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Ektron CMS400 Review
February 21, 2014

Ektron CMS400 Review

Travis Cotton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Ektron Web CMS

Overall Satisfaction with Ektron Web Content Management System (Discontinued)

We used the product for more than 5 years to run both our public site for the school district as well as 37 school sites. We no longer use the product having migrated to the Sharepoint platform but that was a strategic decision and not one that was a result of problems or issues with the Ektron product. Ektron is an excellent choice for organizations looking to provide a template based content management system and is especially useful in a multi-site environment like ours.
  • Ease of use and integration - I'll caveat this with you need some experience with the concept of a template based solution where users are given a standard workspace but the design elements (colors, layout, etc) have already been provided by the organization via the templates. Its not a difficult concept but the system is not "built for you" out of the box but does have some templates to get you up and running. Most organizations are going to implement customization's however.
  • Good fit with our technology - This is a .NET based system which fit with our current staff's expertise and experience. It allowed us to get the system up quickly and begin development above and beyond what is provided by Ektron out of the box.
  • Administration - The system allows for adequate granular administration of the site(s). This was especially important to us as we have nearly 40 web sites each with administrators who are tasked with providing content.
  • Modules - Given that we have not used the product recently this may have changed but I would like to see more out of the box modules that address typical use (i.e. media, industry specific modules especially ones geared towards education, etc).
  • Social elements - The last version we used lacked any social integration so users were still forced to update their websites and then go out to Facebook, etc and make those same updates. Id like to see more integration between Ektron and various social platforms.
  • More granular administration with an easier interface for assignment of user rights and the ability to fine tune user group rights.
  • Timely content generation - Prior to implementation of the Ektron product the our main web site and the school sites varied in terms of up to date and relevant information. This stemmed from the fact that no consistent platform existed for users to generate content on.
  • Consistency - While not perfect we were able to provide consistency via the template model so that our sites were generally following the same look and feel guidelines as all the other sites.
  • Improved support - The product allowed us to provide better support given that all our users were on the same platform now. This also allowed us to develop modules everyone could take advantage of at the same time and very quickly.
Ultimately we replaced Ektron with Sharepoint but not because we were dissatisfied with the product but rather for strategic reasons.
The product is well suited for organizations that want end users to focus on content generation and not be involved in managing the look and feel of the site. The product also shines in multisite environments with updates to various sites being very easy in comparison to say a product like Sharepoint which, while very powerful, is more difficult to update and maintain.

Using Ektron Web Content Management System (Discontinued)

Given the opportunity to use the product again I most certainly would. I was very comfortable with the architecture and felt the product was a good fit.