Now that the group is out of moderation I feel comfortable announcing this group. Drupal is not and does not provide a document management system (DMS). However, by creatively assembling a few modules it is possible to provide a limited amount of functionality. I've created this group to discuss strategies for managing documents in Drupal.
What is a document management system? Wikipedia has a good definition: "A document management system (DMS) is a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents." In Drupal, you can create the simplest form of a DMS by simply turning on the upload module and uploading a few PDFs and images. However, as is formally employed by the enterprise, this is much to weak to be very valuable—and really, would a topic that simple require a whole group to discuss?
In addition to just uploading the document, you can also provide other features:
- Filing/Storage. Drupal's upload module stores everything in files/ (or whatever your file folder is called). This is flat, but hierarchies of files would have several benefits.
- Access Control. You want to make sure to limiit access to documents in the system to prevent tampering, keep old revisions, and keep unauthorized individuals from accessing the document. Each of these may need per user access control or customized per user per document, depending on your use. Drupal can do this partly well, but not completely.
- Archival/Backups. This isn't really the realm of Drupal, but it is important. It might be important for someone to at least know that a backup has been made of a document, which is not provided in any way in Drupal.
- Workflow. A DMS often features an associated workflow system. These systems usually provide a way to codify your organizations internal authoring, editing, review, and publication process. Drupal comes with a very elementary moderation system, but work is being done to add a full blown workflow system as well.
These are just a few of the issues involved, but I hope that this group can help the Drupal community by developing new ways of storing documents, securing them, etc.
Comments
Glad to find this group
Thanks, Andrew, for starting this up. I was surprised that document management was not a core module or at least an optional module but perhaps my needs are not the norm. Is there a process for promoting this group to attract others interested in this topic?
Drupal is not a DMS
Drupal is an evolving beast. It was a way to create a list of stories for blog-like sites and grew up into a CMS and collaboration tool---like a lot of PHP CMS's really. I think Drupal's development team did a better job than most, though, at creating a clean and modular codebase. It's pretty incredible how well unrelated modules cooperate so cleanly and provide some "synergy" (my apologies, I work for consultants ;).
DMS is more of enterprise issue and Drupal hasn't been of interest to most enterprises. The kind of functionality a DMS provides is already available in a lot of tools like Microsoft SharePoint, Interwoven Worksite, etc. These solutions tend to be pricey, but they're popular. That's why I started this group because I think Drupal has a lot of potential to beat many of these solutions without a lot of effort and because our company is setting itself behind the Drupal platform. I don't think it competes in this area yet, but it might in the next few months with our help.
As for promotion, this is the second group I've started. The first was pretty popular on its own. Marketing isn't my forte. However, I think that providing a document or two on how to get started down this road and to get started on addressing some of the issues will help. If others find it useful, hopefully they can chip in. That's all I've planned to do, but if you have other ideas, I'm open to promoting this group in other ways.
DMS
I implemented a rudimentary Document management system by simply making a system by which you can upload (authorized) and then you can list all the uploaded files. I haven't implemented a directory structure, icon representations of the file types, or a way to simply open the file when clicking on the file name.
It would be nice to have some recipes for some of this.
DMS
I would be willing to contribute something towards your efforts. I suspect others would too.
Peter B
You're right, Andrew. We had
You're right, Andrew. We had a need for simple doc mgt so we used Drupal via taxonomy (categories), cck/Views, and taxonomy access. The states were implemented by creating a Vocabulary term for each state.
"Work smarter, not harder."
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workflow-ng
I'm currently working on a new module: workflow-ng I think this should help a lot building a flexible publication process. If you can think of some special features that would help you even more just let me know..
Sounds interesting
I'll keep an eye out for this one. I hope you are able to assemble this. It's an ambitious goal. If you've gotten something together when our site begins considering how to manage workflow, I may be able to send some labor your way if you've made good progress. I've always thought that Workflow is something woefully lacking in Drupal.
Drag-drop ability
Hi Andrew,
Also: this sounds trivial but adding drag-and-drop ability will make it more user-friendly and really kick-ass.
"Work smarter, not harder."
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online document editing
A good DMS should have online document editing and roll back functionality wiki-style. In my company we are now using google documents for this kind of collaborative projects (e.g. grant writing). So if you haven't seen sharepoint, that's where you can go idea-shopping.
I guess a way to implement such functionality would be through an import/export function for wikis. Anybody an idea if this exists somewhere?
For .doc or .odt files this should solve the problem. Spreadsheet in Drupal, that will be a different game ;)
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Any update on your
Any update on your plans?
CompuBase, websites and design
CompuBase, Drupal websites and webdesign
DMS not CMS
I'd be willing to help.
DMS as implemented by MSFT in MOSS is a good starting point.
This is, as your definition defines, for documents that exist on paper.
New documents can be created through Drupal, which has many modules to track changes, export to XXX file format, etc. Thus, taking advantage of Drupal's CMS strong points.
A simple line in the sand for a Drupal DMS project might be good.
There is also a difference between DMS and a DMS used to archive and make available electronic copies of paper documents, the latter needs are simpler to meet.
What steps can we take to get the ball rolling on this project?
Documenta ofera capacitati
Documenta ofera capacitati puternice si flexibile de administrare a utilizatorilor sistemului de Management a Documentelor prin utilizatori, roluri, grupuri si unitati.
pentru mai multe informatii: - http://www.managementul-documentelor-romania.ro/