Trying to evaluate using Alfresco as a document portal

Question

following a suggestion in a previous question I asked i'm giving Alfresco a go. I think it will fit my needs but i've still got a few doubts...

I'm looking for a document portal such that users can't access other users' folders and for users not to have to install anything to view download their documents.

I think I may be able to do this in Alfresco by creating private sites for each set of customer's documents and only adding the users to their respective sites. Is this how the software was intended to be used or will I wind up with problems?

Thanks in advance, Rob

Answer 1

You approach - creating a private site and adding users to their respective sites - definitely works. Your users will not only get a document library with preview in the browser, but also all the other goodies that come with an Alfresco Share site e.g. a configurable dashboard with latest document updates etc.

In the document library, you can also set permissions on folders so you can organize access control for different users at this level as well.

If you're dealing with 100's of users / sites, a standard hosting server will do fine. If you're talking about 1000's of users / sites you will need more hardware to keep things fast.

Alfresco supports webdav, this is ideal to manage files remotely without using the web client.

Roeland