It is easy to collaborate when everybody is in the same room or across the hall. It gets more complicated when people reside on different floors, different buildings, different parts of the city, or in completely different locales. More often than none, the distribured scenario is the more predominant one in web development - bringing with it complexities.

There are many ways to handle the problem, the old way.

1. One person makes changes at a time, and transfer the files to the others.
2. The group subdivides the site into different files and make changes each according to their given work. At different phases, there has to be a synchronization of all files.

The problems with these solutions are numerous, and include:

• All involved must use one development software package with the correct version and licensing. This task is complicated when the team includes members of different organizations.
• Data problems can include
  • Badly synchronized files,
  • multiple people making the different changes to the same files,
  • and all the communication that has to take place in order to accomplish the task.

SiteManager comes to the rescue! By dividing the template portion of the site from the information content of the site, different combinations of activity can proceed simultaneously: Templates are created independently, text is developed independently, and all lists and other elements are created independently, making it possible for all to proceed at the same time.

• With no additional development package required, there is no problem with licensing or ensuring that all files are in a correct format.
• Everybody is working from a single data source. There is only one sigle possible source for any information displayed on the site, removing the risks of mismatched files.
• When subdividing the work on the site, it can easily be done along areas of expertise, or areas of knowledge without regard for the file layouts, constructs, or any third party software requirements.

In conclusion, the SiteManager approach is less prone to errors, and can be easily applied to existing or new sites.