Entando Technical Series

Following a series of posts to present the various Entando's technical architectural levels and functional:

Entando Technical Series - Part 1
Introduces the slide representing the Entando's Architecture

Entando Technical Series - Part 2
About the Entando Core Services

Entando Meets Open Data

A new post from Entando Universe about "Entando and Open Data":

"Open Data has become the trend of the moment. Social networks, blogs, magazines on the web speak about about Open Data.
But first of all we need to define what is open data:
“Open Data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.” as defined by the Open Definition.
The full Open Definition gives precise details as to what this means:

• Availability and Access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet.
• Reuse and Redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets.
• Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use, reuse and redistribute - there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups.

Governments have a broad range of different types of data and most of the government data is public by law, and therefore could be made open and made available for others to use. For this reason Open Data is often associated with Open Government."

Read the full blog post from Entando Universe

Entando in minutes video

In this video we are going to show you how to create easily a portal using the Entando platform.

With a few commands on a terminal you can access both administration consoles (the standard one or the other oriented to Web Accessibility ) from your browser of choice. The administration area permits you to manage Users, Users Roles, Users Groups, Multilingual, attachements, CMS, ...

The different needs of local and central Government Portals (repost from blog.entando.com))

The Governments have begun a process of "innovation" with a new approach based on participation, sharing and collaboration.
In recent years the use of the web has changed from the simple consultation of information it has moved to the ability to create and edit multimedia content, and to allow people to contribute and share ideas.
Portals play an important role in this new paradigm because they allow governments to accelerate the transformation of the relationship between governments their stakeholders (citizens, employees, other organizations).
But, are we sure that local and central Governments have the same needs?
In Entando we have a lot of case studies of governments portals, from the small municipality websites to central governments service portals, each with different needs. Infact Entando is a versatile platform that can be used to build tailor-made solutions for a wide range of projects.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Cagliari Municipality for example uses Entando for different types of  web applications: from simple informative websites to service portals for citizens and intranet for employees.
How does Entando help the Municiplaity of Cagliari to meet its needs?

• gives to citizens access to government information and services through the portals
• citizens can apply and pay for online services, with automated workflows helping to ensure efficient processing
• provides collaboration services like feeds, blogs and maps that helps citizents and empolyees to stay in touch with the governments in new and cost-effective ways
• intranet portals that helps employees stay informed and provide them with the tools they need to perform their duties in a more informed and efficient manner

So, the use of the Entando platform helps local governments to promote transparency, listening, engagement and dialogue with citizens and create an integrated work environment in which employees tracking information, receiving services and, increasingly, carry out their daily activities and their work processes.
 
CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS
But what about Central Governments? They have quite different needs from local governments. For example the Italian Civil Protection Department  or Italian Ministry of Justice, besides their need to encourage citizen communication they also need to talk to each other and provide interoperability between all systems.
For them Entando provides services and a technology web framework that helps to:

• integrate e-government service offerings across different agencies
• reduce the need to log on to different agency websites to order services or find information
• provide a platform for business stakeholders to interact with stimulus efforts and provide transparency
• tools that assist in the development of domain specific web applications and new web products
• federated portal system

Entando provides technological tools that accelerate the process of innovation in central governments.
 
COMMON NEEDS
We spoke about the different needs of local and central governments, but have they also common needs. Of course, these common needs represent the guidelines for the creation of portals in public sectors.
Entando flexibility allows easy personalization of the platform to meet government specific needs but also common guidelines offering:

• a portal that is highly configurable by an end user with no technical skill
• easy to use CMS (Content Management System)
• a platform compatible with accessibility international standards like and specific government laws for both front end and administration area
• highly interactive and accessible services that implements the paradigm of participation and collaboration
• adopts open standards and architectural patterns

If you are interested in more information about Entando Government Portals visit our website.

Lots of news on Entando

In latest months we have worked hard on Entando project and there are lot of news and innovations starting from the new brand.

After a year we finally moved from jAPS 2.0 Entando to Entando.

With the new brand also came a new logo and new image of the project and new websites are now online: the www.entando.com and www.entando.org

And what about the new Entando demo? I think it's very cool!

Also from the technical point of view there have been many innovations: we moved to github and to maven and we released of new version 2.4.0.1 with the introduction of the API Services system.

I suggest reading the following links for more details:
technology innovation;
Entando 2.4.0.1 is out

This however is only the beginning of the new era for Entando, we are working hard on all areas to reach the summit thanks to the passion of the people.

Stay tuned...