topic Re: questions according integration of Alfresco in Alfresco Archive

questions according integration of Alfresco

jensgoldhammer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:19:33 GMT

Hello all,our company develops solutions by integrating existing applications via webservices and a bpel engine which coordinates it. We provide user-centric tasks in it and want to support documents interaction for the users. We have seen that there some ways for integrating Alfresco. Can you provi

Re: questions according integration of Alfresco

jpfi — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:29:44 GMT

Hi Jens,

there are two interfaces you could use. WebServices or WebScripts (REST), it depends on your detailed requirements.

If I'm right you'd like to use your own BPM/Worklfow engine and use alfresco only as content repository. There's also another option as using alfresco jBPM as workflow engine. Probably this would this would be the best approach to realize document centric workflows.

a) yes, that's possible: Checkout Document via WebService/WebScript. Downlaod Working Copy to your application. At the End of your worklfow upload edited WorkingCopy back to Alfresco and Checkin.

b) yes, that's possible: Checkout/Check document via WebService/WebScript during the workflow instance. The document can be accessed over CIFS or WebDAV.

Option b) is the better way using Alfresco as a ContentService inside of a service oriented environment.

c) yes, that is possible, too: Take a look at the WebScript API. I've published a prototype called opsoro (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Opsoro) which 100% uses WebScripts to get any data out of alfresco.
The IGoogleGadgets (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/IGoogle_Gadget_Download)also using this technology.

Cheers,
Jan

Re: questions according integration of Alfresco

jensgoldhammer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:30:02 GMT

Hello Jan,

thanks for your detailed answer.
I have taken a short look at the web scripts api. It sounds really interesting.
jBPM was evaluated earlier by us and the bpel extension was too poor for our requirements at this time (half a year ago), so we have ignored it since then…Any updates?
Additionally, I see problems by integrating other ecm-systems if we use the built-in jbpm-engine. Then we have to implement the workflow outside of Alfresco again if we have to switch to another ecm-system…

Let us go more into detail with option b). Please image following scenario:
We have two or more business partners (donÃ‚Â´t have to be two or more different companies, can be only departments which have not always a network-connection, so we cannot use a big repository and have to have a simple sync mechanism) which want to work process centric with integration of documents.
My Idea is to transfer the required documents between the business partners if the process on the one side has finished/is waiting for an incoming request/event and before starting/continue the process on the other side.
If we use the webservice-api of Alfresco, we can upload a document into Alfresco which is transferred from the other business partner. After storing it in Alfresco of the participated business partner we can provide the gui integration via web scripts to all users of this business partner. When all required steps on this business side are fullfilled, we can transfer the old and new objects to the next business partner.
Clear so far? Do you know any other possiblity which is more efficient?
How can we easily trace which documents are created and changed during the process steps?

Thanks for your answers,
Jens

Re: questions according integration of Alfresco

jensgoldhammer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:37:18 GMT

Additions:

Are there more ressources for the web scripts api?
I have so far:
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/HTTP_API
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts_FAQ

Can anybody provide more links?
Thanks,
Jens

Re: questions according integration of Alfresco

nancyg — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:34:57 GMT

here are some more:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Script_FAQ
http://ecmarchitect.com/archives/2007/10/25/777
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts_Examples
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Script_Dump_and_Load
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Script_Runtimes
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts_Framework
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Scripts_Facebook