The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) provides the ability to store an enormous quantity of files with redundancy. In our first release of OpenContent for Hadoop, we have included the ability to annotate PDF documents with OpenAnnotate and store and retrieve the PDF layers in Hadoop. This post will describe the integration with Hadoop as the ECM repository, as well as highlight some benefits of using an annotation tool that uses open specifications.
Open Source
Hadoop Web Service REST API for Enterprise Content Management using TSG’s OpenContent
Many of our ECM clients often develop their own Web Services layer to isolate their applications from the back-end repository as well as provide a vehicle to add in their own services to talk to other non-ECM systems. OpenContent was developed as part of our Documentum practice to give clients a standard web services architecture with an open source approach. OpenContent is now available for the Hadoop NoSQL database, HBase. This post will detail the web services available in our first release with examples and explanations.
Documentum or Alfresco – Simple Workflow in HPI
As discussed in previous posts related to our Active Wizard product here, here, and here, TSG has always preferred a form-driven dynamic workflow for document review and approval. This is especially true for our regulated clients (ex: Pharma, Energy) that utilize TSG’s Compliance Solution. However, we’re seeing more and more clients outside our regulated industries that want to enable workflow using a template approach without needing a form to drive the workflow process. For these clients, TSG is happy to announce the Simple Workflow module in HPI.
Documentum – Using OpenOverlay to Provide Functionality Not Available in PDF Stamping Services
As readers who use EMC’s Documentum Compliance Manager (DCM) product will know, with the 6.5 release there was an architecture switch in the way dynamic overlays were applied to documents with the introduction of PDF Stamping Services (PSS). Prior to version 6.5, PDF Aqua was integrated into the product and customers used it to design and configure the overlays they needed to appear for documents as they moved through different stages of their lifecycle. These overlays could range from simple watermarks containing the current document status (e.g., DRAFT, APPROVED), to more advanced overlays including property and other related data of the document in dynamic headers.
In transitioning to PSS, many customers found that while it did provide many of the same capabilities as PDF Aqua there could still be certain scenarios where what was possible in a PDF Aqua overlay was not easy to duplicate in PSS. This post will describe one such situation and how leveraging OpenOverlay allowed the client to maintain their legacy overlay functionality with minimal system changes.
OpenAnnotate 2.0 – Annotations in Alfresco Share
TSG is proud to release OpenAnnotate 2.0, our latest iteration of open source annotations. We’ve successfully deployed OpenAnnotate with a number of our Documentum clients to enable simple annotation capabilities on PDF documents, both via TSG’s HPI and Webtop. We’ve now implemented annotation capability within Alfresco Share to allow markup of rendered PDF documents within an Alfresco repository.
Users can access PDF documents and perform the following annotations:
- Sticky Notes
- Lines
- Arrows
- Rectangles
- Ellipses
Users can view annotations created by other users, and are displayed in different colors. We’ve added a simple action within Alfresco Share to expose annotation capabilities. OpenAnnotate can produce read only PDFs with the related annotations, to be viewed by any PDF viewer.
How does it work?
OpenAnnotate was built using HTML and JavaScript along with Spring MVC. The front end utilizes jQuery and Dojo. Dojo provides canvas drawing on all browsers, including IE6 (yes, we still have clients using IE6!) All generated annotations are stored, using the XFDF specification, as an association to the original PDF document by applying a simple aspect.
- Visit our website for additional information on OpenAnnotate.
- Visit our LearningZone to see OpenAnnotate in action.
Please contact us to get OpenAnnotate integrated into your Alfresco repository!
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