Alfresco 4 Enterprise Content Management Implementation

Table of Contents

Alfresco 4 Enterprise Content Management Implementation

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

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Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Introduction to Alfresco

Overview of Alfresco

Leveraging the benefits of open source

State-of-the-art content repository

Scalable architecture

Open standards-based underlying components

Globalization support

Security and access control

Essential library services

Business process automation

Enterprise integrations

Alfresco Enterprise 4 – an overview

Alfresco Share

Alfresco Repository Public API

Alfresco CMIS implementation

Microsoft SharePoint Protocol support

Social content publishing

Solr search

Activiti workflow for Business Process Management (BPM)

iPad and Android usability improvements

Alfresco products

Alfresco Enterprise On-Premise

Alfresco in the cloud

Alfresco Mobile

Alfresco Workdesk

How you can benefit from Alfresco

Using Alfresco for document management

Using Alfresco for records management

Using Alfresco for collaboration management

Using Alfresco for enterprise content search

Applications of Alfresco

How does the future look with Alfresco?

Better support options

Free upgrades

Implementing the example solution using Alfresco

Where do you get more information?

Summary

2. Installing Alfresco

Installing Alfresco

Out of the box installation architecture

Client applications layer

Repository services layer

Data storage layer

Components of Alfresco applications

How can you access the application

Which installation option is suitable for you

Enterprise and Community editions

Operating systems – Windows, Linux, UNIX, and MacOS

Databases – MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, and PostgreSQL

Application servers – Tomcat and JBoss

Portals (optional) – JBoss Portal and Liferay

Choosing the suitable software for your installation

Installing on Microsoft Windows

Full installation

Installing the Alfresco bundle on Tomcat

Installing Java SE Developer Kit

Installing Alfresco bundled on Tomcat

Installation of other Alfresco components

Installing SharePoint protocol support

Installing the Alfresco license file

Installing and configuring the MySQL database

Installing OpenOffice

Installing Flash Player

Installing SWFTools

Installation folder structure

Starting and stopping Alfresco as a console application

Configuring Alfresco as a Windows service

Installing TinyMCE language packs

Installing on Linux

Installing extensions with the AMP installation script

Using the Module Management Tool with a script

Using the Module Management Tool from the command prompt

Summary

3. Getting Started with Alfresco

Introduction to Alfresco Explorer

Logging in to Alfresco as an administrator

Screen layout

Toolbar

Navigator

Navigator tree view

Shelf

OpenSearch

Categories logical view

Breadcrumbs

Header

Detail

Administration Console

Users and groups management

Category management

Data management

System information

Getting started with content creation

Creating Space

Creating content

Creating a link to content

My Alfresco dashboards

Choosing My Alfresco Dashboard as start location

Configuring a personal dashboard using wizard

Step one – selecting layout

Step two – selecting components

Starting with basic configuration

Extending Alfresco configuration

Alfresco ConfigRoot folder

Alfresco extension folder

Configuration approach

Packaging and deploying Java extensions

Installing the enterprise license file

Changing the default administrator password

Configuring the content store

Configuring logfiles

Configuring default logos

Customizing the look and feel using CSS

Configuring multilanguage support

Configuring subsystems

Extending any subsystem

Configuring the audit subsystem

Enable audit

Configure Audit Filters

View audit trail

Configuring the email subsystem

Outbound_SMTP email subsystem

Inbound_SMTP email subsystem

Configuring IMAP

Configuring the FileServers subsystem

Configuring CIFS

Configuring File System Transfer Receiver

Setting up a multi-tenant environment

Enabling multi-tenancy

High availability

Creating a blueprint for your application

Enterprise intranet as a theme

Features you are going to implement

Summary

4. Implementing Membership and Security

Alfresco membership and security model

Users and groups

Permissions and roles

Authentication

How is security imposed in Alfresco?

Managing system users

Creating new users

Searching for existing users in Alfresco Explorer

Modifying user details

Deleting a user

Individual user access

New user login and my homepage

Updating the personal details and password

Managing user groups

Creating groups and subgroups

Adding users to a group

Removing users from a group

Extending security permissions and roles

Default permissions

Default roles

Creating a custom role

Securing your spaces

User roles on a space

Inviting users to your space

Defining and securing your spaces

Securing your content

User roles for content

Inviting users to your content

Choosing a right security model for you

Using the Alfresco out-of-the-box membership system

Authentication Subsystem

Authentication chain

Configuring LDAP for Centralized Identity Management

LDAP configuration with Active Directory

LDAP synchronization

Configuring NTLM for single sign-on

SSO with Active Directory

Migrate existing users to Alfresco

Understanding of user and group structure in Alfresco

Using command-line scripts to bulk upload users

Bootstrapping the Alfresco repository with predefined user data

Summary

5. Implementing Document Management

Managing spaces

Space is a smart folder

Importance of space hierarchy

Editing a space

Editing space properties

Deleting space and its contents

Moving or copying space by using the clipboard

Creating a shortcut to a space for quick access

Choosing a default view for your space

Sample space structure for a marketing project

Managing content

Creating content

Creating text documents – HTML, text, and XML

Uploading binary files – Word, PDF, Flash, Image, and Media

Editing content

Online editing of HTML, text, and XML

Offline editing of files

Uploading updated content

Content actions

Deleting content

Moving or copying content using the clipboard

Creating a shortcut to the content for quick access

Managing content properties

What is Content Metadata?

