The module is very basic–it was really just an excuse to spend some time in Drupal and try out the new CMIS stuff in Alfresco.

Here’s an overview of how it works:
– When you configure the module, you specify credentials and a URL for the Alfresco repository.
– The module currently has one block which is a folder listing block. When you configure the block you give it a path in your Alfresco repository.
– The block then renders itself by invoking Alfresco’s CMIS REST API for retrieving the contents of a folder. CMIS queries return back ATOM feeds with extensions. The block parses the XML and creates an unnumbered list of the objects it found and links them using the objects’ download URL.

Jeff

I think you’re exactly right about persistence of data. Even more than workflow (to some degree) this seems to me to be the key issue. Drupal can provide a great presentation layer architecture to complement Alfresco’s ECM capabilities by adding a number of social tools that can be loosely coupled to Alfresco’s data store, but Drupal doesn’t excel at file management, let alone true DAM.

As we’ve discussed, the way that Achieve has pursued a combination of these systems is in the context of a social networking tool for “behind the firewall” at enterprise organizations, combining Drupal’s rich user profiles, groups and tagging with Alfresco’s file management, exposed through web scripts. I think a lot more can be done with these two systems, though, and I’m particularly interested in the idea of persisting Drupal’s taxonomy functionality across both applications, since this seems to be another area where the systems are complimentary.

I’m looking forward to continuing this conversation and seeing what other ideas come up.

For Drupal -> Alfresco we may have written something contributable, however I think that also involved some custom code on the Alfresco side.

Bottom line is that it is a complex issue, in large part because of the node-centric vision of Drupal. Alfresco’s document and revision handling is far more complex, and mapping may be difficult. Also, most orgs implementing Alfresco (like AI) have HUGE repositories of data, and trying to port them to nodes / keep taxonomy in sync sounds like a nightmare. But that means no views, comments, ratings, search, etc…

For now, the best and simplest method is probably using the FeedAPI in drupal and creating those stub nodes, but that’s not very effective. I think in the long run, it will require a node bridge for it to be of any value to most organizations to go with a drupal front end.

Don’t know much about Alfresco. just read an extensive review about it and so believe understand the basic concept

Some Glue modules – here you go to try out.

Another thing is to find out if people need this kind of thing, if there is an intersection of customers. As Drupal is only slowly making its way into the boardroom and also Alfresco will not be World-dominating in the Micro$oft – dominated enterprise world, both might benefit from each other.

But this is quite some work if done seriously and would need some really comitted Maintainers.