10.1 Introduction to the website publishing tool

The website publishing tool is intended to provide a simple method for publishing an entire website from within Business Collaborator. Groups working in collaborative projects tend to work collaboratively in closed groups (i.e. in Intranets) initially. The second phase of a collaborative project may involve other individuals such as reviewers from outside the Intranet community. In this case the group will now be working collaboratively in an Extranet environment. Business Collaborator provides the mechanism, in the form of workspaces, for groups to work efficiently in Intranets and Extranets. The group's next phase is often to publish the results of a collaborative project to everyone or to the Internet. The Website publishing component will allow the groups to do just that.

The website publishing component should be used in preference to the built-in "anonymous" access privileges of Business Collaborator for the following reasons:

• It is easier to publish a complete folder of objects by pressing a single button than it is to change the access rights on numerous individual files.
• The website publishing tool permits the source files to be edited whilst the web site itself remains unaltered and intact.
• An individual or a group of people may preview a website prior to publishing it on the Internet
• The website publishing tool circumvents the authentication process involved in accessing files through Business Collaborator and so it is faster than simply making files within Business Collaborator accessible by anonymous users.
• Publishing websites through Business Collaborator also offers all the advantages of the standard Business Collaborator facilities when a website is being created or edited, including event notification, version control and access rights control.