The seminar causes a revolution of the way people work with document. Before this revolution, people think working with documents means working with only one word processor. However, new web technologies make web powerful enough to simulate an operating system and even a word processor. People no longer need to work with a specific word processor. Using the proposed enterprise content system, users can work with any document anywhere.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION
The project causes a revolution of the way people work with document. Before this revolution, people think working with document means working with only word processor. However, new web technologies make web powerful enough to simulate an operating system and even a word processor. People no longer need to work with a specific word processor. Using the proposed Enterprise Content System, users can work with any document anywhere.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
A document here is considered as a computer electronic document, not the paper document. The process of manipulating a document normally involves 4 unique stages: Create, View, Edit and Save. The last three stages usually tend to be repeated. Therefore, the process can be generalized to a process that firstly a document is created and then it might be edited, read or saved for numerous times. If a document is published, View would be the most frequent action performed on a document.
To perform these stages, a working environment called Word Processor is normally required. The most frequently used word processors on the market are Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, AppleWorks. Many concepts and ideas are originated from “Bravo” which is the world first “WYSIWYG document preparation program” in 1974. It provided multi-font capability using the bitmap displays on the Xerox Alto personal computer (Bulter, 1979). These features served as the basic idea of WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get). WYSIWYG is to make the user to be able to visualize what they are doing. In other word, an instant change of display will be given in response to a user action. The WYSIWYG is the most important feature of contemporary word processor. Such word-processor is composed of document editor and document management system. View and Edit can be done using the document editor; Create and Save can be done with the document management system which cooperates with the file system. A problem emerged with the diversity of different word-processors: Cross-Platform. The document type of Microsoft Word does not work cross platform. However, Microsoft promises to bring “save as pdf” feature in Office 2005, which allows user to read document on the other operating system. At time of writing, its competitor OpenOffice can run on all major platforms, including Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux ("Linux"), Sun Solaris, Mac OS X (under X11), and FreeBSD.(OpenOffice,2005) Additionally, there are many tools to help cross-platform view/editing. In general, the cross-platform problem is partly solved or compromised on the premise of having a kind of working environment installed.
A broader problem is generated with this solution or this problem exists all through: what if a specific word-processor is not installed? Not having support for a particular document type is frequently encountered. It results in inaccessible document and no work can be done until word processor software installed, providing it is possible to be installed. The software cannot be installed if no software is available or the system environment does not allow the installation. By installing a number of software, users can finally hand on the work, but this is a waste of time and IT resource as stated following.
Waste of IT resource means the cost to manage these programs. Management generally means customization, upgrade, configuration and security. As every computer in an organization has to be installed a copy of the word processor, to maintain these copies are usually a complex task. In order to save the cost and effort, the document processor needs to be centralized. This means no software installed on the client side; all document processing are executed on the server side. How the centralization can be achieved? A client that needs less maintenance is required and it must be widely available. The suitable candidate is an editor in web browser. An alternative to word processors is the WYSIWYG HTML editor.
HTML and JavaScript is a built-in feature of every browser. Since Internet Explorer 5, a new command ‘object.execCommand’ has been introduced. This makes it possible to simulate a basic WYSWYG document editor. There are more than 80 html editors on the market, some are open source. (Paul Browning, 2005) They are all based on JavaScript and some of them are cross-browser. Cross-browser generally means they can work with different explorers on various platforms. The browsers of the measurement are Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Netscape. Cross-browser is always a problem to WYSIWYG HTML Editor. As different browsers will render the same markup differently, which means the same code sometimes can have different effect cross browsers. Moreover, the browser updates quite frequently, and the code might be rendered differently across different version. Finally user setting is also a problem. User setting includes font-size, resolution, contrast etc. All developer can do is to suggest user an appearance.
Content Management System is for both document management and document editing in contrast to WYSIWYG HTML editor which only has document editing function. Content Management System is mostly used to manage the content of a website. (James Robertson, 2003) It can dramatically reduce the turnaround time of new content for a business. It usually includes the WYSIWYG HTML Editor as part of the system. The shortage of content management is a document processing system. Most content management system can only edit html or plain text, which does not satisfy the requirement of support for advanced document type like Microsoft Word.
Another document editor is the Writely. According to official website of Writely, “Writely allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish and blog them online.” And it is recently becomes part of Google. The features of the system are listed below:

• Upload document or create new document online.
• Edit document with simple WYSIWYG Html Editor
• Share the document with other people
• Post the document to blog.

Its major disadvantages include:

• Lose Format Information.
• No file system.
• No powerful user system.
• No folder/multiple share access granted.

