Executive Summary

In today’s businesses world, Content Management has become one of the major factors which include

the sharing of data, the storage of data and the ability to generate reports on the fly or automatically.

OpenText being one of the major leaders on Content Management with 17 years experience provides

support for users by providing an ECM Suite which deals with different types of content management for

businesses. Support includes enterprise content as in business documents, sensitive records, images

(audio and video), email, reports and much more.

In 2010 The North City Council in New Zealand decided to go live with OpenText Document

Management software namely the eDOCS Edition and OpenText Records Management which is used

by 450 staff. “The software is being used by approximately 450 staff across all business areas of the

Council.” (Scoop, 2010)

Alfresco provides an alternative to CMS by being Open source software while also reducing ECM costs

up to 96%. Alfresco also provides a feature that works out-of-the-box so users can use the system

immediately without the need for costly training which plague some CMS system vendors. Compared

to other proprietary ECM systems like OpenText, Documentum and SharePoint, Alfresco is less costly

and rate high at certain levels of content management. Alfresco also provides an online-community that

is there for support and also blogs which are easily accessible for information. Other than being Open

source, Alfresco also provides support for Microsoft SharePoint which is an advantage to Teleco since its

current ECM system is SharePoint.

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Project Background

Teleco

An Engineering Firm who provides telecommunication field services to companies like Vodafone,

Telecom, and 2 Degrees.

Definition of Engineering Services
Service Trucks who provide the Field Work for Teleco.

Teleco
They are the person that goes out to the customer and physically installs the phone, they are the people

that dig the trenches to put fibre in, and Telecom, Vodafone and Telstra Clear sub-contract that field-

engineering work to Teleco.

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500 Employees throughout the Country

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A number of regional offices

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Head Office in Auckland

The Head Office in Auckland is where all the Administrative functions exist:

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HR(Human Resources)

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Payroll

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IT Services

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Sales/Marketing

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Etc

Teleco is ISO Certified and adhere to very rigorous and strict set of standards which is important because

of Teleco’s field work and keeping people safe in the field.

Drivers for the Teleco Project
• Teleco failed the last ISO audit because the auditor was not happy of how Teleco was handling

their content in terms of policies and procedures and standardised documents.

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An abysmal state and organisation of servers.

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Teleco is the amalgamation of three companies that have been merged together and have a

dogs’ breakfast of content and server information around and staff cannot find anything and

needs to be completely cleaned up and looked at.

Teleco Interview Questions
What is/are the goal(s) of the project?

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To allow Teleco staff to find things easily

How does Teleco currently carry out tasks that this project will be trying to improve on?

“Very badly but Teleco do a control and management of the ISO documentation in that each of those ISO

documents has an unique number is in a registry, and is supposed to be in a special location. But control

is only true of the ISO documents and not true of the other content that you need to manage within your

organisation. These other content include very important data like Network records, Job tickets etc. All

this is done very manually, the stuff is all over in all kinds of servers and in different repositories and now

Teleco is trying to put an umbrella-application over that which allows us (Teleco) to collect information

about our information and control that.” (Blackshaw, 2010)

Has Teleco in the past used any software developed by the same companies as the software products

you have listed? If yes, are your past dealings with this product/company a reason that has leaded you to

include this product in your list?

Teleco has used software in the past that they didn’t implement particularly well and should be

considered and it is Microsoft SharePoint. “I guess there’s a couple of things that lead into that

discussion, from my look at Content Management it can be very simplistic, inexpensive and even free

as in Open Source. I have a budget of $200,000 to implement the project but what we’re looking for

is a recommendation of what way we should be going based on our requirements, or that fit to our

requirements.” (Blackshaw, 2010)

Requirements from Teleco
• They don’t want to take all the content that they have and move it to another server because that

would be a nightmare.

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They want an umbrella system to be able to tell where everything is.

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The Application needs to have a mega good search engine

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Need to be able to manage links in a dynamic way, needing to link things and not break links

(location links) and look into Content Management arena that would allow Teleco staff to move a

document and save a document and not break a link.

Who will be using the product?
• Everyone in the company will be using it

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There will different categories of users from normal users to Administrative users

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Users may search and view a reference of a document but will not access the document itself

since its private content belonging to a particular user

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Another type user would be Marketing users, and their material and documents should be private

since marketing strategies for companies are sensitive material and only the Marketing Team

would have access to it.

