Alfresco 3 Records Management

Table of Contents

Alfresco 3 Records Management

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

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Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Records Management

What is a record?

What is Records Management?

Electronic Records Management

Record lifecycles

Benefits of Records Management

Records Management is about complying with legal requirements

Regulatory compliance

Authority Documents and compliance

E-discovery

Records Management is about ensuring accountability

Records Management is about preserving assets

Records Management is about efficiency

Records Management is about being prepared

Records Management is about coming to grips with data volumes

Records Management is about security

Records Management is about good business

Summary

2. Getting Started with the Alfresco Records Management Module

The Alfresco stack

Alfresco software

Make sure the software versions are compatible

Downloading the Alfresco software

Alfresco Community

Building from source code

Download a Community version snapshot build

Alfresco Enterprise

Installing the base Alfresco software

Running the installer

Installing Alfresco Records Management modules manually

Starting the Alfresco Repository and Share application

Starting Alfresco Share

Share dashlets

Enabling the Records Management dashlet

Adding the Records Management site

Designating the Records Management administrator

How does it work?

The Records Management AMP Files

The Records Management Console dashlet

The flow of Alfresco webscripts

The flow of the Records Management webscript dashlet

The Records Management dashlet files

The Records Management dashlet files in the MVC Pattern

The Records Management descriptor file

The Records Management dashlet controller

The Records Management dashlet view

The Records Management dashlet URL

The Records Management console client-side JavaScript

Creation of the Records Management site

Web development within Share

Summary

3. Introduction to the Alfresco Share Records Management Site

The Share environment

A brief history of Alfresco Share

Alfresco Share as a social platform

Alfresco Share and the Alfresco 3 Labs release

Alfresco Share 3.X Post-Labs release

Use cases for Alfresco Share

Team project sites

Publishing sites

Personal sites

Alfresco Share and collaboration

Share dashboards

Changing the dashboard layout

Changing the placement of dashboard dashlets

Changing site dashboards

Site pages

Configuring site page navigation

Share themes

Share collaboration

Collaboration tools

Project-based collaboration data

The Records Management site

The site dashboard

The File Plan

The File Plan toolbar

Left navigation panel

Records search

Site members

Administration of site members

How does it work?

Share configuration files

Repository property files

Customizing bean files

Share bean configuration

Client debug settings

Available aspects list

Available content types

Access to the complete Alfresco repository from Share

Records Management configuration

Server log configuration file

Dashboards

Preset dashboard configurations

Preset dashboard layout

Preset dashboard dashlets

Modifying the preset dashboard configurations

Persistence of dashboard configurations

Using the Node Browser to find persisted dashboard data

AVM Store Share component nodes

AVM Store Share page nodes

Modifying existing user dashboards

Programmatically accessing persisted dashboard data

Creating a new Share theme

Share site top navigation toolbar

Share Site secondary navigation header bar

Summary

4. Metadata and the Alfresco Content Model

The Alfresco Content Model

The model namespace

Alfresco namespaces

Types

Properties

Constraints

Types of constraints

REGEX constraint

LENGTH constraint

LIST constraint

MINMAX constraint

Associations

Peer associations

Child associations

Aspects

Creating a new model

Designing the model

Implementing the model file

The model file header

Model import files

The model namespace

The model constraints

The model types

The model aspects

Installing the model

Bootstrap deployment of the model

Dynamic deployment of the content model

Exposing a new content model from the Share user interface

Adding Types to the site upload form

Adding Types to the Change Type action

Seeing the new Type applied to a content node

Customizing the forms for viewing and editing the new model's metadata

The Records Management Content Model

The Records Model

The Records Model header

The Records Model imports

The Records Model namespace

The DoD 5015 Records Management Content Model

Extending the Alfresco Content Model

Summary

5. Creating the File Plan

The File Plan — a definition

Components of the File Plan

Benefits of the File Plan

Looking at the Alfresco example File Plan

Best practice for creating the File Plan

File Plans based on organizational hierarchy

File Plans based on business processes and activities

Best practice for File Plan design

Creating the File Plan

Adding containers to the File Plan

Creating a Series

Creating a Category

Creating a Folder

File Plan container metadata

Copy and move of File Plan containers

How does it work?

