At Alighten our goal is to offer you all the options and at various price ranges so that you can make the right choice for your clients. One of the ways that we offer are able to offer some of the incredible features that we do, is by using a content management system (CMS). A CMS should be more than just a way to edit web pages. We choose the CMS that we offer to you based on the features that it contains out of the box, but also how it behaves as a development platform. Alighten uses the CMS system as the starting point for many high end, database driven features. Using the CMS system as a development platform allows us to pass the savings on these high end features on to you. Other features included in the CMS include:

WYSIWYG editing - The product can replace any TextBox with an intuitive, Word-like editor and allow even non-technical users to author and manage HTML content as easily as writing a document.

Drag and drop page editing - In an effort to make rapid and easy content presentation, the CMS provides a drag and drop interface, for visual construction of web pages. You can drag and drop different page elements and quickly organize your page structure – drag them from the control toolbar, replace or move them around and easily fill the page cells with content.

Workflow - The main purpose of every CMS is to ensure that new or modified content does not go live immediately but rather passes through a process of approval. The CMS has a robust workflow mechanism, supporting different levels of workflow complexity. It can be easily enabled and disabled, as well as applied on both content and pages level. Users can coordinate the different roles throughout the content management process to guarantee accuracy in public content.

Versioning - The CMS supports different versions of the same building block allowing rollback and comparison to previous versions. Every time a user modifies content, a copy is created in the Database – the old version is not deleted, but stored in the Database together with the newer versions. Versioning provides a more powerful alternative to keeping backup files. It can be applied to pages, page templates and any content.

Web site security - The CMS supports security socket layer (SSL) protocol and its use on page level. All information that is transmitted between the visitor browser and the web server is encrypted.

Page caching - Caching is an effective manner of improving web pages speed delivery and reducing access time. This guarantees user satisfaction and responsiveness in high-load environments.

Multiple databases - The CMS uses an embedded database tools to manage access to multiple databases. It ensures compatibility with SQL 2000/2005/Express, Oracle and MySQL.

Web farm and web garden - When a single web server is not enough to handle the traffic on your web site, it is time to consider building a web farm and use multiple servers on a network that act as a single server. The CMS supports Webfarm and Webgarden environments and helps you manage synchronization processes of a load balancing cluster.

File manager - The CMS incorporates its own manager to streamline an easy and effective file upload. It displays a hierarchical structure of folders and files in your project. You can delete, copy, move any kind of files necessary for web site construction and organize them into folders. The File Manager helps you to better manage your sites through Sitefinity’s interface.

Alighten takes great pride in the quality of our work. We work with every designer to make sure the web site has been deployed properly and meets the scope of the project at no additional cost. However, support is also available. Support includes training and CMS software upgrades at no cost.

Training - Alighten will train end users and designers responsible for updating the web site on how to use the CMS system to update content. Training also includes managing data in custom modules that we code for your client.

Software upgrades - Throughout the year after Alighten has coded your client's web site, CMS upgrades may become available. CMS upgrades may include new features, bug fixes, and/or other enhancements. Upgrades of the CMS software are available for all currently licensed support customers at no cost. All your client pays for is the time necessary to implement the new software.

If your client does not want a complete content management system (CMS) or is limited, by there existing host, to a Unix or Linux server, server side includes or SSI is the next best solution. A description of what SSI is and how Alighten uses it to benefit your client's follows.

What is SSI? - Simply put, SSI is the insertion of HTML from one file into an HTML page and then displaying a fully-constructed page to the client. SSI is an additional step in the separation of concerns critical to modern web 2.0 web sites.

How we use SSI? - At Alighten we use SSI to separate reusable sections of HTML from the individual page. This allows us to componentize the web site. For example if a web site header, footer, menu, or navigation bar is used more than once, we will place that code into a SSI file to be reused. How does this effect your client? Combined with cascading style sheets (CSS), SSI allows you client's web site to be more easily updated. Each piece of the puzzle only needs to be updated in one location and will update the entire web site. This process knows as separation of concerns saves Alighten time in programming your client's web site and we pass that savings on to you, the designer. If you would like to see how SSI effects the price of the web site please see Alighten's pricing guide for graphic designers.

Secure login, also known as Membership allows, your clients to control which visitors have access to specific areas. Alighten can provide your client with a secure login to restrict what internet users have access to content, PDF documents, and data. Secure logins can be linked to custom modules to allow your clients to display client related data from the database depending on the visitor logged in.

