Let's Highlight Processwire's Ability To Be An "enterprise Cms"

[SiNNuT]

Argos' little bit off-topic post really took some of the focus away in this thread, but anyway:

If we take a look at two open-source PHP systems that are generally considered 'enterprise-ready' -TYPO3 and Drupal-, i see some things they have in common

• A very big portfolio of use in professional and large organizations, be it commercial or non-commercial, for all kinds of projects/sites
• A vast amount of companies that offer (Drupal/TYPO3) services and products. If you need help an agency is never far away. Globally known.
• 'Official' certification programs

If you look at it along those lines, which a lot of people do, PW does not (yet maybe) fit the bill. But this whole 'enterprise' thing is tricky and dependent on the way you you define it.

I would much rather emphasize on PW as a rock-solid and technically sound CMS/CMF, ideal for delivering professional, high-quality web projects.

I agree that it might be a good idea to re-arrange or add to the site, so that it showcases this more clearly. Maybe a section of featured projects that showcase PW very well and/or do something very interesting with it. Maybe companies that use PW could be mentioned somehow, like avoine.fi.

Anyways, these are just some thoughts. From a personal viewpoint (not using it professionally) i'm perfectly happy with where PW and the site stand at the moment.

[Pete]

It sounds like maybe filtering showcase entries by certain categories might help - I'm working with a design agency right now for a reasonably complicated site for a corporate client in the USA that would make an interesting case study when it's done.

What I've found fascinating in this particular case is that the chap I'm working with saw Processwire, watched ryan's video I think and was sold on the concept without going much further than that. He also had little problem convincing the client to use it.

I think that a lot of the work can be down to dev/design agencies and how we're marketing it ourselves in meetings to clients. It's making me think it's less likely that large organisations would start out by looking at a solution themselves until their dev has suggested something and then they might look into it in more detail.

Either way though you do need something on the site to back it up.

Being able to filter case studies based on criteria that might be appealing to larger customers would be a start, as would the idea of a developer directory. I know there are more devs than those who post on the forums so a directory along with which country they're in would be a relatively easy and reassuring indicator to a company performing some sort of due diligence to make sure that if one dev vanishes they've got alternatives.

[NorbertH]

I am relatively new to PW but as i am a full scale developer i really loved the concept right from the beginning(thx to Mr_Fan who informed me about PW) , but still even i had a: "huh, where is the template installer ? No default templates ?". I really can understand the problems Argos faced . You install, then whats next, how do i get a page from that point?  There are a lot of tutorials but any newcomer, who isn't a developer yet, wil say "damit" and goes back to Wordpress or whatever. Many pepole start as users and than they begin to learn. PW does not offer a user level and that's a real pity.

Lots of  young pepole start building a private blog(homepage) whith Wordpress and they say: "hey, thats simple, lets see what else we can do.".  And so they start experimenting, just to find that WP is still very limited ;-) .

Now imagine they the find that there are no real limits , that this simple basic CMS can do anything they ever dreamed of?

This leads me to the fact that pepole use what they already know. Even while there a lots of limitations in using WP there a still thousands of company websites done whith WP. So one way to spread the word about PW is to make it user friendly (that shouldn't be too hard ).

These Pepole grow up, they had made good experiences whith PW or at least they heard of PW and some of em become decision makers .....

As it is right now PW is a Framework/CMS only for companies that have a developer available. Ok, lets start from here. How about spreading the Word ? How about offfering presentations for companies interested maybe founding usergroups ?

If i Google for "simple php framework", i get a lot of stuff  but nothing about PW.

Come people spread the word!

Google For "simple php framework", "non mvc Framework"..... and similar searches , and whenever there is a comment function add PW. If there is a dev forum advertise PW , put Links on all pages , in you Facebook site , twitter about it. And the best is anyone can help! If we get to a point where the decision maker does not say "Processwire, whats that ?" but instead says "PW isn't that the new promissing CMS i heared about?" then we have won.

Managers often love bullshit, so why not make a subpage about PW in enterprise environments. Even if this page is only full of senseless diagrams and time saving examples and loads of bulllshit talking. They will love it. A list of companies offering professional PW support would help too. (Is there really only Ryan who can offer this ? )

So what we got so far?

- Make it userfriendly!

- Spread the Word!

- Bullshit page for enterprise ;-)

- List of supporters.

- Give it some time

That's all things that should not be too hard to achieve.

Just my 2 cent .

[Nico Knoll]

@NorbertH: I like your points. And I think you're right with all of them. Especially this part:

 If we get to a point where the decision maker does not say "Processwire, whats that ?" but instead says "PW isn't that the new promissing CMS i heared about?" then we have won.

