Possibly a new topic?

[rdanner]

I wonder if we can get a conversation going on how people plan to use alfresco. To store documents for what? (web, newsrooms, legal docs etc).

At my organization we have a number of content management systems and all kinds of different documents. Right now I'm looking to replace interwoven which backs our websites.

We are also looking at replacing a newsroom system and I can see alfresco playing a role there as well.

I am very curious to know what people plan to store
How they plan to integrate alfresco with their existing systems / workflow etc

cheers
-R

[johnn]

Hi Russ -

It is a good suggest for a topic. We'll set a new topic up on Monday. (There is no labor day here in the uk. We had ours in May.)

There are several organizations that are looking at Alfresco to do exactly the same thing. Hopefully, they won't be shy and will contribute to the conversation.

The common themes that are coming up are:

Re-use of content
Templating of content
Publishing from XML
Staging from repository to web site
Categorization
Public contribution with review and approval
Java infrastructure to support web development (especially Spring and JSF)

We are working and thinking about all these areas. Obviously there are multiple implementation choices and we are trying to chose the best. The feedback of a thread on a topic will help.

-john

[lgr]

Hello All,

I haven't found yet this topic, so there are my two cents.

I'm currently working in an IT managing services service, and we use a document repository (well, some shared directories) to share validated documents witrh our clients.

I was planning to find a document managing system, and have written down a book of specifications. I have searched for the ideal tool, and have found some more or less usable ones, that never fit in my needs. After an article on a french linux oriented web site, i've discovered Alfresco, which today fills 60% of my needs, and nearly 100% with the roadmap.

I've installed it since technology preview 3 :
- Tomcat Windows
- JBoss Linux

I've not succeeded in making the linux CIFS plugin work, so i've installed a  production server (well, a sort of) with the tomcat version on a windows vmware server.

I've worked on designing custom categories, creating hierarchical workspaces and implementing workflows (not much work on this last one).

I've uploaded through cifs 50mb of documents (including doc, txt, jpg, pdf, sh, perl, and some more), with some difficulties, much java exceptions, and many retries.

My objective is for instance, to test Alfresco, and see what can be done now, and have some experience on using it. I'm currently hoping that i will be able to open it to many people here, which are currently using our old repository system.

I'll be using Alfresco with some specifical needs in mind. For example, multiple companies will use it, and i'll need to "physically" separate each company repositories. I'm currently it with a SSO proxy put in front of Alfresco, and implements the ACLs. I'll talk about all my needs and prioritize them later.

But i think my most urgent need should be to have a migration tool from the different technology preview versions. In fact, when a new version is released, I uninstall the database and Alfresco, and recreates all of them, then defines all my workspaces, upload my documents, … Well, at least, i think i have gain some knowledge on installing it :-). (Hmm .. PR6 says about Export and Import Tools, i must investigate this)

Note : if someone wants to customize the categories, i've made an horrible hack to Alfresco to make it possible, and I can share it. Anyway, categories are not really usable before multiple categories are implemented in the gui.

Best regards, and a great thanks for Alfresco that looks very promising.

Laurent.