• BuildAnIntranet

A rough sketch

1. choose applications: discussions, announcements, manage info, manage documents

2. choose server: Like MSIIS WebProgramming

3. choose database, SQL Server is a good choice
4. generate content: Using Front Page works well, Python XML libraries, libraries to generate HTML

5. generate navigation buttons: GraphicsAndImages

6. test: urllib, htmllib, xmlrpc
7. use Python to automate deployment, testing, documentation
8. ????
9. Profit!

The free way

Well, the above looks like been written by and for "Microsoft people".

A potentially more stable and definitely more free way to build an intranet is like that:

1. choose applications: discussions, announcements, manage info, manage documents
2. choose server and OS: Apache on Linux

3. generate content: use a wiki engine like MoinMoin (it is like that thing you are looking at right now)

4. teach yourself and people to do it the WikiWay

5. just use it - you will see that you can do LOTS of things with that setup without needing to extend it.

The traditional way

If you need a more traditional Intranet solution, you might do it like this:

1. Find out what applications you need:
   • Announcements - this is often needed, but where do they come from, how are they entered?

   • Discussions - are these really required? Do employees really get to have a say on announcements and other things?

   • Other information - project databases, competence databases - are these already around, or is it some Excel spreadsheet someone is keeping?
   • Manage documents - are they structured or categorised in some way? What kind of documents are they?

2. Now think about WebProgramming solutions for a moment.

   • Would Zope and some add-on application (like Squishdot, for example), or even a stand-alone solution do the business?
   • Or are you looking at some development on top of a framework?
3. Now choose a server! Apache on Linux is quite nice, but you may not need Apache if you're set on running a multi-protocol server like Zope.

4. Generate content: if you're lucky, you get to choose one of the PresentationTechnologies. And there's probably lots of existing documents lying around anyway.

5. Navigation buttons don't really merit a "top level" mention.

6. Integrate into business processes - not only merits a "top level" mention, but an entire Web site devoted to it.

7. Test! It's nice if your WebProgramming framework allows development and testing outside a Web browser, XML-RPC, SOAP, etc. Like from the command prompt, for example.

Any profit will come from reducing those costs which come from people shuffling paper around all day.