Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for

Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Contents

Copyright.............................................................................................................. 1
Introduction.......................................................................................................... 2
Important notes.......................................................................................... 2
Starting with Explorer......................................................................................... 3
Toolbar.........................................................................................................3
Sidebar.........................................................................................................4
Working area...............................................................................................4
Logging in................................................................................................... 4
Adding new users................................................................................................6
Creating spaces and content............................................................................. 8
Creating a space........................................................................................ 9
Creating and editing content in a space................................................11
Managing content item details................................................................14
Working with space templates......................................................................... 15
Building smart spaces...................................................................................... 18
Creating content rules............................................................................. 18
Adding a content versioning rule........................................................... 19
Adding simple workflow rules................................................................ 23
Requesting draft approval.....................................................................23
Publishing the approved content.......................................................... 24
Moving content using the clipboard...................................................... 25
Collaborating with other users.........................................................................27
Editing content in a collaborative space.........................................................29
Checking out a content item...................................................................29
Checking in a content item..................................................................... 30
Version history......................................................................................... 32
Sending content for review.............................................................................. 33
Uploading and transforming content.............................................................. 35
Categorizing content and advanced search................................................... 38
Searching for categorized content......................................................... 39
Forums and discussions.................................................................................. 41
Creating a forum.......................................................................................41
Creating a topic.....................................................................................43
Discussions...............................................................................................45
Summary............................................................................................................. 47

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 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Copyright
Copyright 2009 by Alfresco and others.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose,
without the express written permission of Alfresco. The trademarks, service marks, logos, or other
intellectual property rights of Alfresco and others used in this documentation ("Trademarks") are the
property of Alfresco and their respective owners. The furnishing of this document does not give you
license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property except as expressly
provided in any written agreement from Alfresco.
The United States export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations of
the U.S. Department of Commerce, and other applicable laws and regulations apply to this documentation
which prohibit the export or re-export of content, products, services, and technology to certain countries
and persons. You agree to comply with all export laws, regulations, and restrictions of the United
States and any foreign agency or authority and assume sole responsibility for any such unauthorized
exportation.
You may not use this documentation if you are a competitor of Alfresco, except with Alfresco's
prior written consent. In addition, you may not use the documentation for purposes of evaluating its
functionality or for any other competitive purposes.
If you need technical support for this product, contact Customer Support by email at
[email protected]. If you have comments or suggestions about this documentation, contact us at
[email protected].
This copyright applies to the current version of the licensed program.

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Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Introduction
The Getting Started with Alfresco Document Management Guide is a tutorial that walks you through the
basic concepts of the Alfresco Document Management System.
This Getting Started guide will:
• Introduce the basic concepts of the Alfresco Document Management solution. It accompanies the
download of the system available at: http://dev.alfresco.com/downloads/ . You can also access an
online demo by going to: http://www.alfresco.com/products/ecm/tour/.
• Demonstrate how to set up and configure Alfresco for managing your documents.
• Showcase a Smart Space, which is a collaborative space that uses rules to simplify the handling,
management, and transformation of content.
• Show how to use additional properties and categories to organize and find content.
It is recommended that you download the Alfresco 3.1 release and walk through this guided product
evaluation guide to familiarize yourself with the Document Management features of Alfresco’s DM
platform offering.

Important notes
Before proceeding with the tutorial, you must ensure the installation is complete. Documentation is
available online for installation assistance and reference.
Before starting, make sure that your system has been installed properly. The installation is fast and easy
for both Microsoft Windows® and Linux. If you have any issues with the installation, you can find help in
the Alfresco Forums at: http://forums.alfresco.com/.
Alfresco also recommends reviewing and keeping up-to-date on the latest around the Document
Management offering on the Developer Wiki. To bookmark this page for easy reference, please use the
following link: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/.

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Starting with Explorer

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the main page of the application.
When you open your browser to Alfresco for the first time, you are taken to the My Alfresco Dashboard
space. This space can be used to hold any content that you would like to be available to anyone who has
access to your Alfresco server.

There are three main areas in the Alfresco user interface:

• Toolbar along the top
• Sidebar at the left
• Working area at the right

Toolbar
The toolbar contains navigation buttons, which vary depending on who you are.
If you are logged in as:
• Guest: You have access to the My Home space and the My Alfresco Dashboard.
• User: You also have access to the Company Home and Guest Homespaces.
• Administrator: You also have access to the User Profile and the Administration Console
features.

