason Arden

Joseph Cicchetto

Production Editor

Kathleen Wisor

Copy Editor

Kezia Endsley

Editorial Director

Robyn B. Siesky

Editorial Manager

Mary Beth Wakefield

Freelance Editorial Manager

Rosemarie Graham

Associate Director of Marketing

David Mayhew

Production Manager

Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Barry Pruett

Associate Publisher

Jim Minatel

Project Coordinator, Cover

Katie Crocker

Proofreader

Nancy Carrasco

Indexer

Johnna VanHoose Dinse

Cover Designer

Michael E. Trent

Cover Image

© Petr Novotny/istockphoto.com

About the Authors

BILL CAVA is a six-year veteran of Ektron. As Chief Evangelist, Bill channels his passion for internet technology, WCM, and software development into the Ektron Developer Community. Prior to this role, Bill served as Chief Technologist responsible for guiding the company's technology direction, product strategy, new product development and engineering practices. Before joining Ektron, Bill was a principal engineer at Lycos, one of the Internet's first search engines. Earlier in his career he worked at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval as a research engineer. He holds patents on Information Retrieval and is a technology advisor for a number of internet companies. As an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bill studied Italian Literature, Fine Art and Computer Science, and continued his Computer Science studies as a graduate student at Worcester Polytechnical Institute (WPI).

BILL ROGERS founded Ektron in 1998 with a simple vision: enable business users to easily author and publish content on websites. Today, Rogers has sparked a revolution in the way organizations create and manage interactive Web, intranet and extranet sites. He recognized early on how important websites would become to companies' business models, and guided Ektron in creating a Web content management software platform that provides all the functionality Webmasters, designers and developers want in a single application, while still minimizing the complexity to which the non-technical users are exposed.

In his role as a hands-on chief executive officer, Rogers is actively engaged in keeping Ektron a Web content management market and technology leader. He sets the company's strategic direction, aligns product development with his forward-looking vision for website technology and is involved in all aspects of Ektron's operations. In addition, he frequently participates in industry events and solicits feedback from Ektron's customers and partners to stay on the leading edge of Web technology development. Rogers received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Boston University.

ANIEL SUD has been in the WCM industry since 2002 and with Ektron for four years. Serving Ektron as CMS Architect, he envisions new features like Ektron's PageBuilder and brings them to reality. Before becoming CMS Architect, Aniel served as Ektron's Technical Evangelist, a role where he helped customers, through trade show talks, local user groups, and one-on-one consultation, to understand methods of enabling Ektron to make their lives easier. Prior to joining Ektron, Aniel co-founded Firefall Pro, a boutique Web development firm, specializing in marketing and content management systems. He received his Bachelors from Drexel where he studied Computer Engineering.

About the Technical Editors

JASON ARDEN joined Ektron in 2006, and currently serves as Director of Partner Engineering. The Partner Engineering Team is a key part of the complete set of services and support options that allows Ektron to ensure that their Partners succeed in deploying Ektron solutions. Prior to heading up the Partner Engineering Team, Mr. Arden served as a Lead Consulting Sales Engineer working with Ektron Partners and prospects during the pre-sales lifecycle. Prior to joining Ektron, Jason was part of the IT staff at the Radiological Society of North America. He holds a BS in Networking and Telecommunications Management from DeVry University.

JOSEPH CICCHETTO is a Sr. CMS Architect at Ektron, overseeing the corporate architecture team for the Professional Services Group. In this role, Joe is responsible for setting architecture standards, and acting as lead architect on enterprise solutions. Prior to joining Ektron, Joe was Director of Engineering for Softmedia and has a broad background in software development and project management. Joe studied Computer Science as an undergraduate student at Boston University.

Acknowledgments

WE'D LIKE TO THANK the Wrox staff, especially Paul Reese, Maureen Spears, and Kezia Endsley. Maureen and Kezia were instrumental in their editing efforts, and without them, the process of writing this book would have been infinitely more painful. Behind the scenes, Anna Jeon and Fred Bals worked very hard to help us to maintain standards and made sure to berate Aniel every time he ended a sentence with a preposition.

