Getting Started with Web Content Management (WCM) for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Transcription

1 Getting Started with Web Content Management (WCM) for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

2

3 Contents Copyright... 1 Typographic conventions... 2 Introduction... 3 Additional resources... 3 System requirements and prerequisites...3 Get started... 4 Scenario...4 Log in...4 Set up the web project...6 Create web forms... 6 Create the web project Add content to the web project Import the sample dynamic website Create web content: Company Profiles Create web content: Press Releases Manage web project content Approve content Submit content Publish the website Roll back to a previous snapshot Summary i

4 ii -

5 Copyright Copyright 2009 by Alfresco and others. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of Alfresco. The trademarks, service marks, logos, or other intellectual property rights of Alfresco and others used in this documentation ("Trademarks") are the property of Alfresco and their respective owners. The furnishing of this document does not give you license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property except as expressly provided in any written agreement from Alfresco. The United States export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and other applicable laws and regulations apply to this documentation which prohibit the export or re-export of content, products, services, and technology to certain countries and persons. You agree to comply with all export laws, regulations, and restrictions of the United States and any foreign agency or authority and assume sole responsibility for any such unauthorized exportation. You may not use this documentation if you are a competitor of Alfresco, except with Alfresco's prior written consent. In addition, you may not use the documentation for purposes of evaluating its functionality or for any other competitive purposes. If you need technical support for this product, contact Customer Support by at support@alfresco.com. If you have comments or suggestions about this documentation, contact us at documentation@alfresco.com. This copyright applies to the current version of the licensed program. - 1

6 Typographic conventions The following typographic conventions are used in this guide: Bold User Interface elements Mono-spaced font Text the user types 2 -

7 Introduction Alfresco Web Content Management (WCM) is a content management system for your websites and web applications. It allows you to create, develop, and maintain your source code all within one repository. Alfresco recommends you download the Enterprise Trial and walk through this guided tutorial to familiarize yourself with the features. Refer to the user help provided with the application for information on using all WCM features. Additional resources Alfresco recommends you review and keep up-to-date on the latest information regarding our WCM offering on our Developer Wiki. To bookmark this page for easy reference, use the following link: Web_Content_Management. System requirements and prerequisites This tutorial assumes you are familiar with Alfresco Explorer. Before beginning the tutorial, you must: 1. Ensure the Alfresco Explorer web application is installed. 2. Ensure the Alfresco Web Server is running. 3. Ensure the Alfresco Virtual Server is running. 4. Ensure the Alfresco Deployment Server is installed and running. 5. Start the Alfresco Explorer web client. This must be running on the same machine as the Alfresco Web Server, Virtual Server, and Deployment Server. Note: Alfresco recommends you use MySQL to evaluate WCM for this tutorial. For installation and configuration instructions for MySQL, refer to Installing and Configuring Alfresco Community Edition Log in to Alfresco Explorer as the Administrator (admin, admin) and create a user account, as follows: a. First Name: Mark b. Last Name: vonalfresco c. mark@alfrescodemo.org d. User Name: mark e. Password: demo - 3

8 Get started The Getting Started with Alfresco Web Content Management tutorial introduces the basic WCM concepts to accompany the download of Alfresco Explorer ECM (Enterprise Content Management). It demonstrates how to set up and configure Explorer for managing a website and showcases a sample web publishing scenario. Scenario For this tutorial, you will be walking through the following scenario. You will: Create web forms Create the web project Import content into the new project Create web content from a web form Create web content from a web form with templates Submit the content Perform a content review Publish the website Roll back to a previous version Log in Log in to Alfresco Share using the default credentials. 1. Type the following on the login page: a. Username: admin b. Password: admin 2. Click Login. 4 -