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The toolbar also lets you:

• Access the Search and Help features

• Hide and show the Sidebar (click )

• View information about Alfresco CMS (click the Alfresco logo)

Sidebar
The Sidebar contains a number of different features to help you navigate, find, and work with content.
These features include the Navigator, Clipboard, Shortcuts, Recent Spaces, OpenSearch, and
Categories.

Working area
The working area is a dynamic area displaying items relevant to the task you are performing.
The working area changes depending on the information you are looking at or the task you are
performing. The top of the working area always displays a navigation breadcrumb that allows you to jump
to any part of the breadcrumb path. For information views, there is a summary area along with actions or
alternative views. The details and options also change depending on what you are looking at and doing,
as well as who you are.

Logging in
To add and create content in Alfresco, you must log in. When Alfresco is installed, it creates an
administration user called admin with a default password of admin. The Password field is case sensitive.
1. Click the Login (guest) link in the toolbar.

2. On the Login page, enter admin in the User Name box.

3. Enter admin in the Password box and click Login.

4. In the toolbar, click Company Home.

The Company Home space displays.

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Adding new users

As part of adding the new user, you can define the user's home space. When Alfresco is installed, a User
Homes space is created automatically to contain all user home spaces.
1. On the toolbar, click (Administration Console).
The Administration Console opens.

2. Click Manage System Users.

The Manage System Users page opens.

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3. Click Show All to list the current users, including the pre-configured admin account.
4. In the header, click Create User to open the New User Wizard.
5. In the New User Wizard, specify the person properties, using the name Bob Smith, and click
Next.
Boxes marked with an asterisk are required.
6. Create a user name and password.
7. Create a home space using the default location, User Homes, that was created during installation
and name the space Bob Smith.
Note: User names are case insensitive but domains are case sensitive. Users can log in with any
combination of case for their name but the domain must remain as created.
For example, the following are true for logging in:
• jsmith/ALFRESCO can log in as: jsmith/ALFRESCO or JSMITH/ALFRESCO or JsMiTh/
ALFRESCO
• jsmith/alfresco can log in as: jsmith/alfresco or JSMITH/alfresco or JsMiTh/alfresco
• jsmith/AlFrEsCo can log in as: jsmith/AlFrEsCo or JSMITH/AlFrEsCo or JsMiTh/AlFrEsCo
8. Click Next to view a summary of the user created and click Finish.
This creates the new user, Bob Smith, and his home space, and displays the user in the user list.
9. Create another user named Joe Bloggs for future use.

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Creating spaces and content

After adding a new user, you can log in as that user.
1. On the toolbar, click Logout, then log in using the details for Bob Smith.
You are taken to your My Alfresco Dashboard by default, but you can still easily navigate to your
home space (My Home), Company Home, or elsewhere.

2. Click My Home in the sidebar.

In the home space you can add and create content items, and create sub spaces.

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Creating a space
Before adding content, organize your home space to meet your business needs (including collaboration).
For this example, you will create a sub space called My web documents for HTML files.
1. In the Create menu in the header, click Create Space.
The Create Space page displays.

2. Type My web documents as the space name. Optionally, you can specify a title and description,
and select an icon to represent the type of content you intend to put in the space.

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3. Click Create Space. Your home space displays with the new space listed.

4. In the Navigator header in the sidebar, click (Refresh) to synchronize the navigator bar.
You can now create web content directly in the browser.

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Creating and editing content in a space

In this task, you will create content in a space using the Create Content Wizard.
1. Open the My web documents space (click the icon or the name).

2. In the Create menu, click Create Content.

The Create Content Wizard starts.

3. Type newfile.htm as the file name.

Note: The remaining general properties are populated by default. You can modify them.

4. Click Next.

5. In Step Two - Enter Content, add the following example web page, including text formatting and
images.

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6. Click Next to display the summary page.

7. Click Finish.
The Finish button becomes active when there is enough information to complete a task. Any
additional steps are optional. The Modify Content Properties page displays the full set of
properties for the document created.

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8. Review the properties and add new ones if you like. These properties vary for different Types and
Smart Spaces.
9. Click OK to save the properties and return to the My web documents space.
The new file is listed in the Content Items pane. If there are any required properties, OK is not
enabled until they have been completed.

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Managing content item details

You can view the details (properties and metadata) of a content item at any time.
1. Click (View Details) associated with the content item to display the Details page with the
Properties pane expanded.
If you are not sure which icon performs what action, hover your mouse over the icon and a tool tip
displays its action.

2. Click (Modify) on the top right of the Properties pane to edit the content properties. Click OK
when done.
3. Click the View In Browser link in the Links panel to view or download through the browser.

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Working with space templates

You can use templates that you create or that are provided to accelerate the setup of a space and to
ensure consistency across multiple spaces.

