So how can one get started using this powerful tool? While Crafter brings years of high-end experience in the WCM arena, the current iteration of their software is still new, and doesn’t yet have the wide entrenchment of e.g. Alfresco. We’ve done some spade work to put together what we think is the best content to get yourself oriented. We hope this short list will give you a jump start on familiarizing yourself with one of the most promising new stars in the field of web experience management.
Major Resources
Introducing Crafter – A modern solution for the modern web
- Best in Class WCM and ECM – Together at Last – An informational joint webinar from Blue Fish and Crafter’s head of Products. This webinar is aimed at marketing leaders and IT managers who serve marketing departments, wanting to know what is now possible in the world of web experience management. We show how the combination of Crafter Studio and Alfresco now make it possible to have the best of all worlds.
- Building and Optimizing Multi-Channel Web Experiences – An excellent Crafter white paper that discusses what “Web 3.0″ means from a consumer’s perspective and lays out the key principles of web experience management. This paper is an excellent resource for anyone worried about how to enable business users to quickly deliver personalized, targeted information to customers — appropriately crafted for whatever device they happen to be using.
- Integrated Web Publishing for Document and Case Management on Alfresco – A webinar presented by Alfresco, which demonstrates how to leverage Crafter CMS to provide end users with rich consumer oriented experiences for accessing their content and interacting with critical business processes.
More Overview Topics and Case Studies – for Marketing Executives and Content Authors
- 7 Reasons Why Crafter Should Be on Your Web CMS Short List – Exploring the evolution of the web over recent years and its effects on customer engagement. Considers how enterprises can foster deep connection with their clients and customers across all online channels using the power of Crafter.
- Crafter Webcasts – A growing collection of webinars that drill further down into key ideas in WCM and web experience management.
- Crafter Case Studies – Highly instructive examples of Crafter implementations that show off the versatility and power of the platform.
- Web Experience Management Simplified – Crafter’s initial press release to the world, from May 2013.
The Nitty Gritty – for Administrators, Content Authors, Webmasters and Web Developers
- Crafter Training – Crafter’s own curated training course. Several Blue Fishers went through this training early in our partnership, and it is well worth the time — particularly if Russ Danner is leading, as he really knows his stuff!
- E-Book: A Guide to Modern Java Web Development with Crafter CMS – Technical overview exploring how Crafter is built on today’s most powerful development frameworks, and is a platform that will enable your team to produce engaging experiences and bottom-line results miles faster than any other enterprise-level CMS available today.
- Trying Crafter for yourself – (links down below)
- How to build a website in 30 minutes with Crafter CMS – A great quick look into what it’s like to get started in Crafter — a slice of the larger training course linked above.
- Crafter CMS forum – An open community group for questions and answers on all things Crafter.
- Crafter blog – Replete with content strategies, industry news, case studies, product updates, and relevant contributions from WCM / ECM firms.
- Crafter community blogs – A many-authored periodical with more tightly focused material including technical / development topics.
Trying / Evaluating Crafter
- Crafter downloads – Select from Enterprise or Community versions, Mac or Windows.
Technical
Crafter Technical Resources
- Crafter CMS on github – The main code repository for Crafter Community, and other related / reusable code snippets.
- The Crafter wiki – Well-organized library of intro and advanced topics, curated by the community.
- Crafter issue tracking – The Jira dashboard for Crafter feature development and bug resolution.
