This is the responsibility of the Profiles Team and Communications Team.

Introduction

Tiki is a Wiki / Content Management System (CMS) / Groupware.

These are broad and vague terms.

• Wikis can be used for so many things. A public encyclopedia is very different than a corporate wiki.
• Groupware can be defined as "software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals". This is very vague.
• Content Management System (CMS) is especially a vague term: A "system to manage content". Just about anything can fit that definition! A computer and a filing a cabinet are a CMS 😊

Tiki enthusiasts will tell you that Tiki is a jack-of-all-trades, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, all-in-one tool which lets you do just about "anything". It could power probably over 90% of the websites in the World (Let's face it, most sites are pretty simple!). But of course, you don't want to do "anything". You have a specific objective/community/project in mind. This page will define a bit more the different ways to use Tiki.

With Tiki, you can pick & choose which features are turned on. Chances are, your project will be a combination of a few 'Use Cases'. So you can use the combined features of all appropriate use cases.

Why cater to so many use cases? A bit like speaking many languages from the same root (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, etc.), once you know 3 or 4, the 5th and 6th are easier to learn because you already have many bases. Some words are the same, or similar enough that you can get by. So each Use Case is easier & easier.

Similar to the list of features, rating (A, B, C, D, E) are to compare Tiki as an overall solution for these use cases, compared to "industry standards" in the Open Source World. So "A" means that Tiki is, for this Use Case, just as good as any other Open Source project. "A" does not mean "Perfect" or that it has all the features. Some features may be weak but compensated by other strong features. The ratings are based on the latest stable version of Tiki. If you disagree with a rating, please change it and edit the Strengths/Weaknesses sections accordingly.

ToDo

1. These ratings needs to be split, like in features:
   • Setup/admin UI: How easy / intuitive is to setup this feature?
   • UI end user : Once setup, how easy / intuitive is it for the end-user? (was it worth it?)
   • Stability: How many bugs left?
   • Feature-set / power: How does this feature compare to other Open Source apps?
2. Move to a SWOT format

Please do add links to your Tiki-powered sites which fit a profile.

Each Use Case will eventually need an installation profile to make it easy for people to get going when they install Tiki.

Format:

!!! Use Case and Rating (A,B,C,D,E)
Description of Use case, which will eventually be a profile (who/what/etc)

-=Key features=-
Including links to the proper documentation page. This will make it easier to evaluate/understand.

-=Strengths=-
Why is Tiki good at this?

-=Weaknesses=-
Why is Tiki not so good?

-=Examples & related links=-
Some good examples of live sites (Tiki or otherwise)

List of "Use Cases" for Tiki

This is not a list of features. It's what you can do once you combine those features.

Groupware Wiki / Corporate Wiki / Corporate Intranet / Team project (A)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_wiki

Wiki, Permissions, Search, LDAP authentication, File Gallery, Tracker

Permissions and number of features. Very strong Wiki.

• Webmail
• No integration/sync with Exchange
• Workspaces would be nice to deal with very large wikis

• The Word Processor being the wiki, Tiki has everything else on this top-10 list. Webmail is poor though.

Group knowledge base / Knowledge Management (KM) / institutional memory (A)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_base
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management_software

Wiki, File gallery, trackers, faq, permission, watch, Search, Categories, tags

Customer extranet / Help Desk / Product or software documentation and support (A)

(Collaboratively edited manual)
Goal: print a book, or an offline html version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_desk

register with approval, issue (closed) tracker, forum, wiki, live support, Structure, comments, Image gallery, WebHelp, PluginCode, forum, open bug tracker

Pdf support has been removed

http://doc.tiki.org

Framework / Activity Workflow / Specialized web Application (B)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application_framework

• Category Transitions can be used as a Workflow engine
• User, Group & permission system
• Smarty Template engine
• Includes Zend Framework, Smarty and jQuery

• When you'll need a generic feature (forum, etc), it's just a click away.
• Easy to customize Tiki
• Trackers can be used to create all the basic forms.

• Weak API.
• Some features could be too far away from what is needed.

• 10 different php frameworks
• Symfony
• CakePHP
• Django
• Ruby on Rails

Document Workflow (A)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow

Wiki, categories, category permissions, Watch, category watch, category transition

Tracking each edit

Collaborative research (A)

Wiki, blog, etc

Strong wiki

Missing a way to handle shared bibliography references

Voice-enabled wiki and mobile applications (B)

Wiki, Mobile

http://mobile.tiki.org

Geo CMS (B)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geospatial_Content_Management_System

maps

http://profiles.tiki.org/Cartograf

Database, forms & reports (A)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_%28web%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete

• tracker
• Better integration of user trackers (forms about users & groups)
• Multi-page forms

Super powerful and nicely integrated with wiki

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Form_Processors/index.html

Blog (several authors) (C)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Blog, Spam Protection, Comments

Can natively handle multiple blogs

Not as many nice free themes as WordPress

Document Management System (DMS) (B)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_management_system

File galleries with check-in/checkout, Categories or tags
WebDAV

Does handle non-Web things (OCR, etc)

http://www.alfresco.com/products/ecm/

E-democracy (C)

polls, trackers

E-Democracy system tutorial

Collaborative Art and Video Portal (C)

Provides an educational and innovative fun space for creative people to create poetry, stories, painting, and videos. You can also collaborate and edit each other's work.

• Kaltura collaborative video editing

Still quite new

www.theonlinequilt.com

Related links

• User type
• Major Features Missing In Tiki
• Why Wiki Syntax Is Important
• Model
• Wikis Are Now Serious Business : 10 more use cases
• Testing at Major use cases

Alias

• Use case