Grant Allen wrote: > Phil Scarratt wrote: >> Hi all >> >> Wondering what people's recommendations/experiences with document >> management systems (or ECM systems) are? >> >> I've got to select a DMS/ECM for a non-profit organisation (actually a >> publisher) and have Nuxeo, Alfresco and OpenKM on the shortlist. >> >> TIA >> Fil > > Hi Phil, > > 11 years in that industry must be good for something, I suppose :-). Of > the three DM/ECM products you mention, I have experience with Alfresco, > and passing knowledge of Nuxeo (as well as far too many brain cells > wasted on their proprietary brethren, e.g. Documentum, TRIM, > Stellent/Oracle, IBM Content Manager) > > There are a few issues outside of technology that you should think about > regardless of your choice. Are you after DM, or the whole ECM > box-and-dice? (RM, DAM/Image management, Archiving, workflow/bpm, WCM > ... and DM). There is overlap, but ECM is a cumbersome beast if all you > want is DM. Are you prepared for the cost/effort? Not talking about > software here, but the key to successful DM/ECM projects is managing > them as a change management exercise, which means "people" costs. > Making the change to a managed DM/ECM environment is often a huge > cultural shift, and the best technology can wither and die if the > organisation has a bad reaction. > > On the Alfresco front, it definitely has some advantages. There's local > support here in Sydney, the product has a great roadmap, and John > Newton's team seem quick to pick up the technology trends in ECM (e.g. > they had CMIS prototype support in the same month the standard was > announced). Given my particular biases, I like it because it's also > technology agnostic under the hood, giving you OS, database and app > server choice. Another big plus is that it is definitely a "growing" > product and company. You aren't going to be left with orphan-ware in > two years' time :-). Other current trends they seem to be following are > heavily tied to collaboration, so if that's a current or future > requirement, it has some benefits. > > Probably the only major gotcha I'd warn about is the enterprise version > trap. Some of the nice bells and whistles are only available in the > paid version. No problem with this, per se, it's their business model > and best of luck to them. They do, however, have an unusual support > model where support partners agreeing to partner with Alfresco on the > enterprise edition are contractually bound to *not* support the > community edition. Again, that's not really a technology issue, more a > business one. You are in luck again, as there are both kinds of support > available here in Sydney - enterprise partners who only do enterprise > support, and other support outfits that support both (without the "ent. > partner" label). > > Anyway, that's my 2ยข. If that raises more questions for you, please > feel free to contact me. >
Very informative, thanks Grant - *much appreciated*. There are really only 2 definite areas that are of interest - DM and workflow. Archiving could potentially be useful, depending on complexity of setup. Collaboration could also be useful, but I have not done any research into what specifically that entails, and hence I am not sure how well that would go with the file formats being used (PDF and Adobe Pagemaker, some Quark Express). The organisation is basically a translator/publisher type deal. Fil -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
