Features Checklist
Checkout the features included in MySource Matrix.
The table below also shows which version of MySource Matrix the feature is available in - when choosing MySource Matrix, you have the flexibility of choosing between the open source (GPL) or Squiz Support Version (SSV) of the CMS.
The GPL version is of course available at no cost and is provided without warranty or professional support. The Squiz Supported Version is a commercial version of the product which includes the MySource Matrix CMS with an application warranty and the Squiz Modules.
You can find more details about these features under Product Information
System Requirements
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache and PHP | MySource Matrix runs on the Apache web server, with PHP as the scripting language. | Yes | Yes |
| Databases: PostgreSQL or Oracle | MySource Matrix supports PostgreSQL and Oracle for data storage. | Yes | Yes |
| Operating Systems: Unix/Linux based systems | Any Unix/Linux based operating system can be used. Squiz supports Debian and Redhat. | Yes | Yes |
| Licensing Model | Squiz offers the flexibility of two licensing models. The user can choose between open source GNU General Public License (GPL) or the Squiz Supported Version (SSV). More details about the licensing model can be found under http://matrix.squiz.net/evaluations/license | Yes | Yes |
Overview
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browser Based | MySource Matrix is entirely browser-based. No client software other than a web browser is required to view or edit web content created within MySource Matrix. The administration interface of MySource Matrix is also browser-based, but needs to be Java enabled to utilise some of the backend features. | Yes | Yes |
| Dual User interfaces | My Source Matrix provides two different interfaces for users to create and maintain content, each aimed at users with differing skill levels: The Simple Edit interface allows users to edit content of a page without any MySource Matrix training. The Administration interface provides access to the full contents of the CMS and all of its functionality, Squiz recommends attending our accredited training courses available at http://www.squiz.net.au/services-and-support/training. | Yes | Yes |
| Separation of Content from Design | MySource Matrix separates content from its presentation through the use of "design" templates, which are used to define the layout and look-and-feel of pages. The design controls such things as the general "look and feel" of a page (including style sheets, common page elements (e.g. the header and footer) and the navigation structure (e.g. menus and bread crumb trails). Designs can be applied to a page, group of pages or an entire site, and each system may have many designs installed, so it is possible to have a different look and feel for policy documents and media releases, for example. Content may also have different designs applied to it depending on how the content is requested, through a public website or through an intranet. | Yes | Yes |
| Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) | Squiz has several years of experience in obtaining high rankings in Google (etc) and many features are included in the MySource Matrix core product to support search engine optimisation: Metadata is considered an intrinsic part of successfully managing assets within MySource Matrix, for search engine optimisation and other purposes. It is easy to add standard schemas such AGLS and Dublin Core, or define customised standards if more appropriate, via an intuitive point and click interface. MySource Matrix allows metadata to be: manually entered, automatically created by the CMS (e.g. the date and time a page was last modified), mandatory (pages without complete metadata will not be allowed to go live), indexed by the search engine. MySource Matrix publishes human readable and hence search engine-friendly URLs rather than a complex GET string composed of question marks, ampersands and apparently meaningless strings of characters. On creation of an asset, MySource Matrix creates the URL for a page to be its title, appended to the URL of its parent page or site. The URL of a page can be edited to a different value if required. MySource Matrix allows the user to set the title of the page to be auto generated as either the page name or page short name as required. The user can include alt tags for all images and format them as required using CSS. MySource Matrix provides an automatic keyword extraction feature to show each word extracted from the contents of the site, ordered by the most commonly occurring words. A user can cut and paste the appropriate keywords to be used for metadata. | Yes | Yes |
Creating Content
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| User Friendly WYSIWYG Editing | MySource Matrix includes a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web browser based editor. It has the look and feel of the MS Word application, and includes a toolbar with icons representative of their function. It includes spell-checking, font formatting, table creation, embedding of multimedia objects (images, videos, YouTube) and many more features. | Yes | Yes |
