• Using OpenKM for personal document management

  • We tried to make OpenKM as intuitive as possible, but an advice is always welcome.
We tried to make OpenKM as intuitive as possible, but an advice is always welcome.
Forum rules: Please, before asking something see the documentation wiki or use the search feature of the forum. And remember we don't have a crystal ball or mental readers, so if you post about an issue tell us which OpenKM are you using and also the browser and operating system version. For more info read How to Report Bugs Effectively.
 #24306  by wgerven
 
Dear OpenKM community,

I am new to this forum but hope I can offer my share of contributing to the community. I have a few simple questions to ask but first let me give some context for it.

In my life there is a lot of information that has importance to me, coming from different sources. I have always tried to manage this (electronic) documentation by employing good file-naming practises and maintaining quite a rigid but logical folder structure on my hard disk. However, lately I have started to more and more hit the boundaries of what is possible/practical with just this way of working in terms of organization and remembering what and where something is located. So what I need is a more "advanced" way of organizing my electronic data, and in a sense run all this data a bit more like a business, and less on the level of just having some folders with funny holiday pictures. :wink:

So my questions are:

(1) Can I consider OpenKM to fulfill this wish? Which also means:

(2) Is it suitable for installation on just a laptop, practicly using the web interface as my personal "advanced" file manager?

(3) And if both yes, what will be the impact of integrating OpenKM on my personal computer on the way my files are currently organized? Let me clarify this. For instance, I use thunderbird to receive my emails, and when I get them they are stored "somewhere" locally, but not "easily" accessible (which is of course also not needed, thunderbird is in this sense also a KM software). (On ubuntu) I currently have as I said folders with files, where at least I know where they are and what they are named after. When employing OpenKM, will this have its impact on my files in a similar way as by my example thunderbird treats emails? Or will I still have control over where all the files go and where to find them? (For instance just in my /home/username/ folder.) What I mean is: Can I consider OpenKM more as a "layer" over my file structure, or would its implementation be more drastic?

(4) In extension to my previous question: As OpenKM works with uploading and downloading files that were created locally, will this mean that in the end if I would consider using OpenKM for personal knowledge management that every document exists twice in my file system?

I hope that I stated my questions as clearly as possible, and that answering them will not be very difficult. Also I hope that they will be to the benefit of people having the same problem, or maybe even see a nice opportunity to start a business in PKM: Personal knowledge management. 8) A very big thanks in advance!

All the best,
Willem.
 #24321  by jllort
 
I will try answering so fast as I can:

1- OpenKM is thinked to solve bussiness documentation problems, but you can to use as personal solution, really personal solution is a part of bussiness problem. The question you should have is "I have enought skills to make backups, control application etc... " because DMS is not a trivial wizard installation app, more power in this case means more flexibility configuration that means more tiem to understand what you in your hands.

2- In your case I suggest enable OpenKM webdav service and connect openkm as a network resource, that will make your live more easy.

Finally I suggest try 1-2 weeks and if you're pleased continue using it, otherside OpenKM is the only DMS I know you're able to export entire repository data to your server in a human reasonable way. The information is yours and you should not be prisioner of any software, that's an important thing when you select any soft.
 #24322  by okmuser
 
Dear OpenKM community,
I am new to this forum but hope I can offer my share of contributing to the community. I have a few simple questions to ask but first let me give some context for it.
Welcome!
In my life there is a lot of information that has importance to me, coming from different sources. I have always tried to manage this (electronic) documentation by employing good file-naming practises and maintaining quite a rigid but logical folder structure on my hard disk. However, lately I have started to more and more hit the boundaries of what is possible/practical with just this way of working in terms of organization and remembering what and where something is located. So what I need is a more "advanced" way of organizing my electronic data, and in a sense run all this data a bit more like a business, and less on the level of just having some folders with funny holiday pictures. :wink:
I believe from your quote above, you are already aware of the importance of record management cycle: create/classify/use/retain/dispose.
Given that you are already maintaining a record management system, I also believe you understand the importance of having a backup of the records both on and off site.
(2) Is it suitable for installation on just a laptop, practicly using the web interface as my personal "advanced" file manager?
I haven't used the webdav part of OpenKM due to its limitations, however you can use OpenKM interface as a file manager on its own.
(3) And if both yes, what will be the impact of integrating OpenKM on my personal computer on the way my files are currently organized? Let me clarify this. For instance, I use thunderbird to receive my emails, and when I get them they are stored "somewhere" locally, but not "easily" accessible (which is of course also not needed, thunderbird is in this sense also a KM software). (On ubuntu) I currently have as I said folders with files, where at least I know where they are and what they are named after. When employing OpenKM, will this have its impact on my files in a similar way as by my example thunderbird treats emails? Or will I still have control over where all the files go and where to find them? (For instance just in my /home/username/ folder.) What I mean is: Can I consider OpenKM more as a "layer" over my file structure, or would its implementation be more drastic?
As you mentioned already file systems have its own limitation, by using OpenKM the additional 'layers' above your filesystem you can use are:
Metadata (Property Values)
Notes
Classification (Categories)