[Pete]

I do understand the user-friendly request, but I'm just concerned about how it can be done without making it not be ProcessWire any more.

It's hard to make a bunch of templates when you don't know that the user is definitely looking for a blog or example - any templates that make too many assumptions will come with too many fields people won't use, and if you just stick with the default fields from the default installation but offer templates around that (there will be several with the 2.5 release coming soon) then those same people are still going to be confused even if they can see different template options

The other option that has been talked about before is having several different installation profiles aimed at the question "what do you want to build?" with options like blog, company site, photo gallery etc and have some nice tailored options that can be installed at the start to show off different options. I think this is the more viable route as it offers choice rather than just theming the default template, plus is able to perhaps better show off some of the options depending on what someone wants.

The rest of your points are easier to do, which is great! For Enterprise, I think we're getting the kind of case studies we can point to for those clients - the one I absolutely love being this one: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/7494-case-study-the-triumph-of-national-geographic-traveller-india-in-processwire/ - big project, large team and high-profile client. And as a bonus they switched from another system after facing numerous hurdles which speaks volumes - that particular development team have experience with the tools they've used in the past but they still made that switch and left their familiar territory behind for the benefit of the project.

[mr-fan]

I think one really important step on userfriendly is the new 2.5 on choose a start theme while installing.....maybe the old classic theme should replaced with a kinda minblog as a startingpoint.

So first install user can choose to start with a simple page, a simple blog or blank....maybe this would help to get every tester faster forward to "look inside".

What i really like and think it is very userfriendly is the new (ok few weeks old) tutorial place in the doc. There is so much stuff in this forum to take further for a great tutorial.

For me (and i think for all here) is a important thing that i "can" build a website for a client really really userfriendly with processwire without some given limitations like in every other cms exists

[argos]

I am not sure about different installation profiles, as they are limiting. And PW's strength is supposed to be "unlimitedness". Most websites are general sites, that need regular pages, and news/blog, and photo galleries, contact forms, etc. So I think the PW core should offer built-in modules like that. Or they should be available as ready to use plugins.

The only way a CMS will be seen as a usable system for both individuals and small businesses, is when it is a complete system. You should be able to install it, and create regular pages, news, blogs, forms, and photo pages right away. You should not have to build basic stuff like that yourself. This is the absolute basis. The added value of PW will be all the custom stuff that's possible for the more technically inclined users, and devs.

Corporate use will probably need more power than that. But if you want to cater for individuals and small biz besides corporations, you will have to get the basis more user friendly and ready-to-use than the current state.

However, I think PW is a very exciting product, and I have high hopes for continued development to make it more accessible, more allround ready-to-use, and more user friendly.

[Pete]

I am not sure about different installation profiles, as they are limiting. And PW's strength is supposed to be "unlimitedness". Most websites are general sites, that need regular pages, and news/blog, and photo galleries, contact forms, etc. So I think the PW core should offer built-in modules like that. Or they should be available as ready to use plugins.

But modules can restrict you to one way of doing things, which is not what it's all about. There are also already blog modules and form modules, and a dozen ways to build forms and galleries.

I guess it's that fine line between whether we want it to be a system people can use out of the box without having to learn anything and whether we want them to have to learn something about building websites.

It's also whether it's even a good idea to let people loose without them having to grasp how things work - you're going to get queries about how to do things either way, but when they're potentially pigeon-holed by a module (not saying that would happen, but it could) and want it to do something else than what it's designed to then they're stuck.

There's merit in both approaches, but I think continuing to roll out good tutorials and docs is the best route - that's just my opinion though.

The "added value" bits you mention are the very core of the system - they're why you would choose it in the first place over pre-built solutions and how a lot of people arrived here in the first place. The whole point of the system is it's a blank(ish) canvas and you can do what you like, with a little HTML and CSS knowledge - there are plenty of website builders out there for those that don't want this.

I don't think we should try to be like other systems. If there are people looking to build a site but don't want to learn even the very basics of the system they're using then they're going to arrive at a point sooner or later with any system they use where they will have to learn or give up, so why not land them with that choice right at the start?

Sorry, I'm not trying to start an argument - just airing my personal views same as you and I know there are plenty of people who have been here a while who share your views and mine, sometimes both

There is very likely some way to have it both ways, but I just don't see that catering to people who are unwilling to learn the basics helps anyone, at least not in the long run where they will be asking questions about customisation that we could have helped with right from the start. If anything it is a recipe for a recurring headache.

[cstevensjr]

   

 I don't think we should try to be like other systems. If there are people looking to build a site but don't want to learn even the very basics of the system they're using then they're going to arrive at a point sooner or later with any system they use where they will have to learn or give up, so why not land them with that choice right at the start?

