Content Management Simplified

Folder View - Show Checked Out content

2012-01-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

Previous blog talked about how folders can be used to store and organize contents in WebCenter content. Folders component is a must have if we want to use WebDAV feature with WebCenter Content.

In a document management or records management implementation users would like to see more details about the contents that are present inside the folder apart from the default fields shown. Folders view does not provide search results templates like feature where users add additional columns. One must turn to customization to do it.

Users usually would like to see various states of the documents while they are browsing for them instead of actually clicking on the info icon of each content.
This post will show how to show checkedout status of a content. We are all aware of initial song and dance involved when doing any customization. Identify the Service, Template, htm and include. Please refer to my previous post on how to identify above resources for modifying Folder view. Steps 1 to 6 remain same.
All we need to know is where is the information for checked out status of documents, Resulset CONTENTS has dIsCheckedOut and dCheckoutUser columns which can be used to show the status.

PS: If a user wants to see the list of contents that are checked out then one can use Content Management --> Checked out content link on the home page.

Content Organization and Adding Additional Columns to Folder View

2011-12-29T12:42:00.000-08:00

Content organization is a feature that all content management system worth its salt provides. Since most CM system users are predominantly use GUI based operating system and are used to Folders, content management systems have similar implementation.WebCenter Content provides content organization using Folders_g component. This component was part of Document Management feature in 10g and should be enabled in 11g for users to see them.

Folders in UCM is virtual. i.e when you delete a folder contents that are inside them are not deleted, contents hold reference to folders as a metadata field.

One can create hierarchical folder structure as per business needs add contents to them. Later one can drill down or navigate using folder to find there contents.

But the folder view provides very little information of the contents that are grouped under them.

Default Folder View

Below are the steps to add additional column to this default view. Lets add Title for the content items inside a folder.

Identify the service: If your preffered view is Oracle Top Menus then, one can navigate to the folder and look at page URL. We see COLLECTION_DISPLAY is the service that is used to show the contents of a folders.
Identify the template: Open Folders_g component in Component wizard and look for COLLECTION_DISPLAY service description. We see COLLECTION_DISPLAY as the template name
Identify the htm page: Navigate to \oracle\ucm\server\custom\Folders_g\templates open collectioninterface_template.hda and search for COLLECTION_DISPLAY. we will see collectiondisplay.htm
collectiondisplay.htm is the file that controls the display view of folders
Form here on search begins for the right includes to modify to add one more column to the view.
slim_result_table_header is the include which needs to be over ridden to add a header column.In this include <$loop ListFields$> is the loop that controls the column headers. This result set is part of the java method. Over riding a java method is complex and should be used a last option during customization. There fore after this loop add new column name that should be displayed on the page.
slim_result_table_content_row is the include which needs to be over ridden to add corresponding column value for each content inside a folder. In this include as well <$loop ListFields$> prints the values for individual items. After this loop add the value that should showed to in the new column.
We can get the required values from either CONTENTS result set object that is available in this service.

Custom Folder View

Come Back Blog

2011-04-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have been off for a long long time from bloging. Reasons are usual work and more work. Past few months was working on a large migration project. Must say it was a great experience. We have stretched UCM, might I say to its limits and found lots of new features that we never taught existed.

Off late I am seeing lot of question in Oracle forums asking about how to migrate to UCM from other CM products like Intervowen or MCMS, well I have got some good news for them I will be putting upon a blog soon on how to approach this.

There are lot of other things to say about the product, will post them soon.

Thanks Dimitri for putting my blog in additional resources section of his book. Was presently surprised while reading the book :)

Congrats to John for forging forces with Fishbowl solutions. Must say Fishbowl has found an able alliance for there EMEA All the best John

More soon.

I donot hate sales people

2010-06-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

I would like to reiterate, I do not hate sales people, I have a job becoz of guys in sales.
Take a look at the video and you will know why developers and system integrator have a love hate relationship with sales and marketing teams.
Weather its plain talking or great presentation skills or what ever they sell with huge promises which guys like me have to full fill.

Do spend some time on comments sections.