Metadata extractors

Editing metadata

Adding additional properties

Library services

Versioning

Auto Versioning

Check In and Check Out

Checking out documents

Checking in the working copy

Undo Check Out to unlock a document

Categorizing content

Managing categories

Adding categories to content

Searching content by category

Managing multilingual content

Versions of multilingual content

Deleting multilingual content

Using network drives to manage content

CIFS

Mapping the drive

FTP

WebDAV

Recovering deleted content

Data Dictionary and space templates

The Data Dictionary space

Space templates for re-usable space structure

Creating new space template for re-use

Using an existing space template to create a new space

Discussions on spaces and documents

Discussion forums for collaboration

Forum space

Creating discussion forums in the forum space

Creating topics in the forum

Replying to topics

Departmental forums and security

Defining forums for groups within a department

Inter-department collaboration using spaces

Managing space users

Space collaboration using e-mails

Starting a discussion on a specific space

Content collaboration

Owner invites individuals to collaborate on content

RSS syndication

Using RSS feeds

RSS Templates

Migrating existing content into Alfresco

Drag-and-drop content to the network drive

Using web services to migrate content

Bulk import tools

Summary

6. Implementing Business Rules

Using business rules on spaces

Organizing documents automatically

Running rules in the background

Dynamically adding properties to a document

Automatic versioning of documents

Sending notifications to specific people

Chaining all of the business rules

Built-in business rules

How these business rules work?

How the conditions are checked?

What actions are executed?

When are these rules triggered?

Applying actions to individual content

Removing an aspect from a content

Handling content transformations

Transforming a Word document to PDF

Resizing and transforming images

OpenDocument Format

Converting Microsoft Office documents to ODF

Built-In transformations

Executing JavaScript as business rules

Using built-in JavaScript as actions

Extending business rules with custom JavaScript

Setting up the Corporate Forms Space

Creating custom JavaScript

Executing custom JavaScript as an action

JavaScript API

Scheduled actions

Example to archive expired content

XML configuration file for scheduled actions

The cron expression

Summary

7. Extending Alfresco Content Model

Custom configuration

Configuration files for default content model

Configuration files for Custom Content Model

Custom model context file

Custom model file

Custom web client configuration file

Hierarchy of configuration files

Custom aspect

When do you need a custom aspect?

Steps to add a custom aspect

Defining a custom aspect

Extend content model with custom aspect

Localizing the model using message resources

Configuring a web client for custom aspect

Using a custom aspect as a business rule

Constraints

Constraint types

REGEX

LIST

MINMAX

LENGTH

Applying a constraint

Advanced property sheet configuration

Display labels

Conditional display of properties

Converters

Component generators

Custom content type

When do you need a custom content type?

Steps to add a custom content type

Defining a custom content type

Extending content model with a custom content type

Configuring a web client for custom content type

Adding a custom content type

Creating Press Release as HTML Content

Creating business rules targeting custom content type

Custom associations

When do you need an association?

