Getting Started with Document Management

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Alfresco 2.1

Getting Started withDocument Management

Version 1.0


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Version 2.1 Getting Started with Document Management

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Copyright (c) 2007 by Alfresco and others.

Information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for anypurpose, without the express written permission of Alfresco. The trademarks, service marks,

logos or other intellectual property rights of Alfresco and others used in this documentation("Trademarks") are the property of Alfresco and their respective owners. The furnishing of thisdocument does not give you license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights or other intellectualproperty except as expressly provided in any written agreement from Alfresco.

The United States export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration

Regulations of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and other applicable laws and regulationsapply to this documentation which prohibit the export or re-export of content, products, services,and technology to certain countries and persons. You agree to comply with all export laws,regulations and restrictions of the United States and any foreign agency or authority and assumesole responsibility for any such unauthorized exportation.

If you need technical support for this product, contact Customer Support by email at

[email protected]. If you have comments or suggestions about this documentation, contactus at [email protected].

This edition applies to version 2.1 of the licensed program.


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Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................1Important Notes............................................................................................................................1

Typographic Conventions.................................................................................................................2Starting with Alfresco........................................................................................................................3

Toolbar ......................................................................................................................................3Sidebar ......................................................................................................................................4Working Area.............................................................................................................................4

Logging In.....................................................................................................................................5Adding New Users............................................................................................................................6

Home Spaces...............................................................................................................................7Creating Spaces and Content ..........................................................................................................8

Creating a Space..........................................................................................................................8Creating and Editing Content in a Space...................................................................................10Managing Content Item Details..................................................................................................12

Working with Space Templates ......................................................................................................14Building Smart Spaces ...................................................................................................................16

Creating Content Rules..............................................................................................................16Adding a Content Versioning Rule .............................................................................................17

Setting the Conditions .............................................................................................................18Defining the Actions ................................................................................................................18Selecting the Rule Type ..........................................................................................................19

Adding Simple Workflow Rules ..................................................................................................20Requesting Draft Approval ......................................................................................................20Publishing the Approved Content............................................................................................21

Moving Content via the Clipboard ..............................................................................................22Collaborating with Other Users.......................................................................................................23Editing Content in a Collaborative Space.......................................................................................25

Checking out a content item.......................................................................................................25Checking in a Content Item........................................................................................................26Version History ...........................................................................................................................27

Sending Content for Review...........................................................................................................28


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Uploading and Transforming Content.............................................................................................29Categorizing Content and Advanced Search .................................................................................31

Searching for Categorised Content............................................................................................32Forums and Discussions ................................................................................................................34

Creating a Forum .......................................................................................................................34Creating a Topic ......................................................................................................................35

Discussions ................................................................................................................................36Summary ........................................................................................................................................37


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Introduction

This Document Management Product Evaluation Guide is to:

Introduce the basic concepts of an overview tutorial of the Alfresco Document Management

solution to accompany the download of the system available at:http://dev.alfresco.com/downloads/. You can also access an online demo by going to:http://www.alfresco.com/products/ecm/tour/

Demonstrate how to set up and configure Alfresco for managing your documents

Showcase a Smart Space, which is a collaborative space that uses rules to simplify thehandling, management and transformation

Show how to use additional properties and categories to organize and find content

Create and manage a forum

Collaborate with your colleagues

Alfresco recommends you download the Alfresco 2.1 release and walk through this guidedproduct evaluation guide to familiarize yourself with the Document Management features ofAlfrescos 2.1 ECM platform offering.

Important Notes

Before starting, make sure that your system has been installed properly. The installation is fastand easy for either Microsoft Windows or Linux. If you have any issues in the installation, youcan find help in the Alfresco Forums at: http://forums.alfresco.com/

Alfresco also recommends reviewing and keeping up-to-date on the latest around the Document

Management offering on our Developer Wiki. To bookmark this page for easy reference, pleaseuse the following link:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/


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Typographic Conventions

The following typographic conventions are used in this Product Evaluation Guide:

Formatting Convention Type of Information

Bold Navigation, Menu, and Action links in the Alfresco webclient

Blue Italicized Bold Links in the sample website

Italics Filenames and path references in the Alfresco samplewebsite and source files. Also used for labels withinAlfresco forms.