PS: This video first appeared from Alan Paelz link here

UCM 11g! Other Side Story

2010-06-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

UCM 11g is released and you can down load it here and read nice things about it at C4, bex, kyle and in case you are some one who is interested to look into some numbers then pdf here.
After the initial euphoria of new product release goes down hard realities of

Future upgrades of existing implementation
Training for existing support and maintenance teams
Big learning curve for system integrators and architects doing new implementation
No proven/ available implementations or methodologies or bench marks
Resource crunch of people who can implement and develop in 11G

are to be faced.
Off course there are specialists like FishBowl and Bezzotech who I think were part of early adaptors program and can help you with new implementations and quick turnarounds, but I doubt if they can keep pace with sales and marketing folks from Oracle who some how manage to sell more and more.
I have not yet downloaded 11G it is a big package looks like they have bundled all the components in together.
Since the package is big some one should tell Oracle to set up a download manger using with folks can control the pace of their downloads.

Providers to external Data Base other than Oracle

2010-06-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

Andy weaver from Fishbowl has a written a how to blog to do external database look up in check in form. Check link here.
In case your external database is some thing other than oracle than you can follow these steps to create a provider to this DB.

Add all your database driver jars into InstallDir/shared/classes folder
In InstallDir/bin Intradoc.cfg file add java class path variable to your jar files ex: JAVA_CLASSPATH_defaultjdbc=$SHAREDDIR/classes/ojdbc14.jar
Go to Administration --> Providers page
Click on Add Provider against Database provider
Fill new provider form and click on Add button
Restart content server

Now you can follow Andy's blog create a component and do a look up to external db.

Unfilter the filters

2010-01-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

There is always a question as a developer as to where we can find the complete list of filters available. Weather it is in How to components? or in Bex's book? I think here is some thing that we can do to get the complete list.
Go to Traceing section and select Full Verbose check box and select System and Services from the drop down
Remove all other options
Click save
Click on View Server Out Put and click on Clear button
Now run any service ex: DOC INFO or DOC UPDATE
Come back to View SErver Out put page and click on Refresh
You will see the list of filters called.
You can write a small component to hook to any filter and in the component you can print the local variables availble with System.out.println(binder.toString())

Should Oracle Go the IBM way?

2009-10-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

After FileNet got acquired from IBM, IBM brought all issues and problems that were inside the FileNet product support website into the open. These content were only avilable for partners and customers who had a valid login credentials to these website. Which means to see this content you should have spent enough dollars and buy support.
Lets look at a case, many a times new patches will have some sleeper bugs or known issues. I have first hand experience where in an organisation only select few will have authorization to these website and people have to wait for these key people when they have some issue after they have applied the latest patch.
If this info is made available in public it would make life simpler to all of us.
So should oracle go IBM way and bring content locked in Metalink into public domain?

Redirect post Login in UCM content server

2009-10-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

If you have a requirement where you need to redirect the user to some other page after login instead of the default search page we need to over ride the LOGIN service. Below are the details steps to take the user to the browse content page which has the list of virtual folders in the content server..

Open Component Wizard
Click on Options --> Add
Give suitable name to the component, do not change any of the fields.
Now the new component is created and you can add resource to this component.
Click on Add, under Resource Defination tab.
Select service radio button
Make load order as 20 (this is to make sure your component is loaded last and content server will use the LOGIN service created by us instead of the default service.)
Click next,
Click next
Now in the Add service dialog box , Give name as LOGIN
Select Service as the Service Class
Leave rest of the fields blank.
Click on Add button under Actions sections
Select type as Java Method.
Give name as prepareRedirect
In parameter Text box add IdcService=COLLECTION_DISPLAY&hasCollectionID=true&dCollectionID=2
This will take your users to the browse content page. We can the IDC service as per our requirement
Click OK
Close all boxes.
Enable the component
Restart content server
Go to the portal home page and click on LOGIN
You should go the desired page

Oracle UCM on vista

2009-09-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Pleasant surprise, UCM can run on vista home edition. I did install the Content server and site studio on my laptop. But on a single box things do get cranky some times. Some times Idc Services fails to start up with ERROR:1064, possible reason for this is that your database is not handling content server requests as expected.
After restart it was business asusal.

Is UCM better placed than rest of the Gang?

