Advanced/Team document management

A typical customer with the scenario of Advanced/Team document management uses DDM to manage documents at a complex level.

The document management system is seen as a key business process tool but is

self-contained. The entire document life-cycle takes place within DDM. External applications may interact with the repository, but the customizations, security, and workflow for the documents resides completely within DDM.

Basic to moderate customization

For the Advanced/Team document management solution, organizations add customizations to make the repository fit into the business process and company culture. These typically go beyond the standard document types and meta data. Complex view changes with their own action buttons, corporate branding, and even more complex customizations are typical. Often, customers customize both the Notes client and Web browser versions of Domino.Document Manager, adding another level of complexity in the Advanced / Team document management scenario.

Another common customization is to use the Read Only file option on a document to allow attachment of a PDF file. The only way to do this is by using the DDM Custom Events Script Libraries and the Document Object Model. When a document is approved, this customization can automatically create a PDF (on the local workstation or through server software) and attach it. When a user opens the document, instead of having the attachment open in its native editor, the PDF opens. Even with the native application control and read-only status capabilities, having the document open a read only format, one which can even prevent copy and paste of the document text, is a preferred solution. PDFs are also preferred because having PDF viewing software on a machine is likely for most users.

Moderate to complex hierarchy

For customers with the Advanced / Team document management scenario, the hierarchy is the most complex part. A single implementation often has multiple libraries and might use both File Rooms and Binder categories. The File Cabinets and Binders separate documents based on many criteria, such as periods of time (year, quarter, month), customer (by name, by customer ID), regions (country, state, city) or company organization (divisions, location). An implementation might have hundreds, even thousands, of file cabinets and binders. When considering moving off of DDM, flexibility and scaling of the hierarchy is the primary factor for determining the appropriate destination product for the migration.

Moderate security

The Advanced / Team document management solution uses security for controlling who can see and edit documents. In most cases, groups in the Domino Directory (maintained by the Domino administrator or the document management team) provide the mechanism for security. The exact number of groups may vary. The primary value of using groups is to

Chapter 4. Scenarios: Which might apply to you? 55

reduce any security changes required when someone leaves a company or is reassigned. For many implementations, groups also provide role-based assignment of the ability to edit or manage documents (for example, a customer service application that uses DDM to store shipping and billing documents). Any customer service representative can access and edit the documents based on the call queue.

Basic to moderate workflow

Customers with the Advanced / Team document management scenario typically use the built-in workflow. Both review and approval processes are used within the default options. Customizations around workflow in this case are limited to using the DDM event script libraries to create custom notifications or a simple publishing of a completed document to an external repository for solutions, such as HR or Websites.

Result

There are two possible outcomes when a customer falls into the Advanced / Team Document Management scenario. The first is that the user will migrate to IBM Lotus Quickr and change the way they structure and use a document management system. The other option is that they will decide to leave the DDM system in place as an existing application that does not change.

If the hierarchy structure of your DDM is the area with which you are most flexible, we would suggest that you wait for Lotus Quickr Next (tentatively called Lotus Quickr 8.5), which will be released in the first quarter of 2010. IBM has committed to adding folder-level security to Lotus Quickr. Folder-level security will allow a DDM hierarchy with hundreds or thousands of file cabinets and binders to be replicated within Lotus Quickr. Today, that would need to be done using Rooms. While hundreds of rooms can be created, waiting for folder-level security will be the best option for DDM users who rely on a strict hierarchy.

Each DDM implementation that fits into the Advanced / Team Document Management scenario should be evaluated independently. The implementation can be moved to IBM Lotus Quickr or can stay on DDM.

Customers willing to move to IBM Lotus Quickr

Making the decision to move your current DDM implementation to Lotus Quickr for the Advanced / Team document management scenario is one that requires change. You will have to implement your customizations, hierarchy, security, and workflow tailoring in new ways in Lotus Quickr. Besides moving the documents from one to the other, the only piece that you can automate will be the hierarchy. Everything else should be reevaluated in the context of Lotus Quickr. In some areas, there will be better ways to accomplish what you were doing in DDM.

Customizations that provided custom branding or worked with the DDM events will need to be done within the parameters of how Lotus Quickr customization and placebots work.

Customers keeping DDM implementation

If you find yourself with a DDM implementation that has moderate customization, complex hierarchy, moderate security, and moderate workflow, you can leave the document

management solution alone. Because of how DDM is designed, the Domino server can be configured to allow for DDM to continue on that specific Domino version. You can set up your infrastructure so that the rest of your Domino environment (which may include mail, SMTP, and application Domino servers) can upgrade to the latest version while the DDM server stays at the current level. Changes from the Domino Directory can still replicate to the DDM server even if the Domino Directory is upgraded to the latest version.