   

There is very likely some way to have it both ways, but I just don't see that catering to people who are unwilling to learn the basics helps anyone, at least not in the long run where they will be asking questions about customisation that we could have helped with right from the start. If anything it is a recipe for a recurring headache.

Well said!

[argos]

Pete, you have valid arguments, and I see your reasoning. However, in my opinion PW in its current state is only usable for devs and aspiring devs (people who like to put real time and effort into learning the system, AND who have the capabilities for it).

Let's take myself as an example. I have been commercially building websites since 2002, and have used and tried MANY platforms, as well as hand coded HTML/CSS, etc. I do have a very basic grasp of PHP code, but only to edit simple stuff, and doing things by trial and error, and with lots of help from forum users. But I am not a coder. I regret that, I would love to have better coding skills. But I just don't have the mind for it, it's too abstract. I can try and try, but my level won't ever improve. I have tried PW for a week, spending about 30 hours with it in total. I was excited (and still am), but got frustrated in the end, because of the mismatch between my skills and capabilities, and the way current PW works. I don't want to build my own CMS, I want all basic stuff more or less ready to use, and an easy way of working with (let's call it) custom fields. PW doesn't offer what I want and what I can handle right now.

So I'm working with Joomla+K2 right now. It does everything I need fairly simply, although Joomla has its fair share of user unfriendlisness too, as most of us know. But it's very powerful and flexible, and there are many addons and themes. And for me those aspects are more important right now than the promises of PW.

I can imagine there are many more people like me. All people who could be potential PW users if the system would evolve a bit more into a ready to use system, besides the power it has for devs.

[Peter Knight]

Having worked with senior Marketing in Enterprise sized organisations and even a Fortune 500, I can tell you right now what they expect from a CMS.

Some of these might be suprising but its good to know.

• Comprehensive users / usergroups / roles / access permissions etc etc
• File management and secure file hosting
• Draft to staging to published workflow
• Related to above, ability for admins to review stuff before it's live (including getting notified when pages are ready for review) and share pages with other team members for review
• Form wizards so they can build their own forms
• Media management 
• Custom dashboards for their "own" areas
• Round the clock support
• Approval from their IT department etc who review security, upgrades, patches etc etc

BTW, my involvement with these companies was not website related but I've seen their setups and spoken with them in the past about such things.

I'm happy to run any specific questions from Ryan and Co past them if more detail is required.

[Pete]

That's a rather encouraging list actually Peter, since workflow has come up as a bit of a hot topic recently and the rest aren't all that surprising I think. Certainly, most of those are already there in one form or another and would be adaptable for more complex team scenarios with a little work where necessary.

A lot of requirements on the local government (or even national) side are exactly the same, but government are more likely to take into account the fact that it's free than Enterprise customers, though often arriving at polarised views - "Open Source? That sounds scary" versus "So it's free and we can do anything with the source code you say?"

Custom dashboards is an interesting one because what that really needsin my opinion is for one Dashboard module that other modules can have a predictable function to output to the dashboard in some way. I can see how it would work, and it would work quite well, but it is also the least important on the list I think, though people are often persuaded by shiny things in my experience, especially if they're managers who just want reports at the touch of a button

[Peter Knight]

"Open Source? That sounds scary" versus "So it's free 

Agree and have noticed that some clients devalue a CMS when they think "it's free". What I tend to do is mention that it's freely available but represents a product into which thousands of man-hours worth of development have been invested.

Still need to work on the phrasing there but *some* clients need to be reminded that just because it's "free" doesn't mean it just appeared on the web overnight. Or more importantly that it's some kind of download which then requires zero installation, setup, build, maintenance, patching, upgrades, training ... ... ... ... 

[renobird]

I want all basic stuff more or less ready to use...

I think there is just a fundamental difference between what you are looking for in a CMS, and what ProcessWire is. That's not a bad thing. Some people think cucumbers taste better pickled. I currently work with ProcessWire in a University environment (300-500 active users, depending on the number of faculty during a semester). ProcessWire has not only been up to the task, but has far exceeded everyone's expectations. Both from a design/development standpoint, as well as UX for the site editors.