Quoted Text Folder names within the Alfresco web client

Captioned Text Important information to note


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Starting with Alfresco

When you open your browser to Alfresco for the first time, you are taken to the Guest Home.This space can be used to hold any content that you would like to be available to anyone who hasaccess to your Alfresco server.

There are three main areas in the Alfresco user interface:

Toolbar along the top

Sidebar at the left

Working area at the right

Toolbar

The toolbar contains navigation button, depending on who you are. If you are logged in as:

Guest: You have access to Home Space or your My Alfresco Dashboard

User: You also have access to the Company Home and Guest Home

Administrator: You also have access to User Options and the Administration Console

The toolbar also lets you:

Access the Search and Help capabilities


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You can also hide and show the Sidebar using the icon to the left of the Help icon

View information about Alfresco CMS by clicking on the Alfresco logo.

Sidebar

The Sidebar contains a number of different features to help you navigate, find, and work withcontent such as the Navigator, Clipboard, Shortcuts, Recent Spaces, and openSearch.

Working Area

The working area changes depending on what information you are looking at or what task you areperforming. The top of the working area will always have a navigation breadcrumb that allows youto jump to any part of the breadcrumb path. For information views, there is a summary area alongwith actions or alternative views. The details and options also change depending on what you arelooking at and doing, as well as who you are.


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Logging In

If you want to add and create content you must to log in. When Alfresco is installed, it creates anadministration user called admin with a default password of admin.

Click the Login link to access the Administrator Dashboard and click Company Home in the

toolbar to go to the Company Home.


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Adding New Users

Before adding some new users and defining their own personal working spaces, you will organizethe repository and where user home spaces live. When Alfresco is installed, a User Home spaceis created automatically to contain all user home spaces.

To add a new user, click the icon (Administration Console)on the toolbar. This opens theAdministration Console.

Click Manage System Users and you will be presented with the Manage System Users pane.

Click Show All to list the current users, including the pre-configured admin account.

Click Create User in the header to open the New User Wizard.


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Home Spaces

Specify the person properties, using Bob Smith and click Next.

Specify the user properties, using Bob Smith again.

Assign the name of the users home space and location. For this example, use the default homespace location User Homes created during installation and name it Bob Smith.

Click Next to see a summary of the details and click Finish. This creates the new user, BobSmith and his home space, and displays him in the user list.

Create another user named Joe Bloggs for use later on.


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Creating Spaces and Content

You can now log in as a user. Click Logout from the toolbar and log in using the details for BobSmith. You are taken to your My Alfresco Dashboard by default. Click My Home in the sidebarto create a sub-space and add content.

Creating a Space

Before adding content, organise your home space into categories that meet your business needs (including collaboration). For this example, create a sub-space called My web documents forHTML files.

Select Create Space from the Create menu in the header. The Create Space pane displays.

Type My web documents as the space name. Optionally, you can specify other information andan icon for more detail about the space.


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Click Create Space. Your home space displays with the new space listed.

Click the (Refresh) icon next to the Navigator header in the sidebar to synchronise the

navigator bar.Now you can create web content directly in the browser.


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Creating and Editing Content in a Space

Open the My web documents space (click the icon or the name).

Select Create Content from the Create menu. The Create Content wizard starts.

Type newfile.htm as the file name. Note that the remaining general properties are populated bydefault. You can modify them.

Click Next to display the Enter Content pane and add the following example web page, includingtext formatting and images.


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Click Next for the summary page.

Note that the Finish button is also active. It becomes active when there isenough information to complete a task. Any additional steps are optional.

Click Finish. The Modify Content properties page displays, with the full set of properties.

Review the properties and add new ones if you like. These properties vary for different Types andSmart Spaces.

Click OK to save the properties and return to the My web documents space with the new filedisplayed. If there are any required properties, OK is not enabled until they have been completed.


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Managing Content Item Details

You can view the details (properties and meta-data) of a content item at any time.

Click to the right of the content item to display the details.

Click the icon (View Details) in the top right of this pane to display the Details page with theProperties panel expanded. If you are not sure which icon does what action, hover your mouseover the icon and a tool tip displays its name.

