How to manage content

[nagpalvikas]

In my organisation, the content resides in various formats. The content selection (filter) criteria resides in MS-SQL and the content itself resides in MS-SQL, XML and Graphics format. Currently, we have a manual workflow for assigning tasks and reporting/controlling/monitoring is achieved using excel files. The content is created using MS-Word templates for XML content and in-house built tools for MS-SQL. I would like to have a system where I could integrate the different content format and achieve an automated workflow. After researching Alfresco's document management and records management I have come to conclusion that I can not integrate the content in MS-SQL with the other content using Alfresco CMS. Is that correct? Am I missing something?

I would be highly obliged, if somebody could answer my queries.

Regards,

Vikas

[hunjet]

Hi Vikas,

You could move all your templates to Alfresco and create your custom workflow(s) to match your business needs. This part is not a problem. Regarding integration with MSSQL, I'm not sure what you have in mind but maybe this can help you. On one project we implemented custom web application on top of Alfresco and MSSQL database. Alfresco was used for storing documents and as workflow engine while all other (business specific) data were stored in MSSQL database. Integration between Alfresco and Database was done through alfresco extensions (i.e. we implemented custom scripts for starting workflows in order to check some data from database before starting workflow and to setup custom workflow properties).

To make the story short, if you are planning to have all documents and templates in Alfresco and run workflow(s) on those documents while having other data stored in separate database integration is possible and quite straightforward but requires programming. On the other hand, if you want to keep templates and/or documents in database together with other data and you only need workflow engine to automate the process of handling those documents maybe you should look for a workflow engine such as Activiti.

Regards,
Blaž

[nagpalvikas]

Hello Blaž,

Thanks for your reply. We seems to have a similar sort of requirements as you have implemented in your project. Our reference data resides in MSSQL. A part of our actual content resides in directory structure as XML, graphics and around 30% of the content resides in MSSQL as numbers and text. So I think I could use the similar sort of solution where the workflows could be started after checking the reference data from MSSQL. The content stored as XML and graphics could then be integrated in the workflow. The only part left is now the content stored in MSSQL. Thanks for giving a lead. I will now try to find a solution after knowing that this is possible.

Regards,

Vikas