New Project based upon 1.4

[mdsahni]

Hi Kevin / Gavin,

Greetings!!

I'm writing here for the first time, but let me tell you, you guys are doing a great job in providing a real prompt support to people, really impressed!!  We are hoping to start one project, based upon Alfresco 1.4 and I just wanted to get your advice on some of the features that we are planning to develop.

Project Management [Including Calendaring, Meetings and Timesheet Management] - User will craete some kind of plan for their coming month's activities and they should be able to track the status.

Data Collection Forms - We have to develop almost 50 forms for collecting some data.  Thse forms will be tied up in some kind of workflow and the collected data will be used for generating reports and data analysis.

Note: We need to provide an offline data collection system also, which can later synchonize with main system.

Performance Evaluation - There will be some kind of KPI designer, which will be used to measure the performance of the employees [depending upon their activities and data gathered].

Basically what we need is the traditional database application integrated with content based system.

Need your views on how to start planning for these features.  I read sth about the Chiba and jBPM, but need some advice on what are their capabilities how they can be used and what is their status in Alfresco.

Thanx in Advance!!

Regards,
Deep

[gavinc]

Hi,

The best thing to do is read the wiki pages regarding workflow and WCM features as a starting point. You can find these links below:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Workflow

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/New_Web_Content_Management_Plan

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Release_WCM_Preview

Hope this helps.

[mdsahni]

Thanx for your links Gavin, they indeed helped!!

Few questions:

Using WCM, I want to create my own website, whereby I design it in dreamweaver and now want to import in Alfresco for content management.  I checked the existing example but couldn't figure out how to create my own??  Secondly editing existing website content, does that require to understand the script, or is there a way to do this with UI?

Can you also please comment on stuff in my earlier post as well:

Project Management
Calendaring
Data Forms & Workflow (I couldn't find the form designer in the RC1, can you point me where to look)

Basically I wanna know how can we proceed with this development.

Also can you give me some idea on fit of these features with your future roadmap, cause if this does, I would like to work together with you [where you provide guidance and we do the development] and later we can give all the code to be included in Alfresco.  Guidance is important to make sure we do it the way you want it to be!!

Looking forward to your advice!!

Thanx & Regards,
Deep

[paulhh]

Hi Deep

In terms of roadmap, we don't have any immediate plans for Project Management components.  We have been hoping to get a contribution around calendaring from a couple of sources, but so far nothing has come out of it.  We'd like to get something by the middle of next year.

On data forms, part of the WCM work has been to integrate in Chiba, the XForms processor.  In the release around the end of the year, that will be available.  Then we'll make that a general facility across Alfresco in the first quarter next year.

Cheers
Paul.

[mdsahni]

Thanx for your reply Paul,

Just one more thing, what all will be included in WCM for the Dec release?

My requirements is..

Able to design my template in some graphic tool
Import in Alfresco
Manage my content (add new pages, etc) in Alfresco
Maybe to add simple forms (contact us, etc)

Will this be there by then!!

How about any intermediate release before Dec?? I read somewhere there will be one, any dates!!

Thanx & Regards,
Deep