9 On entering the application, your dashboard displays. - 5

10 Set up the web project To set up a web project, you must create both web forms and the web project. Create web forms A web form enables users to create XML content from a simple browser-based form. In this first task, you will create two web forms, one of which is associated with rendering engine templates. Use the Create Web Form Wizard to work through the three steps involved in creating a web form: Specify the general properties Select and configure the desired rendering engine templates Select a default workflow In the next task, you will associate these web forms with your web project. 1. In Explorer, navigate to Company Home > Data Dictionary > Web Forms and select Create Web Form in the Create menu. The Create Web Form Wizard opens. 2. Complete each page of the wizard as follows, clicking Next to move to the next step. Step One Web Form Details Use the Browse button to locate and upload the file company-footer.xsd from c:\alfresco \extras\wcm\forms. This populates several boxes on this page. Complete Step One as follows: Title Company Profile Form Description This form provides a summary overview of a company. These summaries are included in press releases. Output path ${name}.xml 6 -

11 Step Two Configure Templates Leave all values blank. Step Three Configure Workflow Select No not now. This step allows you to create a default workflow for content generated by this web form across all projects. You ll configure workflow locally when you create your web project. Summary Review the summary screen, which should look like the following: - 7

12 3. Click Finish. The new web form, company-footer, appears as a space in the Web Forms space. You will now create the second web form. 4. In the Web Forms space, select Create Web Form in the Create menu. 5. Again, complete each screen as follows, clicking Next to move to the next step. Step One Web Form Details Use the Browse button to locate and upload the file press-release.xsd from c:\alfresco \extras\wcm\forms. Complete Step One as follows: Title Press Release Form Description This form is used to create press releases for www, including both HTML and printer-friendly versions. Output path ${name}.xml Step Two Configure Templates Use the Browse button to locate and upload the file press-release.xsl from c:\alfresco \extras\wcm\forms. Again, this populates several boxes on the page. Complete Step Two as follows: Rendering Engine XSLT Title Press Release HTML Template Description 8 -

13 This template pre-generates an HTML page for www. Rendition mimetype HTML Output path ${name}.${extension} Click Add to List. To associate a second template with the form, remain in Step Two and use the Browse button again and upload the file press-release-plain-text.ftl from the same location. Use the following information to complete the page: Rendering Engine FreeMarker Title Press Release Plain Text Template Description This template pre-generates a printer-friendly version to be linked from the press release HTML page. Rendition mimetype Plain Text Output path ${name}.${extension} Click Add to List. Step Three Configure Workflow Select No not now. Summary - 9

14 Review the summary screen, which should look like the following: 6. Click Finish. The new web form, press-release, appears as a space in the Web Forms space. Create the web project You create a web project using the Create Web Project Wizard. In this second task, you work through the wizard to complete the seven steps involved in creating a web project: Specify the basic web project details Indicate if you are creating a new project or using the structure of an existing project Configure deployment servers Select and configure web forms for generating site content Select and configure workflow for content added that is not generated by a web form Add users and assign user roles to them a notification to the selected users 1. Navigate to Company Home > Web Projects and select Create Web Project in the Create menu to open the Create Web Project Wizard. 2. Complete each page of the wizard as follows, clicking Next to move to the next step. Step One Web Project Details Use the following information to complete the page: Name alfrescosample DNS name alfrescosample 10 -

15 Title Alfresco WWW Description Web Project to evaluate Alfresco Explorer 3.1 features. Step Two Create From Existing Web Project Select Create a new empty Web Project. Step Three Configure Deployment Receivers Click Add Deployment Receiver to display the configuration details. Use the following information to complete the page: Type Live Server Host localhost Port Username admin Password admin Click Add. Step Four Configure Web Forms Click Add to List to the right of each web form to select them to be used with this project. The web forms appear in the Selected Web Content Forms section and you must edit the details for each. - 11

16 Configure the Company Profile Form as follows: Click Web Form Details for Company Profile Form and set the Output path pattern to / ${webapp}/media/releases/content/${name}.xml. We want content generated by this template to be submitted to workflow, so select Web Site Submission in the Workflow section. Click OK. Notice the attention icon next to the workflow:. This indicates a workflow has been selected but not configured. Click Configure Workflow for this form. Search for and select the user Mark, then click Add to List. Click OK. Configure the Press Release Form as follows: Click Web Form Details for Press Release Form and set the Output path pattern to / ${webapp}/media/releases/content/${name}.xml. For the Press Release Form web form, you must specify how each template associated with the form will generate web content. Click Configure Templates for this form and 12 -

