RocketDMS is an interesting PHP-GTK based DMS implementation for windows. The software provide a multi-user system with the ability to work simultaneously with the same document.

RocketDMS include a lot of interesting features mainly :

• Physical locations and items can be indexed and searched
• Scan directly into RocketDMS
• MySQL/MSSQL Compatible
• Subversion Compatible
• Support Windows XP and Vista
• Local area, Wide area and Internet compatible
• Documents can be given searchable tags and full text indexed
• Off-line Documents usage
• Collaboration enabled and multi-user system

We asked Miked Bennett, Managing Director Pikaia Ltd, about the choice of PHP-GTK for RocketDMS :

"Many reasons but primarily because: PHP is mature, high level and cross-platform and I am familiar with it. GTK 2 has a wonderful set of widgets, is relatively easy to use and is very stable. I have a lot of libraries and work from over the years that is immediately re-usable in building GUI programs.

I wanted to convert some proof-of-concept ideas that I had done into a commercial product as quickly and easily as possible. I wanted the modification<->test cycle to be as quick as possible and being able to run the completed app fully interpreted lets me do that. Time-consuming compiling and packaging is only required for a release. Apart from some proprietary win-only platforms there seems to be nothing else that comes close."

Continue reading "RocketDMS, PHP-GTK based Document Management System" »

Posted by Hatem at 6:14 AM to Implementations | Permalink

During the last five years I have been working on many e-Government projects and noticed that some solutions are imposed and there is no way to convince superiors to change, even if it was a better alternative. One of the implementation imposed was a totally unstable, and a complete failure for the job that it's supposed to do.

I had probably the chance to suggest a PHP based DMS solution including e-Archiving of official documents for a government institution with a very high-demand environment, and my suggestion was accepted to replace an old and proprietary imaging solution that was causing troubles and its maintenance was very expensive ! The solutions was built using PHP, Oracle, Linux and other open source applications.

Actually this DMS is running in production environment making millions records of archived documents available to hundreds of employees under different permissions according to rules imposed by the institution. In addition to a smooth integration with intranet and other applications.

Continue reading "Successful PHP-Based DMS Implementation for e-Government" »

Posted by Hatem at 9:07 AM to Case Studies | Permalink

The term DMS is defined differently from a project to another. In most cases that we have found, archiving systems are independent from the main system and include in addition to document organization and archiving tools, different features that change from a system to another. We have made a selection of PHP DMS, and probably Maarch is the most advanced DMS and archiving business solution.

Maarch, the Open Source archiving DMS

Maarch is an Open Source framework for archiving and retrieving large volumes of static documents. In a certain way, it is designed as an IDARS product (Integrated Document Archiving and Retrieval System), but without the heaviness of the big ECM products. Maarch is ideal for those who are only interested by storing and exploiting image documents, in compliance with Record Management regulations (Sarbanes-Oaxley, ISO-15489). We think that the Open Source philosophy is very well assorted with long term conservation needs.Maarch is compatible with all relational SQL databases, and is mostly written in PHP 5. Utility modules are written in Visual Basic.

Continue reading "Selection of PHP-Based Document Management Solutions" »

Posted by Hatem at 10:24 PM to Implementations | Permalink

NOAH is a Web-based document management system that is feature-rich, easy to use, and simple to install. Through a browser interface, users can easily create, update, lock, search, and manage document revisions for access by multiple users across many geographical sites. NOAH includes many powerful features such as client scripting, hierarchical document access control, and email notification. Administrators can manage users and archives and monitor database activity through an extensive suite of tools.

Companies can benefits from NOAH with :

• Improved team efficiency by ensuring all members have access to the latest document versions.
• File and Directory Access Control lets you manage who has access to what documents.
• Meta-Data with file-locking tell users what that document is about and who is working on it.
• Efficient sharing or publishing of documents with 'elinks' (email link-generator) and zip downloads.
• Automation of tedious documentation tasks with NOAH's unique 'Client Scripting' feature.
• An intuitive user interface, with plenty of tooltips and on-line help. Your users will be 'NOAH experts' in minutes!

Continue reading "NOAH Document Management System" »

Posted by Hatem at 11:11 AM to Implementations | Permalink

Last year I've been working a lot on Document Management Systems (DMS) and I was in touch with many companies developing DMS software, but I wasn't ready to launch a new magazine on our network related to DMS until today. The topic not only interesting, but I find it also very relevant to PHP application development, since today all developments are related to the web industries, why DMS still based on desktops !

My surprise that FileNet DMS, which is supposed to be the most powerful until today at my small knowledge, have a very limited ASP.NET interface of their DMS. Very basic and not flexible at all, more than everything it require long and hard configuration, and still related to desktop software at different levels. So in this new magazine we'll try to focus on different available solutions commercial mainly, and Open Source probably, the different aspect of implementations and any interesting DMS experience.

So if you have a DMS experience with that you want to share, this is the right place.

Posted by Hatem at 10:59 AM to General | Permalink