2009-09-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

         I am no high profile analyst, these taughts are purely from the trench. Is Oracle UCM offering better placed than FileNet or Documentum?
         Documnetum guys are still converting there basic doc management code to services, and stoping support for there earlier version and forcing business to migrate to new expensive versions. Thanks to oracles backing now UCM can be integrated with there other fusion middleware products like SOA, BPEL processor, weblogic server.
         For the FileNet folks they were never a major player when it came to WCM, in case you are looking for a intranet site integrated to your document management solution you end wirting the custom application interacting with FileNet.
         One draw back for UCM was the relatively large learning cruve required to integrate with existing J2EE apps, as you had to do things UCM way instead, with RIDC's introduction curve is a bit more smooth.
         Let me know what you think are the features that will clinch deals in favor of UCM

Lets Talk about search!!!

2009-04-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

Continuing my product bashing.. (God I like doing this) this time we will look at UCM search. Search box have become as important as navigation bar for websites. Who has time to go through good old site map. Users come in key in the word and hit search button. Now if you have purchased UCM and building your website you should decide on the search strategy for your website upfront to avoid surprises. People should be educated that out of the box will not work like Google or Yahoo. Oracle has not spent enough time on this. There are enough literature available on Enterprise search and its maturity in ECM products, I am going into that.

But simply put this way; you cannot go with 'out of the box' search functionality. For starters they wont return best results. They return last updated content items. You cannot rig search results. You cannot say, when ever some one searches for a dog, this should be the first result etc. Search key word highlighting is another issue. This requires a customisation.. Lot of other short comings.

So what will you do. Luckily Google comes to rescue here. Wait for some time for Google to index your website and then go for Google Custom search. This is at a nominal fee you can integrate to your website for ad-free search results. Integration is pretty straight forward and requires minimal customisation.

Advance Profile editing

2009-04-03T03:17:00.000-07:00

While I was still chewing to write on how to create a profile and use in your content server John has put some advance editing instructions for profiles here.

Lets look at profiles!!

2009-03-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Title might be misleading :) We are looking into profiles features in Oracle UCM.
My view is that all successful software products owe a lot of their success to their marketing teams :) .
UCM is weak on there doc management capabilities, here is why?. When it comes to Content types usually guys in the market have stuck to some thing in line with OO concepts, we create a Content Type X and assign a list of attributes to it, during check in users select a type assign certain attributes and check in. Later customization is around content types and attributes.
UCM has a different approach to this. We simply create content types in on place with out assigning any metadata to it. We create the list of metadata or information fields in an other place. There is no strong relation ship between content type and metadata. When a user wants to check in a content item he will see the complete list of metadata fields. This is not desirable in a pure doc management scenario where each department has a set of metadata fields the summation would be a list which would require users to scroll down. Scrolling down and finding the right field to enter can be a pain when you doing it day in and out. Also a field that is mandatory for one content type may not make sense to the other if that field is filled.
This is where profiles come to the rescue. Though this feature was added late into the product sufficient reasoning has gone during development. They allow you to create highly customized department specific check in and search screens. Using this check in and search can be done more efficiently.
In my next blog I will put up small primer on how to use this feature.

Things I dont like!

2009-01-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

Writing a blog is a challenge. You should really spend some quality time to think though topics do your resarch and then write. Writing a techincal blog is a bigger challenge as time spent on doing research is more then for a ordinary blog.

Things said and done lets start blogging. This time I am puting a list of things I donot like about UCM.

Support: Before cribing about the product and some of the intrinsic details I would like to mention that UCM support from Oracle is average. Most of the times support personel have no clue as to what is happening and what should be done. Agreed that Oracle has just acquired the product and doesnot have the required numbers to give best support considering the product is buggy and doesnot behave as mentioned in the documentation(actually most them do not!) support should be up to the mark so that the implementation teams doest not miss dead lines with your SR still in work in progress status.
Documentation: I find UCM documentation to be too prechy at times. We need product documentation in tutorial format. Some thing like FileNet and Documentum have where they teach you step by step on how to do things. They also have published there case study similar to revanna. I donot see any documents related to revanna other than explaning site studio capabilites.Only good thing about this is that it has a good book in the market by bex.
Folders: If ever oracle wants to get into serious document management it should beef up this component or still go ahead and do a redesign. Currently according to me this is very primitive. When ever you create a folder UCM gives it a unique id call collection id, this is done automatic and you have no control over this. Now if you have a situation where you have created a profile where all content ends up in particular folder and move that profile to other environament you have reset the default folder for the profile using the Collection id in each environament. I say give me some thing which i can control some thing in line of Content type, so that i need not worry about different environament when i am programming.
Site Studio Designer: This is a lousy IDE. This cannot even do a word wrap! While creating fragments this doesnot automaticaly do some basic manual things. Will eloborate more later.
Workflow Designer: UCM Workflow applet is very very primitive. It looks like it was created during the first version of Stellnet and nobody bothered to revisit the UI. Again if oracle wants to get into serious ECM it should beef up this gives us some good process design capability, should allow us to publish workflow as webservice, allow people to consume other workflows.. and blah balh blah....

