MySource Matrix Evaluations

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What is MySource Matrix

MySource Matrix is an open source web content management system (CMS). Open source means it is free; free to download, free to use, free to copy and you are even free to change the software.

A free product does not mean feature poor. In fact, to the contrary, MySource Matrix is an extremely feature rich CMS and in many cases exceeds the functionality of traditionally licensed high-end CMS such as Interwoven, Vignette, Microsoft CMS or RedDot.

MySource Matrix’s development is lead by an Australian company called Squiz which also has offices in the UK and New Zealand. Its strong support for web standards has made it the most widely used CMS by Australian Government. The Australian Federal Government has completed an independent review of MySource Matrix and collated their results in a report known as the white-branding documentation suite. Download the white-branding report.

[Please note, Squiz did not receive any grants or other money for its participation in the creation of the White-branding suite.]

MySource Matrix’s flexibility, functionality and support for Web2.0 tools have made the product popular with all CMS users from all industries including Publishing companies (eg Fairfax), Online only businesses (eg Realestate.com.au), Retail (eg RayWhite), Construction (eg Thiess) and Education (eg Oxford University and Cambridge University)

MySource Matrix is intended for use by mid-sized and large organisations rather than for use for smaller systems (i.e. less than 100 pages). The real benefits of MySource Matrix are appreciated by organisations who are looking for a publishing solution that includes: 

  • A completely functional GUI cross-browser interface that does not require high-level IT skills to operate (no programming skills are needed to use any of the features of MySource Matrix)
  • Rich content editing for users with little or no IT skills
  • Comprehensive content versioning and audit trails
  • Industry leading standards and web accessibility support
  • Definable workflow
  • Granular Permissions
  • Content locking (check-out) to ensure editors can work collaboratively
  • Flexible and enforceable metadata schema
  • Link management (ie cannot delete items and cause broken links in a site)
  • Functionality to separate design from content for improved maintenance and ability to present content to different channels such as text-only or Blackberry.
  • Dynamic content personalisation and other portal style functions
  • Internationalisation support
  • Easily extensible architecture with plug-in modules such as calendars, discussion forums, search engine etc

MySource Matrix is different from most other open source content management systems such as Typo3 or Mambo. Many open source CMS follows a Lego style of development philosophy where you start with the core CMS then download and add (like Lego blocks) different bits and pieces (extensions) to build a fully functional site. By comparison, MySource Matrix achieves much of its functionality in the core or in one of a handful of "super" extensions.

For example, if I wished to create an image library, a staff directory or a document database and I was using an extension style CMS, one would pick an appropriate module for each of those functions from the extension library and configure each to work in the way I require.

Instead, MySource Matrix’s Asset Listing is capable of performing all 3 functions (and many more) and gives the user a much greater degree of flexibility to configure the way each behaves.

The Lego approach works well on smaller sites but is less effective where large amounts of content is managed. The extension based model does pose some frustrations in larger systems as extensions are not necessarily interoperable - At least not to the same inter-operability level as MySource Matrix and there is a lot of wasted (duplicate) code and functions between extensions all of which needs to be maintained and may introduce bugs.

In MySource Matrix the Asset Listing tool can be used to aggregate different types of content across a system to make:

  • A staff directory
  • An image library
  • A document library
  • A single page that summarises the content of your site
  • A harvest control list
  • An RSS feed
  • A product selection page for shopping

In other words much richness and functionality can be added to a site simply by configuring assets of the core system which greatly improves system maintainability. Of course you are still free to create or add additional extensions if you feel that is appropriate.

MySource Matrix is ready to use "out-of-the-box"; it does not require users to program the system, rather all functionality can be configured through set up through graphical user interfaces. There are in fact two interfaces for accessing and managing content. The first, known as the "Simple-edit" interface, is designed to be easy to learn and allow users with little or no training to create, edit, approve and publish content. The simple-edit interface provides a cut-down set of functions and forces users to adhere to the rules defined by the MySource Matrix Administrators.

The MySource Matrix Administrators use the second interface which is logically called the "Administration Interface". This interface allows users to define site rules such as design templates, information architecture, access rights, metadata schema and workflow. The administration interface is about as simple/complex to learn as Macromedia Dreamweaver, and consequently we encourage people to attend the accredited training courses if they will be responsible for managing sites through the administration interface.

In addition to training, there are many support services available for MySource Matrix. This website is of course one resource, and the free web forums another. Some states run regular user group meetings and a number of organisations offer professional support services such as implementation services and Service Level Agreements.

Community code contributions are encouraged however there are strict quality requirements that tend to limit contributions to professionals developers.  All code submitted to the project must be architecturally sound, pass Snoopy tests and be supplied with relevant units tests to be included in our unit testing framework before being added to the code base.

MySource Matrix is designed to run on a Linux web server, running Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL (all open source software). Other platforms and databases (eg Oracle) are also supported and you can find more information about supported platforms here.

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