Document Management System

What's more this browser based system called

Alfresco allows access to the documents

through Windows share as well as WebDav. Alfresco showcases a number of features

like smart faces, automatic metadata extraction (from MS Word files), content

versioning and an advanced content search, but in this article we focus on a

must have feature from a document management system namely — a document

workflow. Alfresco makes it a breeze to take documents across a workflow

process. But first comes, booting up the PCQLinux Content Management Appliance

and starting Alfresco.

Start up Alfresco



Start up the PCQLinux Content Management Appliance and set up its networking
(refer to the section on Virtualization with VirtualBox ). To start Alfresco:

cd /var/alfresco



./alf_start.sh

Fire up a web browser (IE or Firefox) from one of the machines on your

network and type in the URL: http://192.168.3.16:8080/alfresco/. Substitute

192.168.3.16 with the IP address you assigned to the PCQLinux appliance. Click

on “Login (guest)”. You will be redirected to the login page. On the login page,

login as admin with the password as admin.

Workflow 1: Here you can see that the author can submit articles to the editors. He can even start discussions with them

A sample scenario



An example to show the easy setup of Alfresco's workflow, we take up the case of
an author who upon finishing the article clicks on “Move to edit”. This workflow

action moves the article document (say an MS Word document) to a folder

(referred to as Space in Alfresco) called Articles. The Editor has view and

check out rights to this Space and can hence checkout the article to edit. Once

edited, the editor clicks on “Move to publish” action which moves the edited

article to a Space called “Ready to publish”.

To achieve this, we first create two groups called editors and authors

respectively. We create users corresponding to the editors and authors and add

them to the respective groups. Next we create the Spaces (Articles and Edited)

and assign logical permissions to these Spaces, for the editor and author group.

Finally we create a workflow to achieve the above mentioned flow of an article

document.

Create users and groups



Upon login as admin, click on the 'Administration Console' icon (the first icon
after the blue band on the top). On the administration console, click on Manage

System Users>Create User and follow the wizard. Create users corresponding to

authors (say Shekhar Govindarajan) and corresponding to editors (say Rinku Tyagi).

Note that the default home folder (as specified in the home space name) of the

editors and authors get created while creating users corresponding to them.

We will set the home space name to 'shekhar govindarajan' and rinku tyagi'

for the users in our case. In their home space, users have full access to

upload, create, delete and edit their documents. Once done with the users'

creation, click on Manage User Groups. On the 'Group Management' page, click on

Create>Create Group. For the identifier, enter the group name (Authors and

Editors in our case).

On the Group Management page, click on the second icon (which has a + symbol)

to add users to the group. That is, Shekhar Govindarajan will be added to the

Authors group and Rinku Tyagi will be added to the Editors group.

Workflow 2: Using this interface, the editor submits the article for publishing, after editing it

Create Spaces & set permissions



While logged in as admin, click on “My Home”. Click on Create>Create Space (note
the menu on the top right). For name enter “Articles”. Fill in other fields

(title, description), select an icon for the Space and click on “create space”.

Similarly create a Space called “Ready To publish”.

Onto setting the permissions, click on “My Home”. There you will see the two

Spaces that you created, amongst some of the existing or default Alfresco

Spaces. Click on Articles Space. Click on More Action>Manage Space Users. Click

on Invite. Select Groups from the dropdown, type in Author and click on Search.

Select Contributor from the role list. Click on Add to list. Similarly add

Editor group with the role as 'Editor'. Click on Next and for e-mail invitation,

select no. Click on Finish.

Similarly setup the Editor group with the Contributor role for the “Ready to

publish” Space.

Setup the workflow



Click on the 'Shekhar Govindarajan' Space. Click on More Action>Manage Content
Rules. Click on Create Rule. From the 'Select Condition' dropdown, select 'All

Items'. Click on 'Add to list'. Click on Next. For 'Select Action', select 'Add

simple workflow to item'. Click on 'Set Values and Add'. For 'Name to Approve',

select 'Move to edit'. Select the radio button labeled move (or copy). Click on

'click here to select the destination' and select the Article Space. Select No

for reject workflow. Click on Ok and then on Next. On the Enter Details page,

select Inbound for Type. For title and description, type in 'Move to edit'.

Check the box labeled 'Apply rule to sub spaces'. Click on Finish.Follow the

same steps for the Space named 'Rinku Tyagi'. But substitute 'Move to edit' with

'Move to publish'. Select the destination space as 'Ready to publish' on the

'Set action values' page. Also in 'Step 3 — Enter Details', select Update for

Type.

See the workflow in action



Now login as Shekhar Govindarajan with the password set during the user
creation. Click on My Home and then on 'Add Content'. Follow the wizard to

browse and upload a file. Once done, you will see the file (pcqlinux-article.doc

in our case) on the My Home page. Click on the icon labeled >> and select 'Move

to edit'.

Now login as Rinku Tyagi and click on Company Home. Click on the Article

space and you will see the pcqlinux-article.doc lying there. Click on the arrow

icon to check out the document. On the check out page, click the radio button

labeled 'In the space select' and select the Space named 'Rinku Tyagi'. Click on

check out.

Once checked out, you can download the article and edit it. Once the editing

is over, right click on the pcqlinux-article.doc icon and click on update. When

prompted upload the edited document.

Now when you again right click on the pcqlinux-article.doc you will find the

option of Move to publish. Click on it and voila, the article moves to the Space

called 'Ready to publish', that is, to its final destiny in our simple workflow.

You can check out the 'Ready to publish' space by clicking on Company Home.

There is more to Alfresco's document management, workflow, permissions and

there is more to its features. And if you want more details about the software

then check out a flash demo at

http://tinyurl.com/2b6z3w.

To create categories goto Administration Console and click on Category Management	On the category management page, click on create>add category. Then fill in a category name and description
Click on a Space which has a document or content to categorize. Then click on the 'View Details' icon	Expand the Category section and click on allow categorization. Next, click on the edit icon in the categorization section
On the subsequent page, click on the select button and select a category	You can search the documents by their category using Advanced Search