Click the Modify icon on the top right of the Properties panel.


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Click the View In Browser link in the Links panel to view or download the through the browser.You can also download the content to your local disk as a file by selecting the content icon orname in the space browser.


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Working with Space Templates

You can use templates that you create or Alfresco provides to accelerate the set up of a spaceand for ensuring consistency across multiple spaces.

In this scenario, you will set up a project space with multiple sub-spaces in which you willcollaborate with other team members to create, approve, and publish documents. Part of therequirements you have for this space are provided by a template.

Navigate to your home space (you can use the breadcrumb or click My Home on the toolbar).

Select Advanced Space Wizard from the Create menu. The Create Space Wizard pagedisplays.

Select Using a template and click Next. Step Two Space Options displays which enables youto select a template for this space.

Select the Software Engineering Project template from the list and click Next to specify thespace details.

Type Project Voodoo as the Name.


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Click Finish to return to the My Home space where the Project Voodoo documentation is nowlisted.


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Building Smart Spaces

One of the key benefits of Alfresco is the ability to define rules that affect content within a space.These rules can be used to provide creative solutions to automation and management of content.Rules are applied when content comes in or out of a space and may also apply to content directly

in the space or in sub-spaces.A rule is made up of three main elements:

The conditions on the content for the rule to match

The actions that are performed on the content

The type of rule it is

Any number of conditions and actions may be defined in a rule.

Creating Content Rules

You are going to create a few rules in the Project Voodoo Documentation space to:

Add content versioning because multiple authors will collaborate on the documents

Set up a simple workflow that allows the documents to progress through these spaces

To add a rule, navigate to the Project Voodoo Documentation space. There are four sub-spacesto contain the documents in different stages of completion, as well as a space with samplecontent.

Open the Drafts space, the space where a document will be created.


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In the space header, select Manage Content Rules from the More Actions menu. The ContentRules pane appears.

Adding a Content Versioning Rule

In the header, click Create Rule to open the Create Rule Wizard.


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Setting the Conditions

The first step allows defines the conditions that are applied to the content before the action isperformed.

In the Select Condition list, select All Items so the action is performed on any content added tothe space.

Click Add to List to set the condition. The condition displays in the Summary list.

Defining the Actions

Click Next to define the actions.

Select Add aspect toitem from the Select Action list.

Click Set Values and Add.


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In the Set Actions Values section, select Versionable from list as the required feature and clickOK.

Selecting the Rule Type

Click Next to move to Step Three Enter Details. This allows you to choose what type of rule itis, that is to say, when the rule gets tested. The options are:

Inbound - The action occurs when content is copied, created or added to the space

Outbound - The action occurs when content is moved or deleted from the space

Updated - The actions occurs when content is updated in the space.

Select Inbound from the Type menu, type All versioned as the title, and optionally, adescription.

Click Next to review the summary.


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Verify the information you have specified and click Finish and the rule displays on the ContentRules page.

Adding Simple Workflow Rules

The workflow rules move the content item through the spaces, based on specific criteria. You will

create the following rules.

Request Approval - Move from Draft to Request Approval space

Publish move from Request Approval to Publish space

Requesting Draft Approval

You also want to create a rule that applies a simple workflow to content in this space. ClickCreate Rule in the header and add a rule using the following information.

1. Select the Condition All Items.

2. Select the Action Add simple workflow to item.

3. Specify the Approve Flow Step Name Request approval.

4. Select to Move the item to the Pending Approval space.

5. Select No as the Reject Flow step.

6. Specify the type Inbound.

7. Specify the Title Add simple workflow.

8. Click Finish to complete the wizard.


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Publishing the Approved Content

Now that you have finished defining rules on the Draft space, navigate to the Pending Approvalspace to add the next step in the workflow.

There is no need to add a rule to make all content versioned, since content has moved from theDrafts space where it will have already been versioned. Select Manage content rules to define

a simple workflow rule:

Click Create Rule and use the following information:

1. Select the Condition - All items.

2. Select the Action Add simple workflow to item.

3. Specify the Approve Flow Step Name Publish.

4. Select to Move the item to the Published space.

5. Select Yes as the Reject Flow step and name it Reject.

6. Select to Move the item back to the Drafts space.

7. Specify the type Inbound.

8. Specify the title Add simple workflow.


To see these rules in action, you need to add some content.


