Requirement specs for Alfresco installation & config

[snap]

Hello,

My company is about to start the process of purchasing an Alfresco licence. However, whilst evaluating Alfresco, we've realized that we are going to need to configure it a fair bit before we can really start using it. As we do not have the human resources necessary for this, we will probably contract the personalization out to the Alfresco partner. I would like to make headway with the analysis of what exactly we would need.

I'd like to know what an Alfresco partner would typically look for in a requirement specification. Should we just highlight our business needs in general or should I try to translate our business needs into more detail? (I personally prefer to do the latter, else we might end up wasting a lot of the consultant's time trying to figure out what questions to ask) Should I for instance prepare the following:
- analyze the way each department works with documents in order to define the custom content type, along with its metadata?
- specify the steps required in all the workflows we want to implement?
- define groups and roles
- define new tasks that aren't currently available in alfresco?
- define how I want users to access the data (in order to develop webscripts etc.)

I suppose a lot of the users on this forum are devlopers and partners. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

[jbarmash]

Hello,

It sounds like you are going through, or are about to, go through the sales process, I would suggest you work with an Alfresco sales or sales engineer - they will help you identify which questions to ask. 

When you say "configuration" - I am assuming you mean customization?  Truly configuration questions can be answered by support - this is what part of the enterprise subscription is about.

In general, the approach you outlined is good (including the bullet points) - there is really no way to avoid having to sit down and figuring out your requirements- you know your business much better than any consultant does (unless you pay them a lot of money to do a thorough analysis and requirements gathering of course).  Other things you might want to think about off the top of my head:
   Which App Server are you planning to run this on?
   What is the deployment architecture (clustering, security, etc)
   Are you planning to integrate Alfresco with any in-house tools or other software?
   What is the load going to be?


Lastly, this is a collaborative effort - the partner you'll work with will likely ask you to provide information so they can give you an accurate estimate.

Jean

[snap]

Hello Jean,

Thank you for your reply. You are right, we are about to go through the sales process, and I am talking about customization. We are an engineering firm, and we are obliged to adhere to certain standards and naming conventions, for instance, which aren't supported in Alfresco by default.

I'll start the process of putting our requirements in down black and white. Thanks for your tips. I'll be calling the local sales rep as soon as I have the green light from my bosses.

Thanks again
Sang