How the File Plan page is set by the preset

The File Plan, as extended from the Document Library

The Document Library JavaScript controller file

Getting the Location Type

Getting the File Plan root node via a service call

Setting doclibType in the model data

Setting the root node in the model data

Reading XML configuration data

The Document Library FreeMarker presentation

FreeMarker page layout for the File Plan

Alfresco page components

Components on the File Plan page

The File Plan Document List

The Document List controller file

User preferences

Actions

The Document List Data Table

Defining and rendering the Data Table

Retrieving Content Object with an Alfresco Repository webscript

Summary

6. Creating Disposition Schedules

What is the disposition schedule?

Disposition instructions

The record lifecycle

Cutoff

Retention

Destruction

Transfer

Accession

Inheritance of the disposition

Disposition example — application at the Folder level

Disposition example — application at the record level

Creating the disposition schedule

The review

The disposition schedule

General information for the disposition

The disposition steps

Configuring a simple disposition schedule

Time-based triggers

Event-based triggers

Trigger precedence

Making changes to the disposition schedule

Deleting steps of the disposition schedule

Editing steps of the disposition schedule

Importing and exporting File Plan data

Importing a File Plan

Exporting the File Plan

How does it work?

The Category details page

The edit disposition instructions page

The create disposition steps page

Components of the disposition edit webscript

Disposition edit client-side JavaScript

Summary

7. Filing Records

Filing — more than one way

Filing an electronic record from Share

Filing a non-electronic record from Share

Filing from another Share site

Filing a record from a CIFS mounted drive

What is CIFS?

Filing with CIFS

Configuring CIFS

Troubleshooting CIFS

Checking to see whether the CIFS server is running

Missing NetBIOS DLL

Problems with ports

CIFS server name is too long

Conflicts with authentication settings

Filing from an e-mail client with IMAP

What is IMAP?

Filing with an IMAP e-mail client

Configuring IMAP

Configuring IMAP to run on the server

Configuring IMAP on e-mail clients

IMAP configuration for Outlook 2007

Filing to Alfresco via FTP

Bulk import

An unsupported add-on

Bulk import and Records Management considerations

Bulk import can't import disposition information

Installing bulk import

Simple interface to access bulk import

Bulk import shadow files

Auto-declaration of records

Metadata and dates

Running the tool

Filing by scanning

Identify which records to scan

Metadata and classification

Filing scanned images

Other ways to file

How does it work?

Internals of electronic file upload

Internals of non-electronic record filing

Summary

8. Managing Records

Records Details

Alfresco Flash previewer

Record Metadata

Record actions

Download action

Edit Metadata

Copy record

Move record

File record

Delete record

Audit log

Links

Events

References

How does it work?

The Details page

The JavaScript controller for the Details page

The FreeMarker template for the Details page

Included files for the Details page

Initialize the RecordsDocumentDetails object

FreeMarker components on the Details page

The web preview component

Web preview include files

The web preview controller JavaScript

The web preview FreeMarker template

Client-side JavaScript

The metadata component

The events component

The references component

Summary

9. Following the Lifecycle of a Record

Undeclared records

Specifying mandatory metadata

Declaring the record

Record review

Closing a Folder

Cutoff

Transfer

Accession

Destruction

Audit log

Hold or freeze

Responding to a hold request

Freezing records

Locating records on hold

Creating an export package of requested records and metadata

Releasing the hold

The File Plan report

How does it work?

The unique record ID

Background jobs

Review notifications

Configuring the notification e-mail bean

Configuring the e-mail notification cron schedule

Configuring the contents of the notification e-mail

Configuring outbound e-mails

Manually checking for records requiring review

Tracking the scheduler

Lifecycle tracking

Configuring the disposition lifecycle bean

Configuring the lifecycle cron schedule

Manually checking for lifecycle records

Logging information for the lifecycle scheduler

The File Plan component

Linking to the transfer and hold pages

Rendering transfer and hold Items

Finding transfer items

Finding hold items

Transfer report

Summary

10. Searching Records and Running Audits

Search and Records Management

Authorization and search

Records Search page

Single-field search form

The Search form

Basic search

Property search

Date search

Search filters

Restricted File Plan search

Search result columns

Result list search order

Clearing the search criteria

The Results tab

Syntax errors

FTS-Alfresco query language

Searching for a term

Searching for a phrase

Wildcard search

Conjunctive search

Disjunctive search

Negation

Properties

Special fields

Escaping QNames

Escaping characters not in a QName

Grouping

Boolean

Dates

Ranges

Proximity searches

Mandatory elements

Optional elements

Operator precedence

Example searches

Saved searches

Creating a saved search

Editing a saved search

Deleting a saved search

Records Management audits

Purpose of the records audit

Planning for the audit

Things to look for in the audit

Deliverables from the records audit

The Audit tool

Accessing the Audit tool

Using the Audit tool

Running an Audit report

Filtering the report by event

Filtering the report by property

Filtering the report by user

Filtering the report by date

Audit log viewing options

Viewing the full log

Filing the Audit log report

Export the Audit log report

Stopping, starting, and clearing the Audit log

How does it work?