In the proposed project, the advantages of these systems stated above will be unified, and some of the weaknesses will be improved. A word-processor is the one with most document manipulation functions among these systems, so the main idea will be simulating a word-processor function using Client/Server structure. The whole system will be more or less similar to a content management system which has a C/S infrastructure but document processing units are added to support different document type. On the Client Side, a WYSWYG HTML Editor will be used to perform the editing function. On the Server side, a document processing unit is employed to convert the HTML Code to the targeted document encoding or the other way around. The idea and technologies will be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
To build a platform independent Enterprise Content Management system that will integrate Microsoft office word and excel, store, retrieve, distribute and index (track) electronic documents for auditing and security purposes.
The existing systems used in documents management are inefficient because of certain limitations. The Word-Processor is platform dependent which restricts its usage to certain specified computers. It is not available all the time and needs to be centralized. WYSWYG HTML Editor is browser dependent as it works well in some browsers not in all. Content Management Systems share most of the weaknesses of WYSWYG HTML Editor and are used just for HTML files and plain text. The Writely Editor loses its file format information and does not have folder/multiple share access granted to users.
The proposed Enterprise Content Management System will be used to extend the functionalities of the existing systems (i.e. editors) and overcome the above highlighted weaknesses of the current systems. The development of this system will be achieved using Alfresco Technologies which will be customized to meet these needs. The Alfresco leverages the advantages of programming languages like java, Javascripts, Ajax, HTML and other technologies such as Apache Tomcat to define its server structures.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
General Objective:
To design and implement an Enterprise Content System to simulate an operating system and Microsoft Office processors providing Document Management, Collaboration, Records Management, Knowledge Management, Web Content Management and Imaging using Alfresco Technologies.

Specific Objectives:

• To develop an Enterprise Content System that gives you the ability to define an unlimited number of approval processes.
• To develop an Enterprise Content System that is a paperless alternative with the web browser interface that allows instant access to documents from any location, worldwide, via the Internet.
• To develop an Enterprise Content System that allows you to quickly create sophisticated document workflows that structure tasks and automate work procedures.
• To integrate Enterprise Content System with Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, and 2010.
• To develop an Enterprise Content System that keeps your information secure, requiring user authentication with encrypted, one-way password verification.
• To integrate document search that is a core component of Enterprise Content System.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The design and implementation of Enterprise Content Management system will focus mainly on the customization of Alfresco Enterprise Content Management System to suit a given tertiary institution integrating all its workflow processes.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The proposed system is expected to revolute the way of document processing. It will bring benefits to the final user.
From the user perspective:
Edit document independently, more flexible
“Independently” here means being free from the influence, guidance, or control of the working environment. The only requirements are a connection to the server (internet), and a web browser. No download, no installation and no manual configuration.
All document types in one editor, easier to use
The proposed system will aim to provide platform to support all document type. User can edit all document type in one system in the same way. In contrast, OpenOffice and Microsoft Word work in different way, and user need to be trained to use both systems.
No software installation, more efficient, more secure
From the user’s perspective, this means the user can get their hands on the document much quicker. User can start working with the document when sitting in front of any computer, and do not have to worry about the working environment. In addition, this system consumes less resource of the client computer. Microsoft Word typically uses memory over 30MB. (Gsurface, 2004) A web browser typically uses memory below 20 MB or even less. Besides, almost all security issues for client side are also solved by this approach. Because all operations are executed with browser with nothing installed, no information except cookie and cache can be written to the client hard disk by JavaScript in principle. Most of the security concerns like virus or spyware cannot work even it are unknown. For example, a document contains a virus, which will function when user open the document. By using the system, firstly the virus can be possibly killed by the antivirus firewall on the server; even if the virus is unknown and it is not killed by the server, it still cannot function because every document has to be rendered to HTML in this system. User actually open the HTML file, not the original file.

From the administrator’s perspective
Portability, suit the current infrastructure
To install the proposed system, no change need to be made on the current infrastructure, the system will suit most infrastructures automatically. The system will run on a number of major operating system and architectures, including Windows and Linux.
Maintenance cost reduced
In the proposed system, software will only be installed on the central server, and nothing needs to be installed on the client side. In contrast, traditional word processor will require user to install a single copy on every client. To maintain these single copies can be a complex task. In the proposed system, most maintenance work can be done one time on server side. A considerable amount of cost can be saved by working with server side only.
Customizable
With a user system and a file system that are both a simulation of traditional operational system, and a plug-in based document processing system, administrators can build a specific system for their own requirements.

1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
In spite of the care taken in conducing this research, there are still some constrains that confronted the researcher in the course of the study.
They include:
SHORTAGE OF FINANCE: Owing to the limited fund at the student’s disposal, the researcher point out the above outline as one of the limiting factor to this project work.
TIME CONSTRAINT: The time allowed for the research work is limited and therefore do not permit the researcher to elaborate more on the work.
DATE OF INFORMATION: Most of the information available to the researcher have been outdated and current once are not easily obtained, therefore the researcher sees it as a constrains to this project work.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TECHNICAL TERMS
WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get):
HTML (HyperText Markup Language):
JavaScript: This is a client-side scripting language
Writely: A document editor that allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish and blog them online. And it is recently becomes part of Google.