Simple pluggable forum software
We had a requirement to provide a support forum
in our online store for Secret
Server which led to the
classic "Buy vs. Build" decision.
Build: The
requirements were very simple and it could be developed in-house but
who wants to write simple forum code when it has been done many times
before?!
Buy: Most of available
options were too sophisticated for our requirements which could make
integration difficult (either no source code provided or overly complicated
software or restrictive licensing).
Then I found the Riverside
Internet Forums on CodeProject by
Mike
Puddephat. The forum uses 4 generic database tables and has custom
controls in one dll (with source code provided). You can add the custom
control with a unique "forum id" to any ASPX page and it just works! It
was easy to integrate and achieve "single sign on" with our existing system by
ensuring that our user maintenance code keeps the WS_Users (a forum table) up to
date.
Voila! Secret Server now has an online support
forum!
Jonathan Cogley is the CEO and founder of
thycotic, a .NET consulting company and ISV in Washington DC. thycotic has
just released Thycotic Secret Server which is a secure web-based solution to both "Where is my Hotmail
password?" and "Who has the password for our domain name?". Secret Server
is the leader in secret management and sharing within
companies and teams.