Item: Magnolia
Rating: 7
Author: David Ross

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is used as the main CMS for our digital environment and delivers the e-commerce environment for our customers. Multiple page templates, product creation and merchandising, gamification, and also acts as a partial DAM within the business.

Pros and Cons

Asset management
Page production
CMS structure and management

Ability to publish a page without all assets being made available
More user control over page SEO
Upgrade process can be convoluted and difficult to deliver

Return on Investment

Definite improvements in page creation times
Reduction in system security concerns

Usability

It is a very simple CMS to use; the structure of the user console is clear and concise, asset management and curation is very simple, although there are some challenges in the ability to publish content without all assets being available to use. Overall it ticks most of the boxes!

Performance

In general, the performance of the solution is good. There are some challenges in relation to page load speed, but in the main this is down to the quality of page template code which has been developed in house. Better control over on-page SEO would be something which would be helpful, and the creation of a WYSIWYG/drag-and-drop content page creation function would be great to have, as this would remove the reliance on my dev team to deliver content pages. Integration into other systems we have in place, such as our pricing engine and payment gateway, are all fairly simple and seamless.

Alternatives Considered

SAP Commerce Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris), Magento Commerce, part of Adobe Commerce Cloud and Contentful

Magnolia was the product of choice from the wider business group when it was implemented a number of years ago. In general, it stacks up fairly well against the other products, although there could be a slightly easier interface when creating pages. Workflows are one area which is slightly lacking in the solution but overall I am very happy with the solution

Likelihood to Recommend

It works well in the creation and curation of pages within the website when geared around product creation, it is very simple to use and train onto the team. There are some challenges in the creation of blog type content but this may well be to do with the knowledge within the team at present. Training seems to be a part of the challenge but overall the product works well and meets the requirements of the business.

Overall a good experience, although some challenges, which we are working through!

Overall Satisfaction with Magnolia