In this scenario, you will set up a project space with multiple sub spaces in which you will collaborate with
other team members to create, approve, and publish documents. Part of the requirements you have for
this space are provided by a template.
1. Navigate to your home space (you can use the breadcrumb path or click My Home on the toolbar).

2. In the Create menu, click Advanced Space Wizard. The Create Space Wizard page displays.

3. In Step One - Starting Space, select Using a template and click Next.

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4. In Step Two – Space Options, select the Software Engineering Project template from the list and
click Next.

5. In Step Three - Space Details, type Project Voodoo as the Name. Optionally, you can specify a
title and description, and select an icon.

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6. Click Finish to return to the My Home space where the Project Voodoo space has been created
using the Software Engineering Project template.

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Building smart spaces

Define rules within a space to automatically manage the content.
One of the key benefits of Alfresco is the ability to define rules that affect content within a space. These
rules can be used to provide creative solutions to automation and management of content. Rules are
applied when content moves in or out of a space and may also apply to content directly in the space or in
sub spaces.
A rule is made up of three main elements:
• The conditions on the content for the rule to match
• The actions that are performed on the content
• The type of rule it is
Any number of conditions and actions may be defined in a rule.

Creating content rules

In this task you will create content rules within a space.

You will create a few rules in the Project Voodoo Documentation space to:
• Add content versioning because multiple authors will collaborate on the documents
• Set up a simple workflow that allows the documents to progress through these spaces
1. Navigate to the Project Voodoo Documentation space. This space contains four sub spaces to hold
documents in different stages of completion, as well as a space with sample content.

2. Click Drafts to open the Drafts space.

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3. In the More Actions menu, select Manage Content Rules. The Content Rules page appears.

Adding a content versioning rule

In this task, you will add a versioning rule for the content using the Create Rule Wizard.
1. In the header, click Create Rule to open the Create Rule Wizard.

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2. In Step One - Select Conditions, define the conditions that are applied to the content before the
action is performed.
a. In the Select Condition list, select All Items so the action is performed on any content added
to the space.
b. Click Add to List to set the condition. The condition displays in the Summary list.

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c. Click Next.

3. In Step Two - Select Actions, you define the actions to be performed on the content.

a. In the Select Action, click Add aspect to item.

b. Click Set Values and Add.

c. In the Select required feature menu, select Versionable from the value list and click OK.

d. Click Next.

4. In Step Three - Enter Details, select the rule type, which determines when the rule gets tested. The
options are:

• Inbound: The action occurs when content is copied, created or added to the space.

• Outbound: The action occurs when content is moved or deleted from the space.

• Updated: The action occurs when content is updated in the space.

a. In the Type menu, select Inbound.

b. In the Title box, type All versioned.

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c. Click Next.

5. Verify the information you have specified for the rule and click Finish.

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The rule displays on the Content Rules page.

Adding simple workflow rules

This topic explains the simple workflow rules you will add to the space.
The workflow rules move the content item through the spaces, based on specific criteria. You will create
the following rules:
• Request Approval: move from Draft space to Request Approval space

• Publish: move from Request Approval space to Publish space

Requesting draft approval

In this task you will create a simple workflow rule to apply to content in the Drafts space.
1. Ensure you are on the Content Rules page in the Drafts space. Click Create Rule in the header.
2. In Step One, specify All Items as the condition.

3. In Step Two, specify Add simple workflow to item as the action.

a. Enter Request Approval as the Approve Flow step name.

b. Select to Move the item to the Pending Approval space.

c. Select No as the Reject Flow step.

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4. In Step Three, specify the Type as Inbound and enter Add simple workflow as the Title.

5. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

Publishing the approved content

Continue with the workflow rule that will apply to content in this space.
Now that you have finished defining rules in the Drafts space, navigate to the Pending Approval space
(Project Voodoo > Documentation > Pending Approval) to add the next step in the workflow.
Note: There is no need to add a rule to make all content versioned, since content has moved from the
Drafts space where it will have already been versioned.

1. In the More Actions menu, click Manage Content Rules.

2. Click Create Rule in the header.

3. In Step One, specify All items as the condition.

4. In Step Two, specify Add simple workflow to item as the action.

a. Enter Publish as the Approve Flow step name.

b. Select to Move the item to the Published space.

c. Select Yes as the Reject Flow step and name it Reject.

d. Select to Move the item back to the Drafts space.

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5. In Step Three, specify the Type as Inbound and type Add simple workflow as the Title.

6. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

To see these rules in action, you must add some content.

