If you want to know more about the new Teamsite 6.7.2 version I would recommend the devnet-webcast at: Devnet webcasts (free membership) but in short here is a quick (but disappointing) list:

1. Vista support (what now already?)

2. Teamsite and Livesite are now included in 1 install (which makes it a 1.3GB (!!) download).

3. Templating forms: one can now 'search and replace' in a dcr-form.

4. Livesite now offers 'fixed layouts', meaning that a developer can now better control in what layout area a component can be placed by teh end-user. In my opinion, this is a major 'must have' but I'm unsure if the current implementation really covers all (complex) business-requirements that one can think of in this area.

5. Livesite has better/more support for content targeting based on all sorts of profiles.

This Teamsite release shows the strategic move from Interwoven from a cms vendor to marketing tools vendor. Something that pleases Gartner analysts and that might not be a bad idea if one would have a mature finished cms tool set. :-) That's why I'm quite disappointed with this release.

I've seen many Teamsite implementations that deploy from the Staging area. This is not optimal and let me explain today why I think so.

Teamsite has excellent version management capabilities that will give you an historic archive over your website, if you chose to use it by creating editions before you actual deploy them. By passing this feature will leave you with a teamsite implementation that misses out on one of the most powerfull features. Apart from this rather theoratical reason there are also some more pratical reasons:

1. you will loose the option to rollback your website to a previous edition

2. the staging area is not garantueed to be stable during the lifespan of the deployment, which can give unexpected results

3. you will not be able to compare editions to know what has changed in between two deploys

4. you will not comply anymore with tracebility requirements (like f.i. the Sarbanes-Oxley laws)

I've written before about major teamsite design goodies & badies. Today let's have a look at some major day-to-day annoyances of teamsite. A simple "Interwoven Teamsite Wish list". Because these items are not so much tied to the design these should be easier to fix for Interwoven. ;-)

1. I think some major entry-field types are missing in Teamsite Templating (oeps sorry, "Formspublisher" we should say). Most important is a proper date-time field type with date-picker. I know there is a workaround in which you download a calendar-cgi which you call in a callout. But that sucks because it's features are very limited (date formats, time, ...) and once downloaded it's YOU who must maintain the code. And that is not why you bought an expensive cms, did you?
Another field type missing is a read-only field. Again the workarounds here are not good enough. Using the read-only field type leaves you with a field that is too large, using form-api is too complex and sensitive for such a simple wish. And also, you want to be able to create read-only dropdowns & checkboxes.

Last field type worth mentioning is the hidden-type that would take a default value.
2. The 'custom menu items' should be made sensitive to branch or workarea the user is in.
3. The current file-browser that you can use in Teamsite Templating should be extended. First of all it should be enabled for cross branch browsing, fully configurable of course. Second, one should be able to call the import-function from within this browser. So, in case a user is browsing an image file and find it missing, (s)he call upload it with 1 click.
4. Some sort of link manager should be included within the Teamsite gui. It should be able to list all broken link on a page and/or website. But also it should warn you when you (re)move file that is referenced. (In an ideal world it would then update the references but maybe that is too much to ask for)
5. Teamsite services should use log rotation. This would prevent this ever growing log files under <iw-home>/local/logs/iwui. Unfortunately, one can not rotate the logs via a script when Teamsite is running.
6. Email tasks in the workflow engine is cumbersome. You can use the email-script that are supplied by Interwoven as part of the installation, but they are poorly written, error-prone and once you use them it is, again, you who must maintain them. The better solution would be, for Interwoven, to add a attribute to a user/group-task 'email-task-owners-on-activation' that would trigger the workflow engine to send a email to the task-owner(s) when the task becomes active. This email should be send by a process that is completely maintained be Interwoven (and thus when it fails you can call iwov-support). Clearly some extra custom-configuration is required for this, like smtp-details and a user-to-email-mapping.
Let's hope some Interwoven employee reads this and add these useful enhancements to their product. It would really help us all. :-)