A CMS may support the following features:

identification of all key users and their content management roles; the ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or types; definition of workflow tasks for collaborative creation, often coupled with event messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content (For example, a content creator submits a story, which is published only after the copy editor revises it and the editor-in-chief approves it.); the ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content; the ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content (Increasingly, the repository is an inherent part of the system, and incorporates enterprise search and retrieval.); separation of content's semantic layer from its layout (For example, the CMS may automatically set the color, fonts, or emphasis of text.)

Many companies are interested in the possibilities of content management, to help them build websites which are easy to maintain. But the prohibitive cost of most commercial content management systems (CMSs) can be a put off. We offer a cost effective way to build a "content managed website". In this series of articles, we review some of the better known offerings, and explain how they could be put to use within an organisation.