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Another type user would be Public users whom will be able to view some documents but not all

and would not be able to change the document unless contacting the author of the document.

Do you know if any of the end users have experience with similar software as the ones you listed?

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Teleco are all very proficient with systems

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Field Operators may need training for systems and one main requirement is that the system must

be supported in New Zealand.

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If found systems that are used successfully in other companies Teleco would like to know about

it.

Technology in Teleco
• Current Client/Server arrangement is a dog’s breakfast, there’s all kinds of different clients

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All run Windows XP at the moment

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All different spec

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Teleco run Window Server 2003 in the background so makes them Microsoft based.

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Looking at upgrading in the not too distant future

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Whatever recommendations from Group to Teleco needs to be portable and needs to be

upgradable to next versions and needs to at least run at a low spec to start with.

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Teleco is hoping that their existing hardware would be used to avoid purchasing new hardware

but is replacement is needed then Teleco will consider it.

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Technical spec of what Teleco have will be sent to email soon.

Teleco ECM Recommendations

ECM System Recommendation

OpenText (The Content Experts)

http://www.opentext.com/

Alfresco

http://www.alfresco.com/

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OpenText

The Open Text ECM Suite brings together the content management capabilities needed to manage

all types of enterprise content—including business documents, vital records, Web content, digital

assets (images, audio, and video), email, forms, reports and more.

In addition, it fosters team collaboration with project and community workspaces, forums, blogs, wikis,

and real-time instant messaging and collaboration.

To complete the offering, the Open Text ECM Suite also provides business process management

tools that allow you to build the processes that connect your people and content. (OpenText, 2010)

Content Creation
OpenText Solutions offers many advantages for companies needing content management, bringing

two decades of experience with over 50 million users all over the world. For Content Creation of the

Requirements, OpenText offers anyone within the business with little skills to author content without the

need for HTML skills.

Since most of us are used to Website navigation, OpenText uses this knowledge by providing tools for

users to edit their own content from the comfort of the company website. “Everyone in your organization

is already familiar with navigating your Web site. Open Text Web Solutions understands this comfort level

and offers an authoring and editing environment that is an exact replica of your live site. Authors and

editors can create, edit, and update content wherever “red dots” appear. Content editors can even use

Microsoft Word® to update online content.” (OpenText, 2010)

OpenText offers a solution for Data Integration for users within the business. By providing such services,

authors and users of content may create and view content without the worries of user-privilege that

plague most businesses today that do not employ ECM (Enterprise Content Management) systems. This

also allows users of the system the freedom to load their data with a simple point-and-click environment

while still maintaining security.

Content re-use is also one of the features for the OpenText ECM suite. “OpenText allow business users

to share, reuse and control the delivery of content, serving relevant content to targeted audiences. The

new features and functionality were developed to extend usability, deliver more relevant content, and

make site administration more flexible.” (OpenText, 2010)

Metadata Management is added information in the form of Licensing, Cataloging and Rights

Management. It is an important part of any ECM suite and OpenText provides support for Metadata

Management. Digital Asset Management helps to collect, find, and use and distribute an Organisations

content.

Content management

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OpenText provides support for Content Management. OpenText Regulated Documents is one application

which helps with this and much more features are available, some of which are listed as follows:

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Support all document lifecycle phases

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Complies with all applicable good practice regulations

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Adds electronic signature capabilities to forms and workflows

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Stores content in a powerful, highly scalable repository

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Controls document versions

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Controls archival and disposition of content changes

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Supports multiple, parallel review

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Integrates with desktop productivity tools

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Ensures access control with nine-level permission model

Publishing
“The accelerated pace of business today demands that organizations make the most of their intellectual

capital and corporate knowledge. Organizations need a professional solution for publishing dynamic,

customized information online that enables them to ensure immediate user access to all information

required to make the most of every business opportunity. The ability to leverage information, and to

efficiently and reliably deliver it to the appropriate audience, becomes increasingly more important in

today’s fast-paced, ever-changing environment.

Based on the most full-featured, robust engine available, Open Text Discovery Server (formerly

Livelink ECM - Discovery Server) incorporates flexible filtering and state-of-the-art search, control and

presentation tools for enterprise information retrieval. Discovery Server has been used by thousands of

organizations to quickly design, prototype and develop applications that provide real-time access to the

organization's islands of information, memos, reports, competitive intelligence, documents, or any other

type of unstructured data.” (OpenText, 2010)

Discovery Server Features:

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Provide simultaneous information access

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Support native document formats

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Leverage searching and filtering tools

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Automatically rank documents by relevance

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Track usage

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Access control management facilities

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Create dynamic embedded links in documents

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Protect documents with locking and auditing capabilities

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Search alerts

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Quickly access additional information relevant to your documents

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Support large files and continued enterprise growth

Presentation
OpenText provides support for cross-browser support. Their OpenText Thin Client Viewer does this with

ease and with little knowledge of the software making deployment within the business quick and easy.

