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Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Thu Dec 18, 2014 12:48 am
by lpallard
Hello,

happily using openkm community edition for personal non production usage and I was wondering how to install additional plugins to extend openkm's functionality?

I am particularly interested in the "Live editing" plugin. Right now I use a Centos linux based computer and when I want to edit a document, I have to:

-Right click on the document in openkm and select "Edit"
-My web browser downloads the file somewhere
-I manually open the file & edit it & save
-I close the file
-I select "Update" in openkm by right click on the document in openkm
-I browse to the file and select it
-Openkm replaces the file...

Its cumbersome because if I edit many documents at the same time I end up with several copies of the same file such as

file.txt
file[1].txt
file[2].txt
...

I believe the "Live edit" plugin would facilitate my work but I havent found anywhere how to retrieve it and install it..

Second question is regarding document status. I have documents that are actual (valid and being used) and other documents that I store in openkm only for archival purposes. Finally, other documents become obsolete or deprecated (outdated) and I keep them in openkm only for historical purposes..

How can I mark a document "Obsolete/Outdated"? That'd be useful in preventing that an obsolete document is used accidentally..

Looking forward to your suggestions!
Thanks!

EDIT: I am using OpenKM 6.2.6-DEV (Build 8126) on Linux

Re: Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Sat Dec 20, 2014 12:13 pm
by jllort
1-My first suggestion is upgrade to 6.3.0 or nighly buil what will be 6.3.1 ( solve minor bugs ).
2-Sorry but live edit is only available on professional version, is not available on community. My best offer to you is using office addins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THTqfSP8kY and you can download from http://www.openkm.com/en/download-english.html
3-About mark documents as deprecated, archived etc... can do several things. The most trivial is mark as deprecated with metadata. Based on metadata change you could create /okm:root/history folder, move there and change privileges to prevent anybody see it ( also could be moved to second openkm used only for archiving purposes ). With professional version also we could offer convert document into record information in openkm and export data ( zip ) to periodically create DVD etc... and decrease your repository size.

There're a lot of option, the questio is understood what's your need. In some cases the deprecated information is destroyed after some elapsed time (5 years etc... ). Based on crontab task and automation task you can configure the logic for doing it automatically.

Re: Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Sat Dec 20, 2014 5:34 pm
by lpallard
Hi there, thanks for replying!

Thats OK for the live edit plugin, I had a feeling that it was in the Professional edition and not in the community edition when I couldnt find the download or installation instructions anywhere..

For the "mark documents as obsolete" thing, I'd like the documents to still be accessible and stay in the repo where they are but just be marked "obsolete" or something like that. For example, if we have a important document that expired, we want to keep it in the repository but make it clear that it is now "obsolete" so its no longer used actively but is archived for historical purposes (or later reference) in OpenKM..

I dont want to delete documents or export the repo to DVD's or anything else. My needs are too simple for that and after 2 years using OpenKM the repo is only 13GB and not growing so much..

I suppose metadata is a way to go. How would you mark thousands of documents in a single operation?

Re: Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Sun Dec 21, 2014 12:27 pm
by jllort
The question is on the logic to determinate how document is considered obsolete or not ? is manually done or can be something based on last modification date ?

In addition:
In combination with metadata, also you could rename de document for exemple "sample.doc" be renamed as "deprecated-sample.doc" then by name will be clearly identified as deprecated.
Another good practice could be move all deprectated to other specific repository files. These options can help people on search view.

Re: Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:31 pm
by lpallard
Quite frankly, a simple button "Mark document as obsolete" combined with the check boxes in the folder's list view would be great. You would select a document or more than one, click on the "mark document as obsolete" button and the prooperty would be aded to the document(s)..

That way, the obsolete documents could be sorted by obsolescence status or searched for in the search function.

I would use the "last modified" parameter to determine if a document is obsolete or not since obsolescence can be caused by issuing a more recent document superceding the older one (such as when a contract is modified). On the other hand a document can be static (unchanged) for years if it doesnt need to be modified but still can be valid (a 10 year contract can still be valid and active but not changed for years..)

I am not familiar enough with openkm to discuss about the different repository to move the obsolete documents.. I think keeping everything int he same repo would be better because it would allow to see both active and obsolete documents at the same time and have a better overall view of the repo.

Re: Document editing and workflow

PostPosted:Wed Dec 24, 2014 4:10 pm
by jllort
the most easy is simple change directly the metadata ( checkbox ) and only allow some people to change metadata. Include a button for it is possible, but will be more complex ( you need create your own toolbar button with extensions http://wiki.openkm.com/index.php/ToolBarButtonExtension and compile source code ). Other option could be workflow what automatically does it on execution ( start, do operation and finish on same cycle ), but probably will be more complex for you.

When you work with a huge repositories, several milions the idea is get in main repository the daily work ( active ), think on your real life work, what you got on your table, and other information in other place ( history ) in real world the shelves.
With this aproximation I think you can understand why go information into history repository, obviously that takes sense on huge repositories.