Alfresco DemoCast

This is a series of tutorial video’s that were recorded for the Alfresco Records Management Cloud trial. These video’s guide the viewer through the features of Alfresco Record Management system. Based on a fictitious company ‘Green Energy’, the videos cover the following:

• Introduction to Fileplan
• Filing and Declaring Records
• Running through a Transfer Disposition Cycle
• Setting up a Disposition Schedule
• Creating and Modifying a Fileplan
• Try – Create Record Categories, Set Security and Configure Disposition Schedules
• Installing Alfresco and Configuring Records Management

After watching these videos you can take the Alfresco Records Management challenge here.

Introduction to Fileplan

This video reviews the Fileplan within the Alfresco Records Management solution. It shows how multiple users will be presented with different views of the Fileplan based on their security setting and role.

Filing and Declaring Records

This video shows you haw users can use a 3 step process to:

• File a new document
• Complete the metadata
• Declare as a new record

The video will show how different records (document, images, etc.) can be file either from the user’s desktop or from within an existing Alfresco collaboration site.

Running through a Transfer Disposition Cycle

Here you can see a record folder manually put through its disposition schedule.

Setting up a Disposition Schedule

This video will show it is easy to setup and configure new disposition schedules with Alfresco records Management

Creating and Modifying a Fileplan

This video will show how to create and modify the Records Management fileplan.

Try – Create Record Categories, Set Security and Configure Disposition Schedules

This video shows how to create new record categories and then set the required security. New Disposition Schedules can be configured to these new record categories allowing you to process records through their lifecycle.

Installing Alfresco and Configuring Records Management

This video walks you through the process of installing Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.2r and setting up the Alfresco Records Management module.

Take The Alfresco Records Management Challenge

Alfresco recently announced a technology preview of integration between Google Docs and Alfresco. This integration, due to be release as part of Alfresco 3.3g, will allow users to ‘check out’ documents from the Alfresco repository to Google Docs. Users can make change, collaborating with colleagues, and then ‘check in’ the revised copy to Alfresco. Using Google Docs removes the need for users to download to their desktop, edit with MS Office tools and helps facilitates online, real-time collaboration.

Council’s within the UK are required to make information available to the general public. These two videos show how Camden Council are using Alfresco to manage the content creation and publish process for all council information and how Alfresco then delivers this to the public via the Internet.

Overview

Alasdair Mangham, Head of Information Systems and Development at the London Borough of Camden, presents an overview of the requirements and why they chose Alfresco.

Demonstration

Chris Burnett, Lead Developer at the London Borough of Camden, provides a demonstration of the Alfresco system used to manage the delivery of Council and Democracy information to the Camden Council web site.

Contact

To discuss more about the Council & Democracy solution as well as other ways in which Alfresco is being used at Camden you can email Alasdair Mangham – Head of Information Systems and Development : email hidden; JavaScript is required

To discuss how Alfresco can provide management of all electronic content across your organisation (Records Management, Document Management, Web Content Management and more) you can email email hidden; JavaScript is required

This is a series of tutorial video’s that were recorded for the Alfresco Cloud trial. The video’s guide the viewer through the features of Alfresco Share. Based on a fictitious company ‘Green Energy’, the video’s cover the following:

• Introduction to the Alfresco Cloud trial
• Alfresco Dashboards
  • Project based dashboards
  • User based dashboards
• Extended User Profiles
• Project Library
  • Browsing a project library
  • Project document management
• Project Based Links
• Project Based Discussion Threads
• Project Based Blogs
• Finding and Creating New Collaboration Project Sites
• Administering Users and Groups

After watching the videos you can try Alfresco Share running in the Cloud for yourself here.

Introduction to the Alfresco Cloud Trial

Alfresco Dashboards

Alfresco Share provides users with two types of dashboard, or landing page. There is one for each project and one for each user. Project Managers can configure project dashboards, to include project based ‘Dashlets’, while the user can configure their own dashboard to support their personal needs.

Project Dashboards

This video tutorial shows how to configure the project dashboard.

Personal Alfresco Share Dashboard

This video tutorial shows how to configure a personal dashboard.

Extended User Profiles

Alfresco Share manages a profile for each user. With the introduction of Alfresco Share 3.2 these have been extended to include extra information about each user. Two new tabs have been added:

• Sites – Provides a list of all of the projects or sites that the user has access to or is working on
• Content – Provides a snap shot of the content that the user has either created or has recently modified

Project Library

Alfresco Share provides users with an area for storing, managing and sharing project related content. The two videos on this page show how to browse the Document Library; to review content and then Document Management capabilities, to show project team members can add content, edit document attributes etc.

