User and Group management is very weak

[tgmweb]

I might be missing something - I've been playing with Alfresco for a while, and I've come up against some pretty seriously limiting issues:

1.) Usernames.
Our repository has over 2000 users, some of which might have the same name. So, I thought, a good unique name would be the users email address (100% unique). However, this seems to cause serious issues. (Usernames can't have non-alpha numeric characters?) How can I overcome this?
2.) Group Management.
Can't move groups. Can't references groups within other groups. Can add exising group as sub group.
I've used LDAP to import our groups (850 of them). But they're all dumped into the root. And, now I can't move them, or create any group structure…. seriously limiting.

Has anyone any ideas on the above? Any reason why such seemingly simply things are not possible?

[dward]

You can add one group inside another by navigating inside that group and then creating a group with the same name as the group you want to 'move' inside it. Rather than creating a new group it will reference the existing group as a child.

The structure of the groups imported from LDAP only reflects the structure they exist in the directory. If you want one LDAP group to be nested within another, you should make sure that group is recorded as a member of the other group in the LDAP directory.

[tgmweb]

You can add one group inside another by navigating inside that group and then creating a group with the same name as the group you want to 'move' inside it. Rather than creating a new group it will reference the existing group as a child.

Interesting!

Well - I like that, didn't see it documented anywhere but that's a serious relief! Thanks!

The structure of the groups imported from LDAP only reflects the structure they exist in the directory. If you want one LDAP group to be nested within another, you should make sure that group is recorded as a member of the other group in the LDAP directory.

Yep I understand this now. I'll be looking again at our directory and also the LDAP sync with alfresco to see if I can get that working as we need. That's not really a limitation of alfresco, more of a limitation of my knowledge of LDAP!

Any idea on the username situation? It kinda works with the email address, but, for instance, calling a webscript such as:

http://localhost:8080/alfresco/service/api/people/username@domain.com -  this breaks the web scripts. URL ENcodeding the email address doesn't help.

http://195.62.11.23:8080/alfresco/service/api/people?userName=username@domain.com seems to return all the users - not the one in the queryString….

Odd behaviour…

[greyfairer]

You can add one group inside another by navigating inside that group and then creating a group with the same name as the group you want to 'move' inside it. Rather than creating a new group it will reference the existing group as a child.

That trick doesn't work for me, I tried to move a subgroup from another root group.
I get: A group ID with the same name already exists, group identifiers must be unique.

I have Alfresco Labs - v3.0.0 (Stable 1526).

[mikeh]

That trick doesn't work for me, I tried to move a subgroup from another root group.
I get: A group ID with the same name already exists, group identifiers must be unique.

I have Alfresco Labs - v3.0.0 (Stable 1526).

You'll have to use a v3.2 or newer.

Mike

[greyfairer]

You'll have to use a v3.2 or newer.

We need to support Alfresco Enterprise version v3.1.2.
Can you give another alternative for moving Groups?

Maybe using the Javascript API or Java Foundation API?

[mrogers]

In 3.1.2 your best bet will be to use the Java AuthorityService directly.

What 3.2 does to add the syntactic sugar to make it easier to use.  

You will also find forum threads here for the older versions of Alfresco.

[mycroes]

That trick doesn't work for me, I tried to move a subgroup from another root group.
I get: A group ID with the same name already exists, group identifiers must be unique.

I have Alfresco Labs - v3.0.0 (Stable 1526).

You'll have to use a v3.2 or newer.

Does that imply Enterprise v3.2 or newer? I'm using Community Edition 3.2r2 and seem to run into the same issue.
Regards,

Michael

[mycroes]

That trick doesn't work for me, I tried to move a subgroup from another root group.
I get: A group ID with the same name already exists, group identifiers must be unique.

I have Alfresco Labs - v3.0.0 (Stable 1526).

Seems this one is easy to solve: Alfresco share allows one to move the group (it talked about adding another reference to the group, in effect it moved the group), however Alfresco ECM will say the group exists.
Regards,

Michael

[nileshbhise]

thank you mycroes. You solved my sub group problem!