Alfresco in an Hour
Jared Ottley
Solutions Engineer
www.alfresco.com
Agenda
● Introduction
● User Interface ● Automating Tasks
● Rules and Actions
● The Basics
● Spaces and Content ● Simple Workflow
● Creating and Editing Content
● Demonstration
● Permissions
● Searching ● Further Information
● ● Q and A
Collaboration
● Versioning
● Check in/out
● Forums and Discussions
What is Alfresco?
Alfresco is the Open Source Alternative to
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
Document Records
Management Management
Web
Collaboration Content
Management
What does it do?
● Facilitates the collaborative creation and organization of all content.
● Manages content lifecycle and track changes.
● Includes email notifications, RSS, personalized dashboards and
more…
● Accessible – Alfresco Web Client, FTP, WebDAV, CIFS (network
share), MS Office Add-in.
● Alfresco Web Content Management
● Authoring, Virtualisation, Staging and Deployment for Web Site
Management
Feature Overview
Web Client Virtual File Server Site
Site 11
Site
Site 22
Java and SOAP Alfresco Site
Site 33
API Virtual Machine
● Document Management
Alfresco ECM Repository
● Multi-Channel Web Content
Management
Versioning Workflow Security Modeling
● Filesystem Interface
Search Scripting Templates X-Forms ● FTP, WebDAV, CIFS
● Metadata Modeling
Transformations Rules Engine
● BPM-Based Workflow
● Multiple APIs
LDAP Directory
● Java, JSR-170 (JCR), SOAP (.NET,
Database PHP, Ruby, Java)
● Broad Platform Support
Community or Enterprise?
● Community ● Enterprise
● Development Version ● Functionally Equivalent
● Experimental; Minimal Testing • Same Code Base
Functionally Equivalent ● Rigorous QA and Fixes
• Same Code Base ● Production Quality
● Nightly builds available. ● Regular Maintenance
● Support via Wiki and Forums Releases
• No SLA ● Officially Supported
• Guaranteed SLA
• Email
• Telephone
• Developer Support (Optional)
• Certified SI Partners
● Alfresco Connect for
Enterprise (ACE)*
* Available Q3 07
What is a Space?
● Just like a folder, but capable of ● View/Modify details about a space
more
● Smart Spaces
● Can hold any type of content ● Rules
● ● Work with other users Map to
Give a description and choose an
icon Windows network folder
● Add sub-spaces and content
What is Content?
● Often can be thought of as a file or ● Properties
document
● Format, language, creator,
● Made of two main elements dates
● The “content” itself
● Classifications
● Information about the content
● Links to related content
(meta-data)
• Translations
● Content • Different formats (e.g. PDF,
● Anything: documents, video, HTML, Text)
audio, images, XML, HTML • OCR’d text of scanned image
Creating and Editing Content
● HTML or plain Text created and edited in-line
● WYSIWYG editor in the browser
● Upload content
● Select file from user computer in the browser
● Network folders, FTP and WebDAV
● Download from Alfresco to user computer
● Standard browser feature, choose where to save
● Network folders, FTP and WebDAV
● Update documents by uploading changed file
● Edit Microsoft Office documents directly
Searching Content
● Combined search of both contents ● Property constraints
and properties ● By category
● Full-text search ● Between dates
● Any words in content, ● Custom properties
regardless of format
● Best-match based on number ● Path constraints
of matched words ● Only content below a given
space
OpenSearch
● Standard Interface
● Client
● IE7 and Firefox
● Server
● Alfresco Repositories
● 3rd Party Applications
● Shelf and My Alfresco Dashlet
● One Interface for all Searches
● Google
● eBay
● Wikipedia
● Alfresco
● Auto-Discovery
● Language Aware
● For setup details see:
● http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/OpenSearch Alfresco as an
Alfresco as an OpenSearch Client
OpenSearch Server
Forums and Discussions
● Forum spaces may be defined to contain Forums
● Using Advanced Space Wizard ‘From Scratch’
● Forums may also be associated with spaces and content items
● Using the “Start Discussion” action
● Discussions move with the item
● Forums contain Topics which contain Posts
● Posts may have Replies
● Searchable
Using Versioning
● Allows a history of previous versions of an item to be kept
● A new version is created when content is saved, by default
● An item needs to be “versionable” for versions to be kept
● Individually, via smart spaces, by type or globally
● An example of an “aspect”
● Can look at version history, view previous versions of content – future,
revert to version
● Content id always points to the most recent version
Check In and Check Out
● Check Out locks the item and creates a working copy which can be edited
(content and details)
● Everyone else can just view the item
● Check In replaces the original item with the working copy and releases the
lock
Rules and Actions -
Conditions
● Rules are applied to a ‘Space’ ● Rules are filtered based on
conditions
● Rules make a space ‘Smart’ ● All Items (no filter)
● Rules are triggered by an Event ● Items with a specific MIME
● Inbound - content arriving into Type (e.g. .pdf)
a space ● Specific Content Type Applied
● Outbound – content leaving a to a specific aspect File name
space, moved, deleted pattern (e.g. *-context.xml)
● Update – content being ● Falls within a Category (e.g.