The Records Search page

DataSource and data webscript

Saved searches

Custom properties

The Audit tool

Summary

11. Configuring Security and Permissions

Creating users

Adding a new Share user

New user access to Share

User admin

Groups and Records Management

Browsing groups

Adding a new group

Deleting a group

Editing groups

Adding members to a group

Member access to the Records Management site

Subscribing to the Records Management site

Requesting access to the moderated Records Management site

Access to a private Records Management site

Creating Records Management roles

Roles and permissions

Access controls applied to the File Plan

Viewing and editing the Records Management roles

Browsing role permissions

Editing role permissions

Creating a new role

Deleting a role

Read and file permissions

The User Rights Report

How does it work?

Admin console — users

Users in the repository

Users as usr:users

Users as cm:persons

Access to roles via webscripts

Permissions

Summary

12. Configuring Records Management Parameters

The Records Management Console

List of Values

Supplemental Markings

Transfer Locations

Creating a new List of Values

Deleting the List of Values

Custom Metadata

E-mail Mappings

E-mail metadata

Creating an e-mail mapping

Events

Relationships

How does it work?

The Management Console page

Rendering of Management Console tools

The Console page layout

The tools navigation region

Custom Records Management metadata

Custom Records Management namespace

Custom aspects for record objects

List of Values

Events

WebScript calls for Management Console information

Summary

Index

Alfresco 3 Records Management

Alfresco 3 Records Management

Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2011

Production Reference: 1110111

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-849514-36-1

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Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman (<a.wishkerman@mpic.de>)

Credits

Author

Dick Weisinger

Reviewer

Sherwin John Calleja-Tragura

Acquisition Editor

Steven Wilding

Development Editors

Rakesh Shejwal

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Technical Editor

Dayan Hyames

Copy Editor

Leonard D'Silva

Indexers

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Editorial Team Leader

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Project Team Leader

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Project Coordinator

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Proofreaders

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Graphics

Nilesh R. Mohite

Production Coordinator

Adline Swetha Jesuthas

Cover Work

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About the Author

Dick Weisinger is Vice President and Chief Technologist at Formtek, Inc. and has more than 20 years of experience in the area of Enterprise Content Management especially Content, Document, and Image Management. His career spans many projects and organizations and he has contributed to software solutions used for health care, finance, engineering, discrete manufacturing, and aerospace and defense applications. Dick is a regular contributor to the Formtek blog at http://www.formtek.com/blog on topics that include ECM, SaaS, Open Source, SOA, and New Technology.

Dick earned a Masters in Engineering Science in Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters in Engineering Science from the Johns Hopkins University. Dick is an AIIM-certified Records Management Specialist.

I would like to thank everyone who helped make this book a reality, including Rakesh Shejwal, the development editor; Shubhanjan Chatterjee, the project coordinator; Dayan Hyames, the technical editor, and Sherwin John Calleja-Tragura, the book's technical reviewer.

Special thanks to Dennis Scanlon and to team members at Formtek for providing support and the necessary time needed to work on this book, and also thanks to my wife and son for their support and understanding.

About the Reviewer

Sherwin John Calleja-Tragura is a Java Technical Consultant/Architect of Alibata Systems Incorporated (ASI), a software development and training team in Manila, Philippines. He is currently conducting corporate training on different object-oriented disciplines, especially Java/JEE-core and C++ courses. He also spearheads the technical team of the company's Ofbiz/Opentaps ERP and Alfresco Document Management projects. He is currently an EMC Documentum Proven Associate (E20-120).

Tragura started his career as a Computational Science faculty at the University of the Philippines-Los Banos where he took some units in MS Computer Science. He was a part-time PHP developer then.

I would like to thank my UPLB-FOREHA friends for their utmost support to my skill sets and talents. Likewise to Owen Estabillo who is always there through my ups-and-downs.

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Preface

Alfresco Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software provides content-centric features in the areas of Document Management (DM), Web Content Management (WCM), and Microsoft SharePoint-like Collaboration. Alfresco is particularly strong in handling the storage of large amounts of content and in enabling collaboration. Alfresco software is licensed as either open source Community or with a fully-supported Enterprise license.

