Does Alfresco WCM suitable to implement?

[shmu80]

Hi,

I just hope to get the advice and opinion from the members here.

My company is plan to implement alfresco WCM for company website management, and I am doing some R&D on this, however, I still have some doubt to implement Alfresco WCM.

Below is about what I found out, if I am wrong please help to correct me.

1. After I create a new content and submit it, before I get the approval, the content reviewer is not able to view the new look and feel of the content inside the website, he only able to view the content page.

2. Reviewer only able to view the new look of the content after he approve it to submit to staging, but after the new content submit to staging, it is not able to edit again. Sometime my company may add some new content into the existing content, for this, I need to re-create a new content which has the existing and new content. I feel that this is quite troublesme to edit existing content.

3. I am still have no idea on how to start to develop a new website by using alfresco WCM. From the sample war file, I found that we need to create a basic web project by NOT using the WCM first, and using the WCM to import this war file. All the new content in xml, html or txt format will store into the folder inside the war file. May I know is it the practise to create a Web Project in Alfresco WCM?

Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

[kvc]

Hi -


Some quick updates to your questions:

1.  Reviewer unable to preview. 

     A key part of our system is to enable in-context preview.  To enable in-
     context preview for all users - including reviewers - you need to have
     your Virtualization Server running, as that is responsible for handling
     all page preview requests.

     If you walk through the Product Evaluation Guide, you'll see an
     example of page preview via the Virtualization Server.  Also, you
     can look into more detail on how we enable preview by reading
     more about the Virtualization Server on our wiki.

2.  Each reviewer's task is assigned a temporary workflow sandbox
     to support in-context preview via the Virtualization Server of a
     set of promoted changes.  Reviewer's are expected to preview
     prior to approval; if they content doesn't look right, it should not
     be approved and checked-in to Staging.

     Once content is checked-in to Staging, any lock held by the
     editing author is automatically released.  Any user in any sandbox
     to immediately edit the resource and take a new lock (to prevent
     concurrent, conflicting modifications).

     What you cannot do is edit content in Staging.  Staging is read-only.
     Any and all edits must occur within a user sandbox or a workflow
     sandbox as part of some assigned task.

3.  I'm not sure I understand this question.  Before you upload an
     existing site or create a new one, you do have to create a project
     space (a Web Project), which tells us the things important things
     we need to know about (a) which users will be contributing to the
     site (b) what content types users will be created using Web Forms
     for the website © what workflow policies you want to enforce, etc.


I highly encourage you to walk through the Product Evaluation Guide available from our wiki.  It serves as a useful introduction to how to
get started.


Kevin

[prabhatpanda]

I have gone through the Product Evaluation Guide which is available from wiki.

After importing the .war file to sandbox of Alfrescosample Project which is in web projects, I am unable to preview the website.

When I click on the Preview website, I get this below error page

http://alfrescosample.www--sandbox.127-0-0-1.ip.alfrescodemo.net:8180/

Could you please guide me to solve this error?

Thanks,
Prabhat Panda.

[kvc]

To preview a website, you need to start our preview server, a second tomcat instance that we use for purposes of virtualization.  The auto-generated URL for authoring server preview only resolves if our virtualization server is running.

You can read more about our Virtualization Server on our wiki. 


Kevin

[prabhatpanda]

I am new to Alfresco. I just started working by going through the Product Evaluation Guide. I have downloaded WCM. I am running Alfresco and WCM Virtual Server both when I try to preview the pages.

Can you please clarify me, Is that WCM Virtual Server is different than Virtualization Server? If yes, where can i download the Virtualization server?

It would be grate if you could provide some more inforamtion on this and any link where I can go and learn more.

Thanks,
Prabhat Panda.

[huima]

If yes, where can i download the Virtualization server?

If you download the bundle with WCM and Tomcat readily configured the virtual server is in it's own directory virtual-tomcat, and can be started with it's own start script virtual_alf.sh.

[rdanner]

If yes, where can i download the Virtualization server?

If you download the bundle with WCM and Tomcat readily configured the virtual server is in it's own directory virtual-tomcat, and can be started with it's own start script virtual_alf.sh.

When you get it working you will have two tomcat servers running.  The first can be started with alf_start.sh and the second as huima points out with virtual_alf.sh.  You will want to run alf_start.sh first, let it start up and then start the virtualization server.  It's quite easy to get going.  The other important thing to note is that out of the box the users will need access to the internet for DNS resolution – almost never an issue.  If it is an issue either modify your host file or setup your own wild card DNS (covered in the wiki)

[prabhatpanda]

Thanks everyone for valuable feedback. I could see the preview pages now.

[prabhatpanda]

After importing the .war file to the admin sandbox and I have given "Submit All" for approval of the files. But when I login as a content manager to approve the content I am unable to see the approval request at content manager's dashboard.

Can anyone please help me how to solve this?

Thanks,
Prabhat Panda.

[kvc]

The approval task is on the dashboard of whichever user you assigned as a reviewer when you configured workflow.  If you did not set a workflow policy, the content is already committed to Staging (it goes straight through). 

At present, we do not provide a roll-up dashboard for a Content Manager to see all active tasks regardless of assignee for projects they manage.  This is a known feature request.  Would love a Community contribution here!

Kevin