Technical Architecture
Key Features
Security
Documentum provides better security than a file system. With a file system, if someonehas access to your hard drive, they can pretty much read, edit, and even delete any file onthe hard drive. With Documentum, you can prevent any individual user (or group ofusers) from seeing the file. In fact you can give Joe access to read the file but not changeit while Bob can change it but not delete it, while Fred can’t even see that it exists.
Version Control
In Documentum, each time you make a change to a file, it gets saved as a new version ofthe file, and you can go back in time and access any old versions.Search EngineYou can search Documentum like you search the web by looking for a certain word orphrase in every file. But Documentum is even better than that. You can assign attributes(also called meta-data or properties) to the document. For example, you can specify adocument’s author, title, subject, and any number of keywords to describe it. You caneven make up special attributes – if the document is a report, you can put in the reportnumber or if the document is a letter, you could enter the date the letter was written. Thenif someone is looking for the file and they know the report number or the date the letterwas sent, they can bring it right up. Of course, you can do wild card searches and daterange searches (for example, give me all the letters written last month that have the wordcomputer in the subject).
Workflow
You can route documents around for approval inside the Documentum system. Each userhas his own inbox that shows all the files that he needs to look at. You can approve thefile or reject it, and you can have a whole approval process where it goes to your bossfirst and then to his boss, etc. It’s kind of like email, but it’s more automated and it keepstrack of everybody’s comments and who approved it when.
Access Control Lists (ACLs)
Access Control Lists (ACLs) are Documentum’s method of restricting access toimportant documents. ACLs control Documentum’s security layer, one of the mostflexible and powerful security schemes around.
Major Benefitsof Documentum ACLs are:
• You can assign seven different levels of access to your documents (None, Browse, Read, Relate, Version, Writeand Delete)
• You can assign access to individual users or to groups of users
• Users can create their own private ACLs that only they can use
• System Administrator can create System-Wide ACLs that can be used by everyone
• Extended Permissions let you really tweak what a user can do to an object
Lifecycles
A lifecycle in Documentum defines a chain of states that a document can pass throughduring its lifetime. Each state has a name, like “Draft”, and can be configured to performcertain actions as documents enter or leave it. Lifecycles can be built, maintained, andpackaged for deployment using Documentum Developer Studio. Lifecycles should not beconfused with workflows which route tasks among users and are built usingProcess Builder (previously was built using Documentum Workflow Manager)
Virtual Document
A virtual document is a document that contains components or children documents. Avirtual document is similar to a folder. When you open a folder, you see the objects insidethat folder. When you open a virtual document, you see the objects inside that virtualdocument. The main differences between a folder and a virtual document are that avirtual document can have content (a folder cannot), and a virtual document can beversioned-version 1.0 can have three children while version 1.1 can have five childrenand version 2.0 has no children at all (in which case it is just a normal document).
Full Text Engine
Full Text Engine is a powerful search tool embedded within Documentum’s ContentServer. It enables a user to search both attributes and content stored within the Docbasewithout leaving the Documentum environment. Using the full-text search a user canperform a comprehensive search of both attributes and content through the execution of asingle query.