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.

Open Source ECM, with the emphasis on the “E”

Unstructured information represents 80% of the content within today’s enterprises and government organizations, and the amount of it is growing rapidly. The reasons for controlling and managing this information are myriad, ranging from employee productivity to consistent branding to customer service to legal compliance.

The components of “enterprise content management” that address these areas include document management, records management, image management, web content management, digital asset management, email management, collaboration, and a few others. The broad range of these technical areas have helped put the “enterprise” into ECM. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that an entire enterprise can benefit from ECM.

Due to the high cost of traditional ECM software, its rollout across a typical enterprise has been stunted. Generally, we find that ECM technology is utilized by only 20% of an enterprise.

So we have a large gap: 100% of employees generate/update/utilize enterprise content, but ECM technologies reach only 20% of those employees. A majority of enterprise content is thus unmanaged, negatively impacting productivity, customer loyalty, compliance, etc.

Enter open source, with its fundamental cost advantages.

But can an open source approach really address the broad range of “enterprise” content management? To date, most open source content management software has focused on web content — leading examples include Joomla, eZ publish, Plone, Drupal, and Typo3 (relatedy, almost a quarter of the web is powered by an open source cms). And a few, including Alfresco and Magnolia, provide robust collaborative document management capabilities.

But until just a few days ago, it was near impossible to craft open source solutions for records management, business process management, and scanned document image management.

Enter Alfresco’s preview release of version 1.4, which includes basic support for records management:

Alfresco Launches First Open Source Records Management Solution

and for business process management, complex workflow, and scanned document management:

Alfresco Extends Leadership With Production Ready Open Source Business Process Management

Bottom line: an open source approach to full “E”CM is looking more and more feasible.

Alfresco 1.4 Preview Released Today

Alfresco today released a preview of the latest version of its open source ECM platform, which includes important new features for workflow and records management.

Here’s the scoop:

Alfresco Preview Release 1.4 – Business Process and Lifecycle Management

The focus of Alfresco has always been to deliver a broad-based Enterprise Content Management System. In our first major release we chose to focus on document management and collaboration since very little existed in the open source world in comparison to the commercial world. Alfresco 1.4 focuses on delivering the following:

• Business Process and Lifecycle Management
• Full Auditing
• Records Management
• Image Capture Integration
• Performance

Release 1.4 has increased functionality in the areas of:

• Scalability – Large repository optimization
• Administration – Personal administration dashboard
• Standards – ODF and RSS
• Customization – JavaScript custom actions, URL “REST” style architecture
• Team Collaboration – Space Notes, Team Email, Workflow Task Management Dashboard
• Integrated Workflow – jBPM integration
• User Interface – MyAlfresco dashboard, Custom Space Portal View
• Records Management
• Image Capture Integration

Scalability

• Large Repository Optimization in multi-million document/asset environments
• Load Optimization
• Folder Management for large numbers of documents
• Lucene Index Optimization, Query Optimization

Administration

• Personal Administration Dashboard – Start Screen, Update password, name and email
• Rules Management – Ordering, ignore inherited and disable

Standards Support

• Open Document Format (ODF) – ODF Virtual File System
• RSS – Drag-and-Drop RSS

Customization

Custom Actions – JavaScript support for custom actions with

• Simple menu integration
• URL Access to all Actions – “REST” style architecture
• Extended JavaScript capabilities – Including checkin/out, transformation, template rendering

Content Contribution

• CIFS and FTP Performance – Unique name optimization moved to database

Team Collaboration

• Email Space Team – Simple Team email distribution
• Space Note – Custom View Space Description

Integrated Workflow

• jBPM Integration – Complex workflow support. JavaScript action integration for lifecycle management support
• Integrated MyTasks View – Dynamic data collection
• Full Audit Control

User Interface

• MyAlfresco Personal Dashboard – Wizard support to personalize default view though selection of Dashboard components
• Dashboard Component Support – Freemarker, JSP and URL
• Custom View – Custom Space Portal view

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. 1.4 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
• Full Auditing – Audit of every service invocation to a database table with dashboard access. E.g. Execute Action, Checkout, Rename, Enable Rule, Create Authentication, Set Permission

Image Capture Integration

• Kofax Integration – Kofax release script support

Other Features

• AJAX Infrastructure and examples

 

Download Alfresco

• Download Alfresco 1.4 Preview Release
  

Please note that downloads may not be available on all Sourceforge mirror sites immediately. Alfresco Customers recieve immediate access to downloads via the customer portal.

 

Fast Facts

Operating System

• Linux
• MacOS
• Unix
• Windows

Database

• Any Database Supported by Hibernate including:
• MySQL
• Oracle
• SQL Server

Application Server

• JBoss Application Server
• Apache Tomcat
• J2SE 5.0 (JRE 5.0)

Browser

• Firefox
• Internet Explorer

Portal

• JBoss Portal
• Liferay Portal
• JSR-168

Languages

• Wide variety including:
• Chinese
• Dutch
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Russian
• Spanish

Technologies Used

• Java
• Spring Aspect-Oriented Framework
• ACEGI – Aspect-Oriented Security Framework
• MyFaces JSF Implementation
• Hibernate ORM Persistence
• Lucene Text Search Engine
• JLAN
• JBoss Application Server
• JBoss Portal
• JBoss jBPM
• POI File Format Conversion
• PDFBox – PDF Conversion
• OpenOffice
• MySQL

Supported Interfaces

• CIFS/SMB Microsoft File Share Protocol
• JSR-168 Portlet Specification
• JSR-127 Java Server Faces
• FTP
• WebDAV
• Web Services

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