Technology

OpenWorkdesk comes with a user interface that runs in any modern web browser without any installation on the client computer. This means that there are neither installation efforts nor associated costs. Furthermore this makes WeWebU OpenWorkdesk ideal for cloud based offerings. But how does OpenWorkdesk achieve its high, fat client like usability? The answer is AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a technology that – simply speaking – allows to refresh only parts of a web page while the other parts stay constant. This technology is, for example, used to create a smooth folder tree that opens and closes folders without any flickering. Also the very user-friendly grab & drag feature uses AJAX related technology in order to allow the user to resize portions of the screen by simply grabbing a separator and dragging it to the desired position. Bored by scrolling down a long drop-down list? Also here AJAX is used in OpenWorkdesk. As soon as the user starts typing, the list reduces its length by the auto-complete feature and the right entry is found quickly. The hit list is surely the part of OpenWorkdesk that uses AJAX most, for example for loading new pages, sorting, interchanging the order of columns, the display of mouse-over thumbnails, and last but not least the very useful inline editing of metadata. Another feature that is known from fat clients and not easy to achieve in a browser based user interface is the ability to drag and drop files from Windows Explorer or the desktop to the application in order to work with them. But OpenWorkdesk offers this ability since years for the convenient adding of documents to eFiles.

The great versatility of OpenWorkdesk is based on its adapters for different ECM systems. The adapter for the open standard

• CMIS

• IBM FileNet Content Manager (P8 CM) 4.5.x
• IBM FileNet Content Manager (P8 CM) 5.x
• IBM FileNet Business Process Manager (P8 BPM) 4.5.x
• IBM FileNet Business Process Manager (P8 BPM) 5.x
• IBM FileNet Image Manager
• IBM Content Manager (CM8)
• IBM Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD)

From all adapters, (Content Management Interoperability Services) stands out since it is based on an open standard that is supported and co-developed by all major players in the ECM industry. Hence, all major ECM systems are compliant with CMIS allowing OpenWorkdesk applications to run on all these systems with only small modifications. Read more on CMIS and WeWebU’s active role in the so called technical committee (TC) of OASIS, the organization behind it.

Every customer has individual demands for his ECM application and in order to be able to meet many diverse requirements, OpenWorkdesk’s design is based on a plugin concept. All functions and function groups in WeWebU OpenWorkdesk are isolated in modules, known as plugins, and can be added to or removed from the system simply by means of configuration. If necessary, functions can be overwritten allowing either enhancing or exchanging the function.

OpenWorkdesk consists of three main functional areas or master plugins:

• Search & Retrieval
• eFile Management
• Case Management

Furthermore, there are many functions that can be applied on eFile level, e.g. adding documents to an eFile, creating a completely new eFile or changing its metadata. Finally, there are many functions on document or work item level. For example viewing a document, check-out and check-in, send a link to a document via e-mail or processing a work item.

The secret of OpenWorkdesk’s great flexibility and versatility is made up of three ingredients:

1. All of its functionalities are highly configurable (using the OpenWorkdesk Configurator, see below) instead the need of programming them. Take eFile Management for example. In one case it may be configured such that it represents an employee dossier in a human resources application. The corresponding functionality to add documents would then be configured in a way that it would only allow adding personnel documents and of course would display a form for only metadata like personnel number, name and birthday of the employee. For another usecase it may be configured in a way that it represents a credit folder in a bank holding contracts and account statements. Now of course the add document functionality would be configured to select the document classes "account statement" and "contract" and display the appropriate forms. In this case it may also be configured such that the document would automatically open in Advanced Document Viewing as soon as it is added in order to facilitate indexing.
2. Every plugin (functionality) can be instantiated several times in one deployment of OpenWorkdesk. Let’s continue with the example from above: In the same deployment of OpenWorkdesk we can have one instance of eFile Management representing an employee dossier and another instance for the credit folders. Of course we would also have the corresponding plugin instances for adding personnel documents and bank documents respectively. Together with similar configured instances of other plugins we could build an HR and a banking application using the same system – simply by configuration.
3. In the so called MIME configuration, the administrator determines which application is used to open documents, eFiles or other objects. Similar to the plugins, which can exist in several instances of the same plugin, different MIME types can be configured for the very same file type, e.g. a MS Word document: One for opening the file directly for editing in MS Word using WeWebU Zero-Install Desktop Integration and another one that that would open the document in WeWebU Advanced Document Viewing.

Document security is taken care of by the underlying ECM system. But who can execute which application or functionality? That is the part of the role management of OpenWorkdesk.

In an enterprise, different employees assume different job roles and therefore need different applications in order to fulfill their jobs. To this end the role management of OpenWorkdesk allows to give access to different plugin instances to different user groups based on their job profile. In order to save administration effort, the group definitions can be obtained directly from a directory service. Given that we have configured OpenWorkdesk such that it contains plugins for an HR and a banking application as described in "Flexibility and Versatility" above we then would allow the Human Resources role to access only the HR related plugins and the Banking Clerk role to use the ones relevant for banking. Let’s assume we have a third group of employees, the banking managers. This group could then have access to both, the banking and the HR application, in order to do both business and access the HR related documents of their direct reports. OpenWorkdesk can even be fine-tuned such that the banking managers do not have access to the full HR application but can only execute a restricted number of searches and may only see a subset of the folders in the employee dossiers. Furthermore, the role management of OpenWorkdesk determines which applications are launched to work with documents depending on the users’ role by selecting the appropriate MIME type. Continuing with our example, we can set up the system such that HR employees can directly edit HR MS Word documents since the corresponding MIME type is attached to their user role, whereas the banking managers see the very same documents in Advanced Document Viewing and can not edit them because their role has the other MIME type attached. Even the design of OpenWorkdesk can be adjusted to the user role, e.g. an administrator could get a red background in order to make him aware of this special role and the related responsibilities.

OpenWorkdesk Configurator is an Eclipse based tool administrators use to configure the complete functionality of OpenWorkdesk. It helps to set up MIME types and plugin instances step by step thus reducing administration effort and preventing configuration errors. An integrated online help describes the parameters and nodes of each MIME type and plugin. Hence, all information needed for the configuration is always at hand. Furthermore, the Configurator can verify older configuration files that may have been edited by hand.

OpenWorkdesk is designed for medium size and large installations with thousands of users and already deployed in multiple SaaS environments. In multi-tenant deployments, supposedly contradicting requirements have to be met. On the one hand, benefits of a single frontend deployment and central administration have to be realized. On the other hand, strict separation of business data of the respective tenants as well as a partially decentralized business administration is needed. OpenWorkdesk can do this job. It enables a template based replication of similar applications per tenant on a single deployment, whereby tenant specific resources (roles, ECM objects, configurations, etc.) are requested at runtime. Thus with OpenWorkdesk one can for example create a customer folder application linked to a multi tenant CRM application in the cloud.

WeWebU OpenWorkdesk is based on WeWebU OpenECM-Framework. Thus, the out of the box standard functionalities can easily be modified if the extensive configuration possibilities are not sufficient. This reduces the time to production and minimizes project costs and risks. By means of an adapter layer, WeWebU OpenECM-Framework based applications may interact with all major ECM repositories. This allows e.g. managing data from several ECM repositories with just one application with a consistent look & feel. Thus, your investment in application development is protected even if you upgrade or exchange your ECM platform at a later point in time. Data from data bases and other legacy information systems (e.g. CRM, ERP) can easily be integrated.