Traditional content management systems focus primarily on managing digital and meta data by managing documents. Such systems efficiently store documents in a document base and/or extract meta data from them. This meta data is used to efficiently retrieve the whole document.

Managing documents as a whole is useful if they are retrieved as a whole. But, these systems are unsuitable if there is a need for more granular access within the document. Granular access is useful to, for example, link to a specific fragment within a document, or to re-use parts of documents in various publications. Studies show that over 90% of documents in enterprises contain content that originates from other documents. Re-using these redundant fragments eliminates the need for modifying content repeatedly using inefficient copy-and-paste actions.

Issues with managing documents instead of components are:

• Only one view of information is available to all users (that of the whole document)
• The conflict between ease of use and maintainability of a document promotes unmanaged data replication
• The complexity makes accurate interpretation/application very difficult for many users (they have to search, read, and interpret non-relevant data)
• There is no direct link between a paragraph in a document and all its uses
• There is no data integration with downstream systems (data is held hostage in documents)

Traditional content management systems try to solve the re-usability challenge at the component level by shredding documents into predefined chunks which are managed separately. Handling documents in this manner has major disadvantages: the setup of the shredder determines the granularity and it cannot be changed. Also, it is not possible to address any fragment within the chunk.

End-users of content management systems that use shredding are confronted with the following dilemma: no matter what shredding level they choose, over time there will be a need for a different granularity.

X-Hive/Docato has a different approach to solve this problem. Within X-Hive/Docato any part of any component is addressable either by linking to it or by re-using it in another component.

Component Content Management ?
Definition: Component Content Management systems differ from other types of content management systems by addressing and linking content at any level regardless of the physical structure. A Component Content Management system can therefore be defined as: "A Content Management System with the ability to build end-user publications out of re-usable information fragments where anything within the content base can be a fragment no matter their physical level".

Classification
Component Content Management systems are able to offer accessibility at any granular level. CCMS compares to other approaches as follows:

Applicability
The advantages of Component Content Management are best exploited when content is highly redundant and is intensively updated. Managing intensively changed, highly redundant content leads to high maintenance costs. Such content appears in application areas where publication variants occur, common constructs are used frequently, tailor-made projects lead to tailor-made publications, and other systems are being fed.

• Publication variants: Publication variants are produced, for example, for different configurations or private labels. Publication variants in this field lead to small changes within the documentation. Such variants could consist of text substitutions only, or when parts of publications are published conditionally. Delivery of data to the end-user, is automated, without the need to search, read, or interpret non-relevant data, in a context defined by the user's environment, and based on user task and role.
• Common constructs: In many legal or financial documents large fragments of content are standard. Such documents are assembled out of these standard fragments with some additional unique content surrounding it.
• Tailor-made publications: Custom-made complex products or services tend to have complex documentation as well. These products or services are based on common bodies, designs, or services. The corresponding documentation is constructed from the same base documentation.
• Feeding other systems: Return digital data to feed other systems without manual entry, eliminating search, interpretation, and re-keying.

Examples

• Airplane manuals: Airplane manuals are unique for every individual airplane (tail number). FAA regulations state that every modification to a plane needs to be documented. The corresponding set of (maintenance) manuals is therefore updated after each modification. Airplane manuals tend to be quite large and updates appear frequently. An individual plane is therefore in fact a tailor-made product based on a base design. Additional complexity arises in airplane manuals when the manufacturer sends revisions of the base document set, while the airline has made modifications to the derived document set as well. Focusing on changes only, while referring or linking to redundant document fragments, can significantly reduce the costs of documentation management.
• Contracts: Legal or financial contracts (such as mortgage documentation) are customized for the personal circumstances of customers. The contract fragments are based on libraries of standard components. Documents themselves are assembled with various of these standard components. The efficiency of managing contracts based on standard components improves significantly along with overall quality. Contracts themselves can be reproduced, exactly like they were published, based on the version history of these components. An additional advantage of re-usable components is that query facilities such as a "where used" can give insight into existing contracts by answering: "which contracts are out there using this specific contract component."

Compared to current Content Management Systems, a Component Content Management System offers the:

• Most optimal re-use of content.
• Least time and resources needed for managing content.
• Least time and resources needed for producing publications out of re-usable content.
• Best quality of publications.
• Highest level of accessibility of content (accessibility at any granular level).

No predefined componentization
X-Hive/Docato does not rely on a predefined component setup. Traditional XML-enabled content management systems define a level of decomponentization upfront. Based on this level, the original document is shredded into components. The underlying relational storage model then stores these shredded documents in tables. X-Hive/Docato uses X-Hive/DB as the underlying native XML database, eliminating the inflexibility of predefined data structures of relational databases created by traditional content management systems.

The disadvantage of the traditional approach is that you have to define the decomponentization level upfront. Since the database setup is tied to the decomponentization level, you are locked in.

This means that you cannot change the level after the initial setup. X-Hive/Docato uses a different native XML approach, allowing document fragments to be addressed separately despite their physical level.

Freedom of linking
X-Hive/Docato allows you to choose your level of linking. Having total freedom to link helps but it is harder to find correct link targets. X-Hive/Docato has the solution; a unique feature called the Schema Mapper which allows for the definition of all possible link constructs for a particular project . Defining possible link constructs is a boon to the author trying to find a link target which is independent of the physical structure.

Linking and Versioning
X-Hive/Docato solves advanced linking problems in versioned content. With traditional content management systems a combination of linking and versioning often leads to snowball effects of modifications in the content base. X-Hive/Docato uses a model of abstract links which eliminates unnecessary changes in your documentation.

100% XML technology
X-Hive/Docato is 100% based on pure XML technology and on W3C standards, meaning that X-Hive/Docato can easily be extended or modified without using proprietary technology (which can often lead to vendor lock-in).

Thin client architecture
X-Hive/Docato is based on a thin client architecture eliminating the overhead of network-intensive fat client architectures. Browser-based architectures enable working in distributed environments while using standard http-based communication. In addition, X-Hive/Docato does not rely on client-side installations.

Extendible and adaptable
X-Hive/Docato's open architecture allows you to extend and adapt in an unseen but efficient way. X-Hive/Docato's user interface is build using XUL and XSLT stylesheets. Changing X-Hive/Docato's look and feel is as simple as changing the applications stylesheet. X-Hive/Docato's functionality can be extended using X-Hive/Docato's XML User Interface language and the X-Hive/Docato api.

Build to last
X-Hive/Docato offers the ability to migrate existing documentation towards new document structure needs. X-Hive/Docato's impact analyzer simulates these structural changes. X-Hive/Docato's migration utility helps document managers automatically upgrade their content base to new requirements without painful manual intervention or loss of version history.

Docato allows you to shift from SGML to XML
SGML users attest that X-Hive/Docato has the right functionality to make the shift from SGML to XML.

Component Content Management Systems can significantly improve efficiencies in Document Engineering. CCMS are particularly useful in situations where document redundancy flourishes and updates are frequent.