17 set the Output path pattern to /${webapp}/media/releases/content/${name}. ${extension} for both templates. Click OK. Step Five Configure Workflow Selecting workflow in this step sets workflow for the web project as a whole. All content in the project not generated via a web form follows the workflow configured here. As you are only creating content using web forms in this tutorial, there is no need to select a workflow option in this step. Step Six Add Users Using the search feature provided, locate and select the user Mark. Select Content Manager as the role for this user and click Add to List. Step Seven Users Accept the default option No so that a notification is not sent. Summary Review the summary screen, which should look like the following: - 13

18 3. Click Finish. The new web project, alfrescosample, appears in the Web Projects space. Completing the wizard automatically creates a source repository, called a Staging Sandbox, and a set of development repositories, called user sandboxes. There is one user sandbox for each user invited to work on the project, as well as an administrator sandbox. 14 -

19 Add content to the web project There are multiple methods of adding and creating content for a web project. In addition to creating web content within a project, you can upload individual files from your computer and perform a bulk import. For the purpose of this tutorial, you will import content and generate content using web forms. Import the sample dynamic website Your newly created web project, alfrescosample, contains no content. In this task, you will use the Bulk Import feature to populate the web project. Once imported, you will submit the content to staging to create an initial snapshot of the project, which you can preview. To [procedure action]: 1. In the Web Projects space, click alfrescosample. The sandbox view appears displaying the staging and user sandboxes. Each user sandbox contains the existing web project content. The sandbox labelled My Sandbox belongs to the currently logged on user (in this case, the administrator). As the administrator, you have access to the sandboxes of all users associated with the web project. By default, only the Staging Sandbox and your user sandbox display; however, you can select the option Show All Sandboxes in this view to display all sandboxes available to you. 2. In your user sandbox, click Browse Website to display the user sandbox, which is empty. 3. Select Bulk Import in the Create menu. 4. Use the Browse button to locate and upload the file alfresco-sample-website.war from c: \alfresco\extras\wcm. Once uploaded, click OK to begin the import. - 15

20 The.war file, which you imported into the current directory (the ROOT web app), appears in expanded form in your user sandbox. In WCM, a lock is automatically placed on content items created, imported, modified, or deleted in order to prevent editing clashes. In your sandbox, notice that all items (not folders) currently display a padlock icon with a key:. This indicates that you own the lock and can perform actions on the content. A lock owned by another user appears as a plain padlock:. You can position your cursor over the icon to display a tooltip indicating the lock owner. 5. Click Preview Website in the sandbox header to see the website in its current state. The preview window displays how the website or web application will look with the user sandbox content submitted. Click About us and then News to display the empty Alfresco Press Releases page. We will come back to this again later once you have added some content. 6. Close the preview and return to your user sandbox. Click alfrescosample in the breadcrumb path to return to the sandbox view. 7. In your user sandbox, expand the Modified Items list to display the imported content. 8. Click Submit All and, on the Submit Items page, provide the information that will display as the name and description of the corresponding snapshot in staging: a. Label: Initial Import b. Description: Sample website 9. Click OK. The submission takes place in the background and each content item remains in the Modified Items list until its submission is complete. 16 -

21 10. Refresh the page as necessary until the Modified Items list is empty. In the Staging Sandbox, expand the Recent Snapshots list to view the snapshot you have created. Create web content: Company Profiles In this task, you will use one of your web forms to create four new content items, each one a company profile. 1. In your user sandbox, expand the Web Forms list, which contains the two web forms you created: Company Profile Form and Press Release Form. 2. Select the action Create Content associated with the Company Profile Form web form. The Create Web Content Wizard opens. 3. Complete each page of the wizard as follows, clicking Next to move to the next step. a. Step One - Web Content Details Enter Alfresco as the Name. b. Step Two Author Web Content Use the following information to complete the page: Name Alfresco Body - 17