Options available with secure login include:

Secure login - Allows clients to login to secured areas of your web site using a user name and password. The user name and password can be controlled by your client or created by the web site visitors through a "create an account" page. All passwords are hashed in the database for additional security. The secure login can be configured to work on an encrypted SSL web page. If the web site is to be hosted on your organizations network, the secure login can be configured to use your companies Windows login information.

Create account - With a "create an account" page your client's web site visitors can create their own login user name and password to have access to restricted information. This type of account is usually reserved for your client's that would like to offer their clients the opportunity to contribute content to the web site.

Password recovery - Password recovery allows web site visitors to have their password emailed to the email address on record if lost.

Alighten has a complete eCommerce package available for you clients. Alighten can integrate the shopping cart directly into your web site using our shopping cart components. This offers your client's the most control over product display and the allows your client complete control over features including coupons, bundles, and product options. However, we also work with existing eCommerce provider to provide your client with options that fit your budget. Some eCommerce options include:

Complete eCommerce web site - The complete eCommerce web site includes everything needed to allow the end consumer browse for and purchase products without leaving your client's web site. The options included with the complete eCommerce package are:

• Product catalog
• Shopping cart
• Order fulfillment
• Authorize.net payment integration
• PayPal payment integration
• Google Checkout payment integration
• UPS shipping integration
• USPS shipping integration
• Simple shipping for flat rates

Product catalog with remote payment - Another solution for small businesses, looking for eCommerce solutions, is to work with a product catalog and use a remote payment gateway. This allows your client to maintain ownership of the products display which allows for total control over the shopping cart display. On checkout the client is then taken to a remote web site for payment processing. Alighten will work with your client to configure a solution that works for them.

Remote shopping cart - The solution with the least expensive initial cost is a third party company shopping cart host. In this scenario a third part manages your client's product database, shopping cart, payment gateway, and shipping. While this option has a low initial cost of ownership, this solution can limit design options. Alighten will work with you to determine which third party company fits your clients needs.

Alighten offers a built in blog module with every CMS package. A blog module allows your client to have their own blog without redirecting their clients to a third party blogging web site. The advantages of hosting your own blog are as follows:

• Maintain design consistency
• Easily add new blogs
• Integrate multiple blogs into a single blog page
• Show recent blog updates on your company web site.
• Ability to expand blogs programmatically

Alighten's blog module offers these standard blog features:

• Unlimited blogs
• Unlimited comments
• Comment monitoring
• RSS syndication for each blog
• Archive of past blog posts
• Tags/Labels
• Easily integrates with Digg, Delicious, Feedburner and other content sharing services

Alighten's CMS system offers a unique feature that allows you display content from a database in a single page and arrange it in the order of your choosing. This feature is know as "Lists". The most basic example of a list is an FAQ page. The multiple modes of displaying content in a list are:

Anchored list - Like this page, anchored pages have hyperlinks at the top of the page that link down within the same page to the item's content.

Expandable list - Expandable lists hide the main content, but offer hyperlinked content title that, when clicked, display the hidden item's content. This option is best for large amounts of text.

Expanded list - Like the expandable list, expanded lists can be collapsed to hide the item's content. However, unlike the expandable list, the initial state of the content is visible. This option improves search engine friendliness as all of the initial content is indexable by the major search engines.

Page list - A page list displays a hyperlink to each item, but displays each item's content on a new page with a unique search engine optimized URL. This option is the most search engine friendly as each piece of content has it's own page.

Alighten offers a news and events module that your client can use to keep their clients up to date on everything that is happening at the company. Publish press releases, conference announcements, and important events in a more formal setting than the company blog.

The news and event module allows your client to set the date for publishing content and the date for expiring content. The publishing date allows your client the flexibility to write press releases before they are to go up on the web site and have them automatically publish on the date scheduled. The expiration date allows your client to prevent the news and events catalog from becoming cluttered with out of date content. By setting the expiration date, that content will no longer appear on the web site after the expiration date.

Alighten offers a powerful events calendar for displaying and scheduling events. The event calendar can be used on secure web pages for employees to schedule meetings or on public pages for web site visitors to easily find events like open houses. In conjunction with a secure login, the events calendar offers an intuitive method for employees and clients to schedule appointments with company resources.







