Several Questions About Alfresco

[kaplan71]

Hi there –

I had several questions concerning the installation and implementation of Alfresco.

1. I would like the website that is to be built to be a KnowledgeBase. Is Alfresco capable of being a document search engine?

2. If I want to upload multiple files to the knowledgebase, can I do so? If so, how?

3. Is it possible for me to have filtered access where users would log into the site and have access to certain parts of the knowledgebase? In other words, users in various groups would see only a select group of documents that the groups have permission to see.

4. What type of authentication mechanism is available? Does Alfresco have one, or do I need another mechanism?

[dozyarmadillo]

1. I would like the website that is to be built to be a KnowledgeBase. Is Alfresco capable of being a document search engine?

Yes, Alfresco can be used as a knowledgebase. You can categorise documents, assign custom metadata, populate metadata automatically from MS Office docs, etc - then search against all of this info. The search engine is pretty cool.

2. If I want to upload multiple files to the knowledgebase, can I do so? If so, how?

You could use Windows Explorer or Network Places to drag/drop documents into the repository using the CIFS and WEBDAV clients. FTP is also supported so you could do the same thing with an FTP client. There's a bulk import tool as well.

3. Is it possible for me to have filtered access where users would log into the site and have access to certain parts of the knowledgebase? In other words, users in various groups would see only a select group of documents that the groups have permission to see.

Yes, users work in folder-like containers called Spaces. Cascading permissions and rules can be applied to Spaces (document level security is also supported) so you could easily control who gets to see what.

4. What type of authentication mechanism is available? Does Alfresco have one, or do I need another mechanism?
Database, LDAP, Kerberos and NTLM.