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Moving Content via the Clipboard

There is a sample software overview document created as part of the template you are using.Use this document to test the rules.

Navigate to the Samples space within the Project Voodoo Documentation space

Click the icon (More Actions) associated with the system-overview.html document, andthen select Copy from the list. A message displays, indicating that the document wassuccessfully added to the clipboard.

Click the icon beside the Navigator header in the sidebar and select Shelf to view theclipboard contents.

Navigate to the Drafts space.

Click the icon (More Actions) in the header and select Paste All from the list. This pastes anew copy of the document in the Drafts space and the contents of the clipboard are removed.

If the content is Cut, a reference to it is placed in the clipboard and the content remains in itsoriginal place until you Paste it in the new location. The clipboard contents are not retained overlogin sessions, so if you cut some content and then log out, the content stays where it wasoriginally.

You can also paste items as Links, which creates an item that points to another space orcontent, but can have a different name and description.


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Collaborating with Other Users

To work with other users on this project, invite them to the Drafts space.

Select Manage Space Users from the More Actions menu in this space. This displays users withpermission to work on content in Drafts.

Click Invite on the top right of the header to invite a user to the space. This opens a page toselect the users and the role they can play in the space.

Type Joe as the person you want to invite and click Search.

Select Joe Bloggs from the results list, select Consumer as his role.


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Click Add to List.

Click Next and you are given the option to send the invited users an email telling them aboutbeing invited. As you havent configured email, select No and click Finish.

Click Close to return to the Drafts space.


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Editing Content in a CollaborativeSpace

With multiple authors collaborating on the content, you want to ensure that only one personmodifies it at a time by checking it out. This creates a working copy and locks the original. Whenyou check it in, it overwrites the original item with the working copy and unlocks it.

Checking out a content item

Click the (Check out) icon for system-overview.html. You are given the choice of checkingout the working copy to the same space as the original, or any other space. Some people like towork with one space that contains all their current work-in-progress, so may have created aspecific folder in their home space for working copies. You are going to keep the working copy inthe current space.

Click Check Out and you can choose to download the content for editing in some other program.Click OK to return to a view of the space, now containing two items, with one appended with(working copy).


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Checking in a Content Item

The icon (lock) displayed beside the original content item lets you know that it cannot bemodified. The only way you can modify it is to check in or undo the check out on the workingcopy. If you are not the person who checked the document out, hover the mouse over the lockicon on the original item. It displays the author who is currently editing the item.

First you are going to edit the document and add some minor changes to the text. Once saved,you can check in the content.

Take a copy of the content onto the desktop and work with it offline. Any modifications you make

can be uploaded to the working copy by selecting Update from the icon (More Actions )associated with the working copy file without the need to check in.

Clickthe icon (Check In) associated with the content item. You can specify any notes on themodifications you have made, identify where the updated version of the content is, and clickCheck In.


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Version History

As the content is versioned, previous iterations are available in the version history.

Click the icon (View Details) for system-overview.html and expand the Version History pane.You will also see current version listed.


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Sending Content for Review

Now that the content has been completed, it can be sent for review. Any workflow steps that are

available for an item of content are shown in its actions, either from the icon (More Actions)

or from the icon (View Details) associated with the content item.

Select Request Approval from the icon (More Actions). This moves the content item to thePending Approval space.

Navigate to the Pending Approval space where you can see the system-overview.html content.

Another rule could have been defined to send an email alert to the reviewers ofthis document.

Click the icon (More Actions) again and you can see the Publish and Reject workflow steps

you created as a rule.

Select Publish to move the content on to the Published space.

Alfresco also has integrated Business Process Management (BPM) capability. This goes beyond

the Simple Workflow folder-based method of sending content for review, allowing content toremain where it is while complex workflows can operate on it. The BPM-based workflow createstasks for users to complete, with these showing up in the users My Tasks To Do DashboardComponent.


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Uploading and Transforming Content

In the following scenario, you want to use some marketing content in a technical document.However, the marketing content is in PDF format only. To use the text, define a transformationrule that convert content to a different format.