modified Region, Language)
● Rule filter can be applied to ‘NOT’
● e.g. not in MIME Type *.pdf
● No limit on the number of
conditions that can be applied to
each rule
Rules and Actions -
Actions
● Items that successfully meet the rule conditions have an ‘Action’ applied to them
● Actions can triggered to run manually
● No limit on the number of Actions per rule
● Rules are used to organise, structure, enrich content in the repository
● Used in conjunction with:
● Alfresco Web Client
● FTP
● WebDAV
● CIFS (Shared Network Folder)
● Web Services API
● Use your imagination
Simple Workflow
● Special case of a Rule
● Applies automated management of
document lifecycles
● Moves / Copies content based on user
actions
Space Templates
● Re-useable templates of spaces and content
● Create a library of standard projects
● Different types of projects have different structures
● Standardized documents
● Standardized management
● Create a template in the same way as a space
● Add sub-spaces and content
● Create spaces based on other spaces
Accessing Content Without The
Alfresco Client
● CIFS
● Root URL: \\<machine
name>_A\Alfresco
● Same as a network share folder
● Can mount as a share drive
● Drag and Drop files into Alfresco
● Edit content directly with other
programs
● Network folders can be smart
spaces
● Provides user with a link to the
same space in the web client
● FTP/WebDAV/CIFS
● All rules are applied
● All permissions are enforced
● If versioning is enabled, then
content will be versioned
Alfresco WCM
● Add-on Module to Alfresco Content Repository
● All DM and WCM capabilities available within a single repository
● Complementary Content and Web Content services
● Community and Enterprise Versions
● Community - Free to use
• Limited QA
• NO support
• Use at your own risk!
● Enterprise - No license fees, annual support subscription
• Production Ready
• Service Level Agreement
• Warranty and Indemnity
● See Alfresco in an Hour in the Content Community for more information on
core repository services.
Alfresco’s Model for WCM
● Content Production ● Content Delivery
● Production Model ● Static v’s Dynamic Runtimes
• Sandboxes ● Alfresco Runtimes
• Transparent Layers ● Deployment
● Workflow
● Roles
● Content Modelling
● Versioning
● Virtualisation
● Filesystem Projection
Alfresco’s Model for WCM
● Low traffic ● High traffic
● Read / write ● Read mostly
● Alfresco focuses on: ● Alfresco focuses on:
● Ease of content entry ● Deployment Flexibility
● Content QA (workflow / ● Technology agnosticism
approval) ● Performance / scalability
● Version control / rollback
Production Model
Production Model –
Transparent Layers
● No changes yet made
Production Model –
Transparent Layers
● Alice creates a new page called "products.html"
Production Model –
Transparent Layers
● Alice edits "index.html" to add a link to her new page
Production Model –
Transparent Layers
● Alice submits her changes (change set) to workflow, they are
approved and promoted to staging
Alfresco’s Model for WCM
Deployment In a Nutshell
?
What kind of sites can
Alfresco manage?
● Static or Dynamic or Both
● Static – HTML, Images
● Dynamic - JSP, ASP, Coldfusion, PHP…..
