Content Management Systems
The world of Content Management Systems is broad and can be confusing. As with any technology, there are trends and best practices, and these things change over time. When it comes to finding the right path, things are in some ways simpler. Wordpress has become the king of off-the-shelf CMS solutions. It often makes sense to look at Wordpress first and find a reason to eliminate it, rather than futilely investing resources. It is not the tool for every job, but the benefits gained from its long history and wonderfully diverse community can give you a great edge in shortened engineering costs. However, Wordpress is not the only off-the-shelf solution, and there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of options, and sometimes another solution makes more sense.
An off-the-shelf CMS solution is not necessarily 100% turn-key. Although some aspects are effortless, off-the-shelf solutions provide a pre-existing framework and direction for the CMS as a whole. Each of these platforms can be customized and bend to your needs in various ways. Sometimes, however, a pre-existing solution can only be bent so far. This is where fully custom CMS solutions come in.
It's not uncommon to outgrow Wordpress, or for any off-the-shelf system to be the incorrect choice from the beginning. Velocirastser has built a wide range of solutions across the CMS spectrum. From the beginning, our goal will be to help you quickly evaluate possible paths, to help you understand various pros and cons, and to work towards an efficient solution that meets the needs of your short and long term business goals.
Wordpress is the de facto standard when it comes to off-the-shelf content management systems. Wordpress is at the forefront of our CMS offerings, not because it's popular, but because it truly can help you minimize costs. It is a convenient, customizable and pragmatic way to deliver content management to your team. There are many aspects to Wordpress, each of which can help mold the Wordpress system to meet your unique needs.
Do you have an amazing in-house designer who knows exactly what your ideal CMS would look like? Wonderful! That eliminates significant work on our end while leveraging your existing team. If your designers deliver to us a Photoshop Document (PSD), we can take it from there and convert that into a fully functional Wordpress system.
Air conditioning, grocery stores and Wordpress themes. It truly is a great time to be alive. The world is full of free and very reasonably-priced Wordpress themes. Compared to a decade ago, the number of existing visual themes is amazing. You don't need to build from scratch if you can find an existing theme and let us customize it to your needs. Under the right circumstances, this could very well generate a completed project in fewer hours. Let us help you decide if theme customization is the right path for you.
Wordpress (WP) out-of-the-box has a lot of power, but it probably won’t meet most of your needs. Originally a blogging platform, that trait has become self-limiting. However, if you have a specific need, there's a good chance someone has already created an applicable plug-in that can be put to work for you with minimal effort and little to no cost. And, what happens when your installed theme or plug-in isn't quite right? That's where Wordpress customizations come in. Many of us at Velociraster have been customizing Wordpress since the early days of the platform (more than 10 years!). You can count on us to implement the perfect WP customization to meet your needs.
Want your own custom Wordpress plug-in? No problem! Whether you need one to streamline your private application, or want to take one public, we're here to help. From planning, implementation, maintenance, and new version development, Velociraster will make your Wordpress plug-in development a breeze.
Even though Wordpress is extremely common and flexible, it's still convenient for most routine usages. When your usage case gets more complicated and unique, Wordpress can start to become less appealing. This is when it's time to build “ground-up” custom solutions. Web application development is our bread and butter. Everything we do flows from this core skill set and custom CMSs fit nicely inside what we do best. We are not just a one hammer shop, we have built a wide range of large projects using a wide range of technologies. From Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP, .NET and more, let us first help analyze your requirements and from there help deliver on a technology platform best suited to not just the needs of this project but your organizations pre-existing technologies.
A custom CMS to manage content for an iPad and iPhone app built specifically for high-endurance athletes. This custom solution allowed for deep integration with the app platform for streamlined development, and management tools from race drawing over maps to real time race data modification.
This is a custom CMS for a rapidly changing and growing iPhone application that allowed for real time group messaging between high school students. Not only did there need to exist a platform that facilitated rapid scaling and frequent feature changes, but a robust system for managing and minimizing online needs. This was, in many ways, multiple CMSs serving several internal teams.
More often than not, CMSs we build are for internal usage, intended for staff to manage various aspects of the business. Sometimes staff is managing public-facing content, other times it's for internal-facing content. This project is an example of a case where the CMS itself was a public SaaS product. Far more than just a CMS, the system would allow the auto-generation of native iOS and Android apps, as well as social and .com websites, all from a single management console.
The human resources department for an air navigation service provider has a custom CMS to handle induction training for new contractors. This CMS allows for the management of new contractors, certifications, and the creation and modification of a variety of training tests to ensure all staff meet the training requirements of HR.
Wordpress, and purely ground-up custom solutions, account for a very large percentage of the total CMS needs that cross our path. There are many other CMS systems in existence, many of which have very value unique features to offer. It is absolutely worth considering all options, and when it makes sense we will recommend more specialized or alternate platform solutions. Also, if you have a specific need for a particular system, let us know. Chances are we have worked with it more than once over the years.