“Capable of accessing hundreds of industry-standard file formats, Open Text Thin-Client Viewer enables

cross-platform functionality using a standard Web browser--such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Firefox,

and features familiar and intuitive tools.” (OpenText, 2010)

Usability in the sense that there is no training required for users of the software, therefore reducing cost

greatly while contributing to the growth of the business.

OpenText Thin Client Viewer uses the power of Java from Sun Microsystems, making it more secure and

portable.

Contract & business
OpenText offers training worldwide and is a leader of ECM Systems. “Open Text Learning Services is

committed to bringing the finest quality education programs and services to our customers. Our dedicated

team of Content Experts is committed to providing you with the best possible learning experience.”

(OpenText, 2010)

Customer Support is also available which allow users to select services with OpenText according to their

requirements.

Online Communities are also available, blogs, discussion groups and web seminars with many other

benefits from OpenText.

Skills required are not really important since training is provided in much needed areas of the software

reducing costs or training staff and administrators.

Alfresco

Alfresco is the leading open source alternative for enterprise content management. It couples the

innovation of open source with the stability of a true enterprise-class platform. The open source model

allows Alfresco to use best-of-breed open source technologies and contributions from the open source

community to get higher quality software produced more quickly at much lower cost. (Alfresco, 2010)

Content Creation
Alfresco reduces your ECM costs by up to 96% compared to proprietary systems like Documentum, Open

Text and SharePoint. It's as simple to use as a shared drive or SharePoint and does not lock you in to a

proprietary stack. (Alfresco, 2010)

Alfresco performs content creation like most ECM systems today with an added feature of out-of-the-

box so authors of content can use applications that they are used to create and edit content. Content

authoring couldn’t be easier by using Alfresco ECM. “Large teams can contribute via simple web forms

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or through a shared drive by using their desktop tool of choice. Users and groups can preview and test

changes through personal preview of web site updates. The wisdom of crowds is managed through

whole-site versioning and rollback.” (Alfresco, 2010)

Content creation within a multi-user environment is easy with Alfresco, by using applications that users

are already familiar with. Alfresco provides support for this cross-platform application to create documents

from different users within the system.

Content management
Version Control and Archiving can be achieved with ease in Alfresco, for example their Document

Management system provides users with simple library services that help to prevent users from writing

to it at the same time while providing support with minor and major version controls. One useful feature

of Alfresco is its integration with Microsoft Word which also includes authoring and viewing environments

with little or no additional training.

Alfresco Workflow Interface is comprised of a Workflow Interface which include a Task Model, Web

Client Configuration and a Resource Bundle which all refer to a Process Definition in the Workflow

Implementation.

Alfresco Security Authentication can be achieved in three ways, namely a user name, a password pair

or an Alfresco ticket. Using a ticket or username/password, a number of authentication instances may be

tried for authentication, any one is sufficient. (Alfresco, 2010)

Alfresco has recently provided support for CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services) with

IBM Lotus, Google Docs, Drupal and Microsoft Outlook. This recent upgrade is good news to users of the

system since it supports sharing data across different ECM platforms or vendors.

Alfresco Enterprise Report Services provide users with report templates that can be shared and published

at any given time. This can be done automatically or overwritten by an authorised user of the system.

Publishing
Alfresco provides support for different formats across cross-platform systems with ease of use. As

mentioned earlier, Alfresco now provides support for cross-platform data sharing, utilizing the publishing

capabilities of Drupal’s social publishing platform.

Presentation
Alfresco Surf Platform provides web scripting into the presentation platform guaranteeing ease of use and

rapid creation of web applications designed for content management.

Contract & business
Alfresco provides documentation including blogs, forums and community wiki for support. Alfresco also

provides SharePoint Protocol support which may be an advantage for Teleco since their current ECM

is Microsoft SharePoint. Alfresco also provides worldwide training from the normal user to top level

users such as developers and administrators. Training is available through scheduled classes or directly

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delivered at the Teleco website.