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What is a CCMS?

What is a Component Content Management System?

A Component Content Management System (CCMS), is a content management platform that segments content into discrete, self-contained components which can easily be shared and reused across any number of publications and channels — from internal and external corporate communications to product training, technical documentation, learning & development, customer education, and everything in between.

Sometimes referred to as a Learning Content Management System (LCMS), a CCMS makes it possible to share and reuse individual content components, from single paragraphs, procedural steps, images, tables or even a single title.

These components are stored in a centralized content repository, making it easy to reuse and streamline content across different channels. A robust CCMS allows content groups across the organization to create, manage, publish, reuse and store content components at a granular level, even when operating on a global scale.

Driving efficiency with Component Content Management

A CCMS allows organizations to improve content management ROI across the extended enterprise by centralizing content in order to streamline processes, increase agility, and drive a better user experience.

Traditional content creation with off-the-shelf tools is managed at the document level, causing inefficiencies, inaccuracies and duplication of work. Managing content at the component level makes content smarter and more powerful by ensuring accurate and consistent branding, reducing time to market, supporting collaboration across the extended enterprise, and ultimately improving the customer experience.
Xyleme CCMS - Component Content Management System - Reuse graphic
Xyleme CCMS makes it easy & efficient to reuse content components across the enterprise with intelligent linking.
Not only does a Component Content Management System centralize content creation, maintenance, publishing, delivery and reuse, it also makes it easy to personalize content at scale for global audiences.
 
A CCMS also allows organizations to reuse content components across teams and platforms throughout the extended enterprise, while simplifying maintenance processes, expanding delivery channels, and simultaneously providing robust security, access controls, and version histories to support regulatory compliance.
What is a CCMS? Xyleme Component Content Management System graphic

How a CCMS supports the extended enterprise

Xyleme CCMS - Component

Improves Agility & Speed to Market

Reduce time to market with centralized, reusable content, built-in publishing templates, collaborative workflows and seamless updates at the component level.

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Simplifies Reuse & Personalization at Scale

Drive a better customer & user experience through simplified personalization and localization by reusing core content & customizing the context around it for any number of diverse audiences.

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Supports Collaboration Across Teams

Streamline communication with collaborative review sessions & real-time feedback, & share and reuse content components across the extended enterprise.

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Ensures Quality & Consistency

Eliminate design inconsistencies & improve the end-user experience with a multitude of built-in, branded templates and enterprise taxonomy alignment.

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Facilitates Regulatory & Audit Compliance

Track employee & customer activity at the version level to gain an accurate picture of content & user histories in order to support legal discovery, simplify audit requests & facilitate regulatory compliance.

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Lowers Translation Costs

Simplify translation management & reduce costs by only exporting & importing components that require translation, without manually packaging or un-packaging files.

Key Features of a CCMS

Centralized Content Management

A single-source centralized content repository eliminates content silos and maintenance headaches. Unlike other tools, a Component Content Management System provides authors the ability to create, store and search libraries of content components all in one location. From searching a keyword in a publication, to jumping to a specific page — with a CCMS, searching across the content landscape doesn't require logging into multiple systems. Centralization and searchability allows for specific content components to be found quickly and at the point of need. Content teams can search libraries for existing components of content of any size, from a table to a single topic. Built-in reporting allows authors to see exactly where each piece of content has been used (and reused). Powerful metadata tagging also allows authors to track their content lifecycle. With the ability to tag properties at the component level (paragraph, image, question table, etc.), data is provided on the most granular level, from who authored a particular piece of content, to when it was last modified, expired dates and more.

  • Single-source content creation

  • Searchable media and document libraries

  • Micro-component repository

Omni-Channel Publishing

​A CCMS uses standard XML language that makes content rich and dynamic. Publishing themes give content teams the flexibility to publish content from one source and publish it across many formats & channels — HTML5, web pages & portals, IoT apps, chat bots, PowerPoint, SCORM, Word, PDF and more — to deliver a range of customer & user experiences. Content teams can develop components once, and avoid spending a lot of time recreating the same content for different publications. This ensures that each derivative is consistent and accurate.

  • Create once and publish to many channels

  • Link content — don't copy & paste — to easily reuse individual content components

  • Deliver both digital & printed content from the same source

Streamlined Design & Formatting

With the use of dynamic publishing themes, a CCMS decouples content from its delivery publication formats. This means content teams can focus on creating compelling content, not on formatting, layout and styling. Using publishing themes and standard templates gives users the confidence that their content is always properly formatted — bullets are lined up, headers & footers are consistent, and branding is intact — without constantly having to reformat layouts.

