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The ECM WSDL Discussion Leading to More

Tell everyone that you aren’t going to have time to write many entries and people start blogging about cool and interesting topics. Here is a quick rundown of the ECM WSDL analysis and my thoughts.

  • Our old buddy James McGovern started the whole thing off. He has apparently been sharing is frustration with his significant other and he wrote a post on the sad state of WSDLs in the ECM space. They are ugly and poorly written in his experience. Not having delved into any out of the box WSDLs in ECM, I can hardly argue. It wouldn’t shock me though. Hopefully the DFS ones will measure up better. James then starts to talk about the ECM systems having a standard Document Query Language and a common WSDL built upon that structure. Sounds good to me. In fact, it is a nice, positive contribution to the whole ECM standards issue.

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Fitting SharePoint into the ECM Picture

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Previously I compared eRoom and SharePoint. I noted several basic features, but didn’t really say that either was dramatically better than the other. They are both solid collaboration options. That is the key here. SharePoint measures up well to eRoom because they are both the same thing. They are Content Rich Applications that focus on Collaboration. They are not ECM solutions. eRoom admits it. SharePoint doesn’t.

SharePoint doesn’t appear to deliver on its promises with its out-of-the-box functionality. As was predicted and then observed, SharePoint requires multiple third party components and other customizations to achieve its true potential. The core problem that comes from this approach is managing components from multiple sources.

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What X-Hive Means to EMC’s Documentum

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Back on July 12, X-Hive was acquired by EMC. At the time, I did a quick glance and was a little confused. I started wondering why they made the acquisition. This was worrisome as I hadn’t had that thought in years about any acquisition in the ECM industry. Maybe the new leadership of the Documentum unit didn’t have the same touch as those recently departed. After all, Documentum has traditionally worked with XML better than any of their major competitors. Even after a few weeks, I wasn’t the only one trying to figure this out. This acquisition seemed to be either an admission of weakness or a purely anti-competitive play. Then I learned some more.

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Taxonomies, Good, Bad, or Ugly?

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Sumanth Molakala posted a great look at determining the amount of effort that should go into creating a taxonomy for a new Enterprise Content Management solution. This brings up a debate that I have had/observed among ECM professionals for years. Do we make Search the primary access method, or the second? I find that every professional has a leaning, and I have yet to find a solid predictor for any practitioners’ preference.

I prefer a good hierarchy, while Sumanth appears to favor searching. I find that the creation of a hierarchy helps me organize my thoughts and determine what is important about any given piece of content. Also, while Google may be trying to take the world over via the Internet, most users are more intimate with their old-fashioned network file structures. The ability to browse to a piece of content adds to user acceptance of their first Document Management application. Over time, many users transition into Search-first users. Until that happens and ECM becomes transparent, I believe that a good taxonomy is important.

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Comparing Features of SharePoint and eRoom

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I have had access to a SharePoint installation for some time. I had promised readers of Ask Johnny! that I would do a more thorough comparison of eRoom and SharePoint a while back. I’ve had a chance to play with it some in order to form an initial impression of its capabilities. What follows is a comparison of the out-of-the-box functionality of eRoom and SharePoint.

Disclaimers: I have been working with eRoom for years, so have a natural bias. I am also still learning SharePoint, so I am sure I’ve missed some things. My client environment is a fully patched IE 6 running on Windows XP Professional with Office 2003 Professional. I also only had administrator rights to my site, not the installation as a whole.

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Redefining Enterprise Content Management

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Several months ago, Russ Stalter posted on how he was Disillusioned with the Current Definition of ECM. Russ provides a new definition for ECM, which I believe is better, but still suffers some of the same deficiencies of the current definitions. Tower Software picked up on the thread, deriding the box-checking definitions out there.

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Single Sign-On, SAML, and Authentication in Documentum

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I’ve been meaning to get back to this topic for quite some time. Before moving onto other Standards topics, I want to try and conclude this thread on SAML. James and I traded responses about authentication and SAML, and I applaud James for taking time to look into the capabilities of the DFC to respond to my previous post. James did get several details of the DFC incorrect, but not regarding any points important to this discussion.

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A Timely Example of Needed ECM Standards

So the question has gone up repeatedly since this dialog began, what problems are we trying to solve? I’ve tried to explain this and I think I’ve been getting through. However, I still encounter pain in real life because of this. In fact, this just may be a punishment for raising such a ruckus.

Here is my most recent problem. A client has a legacy Records Management solution. It works well, though is a little dated. The client is now going to implement a Web Content Management solution. The approved web pages need to be automatically declared as a record. If these were the same ECM platform, there wouldn’t be any problem. However, they aren’t. In fact, one is Microsoft based and the other is Java based. Neither of them is Documentum, though that wouldn’t change the problem significantly.

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One Little, Two Little, Three Little Interfaces

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Several weeks ago, I promised a reader [EDIT: Read the comments here.] to discuss why I would think twice before adding a TaskSpace interface to a solution that already included an eRoom interface. Aside from the obvious that TaskSpace is a brand new interface and could most likely use service pack or two, I am always hesitant to provide too many interfaces into a solution. There are times for it, but it is important not to add them just because you can.

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ECM Standards, SAML, and the DFC

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Time for some more dialog with James McGovern. I love this kind of discussion because it raises awareness of the issues in the community. James replied to my last post on Standardizing Authentication. There is a problem with written communication sometimes. No matter how clearly you think you write or explain something, someone will always either misread, misunderstand, or misinterpret something. Before I get into that, two things first.

In another post, James says something nice about ECM. Understand that ECM provides value regardless of whether it has standards. Can you feel the love? He does qualify that he isn’t pleased with the vendors, but we now know how he really feels.

Second, I wanted to say that James is dead on with this statement regarding SAML and Documentum. The beautiful thing is that you shouldn’t have to learn how to write this type of thing as this should be out of the box. He is absolutely correct. I shouldn’t even need to think about how I would implement SAML in Documentum. That is EMC’s job. Now on to the rest of James’ response/analysis.

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