One install powers a fairly complex public site (launching in the next few weeks), a faculty/staff intranet, a travel authorization and payment system, a news and events management system that handles around 500 events a semester with dozens of editors, an automated user management system that queries LDAP to determine user access and roles (runs via cron 3 times a day), Faculty syllabus manager (800+ documents a semester, maintained by hundreds of different users). Integration with MailChimp, some basic integration with BaseCamp, user generated forms (powered by FormBuilder), custom user dashboards, etc…, etc…

Do you need to know how to code to use ProcessWire at this level? Absolutely. At least a little. In my opinion, that's a good thing. It means you can respond quickly to development needs. It means you can build solutions to suit, and not rely on pre-packed solutions that may not meet all project requirements. It means that you aren't constantly dealing with security patches, upgrade, etc… From a frontend development standpoint it means you aren't trying to work with markup that is bad/dated or has 17 classes on each element.

I've been able to accomplish things fairly easily with ProcessWire that I bashed my head against for ages with other CMSs. Are all the typical "enterprise" checkmarks present in ProcessWire? No, but that isn't what ProcessWire is — and I hope it's not something it ever tries to become. At least not in the traditional sense.

Depending on your needs and skillset; other CMSs may be better suited.

ProcessWire might be a pickle—when what you really want is a cucumber.

[Peter Knight]

Tom, that sounds like an amazing project on any CMS. Would love to see a case study or some more in depth details once it's live. Goo luck with the upcoming launch.

[renobird]

Thanks Peter. It's been a massive undertaking for sure. It should soft launch soon, and after I've had a chance to actually get it to where I want it, I'll do a case study. All of the really cool things aren't visible to the public. Most of those have been working for a while now.

[teppo]

In some ways this discussion still keeps going in circles. "We want to have more site profiles / markup modules / modules in general for beginners" vs "ProcessWire is awesome for seasoned developers and we don't want that to change". Quite frankly it's still not an either-or choice; ProcessWire is extendable (modules, site profiles, templates) and we can -- easily -- cater for both sides.

We've got a lot of good ideas floating around here. We know that we need to actively promote ProcessWire and we also know that we need to provide more resources and tools for users of all levels. What we need more than anything else right now is, in my opinion, more action. For this reason alone I have enormous respect for projects like ProcessWire.tv, Cheatsheet, Captain Hook.. and all the people writing blog posts, tweeting and otherwise helping to spread the word.

That's the kind of thing we need if we ever want to be noticed by wider audience.

I also think that catering for (ProcessWire) beginners is where we're currently a bit weaker than we should be. We need more easy-to-use modules that make common tasks trivial and -- especially -- resources that help people get acquainted with ProcessWire. I'd also love to invest some time in creating site profiles performing specific tasks; I for one have learned much of what I know through the process of taking things apart and, when I'm confident that I know what makes them tick, modifying them to better suit my needs (a process also known as hacking).

That's what I see as the biggest benefit of extensive site profile library, by the way -- it's definitely not about us having everything thought out and ready to install, it's much more about us having a good starting point for a wide range of things.. and a lot of raw material to bend and twist and study as one sees fit.

For the record, one thing I've been kind of disappointed about is that the more I discuss things like CMS' with people making the decisions (or helping others make the decisions), the more I see how much they value safety. Such safety is generated by long track record, popularity and sheer numbers (end-users, developers, modules, extensions, etc.) This makes a lot of sense, really, but it's also a bit annoying when you're rooting for "the underdog"; in order to get larger audience you need to have larger audience..

[totoff]

In some ways this discussion still keeps going in circles.

That's true for sure.

and we can -- easily -- cater for both sides.

I'm not sure if we can and if we should. But - instead of walking in circles - I wanted to make another point:

if we ever want to be noticed by wider audience.

It seems to be widely agreed, that PW is not yet popular enough and that a lot more has to be done, to make it more popular. I'm not sure if I agree to that. Imo, PW is already on a good way to become more popular. I'm not saying marketing activities are unnecessary, but almost every day we see more and more PW prestigious projects go online, we see the community grow from day to day, we see more blogposts etc. etc. This is all very promising and we should relax a bit. PW is such a nice baby, it will make its way ...

[NorbertH]

Made a new thread about making PW more easy for end users as this does not belong here.

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/7565-making-pw-more-userfriendly/

[teppo]

@totoff: Generally speaking I'll have to agree with you on the point of ProcessWire growing all the time (no doubt about that), but I'm still very interested in looking for ways to speed that process up and really don't think that we're in a situation where we can simply lay back and wait.

Though it is often fun to explain to new, open-minded people how ProcessWire works, I don't particularly enjoy defending my choice of platform to people who counter every single argument with "WordPress is more popular, so it must be better". Sure, we're unlikely to be more popular than WP (and I'm not really looking for that either) but to certain extent being better known (and more widely used) should help diminish the value of such arguments

[NorbertH]

• Comprehensive users / usergroups / roles / access permissions etc etc
• File management and secure file hosting
• Draft to staging to published workflow
• Related to above, ability for admins to review stuff before it's live (including getting notified when pages are ready for review) and share pages with other team members for review
• Form wizards so they can build their own forms
• Media management 
• Custom dashboards for their "own" areas
• Round the clock support
• Approval from their IT department etc who review security, upgrades, patches etc etc

Again correct me if i am wrong.