Our technical editors — Jason Arden and Joe Cicchetto — were also key to the process of getting the content into a publishable format. Without them, the code samples in this book probably wouldn't even compile. Ted Henry and Keith Pepin also played essential roles in working with the authors to ensure that the content was sound and correct. Brian Fanny also provided substantial input, giving us technical feedback and general knowledge relating to support issues, including deployment and maintenance.

Brian Browning went above and beyond, creating large portions of the content for Chapters 2 and 3. As the Senior Director of Client Services at Ektron, he is uniquely poised to create content outlining Ektron's Professional Services process.

Chris Banner, Bob Bolt, Bruce Bourdon, Doug Domeny, Steve Mann, Alpesh Patel and Justin West all played central roles in helping the authors to understand various technical approaches to individual issues, and their input is greatly appreciated. Scott Kearney provided valuable insight into the eCommerce related content, and Joe Chestnut, Justin Ryan, and Sanela Suljic all assisted by giving us feedback on Deployment and Maintenance.

Introduction

GIVEN THAT YOU'RE READING the introduction to a Wrox book about Ektron, you likely have (or will soon have) some level of technical responsibility for a website powered by the Ektron Framework. Maybe you're tasked with the duty of maintaining an existing site and are looking for information to help make that process more efficient; or maybe you're developing a new site and are in need of deep technical information, best practices, and step-by-step guidance showing how to build a website from the ground-up using the Ektron framework. Whichever it is, you are involved in a Web project of some form, and you've most likely picked up this book to gain some level of technical competency with the Ektron Framework.

This book will cover the Ektron Framework in great technical depth, covering step-by-step instructions, best practices, and tips and tricks, in a way that is useful for someone needing to build a new website, maintain an existing one, or something in the middle. The book goes beyond the basics of technical competency with the Ektron platform, however, and helps you gain a solid understanding of how to achieve success with your Ektron Web projects. From a developer's standpoint, becoming technically proficient in Ektron is a prerequisite for this success; but when all is said and done, your project's success depends on more than just your knowledge of how to get the latest gadget on your website.

What makes a Web project successful? Far too often, Web projects begin without the proper preparation work in place to ensure their success. Web projects can fail for a great number of reasons, but most often, they break down when they fail to follow a standardized and proven methodology. A methodology is a defined set of repeatable steps that can better guarantee a successful outcome. Following a methodology ensures that the result of your project is aligned to the needs of the business, addresses all of the components of the site's user experience and is a technically solid solution, able to scale and perform in a way that supports your organization's objectives. It also helps the team to understand whether or not success has been achieved because it compares the project's progress against the milestones and success metrics established during project planning.

Although this type of planning may sound unimportant to a developer “just” trying to build a website, it's important to understand what makes a Web project successful; even if some of the responsibilities aren't a part of your day-to-day job description, the ultimate responsibility for a Web project's success typically falls on the laps of those closest to it. This book was written to provide Web developers and technical project managers with the overarching knowledge needed to achieve success with their Ektron Web projects — including information on both technology and methodology.

The approach taken in this book is to first cover Ektron's recommended project discovery process, discussing the methodology employed by Ektron Professional Services, and learning about the documentation generated as part of this process, all of which ensures a successful Web project. This process stems from ten years of experience during which the Ektron professional services team developed over 1,000 successful websites for its customers. Over this time, the team not only developed a comprehensive website design methodology, but also enhanced and optimized that methodology to service the specific considerations unique to implementing an Ektron powered website.

This book also has documentation in each chapter so you can implement specific portions and functionalities of an example site. You can install this site locally and use it to follow as you read the book. Chapters focus on the technical material you'll need to master the Ektron Framework. Each technical chapter follows a similar pattern in that it focuses on the implementation of a subsection of a website for a fictional software company called OnTrek, and then creates a meaningful context for instruction centered around business-driven use cases.