This gives a better management of your records. Remember the value of a record = 'how fast you can find it', by all measures above and a proper naming convention you can achieve this, however you need to spend sometime in assigning these when you create the record initially.
(4) In extension to my previous question: As OpenKM works with uploading and downloading files that were created locally, will this mean that in the end if I would consider using OpenKM for personal knowledge management that every document exists twice in my file system?
Yes OpenKM has its own file management structure (either database or filesystem based), however I am not sure whether you will be using both your existing file structure and OpenKM once you migrated to OpenKM.
I hope that I stated my questions as clearly as possible, and that answering them will not be very difficult. Also I hope that they will be to the benefit of people having the same problem, or maybe even see a nice opportunity to start a business in PKM: Personal knowledge management. 8) A very big thanks in advance!
I hope I have answered your concerns/questions.

Further, also consider the following before deciding on OpenKM:
1. OpenKM is actually a document/knowledge management system compared to a record management system (Not sure what exactly your requirement is)
2. OpenKM has some limitations in email management, this is the most important part for me which is missing in community version (not sure on professional), emails cannot be retrieved from OpenKM, i.e if you have deleted an email once it is uploaded to OpenKM, then later if you want to reply or forward that email, there is no way to do that. More disturbingly you cannot even print the email.

Having said that, I am using OpenKM for the last two years and it saved a lot of my time otherwise I would have spent on searching for a document, either in hard copy or in hard disk and it also saved a lot of space, which I would have used to store the box folders for storing the documents.

Have a good day..!
 #24335  by jllort
 
About email management in version 6.4 we're working in e-mail archive solution direction ( still not 100% complete ). Actually is possible to send mails from openkm, import eml and pst formats directly, what we have not got in consideration reply or forward, but are cases easilly to be implemented.

We're stopped thinking how this feature will be shown in dashboard and we've not taken a final decision about it.
 #24340  by wgerven
 
First of all thanks everybody for the very useful replies!

The reason that I ended up on this forum is that what I need is a certain software (solution) in which I have added control over the knowledge (documents) on my computer. In a sense this requires some advanced "file browser", and it seems that within my constraints I all the time ended up with openKM during my internet searches.

It seems to me there is something though that I don't understand yet. My question 2
Is it suitable for installation on just a laptop, practicly using the web interface as my personal "advanced" file manager?
triggered some of you to start mentioning the "webdav" part of openKM. However, I asked my question in this way, mentioning the "web interface", as I thought that access to openKM interface was purely trough your webbrowser, but maybe I misunderstood something. Perhaps could somebody explain/clarify to me how to in fact "access" the software? And how do I understand the difference between the "webdav" part and plain openKM?
If I can use openKM not persee trough the webbrowser that would be in fact all the better for me! As mentioned, in the end I just look for an advanced alternative to the common file browser.

I am sorry if I sound very naive, but I am new to this so many things are a bit unclear to me still... Also, of course I could just install the software and try it, but I was trying to though haven't got it to work yet...

Thanks a lot for all the help/effort.

Best regards,
Willem.

edit: I've got it at least working now, so I am able to do also some exploring on my own. :)
 #24355  by wgerven
 
Hello everybody,

The other day I was able to make it all work. I am running now openKM with webdav access, and indeed it looks very promising! :) I understand now why people proposed me to enable webdav, which gives me the option to still browse the file/folder structure which is also present within openKM.
Thanks a lot for all the input!

Best regards,
Willem.

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