can Umbraco be used for database maintainance?

using umbraco for database maintainance and retreival

[Jasi]

Hi Guys,
I am a new user here and would like know about Umbraco, a Content Management system.
I want to know if I can use Umbraco as a database management system and at the same time a content management system.

I would like to save the content I have online in a safe place so that my friends can view that and make changes if they want (I would also like to limit the security.
Can I use Umbraco for this?

If you feel that there is no such option, what is the best way to make this happen?

Thanks in advance...

[ergophobe]

Welcome Jasi

What do you mean by database management?

A CMS is not a database management system. Can you use Excel for word processing? Maybe, but you're probably aren't going to like it much.

[Jasi]

Hi ergophobe!

I actually need something like an enterprise content management system and one of my colleague had referred Umbraco for this purpose to my boss. I want to know if we can use Umbraco for this purpose and if yes, how?

My boss wants me to hold a presentation on this- explaining Umbraco as our new enterprise content management system.....

[ergophobe]

I've never used it, so I can't say. The best thing is to play with the demo, but it can be very hard from a demo to see how adaptable a system is.

In any case "enterprise" is just a buzz word. To me it means nothing. What has to happen is to come up with a list of hard requirements related to things like
- workflow
- levels of editorial control
- staging/publishing separation
- asset management
- permission levels
- multisite capability
- etc

Some of these may be important for your "enterprise" and some may not. So I would tell your boss that you need requirements before you can find solutions. It doesn't make any sense to go out solution shopping before you have detailed list of requirements.

Of course, I do understand that your boss probably is not open to this. He sounds like someone who got one little piece of information from someone at a party or a conference and now he's stuck on it.

I can tell you that I know of companies that I think made terrible CMS choices because they had people who did not really understand CMSes put together the requirements and then they were swayed by the company that had better salespeople rather than a better product.

[Jasi]

Hi buddy!
Yeah you were right! I just think that these people need to maintain a sort of database(which is the corner stone of the organization)and make it accessible for the other board members and top management people and at the same time limit authority levels to have a check on the content's security.
They have come up with Umbraco for this reason and they are so much convinced about it being FREE and we have .net developers here to help us out for any requirements in the future.

That was a great help from you and I really appreciate! Hope to catch you up for probs relating to Umbraco.. Try helping this poor soul who is stuck between the management and technology that is unknown for me :)

[ergophobe]

I've got to ask - what sort of database are they managing? Is it documents, customer contact info?

There are many ways to skin this cat and for most forms of data, a "content management system" be it Umbraco or something else is probably not the best solution.

[Jasi]

Hi...
They need umbraco to manage some of the important contents of the website that they are running and those are translated version of India Astrological science.

They have charts, maps and simple word contents an even some videos. They want to maintain these resources in a way that it is secure and at the same time can be accessed by higher management people.

Any idea....?

[ergophobe]

There are all sorts of solutions from Sharepoint to just a networked drive.

Personally, for the stuff that's just being shared among management, I would keep that on a networked drive or Dropbox or Google Drive if they don't share a corporate network. A pro account on Dropbox is pretty cheap and gives you a TB of storage.

Then for the website I would go with whatever meets your other criteria.