Moving content using the clipboard

A sample software overview document is created as part of the template you are using. Use this
document to test the rules.
1. Navigate to the Samples space (Project Voodoo > Documentation > Samples).

2. In the Content Items pane, click for the item system-overview.html and select Copy. A
message indicates that the document was successfully added to the clipboard.

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3. In the sidebar, click and select Shelf to view the clipboard contents.
4. Navigate to the Drafts space.
5. In the More Actions menu, click Paste All. A new copy of the document system-overview.hml is
pasted in the Drafts space and the contents of the clipboard are removed.
If the content is cut, a reference to it is placed in the clipboard and the content remains in its original
place until you paste it in the new location. The clipboard contents are not retained over login
sessions, so if you cut some content and then log out, the content stays where it was originally
located.
You can also paste items as links, which creates an item that points to another space or content, but
can have a different name and description.
6. In the sidebar, display the Navigator again.

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Collaborating with other users

To work with other users on this project, you will invite them to a space for collaboration.
1. Ensure you are in the Drafts space. In the More Actions menu for this space, click Manage Space
Users.
This page displays users who have permission to work on content in the Drafts space.

2. Click Invite in the header to invite a user to the space.

This opens the Invite Users Wizard.

3. In Step One - Invite Users, you select a user and specify their role. Type joe and click Search. The
list of results displays.

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4. Select Joe Bloggs, assign him the Consumer role, and click Add to List.
5. Click Next.
6. In Step Two - Notify Users, you are given the option to send the invited users an email telling them
about the invitation. As you haven't configured email, select No and click Next.
7. Verify the information in the Summary and click Finish.
8. Click Close to return to the Drafts space.

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Editing content in a collaborative space

You can now explore how to edit content in a collaborative space while protecting the content.
With multiple authors collaborating on the content, you want to ensure that only one person modifies it at
a time by checking it out. This creates a working copy and locks the original. When you check it in, the
updated item overwrites the original item with the working copy and unlocks it.

Checking out a content item

In this task, you will check out content from a space so that others cannot modify the file with which you
are working.
1. In the Drafts space, click and select Check Out for the document system-overview.html.
You are given the choice of checking out the working copy to the same space as the original or to
any other space. Some people like to work with one space that contains all their current work-in-
progress, so may have created a specific folder in their home space for working copies. You are
going to keep the working copy in the current space.

2. Click Check Out.

3. Click the link system-overview (Working Copy).html and save the file to your desktop.

4. Click OK to return to the space, which now contains two items. One is appended with (Working
Copy).

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Checking in a content item

The Lock icon displayed beside the original content item lets you know that it cannot be modified. The
only way you can modify it is to check in or undo the check out on the working copy. If you are not the
person who checked out the document, hover the mouse over the lock icon on the original item to display
the author who is currently editing the item.
In this task, you are going to edit the document and add some minor changes to the text. Once saved,
you can check in the content.

1. Open the Working Copy of the file on your desktop and make changes to the content.
Note: You can use the Update action for a content item to upload changes to the working copy
without checking in the file but for the purpose of this tutorial, we want to check in the file.

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2. Click (Check In) associated with the content item.

3. Indicate the revision as being a Minor Change and add notes, if desired.

4. Click Check In.

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Version history
You can view the version history for content in a space. As the content is versioned, previous iterations
are available in the version history.
1. Click (View Details) for the document system-overview.html.
2. On the Details page, expand the Version History pane. The current version is listed.

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Sending content for review

When content has been completed, it can be sent for review. Any workflow steps that are available for an
item of content are shown in its actions, either from the More Actions icon or from the View Details icon
associated with the content item.
1. In the Content Items pane, click for the item system-overview.html and select Request
Approval. The content item moves to the Pending Approval space.

2. Navigate to the Pending Approval space where you can see the system-overview.html content
item.
Note:
Another rule could have been defined to send an email alert to the reviewers of this document.

3. Click for this item to see the Publish and Reject workflow steps you created as a rule.

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4. Click Publish to move the content to the Published space.

Alfresco also has integrated Business Process Management (BPM) capability. This goes beyond the
Simple Workflow folder-based method of sending content for review, allowing content to remain where
it is while complex workflows can operate on it. The BPM-based workflow creates tasks for users to
complete, with these showing up in the user’s My Tasks To Do Dashboard Component.

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Uploading and transforming content

Define a transformation rule that converts content as it is uploaded to a space.

In the following scenario, you want to use some marketing content in a technical document. However,
the marketing content is in PDF format only. To use the text, define a transformation rule that converts
content to a different format.
1. Navigate to the Drafts space in Project Voodoo. From the More Actions menu, select Manage
Content Rules.