There has been incredible growth in the breadth of the capabilities of Alfresco software since the initial Alfresco software release in 2005. Much of that growth has been possible due to good software architectural decisions that Alfresco developers made early on. Those early decisions drove the development of a solid and extensible software foundation that has enabled new capabilities to be rapidly built out.

In late 2009, Alfresco introduced another new capability, an extension for Records Management that was not only compatible with, but also certified for, the Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2 Records Management standard.

The announcement was notable, because firstly, the certification for 5015.2 is difficult to achieve. Only a few more than a dozen vendors out of an industry with vendors numbering in the hundreds have managed to be certified for 5015.2. Secondly, it was notable because Alfresco made the records software available as a free component in the open source community version of its software. Prior to that announcement, certified Records Management software was available for many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars.

The focus of this book is the Alfresco Records Management Module. To fully understand how Alfresco Records Management works, and why it works the way it does, it is necessary to also understand many of the basics of Records Management. This book tries to cover sufficient background in Records Management to bring users up to speed so that they can effectively set up a records program within their organization and then go about implementing the program using Alfresco Records Management.

As a result of the approach taken, the first chapter in the book is focused almost exclusively on Records Management without any specifics on the Alfresco implementation. After that, we dive down into great detail about how to set up, configure, and actually use Alfresco Records Management.

Dick Weisinger, the author of this book, is Vice President and Chief Technologist at Formtek, Inc. Formtek and provides Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software and services to its customers globally. Headquartered in the US, Formtek has partners and customers in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Records Management and Alfresco software are some of Formtek's core capabilities.

Note

Additional information can be found about Formtek products and services at http://www.formtek.com.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Records Management, describes the importance of Records Management and provides an overview of the general principles and the benefits that can be derived from implementing Records Management. Both Records Management standards, ISO 15489 and DoD 5015.2, are introduced.

Chapter 2, Getting Started with the Alfresco Records Management Module, narrows the discussion of Records Management to the Alfresco Records Management implementation. This chapter describes in detail how to install Alfresco Share with the Records Management Module, and then how to create the Alfresco Share Records Management site. In the latter part of this chapter, we discuss technical details of Alfresco webscripts and some of the underlying implementation of the Records Management dashlet.

Chapter 3, Introduction to the Alfresco Share Records Management Site, describes the basic framework of an Alfresco Share site, describing Share dashboards and collaboration features. The chapter also gives an overview of the File Plan and Records Search pages, which are unique to the Records Management site. At the end of this chapter, we examine some of the internal workings of Share site dashboards and the dashlets contained within them.

Chapter 4, Metadata and the Alfresco Content Model, introduces the Content Model structure used by Alfresco for defining document types and for specifying the metadata properties that are associated with document types. This chapter discusses in great detail how to define and extend document types and aspects of the Alfresco Content Model. Specifically the Records Management content models are looked at in detail.

Chapter 5, Creating the File Plan, describes best practices for developing a File Plan that uniquely fits the needs of your organization. We then see how to take the File Plan design and implement it within Alfresco. The chapter describes the mechanics of the File Plan implementation which involves creating the DoD 5015.2 foldering hierarchy of Series, Category, and Folder container. In the latter part of the chapter, we look at the internals of the File Plan page within the Records Management site. We note that this page is similar to and shares code with the Document Library page used by standard Share sites.

Chapter 6, Creating Disposition Schedules, describes how record retention and lifecycle information is defined within the disposition schedule. This chapter shows how a disposition schedule is created and applied at the Category level within the File Plan. The end of the chapter examines how the disposition page in the web client is constructed and interacts with the Alfresco repository using AJAX. We also see in detail how and where disposition information is stored within the repository.

Chapter 7, Filing Records, shows that methods other than the Alfresco Share web browser interface can be used to file records. The chapter describes how records can also be filed from an e-mail client, like Microsoft Outlook, or directly from the file system, using, for example, Windows Explorer in the Microsoft Windows operating system, or via FTP or batch loading programs. At the end of the chapter, we examine the low-level details of how files are uploaded and stored in the repository, and we also look at the internals of the upload form that allows multiple files to be selected for upload from the browser client.

Chapter 8, Managing Records, covers how to perform operations on records once the records have been filed into the File Plan. The operations discussed include copy, move, delete, the creation of links between records, and the viewing of a record's audit history. The latter part of the chapter discusses some of the internal implementation details of the built-in web preview capability.