Purging Content.

2009-01-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

While designing a content management system there are three parameters that one should take care of.

Input: What goes into the CM system.
Manage: How to store and manage things inside the system
Output: What should leave the system or what should be retained in the system.

Input to the system is controlled by creating filters and restricting access to users on what can be added to the system.
We leverage taxonomy, content types, folders rules, events and other capabilities of the CM system to manage content that is inside the system.
Now what stays in the system and what leaves is a tricky questions. In the first place you invested on a CM to manage all your content, then why should some thing leave? Having a clear stratergy as to what stays in the system keeps the CM system lean and fit. It also saves you infrastructure and memory costs. You may argue that memory is getting cheaper day by day why care about it. The truth is recovery costs per GB is more than the actual GB cost.
When I started research as to how purge content in UCM environament I came across Jasons blog where is explains how to purge content using archiver with minimal customisation.

Site Studio Best Practices

2008-12-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

Independent Oracle User Group had organised a Webinar on Site Studio Best Practices. The best practices mentioned in the webinar were lot of common sense things that one should follow while building a site studio website. These are some things that are so obvious but developers like to give it a miss considering that they are some hassels. Below is the list of best practices and some justification as to why one should follow them.

Do not use 'sysadmin' to create work: The power full 'sysadmin' that is out of the box user for Oracle UCM. Developers tend to use this to write code, this is not a good idea simply because there are some services that can run only by 'sysadmin'. After you deploy your code and create users they may not be able to run some of the serivces and dev team will running in circles to figure out the reason.
Security Groups For Web Assets: Create a security group exclusively for artifacts required to run your website. These can be JS, CSS, Images, Fragments, Templates, Layouts. Configure this security group to have only Read access for the Content editors and consumers. Read and Write access for developers. Read Write and Delete reserved only for managers or Technical leads.
Doctype for WebAssest: Create a Doc type specific for WebAssests and check in your code and other stuff under this. Some of the content types specific for SS fragments SS layouts will be created while installing Site Studio we can use these.
Do not put all fragments in only one Fragment Library: These can cause problem in large projects with more developers.
One Fragment for One Fragment Library:While creating fragments its a good idea to create a new Fragment Library for each fragment. Advantage is in mutiple developer projects where developers can work on there fagment with out the problem of some one else working on it and thus locking the fragment.
Give User Friendly Content ID for Fragment and Layouts: This again is to make life simpler for content creators and developers.Places where we have configured to automatticaly assaign content ID its essiential that developers make sure to give proper names. Site manager and Site Studio display the content ID when you open them for edits. Content creators will have a horendous time while selecting layouts for there sections. Instead of looking for landing layout they have to have a name value pair of layout name and content id. (Site manager utility lists the layouts by there content id) . The other advantage is while moving code from dev to uat to prod it is easier to archive with meaning full content id's.
Do not use Site Studio Fragments AS IS: This I learned from experience. One should not use them as is. It is just for demo and to show the capabilites. Also they are slow. So create your own fragments and use them.
CSS and JS do not make them Fragment Assests: This is some thing which can swing either way. Depends on the project you are doing. In case there are fragments reffreing to same JS check them in. Buts I feel its more prudent in cases we have dyanamic list fragments depending on same CSS and JS but uses different queries and other places like that.
Assign Fragments under proper sections: In site studio fragments are listed under 4 categories. Navigation, Static, Dynamic and Other. If we do some house keeping here we can find things what we are looking for faster.
Always have a blank head section: Only way you can add a head section code for the fragment once created is to delete it and recreate. Hence as a precausion keep that section always. You never know when requiremnets change.
We can configue Linking in Contribution: File -->Site --> Advanced --> set default link format. ssLink usually preffred
Cache Include: bin idoc script guide to speed up site
Layout manually set values: No code on layout pages, no hard code values, put conditioned idoc to show 2,3 columns.
URL Page Name: To get friendly names.
Design view code name same as Fragment Name: This is what you see in the tool box and also when you put them on the layout page.
Fragment type to refrence: I will get back to you on this.

