New White Paper – Open Source Records and Email Management

Our latest white paper is available here

A sneak peek:

As Records Management continues to migrate onto the desktops of business users across the enterprise, and as new laws and regulations stipulate how content should be stored, classified, and destroyed, organizations have become caught in a profound business transformation.

Records Managers and IT personnel struggle to meet the day-to-day needs of rank and file employees creating and sharing content while dealing with highlevel challenges such as compliance, e-business initiatives, and knowledge sharing.

Legislation demands that enterprises manage the proper control, classification, storage, auditing, and disposition of records. General business users, however, prefer to continue their reliance on shared file systems and e-mail to productively manage and share content.

Adding to these problems is that up to now, traditional enterprise content management (ECM) systems have been costly to implement and difficult to use. Enterprises of all types – from government agencies and financial institutions to insurance and healthcare companies – can benefit from a robust yet simplified approach to records management.

Alfresco 1.3 Enterprise Edition Released

Congrats to the Alfresco team for their latest release just announced this morning.

In my view, the major highlights in this release are:

• Enhanced team collaboration support with full email-based support for workflow, enabling users to invoke “accept” and “reject” steps simply by clicking on an autogenerated URL in an email. Before 1.3, workflow actions were invoked through the Alfresco web client. Now, it can be done via email — a nice improvement toward seamlessness and ease-of-use
• Improved records management support with activitation of repository rules based on a schedule or a content update, along with DOD 5015.2 content type definititions– representing another important capability to help companies manage/control/retain/archive their business records and achieve 100% compliance. The records that are top of mind in the companies we talk with include those generated by email and messaging, in addition to the standard business records (financial, etc.) that enterprises must control.
• CIFS Kerboros and LDAP Support — further enhancing the seamless support for Microsoft’s file share protocol (CIFS) for enterprise deployments
• Improved support for client and server side customizations, through Javascript support in the server and a pluggable UI in the client

Here’s the full summary from the Alfresco announcement:

Release 1.3 has increased functionality in the areas of:

• Architecture – Benchmark Certification
• Administration – Zero-Time Upgrade for Development Extensions, Full Export
• Customization – Simple Action/Rule Extensions through JavaScript, Simple Extensible UI Dialog Wizard Framework, Meta-data Constraint Management
• Library Services – Document/Folder Cross Linking
• Team Collaboration – Simple Email based Workflow
• Records Management – Rule Activation on Update and Schedule, Soft Delete
• Other – Development SDK

Architecture

• Benchmark Certification – Significant scalability enhancements and benchmark certification representing real customer environments with a focus on multiple cores and processors

Administration

• Zero-Time Upgrade for Development Extensions – Client and server extension framework externalization
• Full Export – Export of whole Repository including types and users. This allows for the duplication of repositories for deployment and offers alternatives for backup and recovery.

 

Customization

• Server Customization – The primary area to simplify extending the server is in the use of JavaScript to build aspect and action extensions rather than just Java. This makes it possible for even novice programmers to add powerful business logic into the repository for reuse across all clients These can be invoked from rules, through a time based schedule or via a URL
• Client Customization – Open Pluggable UI Framework to dramatically simplify client configuration making possible new application components and AJAX-based interfaces
• Simple Extensible User Interface Dialog Wizard Framework – A type-based dispatcher allows pages, dialogs and wizards to be over-ridden on a content type basis
• Simple Configurable Menu Types and Items – Externalized menu and dialog configuration through XML file configuration. Originally, menus were defined in JSP pages
• Space/Folder Actions – Actions on Spaces/Folders allowing workflows to be performed on folders – which is particularly important for case-based workflow
• Meta-Data Constraint Management – Meta-Data constraints based on values or links to external RDBMS tables
• Dashboard/Template Space Binding – Persistent linking of a template to a space or document

 

Library Services

• Document Cross Linking – A document, or folder, can be linked to another content object or folder across multiple spaces. A change to a document is reflected across all spaces – Virtual Folders.

 

Data Management and Transformation Engine

• Configuration of New Content Transformers
• Configure/Extend new Transform Types

Content Contribution

• CIFS Kerberos and LDAP support – Kerberos for authentication token support and LDAP for user and group support

 

Team Collaboration

• Customizable Email Templates
• Simple Email based Workflow – Embedded URL selection in email for “approve”/”reject” using customized email templates
• Extended email support for changes to documents, records or folders that can be sent to groups

 

Records Management

Alfresco has added a number of features to manage electronic records to the basic repository functionality. Our intention is to get to the DOD 5015.2 certification later 2006/early 2007. 1.3 adds some critical features:

• Extended Rule Activation – Schedule, content and metadata change based activation. Important for managing retention dates and managing document lifecycles
• Retention and Archival Policies – Soft delete and purge
• DOD 5015.2 Type Definitions
• Fileplan Support – Fileplan, file name and the management of records categories is supported through JavaScript

Click here for pdf version: Alfresco ECM 1.3