Alfresco & Data integrations tools (like Talend)

[michaelq87]

Hi,
I would like to listen how would you use a data integration platform (in my case Talend) for uploading contents on Alfresco.
What is the best way for uploading contents? Should i use WS? Java API? Rest? Other ways?

[dhartford]

I think CMIS for content insertion may be a good direction.  I know an alternative (pentaho/kettle) as a general CMIS plugin available (http://code.google.com/p/pdi-cmis-plugin/).

I'm not familiar with Talend, but it appears there are similar plugins: http://www.talendforge.org/exchange/index.php?eid=501&product=tos&action=view&nav=8,10,0, http://www.talendforge.org/exchange/?eid=733&product=tos&action=view&nav=1,1,1

The only caveat, which is the same for all the API (webscript, REST, CMIS, etc), is pre-defining the fields to be populated and how to handle if a document type has new 'required' fields across your stack.

EDIT: If you are using Aspects in your content model, that may be a deal breaker until CMIS 1.1 protocol is implemented, at which point using webscript/REST/Java may be better or use the CMIS-Alfresco-Extension through java (http://code.google.com/a/apache-extras.org/p/alfresco-opencmis-extension/).

-Darren

[michaelq87]

Thanks for the reply!

Ok, so CMIS would be my way but starting from 0, so i have to built up all the "components". I was thinking to do it usin SOAP - CMIS Web Services Binding.
What do you think? There is a better way to create routines for uploading documents automaticaly?

[mdutoo]

Hi

It depends on your use case : how often (once ? each night ? on demand ?), and how complex (custom metadata ? permissions ? associations ?) are your uploads.

It is discussed in http://fr.slideshare.net/mdutoo/ow-alfrescoetl-connector2009043011

and said Alfresco ETL Connector for Alfresco is available at http://knowledge.openwide.fr/Main/AlfrescoETLConnector