Hope this is help full In case you would like to know more drop a comment i will be happy to look into my notes or do some research my self. I hvae tried to write most of the points as is from the webinar in case you find any things differnt let me know i will be happy to change. Some expamples mentioned are my own experinces.

Limitation of Dynamic Converter

2008-12-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Dynamic Converter is certainly a deal clincher for OracleUCM when it comes to Intranet or internet projects. Here are some things we should be aware when it comes to DC.
DC is a acquired product for stellent which they have not completly integrated with there Content Server and Site Studio. Below are some tricky things that DC does not support.

Preserving your links in word documents: Links are indispensible part of websites, we create links for different sections of website, to partner sites, external websites. Some times we wish to open links in the same window if the link is for a section on the website else we want them to open in a new window if we are linking to a partner site or an external website. The option to open in the same window or a new window can be configured in our word documents but Dynamic converter due to its poor integration with SiteStudio cannot preserve this setting. DC can either open links in a new window or open in the same window. DC considers every link as an external link because DC does not share the SiteStudio project file. There is a workaround to this problem which many of your business users do not like.
Create tables and apply CSS styles: One palce where DC misirably falls short is managing tables. I think this issue is not restricted to DC alone. Getting decent enough tables using WYSIWYG editor is equally challenging. Lets look at a scenario where we have a table with a Heading and Body and you have different colors for them. DC will not recongnise this for the heading and body sections. For DC every thing is Body hence to get different styles for TH and TD is difficlt unless you do some ugly little tricks.

Dynamic Converter

2008-10-29T09:30:00.001-07:00

Dynamic Conveter (DC) is the poster boy of UCM product suite. This is one feature that can clinch any WCM deals in its favour. This is Oracles trump card. Ok... enough of bragging lets see what DC can actually accomplish.
For starters you can configure DC to your content regions and drive the contents of the webpage through Word Documents. We can go a step further and run your complete website through word documents without compramising on branding. We can map the MS word styles to specific css look and feel. DC supports hosts of other document formats.
Below are the steps to configure DC to your website. Here are assumptions I make.

You already have Dynamic Converter installed.
You have created a primary layout page with a content region.
You have created a Dynamic Converter template.(Creating templates is a topic for another blog)

Once you have the above things in place here is what you need to do to see word documents as webpages.

Create Template Selection Rule.

Login to Content Server
Go to Administration --> Dynamic Converter Admin
Give suitable name for the new rule.
Create a critiria, this will be the case when this rule will be selected. Ex: Apply rules on content with Type News.
Select a template, this will be applied to the document to retain the branding of your website.
File extention should always be "hcst" DC inserts idoc scripts for the word documents while convertion. These would be executed before rendering as a webpage.
Forced Convertion and Exclude from User Request is self explanatory. Althoug in my experience its better to uncheck Forced Convertion for performance resons.

Assign Selection Rule to Content Region

Now that you have a Template Selection Rule you have to assign this rule to the content regions in your layouts. Here is how you do this.

Goto your layout page
Double click on Content Region.
Click on Settings.
Slelect the radio button Use Single Rule Dynamic Conversion
Choose the Template rule you have created.
Click OK
To see the magic of DC veiw your layout page is browser and get into contribution mode and select a word document.

UCM server Configuration Variables

2008-10-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Content management systems are just frameworks that can be customised to once CM needs. All business requirements can be put into different baskets like:

Out of the Box
Configuration or Settings Change
Customisation

If we need to do global configuration changes the best method is Configuration Variables. UCM has lot of config variables that can be used to change the behaviour of Content Server. These varibales should be put under Admin Server--> General Configuration --> Additional Configuration Variables.

