What is a CCMS?

CCMS stands for component content management system. The “component” in the name refers to the individual chunks of content that you bring together to create your documentation. A component can be a headline, a paragraph, an image, or a list of steps, if you are creating a procedure manual.

Creating documentation by pulling together individual components might sound like a complicated process, but this approach is actually designed to save time and improve the consistency of your documentation.

Let’s say you have a description of a product feature, and this description is used in multiple versions of your documentation as well as in online help centers. If the description of the feature changes, without a CCMS you would need to manually update it everywhere the description is used, which takes time and can lead to inconsistencies.

With a CCMS, on the other hand, the feature description is stored as a “component” in one central location. You simply update that component, then quickly publish the update everywhere the component is used.

A CMS, which stands for content management system, is software that is used to create and manage digital content, such as content for websites and apps. A CCMS (component content management system), on the other hand, is used to create documentation, such as product documentation, procedure manuals, policy documents, help center content, or instructions. Both systems have features that make publishing and managing content easier, but their underlying structures, features and uses are quite different.

The main purpose of a CMS, such as WordPress, Joomla or Wix, is to help you create and manage a website without having to know or write any code. You usually do this by creating content based on certain layouts, themes or content blocks. A CCMS, in contrast, is primarily focused on supporting documentation workflows. With a CCMS, you create and collaborate on documentation, separate from layout, which can then be published in a variety of formats and styles.

A CCMS also has a much more sophisticated way of working with content, breaking it down into components that are stored, tracked and connected in a central database. This enables you to quickly create documentation by assembling and reusing individual components. When your documentation is ready, you can automatically publish it as PDFs or HTML5 files, using built-in layout tools, or publish it to CRMs, Git repositories and content delivery platforms.

Read more: CCMS vs. CMS: Similar terms for very different systems

Structured authoring: One of the main functionalities of a CCMS is structured authoring, which means you create your content according to predefined rules. These rules keep your technical documentation more consistent and accurate across your organization. Instead of each technical writer creating content however they want, the CCMS guides them on what needs to be included in each component. The technical writers don’t need to worry about layout, since that comes later when publishing.

Single sourcing: Another important component of a CCMS is that it provides a single source for all content. Storing all your content in one repository makes it easier for your teams to collaborate, helps you quickly reuse content, and ensures that content doesn’t get changed somewhere else without you knowing it.

Content reuse: Since technical documentation often includes instructions, images or warnings that are used over and over, content reuse is one of the most critical functionalities of a CCMS. With a CCMS, you can save a lot of time by repurposing the same content in different documentation with just a few clicks. You can also enhance content reuse with features like profiling (conditionals) and variables.

Version control: What if you want to reuse content with slight variations? A CCMS helps you do this with version control. With version control, you can take a component from your central repository and make different versions of it, for example, for different products, features or markets. You can also make changes to the source component, then automatically update all versions of that component. This helps you work faster and more efficiently.

Localization and multilingual support: All too often organizations see inconsistencies and time delays creep into their documentation process when it comes to localization and multilingual support. A CCMS can solve this by automatically linking the source content with the localized or translated content in the central CCMS database. In this way, you can quickly see what has been translated or needs to be updated. It also makes it easier to reuse translations, saving you costs and time.

The biggest benefits of using a CCMS are improving the consistency and accuracy of technical documentation and saving time through more efficient content creation, reuse, and collaboration.

Increased efficiency: Most organizations are familiar with the problem of trying to find the latest version of a document, then going through the complicated process of updating the document with reviews across departments. A CCMS simplifies this process by storing all content in one place, making it easy to create new versions of existing documentation, and providing built-in collaboration tools to track reviews. For example, a CCMS can be used in this way to create policies and legal documents.

Easier content reuse: It’s a common problem that writers and reviewers can describe the same thing in different ways, leading to inconsistencies in your documentation. It can also take a lot of time manually updating changes across your documentation. A CCMS solves these problems with content reuse features that help you work faster and smarter. If all your product manuals have the same introduction, for example, a CCMS enables you to easily create a generic introduction component and reuse it everywhere.

Enhanced collaboration: Reviewing technical documentation is another area where your documentation process can run into roadblocks. Documentation teams often create a document with one tool, convert it into another format for review, then add changes to the original document. With a CCMS with built-in collaboration tools, all reviews are made in the same system, notifications are sent automatically, and you get a clear overview of where you are in the review process.

Improved compliance: All companies must comply with certain types of requirements, such as financial and safety requirements, or agreements with customers, partners and vendors, but ensuring you consistently comply with these requirements in your documentation can be a real challenge. A CCMS can help improve compliance by providing an audit trail to all changes made to your documentation and by making it easy to update all your content at once when there are changes made to requirements.

Streamlined localization and translation workflows: For many organizations, localized and translated documentation becomes locked in its finalized output, like a PDF, which means that updates require entirely new translations and duplicate work, increasing costs and inconsistencies. A CCMS improves translation workflows by storing all translations in a database, connected to the source content, making it easier to track, reuse and publish translations in several formats.