22 Alfresco is the leading open source alternative for enterprise content management. It is the first company to bring the power of open source to the enterprise content management market, enabling unprecedented scale and a much lower total cost of ownership than proprietary systems. Founded by a team of content management veterans that includes the co-founder of Documentum, John Newton, and former COO of Business Objects, John Powell, Alfresco is based in London. For more information, visit c. Summary Review the summary screen, which should look like the following: Note that you are creating the content item Alfresco.xml to be stored in the location /ROOT/ media/releases/content, which was specified when you created the Company Profile Form web form. As we no longer need to work on this asset, select the option to Submit Alfresco.xml when wizard finishes to speed up publication. This saves you from initiating a separate submission process. 4. Click Finish. The Submit Items page appears where you enter the following details regarding the submission: Label Alfresco Profile Description Added Alfresco profile 5. Click OK. You return to the Staging Sandbox. Expand the Modified Items list to view the newly created and submitted content item: Alfresco.xml. Remember that the web form used to create this content item was defined with a workflow dictating that all generated content was to be assigned to Mark, the Content Manager, for approval. Upon submission, the content item was routed through its defined workflow, which promoted it for editorial review. This action locked the item to prevent the administrative user from modifying it underneath the reviewer and potentially having the wrong set of changes approved and promoted to staging. 18 -

23 6. Repeat this process to create three more content items using the Company Profile Form web form. In each case, submit the content to staging on the Summary page. Profile #2 Name InterDoc Name InterDoc Body InterDoc is a leader in the Enterprise Content Management field that provides business solutions to enable operational efficiency of critical business processes. The company has decades of experience in improving operational efficiency for commercial enterprises and government organizations and has used this experience to create a new generation of software solutions based on a core of open source software. For more information, visit Label (Submit) InterDoc Profile Description (Submit) Added InterDoc profile Profile #3 Name Easypress Name Easypress Body Easypress Technologies ( provides software for converting content between XML and QuarkXPress. Its flagship products include Atomik Roundtrip(TM), which provides full bidirectional XML support for QuarkXPress; Atomik Xport(TM), which provides automated QuarkXPress-to-XML conversion; and Atomik Import(TM), which provides flexible import of XML content into QuarkXPress documents. Easypress Technologies is an operating division of EvolvedGroup Limited and is headquartered in Guildford, UK. Label (Submit) Easypress Profile Description (Submit) Added Easypress profile Profile #4 Name World Economic Forum Name World Economic Forum Body The World Economic Forum ( based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent organization committed to improving the state of the world. Funded by the contributions of 1,000 of the world's foremost corporations, the Forum acts in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest to further economic growth and social progress. Label (Submit) World Economic Forum Profile Description (Submit) Started with Web Content Management (WCM) for Alfresco Community Edition Added WorldGetting Economic Forum profile

24 7. In the Staging Sandbox, expand the Modified Items list to view all four newly created and submitted profiles. The additional three content items are locked as they, like the first item, were promoted for editorial review upon submission. Until approved or rejected, these items are available only for preview. Create web content: Press Releases In this task, create additional content for your website using a web form with an associated template. Once the content is complete, you can preview it. Unlike in the previous task, do not submit the content; you will do this as a separate task. 1. Return to the Web Forms list in your user sandbox and select the action Create Content associated with the Press Release Form web form. The Create Web Content Wizard opens. 2. Complete each page of the wizard as follows, clicking Next to move to the next step. a. Step One Web Content Details Enter WorldEconomicForum_Tech_Pioneer as the Name. b. Step Two Author Web Content The fields and controls presented in this step are dictated by the selected web form. Use the following information to complete the page: Title World Economic Forum Announces Technology Pioneers 2007 Abstract Alfresco selected by leading technology experts appointed by the World Economic Forum Location LONDON Body #1 The World Economic Forum today announced 47 Technology Pioneers for Alfresco Software has been selected as one of these Technology Pioneers. The Technology Pioneers were nominated by the world s leading venture capital and technology companies. Click beneath the Body text box to add an additional control for the second paragraph. Body #2 We are proud to have won this award recognizing Alfresco s technology, the global power of open source and the importance of managing content in economic development, said John Newton. We hope to use the opportunities created by this award to gain greater visibility to how information can help solve some of the world s most pressing problems and how sharing and retaining knowledge can level the playing field for companies outside of the developed world. 20 -