Below are some of the variables and a short description of the behavioural changes that they bring to Content Server.

1. AutoContributorAdvancesOnUnlock=true, AutoContributorAllowsReview=true these two config variables should be used when you want to trigger workflow process automaticlly when you add content through webdav folders.Content checked in using a WebDAV client enters the first autocontribution step of the workflow process. This requires the author to manually initiate the workflow by performing a check out / check in to force the item into the first defined step.

2.DefaultAccounts=#none(R),#all(R): This configuration variable is used for annonymous access to SiteStudio websites running on Oracle Content Server outside DMZ. DefaultAccounts=#none(R) variable makes all content items checked in without any accounts readable for all users. DefaultAccount=#all(R) variable makes all content items checked in under any account readonly for all users.

3.DisableSiteStudioContributor=true, Usual deployment architecture to have a dynamic SiteStudio site is you will have one contribution server inside the corporate network and clustered consumption servers in DMZ. Here we should disable any type of contribution capabilities. In that case we should use this config variable.

4.AllowAllRedirectUrl=true, Lets look at this scenario. You have site studio website and a section of the website has an external URL as a primary layout page. When you do this and click on the link you will be first redirected to a standard page and there you have to click on the link to your final destination. By adding the config variable at the config.cfg file you will bypass this behaviour.

This is not the end of this blog i will add more variables as and when i use them.

Author Field in My Workflow Assigments

2008-10-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

OOTB UCM workflow application is very powerfull but lacks basic common sense features. One of them is the author field in the workflow queue table. When a reviewer checks in to look at the number of workitems in his queue there is no way he can see who modified the content.

Here I have put the steps to add the author field for this page. I have followed the techniques given by Brain 'Bex' in his book. So in case you want to know more detail approach on customising the core services check out his book.

Step1: Open the files workflow.htm and std_services.htm. We can find these under installdirectory/shared/config/resources. These will list the standard services provided and services that are used to implement workflows.

Step2: (Assuming that we have at least one active workflow) Click on MyContentServer-->MyWorkflowAssignments. We will see Workflow in Queue page, here we see ContentID, Title,Enter Date, Last Action Date, and Actions columns for each work item in the queue.

Step3:Do a mouse hover on All Active Workflows and you will see a similar URL -->http//ContentServer/instancename/idcplg?IdcService=GET_ACTIVE_WORKFLOWS. The resultset for GET_ACTIVE_WORKFLOWS service is all the active workflows in the content server. Search for this service in services_refrence guide you will see the that the response template is WORKFLOW_LIST. Our first instinct will lead us to experiment with this. But if we see the other templates using these and do a intelligent guess we will stumble on WF_INQUEUE_LIST (workflow_queue.htm). Also you will see the refrence to this page in the URL of My workflow assignments page.

Step4: You will find workflow_queue.htm page in installDirectory/server/shared/config/templates. Open this page in a editor and add sample html code. Refresh content server page. You will see Testing at the end of the page. Incase you do not see any changes then, clear browser cache and refresh. Restart content server. Restart machine. If still you do not see the changes then you need to see other places where workflow_queue.htm is available. If you have a core update installed than go edit the page you will find inside the core update.

Step5:Now double click on workflow_queue.htm you will see the dynamic html resource used to build this page. You will see workflow_in_queue_table is an include. Now go to std_page_workflow.htm found under installDirectory/server/shared/config/resources and search for workflow_in_queue_table. Here we see that this inturn executes setup_workflow_in_queue_table_header.

Step6: Find for setup_workflow_in_queue_table_header and add below lines. dDocName column properties. <$exec rsAppendNewRow("ColumnProperties")$> <$exec setValue("ColumnProperties", "id", "dDocAuthor")$> <$exec setValue("ColumnProperties", "width", "auto")$> <$exec setValue("ColumnProperties", "headerLabel", "wwdDocAuthor")$> <$fieldName = "dDocAuthor"$> <$exec setValue("ColumnProperties", "headerURL", strTrimWs(inc("workflow_in_queue_header_resort_url")))$> <$exec setValue("ColumnProperties", "rowAlign", "left")$>This will add Author column in your content server page.Do a refresh to see the changes. Again make sure you are changing the file at the right place.