Browse the Project Library

This video shows you how to browse a project document library.

Project Document Management

This video shows you some of the document management capability available within Alfresco Share.

Project Based Links

Team members may find interesting Internet sites that they want to share with other project team members. With Alfresco Share they can simply add them to the Project Links area. Individual links can be tagged to make it easy to sort large lists of links. This video tutorial shows how we have added some branding related sites to our branding project.

Project Based Discussion Threads

Alfresco Share provides team members with a place to discuss project topics. Team members can raise issues, post questions or just start a discussion thread. Other project members can post replies, sharing their ideas and views with all of the project team. Unlike email, these discussion threads are managed as part of the project, allowing people to understand the rational for key decisions.

Project Based Blogs

The Project Blog area allows team members to create Blog items. This could be used just to share ideas and thoughts with other project team members. It could also be used to develop Blog content that eventually gets posted on a public Blog site. Team members can collaborate around the blog entry before it finally goes live. This video tutorial will review some of the blog pages for Green Energy.

Finding and Creating New Collaboration Project Sites

Alfresco Share makes it easy to search and find project collaboration sites. Users can also create new sites to start collaborating with other users. This video tutorial shows how users can quickly and easily find existing projects and how to create a new project collaboration site.

Administering Users and Groups

This video tutorial will demonstrate some of the new administration features that have been added in Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.2. It will show how an administrator can:

• Create a new user
• Change a user
• Administer Groups

If you have found this videos interesting and would like to try Alfresco yourself then register for a free Alfresco Cloud trial.

This series of videos show various aspects of the Alfresco Records Management Solution. All of these were recorded using the Alfresco Community Edition. The supported Alfresco Enterprise Edition will be available in February 2010.

Introduction to Alfresco Records Management

This video introduces the Alfresco Records Management solution. It shows how an Alfresco Share like interface allows users to file and declare new documents as corporate records.

Filing and Declaring a New Record

This short video shows how a user can:

• File a new document into the Record Management solution
• Complete the required information (metadata)
• Declare it as a new corporate record

Filing an Existing Document from Within Alfresco Share

Not all content exists outside of Alfresco. What happens if you have used Alfresco Share to manage the creation, review and approval process for important business documents? Well this video shows how you can easily file the approved document directly into the Alfresco Records Management solution from within Alfresco Share.

Filing Emails as Corporate Records Using IMAP Clients

This video shows how, by supporting the IMAP protocol, Alfresco enables users to file emails into the Records Management application directly from their IMAP compliant email clients. Simple drag n’ drop makes it easy to file important emails and have them managed as vital corporate records.

Setting up a Disposition Schedule

It is important to be able to manage the lifecycle of corporate records. Understanding how long records should be managed, if they should be deleted or transferred and when. This video shows how companies can set up their own disposition schedule to correctly manage corporate records.

Publish from Lotus Quickr

This video will show how easy it is to publish content from Lotus Quickr to Alfresco. Using the ‘Publish to External Location’ menu command the user can select the location to publish to. Three options are available:

• Publish to Alfresco and keep a link in Lotus Quickr
• Create a copy
• Move the document to Alfresco

Project sites within Alfresco Share can be browsed to review the documents, alternatively links can be followed directly from within Lotus Quickr to find the latest version of a document.

Enterprise Library Viewer

Alfresco can be mapped to the Lotus Quickr Enterprise Library Viewer. After entering a valid User ID and Password, users can browse the various project based document libraries managed by Alfresco. Documents can be previewed using the integrated flash viewer.

Integration with SharePoint

Support for the Microsoft SharePoint protocol enables users to access Alfresco directly from Microsoft Office products (MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, etc.). Users can upload documents, review document versions, and share documents with other users. Documents added will automatically be available within Lotus Quickr in the Enterprise Library Viewer.

Support for Records Management

The Alfresco Records Management module extends Records Management support to Lotus Quickr. An integrated virtualised IMAP server provides support for IMAP email clients and allows users to Drag n’ Drop emails and documents into the Records Management repository. A multi stage declaration process allows important information (metadata) to be added after filing and then the documents t be declared as vital records. Context sensitive menus allow users, with the right security levels, to run RM functions (i.e. freeze a document).

Lotus Notes Connector

Integration with Lotus Notes allows content stored inside Alfresco to be accessible within Lotus Notes. Users can check out, open, edit content and check in documents. Simple drag and drop allows users to forward documents stored and managed by Alfresco from within the Lotus Notes client.