Who This Book Is For

The target audience for this book is ASP.NET developers and technical project managers who want to learn how to achieve success with Ektron Web projects. The value of the methodology chapter will be apparent to Technical Project Managers, but is written in such a way as to appeal to technical developers as well. Developers will appreciate the best practices, tips and tricks, step-by-step instruction, and deep-dive “under the hood” explanations of the Ektron Framework.

Whether you're just starting out with the Ektron Platform or have used it in the past, this book covers the latest Ektron technology in a way that will benefit both audiences. Readers do not need to have experience with Ektron, but they should have experience with current ASP.NET development practices using Visual Studio and C#.

What This Book Covers

This book covers the theory and practice for building and managing a successful website with Ektron CMS400.NET version 8.0.2. The book is divided into three primary parts, with the first covering the Ektron development methodology, development environment considerations, and other items of interest in the process leading up to actual development.

The second part discusses the actual buildout of a site on the Ektron Framework. In this part, you touch on content management principles and concepts as they apply to the Ektron Framework, and then see each major feature of the framework. These discussions focus on using a combination of codebehind, server controls, and PageBuilder to achieve various goals. Each chapter discusses a real-world use case from the OnTrek starter site, and then either implements that functionality within the OnTrek site or analyzes how it was previously implemented in the site.

The bulk of the discussions in this book pertains specifically to version 8.0.2 of the Ektron Framework, but in most cases will also apply to other recent versions. In some cases, the authors discuss previous iterations of a given piece of the framework, to help you better understand how the technology works today. In other cases, they discuss where the technology is heading next.

How This Book Is Structured

This book will walk you through the process of creating a website using the Ektron CMS Framework. It is divided into three main sections.

Part I: Getting Started

This part covers background material relating to Ektron, the Ektron Framework, and the methodology employed for Ektron projects. This methodology is then used in Part II.

Chapter 1: Introducing Ektron — This chapter provides an introduction to Ektron the company, and the Ektron Framework. It gives readers an understanding of why the book was written as well as the target audience. It also covers the general structure of the book, introducing the OnTrek site, business drivers, and overview of use cases

Chapter 2: The Ektron Web Project Methodology — This chapter introduces the methodology recommended by Ektron and followed by its own Professional Service teams. It will discuss the pros and cons of its approach and guide you through the process of adapting this process to meet the needs of your project.

Chapter 3: The Implementation Guide — This chapter introduces the website of a fictitious software company that is used in each of the technical sections throughout the book. It also presents the implementation guide.

Chapter 4: Configuring Your Development Environment — This chapter introduces the software configuration needed to start developing on the Ektron Framework.

Part II: Building the TechPoint Site

Part II builds on the methodology discussed in Part I (to create an implementation guide), which is used as a specification guide throughout the implementation process. Each chapter covers a specific area of the site, implementing features against the implementation guide.

The implementation sections of the Part II chapters follow a pattern in that they outline a portion of the implementation guide, starting with a use case that is the jumping point to the particular area of the site under development. This is followed by an overview of the features used in the chapter. Each individual technology is then discussed in depth. The chapters close with a summary of the lessons learned in the chapter.

Chapter 5: Understanding Content Management Fundamentals — This chapter discusses core Web Content Management concepts within the context of the OnTrek site.

Chapter 6: Configuring Commonly Used Components — This chapter goes a step further in the core technologies, and helps you to configure items like URL aliasing, structured content, and multilingual content.

Chapter 7: The Homepage — This chapter discusses the main elements of the most visited part of the OnTrek site, the homepage. The technologies here include rich interfaces, user registrations, and many navigational items.

Chapter 8: Reaching Prospects — This discusses the area of the site dedicated to educating prospects about TechPoint's products and services. This includes delivering video, implementing calendars, and core technology items like ListSummaries.