The event calendar is chalk full of advanced features that allow you to offer your clients the most flexibility for the buck. Some of the features of the events calendar include:

• CSS Styling to match any web design
• Ajax updating
• Edit in place allows your client to double click to edit an event on the calendar
• Drag and drop scheduling
• Multiple calendars
• Resource scheduling

Alighten's newsletter module allows your clients to send customized newsletters to clients from anywhere in the world. Collect email addresses from the Alighten "subscribe to newsletter" form, upload additional data, check for duplicate entries, then send hundreds of emails to clients. On sending the newsletter your client's newsletter it automatically publishes to the newsletter archive on their web site for client viewing.

Alighten offers a powerful site search module for your clients that want the optimal user experience. This site search feature allows for indexing of unlimited content. Dynamic data from any module is possible with this flexible indexing engine. Additional custom database tables can be added to the index by creating a new indexing client. There are two major components of the web site search module.

Search component - The search component can be added to any page. The search box sends results to the results component and links to any indexing service. Third party indexing services can be added to your web site and referenced by the search component.

Results component - The results component can be added to any page and accepts results from the search component.

Alighten offers a comprehensive contact form that can be customized to fit any business need. Additional forms are available. Each form is configured with an independent database table. All Alighten forms come with the following options:

Available input types - Your client may require formatted phone fields, dropdown boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes, and formatted currency fields, with Alighten any field type is available to your client.

Client validation - Be sure that the web site visitors are entering required information and entering it correctly. Alighten uses fast client side field validation to ensure that data is entered accurately. Informative warning can be displayed if data is not entered properly.

Client thank you email - An email is automatically sent to the client thanking them for the request. Email templates are merged with the submitted data to provide the client with a personalized message.

Employee email - An email is also sent to one or more representatives of your organization detailing the request.

Database storage - The request is stored in a database for easy reviewing at a later time. The database is easily exported to Excel with the click of a button for easy importing to any contact management software or the Alighten newsletter module.

Asynchronous sending - Why wait for a form to process when you can send it and forget it. Alighten uses Ajax technology to send forms data to a web service for handling. This process is performed asynchronously or "in one direction" so the user does not have to wait for the form to send client email, employee email, and store the data in the database.

Alighten makes it easy to allow your client's web site visitor to request documents. The Alighten document request module allows you to create a hierarchal database of document categories and link unlimited document titles to each category. Combined with the secure login module, the document request model is a great way for your client to increase customer contact on their web site.

The alighten document request module is ideal for technical documents, white papers, sales documents, and corporate informational documents.

Alighten offers(*) a unique service that tracks your client's anonymous visitors by the sites they have visited before landing at your client's site. This Ajax technology runs behind the scenes and allows business owners to quickly identify competitors and publications that influence a web site visitors decision making. This feature works by first creating a list of web sites that you would like to determine if the visitor has been to. Most lists include competitors web sites, industry publication web sites, industry blogs, and vendor web sites. Your client's list is then compared against a visitors web history. Finally the results are stored in a database and displayed in order of most viewed. The data can then be used to precisely target ad dollars.

* Alighten does not use this feature on alighten.com and recommends that your clients provide information on how they intend to use this information in their privacy statement.

Alighten offers support for both Google Maps and Live Maps. If your client has address data that they would like to display, the most intuitive way is with an Ajax enabled map. Alighten can integrate your client data into either of the top two online mapping application, Google and Live.

This solution is ideal for your clients with guide web sites, real estate sales web sites and property management web sites. Guide web sites show lists of stores and restaurants based on search criteria. The search results can then be displayed along side an Ajax map. Real estate web sites can integrate a custom IDX search with the Alighten location mapping module to display IDX search results in a map along side the search results. Additional detail on the listing, including images, can be displayed on rollover of the map item. Property management web sites can display property search results in a dynamic map along side property listings. Additional detail for tenants can be displayed as the map item is rolled over.

Alighten offers a variety of photo albums to fit your client's need. From commercial off the shelf (COTS) flash photo albums to advanced search engine optimized, Ajax galleries. Alighten's photo albums can work using folders on the web server or using a true photo album database. Photo album options include:

• Smooth image rotating
• Ajax image navigation
• Auto thumbnail generation
• Database integration for album management
• Search engine friendly content
• Banner style image rotator
• Many more...