Check the Technical Preview page for more information about the Alfresco Content Services for IBM Lotus

This year at Lotusphere, Alfresco Software is demonstrating the technical preview of Alfresco Content Services for IBM Lotus®. The integration between the Alfresco open source enterprise content management (ECM) system and IBM Lotus social collaboration products extends to Lotus Quickr, Lotus Notes, Lotus Connections and WebSphere Portal.

The video below shows the integration between IBM Lotus and Alfresco

Introduction

This is the first demonstration in the DemoCast series. One of the goals of this blog is to share demonstrations on how Alfresco can be used in: Document Management, Records Management, Image Management and Web Content Management

This demonstration uses the Alfresco 1.4 ECM suite and focuses on Document Management. Specifically the demonstration shows how a document lifecycle can be managed within Alfresco. The document lifecycle goes through a classic “Draft, Review, and Approval” cycle. This is often associated with compliance documents such as “Quality documents” – as are used in the demonstration. These cycles are equally applicable to:

• Marketing – Press Release, case Studies
• Legal – Contracts
• Sales – RFI
• HR – Job Offers
• Software Engineering – New Product Development
• Others

The demonstration also gives an update on 1.4 showing:

• jBPM
• MyAlfresco
• Auditing
• REST Architecture – Portal interface

BPM

This part of the demonstration shows the JBPM interface – which is new in Alfresco 1.4. What is key here is that the workflow drives the document lifecycle and approval process. This is a sophisticated process where the location, status, security and format of the document changes as it moves through the lifecycle.

Alfresco jBPM

CIFS

This part of the demonstration shows the CIFS, shared drive interface of Alfresco. The quality document is dragged into the Alfresco repository and subsequently updated.

Alfresco CIFS

Web Client

This part of the demonstration shows access to the Web Client through a single sign-on. Each Alfresco Space now has a simple description, stating what the space is used for and how to use it – New in 1.4. Automatic metadata extraction is then shown. The document then has the “Quality Document” business process applied to it by selecting it from a simple pick list. The document is then transparently moved from the “Draft? area to the “Pending Approval Area” and its status is automatically updated to “Pending Approval”.

Alfresco Web Client

MyAlfresco

This part of the demonstration shows the MyAlfresco portal – New in 1.4. This displays on one screen: your documents, checked-out documents and images. More importantly, for this demonstration, it also displays access to your tasks that are driven from the business process. The “Quality document” is driven through review to approval. On approval the initiator is told of successful completion. Also, within this lifecycle, the business process changes the location, status, security and format of the document.

MyAlfresco

Portal

Many users want a very simple interface that requires no training at all. This part of the demonstration shows access through a very simple portal. The approved document is moved to the guest/public area and is transformed into the PDF format for universal access.

Alfresco Simple Portal

Alfresco Rules

Some of the key design principles were to make Alfresco simple to install, simple to use and simple to scaleout. This part of the demonstration shows how easy it is to configure rules in the Alfresco server – as simple to configure as email rules. The rules in the demonstration – “Update Status Property”, “Transform Word to PDF”, “Move PDF to Published Documentation”, “Delete Published PDF’s” and “Notify Users via Email” are displayed. The demonstration then shows how to create a rule in a space that transforms content to PDF and places it in another space.

Alfresco Rules

Try Alfresco

If you are interested in trying Alfresco the simplest way is to go to:

www.alfresco.com

Where there is a button “Try Alfresco”.

This allows you to select from:

Instant Trial

• Instant Hosted Trial of Alfresco Enterprise
• Shared Repository
• Content Regularly Removed

Company Trial

• Dedicated 30 Day Hosted Trial of Alfresco Enterprise

Enterprise Trial

• In-House 30 Day Trial of Alfresco Enterprise
• Often selected so that for example internal data and authentication system can be used

The advantages of the Alfresco Trial are:

• Work with Alfresco
• Support for Trial (subject to approval)
• Access to demonstration spaces such as the Quality Document Lifecycle shown in this demonstration

My name is Ian Howells and I am the Chief Marketing Officer of Alfresco. I host the Alfresco Open Source Talk podcast series which is very popular with the Alfresco community.

Alfresco DemoCast is intended to be a complementary video blog to Open Source Talk. If you are interested in submitting a demonstration please email ian dot howells at alfresco dot com (spam free email format)

Alfresco can be used for many content centric applications and DemoCast is designed to:

1. Share demonstrations of how Alfresco can be used in: Document Management, Records Management, Image Management and Web Content Management
2. Show technical examples of aspects of the product such as for example RSS, Email Notification, Search
3. Show examples of new features available in the latest version of the product

DemoCast is also intended to be a showcase for Alfresco demonstrations developed by the Alfresco partners and the Alfresco Community.

For more details please go to:
http://blogs.alfresco.com/democast/?page_id=2