. Static Dynamic
Delivery technology Web servers Application servers
Page compositing Submission time Request time
Deployment mechanism Filesystem Alfresco Runtime
Personalization Limited Unlimited
Performance Ultimate Less than static
Application developer skill-sets Freemarker, XSLT, XSLT-FO Any web technology
Alfresco Runtimes
Runtime Repository (in
Web Scripts
production) Can be used:
REST (HTTP) Based –
As the search engine for Technology Independent
the web site (applicable for
Data Access API
both dynamic and static
web sites)
HTML, XML, Text, JSON,
Atom, RSS.....
As a runtime content store
that can be queried by a
Supports cached results
dynamic web application.
Authentication
● Can be used to provide:
• Search
• Navigation
• Dynamic Page Assembly
A Hybrid Model?
Hybrid – Mix Static and Dynamic
Page Composition Options
“Inside Out”
• Each page is dynamic and includes all page components dynamically
(regardless of whether those components are static or dynamic)
“Outside In”
• Each page is static HTML with static components already embedded, but
dynamic components included via an inclusion mechanism (eg. server side
includes)
Note: The tradeoff between these two models is management complexity vs runtime
performance.
Share
Core Concepts
● New Collaboration Application
● Document Management
● Collaboration
● Social Networking
● Sites
● Teams or projects maintain their own collaboration site
● Collaboration sites are websites
• Sites and site pages are bookmarkable
• Configurable by business users from a library of UI components
● Site Components
● Site Dashboards, DocLibrary, Wiki, Blog, Discussions (Forums),
Calendar
● Activities Service
● Personal Dashboards
17/07/08
Share Sites
● Sites
● Collaboration areas for extranets, new products, communities of
interest/practice and more…
● Set of themed, templated collaboration sites
● Site Dashboard
● Configurable by Site Manager
● Layout Templates
● Dashlets
● Site Components
● Library of Web-script-based GUI components
● Add/remove components
● Personal Dashboard
● Activities
● Rich profile management – avatars, contact info
17/07/08
Share
Page Components
● DocLibrary ● Wiki
● Multi-file upload ● WYSIWYG editing and Simple Wiki Markup
● Multi-select operations ● Version History
• e.g copy/move
● Comments
● Commenting
● Publish MediaWiki
● Social Tagging
● Filters ● Blog
● Thumbnails ● WYSIWYG editing
● Flash Previews
● Publish to WordPress & TypePad
● Discussions
● Threaded
● Commenting
● Calendar
● Day/Week/Month and Agenda views
17/07/08 ● iCal support
Share
Site and Personal Dashboards
● Drag n’ Drop Configuration
● Dashlets
● Calendar
• Site and Personal
• Rollups – consolidate view from all my calendars
● Activities
• Events automatically posted by actions in other components
• E.g add document, edit document, new calendar event etc
● People Finder
● Site Finder
● RSS Feeds
17/07/08
Flash Document Viewer
● Automatic Generation of
Flash Renditions including:
● Word, PowerPoint, Excel
● OpenOffice
● And more …
● Pluggable Rendition Engine
● Flash Video/Audio
● Reduced Bandwidth
● High Performance Viewing
● Remove Client Application
Dependencies
17/07/08 38
Share
Services
● Activities
● Exposed via Dashlets and Feeds
● Tagging
● Searching, Filtering
● Thumbnail
● Automatic Previews
● Site
● Creating, invites, membership, management
17/07/08
Share
APIs
● Standardised Public API
● REST based
● Language independent
● Developer productivity
● Examples:
● Create site
● Invite Members
● Create blog post
● Create calendar event
● ...
● See http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/3.0_REST_API for full details
17/07/08
Further Information
● Content Community
● http://www.alfresco.com
● AMPs, Documentation, Tutorial, Tech Tips
● Alfresco Wiki
● Technical information on configuration, administration and customisation
● http://wiki.alfresco.com
● Alfresco Forums
● Community Postings
● Alfresco Staff
● http://forums.alfresco.com
● Alfresco Forge
● Contributions from the community
• E.g. Metadata extractors, transformations ….
• http://forge.alfresco.com
Thank you for Attending
Alfresco in an Hour
Jared Ottley
Solutions Engineer
www.alfresco.com