25 Include Company Footer #1 World Economic Forum Click beneath the Include Company Footer box to add a second footer option. Include Company Footer #2 Alfresco Include Media Contacts Yes Category Company Launch Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. Expiration Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. c. Summary Review the summary screen, which should look like the following: Note that you are creating multiple items: the XML version as well as an HTML and a Plain Text rendition of the content. All versions will be stored in the location /ROOT/media/ releases/content, which was specified when you created the Press Release Form web form. Unlike the company profile content, do not submit this press release to staging. 3. Click the Preview icon next to the generated HTML page to see the virtualized view of the website with the pending changes. At the bottom of the generated HTML page, click view plain text version to check the link to the generated text file. Also, click the News link in the submenu to see that the JSP index page now has a link to the to-be-published content. If any changes need to be made, you can click the Back button in the wizard to modify and then regenerate the content. 4. Click Finish. When you are returned to the sandbox view, expand the Modified Items list in your sandbox to see the three new content items generated from this web form. Note that because these content items have not been submitted, several additional actions are available for them. - 21

26 5. Repeat this process to create two more press releases using this web form. Again, do not submit the content. Press Release #2 Name Easypress_OEM Title Alfresco and Easypress Technologies announce OEM Agreement for Atomik Dynamic Publisher, powered QuarkXPress Server 7 Abstract Alfresco and Easypress Technologies announce ground-breaking Collaborative Publishing Location LONDON Body #1 Alfresco, the first and leading provider of an open source enterprise content management solution, today announced an OEM agreement to support the launch of Easypress Technologies new Atomik Dynamic Publisher product, which works in conjunction with the new QuarkXPress Server 7 from Quark. Include Company Footer #1 Easypress Include Company Footer #2 Alfresco Include Media Contacts Yes Category Company Launch Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. Expiration Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. Press Release #3 Name InterDoc_Alfresco_Solution Title InterDoc Chooses Alfresco to Deliver Solution for the Government of Quebec Abstract Alfresco continues Government Momentum in Canada Location LONDON Body #1 Alfresco Software Inc., the first provider of an open source enterprise content management solution, today announced that it has been chosen by InterDoc to create a new regulatory government solution for customers including the government of Quebec. Include Company Footer #1 InterDoc Company Footer # Getting Include Started with Web Content Management (WCM) for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2 Alfresco

27 Include Media Contacts Yes Category Company Launch Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. Expiration Date Select any date. This will not be used in the tutorial. 6. In your user sandbox, expand the Modified Items list to view the nine new content items. 7. Select Preview Website in your user sandbox. In the website preview, select About Us and then News. The JSP page displays a dynamic view of the website as it is staged in your sandbox. Test all three links to the newly created press release web pages. When done, close the preview. 8. Now select Preview Website in the Staging Sandbox. In the website preview, select About Us and then News to confirm that the new web pages are only available in the user sandbox. Close the preview. - 23

28 Manage web project content At this point, your web project is populated with content items, some imported and some created, some submitted and some not. You must now deal with the approval of content items that were routed through workflow and the submission of the remaining items to staging. Approve content With all of your web project content created, you can now address the items assigned for editorial review as part of the defined workflow. 1. Log out as the administrative user and log in as Mark, the Content Manager (mark, demo). In the My Tasks To Do list on Mark s dashboard, notice the four outstanding review tasks, one for each of the company profiles you created. 2. For the Interdoc profile, click Added Interdoc profile to open the Manage Task: Review page. 24 -

29 3. Click Approve. 4. Approve the Added Easypress profile and Added World Economic Forum profile tasks in the same manner. For the Alfresco profile, you can work through the process of rejecting and resubmitting an item for approval. 5. Open the Added Alfresco profile task and type Please shorten description and update. Click Reject. Once rejected, the serial workflow defined reassigns the item as a task to the user who originally submitted it in this case, the administrative user. 6. Log out as Mark and log in as the administrator (admin, admin). 7. Open the task in the administrator s My Tasks To Do list and note the comment in the Workflow History list. - 25