Navigate to the Drafts space in Project Voodoo and select Manage Content Rules from theMore Actions menu.

Click Create Rule and complete it using the following information.

1. Select the Condition Items which contain a specific value in its name.

2. Set the Condition value - *.pdf.

3. Select the Action Transform and copy content to a specific space.

4. Select the Action Setting Plain Text.

5. Select the Destination Drafts space.

6. Specify the Type Inbound.

7. Specify the Title Transform PDFs.



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Now you can upload a file to exercise the rule.

Click Add Content in Drafts header and browse to the sample .PDF file available in the Alfrescoinstallation folder.

Click Upload. When the message confirming the upload displays, uncheck Modify all propertieswhen this dialog closes and click OK. The Drafts space now contains two new documents:The PDF file and the text version of it.


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Categorizing Content and AdvancedSearch

Another Alfresco feature is the ability to assign categories to items. This allows information to beclassified in any number of different ways. With this, you can retrieve items that matchcombinations of constraints, including categories. Categories are hierarchical, so searching for anitem in a category will also find anything classified below it. In the following example, you aregoing to add some content to a category and then search for it.

The first step is to allow the content to be categorized.

Navigate to the Published space and click the icon (View Details) for system-overview.html

Expand the Category pane and click Allow Categorization.

Click the Change Category icon in the top right corner of the pane.

Click Select then click Click here to select a category.

Click Software Document Classification to view its sub-categories.

Click through the following subcategories:

- Software Descriptions

- Main Software Descriptions

Select Short System Description.


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Click OK.

Click Add to List and click OK.

Searching for Categorised Content

You can now use the Advanced Search to find this content.

Select Advanced Search from the (Search Options) menu in the toolbar.

The Advanced Search provides multiple criteria, including categories, under which you cansearch for a content item.

Expand the Show me results in the categories pane

Select Software Descriptions as the category, ensuring you check Includesub-categories.


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Click Add to List then click OK.

Click Search. For this example, there is only one document that matches this criteria: system-overview.html.

You can also include other options for the search, such as the kind of documentyou are looking for, or a range of dates for its creation or modification.


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Forums and Discussions

Alfresco provides an easy way for people to collaborate using forums and discussions. Forumscontain topics of discussion and topics contain posts from different users.

Creating a ForumThe first step is to create a forum space. A forum space can contain any number of forums, oreven other forum spaces if wanted.

Click My Home on the toolbar.

Select Advanced Space Wizard from the Create menu.

Create a space From scratch and click Next.

Select Forum Space and click Next.

Name the space Open Source Software and click Finish.

Open the Open Source Software space. You will use a sub forum space to organise yourforums.

Select Create Forum Space from the Create menu.

Name the space Open Source Content Management.

Click Create Forum Space.

Open the Open Source Content Management forum space.

Select Create Forum from the Create menu and name the forum Projects.

Click Create Forum.


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Creating a Topic

Next, create a topic in the Projects forum.

Open the Projects forum.

Select the Create Topic from the Create menu.

Create a topic for the forum. You can choose a different icon for the post to highlight the type ofposting.

Click Create Topic.

Once a topic is created, it is always possible to edit and change it, or even delete it (the icons ona post determine what actions you are allowed to take).

Now any other user with the right permissions will be able to reply to the post (using the greenreply icon). By default, the most recent post is at the top.


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Discussions

Discussions are like a forum attached to a piece of content. Where ever the document is moved,the discussion goes with it. They provide an ideal way to record decisions or annotations about adocument without changing the content.

To start a discussion on an item:

Identify the item for which you want to have a discussion and select Start Discussion from its

icon (More Actions).

To view a discussion on an item, click the icon (View Discussions) associated with thecontent item.

If you check out a document that has a discussion, the working draft will not have that discussion.However, if you start a discussion on a working copy, when it is checked in, the discussion isadded to the original item with a date stamp. While content is checked out, the original content islocked, but discussions can still continue on it.


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Summary

You have meandered around much of the Alfresco system, with a view to giving you some ideasabout the approaches Alfresco takes to managing content. The functionality of the system isbeing expanded continuously, providing an ever growing list of Enterprise Content Management

features.

Documents

Getting Started with Document Management