Q: Is the SAM “admin”interface complicated to use?
Not at all. In fact, the SAM admin site is WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get). Moving from page to page, or section to section, in very intuitive, because its just like navigating through your “live” website.
Q: How much technical knowledge do I need to use SAM?
None. If you are comfortable using products like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, then you’ll feel right at home with SAM. But those folks with a bit of HTML knowledge won’t feel left out either. SAM allows the content editing window to display HTML as well as regular text.
Q: Do I need to install any special software to use SAM?
No, not for the Hosted Service. SAM is 100% browser-based (Windows IE 5.0 or higher). No software to install, nothing to upgrade. All content authoring and administration can be done via the web browser. If you choose the License Server installation, your server requirements are minimal if any.
Q. Does SAM work with Macintosh?
At this time no, sorry. We do plan to add full Macintosh compatibility in the next upgrade, however.
Q: Can I manage more than one website with SAM?
Yes, SAM is incredibly scalable. Hosted Service customers can have as many sites as desired; and all accessible from one admin screen. Each site is treated as a separate subscription license, and priced at a discounted rate.
Licensed Server customers can also manage as many sites as they please from one installation. Additional costs are only incurred if the new sites require different interface designs, since new templates will have to be produced.
Q: What if my company doesn’t have a large IT department with lots of servers; can I still use SAM?
Yes. That’s why we provide SAM Hosted Subscription Service. You don’t need anything except Internet access and a Web browser. Bravo Zulu maintains SAM on our servers. As a SAM Hosted subscriber you get all SAM updates and upgrades automatically, for free.
Q: What kind of impact does SAM put on my company’s IT staff and infrastructure?
None. If a customer is using the SAM Hosted Subscription Service, the SAM application resides on Bravo Zulu's secure servers. For customers that choose the SAM Licensed Server installation, the impact on IT is minimal. In fact, some of our best testimonials come from our customer’s IT staff.
Q: Is a SAM-based site viewable with any browser?
Yes. SAM publishes pure, straight HTML.
Q: Can search engines search/index a SAM-based site?
Yes, because even though the SAM administration site is database driven, SAM publishes out flat HTML files for the live site.
Q: How are user names and passwords stored in a SAM database?
All passwords are encrypted in the database, preventing viewing by unauthorized database accessors. User names are not encrypted. SAM provides initial access control via login/password support for all users. Furthermore, it also implements Role-based access rights, where a Role is a class of user with which specific actions are associated. Each user may be assigned to one or more Roles. Thus, a user who logs in as a Writer may be given different system privileges than an Administrator. The titles and rights of all Roles are entirely configurable according to company requirements.
Examples of functionality that can be restricted by Role are:
Administering users
Modifying site navigation
Publishing content
Editing raw HTML with the Content Editor
Q: Does Bravo Zulu offer training?
Yes. Up to four hours of user and administrator training is included with every license. Additional training is available on a per hour cost basis.
Q: Do SAM Hosted Service customers own the software?
As with any software product, customers license the use of the SAM Hosted Service. Naturally, you own your data, as well as the HTML files used for the “live” site.
Q: Should I be worried about security with SAM Hosted Service?
No. Bravo Zulu is acutely aware of content security issues and has gone to great lengths to ensure that SAM Hosted Service is a secure, robust environment. By offering access controls at the user, Role, and content object level, SAM makes sure that only authorized personnel make changes to your content. In addition, we can restrict access to your Content Domain if you wish. And, naturally, we routinely perform backup and maintenance for all customer accounts.
Q: What kind of expertise do I need to use SAM Hosted Service?
SAM Hosted Service is designed for non-technical business users. If you're familiar with basic Windows operations, and programs like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, you'll find the SAM environment quite intuitive. Even users with strong HTML skills—but no scripting experience—can adjust content for layout and look and feel.
Q: Can SAM work with our other applications?
Yes. One of the many features of SAM is its interoperability with other applications. We understand that presenting page content is not the only purpose of a Web site. Bravo Zulu can offer extensive experience in both integrating with existing infrastructures and implementing features such as forms and shopping carts.
Q: My company has/wants to have a central site and several subsites; how do we accomplish this?
The most straight-forward way to do this is to set up separate Content Domains for each subsite. This separates the content and the users who can access it, yet still provides a consistent way for your site developers to retrieve and display it. Because SAM templates are coded just like any other page that your scripting language supports, one template can refer to another as long as you know its URL.
Q: How do I include a banner ad on a SAM-based page?
Because the display logic on a SAM-based page is separate from the content, you can include any external references (e.g., functions) in the same way that you do currently.
Q: Does SAM support use of XML?
SAM uses XML internally for a number of purposes, most notably to store Page Type definitions. XML provides the flexibility required to handle multiple complex page definitions and their relationships with the database tables that constitute SAM Content Domains.
However, SAM does not require either content authors or template developers to understand or deal with XML structures. In addition, SAM does not require the ancillary technology that more XML-based content management systems do.
This last point becomes very important if you want to integrate a custom search engine or a report writing tool—such as Crystal Reports—with a SAM repository. Because all content is stored as text, developers don't need to include special code just to parse and read it. This simplifies Web development and makes all operations more efficient.
Furthermore, one of the features of the SAM Content Editor is the consistency and security it offers in terms of look and feel for all pages on any site that uses Cascading Style Sheets. SAM enforces all display styles defined in Cascading Style Sheets and does not allow content authors to change them. If you wish, of course, you may allow content authors to edit the XHTML coding for their content when appropriate. Since HTML is much more commonly understood by business users these days, again, no special training is required, which would not be true of XML-based documents. In addition, significant programming would be required to ensure that XML-based data and structures exposed to untrained users are valid and usable.
Q: Does Bravo Zulu offer site hosting?
Yes, we do for customers who subscribe to our SAM Hosted Service.