Step7: Above step will add the Author coulumn, to get the document author name for each document in the workflow do the following change.Add below line inside setup_workflow_in_queue_table_row dhtml<$exec setValue("RowData", "dDocAuthor", "<$if dDocAuthor$><$dDocAuthor$><$else$><$lc(\"wwNoRevisionCheckedIn\")$><$endif$>")$>.

On refresh you will the Author field of each document in your work queue.

WebDAV and OracleUCM

2008-10-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

What is WebDAV?

Wikipedia defines WebDAV as "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, or WebDAV, is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote World Wide Web servers. The group of developers responsible for these extensions was also known by the same name and was a working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)."

Why is this intresting?

Jason stortz has an interesting story for WebDAV. This feature is provided by most content management system worth its salt. WebDAV allows users to look at there content repository using there windows explorer. Pleople can edit content items without going through the actual steps of:

log in
checkout
edit
check in.

We can build basic content management rules like who can see what? can be applied. To use WebDAV feature with Oracle UCM we need to install two components Folders and WebDAV(I donot know why this is optional, I believe this should be part of core feature). Installing and configuring is fairly simple. One thing to take care is to give a strong password for the cokie. Below are the steps which shows how to add it to your network folder.

Go to Start --> Click on My Network Places
Click Add a network place. (This will launch Add Network Place Wizard)
Click Next
Click Next
Click Next
In the internet or Network Address text box enter http:/yourServerName/yourServerInstanceName/idcplg/webdav
Click Next
Give a suitable name to this network location.
Click Next
This will prompt you for the username and Password
Now you will see the folders created in the Content Server

Make sure that content server is up and running while configuring WebDAV.

You should have at least read access on the server else you will not see any folders.

You should have installed Folders and WebDav components in your content server.

Inroduction to Content Mangement Part2

2008-08-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

How they are managed?

Different frame works and products are developed to manage specific type of content.
•ECM  Enterprise Content, ex: insurance claim form, contracts, judgment copies.
•WCM Website Content, ex: companies’ intranet and internet websites.
•Records Manager  Complaince documents. Ex: Loan application preserved upto 4 years after repayment of loan by customer
•Email Manager  Manages emails
•Image Manager  Manages images ex CAD drawings, building blue prints.
•DAM  Digital Asset Manager, ex: images, video files, music files.

Who are the players?
Market has host of CM products both open source and proprietary.
•Proprietary*
oIBM FileNet
oDocumentum
oIntervowen
oVignet
oOracle Universal Content Management.
•Open Source*
oOpen CMS
oAlfresco
oDrupal
*This is not a exhaustive list

Most of the proprietary tools provide end to end management solutions, but are best suited for specific type of content. FileNet and Documentum are of pure ECM player, Intervowen and Oracle UCM (formerly known as Stellnet) are best suited for WCM. While choosing the product pricing, volume and type of content must be considered.

Benefits
As we intend to move more towards paperless office and

Inroduction to Content Mangement Part1

2008-07-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

Introduction
Relational database model is considered as one of the break through innovation of our life time. It took a while before organizations started implementing this, as time passed by they saw the actual potential and went ahead and implemented across the enterprise.
The benefits were obvious they had more control over the employee records, sales margins etc. Enterprise wanted the same level of granular control over their content. RDBMS could not be stretched beyond structured data.
To solve the problem of handling unstructured data a new frame work was created, Enterprise Content Management, nick named ECM provided infrastructure to manage your enterprise content.

What is Content?
What qualifies for content depends on company’s line of business; for banking and insurance company loan application, credit application, claim application, customer photo and mortgage papers are content; for a record company content can be in the form of audio and video files; for a product Company’s latest product specification can be critical. For legal firms’ content can be witness statements, recordings, judgment copies. Content can be emails, records, images, anything that is important while making business decisions.

What is Content Management?
Placing all your content spread across the organization under one roof, making it easier to search and retrieve, control on who can read content and who should write, make available the right version and the right content for effective decision making. This is content management in a broad sense.

Why Content Management?
If you have a system in place to manage content, companies can be sure that their confidential and classified content is accessible by right people, latest policy document, guidelines, specifications are available to all the intended people.

Hello World

2008-06-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hello World from a CMS techie... here I plan to blog any thing and every thing about content management.