Are We Just Doing Document Management???

[peterstb]

Hi All,

We've recently started evaluating Alfresco as part of a larger ECM evaluation, including other commercial vendors.  We have installed 3.2 Community and have been doing some POC work to see if Alfresco will be a good fit!

Our company uses a proprietary framework, very similar to Struts, and I don't have my head around how we would take an entire application and pull it into a WCM framework, as there will be a lot of push-back to doing significant migrations or rewrites to get there.

Our POC approach has been to try and get content management into the hands of external administrator, rather than having them submit code change requests to get simple textual changes on pieces of web content, such as terms and conditions, FAQ's, etc…

We have created a SPACE for a client, and have added content, with the thoughts that we could simply provide them access to that content, through the Alfresco web console (Alfresco Explorer) to manage/change that content.  Our challenge is that we can't figure out how to take advantage of "sandbox" functionality, so that an administrator can preview their changes on the live site, vs. a regular user still seeing the live version of content.

We are using URL (web script) methods for accessing and presenting the content.  We perform a URL login call to get an alf_ticket, then use that alf_ticket to access content through subsequent URL calls.  This approach seems to work really well for accessing and displaying content, but it feels like we are really doing "document management", and not "web content management".

In this context, is there any way to take advantage of "sandbox" capabilities, so we can have different users viewing different content, based on what's checked out/in (working copy previews)?  I've considered creating rules on the space to look for anything created with "(Working Copy)" in the name, and having that copy a live version of the content to a preview folder, but that causes a lot of work for the front-end to handle that.

Any thoughts, suggestions or recommendations?

Are we over-complicating what it might take to migrate an existing MVC/Java application to WCM?

Any input is greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,
Todd

[mrogers]

Sandboxes are part of Alfresco WCM.    Are you using it?

[peterstb]

We aren't sure "how" to use sandboxes, in the context of how we are taking advantage of Alfresco?  Have any suggestions?

We are using the Alfresco web console to manage pieces of content, and access that content later via HTTP calls.  We were hoping that based on the authentication credentials passed to Alfresco, to get an alf_ticket, we might see different results in our HTTP call to get the content.  i.e. The user that is changing content would see "working copy" of content, vs. another user who would see the actual "live" content.

Recommendations?

Thanks,
Todd

[mrogers]

You want to install Alfresco WCM.    And create a Web Project.     The web project is very special and has a different structure to the spaces you are using at the moment.   It knows all about "working copy"s of files.

When you use the WCM functionality.     Each author has their own "sandbox" that they can access via web script, CIFS, WebDav, Explorer Client etc.    They are then able to submit their content once its ready.    Send it via approval workflows etc.       The sandboxes work as "layers" over content.       Imagine panes of glass stacked on top of each other.   Your live web site is on the bottom pane of glass.