  • Standardized publishing layouts

  • Consistent brand alignment

  • Content-focused development

Rapid Authoring & Content Reuse

Because a CCMS has a centralized, single-source content library, it allows authors to create and assemble content components of all sizes into a variety of publications. This allows for rapid assembly of content, and the ability to re-purpose content for a variety of different publication types without starting from scratch. Content then becomes a single-source of truth. Instead of copying and pasting, content teams can link to individual content components and always have the latest and most up-to-date information. If a change occurs to any content component, such as an updated procedure, a new product version or updated copyright statement, users can simply change the original piece of content and automatically push the updates to all locations where the content is used, without having to manually update each individual publication.

  • Build content in individual, reusable components

  • Curate existing content and reuse components efficiently with intelligent linking

  • Quickly assemble publications and deliver content across the extended enterprise

  • Maintain existing content in one place to ensure it is always up to date

Simplified Personalization

With a Component Content Management System, delivering a personalized user experience starts with filtering. Filtering allows content teams to adapt content for specific audiences across different languages, regions, roles and any number of other parameters. A CCMS provides the flexibility for users to access the specific content they need at the point of need, from novice to expert and everything in between. Providing personalization with the push of a button allows organizations to scale their content to serve new audiences without starting from scratch.

  • Filter by role, product, region & more
  • Support print & web outputs
  • Personalize publications for multiple audiences while reusing the same core content components

Collaborative Authoring & Review Workflows

A CCMS gives content teams a centralized, collaborative environment to develop and store structured content, allowing teams to work together in a more agile way. With check-in and check-out features, one user can be working on an interaction while another is adding in the surrounding contextual content for the same topic. All of this can happen without slowing down the delivery time. A built-in web-based review tool allows anyone with access inside or outside of an organization to review and provide iterative feedback on content in real time, while eliminating the need to manage extraneous emails and versions. As a result, collaborators and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) can see each other's edits and have an accurate, real-time view of the editorial process in order to reduce development time while also improving accuracy and consistency.

  • Built-in collaborative web-based review tool
  • Granular permissions to control access for authors, contributors & reviewers
  • Streamlined, real-time review & feedback processes

Integration With Other Tools

A flexible CCMS allows integration of external content, while still supporting the complete content management lifecycle. For more advanced interactions, external content can be seamlessly embedded from other popular authoring tools. Videos, HTML5 content and more can be developed in an author's favorite tool and easily integrated into the CCMS. This simplifies the workflow and review sessions, while maximizing control of the content itself. Organizations can also leverage data collected & export it to external business tools with built-in xAPI integration, or place content within applications & platforms already in use by the organization to get the most out of your technology investments.

  • Embed interactions, HTML5 content and videos
  • Import & export data with seamless xAPI integrations
  • Easily embed content in external business tools

Translation & Localization Integrations

Using a Component Content Management System to support localization and translation workflows helps organizations scale. With the ability to generate XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format) files — a standard format used by translation vendors — content teams can quickly export content to send out for translation and easily import it back in. A CCMS also supports side-by-side translation, so that native speakers familiar with certain industries can compare translations to the base version for review and refinement. Another benefit of utilizing a CCMS is that it has the ability to separate text strings from images and screenshots, making it easier and more cost-effective for content teams and translation vendors to manage.

  • Export translation content in XLIFF & XML
  • Separation of text strings for translatable images and interactions

Comprehensive Content Analytics

A robust CCMS includes analytics dashboards that provide an accurate and objective picture of an organization's content engagement & performance. From segmenting data by region or location, to granular page-view data, content analytics can help organizations identify trends so they can continue to refine and improve content over the long term.

  • Access to granular content performance data
  • Filter analytics by location, department, region & more
  • Track content & user activity

Version History & Compliance Support

Identify exactly which version of each piece of content was accessed, when, & by whom, with comprehensive version history reporting to support audit compliance. Whether tracking employee & customer activity or facilitating legal discovery & audit requests, having complete & accurate historical content & learner records allows organizations to manage large volumes of content with confidence.

  • Detailed content version histories
  • Comprehensive user access data
  • Simplify audit processes with detailed tracking & reporting

Enterprise-Level Security

Easily control access to content by role, region, language, or any parameter, ensuring content can only be accessed by the intended audience. Keep content safe by supporting authenticated access, IP whitelisted access, single sign-on (SSO) & public access.

  • Customizable permissions
  • Multiple access levels & options

Improving efficiency & ROI across the
extended enterprise

From internal and external corporate communications to product training, technical documentation, learning & development, and customer education — and everything in between — a CCMS allows organizations to improve content management ROI across the extended enterprise by centralizing content in order to streamline processes, increase agility, and drive a better user experience.
As delivery channels, platforms and customer expectations continue to evolve, Xyleme CCMS provides organizations with an agile, centralized content management hub that streamlines content creation, delivery, and the publishing process, empowering organizations to provide a more unified customer experience in order to increase loyalty and satisfaction, and ultimately improve ROI.

Got Content Problems?

At Xyleme, we specialize in partnering with our customers to solve the complex content problems other solutions don't have the depth or breadth to tackle.

If your content management challenges feel
overwhelming, we can help.

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