This chapter provides a general introduction to Oracle WebCenter Content and describes some of the many benefits to your organization WebCenter Content provides.
This chapter includes the following topics:
This guide details how to use Oracle WebCenter Content. It is divided into the following parts:
Part I provides overview information about Oracle WebCenter Content and content management and includes concepts common to all ways of working with WebCenter Content. Part II provides information about accessing Oracle WebCenter Content from a web interface and through your desktop applications.
The information contained in this document is subject to change as the product technology evolves and as hardware, operating systems, and third-party software are created and modified. Due to the technical nature of browsers, databases, web servers, and operating systems, Oracle cannot warrant compatibility with all versions and features of third-party products.
Oracle WebCenter Content manages information you use every day, found in e-mails, reports, memos, slide presentations, and more. Oracle WebCenter Content stores it, organizes it, and secures it so that only the people needing the information have access to it. And most importantly, it helps you find it quickly when you need it and view it through a standard web browser, even if you do not have the software that created the document.
Communication fuels organizations and helps them effectively coordinate and execute everything from global business plans to personal task lists. Necessary information in today's organizations is captured in office documents, personal e-mail, memos, video conferences, and a variety of other types of unstructured content. Left unmanaged, critical information is lost, business processes become strained, the right people don't have the right access to documents, and you make poor decisions based on inaccurate and outdated information. Oracle WebCenter Content lets you find critical information in a comfortable environment, with applications you already use every day.
You can contribute documents using a standard web browser, but also through Windows Explorer and familiar desktop applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. You can route a critical contract through a workflow, allow others to see the latest design specifications, or upload a training video for your team. Oracle WebCenter Content brings you the ability to find and view content in a variety of ways using Windows Explorer, or your favorite web browser.
How many hours have you spent trying to find one critical bit of information about a project, customer, or legal challenge? Was it in an e-mail? Did you see it in a slide presentation? Oracle WebCenter Content brings a powerful way of searching to help you retrieve the information you need quickly.
With the increase of documentation-intense compliance mandates, the need to store and retrieve compliance evidence has also increased. Using Oracle WebCenter Content records management capabilities enables you to manage records and retention policies and easily retrieve the information, saving you time and reducing your risk.
If your content management needs extend into rich media industries such as advertising, distance learning, web development, or other line of business requiring use of images and video, Oracle WebCenter Content allows you to manage such digital assets simply and effectively. Store high-resolution source videos on one server while resized conversions are served out of a separate streaming server. Or group advertising collateral for a catalog in a folio, route it through a workflow, then zip it into a compressed file for distribution to a vendor. All these options are possible with Oracle WebCenter Content.
Oracle WebCenter Content provides an automated system for sharing, managing, and distributing business information. This information can be in documents or some other type of content, and in this guide the terms document, content, and file are often used interchangeably. In some cases, for example if image conversion is enabled, multiple files may be managed together as one document. Whatever term is used, the information is being stored electronically and is managed as a single item. Oracle WebCenter Content manages the item by providing a means for you to find the information you are looking for while controlling access to the document so that only authorized people can use it.
You can access current information quickly and securely from any standard web browser. You can manage virtually any type of content, including letters, reports, engineering drawings, spreadsheets, manuals, sales literature, and more, in one powerful content management system.
For typical business document management, managing videos, images, or records, Oracle WebCenter Content provides a fully featured and familiar user experience. In addition to accessing your content through a web browser, Oracle WebCenter Content provides several alternatives for those who want an experience more integrated with their office applications, as Desktop and WebDAV interfaces allow you to perform primary content management actions from your desktop using folders and files to represent documents.
The following terms are used throughout this guide and are useful to understand their definitions.
Folders in Oracle WebCenter Content are used to organize documents so that you can find them quickly by browsing the folder structure. There are two main types of folders in Oracle WebCenter Content:
Traditional folders, which are are similar to folders you use to organize your files in your computer file system
Query folders, or saved searches, which are collections of documents based on search criteria you have saved.