| Customising the WYSIWYG Editor | MySource Matrix allows the system administrator to customise the WYSIWYG editor for specific user groups, so that they are only presented with the options required to perform their job. For example certain editors may not be allowed to upload documents/images or to change font settings. | Yes | Yes |
| Image Galleries, Editing and Resizing | MySource Matrix supports all image types and the automatic resizing of an uploaded image, based on a preset image width/height using Triggers. This allows easy creation and maintenance of image galleries using tools such as light boxes to display images. | Yes | Yes |
| Digital Asset Management | MySource Matrix supports the management of digital assets like videos, podcasts, documents or images. The content can be enriched by the use of metadata, and version control processes (workflow) can be applied. Content can also be structured in the system, by storing assets in separate folders/sub folders. | Yes | Yes |
| Document Library | MySource Matrix includes simple to use tools for creating document libraries. This may include any file type such as MS Word or PDF documents. Document Libraries may be displayed in an A-Z listing, date added, date published, file type or even randomly using the asset listing tools in MySource Matrix. | Yes | Yes |
| Importing From Microsoft Word / Excel | Content editors can copy and paste content from MS Word or Excel into the WYSIWYG editor, maintaining the formatting of tables, bullets, lists etc. from a Word document. | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Word Document Import Tool | MySource Matrix includes a tool to import MS Word documents into the CMS and creates structured, accessible content. | No | Yes |
| FAQ Management | MySource Matrix includes tools to easily create FAQ sections in a web site. The Simple-Edit interface can be utilised to create or update specific questions / answers and the powerful list formatting options within MySource Matrix can be used to display FAQ sections in the most appropriate format (for example A-Z listings, listings in categories or chronological order). | Yes | Yes |
| Weather Forecasts | MySource Matrix supports the integration of Weather forecasts into the system. | No | Yes |
| Stock Quotes | MySource Matrix supports the integration of a stock ticker tape into the system. | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar and Events | The CMS supports comprehensive calendar functionality. The calendar can be displayed in different formats (annual, monthly etc.) while events can be added and maintained by an editor or you may choose to allow an end user to add events through the simple edit interface and approve this through a work flow. | Yes | Yes |
| What's Coming Up | The latest events can be extracted automatically from a Calendar and can be displayed in a "What's Coming Up" section of the page. | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Multi-Language Content | The system supports the creation of content in any language, as it is based on the UTF8 character set in the database. | Yes | Yes |
Content Validation and Accessibility
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accessibility - Validation | MySource Matrix may be used to publish sites that conform to W3C Web Content Accessibility guidelines. Sites published from MySource Matrix may satisfy all accessibility requirements up to WAI Conformance Level "Triple A" - Priority 1, 2 and 3 checkpoints. | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic XHTML validation | Content authored in MySource Matrix is automatically cleaned by HTML Tidy and ensures that the HTML code conforms with XHTML standards. | Yes | Yes |
| Spell Checking | The WYSIWYG editor includes a spell checker, providing automated suggestions and corrections. The dictionary can be set on the server for different languages, or customised dictionaries. | Yes | Yes |
Web 2.0
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSS Feeds | MySource Matrix supports RSS feeds: outbound RSS feeds can be generated by the system and are supported in the both the GPL and SSV versions. MySource Matrix SSV version can also read RSS feeds from external sources and allows you to determine the display of the RSS feed using the asset listing tool. | Yes | Yes |
| Blogging | The data sourcing module in MySource Matrix, in particular the RSS reader allows for out of the box integration with popular Blogging sites such as Twitter and Blogger. Alternatively blogs can be set up within the MySource Matrix CMS. | Yes | Yes |
| Podcasts | MySource Matrix can produce podcast subscriptions that can be used in iTunes etc. | Yes | Yes |
