CMS stands for Content Management System and is defined by the wikipedia as:
A content management system (CMS) is a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer based. The procedure are designed to:
- Allow for large numbers of people to contribute to and share stored data
- Control access to data based on user roles. User role are used to define each use as to what information they can view or edit
- Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data
- Reduce repetitive duplicate input
- Improve the ease of report writing
- Improve communication between users
In a CMS data can be defined as almost anything – documents, movies, pictures, phone number, scientific data, etc. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, revising, and publishing documentation. Content that is controlled is industry-specific. (Entertainment content differs from the design of a fighter jet). There are various terms for systems (related processes) that do this. Examples include: Web Content Management, Digital Asset Management, Digital Records Management, Electronic Content Management (and others). Synchronization of intermediate steps, and collation into a final product are common goals of each.
Why do you want a CMS? Although the definition above makes a CMS sound rather complicated, they are a way of managing your information in a manner that is simple for any user to update and contribute to. The simpler the process, the larger the buy-in and the greater the contribution to the corporate knowledge base. This knowledge base can and will become an invaluable asset to any organization and will create a history of knowledge that can be drawn upon, updated and referenced. One applicable use could be training new employees. It will be much simpler, if you can say, “Search the CMS it has most if not all of your answers. It has all of our policies and procedures on it as well as a jokes folder that you can read when you need a little laugh. Start with the Welcome Aboard section.”
CMS systems can be presented in a variety of ways. They can be very dynamic and you may have one huge system for managing everything (email, voicemail, conferencing, group collaboration, customer outreach, file management and file sharing, web site building and serving, peer review, plain old fun, etc.) or you might set something up for a specific purpose. For example, this entire web site is running on a CMS system.