A searchable, secure story database/repository
July 18, 2013 10:39 AM Subscribe
I work for a small nonprofit. Part of what we do is collect and share first-person, nonfictional stories. I've been asked to find a better way to organize and keep these stories.
The stories all fall under a highly debated and contentious topic, and we use them to help raise awareness of and advocate for the issues that fall under this umbrella topic.
Right now, I have over a decade's worth of these stories, mainly in Word document format (and in individual files), stored on our server in very poorly managed folders--there's a huge amount of overlap in these folders and in some cases you have to open a giant Word doc and do Control+F through 20 pages to find the phrase you're looking for. What I'm looking for is a software or service that would allow me and my coworkers to create a database/repository of stories. I want to be able to use multiple tags and categories based on the following criteria: author, general topic, subtopic, location, and maybe date. (Hypothetical example: I want to easily search for and pull up all stories written on the subject of oak trees, and then if needed refine the results to be only red oak and white oak trees, and only in Ohio, and maybe even only the stories written by Ms. Smith.)
I need a cloud solution that can be accessed by a number of people. We do have our own servers, but we lack the IT person-power to do anything that requires sophisticated installation or maintenance. What I would want ideally is something that works like a WordPress blog with searchable tags--only something that's much much, more secure and robust. (And by secure, I mean very secure--as I said, the stories are all about a controversial topic, and if they fell into the wrong hands, the people whose names are attached to these stories could be put in danger.)
Thus far I've looked at Evernote (which I like, but their recent security breach raised some concern) and Filemaker. Someone suggested I look into Salesforce, but I'm totally unfamiliar with their products.
I welcome all advice/recommendations/suggestions/anecdotal experience. Thanks!
The stories all fall under a highly debated and contentious topic, and we use them to help raise awareness of and advocate for the issues that fall under this umbrella topic.
Right now, I have over a decade's worth of these stories, mainly in Word document format (and in individual files), stored on our server in very poorly managed folders--there's a huge amount of overlap in these folders and in some cases you have to open a giant Word doc and do Control+F through 20 pages to find the phrase you're looking for. What I'm looking for is a software or service that would allow me and my coworkers to create a database/repository of stories. I want to be able to use multiple tags and categories based on the following criteria: author, general topic, subtopic, location, and maybe date. (Hypothetical example: I want to easily search for and pull up all stories written on the subject of oak trees, and then if needed refine the results to be only red oak and white oak trees, and only in Ohio, and maybe even only the stories written by Ms. Smith.)
I need a cloud solution that can be accessed by a number of people. We do have our own servers, but we lack the IT person-power to do anything that requires sophisticated installation or maintenance. What I would want ideally is something that works like a WordPress blog with searchable tags--only something that's much much, more secure and robust. (And by secure, I mean very secure--as I said, the stories are all about a controversial topic, and if they fell into the wrong hands, the people whose names are attached to these stories could be put in danger.)
Thus far I've looked at Evernote (which I like, but their recent security breach raised some concern) and Filemaker. Someone suggested I look into Salesforce, but I'm totally unfamiliar with their products.
I welcome all advice/recommendations/suggestions/anecdotal experience. Thanks!
I just made a story database on https://www.knackhq.com that does everything you want in about eight minutes. However, I have no idea about their security. My suggestion, whatever you use, is to use an anonymous number to identify the authors and to keep that table linking numbers and names in a secure location.
posted by michaelh at 11:34 AM on July 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by michaelh at 11:34 AM on July 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I work for a company that makes a database for nonprofits. You definitely do NOT need something as robust as Salesforce, which is really meant to track people, donations, and other types of transactions. FileMaker may be a good option because it's very flexible and customizable, but it too is probably far more complex than what you need.
I would advocate for Evernote. I understand the security concerns, but I've been an Evernote client for many, many years (and my business also uses it) and that was the first security issue I've had. Evernote will give you the tagging and search capabilities that you want, and if you pay their nominal monthly fees, everyone can have access to it with their own username. Alternatively, you can all just share a login with a single free username.
posted by anotheraccount at 12:05 PM on July 18, 2013
I would advocate for Evernote. I understand the security concerns, but I've been an Evernote client for many, many years (and my business also uses it) and that was the first security issue I've had. Evernote will give you the tagging and search capabilities that you want, and if you pay their nominal monthly fees, everyone can have access to it with their own username. Alternatively, you can all just share a login with a single free username.
posted by anotheraccount at 12:05 PM on July 18, 2013
What I would want ideally is something that works like a WordPress blog with searchable tags--only something that's much much, more secure and robust.
The wordpress.com service is secure, assuming you use a strong password. You run into security issues with Wordpress when you're responsible for maintaining your own install/server and have third party plugins/themes. You don't have any of that on wordpress.com at all.
posted by Jairus at 12:26 PM on July 18, 2013
The wordpress.com service is secure, assuming you use a strong password. You run into security issues with Wordpress when you're responsible for maintaining your own install/server and have third party plugins/themes. You don't have any of that on wordpress.com at all.
posted by Jairus at 12:26 PM on July 18, 2013
Does it need to be cloud because you have remote users or just because you don't see having internal infrastructure to support a local solution?