30 8. After reviewing the changes Mark requires in order to approve the content, click the Edit action ( ) for Alfresco.xml in the Resources section to open the Edit Web Content Wizard. 9. In the Body text editor box, remove the last sentence and click Next. Notice on the Summary page that the option to auto-submit upon completion is not present, as the content has already been submitted. 10. Click Finish. In the Comment box, type Removed last sentence and updated, then click Resubmit for Review. 11. Log out as the administrator and log in as Mark again. In Mark s task list, notice the (2) next to the task description. This number represents the current review cycle for this content submission. 12. Open and approve the task to promote the item to staging. 13. Log out as Mark and log in as the administrator one last time. This final promotion to staging releases the lock on the item and creates a new snapshot in the Staging Sandbox. All four company profiles are complete and submitted to staging. Submit content With the website content now complete, we need to confirm how these changes will look within the website. To do this, you promote the content items from your user sandbox to the Staging Sandbox. Though you will submit all items at once, you do have the option to submit a single item or a group of selected items. 1. In your user sandbox, expand the Modified Items list to display the content items you created. With the company profiles already submitted, your user sandbox now contains only the nine press releases. 26 -

31 2. Click Submit All and, on the Submit Items page, provide the information that will display as the name and description of the corresponding snapshot in staging: a. Label: Launch Press Releases b. Description: Major new awards, customers, and OEM, and agreements 3. Click OK. Again, the submission is processed in the background. Each content items remain in the Modified Items list until its submission is complete. 4. After a few moments, refresh the page to see the empty Modified Items list in your user sandbox. Expand the Recent Snapshots list in the Staging Sandbox to see the submitted content: Launch Press Releases. Now that the press releases have been committed to staging, you can deploy, or publish, the snapshot to ensure your audience can see the content. - 27

32 Publish the website With the web project content complete and submitted, you can now publish the Staging Sandbox snapshot to the production environment. We ll deploy the website in stages, beginning with the initial version of the site after the content was imported to the project. Once published, you still have the option to revert to a previous version of the project, which you will examine in the next task. 1. In the Staging Sandbox, locate the Initial Import snapshot (version 3) and select the Deploy icon:. 2. On the Deploy Snapshot page, confirm the selection of the remote target server, localhost, and click OK. 3. Close the Monitor Deployment page once the snapshot is successfully deployed. In the Recent Snapshots list, note that version 3 is listed as being LIVE. 28 -

33 4. Click View Deployments to review the deployment report. Click Close to return to the Staging Sandbox where you can deploy another version of the website. 5. Expand the Recent Snapshots list again and deploy the most recent snapshot, Launch Press Releases (version 8). Again, confirm the target server and click OK. 6. In the Recent Snapshots list, confirm that version 8 is currently the live version of the site. Roll back to a previous snapshot You can roll back a site to ensure an older version of the content is being delivered in the live environment and also to allow re-edits prior to deployment. An example of where this is useful is the rollout of a new section of the site or the addition of application functionality. In these cases, simply redeploying an older site version is not enough: you also need to roll back the current working copy of the site for your Contributors, Publishers, Developers, and Designers to correct errors, restage, and redeploy the content. Rolling back your authoring and development environment to a last known good state for modification prior to deployment is straightforward. 1. In the Staging Sandbox, expand the Recent Snapshots list and click the Revert action,, for version 3 Initial Import. This creates a new snapshot, version 10 Reverted to Version 3. Note that while this is a new version of the site, no content has been duplicated in the repository; the new version is simply a new entry in the history chain noting that an older version has been pulled forward. Since all sandboxes in the web project are baselined off the current view of staging, each user instantly has an updated content for previewing and editing. Within the tutorial, this means that the profiles and press releases no longer exist. 2. Enter your user sandbox (My Sandbox) and navigate to /media/releases/content. The content items you created as you worked through the tutorial were stored here; it is now empty. 3. Similarly, click Preview Website in your user sandbox and select the submenu News in the sample website to see that this page is back to its original blank state. Note: If you continue to see a list of press releases, simply refresh your cache. - 29

34 Summary This concludes our walkthrough of the basic Web Content Management functionality in Alfresco Community Edition 3.2. To learn more about the capabilities provided in this release, please visit our wiki. 30 -