Important Questions That You Should Ask Your CMS Development and Integration Partner
Content is king and it is also the lifeblood of your website. A content management system is the heart that allows to keep this blood flowing.
We all know that choosing a perfect CMS for your business helps to manage and publish web content easily and spread the business message to your potential audience in a smooth manner and through varied channels. But at times the CMS may not offer all the features that you need to make your site more functional.
It is during this time that integration of third party modules is needed to boost your CMS capabilities. In order to reduce the risks of bad integrations and to dig a little deeper so that you don’t face problems in future, here I have noted some important questions that you should ask your CMS integration partner before starting with the process.
What Your CMS Partners should be Able to Answer:
What Type of Integration is it?
If you have to integrate any modules or extensions to your existing CMS, then make sure that you know the type of integration suggested. Is it a REST API, a Native Windows application a web service? what are they types of data format that it can handle?
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This will give an indication of how you can integrate the extension with the CMS and how you will be able to communicate with it. You will also come to know about any technical requirements needed to create a perfect environment for the integration.
Which Versions of the Extension are Supported by the CMS?
Will the CMS support integration of the latest version of the module or will it be locked to the legacy one? Before your CMS partner decides on integrating any third party module, know the compatibility options so that you can also upgrade it to the latest version if needed in future.
What Kind of Dependencies will the Integration have?
Ask your CMS development partner if the integration is for a specific CMS or if it is a completely standalone service? Unless you know more about the integration and its dependencies, you might get locked in a system that might not be able to handle any future requirements of your business.
Since business changes over time, you might need to customize the integration to support specific requirements. If ever you switch your CMS development partner, will they continue to support this integration?
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Ask about the maintenance and license:
In most cases, the CMS implementers need to state any incurring license cost that may be attached with the integration of the extension. If any of the modules or frameworks that they have proposed have a subscription fee or a license fee, then that should be mentioned in details so that you can have a control on the price and also keep it within your budget.
Also make sure that who will pay for the continuous maintenance of the integrations.
If in case the module is tailored to your specific need, then it is you who will have to pay.