Category: Documentum

EMC Documentum tips and tricks.

WDK 5 Reporting Component

WDK 5 Reporting Component. This WDK 5 component allows you to run reports from within Webtop. The reports are specified using an XML file which contains a DQL query and formatting instructions. The Developer Program team will make use of this component to create administrative reports which will be released in the Component Exchange. UPDATED April 11, 2005: Added a new feature to export results to a tab separated file that can be opened in Microsoft Excel. [EMC Documentum Developer Program – New Content]

Documentum desert island skills

My post on general ECM skills reminded me of an internal post on Documentum consulting skills. I thought I’d cross post it here in case anyone found it helpful. I’ve made minor edits to expand acronyms, clarify product names, or clear up other ambiguities but the post is pretty much intact.
 
What makes a great Documentum consultant?
 
So, what makes a great Documentum consultant? I think there are desert island skills that every one must have or that you’d really want to have if you were alone on a desert island facing some sort of Documentum project. There are also fringe skills that add value and could be critical depending on the project.
 
A consistent “why do you like working with DCTM” answer from the people we’ve interviewed is that people get to work with a wide variety of technologies. Looking at this list shows why. There aren’t many people that can fit this bill. It’s also important to note that someone broad enough to score well against these categories could actually be a great fit for non-Documentum projects.
 
Desert Island Documentum Skills (In no particular order)
  • Core consulting skills (project management, written & verbal communication, client management, selling, teamwork, confidence)
  • People-centric application experience (Collaboration, process, workflow)
  • Document-centric application experience
  • Documentum fundamentals: Workflow, Security, Object Model, Documentum Foundation Classes (DFC)
  • Basic Documentum administrative tasks (repository care-and-feeding, best practices, installing content server, creating a repository) 
  • Documentum Query Language, Basic SQL
  • Basic XML/XSLT
  • Basic operating system (starting/stopping processes, navigating the Documentum installation folder hierarchy, running programs/scripts, editing files, changing permissions/owners of files, setting environment variables, using XServer (for UNIX), administering users and groups)
  • Basic Relational Database (relational concepts, minimal SQL, ability to speak somewhat intelligently with a DBA)
  • Basic Java (knows what a classpath is, can write and compile a class, can leverage Javadocs)
  • Basic BASIC
  • Basic Web Development Kit (WDK)
  • Basic application server
  • HTML, JavaScript, CSS
  • Ability to negotiate IT processes and human resources
  • Troubleshooting and debugging
Fringe/Value-add Documentum Skills (In no particular order)
  • Intermediate to Advanced WDK, Business Objects Framework (BOF)
  • Java Server Faces, Struts, other frameworks
  • JSP, servlets, JDBC, EJB
  • Web services
  • All other Documentum products such as Web Publisher, InputAccel, Content Rendition Services, WebCache, Site Delivery Services, Content Intelligence Services, Digital Asset Manager/Rich Media Services, Business Process, Reporting Gateway, JDBC Services, Manager/FormsBuilder
  • Documentum federations, replication
  • High availability/high performance, load testing
  • Enterprise architecture
  • Identity management (Netegrity, Oblix)
  • Portals in general, Documentum WDK for Portals
  • Imaging, COLD, fixed asset management
  • Structured authoring tools (Epic, Framemaker, XMetal)
  • Web Services
  • Advanced XSLT, FOSI, SGML, Schema/DTD
  • Apache FOP
  • Enterprise Integration
  • Industry-specific or horizontal solutions (Collaboration/eRoom, Records Management, SarbOx, Aerospace, Pharma, Oil&Gas, Manufacturing)

So, a “great” Documentum consultant would have all of the “Desert Island Documentum Skills” nailed as well as the “Fringe/Value-Add Documentum Skills” applicable to the project at-hand.

Customizing XML app behavior in Documentum

Customizing XML Application Behavior with Java and Type based Business Objects (TBOs). Sometimes it’s necessary to customize the operations supported by Documentum XML Applications to apply business logic and enforce object-specific business rules. Often this can be implemented only by developing additional code. This article discusses writing Java code that can be called from within an XML configuration file and implement a TBO to satisfy these needs. [EMC Documentum Developer Program – New Content]

XSL transformation SBO

Transformation Service (BOF 1.0 Service-based Object). This service provides an interface to apply an XSL stylesheet to an XML document. It uses the DFC Transformation APIs to achieve its purpose and provides the result of the transformation as raw data that can be used by presentation layer for display. In the example provided, the output is saved to an HTML file. UPDATED 31 March, 2005 [EMC Documentum Developer Program – New Content]

Documentum ships 5.3

Documentum has announced that their new major release, 5.3, has shipped.

The most noteworthy bullets from the new release:

 – Linux support across the stack
 – Content Rendition Services re-architected and rolled up with other “transformation” products into Content Transformation Services
 – Integration of eRoom into the Content Server including the ability to associate a discussion with any object
 – Integration of records management retention policies into the core content server
 – WDK usability changes (Note: They call them “enhancements” but I’ll wait until I’ve seen them for myself before I use that word!)

Documentum whitepaper on load-testing WDK apps

Tips for Developing WDK Benchmarks. Developing automated test scripts for WDK based applications such as Webtop,DCM, Webpublisher and your custom applications can be quite challenging, due to the complexity of the WDK. This document outlines the best practices, top tips and common pitfalls as learned by the engineers in Documentums Performance and Capacity Planning group during the development of our own internal benchmark scripts and utilities. [EMC Documentum Developer Program – New Content]

Dynamic charting of Documentum data using Cocoon and Xindice

Got charting working. The XMLDB pieces I noted in Step 3 and Step 4 of this post were actually very easy. The syntax for getting XML into Xindice is simple as is the querying. Once I got that going it was just a matter of hooking of the pieces of my pipeline to do what I wanted to do. I did have to tweak the XSLT that produces the SVG. I didn’t build it to handle enough data points (bars were too wide, not enough graph area, etc.).

The cron and xmldb samples were really helpful in getting this working, both from a code perspective and from a functional perspective. As I stored XML in Xindice, I’d pop over to the xmldb browser sample and browse my collection to verify that it worked as expected. I used the cron sample OOTB to set up a task to run the DQL queries against Documentum on a schedule. Going forward, I’ll need to incorporate an admin/config interface into my app for creating the cron task and browsing the xmldb collections.

Documentum-Cocoon integration progress

When I dusted off my Documentum-Cocoon integration stuff I had to do a bit of a fix up. It seems that my WDK install had either rearranged some classpath entries (maybe different versions of JARs Cocoon dependend on behind its own) or made the classpath too long. In any case, I had to update the catalina.bat file to remove the WDK entries as a temporary fix.

I then noticed that when I ran any pipelines that used my Documentum-Cocoon components, they didn’t seem to be getting called. My loggers weren’t showing any entries and the page was just coming up blank. It turned out I had taken a little too much out of my classpath. Obviously, Tomcat needs to be able to find the Documentum DFC classes because my components rely on those. It was frustrating that no one was returning a helpful message to alert me to my blunder.

Something helpful in this situation is the Cocoon Status page in the Samples area. On that page you can show the classpath. If it doesn’t see the DFC JAR and the Documentum config directory, you could be in trouble.