Content management system

• US 6,356,903 B1
• Filed: 12/30/1998
• Issued: 03/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: CGI Technologies and Solutions Incorporated (CGI Group)
• Original Assignee: American Management Systems, Incorporated (CGI, Inc.)
• Inventors: Baxter, Sarah, Vogt, Lisa C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Application Number:
  US09/222,831
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/10, 707/100, 707/104, 707/1, 707/501, 707/513, 709/201, 709/203, 709/217, 709/218, 709/219, 709/224, 709/227, 709/238, 345/327, 713/201, 705/80
• US Class Current: 707/702
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/137 Hierarchical processing, e.g. outlines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A content management system for information delivery systems, including web based systems, that organizes the content of the information separately from the appearance of the presented information. The pages of the information are organized into documents and borders. Each border and document is further divided into an outline, organizing the content, and a template organizing the appearance. Individual content is stored in a native format enabling creators and maintainers to use familiar software tools for creation and maintenance. When retrieving the information, an assembly process gathers the content in accordance with the document'"'"'s outline and formats the content in accordance with the document'"'"'s template. The data structure allows triggers to be associated with content such that automated maintenance procedure can be implemented based on the activation of the triggers.

Claims

1. A content management system comprising:

a repository separately storing content, an organization component of the content and a format component of the content; and

a content management system server that accesses the organization component of the content and assembles a display of the content based on the organization component in accordance with the format component of the content.

2. A content management system, as set forth in claim 1, wherein the repository comprises:

a database indexing the content, the organization component of the content and the format component of the content.

3. A content management system, as set forth in claim 2, wherein the database is accessed based upon a site requested by a viewer.

4. A content management system, as set forth in claim 3, wherein the content management system server accesses the database, in response to a request to view a site, and accesses the organization component of the content to determine the content to display.

5. A content management system, as set forth in claim 3, wherein the database is organized such that each site has at least one document and each document has at least one outline indicating a hierarchy of the content for the document and a format component of the outline.

6. A content management system, as set forth in claim 5, wherein the at least one outline references sections which in turn reference other sections or pieces of content.

7. A content management system, as set forth in claim 6, wherein a section references a format component.

8. A content management system, as set forth in claim 2, wherein the database stores triggers which indicate a condition for which an action is defined.

9. A content management system, as set forth in claim 8, wherein an action is selected from one of generating an electronic message indicating that content needs to be updated and automatically updating content.

10. A content management system, as set forth in claim 2, wherein the repository comprises:

a repository server maintaining the database; and

at least one data system maintaining the content.

11. A content management system, as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a web server that requests a display from the content management system server and wherein the content management system server assembles at least one web page as the display.

12. A content management system, as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a personalization routine that modifies one of the content, organization, and format of the display based upon a predefined segment group to which a viewer of the display belongs.

13. A content management system, as set forth in claim 12, wherein the personalization routine further modifies one of the content, organization, and format of the display based upon a predefined test group to which a viewer of the display belongs.

14. A content management system, as set forth in claim 12, wherein the segment groups are defined based upon a relationship of the viewer to the owner of the content.

15. A content management system, as set forth in claim 12, wherein the segment group of the viewer is determined based upon information from the viewer.