portal(s) for multiple/mixed communities

Hi, my first post.

Our Centre (CENTRIM) is veering towards Plone for its
intranet and  
public web presence.


1) Does anyone here have experience with Plone serving the
needs of  
multiple communities? In a nutshell:

*  I expect Plone will initially serve the needs of CENTRIM
alone,
    intranet + public web

*  a notion, we may progress to have Plone serve the needs
of
    Freeman Centre (the building in which CENTRIM is based),
again
    intranet + public web.

I suppose my real question here is: how best to structure
things with  
that possible progression/blend in mind?

a) Is it desirable/possible/proper to have _two_ separate
Plone  
portals (one for Freeman Centre, one for CENTRIM) somehow
inter- 
linked so that searches of the former might include results
from the  
latter?

b) Or should we, from the outset, have just _one_ Plone
portal with  
Freeman Centre in mind, and CENTRIM as a sibling or subset
within  
that portal?

The catch: we should probably _not_ overtly express that
relationship/ 
subset. CENTRIM is geographically co-located (at Freeman
Centre) with  
a research centre on University of Sussex campus, but
CENTRIM is  
organisationally within University of Brighton.

I should mention that SPRU (with whom we share Freeman
Centre)  
already have their own intranet, and public presence
<http:// 
www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> which AFAIK is content-managed by
a  
University of Sussex-wide system.


2) Can anyone advise, how easy would it be for ht://Dig
searches i.e.  
from our University home page <http://www.brighton.ac
.uk/> to include  
results from a Plone portal?


3) Are there any Plone 'horror stories' of which I should
be aware?

Judging from recent experience, introducing a web-based
shared  
calendar system (SchoolTool) to my colleagues, I'm fairly
sure that  
Plone *will* be our best option. I understand that for the
more  
complex/interesting stuff, there will be a learning curve
and/or a  
price to pay, but initial ease of use and administration is
most  
appealing.


At this stage, I'm not seeking detailed how-to responses
via the  
list. I'm simply gaining an idea of who I might speak to
for pre- 
implementation advice.

TIA for any advice.

(Apologies for cross-posting.)

Regards

Graham Perrin, Projects Media Development Officer
CENTRIM - <http://www.bri
ghton.ac.uk/centrim/>
PSTN +44-1273-877922 at CENTRIM
SIP   1-747-605-9854
<http://schooltool.freeman-centre.ac.uk/persons/gjp
22/calendar/ 
yearly.html>
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Graham Perrin wrote:
> Hi, my first post.
Welcome.

> 1) Does anyone here have experience with Plone serving
the needs of  
> multiple communities? 
We have multiple sub-communities here at University of
Leicester but 
serve them all from one plone site. Seems to work well
(still relatively 
early days though.)

> a) Is it desirable/possible/proper to have _two_
separate Plone  portals 
> (one for Freeman Centre, one for CENTRIM) somehow
inter- linked so that 
> searches of the former might include results from the 
latter?
If you've a lot of interlinking, it would seem easier to
maintain, if 
all in the same plone site

> b) Or should we, from the outset, have just _one_ Plone
portal with  
> Freeman Centre in mind, and CENTRIM as a sibling or
subset within  that 
> portal?
That seems the better idea to me. You can have multiple
brands within a 
plone site, and don't advertise to anonymous viewers, the
fact that 
different areas of web content come from the same plone
site.

> The catch: we should probably _not_ overtly express
that relationship/ 
> subset. CENTRIM is geographically co-located (at
Freeman Centre) with  a 
> research centre on University of Sussex campus, but
CENTRIM is  
> organisationally within University of Brighton.
The only concern is if at some point this relationship
changed and each 
party wants to host their content seperately, which would be
difficult 
if it was heavily interlinked.

> 2) Can anyone advise, how easy would it be for ht://Dig
searches i.e.  
> from our University home page <http://www.brighton.ac
.uk/> to include  
> results from a Plone portal?
I'm not too familiar with ht::/Dig, but its easy to get
selected content 
out of Plone using various catalog searches. You can also
search on 
metadata. even if ht::/Dig doesn't find stuff you could
append ht::/Digs 
results to a Plone catalog search I would think...

BTW you can also have RSS feeds from Plone to other sites.

> 3) Are there any Plone 'horror stories' of which I
should be aware?
  Do
NOT do customisations through the web - do them on the 
filesystem otherwise you may later have a migration
mini-horror-story.
Be careful which 3rd-party add-on products you use - some
are great, 
some are not.
Zope Page Templates can be a pain to get your head around,
although very 
powerful.

It is a steep learning curve but thats partly because its a
very 
powerful system.

Hope that helps,
Nick

PS Others may have different opinions about whether to have
one or more 
sites...

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