KM Features: 4 - K Repository Access

In this article, we will look at the access rights to the documents in K-Repository, the common pool.

As I mentioned earlier, it is very crutial to have restrictions to critical documents otherwise the document management system will be of no use. An organization may not want to share some documents with an individual or a group or may like to provide access to only selected people.

The K-Manager is reponsible for setting up proper permissions. Another important point to note is that there may not be one K-Manager but a group of managers who may be assigned for specific groups or otherwise.

Here are screenshots from DocMan^©:

Document without permissions

Right now I'm at home and don't have administrative priviledges to TeN^™ Trans-e. I'll give provide some illustrations on how the permissions may be set for one or more groups, one or more individuals or a combination of theirs with minimal clicks, probably.

KM Features: 3 - K Repository Population

Here, we will see how we populate the K Repository by submitting various kinds of documents. We will also see that uploading a document is just one form of putting the information into the system. There can be more more methods.

In this we will concentrate only on various modes of submission. The submission does not necessarily mean that the information / knowledge / content will be available immediately. Automation here may lead to duplicacy or bogus files make K Repository a junk.

Any submitted resource must be first reviewed by the K Manager (can compare with librarian-role) and then put up in correct category with permissions and access rights as required.

Let's look at the submission part:

Single file and zip-files are normal modes of uploading content and is available everywhere. But DocMan^© allows you to point to a URL and tell the system whether it should add a reference to the link or download the target URL and put it in the repository.

This is something very useful feature. Suppose you are browsing some website and you want it to make the contents of the website available for everybody who's using the repository, just ask the DocMan^© to retrieve the target URL. One thing to keep in mind is that the K-Manager should respect copyright issues associated with the content. Not everybody may like their website to be cached locally.

But otherwise, instead of you downloading any PDF or HTML or any document for that matter, just tell DocMan^©

KM Features: 2 - K Repository

In my previous article in the series, I discussed about file browser. This article will cover the organizational view of DMS.

In the last article, we saw how we can create an online repository of resources that can be accessed by individuals and groups anywhere, anytime. Of course, the access constraints are built in.

Here we see how documents can be put up at a common place and group them according to category rather than common interest groups. I will cover this topic in conjunction with DocMan^© (or K Repository) in TeN^™ Trans-e.

Here are a couple of screenshots to start with.

Now.. some critical features that should always be there:

• Categorically Listing of Documents
• Searching - full text, keyword based, category limited, across categories etc
• History of recently seen documents for faster access to the ongoing topics of study
• Bookmarks for quick access to favourites
• News from across the system to know what going on lately

We will revisit the K Repository dicussing how to put up the documents in this common place.

KM Features: 1 - File Explorer

File explorer, or WebSpace^© as it is called in TeN^™ Trans-e, is a must in any collaboration softawre and so also in KM software.

WebSpace is the area where people or groups can dump their files for use by others or at other locations.

What all features should a WebSpace have? Look at the screenshots below before the words:

Not just being a simple upload / download system, the file explorer should be supported by advanced tools like cut, copy, paste. This reduces the efforts of downloading and reuploading the files. A side-effect is reduction in bandwidth usage.

Strict permissions on the file at individual and group level is required to ensure the integrity of the data.

Is there anything that I may be missing? Do comment about it and I'd ensure that it is incorporated in the best possible way.

Knowledge Management

Have I ever mentioned about this phrase before? The blogger search fails on any keyword on my blogs... donno why! May be still not indexed.

You must have heard about this phrase every now and then. But what does it take to build a Knowledge Management System? What should be the essential features of the application? It cannot be a mere Knowledge-Base where you search for items.

Starting today, I will write about one feature daily that I consider are a must in any KM system. Needless to say, TeN™ Trans-e has most of them. However, not all of the ones that I write about, are present. Having said that, most of them are under development - to be incorporated in the next version of the product.

I start with segregating various features into groups. As I said, it cannot be just a searchable knowledge base with loads of content.

In my opinion, the features can be classified into following categories:

• Document Management System (DMS)
• Content Management and Publishing Tools (CMS)
• Collaboration and Communication Tools (Comm-Tools)
• Business Applications (Biz-Apps)
• (Scope to integrate) 3^rd-party Applications

I will start with a feature at a time, explain about it and classify it under one of the above categories.

Business Process Execution Language

I have been thinking and writing about workflows and how they can be used in each and every business process of yours. And suddenly I noted Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). I remember to have seen it about a year back but did not focus on it more so because in my previous job, I never needed it.

BPEL was proposed by IBM and BEA. With Microsoft joining the bandwagon of interoperability, BPELJ was introduced as it aims to fill certain holes in the original language.

BPEL (also known as BPEL for Web Services, WPEL4WS) is an XML-based language (similar to SOAP) to standardize business processes in a distributed environment. Similar to SOAP (read: Web Services), it paves way for interoperability. However, instead of being simple functions in Web Services, it is more process oriented.

BPEL provides semantics for specifying business process behavior based on Web Services. A BPEL4WS process is defined in terms of its interactions with partners. A partner may provide services to the process, require services from the process, or participate in a two-way interaction with the process. Thus BPEL orchestrates Web Services by specifying the order in which it is meaningful to call a collection of services, and assigns responsibilities for each of the services to partners. You can use it to specify both the public interfaces for the partners and the description of the executable process. Original Reference

I am doing more study of BPEL, W/F, Business Process Orchestration (BPO) and the related. You can expect some more writing on it pretty soon.

Ah! Didn't you see the date/time of posting? It's Sunday evening and what am I doing on the laptop? Shouldn't I be enjoying at the mall?