IBM WCM from authoring system designer perspective
Updated November 11, 2015

IBM WCM from authoring system designer perspective

Arwa Nababteh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

8.0.1

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Web Content Manager

I participated in an implemention of IBM WCM as an external facing site for our customers. It's blended with portlets to provide a personalized experience for our customer's clients. The system enables content authoring to be put in the hands of marketing with no or minimal IT knowledge.
  • Blending workflow perfectly with every component, item or content in system, thus maintaining accuracy of content
  • Keeping versions and history of all changes made, while providing details on when, and by whom it was changed. In this way, restore is easy and straightforward
  • Large set of components provided out of the box to ease building the authoring environment
  • Integration between portal pages and WCM is still not optimal, although the introduction of managed pages is a huge improvement. But adding all the changes on page and WCM in one project and one workflow is still not easy
  • Linking portal pages to site area only, and requiring a site area for each content isn't liked by customers
  • Some features like, number of views, adding comments, etc. should be out of the box
  • Some features that depend a lot on theme libraries, especially Dojo libraries, like tagging and ratting should be enhanced
  • Being a system designer, not user, I try to design a system as efficiently as possible to increase employee efficiency by using the skill set effectively
I used Liferay WCM; the open source system is too customizable such that what you get out of the box is not adequate. However, the portal pages in Liferay blend better with WCM than IBM: This is not always an advantage if you want to build a WCM site separated from portal pages. In general, a comparison between Liferay and IBM isn't valid in my opinion, IBM WCM is a more stable product and I certainly recommend it over Liferay
The content template catalogue provides a very good infrastructure to build on for customers who have much in common with features already provided with ctc, I highly recommend it as it will require less implementation time, and enhanced components design. Of course it's recommended for large scale business with many departments and frequent changes in content. It's also recommended for customers who need to benefit from portal by adding portlets and integrating with systems. If the customer is ONLY seeking a WCM system I don't recommend the product as there are more user-friendly alternatives on the market, at lower cost.

HCL Digital Experience Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG editor
6
Code quality / cleanliness
8
Admin section
7
Page templates
9
Library of website themes
8
Mobile optimization / responsive design
9
Publishing workflow
10
Form generator
3
Content taxonomy
8
SEO support
7
Bulk management
8
Availability / breadth of extensions
5
Community / comment management
9
API
8
Internationalization / multi-language
8
Role-based user permissions
10

Using IBM Web Content Manager

IBM products always moves forward to adapt to new requirements and technologies. I have used versions 6, 6.1, 7 and 8 of IBM WCM, and I know IBM is ready to revamp the tool based on emerging needs, and still provide the capabilities to migrate your old system to the newer versions.

IBM Web Content Manager Support

ProsCons
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Support understands my problem
Quick Initial Response
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help

Using IBM Web Content Manager

ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • in place editing
  • rating and tagging
  • forms
  • comments on content

IBM Web Content Manager Reliability