Chapter 9: Generating Leads through Campaign Optimization — This chapter discusses PageBuilder in depth, and how it can be paired with abilities like multivariate testing and analytics.

Chapter 10: Supporting Customers — This chapter discusses the technology that creates a successful customer support portal. It focuses on the roll of community generated content as well as editorial managed information.

Chapter 11: Implementing the OnTrek Social Network — Social Software has become an essential part of modern websites. This chapter introduces the Ektron CMS Framework's social software and works through the process of building the Community Network.

Chapter 12: Creating the Catalog of Products for the eCommerce Storefront — This chapter discusses how to create the product catalog for the OnTrek storefront using Ektron's eCommerce. It focuses primarily on configuring software options rather than development.

Chapter 13: Constructing the Online Storefront with eCommerce — This chapter discusses how to implement OnTrek's online storefront using Ektron's eCommerce. It focuses on the available server controls and how to combine them to create a meaningful shopping experience.

Part 3: Deploying the TechPoint Site

Once implementation has finished, the process of bringing the website live begins — along with maintenance and reporting. These chapters give you hints and tips on how to continue to achieve the goals that were originally set for your website.

Chapter 14: Deploying Your Website — This chapter discusses the process for deploying a fully developed and tested site.

Chapter 15: Maintaining Your Website — A site is dynamic — once it is live, ongoing work is needed to ensure that the content remains relevant and that it meets and continues to meet the business objectives.

Chapter 16: Next Steps — This chapter provides a review of the information covered and provides the reader with direction to learn more about Ektron.

What You Need to Use This Book

You need to have the following software installed on your computer to run the examples in this book:

Ektron Framework 8.0.2: The current version as of this writing is 8.0.2 and all of the code samples, screenshots, and instructions will be written against it. If you're using an earlier or later version, you might have to adjust the information slightly to accommodate modifications provided in newer versions of the software.

OnTrek Starter Site: Ektron makes several starter sites available for free to developers using the Ektron Framework. OnTrek is one of these starter sites, and this book uses it to discuss the various capabilities made available by the framework. It is recommended that you have this installed if you want to work through the examples in the book.

Microsoft Visual Studio: There are many different flavors of Microsoft Visual Studio these days — Visual Studio Web Developer Express Edition, Visual Studio Professional Edition, and Visual Studio for Architects, to name just a few. You will need at least Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or later and it's recommended that you use the paid Professional Edition, but the free Web Developer Express Edition will work for most examples as well. Because you're creating Web projects, you cannot use Visual Studio Visual C# Express Edition or Visual Studio Visual Basic because they lack the ability to create Web projects, templates and resources.

ASP.NET 3.5 or Later: The Ektron Framework requires at least ASP.NET 3.5 but you can run it and all the code samples found in this book on the latest .NET 4.0 Runtime.

Conventions

To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what's happening, we've used a number of conventions throughout the book.

Boxes with a warning icon like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text.

The pencil icon indicates notes, tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion.

Use Case Title

We place Use Case examples in this format. Use Cases present the potential users of the Ektron site and illustrate how a user may approach and/or interact with the site.

As for styles in the text:

We highlight new terms and important words when we introduce them.

We show keyboard strokes like this: Ctrl+A.

We show file names, URLs, and code within the text like so: persistence.properties.

We present code in two different ways:

We use a monofont type with no highlighting for most code examples.

We use bold to emphasize code that's particularly important in the present context.

Source Code

As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually or to use the source code files that accompany the book. All of the source code used in this book is available for download at www.wrox.com. You will find that the code snippets from the source code are accompanied by a download icon and note indicating the name of the program so you know it's available for download and can easily locate it in the download file. Once at the site, simply locate the book's title (either by using the Search box or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book's detail page to obtain all the source code for the book.

Listings include the filename in the title. If it is just a code snippet, you'll find the filename in a code note such as this:

code snippet filename

Because many books have similar titles, you may find it easiest to search by ISBN; this book's ISBN is 978-0-470-88569-7.

Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternately, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

Errata

We make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake or faulty piece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata you may save another reader hours of frustration and at the same time you will be helping us provide even higher quality information.

To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page you can view all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors.

A complete book list including links to each book's errata is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don't spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. We'll check the information and, if appropriate, post a message to the book's errata page and fix the problem in subsequent editions of the book.

P2P.Wrox.Com

For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a Web-based system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies and interact with other readers and technology users. The forums offer a subscription feature to e-mail you topics of interest of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

At p2p.wrox.com you will find a number of different forums that will help you not only as you read this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow these steps:

1. Go to p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link.

2. Read the terms of use and click Agree.

3. Complete the required information to join as well as any optional information you wish to provide and click Submit.

4. You will receive an e-mail with information describing how to verify your account and complete the joining process.

You can read messages in the forums without joining P2P but in order to post your own messages, you must join.

Once you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post. You can read messages at any time on the Web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum e-mailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.

For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.

Part I

Getting Started

Chapter 1: Introducing Ektron

Chapter 2: The Ektron Web Project Methodology

Chapter 3: The Implementation Guide

Chapter 4: Configuring Your Development Environment

Chapter 1

Introducing Ektron

What is Ektron?

What support and services does Ektron provide?

What makes the Ektron Framework unique?

Who uses Ektron?

Welcome to the first ever Ektron book. As explained in the Introduction, the ultimate goal of this book is to give you a solid understanding of how to achieve success with your Ektron Web projects. As a developer using the Ektron Framework, you not only have access to its full suite of software components designed to help you build compelling and engaging websites, but you also have an entire array of services and support available at your fingertips from the online developer community, Ektron's Global Partner Network, Ektron's own Best Practices, Professional Services, and Training teams. Understanding that Ektron provides not just a framework, but also a complete solution, is the first step to achieving success with Ektron. This chapter offers a high-level introduction to both Ektron as a company (Ektron, Inc.) and the Ektron Framework to give you an understanding of what that complete solution looks like.

Ektron: The Company

Ektron is a global Web solutions leader, providing a Web content management, marketing optimization, and social software platform, founded in 1998 and headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Ektron's founders, Bill and Ed Rogers, are the driving force behind the company, setting strategic direction and aligning product development with their forward-looking vision for website technology. They founded Ektron ten years ago with a simple and clear vision: enable non-technical people to author and publish content easily on the Web. As an integrated solutions company, Ektron is dedicated to the success of its customers' and partners' Web projects as well as the entire lifecycle of their websites. In addition to software offerings, Ektron has built the services infrastructure to ensure the success of its clients' and partners' Web projects.

From building a software platform capable of supporting the benefits of an active virtual community to building relationships that benefit their customers and company alike, Bill and Ed believe in the power of community. The Ektron community spans the online world and in-person interactive opportunities such as Ektron's local user group tour and worldwide user conference. The members of this community have become trusted resources both inside and outside of Ektron, driving product innovation and contributing to the success of each other's projects.

Ektron's Community, Support, and Services

Ektron's approach to enabling customer success revolves around maintaining an ongoing conversation through many mediums, ensuring that developers and content managers can reach people in the know through whatever format is most useful to them. Through the use of online peer-to-peer interaction, a multilevel support infrastructure, and the availability of professional services staff, Ektron has made finding help on a given issue quick and easy.

Ektron's Online Community

Ektron has demonstrated that it understands the importance of engaging social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in order to connect with its current and potential customers. On Twitter, Ektron can be seen interacting with customers, partners, and analysts, engaging potential customers, and sharing information on topics concerning CMS and Web technology. Technical support plays an important role on Twitter as well, as Ektron engages with customers to promote the , a peer-to-peer support area for clients to assist one another with problems and ask general questions, with input from Ektron technical support and engineering staff.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!