Chapter 9, Following the Lifecycle of a Record, walks through the possible steps of the record lifecycle, typically from filing to destruction. The discussion includes record transfer and record accession, and describes how and why records might need to be frozen. The difference between the destruction and deletion of records is also described. The discussion on implementation internals looks at e-mail notifications and how background scheduled jobs automatically process steps of the record lifecycle.

Chapter 10, Searching Records and Running Audits, describes how to perform basic and complex searches for records in the File Plan, and how frequently used searches can be saved and later recalled and reused. The chapter describes the Audit Tool within the Records Management console and shows how reports can be run to audit actions and events that have occurred in the records system. At the end of the chapter, the internal implementation of the repository webscripts that are used to implement search and audit capabilities are discussed.

Chapter 11, Configuring Security and Permissions, explains how to create and modify users and groups that will have access to the Alfresco Share Records Management site. It describes how to create and modify Records Management roles and then how to assign permissions to those roles. The chapter also discusses how to set access rights for areas within the File Plan. The end of the chapter describes how webscripts are used to retrieve user, group, and role information from the repository.

Chapter 12, Configuring Records Management Parameters, discusses a number of useful administrative features that are available in the Records Management console. One of these tools allows the user to add custom metadata properties to extend the standard Alfresco Records Management content model. Other administrative tools are used to create custom events and to specify relationship types between records. In the implementation discussion for this chapter, we look in detail at how Alfresco implements dynamic metadata extensions to the content model.

Appendix A, Records Management Standards discusses the ISO 15489 and DoD 5015.2 standards in greater detail than covered in Chapter 1.

Appendix B, The Records Content Model, shows the detailed structure of the content model for Records Management in Alfresco.

Appendix C, Records Management Terms, lists and defines commonly used terms used in Records Management.

Note

You can download Appendices A, B, and C from https://www.packtpub.com/alfresco-3-records-management/book.

What you need for this book

The focus of this book is on the Alfresco Records Management module and requires only the following Alfresco software and Alfresco software stack elements:

Alfresco 3.2r+ Software, Enterprise, or Community

Alfresco 3.2r+ Records Management Module, Enterprise or Community

Note

Alfresco offers stack-complete installation bundles on both Windows and Linux that include all elements of the stack needed for the software to run, like the database (MySQL) and application server (Tomcat).

More information is provided in Chapter 2 where the software installation is discussed in detail.

Who this book is for

The primary target audience of this book includes individuals who will be implementing Records Management programs for their organizations. It will be particularly relevant to Records Managers, Business Analysts, and Software Developers.

Alfresco Share Developers will also be interested in some of the implementation details which are discussed here and which can be applied generally to other Alfresco Share development projects.

Alfresco Share is built on the Spring-Surf framework which extensively uses client and server-side Javascript and the FreeMarker templating language. At the end of many of the chapters are sections which are aimed at developers and which discuss the implementation details of Records Management within Alfresco Share. An understanding of Javascript, FreeMarker, and HTML would be useful when reading those sections of this book. Readers not interested in the details of the implementation should feel free to skip over those sections of the book.

No prior knowledge of Alfresco Share software is required to follow this book.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: Objects of the type disposition action, or rma:dispositionAction, are being tracked.

A block of code is set as follows:

## Title

header.fileplan=File Plan

## Filters

label.transfers=Transfers

label.holds=Holds

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

C:\>net config workstation

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: We can click on Next and then on Finish to create the new e-mail account.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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Chapter 1. Records Management

In this first chapter, before getting into the specifics of the Alfresco implementation of Records Management, let's examine in detail exactly what records are and the reasons why Records Management is important for organizations of all sizes.

In this chapter, we will cover:

What a record and Records Management are

What we mean by a records lifecycle

The difference between Document and Records Management

The benefits of Records Management

What is a record?

Let's start with a definition of what a record is. The ISO 15489 definition of a record is as follows:

Records contain information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business.

Note

ISO 15489 is an international standard issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that specifies high-level best practices around Records Management. Many more prescriptive Records Management standards draw heavily on the basic concepts described in ISO 15489, like the US Department of Defense's (DoD) 5015.2 specification and the European MoReq specification. More information about ISO 15489 and the DoD 5015.2 can be found in Appendix A (which is available for download from the Packt Publishing website).

The ISO 15489 standard distinguishes a record from an ordinary document with this definition:

A document is recorded information or an object which can be treated as a unit.

In short, records are a subset of all documents that enter or that have been created within an organization. Records are that group of documents which contain information about the actions, decisions, and operations that have occurred in the organization.