2. Click Create Rule.

3. Complete Step One using the following information.

a. Select Items which contain a specific value in its name as the Condition.

b. Type *.pdf as the condition value.

4. In Step Two, set the action as follows:

a. Select Transform and copy content to a specific space as the Action.

b. Select Plain Text as the action value.

c. Select the Drafts space as the Destination.

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5. Enter the following details in Step Three:

a. Specify Inbound as the Type.

b. Type Transform PDFs as the Title.

6. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

7. Click Close.
Now you can upload a file to exercise the rule.

8. Click Add Content in the Drafts space header and browse to any PDF file available on your
computer.

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9. When the message confirming the upload displays, uncheck Modify all properties when this page
closes and click OK. The Drafts space now contains two new documents: the PDF file and the text
version of it.

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Categorizing content and advanced search

Another feature is the ability to assign categories to items. This allows information to be classified in
any number of ways. With this, you can retrieve items that match combinations of constraints, including
categories. Categories are hierarchical, so searching for an item in a category will also find anything
classified below it. In the following example, you are going to add some content to a category and then
search for it.

The first step is to allow the content to be categorized.

1. Navigate to the Published space and click (View Details) for the document system-
overview.html.

2. Expand the Category pane and click Allow Categorization.

3. Click (Change Category) in the top right corner of this pane.

4. Click Select and then Click here to select a Category.

5. Click Software Document Classification to view its sub-categories.

6. Click through the following sub-categories:

• Software Descriptions

• Main Software Descriptions

7. Select Short System Description and click Add to List.

8. Click OK.

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Searching for categorized content

In this task you will use Advanced Search features to search for categorized content.
1. Click (Options) in the toolbar.

2. Select Advanced Search.

The Advanced Search provides multiple criteria, including categories, under which you can search
for a content item.

3. Expand the pane Show me results in the categories if it is not already visible.

4. Add Software Descriptions as the category, ensuring you check Include sub-categories.

5. Click Add to List.

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Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

6. Click Search. For this example, there is only one document that matches this criteria.
Note: You can also include other options for the search, such as the kind of document you are
looking for, or a range of dates for its creation or modification.

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 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Forums and discussions

This application provides an easy way for people to collaborate using forums and discussions. Forums
contain topics of discussion and topics contain posts from different users.

Creating a forum
A forum space allows people to collaborate using forums and discussions. A forum space can contain any
number of forums, or even other forum spaces if wanted.
1. Navigate to the Project Voodoo space.

2. In the Create menu, click Advanced Space Wizard.

3. In Step One, select to create the space From scratch and click Next.

4. In Step Two, select Forum Space.

5. Click Next.

6. In Step Three, type Open Source Software as the Name and click Finish.

7. Open the Open Source Software space.

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Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

You will use a sub forum space to organize your forums.

8. In the Create menu, click Create Forum Space.
9. Type Open Source Content Management as the Name.

10. Click Create Forum Space.

11. Open the Open Source Content Management space.

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 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

12. In the Create menu, click Create Forum and name the forum Projects.

13. Click Create Forum.

Creating a topic
In this task, you will create a topic within a forum.
1. Navigate to and open the Projects forum.

2. In the Create menu, click Create Topic.

3. Enter the topic details in the Subject and Message boxes. You can select an icon to represent the
type of message you are posting.

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Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

4. Click Create Topic.

Once a topic is created, it is always possible to edit and change it, or even delete it. The icons on a
post determine what actions you are allowed to take.

Any other user with the right permissions will be able to reply to the post (using the Post Reply icon:
). By default, the most recent post is at the top.

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 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Discussions
Discussions are like a forum attached to a piece of content. Wherever the document is moved, the
discussion goes with it. They provide an ideal way to record decisions or annotations about a document
without changing the content.
1. Navigate to the content item system-overview.html (now located in the Published space).

2. In the Content Items pane, click for this item and select Start Discussion.

3. Enter the discussion details and click Create Topic.

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Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

4. To view a discussion on an item, click (View Discussions) associated with the content item.

If you check out a document that has a discussion, the working draft will not have that discussion.
However, if you start a discussion on a working copy when it is checked in, the discussion is added
to the original item with a date stamp. While content is checked out, the original content is locked but
discussions can still continue on it.

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 Getting Started with Explorer Document Management for Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

Summary
You have now meandered around much of the Alfresco system, with a view to giving you some ideas
about the approaches Alfresco takes to managing content. The functionality of the system is being
expanded continuously, providing an ever growing list of Enterprise Content Management features.

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