| Surveys | Customised forms can be used to build comprehensive surveys into the system, including checkboxes, drop-down lists etc. Submitted data are stored within the CMS repository, can be reported on within the CMS or can be exported into the XML or CSV file format. | Yes | Yes |
| Polls | Polls can be configured to allow users to vote once or multiple times. The results for the current poll can be displayed via a configurable bar chart, allowing the administrator to set the colour of the bars and the graph size. | Yes | Yes |
| Mashups | MySource Matrix includes tools that embed content from other sites or systems within your site. Tools such as Remote Content allows other web enabled systems to be displayed within the site seamlessly. Other tools include the Google Maps module to embed maps within the content or Data Source to display content from other databases and adopt the style sheet of your website. | No | Yes |
| User Contributed Content (Wikis) | MySource Matrix allows users to contribute content to a site, including pages, files or images. | Yes | Yes |
| Web Forms | MySource Matrix provides a Custom Form template that allows the user to create web forms, using a simple point and click interface, which can be used to add a variety of form elements to the page, such as text boxes, drop-down lists, radio buttons and date fields. Submitted web forms can also be extracted into an XML or CSV format. | Yes | Yes |
| User Feedback | MySource Matrix supports the creation of User Feedback forms. The content will be stored in the repository, can be sent via email to a designated person, and can be exported into a CSV or XML file. | Yes | Yes |
| Send To a Friend | MySource Matrix supports "Send-to-a-Friend" functionality. | Yes | Yes |
| Forums | MySource Matrix includes a module that allows integration with IP Board to provide Forum functionality. An additional license will need to be purchased for this 3rd party product at http://www.invisionpower.com | No | Yes |
| Members Only Areas | Areas can be defined in the system which require users to be authenticated with username/password before allowing access. MySource Matrix hides content in Members Areas from users that do not have appropriate levels of access, including removing references from menus, bread crumbs and site maps. | Yes | Yes |
Publishing and Workflow
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-step Approval Process | MySource Matrix includes a fully featured workflow engine, supporting a multi-step approval process, which may include several approvers or approver groups. | Yes | Yes |
| Pre-Viewing Content | Content may be previewed by an approver as it will appear when being published. | Yes | Yes |
| Highlighting Content Changes | MySource Matrix supports the highlighting of changes between an updated version and the live version of a page. | Yes | Yes |
| Versioning | MySource Matrix supports e-permanence with full versioning of all assets, and the system automatically stores all changes to each asset, when the change was made and by whom. This includes the archival of content which removes the content from the site, but not the repository. | Yes | Yes |
| Rollback (Viewing Content in Previous Versions) | Rollback feature in MySource Matrix allows you to navigate through the web site / entire system at a particular date and time. | Yes | Yes |
| Publishing/Reviewing/Archiving at future date | MySource Matrix can be configured to automatically publish a page, set a page into the status 'Up for Review', or archive a page at a certain date in the future. Relevant user(s) will be notified by the system. | Yes | Yes |
Site Search
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time | All searches in MySource Matrix are in real-time (i.e. changes to content are immediately reflected in subsequent searches, as any associated indexes are automatically updated when content is updated). | Yes | Yes |
| Boolean Operators | MySource Matrix supports the BOOLEAN operators AND, OR and NOT. | Yes | Yes |
| Metadata | Searches in MySource Matrix can be configured to include metadata. Weightings can be assigned to different attributes to control the rankings of individual search items in the result list. | Yes | Yes |
| Synonyms | Searches can be extended to include synonyms (for example someone searching for ‘hairdresser’ might get back pages including the text ‘barber’, if this term is set up as a synonym for ‘hairdresser’. | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic Intexing of Content | Word, PDF and HTML pages are automatically indexed when they are uploaded into the CMS. | Yes | Yes |
| Weighting of Search Results | Weighting parameters may be set for asset types, controlling in which order search results are displayed. | Yes | Yes |
| Restricted Searching | Searches can be restricted to certain areas (subsections) of a site or certain asset types (for example search only for images, documents or standard pages). | Yes | Yes |
| Searching within a Search | A search may be defined within a search area, allowing a user to refine the result list of a previous search result. | Yes | Yes |
