Managing Documents with Epiware

It's a document management software for enterprises which also lets you manage tasks and prepare Gantt chart, for the same

Friday, October 03, 2008

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As the number of documents increases in an organization, managing them becomes important to ensure ease of timely retrieval. Hence, keeping documents at a central location in an organized way forms the primary job for any enterprise.

Epiware is a software that can manage all your documents from a single Web interface. It allows you to keep track of different versions of files, create logs, i.e. who accessed the file and when, and also allows you to categorize the file. Apart from document management, Epiware also serves as work flow management for your enterprise. You can assign tasks, attach date, and finally a Gantt chart is automatically generated which helps you in tracking the tasks. You can also manage news feeds; create forums, event and so on.

Installation of this application is wizard driven which is why the deployment is easy. You just need to modify little bit of the configuration file and create a database for Epiware. Download the application from www.epiware.com, unzip and place it on your Web server root directory. Open up the config.inc.php file and find the following lines:

Apart from document management, Epiware provides you the option of managing tasks such as, assign tasks, status tasks, etc.

define("DB_NAME","project_db");
define("USERNAME","epi_user"); // user name to connect to project_db
define("PASSWORD","temp_password"); // password for the user name
define("IP_ADDRESS","localhost");

Now replace “DB_NAME” with the database name, similarly replace USERNAME, PASSWORD and IPADDRESS with database username, password and the IP address of the machine, where database server is running. Before starting the wizard, you have to create database for Epiware. There is a SQL script named “project_db.sql” inside the EPI directory. Navigate to the EPI directory, copy the SQL file to the machine -where database server is running and run the following command:

With the help of 'Watch' option, you can easily keep track of selected files withing your document repository.

# mysql -u root -p < project_db

After the database is created, run the 'install' script which is inside the EPIWARE directory. This will create two different directories which will be required to store file by Epiware. For executing the script, do the following where the Epiware server is running.

# ./install

Next, open up Internet Explorer, type out the IP of the machine where EPIWARE applications is running, and follow the onscreen wizard, your installation is complete and the machine is ready to work.

Managing users
For creating a new user, login to the Epiware server from administrator account and then click on 'member' tab. Now click on the 'Add Member' link, which will open up a page to search users. This is to make sure that no such user exists. Type the user name in the 'search user' text field and click on 'search user' button. It will prompt you that the following user is not in the user database.To add the user; click on 'continue' and fill up the necessary details of the new user and click on 'save'.

Once the tasks are assigned to your employees, Epiware automatically generates a Gantt chart to give you a better view.

For editing the user details or for deactivating/deleting, navigate to the 'Member' tab and click on the 'edit' link along side of the user row.

Managing document
Document management refers not only to creating or deleting the documents but also their monitoring and versioning. Let's starts with basics i.e. uploading the document to the online document repository 'EPIWARE'. For this, navigate to the 'Library' tab, and select 'shared drive' on the left hand panel. Create a directory on the shared, as it will help in keeping the documents organized. For creating directory, click on the drop down button and then click on 'New Folder'. Provide a name for the directory and then assign users with necessary rights who will be allowed to access the folder. Select the newly created folder, click on the drop down button and then click on 'upload'. Now click on 'choose file' and then browse to the file you want to upload. Select the file and click on 'open' to attach the file for upload. You can provide information about the file that is being uploaded such as, author, description, date created, etc and save. It can automatically send email notification to specific users or group after the file is uploaded. It also offers mass uploading, where you only need to specify the folder and all the files inside will be uploaded.

Deleting the file is an easy task, just click on the drop down button and then click on 'Delete'. It will then ask for the confirmation for deleting the file. Click on 'Ok' and the file is deleted.

You can view the access log of the file, as to who has downloaded/edited/deleted the file. It also allows you to download or keep track of multiple versions of a file. For this, select the file, click on the drop down button and then click on 'version/history'. You can also set policy, such as whenever a particular file is changed a notification is sent to you. It also allows you to comment upon a file.

Assigning tasks
As we told you earlier, Epiware also helps in workflow management, where you can manage tasks and events. Let's now see how you can create different tasks and assign them to someone with a due date. For this, go to 'My Desktop' and click on 'Tasks' link. This will open a page where you can assign the task. For creating new task, click on 'Add new task', then specify the date when the task is assigned, due date, priority, reference, status, assigned by and assigned to. After entering the following details, click on 'Save'. If you want to send a copy of task assigned to the assignee, then check 'Send a copy to the task to assignee' checkbox, and if you want to notify the status, then check 'send me a status when completed' checkbox.

For deleting the task, navigate to the Resource > Action Items, select the task you want to delete and click on 'delete' for deleting the task.

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