Screencast: Drupal Open Atrium with Alfresco CMIS

UPDATE: Screencast now lives here:

I recorded a quick screencast of a simple integration we did to show Open Atrium leveraging Alfresco as a formal document repository via CMIS. This leverages the CMIS Alfresco module we developed and released on Drupal.org.

As I point out in the screencast, there’s not much to the integration from a technical standpoint. Open Atrium is Drupal and the CMIS module already has a CMIS repository browser. So, all we had to do was expose the module as a “feature”, which is something Open Atrium uses to bundle modules together that create a given chunk of functionality.

Readers familiar with Alfresco Share will instantly recognize the Open Atrium concepts. Instead of “sites” Atrium uses “groups”. Instead of “pages” or “tools”, Atrium uses “features”. The overall purpose, self-provisioned team-based collaboration, is the same and many of the tools/features are the same (blog, calendar, member directory). I’m not advocating using one over the other–as usual, what works best for you depends on a lot of factors. I just thought Atrium provided a nice way to show yet another example of Drupal and Alfresco together (post).

31 comments

  1. Pingback: links for 2009-10-13 | Glorified Monkey
  2. Lucas Weeks says:

    Is your screencast up? I don’t understand what I’m missing, but every time I click on the link that you provide, the page on optaros.com has a blank spot where the video should be. I’d really like to see the screencast – what am I doing wrong?

  3. jpotts says:

    Lucas,

    I haven’t heard of any other problems. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that maybe your Flash plugin isn’t up-to-date?

    Jeff

  5. jpotts says:

    In a nutshell, the integration relies on the Drupal CMIS and CMIS Alfresco modules. All my colleague, Eric Shea, did was to wrap the CMIS Repository Browser functionality that comes with the module with an Open Atrium Feature. Actually, Features are not just for Atrium–they are a Drupal module. Here’s the link: http://drupal.org/project/features

    I think we’re going to get the feature wrapper added to the CMIS module or make it available somewhere. I’m not sure where it is on the roadmap, though. If it is absolutely critical, let me know and I’ll send you the files in their current state.

    Jeff

  8. Shaun says:

    This is a fantastic integration. I’m not having much luck trying to build the feature though. Could I please have a copy of these files?

  10. Chris Rowe says:

    We would love to start using this feature and are willing to help some with development. Is there a place were you can post the files for the community to work on? github, google code, etc?

  13. Randall says:

    Hi Jeff, your blog is very informative. Is Optaros looking at adding workflow to OpenAtrium as mentioned in the webcast? We are researching Alfresco integration to process software such as Intalio. Could I receive a copy of these files as well?

    Thanks!
    Randall

  14. jpotts says:

    No, we are not actively looking at adding workflow to OpenAtrium. The module we wrote for Drupal-Alfresco integration uses CMIS. CMIS is a content-centric API and does not include workflow in its scope. So any calls to the workflow engine (e.g., to get a task list) would have to be to Alfresco’s REST API. That’s not a big deal, it just means the implementation is no longer pure CMIS. So, right now, although we’d gladly do this kind of integration for a client, our open source efforts focused on CMIS.

    Jeff

  15. alvin_biophile says:

    Thanks for the informative and inspirational screencast… I’ve been looking for this kind of integration actually working. I’ve been using Sharepoint and gradually migrating to Drupal + some kind of DMS (I guess Alfresco is one of the options). Recently I installed Open Atrium and am trying to figure out the ins and outs of how it works.. I have no idea for now how to build this kind of Feature… I have a vague idea of CMIS but for now it’s beyond my ability to make an Open Atrium-compatible feature for this integration. Could I share the file and try using it, too?? Thanks..

  16. jpotts says:

    Yep. You’ll need (1) the Drupal CMIS API module available at Drupal.org and (2) some files that expose the repository browser to Atrium as a feature. I’ll email you (2).

    Jeff

  20. Erik van den Heuvel says:

    Hi Jeff,

    This is really great stuff. We have installed Alfresco and OAb5. Things are working fine, the only thing missing is the feature to expose the repos in the groups. Could I have a copy of the files?

    Cheers, Erik

  23. Alex says:

    Hi Jeff,
    I know I am repetitive but I need the feature too so … could you please sent me the files that expose the repository browser to Atrium as a feature? 🙂
    Thanks a lot
    Alex

  24. Alex says:

    Hi Jeff,
    Cold you please send me files that expose the repository browser as a feature for Open Atrium?
    Thank you!

    P.S.: If this is my second request please ignore it!
    I apologyze …

  25. jpotts says:

    All,

    I have posted the files here. I hope someone will clean this up and post it somewhere for the benefit of the entire community. I simply don’t have time to do it at the moment.

    Jeff

  26. Pingback: Drupal Open Atrium and Alfresco CMIS files | ecmarchitect.com
  27. chrisw says:

    May I try your files as well please.
    I just installed Drupal 6 and Alfresco 3.2r2 are these supported?

  30. jpotts says:

    chrisw,

    The OpenAtrium distribution comes with a Drupal distribution embedded in it. I don’t know whether you can add Atrium to an existing Drupal install or not.

    Jeff

  31. chrisw says:

    Thanks, I am just looking to see how Atrium connects to Alfresco. I am missing something it the Drupal admin?

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