Content Management System (CMS)

Imagine capturing the expertise and business processes from across your company and providing your customers with persistent, automated services. Now envision creating real-time, enterprise-scale services without the need for programming. Vanguard CMS realizes this vision by introducing a new level of expert system development and delivery.

Vanguard CMS is a Web-based expert system development tool for non-programmers. CMS Web-based applications guide customers or employees through complex decision-making processes using interactive, intelligent question and answer sessions. They are core software applications that can improve the operational efficiency of your key business processes and dynamically support your customers.

Some examples of these processes include:

• Troubleshooting: diagnosing problems quickly and providing expert solutions.
• Product Selection: improving customer interaction by quickly determining the best product to suit your customer needs.
• Call Center and Sales Scripting: reducing training costs and improving employee consistency across your company.
• Decision Support: automating and streamlining common business decisions.
• Online Advice: providing users with information that is customized for their individual circumstances.
• Application Processing: processing forms and applications, and providing automatic feedback.

How CMS Benefits Your Business

Automating business processes leads to improved quality, reliability, efficiency, and overall business performance. Vanguard CMS is unique in providing the following business benefits:

• Opens development to everyone. Since Vanguard CMS does not require any programming knowledge, anyone in your organization can automate their routine business processes and decisions.
• Takes development global. CMS lets multiple contributors located anywhere in the world collaborate on an application in real time using only their Web browsers.
• Organizes and protects development. Collaboration and version control are managed with each CMS user account. You can create CMS-specific user accounts or CMS can integrate with Active Directory to leverage your current infrastructure.
• Provides instant support anywhere, anytime. Because the applications are automated and always available, they can be run by customers or employees anywhere in the world, at any time, using only a Web browser.
• Helps you to improve its performance. Usage statistics that help you to improve a CMS application's usability are recorded for each customer that uses the application. These statistics are displayed in separate and comprehensive reports that include a detailed analysis. In addition, CMS supports remote and real-time monitoring of user activity.
• Extends your current systems. Vanguard CMS integrates and synchronizes with your databases and other applications to apply your business process rules to their data in real time and generate detailed reports.
• Supports enterprise-scale solutions. CMS can support enterprise-scale application development and hosting scenarios. As a component of Vanguard's Knowledge Automation System, CMS employs grid-computing and supports both dedicated grids and grids composed of distributed individual computers.

Why CMS is Easy To Use

Vanguard CMS makes it easy for anyone to build applications due to its simple user interface and the intuitive nature of the entire system. Using the following features, you can quickly build and stylize applications letting CMS handle the logic of end-user interaction:

• Develop CMS applications using a visual editor much like word processing software. This ease-of-use makes application development available to employees with no programming knowledge.
• Format every aspect of your application, and let CMS automatically generate all of the HTML required to display your application in a Web browser.
• Enter your questions in any order. CMS decides which questions to ask, and when, based on user responses.
• Replicate your company's Web site look easily using Vanguard CMS's Style Wizard.

The following images show you how CMS applications are developed using a visual editor, and how CMS generates all of the HTML needed to display your application in a Web browser.

Define the questions and rules that apply to a statement. Statements are formatted in a visual editor that requires no HTML.

Place your questions in any order and CMS will decide which questions to show users based on their responses.

Format your CMS application to follow your company's visual style.

Your CMS application engages your users in a conversational question and answer session.

Users receive a customized results page that gives them a solution in the form of a decision, advice, or action to take.