Lounge

Moodle is probably not a good fit for purpose. 

If layout and presentation are the highest priority, there are a number of really well established, open source Content Management Systems which will serve you better. (e.g. Drupal, Joomla)

If workflow (versioning, delegation and release control) is crucial (which is likely, given that your school uses Banner), Moodle doesn't facilitate that. There are people who build workflows in Drupal, but that's adding a hard technical job to the already difficult human task of discovery and negotiation of institutional practices. If your organisation really cares about authorisation of publication and distribution of information, it probably needs a Document Management System (DMS) such as Alfresco.

That said, the form-answers probably are:

1. What is your CMS' technology stack? Please describe.
   1. {Linux|MacOS|Windows} + {Apache|IIS} + {MySQL|PostGres|MS-SQL} + {PHP5}
2. Does your CMS offer the ability to publish more than one "site" for different audience types? One tool to rule them all?
   1. Yes. Apply a theme at a Category level. Or, because there are no license fees and low computing overheads, create another instance.
3. Does your CMS have features to publish content to different platform? mobile devices; digital signage; websites; 3rd-party applications? If yes, how does it work and please demonstrate.
   1. Mobiles: Yes. In Moodle 2.2, a separate theme can be defined for mobile (small screen) devices.
   2. Signage: No. Moodle can output an RSS feed, but the signage control would be separate software.
   3. Websites: Yes. However, usually coupled with Joomla for non-teaching publication.
4. Could you show us how an authenticated user's view would change based on their AD group memberships (ie. Views controlled by user members in an AD group/container.)
   1. AD group memberships are not necessary. It is normal to use enrolments (updated by clerical processes) rather than AD (IT department) to change access.
5. How would each user log in and what is their username login string format for staff, students and alumni? (ie. Jsmith@school.com as a staff or jsmith (or 123456789@school.com or just 123456789 for students)
   1. SSO
   2. Optionally, an email address
   3. Optionally, any ASCII string can be a username
6. Visitors should be able to see certain pages such  as announcements, news releases, etc. and/or sections of the site without the need to log in.
   1. The front page, a category and specific courses can be designated public
7. Does your CMS have the ability to display content for non-authenticated or authenticated users onto one site?
   1. The front page, a category and specific courses can be designated public
8. How are pages created and who could create them?
   1. See Using Moodle. An administrator can give any user the role of Course Creator within a course, which allows them to assign the role of Teacher to any other user. A Teacher can create content and activites within a course.
9. Does the CMS have workflow / approval capabilities?
   1. Not inherently. Some activities (database, forum) have limited options for teacher approval before publication to students.
   2. It is recommended to use Alfresco as a repository. Alfresco has workflow capabilities.
10. When pages are created, how could the content creator add them to a / their own menu? Could they modify their menu?
    1. Courses are automatically added to the “My home” page and Navigation menu of anyone enrolled in them.
    2. Content within a course can be resequenced by anyone who has editing rights there. A change in the course design applies to everyone who has access to the course.
11. Any calendaring /appointment features which integrate with outlook?
    1. ICAL export and import
12. Any social media tools? Chat module?, status updates?, micro-blogging?, department or personal blogs? forums, etc.?
    1. Chat, presence, blog, forums, shared (group) blog/wiki/forum/database/glossary, and many more.
13. How could we embed a youTube feed or rich media content within a page?
    1. Media filter does this automatically when you add a Youtube or multimedia link into a page in a forum
    2. WYSIWYG HTML editor in most tools
14. Show us permissions, administration and security and how they are set up.
    1. Settings > Permissions
15. How and where is the content stored? Pages, attachments, etc.
    1. It is recommended to couple Moodle with a repository such as Alfresco.
16. Show us how to backup and restore entire site.
    1. See Buchner.
17. Show us how to backup and restore selected content only.
    1. Settings > Backup. This menu option is normally available to any teacher in a course.
18. Could a user delegate his or her role to another user if the delegator is away for an extended period of time?
    1. Yes.
19. Describe roles & permissions and how they are assigned and restricted.
    1. Settings > Permissions. Individual permissions can be set for each role at the level of the site, category, course, and activity (exceptions).
20. Are there any rollback features/capability?
    1. Not inherently. Settings > Restore|Import is available to any teacher in a course, so Course Creators are advised to create backups of the course before implementing substantial change.
21. Statistical analytics?
    1. Settings > Reports.
22. Does the CMS integrate with SCT Banner to pull out courses? How does it work?
    1. See Eric Merrill’s plugin and his description on Slidehshare.
23. Does the CMS integrate with other data sources? Is yes, which types and how do they work and implement into the CMS?
    1. Repositories such as Alfresco appear as file-sources - see http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Repositories
    2. Community Hubs - see http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Community_hubs .
    3. CMS integrations - See http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Integrations
    4. SSO pass-through
    5. File-picker draws on multiple sources including your repository, GoogleDocs, Flickr, etc.
24. How easy is it to customize the theme, look and feel, or design of the CMS?
    1. Default styles can be selected from a menu (similar to WordPress).
    2. CSS controls every aspect of the theme, look and feel. Because this is very extensive, theme development takes time and testing by a designer. However, it is normal practice for institutional sites.
25. If the content store is unavailable, is there a feature where users can still access the site while the content store is rebuilt?
    1. The (optional) repository does not affect operation of any features except delivery of files. Most of the activities continue to work.
26. Does the CMS have any system self monitoring capabilities?
    1. Yes. See Buchner. It is customary to set Cron jobs to report/monitor some functions.
27. Does the CMS have browser limitations/or does it work best under one particular browser rather than another?
    1. In wide use with most modern browsers (including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, IE).
    2. I have seen problems with “secure” corporate sites that mandate very early versions of IE.
28. SSO considerations? MS Unified Access Gateway or ForeFront Identity Manager integration?
    1. See Buchner for SSO options.
29. What other CMS features do you offer that other CMS vendors do not have?
    1. Performance and reliability: stability, low system load, low maintenance workload
    2. As a Learning Management System, Moodle tracks student progress through a planned sequence of social and individual activities and provides feedback to support learning.
    3. Community-contributed modules for an enormously wide range of pedagogical purposes.
    4. See forum discussions ‘Advocacy’ - http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=485
30. What are your support policies and limitations?
    1. Very low support load per user
    2. Scheduled semi-annual upgrades
    3. Addition of new modules is negotiated

http://www.packtpub.com/moodle-2-administration-configuring-securing-customizing-extending/book