Fishbowl Solutions recently held a webinar about our newest product, ControlCenter for Oracle WebCenter Content. Product manager Kim Negaard discussed ControlCenter’s unique features and advantages for controlled document management. If you missed the webinar, you can now view it on YouTube:
Below is a summary of questions Kim answered during the webinar. If you have any unanswered questions, or would just like to learn more, feel free to contact Fishbowl by emailing [email protected].
Is this a custom component that I can apply to current documents and workflow processes, or are there additional customization that needs to be done?
ControlCenter is installed as a custom component and will work with current documents. You can identify which document types and workflows you want to be able to access through ControlCenter and additional customizations are not necessary.
Does the metadata sync with the header information in both Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF documents?
The metadata synchronization works with PDF and Word documents.
Do you need to have a specific template in order to synchronize?
Not really. There’s two ways you can insert metadata into a document:
- You can use the header or footer area and replace anything existing in the current header with a standard header.
- You can use properties fields: for example, anytime the Microsoft Office properties field “document ID” occurs in a document, the dDoc name value could be inserted into that field.
In either of these cases, the formatting standards wouldn’t be rigid, but you would ideally want to know before rolling this out which approach you’d like to take.
What version of WebCenter do you need for this?
This is supported on WebCenter Content version 11.1.8 or above.
Is it completely built on component architecture as a custom component?
Yes.
Does ControlCenter require the Site Studio component to be enabled in order to work?
No, Site Studio doesn’t have to be enabled.
Does ControlCenter require Records Management to be installed on top of WCC?
No.
Does the custom component require additional metadata specific to ControlCenter?
Not exactly. We’ve made it pretty flexible; for example, with the scheduled reviews, we don’t force you to create a field called “review date”. We allow you to pick any date field you want to use for the scheduled reviews, so that if you already have something in place you could use it.
Where do you put ControlCenter if you don’t already have an existing server?
You do need to have an Oracle WebCenter Content server to run ControlCenter. If you don’t have a server, you’ll need to purchase a license for WebCenter Content. However, you don’t need any additional servers besides your WebCenter Content server.
Does the notification have to go to a specific author, or could you send it to a group or list in case that author is no longer with the organization?
The notification system is very flexible in terms of who you can send documents to. You can send it to a group, like an entire department or group of team leads, or it can be configured to send to just one person, like the document author or owner.
How does this work with profiles?
ControlCenter fully supports profiles. When you view content information for a document, it will display the metadata using the profile. If you check in a document using a check-in profile, then all of the metadata and values from that profile will be respected and enforced within ControlCenter. I should also mention that ControlCenter does support DCLs, so if you’re using DCLs those will be respected, both from a check in perspective but also in the metadata on the left. So as you are creating a browse navigation in ControlCenter, it will recognize your DCLs and allow you to filter with the proper relationships.
Does it integrate with or support OID (Oracle Internet Directory)/OAM (Oracle Access Manager)?
ControlCenter will use whatever authentication configuration you already have set up. So if you’re using OAM with WebCenter Content, then that’s what ControlCenter will use as well.
Does it support any custom metadata that has already been created?
Yes, if you have custom metadata fields that are already created, any of those can be exposed in ControlCenter.
Does it support any other customizations that have already been defined in the WebCenter Content instance?
It will depend on the nature of the customization. In general, if you have customized the WebCenter UI, those customizations would not show up in ControlCenter because ControlCenter has a separate UI; however, customizations on the back end, like workflow or security, would likely carry over into ControlCenter.
Does ControlCenter integrate with URM?
The ControlCenter interface isn’t specifically integrated with URM.
In case of a cluster environment, does ControlCenter need to be installed on both WebCenter Content servers?
Yes, if you have a clustered WebCenter Content environment, you would need to install ControlCenter on both/all nodes of the clustered environment.
Does it change anything within core WebCenter?
Not really. The only change to the core UI is an additional button in the Browse Content menu that will take you to the ControlCenter interface. But other than that, ControlCenter doesn’t change or prevent you from using the regular Content Server interface.
Can you customize the look and feel (icons, colors, etc.)?
Yes. We will work with you to customize the look and feel, widgets, etc. The architecture that we used when we created this supports customization.
