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Hi, I’ve heard a lot of great things about Expression Engine and am about to start on a project that I hope it will be suitable for. I have some specfic functionality items I need to be confident that Expression Engine can achieve before making that commitment though. Can it (apologies if some of these overlap):

* Have different backend log-in types with different levels of authorisations
* Have a back end which is customisable (layout and functionality) and can display different things depending on the log in type
* Allow access to files for download based on a users authorisation type
* Have a blog and a standard website run on the same backend install.
* Have a separate interface for the blog back end as to the rest of the website.

Best Regards - looking forward to hearing back as I’m excited to start a project with EE.

* Have different backend log-in types with different levels of authorisations

Yes, take a look at Member Groups. They provide a way to group different logins into groups with finely-grained levels of permissions.

* Have a back end which is customisable (layout and functionality) and can display different things depending on the log in type

The Control Panel is layout customizable to some extent, and the areas accessible to the different member groups are highly customizable using the permissions noted above. In general, what will this site be offering to these different levels of members? It might make more sense to display the things they need to see and interact with on the front-end of the website.

* Allow access to files for download based on a users authorisation type

You can either allow member groups access to the file manager in the backend or not, but not as individual files. If you mean to have specific files available for download, you might use an add-on like Protected Links and provide that access on the front-end.

* Have a blog and a standard website run on the same backend install.

Yes, this is absolutely possible. Plenty of websites use EE as their single CMS to run their whole website, blog included. Our own ExpressionEngine.com is a good example.

* Have a separate interface for the blog back end as to the rest of the website.

You could choose to only give access to the blog administration to specific member groups, or you could employ something like SafeCracker to allow some members to submit and edit blog posts from the front-end of the website.

Hope this helps! Please feel free to ask more questions if you like.

Thanks that helps a lot, I appreciate the links to the realted plug-ins also.

Sounds great. If anything else comes up, please do let us know in a new thread..