Defining custom association

Using custom association

Presentation template for custom content type

Association example

Dynamic models

Creating a dynamic custom model

Deploying a custom model

Activating and inactivating a custom model

Updating a custom model

Dynamic web client

Deploying web client customizations

Reloading web client customizations

Dynamic models in a Multi-tenancy environment

Summary

8. Implementing Workflow

Introduction to the Alfresco workflow process

Simple Workflow

Out-of-the-box features

Defining and using Simple Workflow

Identifying spaces and security

Defining the workflow process

Adding a simple workflow to items

Sending a notification to the manager for approval

Testing the simple workflow

E-mail notification templates

Advanced workflows using Activiti

Out of the box features

Creating custom advanced workflows

Process definition

Activiti BPMN 2.0 Process Designer

My first Activiti workflow sample

Activiti workflow basics

Events

Tasks

Gateways

Variables

Node Objects

User Assignment

Pooled assignment

Multi-instance tasks

Listeners

Form key

Creating and deploying your custom Activiti workflow

Step 1 – creating and deploying the process definition

Defining the workflow's process

Setting properties

Adding the decision logic

Deployment

Step 2 – creating and deploying the task model

Dynamically deploying the task models

Step 3 – creating and deploying the workflow resource bundles

Dynamically deploy the resource bundles

Step 4 – creating and deploying the Alfresco Explorer Task dialogs

Dynamic Alfresco Explorer

Step 5 – testing the workflow

Summary

9. Integrating External Applications with Alfresco

Alfresco content platform

Embeddable Enterprise content management system

Integrated enterprise content management system

Various protocols to integrate

Using Web service as an integration solution

Using FTP, WebDAV, and CIFS protocols for integration

RESTful web services

Web Scripts

Understanding Web Scripts

Implementing Web Scripts

Hello World example

Sample out-of-the-box portlet Web Scripts

Myspaces portlet

Document list portlet Web Script

Web Script to list latest documents

Daily dose integration Web Script detail

Integrating Web Script with an external Java application

Web Script to integrate document search

Document search Web Script detail

Creating Web Scripts

Storing Web Scripts

Register Web Scripts

Listing Web Scripts for external access

Calling Web Scripts from an external application

Various application integration examples

Various available options

Using web service

Using the CMIS proposed standard

Other REST APIs

Using your own API

Integrating with Drupal

Integrating with Adobe Flex

E-mail integration – MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, Novell, and Thunderbird

Integrating with iPhone

Alfresco Mobile application

Integrating with FFMPEG video transcoder

Integrating with ViewOnePro image viewer

Integrating with Facebook social network application

Creating a new Facebook application

Registering a Facebook application with Alfresco

Managing Alfresco Content from within Microsoft Office

Creating a document workspace

Adding a document to document workspace

Check-in and Check-out document

Check-out document

Check-in document

View version history

CMIS

Scope of CMIS

Alfresco CMIS implementation

Liferay integration using CMIS

Summary

10. Alfresco Administration Operations Using Alfresco Share

Alfresco Share

Managing Alfresco using the Admin Console in Alfresco Share

Managing users

Creating user accounts

Editing user accounts

Deleting user accounts

Managing groups

Creating groups

Top-level group

Subgroups

Edit/delete groups

Managing group memberships

Managing categories

Managing social content publishing

Creating channels

Setting channel permissions

Authorizing channels

Deleting channels

Managing fileservers

Managing Activities Feed e-mails

Managing Alfresco License

Managing Replication Jobs

Creating replication jobs

Editing replication jobs

Deleting replication jobs

Manually running a replication job

Cancelling a running replication job

Managing Search

Search services

The Lucene search service

The Solr search service

Managing deleted files

Managing workflows

Viewing the workflow engine properties

Activiti engine properties

jBPM engine properties

Managing IMAP emails

Google Docs integration

Summary

11. Customizing the User Interface

Configuring Alfresco Explorer

Configuring views

Configuring space views

Applying a Custom View on a space

Configuring forum topics sort direction

Adding a custom icon to a space

Configuring HTML links to appear in Alfresco Explorer

User-configurable dashboards

Writing custom dashlets

Creating a custom dashlet script

Creating a custom dashlet JSP

Configuring custom dashlet JSP in Alfresco Explorer

Restarting Alfresco

Using the custom dashlet in the My Alfresco Dashboard

Using webscripts as dashlets

Creating a custom dashlet JSP

Configuring the custom dashlet JSP

Configuring the MySpaces dashlet

Custom dashlet

FreeMarker dashlet from the repository

Presentation templates

The FreeMarker template engine within Alfresco

The Alfresco objects available to FreeMarker

FreeMarker template-node model API

FreeMarker directives

Custom template to preview web pages

Custom template for XML content

Custom templates for custom space view

Customizing JSP Client

Various user interface options

Summary

12. Search in Alfresco

Overview

Search using Alfresco Explorer

Simple search

Search filenames only

Advanced search

Search by content location

Search by content category

Search by content properties

Extending the search form

Configuring the web client user interface

Searching custom content and properties

Saving search as a report

Defining complex search criteria

Saving search criteria as a public or private report

Re-using a saved search

OpenSearch

Alfresco's open search engines

Keyword search description

Sample keyword search in HTML

Sample keyword search in RSS

Configuring the Alfresco search engine

The theory behind the search engine

Limiting the search results

Indexing properties

Controlling indexing of a node

Configuring Lucene in Alfresco

Using the Solr search engine with Alfresco

Installing Solr on an independent server

Configuring Solr in Alfresco

The Solr admin console

Rebuilding Solr indexes

Summary

13. Implementing Imaging and Forms Processing

Introduction

Electronic imaging and the paperless office

Forms processing

Alfresco for imaging and forms processing

Example of an imaging solution with workflow

Setting up space and security

Business rule to extract important metadata

Connecting the scanner to the network folder

Uploading scanned documents into the repository in bulk

Scanning solutions with Alfresco

Integrating with Ephesoft

Installing Ephesoft

Creating a custom type in Alfresco

Creating a custom document type in Ephesoft

Configuring the CMIS plugin in Ephesoft

Processing batch in Ephesoft and store in Alfresco

Summary

14. Administering and Maintaining the System

Exporting and importing content

Alfresco Content Package (ACP)

Exporting and importing space content

Export of a department space using Alfresco Explorer

Importing a department space using Alfresco Explorer

Using business rules to import data

Using command-line tools

The export tool

The import tool

The bulk import tool

Data backup

List of items to back up

The content stored in filesystem