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What it sounds like you need is a dedicated tool like Visual SourceSafe or Perforce. The former is an easier tool to administer and use, but the latter is cross-platform.
>>path, filename, date content created, revision date, version, content owner, images used
Everything in this list fits the description of a Perforce or SourceSafe except "images used". Now you are talking about indexing and reporting against the content of the documents themselves, which is by far a more complex operation. Even simple solutions can quickly become hard to handle.
I would avoid Excel or Access for the reason that they are not content management tools, and would require alot more work to set up and lack most of the features you want (at least out of the box).
>>2) how should I approach content management?
I'd say contacting a list of helpful professionals is a good place to start. Lemme see if I can think of one... :)
-----Original Message-----
From: Mubeena I Mutabanna [mailto:mubeena -at- hotmail -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 3:21 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Content Management
hello,
I've joined a company as an intern and will be working for about two months.
The company wants me to prepare technical documents for marketing purposes
for its products from scratch.
At this stage, I am preparing notes taken from my meetings with the
technical and communications group. Besides preparing documentation, the
company is interested in having a model devised for content management so
that any person looking for information in the future has access to
information easily and readily. I will be preparing diagrams using Visio and
documents will be prepared in Microsoft Word. My concern is not the
documentation, but the content management model.
To start with, I might use Access or Excel to prepare a table with columns:
path, filename, date content created, revision date, version, content owner,
images used etc. Is this a right approach to begin with?
As this might not be the right method, I raise some questions and will
appreciate suggestions and help. My concerns are:
Regards,
Mubeena
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