Chapter 1. Introducing Plone

The creation, organization, and publication of documents and other types of content is a common activity among organizations today. Traditionally, this is a paper process relying on either a formal or an informal process, to control the flow of documents. In a simple scenario, a writer will deliver a draft to an editor, who will review it before passing it along for publication or handing it back to the writer for revisions. Whether this is done hand-to-hand, with inboxes and outboxes, or by electronic mail, the process is subject to a number of problems––documents can get lost, steps can be skipped or ignored, and the entirety of the process is unobservable. A Content Management System, or CMS, will automate and formalize this process, store the documents so that they are always accessible, and will even act as the publishing mechanism if the destination is a website. Any organization with extensive content processes will be helped by a content management system—like Plone.