Alighten offers a built in module that allows your client to notify Google and Yahoo automatically when changes occur to the website. Previously known as Google Sitemaps, XML site maps have become the standard for notifying search engines of changes in web content. For more information on sitemaps see the the documentation on sitemaps.org.

With the CMS system Alighten offers, your clients can quickly and safely update the website with fresh content. Combined Alighten's XML sitemap module, your clients are on their way to improving their organic search position.

Alighten offers your clients two powerful ways to add video content to their web site.

WYSIWYG video content - Simply upload flash videos, YouTube videos or other video content directly to the WYSIWYG content editor in the Alighten CMS system. This method will add video content directly to one of your client's web site pages. This method is best for smaller quantities of video content that does not update on frequent basis. More advanced can apply "script-in"(*) video content with this option.

Video library module - If your client is updating video content on the web frequently, Alighten's customizable video library is the right solution for you.  With the Alighten video library module, your client can create video tags, allow video searching, and dynamically display video content on the web site. Upload their flash videos, YouTube videos or other video content, title the content and provide a description. The Alighten video module will handle all of the formatting and displaying of the video. This option automatically "scripts-in"(*) the video content for display.

* Script-in is a method of removing the "click to activate" border that appears around video content in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Script-in allows video content to be immediately available for use by the web visitor.

Alighten offers a simple yet powerful job listing module for companies that would like complete control over their web site job listings. The Alighten job listings module offers the following features for your client as they crate a job and web visitors for viewing and responding to job listings.

For organizations listing jobs:

• Job title
• Job type
• Job start date
• Job description
• Job duration
• Job hours
• Job salary
• Job qualifications
• Job Additional documentation needed
• Automatically hides fields left blank from visitors

For web site visitors viewing jobs:

• Job search
• Job list page styled to match web site design
• Job details page styled to match web site design
• Resume upload

Alighten's job boards module allows your client to accept listings from companies and individuals with secure login accounts. A terrific way to drive traffic to your client's web site is for them to become a resource in the community. Job boards in their industry is a great way to become a resource. The Alighten job boards modules is the easiest way to add this feature to your clients web site while maintaining complete control over the design of the site. The Alighten job boards module can also be integrated with the Alighten payment gateway to allow for accepting payment for each posting. The Alighten job boards module offers the following options:

• Secure login
• Job title
• Job type
• Job start date
• Job description
• Job duration
• Job hours
• Job salary
• Job qualifications
• Job Additional documentation needed
• Company name
• Company description
• Resume database

Alighten offers an all new forums module for your client's that have high customer service demands. Driving customer support visitors to company forums can be an effective way of driving dow costs. With Alighten forums module you maintain complete design control over the forum topics and threads. The Alighten forums module has the following options:

• Secure login
• RSS feeds for threads
• Threads are added to the web site search index
• Email thread updates subscribe/unsubscribe
• Complete control of design
• Many more...

Alighten offers a full featured Polling module for managing feedback from your client's web site visitors. Polls are highly effective way to gain valuable user insight as well as increase the average time spent by visitors on your client's web site. Polls can be styled to match any web site design. Alighten's polling module has a number of benefits over remotely hosted polling services. Below is a list of the key features and benefits:

Cost - With the Alighten polling module there is no monthly subscription fee and a low initial cost of ownership.

Poll ownership - With the Alighten polling module visitors can vote and view the results on your client's web site, rather than a third party web site. Your client does not have to put with unwanted advertising. Also, polls can be placed on any page in your client's web site as well as on multiple pages.

Style - With Alighten's polling module your client can style the polls to match most any web site design. Your client can even show or hide the poll results as necessary.

Poll manager - With Alighten's polling module, your client can manage an unlimited number of polls at no addition cost. Because the poll manager is integrated into the CMS system. Your clients only have one login to manage all aspects of their web site, including polls.

Alighten offers your clients complete control of their web site allowing them toeasily and expertly manage and expand features. Alighten uses the latest tools to dramatically decrease development times. This translates into dramatically lower costs for custom features. Alighten can take your design and code any feauture. Then we intregrate your feature into the CMS system to give your client one simple location to manage all aspects of the web site. With Alighten your client is not limited to the features that come "out of the box". Obviously, cost is always an issue. If you would liket more detail on the cost of a custom module, get a quote now.