• Comprehensive users / usergroups / roles / access permissions etc etc

We have roles management on template base and optionally a page based one .

And if it comes to highly complex Roles management its never easy to set , Typos and Drupals roles systems do not really look simple.

• File management and secure file hosting
• Media management

Do we have this ? If not put it on the todo.

• Draft to staging to published workflow
• Related to above, ability for admins to review stuff before it's live (including getting notified when pages are ready for review) and share pages with other team members for review

As far as i can see there are a few modules concerning about history of pages  but nothing that covers this points -> todo?

• Form wizards so they can build their own forms

We have a pretty nice Form Module , its not free, but great.

• Custom dashboards for their "own" areas

As whith other CMF/CMS this clearly is a thing that has to be custom build to the exact demands of that company.

• Round the clock support

Most of the time you get silly hotlines outside the business hours ;-)

Lets make a list of peoples willing to offer support.

• Approval from their IT department etc who review security, upgrades, patches etc etc

As peoples aren't open to new things alll the time this part is a thing that needs some luck if you are not using Typo.

[NorbertH]

 <irony>Smoking is still very popular, drinking too, drugs too  .... it must be good .</irony>

Btw. we should be happy about Argos telling us what kind of problems he has, most people just test , got stuck and throw it away.

So thanks to Argos !

We should listen to this.

[pwired]

I do understand the user-friendly request, but I'm just concerned about how it can be done

without making it not be ProcessWire any more.

Priceless - - - -

[marcus]

Having worked with senior Marketing in Enterprise sized organisations and even a Fortune 500, I can tell you right now what they expect from a CMS.

Some of these might be suprising but its good to know.

• Comprehensive users / usergroups / roles / access permissions etc etc
• File management and secure file hosting
• Draft to staging to published workflow
• Related to above, ability for admins to review stuff before it's live (including getting notified when pages are ready for review) and share pages with other team members for review
• Form wizards so they can build their own forms
• Media management 
• Custom dashboards for their "own" areas
• Round the clock support
• Approval from their IT department etc who review security, upgrades, patches etc etc

BTW, my involvement with these companies was not website related but I've seen their setups and spoken with them in the past about such things.

I'm happy to run any specific questions from Ryan and Co past them if more detail is required.

Thanks for the valuable insights, Peter. Originally I also started this thread with the intention in mind to compare what arguments and features other systems offer and promote, what "enterprise customers" search in a CMS and - on the other side, what ProcessWire already has to offer. Like mentioned later in this thread, ProcessWire is theoretically able to offer solutions to a part of these expectations, while others could be on the project's roadmap. It's good and enlightening to read such a checklist from the clients' side of view

[hellomoto]

I think it would be a great idea for us to set up a showcase site directed not towards end users but to developers' clients more specifically, as so many people on here have encountered, it can be difficult trying to explain the benefits on a case-by-case basis. It would be much more efficient to simply refer people someplace, or since plenty won't even do that due diligence, have a live and ready source on the web to visit with the client and show them in real time so they can ask any questions as they come up rather than put it off... (Of course anyone who wanted to like myself could do it themselves too. It's just time-consuming to do by oneself.)

I like PossibleWith.PW   I registered it and would happily donate it to the cause. 

So PW.pw can draw more "enterprise" or large-scale sites selected in/from processwire.com, give performance and other comparisons between different CMSs, maybe have a blog... if anyone wants to contribute, the Big Things Blog. We could just post inspirational and informative quotes from the forums and stuff... that are convincing and appealing to non-developers... 

Because it's like Pete said (on page 1, and then more I'm sure, as this convo has been spinning around) that we can't just have a flashy website to appeal to businesses and start like a whole operation catered to them... and like someone else said, most sites we build tend to be for businesses anyway (they're the ones buying)... but, of course, the ones buying usually like to be in control, and given that, despite not really having the expertise to make a well-informed major technical decision for themselves such as the CMS/framework to be used, will want to do so anyway. ProcessWire.com is aimed towards developers, as the CMS is, as it should be, because it's their business. When a developer comes to the site, he or she should be the one the info is targeted to because not having heard about it before, they're the only ones who will be able to make sense of the benefits. But that's why clients haven't heard about it, and why maybe we should put something together, somewhat separate, that's meant for them, that developers can refer their clients to rather than trying to convince each one individually every time…