| Search Log Report | The Search Log report allows the user to report on all searches performed on the entire system within a specified period of time. This report can be used to view popular searches on the site, and optimise weightings of assets to ensure better search results. | Yes | Yes |
Users and Security
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| User Creation | Users may 'sign up' to a site, submitting their content details (for example email address) and creating their own user account including password. Email verification may be included in this process. | Yes | Yes |
| User Types | Five types of users with varying access levels, distinguishing between content editors, administrators and normal users without access to authoring content. | Yes | Yes |
| User Security | Granular privileges can be defined in MySource Matrix: read, write and/or admin access can be granted on individual pages, images etc. Permissions can be organised in user groups and roles and integrate with Active Directory through the LDAP Bridge. | Yes | Yes |
| Password Rules | Password rules can be applied (like minimum length or excluding certain words) | Yes | Yes |
| SSL Support | MySource Matrix can be configured to encrypt data via a secure socket layer (SSL), including login pages | Yes | Yes |
| CAPTCHA | Visual keys - ensuring that data are submitted by a human - can be defined in MySource Matrix. | Yes | Yes |
| Personalisation | MySource Matrix includes many portal-style features, including personalisation of web content: the system automatically filters out menus and navigation systems that should not be displayed for a given user. Users may be welcomed by their name or content may be displayed alternatively depending on users' settings. | Yes | Yes |
Integration
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remote Web Content (screen scraper) | Content from external web sites may be embedded into MySource Matrix. Start and end tags may be specified that content between the tags should be discarded. This feature can be used to strip off the design component of the remote page, and give it the same look & feel of the site within MySource Matrix. | No | Yes |
| External Databases | MySource Matrix allows the connection to a local or an external database and to execute a query. The results of queries can be displayed in MySource Matrix as listings or as graphs. | No | Yes |
| TRIM | The TRIM module allows configurable search criteria to select a specific set of records from TRIM. TRIM documents (like MS Word or PDF) can be viewed and can be maintained from within MySource Matrix. The TRIM module allows the user to save form submissions directly into TRIM. | No | Yes |
| Sharepoint | The Sharepoint module allows configurable search criteria to select a specific set of records from Sharepoint. Sharepoint records can be viewed and can be maintained from within MySource Matrix. The Sharepoint module allows the user to save form submissions directly into Sharepoint. | No | Yes |
| Google Maps | Google Maps and the results of searches within a Google Map can be embedded into MySource Matrix pages. | No | Yes |
| Web Services | MySource Matrix includes a SOAP API that allows third party applications to communicate with the CMS. | No | Yes |
| LDAP / Active Directory | MySource Matrix provides the LDAP Bridge which allows the CMS to source user and role information from an LDAP/Active Directory. | No | Yes |
Administration Tools
| Functionality | Overview | GPL | SSV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports | MySource Matrix provides several customisable reports, including information about the number and status of objects, reports on Metadata, links report. For instance MySource Matrix will allow you to create a report 'show me all content that is waiting for approval' | Yes | Yes |
| System Log Information | System error messages are sent to the MySource Matrix administrator account and logged in a system error log. | Yes | Yes |
| Web Usage Statistics | Comprehensive web usage statistics are provided, using open-source tools like AWStats. Alternatively other products like Google Analytics and Urchin can be used. | Yes | Yes |
| Trash (Recycle Bin) | The system supports Recycle Bin functionality, allowing content to be recovered from the trash, after it has been 'deleted'. | Yes | Yes |
| Triggers | Triggers are defined to automate actions based on an event occurring and set conditions being satisfied. For example, the user can configure a Trigger in the system so that when images are created under the site, they are automatically resized to 3 size variations, and added to the “Media” folder. | Yes | Yes |
| Caching | Several cache settings can be set for pages, groups of pages and/or object types (like images or documents). The caching period is configurable and different pages (potentially for the same URL) are cached for each user group. | Yes | Yes |