If everyone who can use this is local then I'll diverge from the above recommendations. Part of your problem isn't really cloud or anything solved:
there's a huge amount of overlap in these folders and in some cases you have to open a giant Word doc and do Control+F through 20 pages to find the phrase you're looking for
That's a problem that's going to need some attention to cleaning up your collection, something you'll likely have to do no matter what. Do you envision a cloud solution that will identify automatically your repeated/overlapping stories? I'm skeptical that you will find one that will de-dupe stuff. This is work you're likely going to have to do regardless.
If you can deal with local access only then maybe what you really need it to assign an employee or volunteer or intern to properly section this stuff out. Put every single story in its own Word doc, or preferably plain text file. Put them all in a network share and let people use search to find ones with the words they are seeking. Does Google still sell their low-power appliance for local searching? I know you can still buy them used.
It doesn't have the pizazz of a Software Solution but it works within your existing security model and doesn't require exposing stuff past its current vulnerability. To my mind that's worth a lot.
If you really want something "like Wordpress" you could always actually use Wordpress in a local install. You make it "secure" for your purposes by putting it on a machine that only serves into the local LAN rather than the outside world. You can create users as well for an additional layer of security. I don't know that I think it's the best solution in the world but you mention it so I wonder if you have some familiarity advantage with the interface as it is. It's also a technology with a huge base of hireable folks for one time or repeat hiring to support it.
posted by phearlez at 12:40 PM on July 18, 2013
If everyone who can use this is local then I'll diverge from the above recommendations. Part of your problem isn't really cloud or anything solved:
there's a huge amount of overlap in these folders and in some cases you have to open a giant Word doc and do Control+F through 20 pages to find the phrase you're looking for
That's a problem that's going to need some attention to cleaning up your collection, something you'll likely have to do no matter what. Do you envision a cloud solution that will identify automatically your repeated/overlapping stories? I'm skeptical that you will find one that will de-dupe stuff. This is work you're likely going to have to do regardless.
If you can deal with local access only then maybe what you really need it to assign an employee or volunteer or intern to properly section this stuff out. Put every single story in its own Word doc, or preferably plain text file. Put them all in a network share and let people use search to find ones with the words they are seeking. Does Google still sell their low-power appliance for local searching? I know you can still buy them used.
It doesn't have the pizazz of a Software Solution but it works within your existing security model and doesn't require exposing stuff past its current vulnerability. To my mind that's worth a lot.
If you really want something "like Wordpress" you could always actually use Wordpress in a local install. You make it "secure" for your purposes by putting it on a machine that only serves into the local LAN rather than the outside world. You can create users as well for an additional layer of security. I don't know that I think it's the best solution in the world but you mention it so I wonder if you have some familiarity advantage with the interface as it is. It's also a technology with a huge base of hireable folks for one time or repeat hiring to support it.
posted by phearlez at 12:40 PM on July 18, 2013
Response by poster: Thank you for the answers so far. Please keep them coming.
To address a few questions/comments:
Jairus: The wordpress.com service is secure, assuming you use a strong password.
I like WP, and in fact we use it as the CMS for our website, but this is one of those cases in which the free version/premium add-ons don't cover our needs and the VIP version is way out of our price range.
phearlez: Does it need to be cloud because you have remote users or just because you don't see having internal infrastructure to support a local solution?
Both, actually. We have employees who work offsite and we are increasingly moving to a remote work environment.
And also, to clarify because I was vague earlier--I don't need a software or service that's so intelligent that it would be able to separate these giant Word docs into individual stories....that's something I'll probably end up doing manually.
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:42 PM on July 18, 2013
To address a few questions/comments:
Jairus: The wordpress.com service is secure, assuming you use a strong password.
I like WP, and in fact we use it as the CMS for our website, but this is one of those cases in which the free version/premium add-ons don't cover our needs and the VIP version is way out of our price range.
phearlez: Does it need to be cloud because you have remote users or just because you don't see having internal infrastructure to support a local solution?
Both, actually. We have employees who work offsite and we are increasingly moving to a remote work environment.
And also, to clarify because I was vague earlier--I don't need a software or service that's so intelligent that it would be able to separate these giant Word docs into individual stories....that's something I'll probably end up doing manually.
posted by cowboy_sally at 1:42 PM on July 18, 2013
ResourceSpace could be a solution for this. It's focus tends to be on multimedia but it has a basis of being used by non-profits for managing image and text assets.
posted by andendau at 7:27 PM on September 14, 2013
posted by andendau at 7:27 PM on September 14, 2013
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...but their recent security breach raised some concern...
Just FYI, this is a risk for *every* cloud service, which is why you see it in the news so often.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:58 AM on July 18, 2013