Traditional folders in Oracle WebCenter Content are like folders on your computer with one important distinction: they have metadata associated with them and can automatically assign (propagate) folder metadata to the documents organized in them. Propagating folder metadata saves you time, allowing you to upload documents to a folder and know that it is secure and easily found without having to manually assign security and other metadata.
Query folders aren't actually folders in the traditional sense, but rather they are search criteria that you have saved that is executed when you click on the query folder. They give you the experience of browsing through a file system while in reality searching for content using metadata. For example, a query folder can be created titled Today's Documents that when clicked displays all documents checked in today. The contents change every day without people having to upload documents to a specific folder, because clicking the folder tells Oracle WebCenter Content to find all documents uploaded on the current day and display them in a list.
You can create shortcuts to any item (folder or document) to which you have access in Oracle WebCenter Content. A shortcut points to an item, allowing you a way to quickly organize how you access items pertinent to you. For example, you may work on several projects, each requiring a specification document, and each specification document is stored in the associated project folder. You can create a folder containing shortcuts to each specification document. So instead of having to search through multiple project folders to find the documents you want, you can click on your personal folder and have shortcuts to all specification documents listed there for quick, convenient access.
You can search for a document by its metadata, by full-text, or by a combination of the two. Only the documents you have permission to view are displayed in the search results.
You can specify search terms for one or more metadata fields. Depending on how your system is configured, you can use search operators that specify if the search term is a whole word or part of a word, or if it appears at the start or the end of the field. You can also use wildcard characters to match one more characters in a search term.
To simplify or customize the search form, an administrator can create one or more metadata profiles that specify the metadata fields that are included on the form.
With the Quick Search function, you can search at any time from the home page. You can specify a search term for a selected field or for all supported fields. If your system is configured for full-text search, Quick Search also searches for the search term in the text of documents.
If Oracle WebCenter Content is configured to manage digital assets such as images or videos, you can quickly find, group, convert, and download images and videos of various sizes, formats, and resolutions to meet your business needs. This helps maintain a consistency of use across your organization. For example, an organization's logo can be available in a variety of sizes for advertisements, web pages, and presentation, or a company training video can be available in a variety of formats for streaming on an intranet, presenting to an audience, or copying to tape.
Oracle also offers Oracle WebCenter Content: Desktop, which can enhance the WebDAV client environment by more closely integrating with Windows Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, and other applications. For more information, see Chapter 17.
A folio is a logical grouping or framework to organize content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content. Folios are useful when you want to organize groups of documents, such as contracts or sales information, that include some common components and some unique components, and assemble them in a standardized sequence and hierarchy. Folios are also useful when you want to create and review a group of documents as part of one or more workflow processes.
With a simple folio, you collect one or more items in a single level. With an advanced folio, you can organize content in a hierarchy of folders.
An advanced folio can contain folders, called nodes, placeholders for content, called slots, and documents. These elements are displayed by default in a hierarchical structure, similar to a standard file system.
The workflow process routes a file for review and approval before it is released to the Oracle WebCenter Content repository. Users are notified by e-mail when they have a file to review.
You can optionally sign and approve a file with an electronic signature which uniquely identifies the contents of the file at a particular revision and associates the signature with a particular reviewer.
You can create two types of workflows in Oracle WebCenter Content:
In a criteria workflow, files automatically go into a workflow if the values entered in the metadata fields upon check-in meet certain criteria. Criteria workflows are useful for individual documents that are approved by the same reviewers on a regular basis (newsletter articles, for example).
In a basic workflow, files are specifically identified in the workflow, along with the contributors, reviewers, and steps. This type of workflow requires an administrator to initiate the process, and is best suited for groups of documents that go through a workflow or individual documents with unique workflow requirements.
Managing your documents has several common factors:
Logging in to gain access to your documents
Finding the documents you need
Viewing documents and their properties
Uploading documents you want managed
Downloading documents you need
Organizing documents in useful ways
Sharing documents with others through workflows