Building a Case Management Interface in Under 20 Minutes

A few weeks ago, we compared building a search interface using OpenContent Management Suite vs. Alfresco’s ADF framework.  In the post, we were able to configure a search interface in OCMS in less than 10 minutes.  For this post, we will look at building a Case Management interface in OCMS.

The OpenContent Management Suite takes a configuration approach to building a case management application.  The OpenContent Case module is configured in the administration components of OpenContent Admin using a GUI interface.  Here’s an example case management interface, taken from an insurance example, that can be configured in OCMS:

Within the OCMS Admin application, the primary application container where the case as well as documents are presented to the user is called the ‘Stage’.  Within the stage config, there are a number of areas that an administrator can configure order to build the case management interface:

• Stage Info – This module allows the administrator to choose a few properties to display in a prominent location for the current case or document being displayed.  Typically in a case management scenario, this section would display properties of the current case.
• Related Objects – Allows the administrator to display a list of related documents and folders.  This can be as simple as listing out documents in the case, or can be more complex and look up related cases or documents based on common metadata or a repository relationship.
• Folder Actions – Sets up which actions are available on the case folder.  Some examples are View/Edit Properties, Add Documents, Folder Notes, and Export Folder.
• Doc Viewer – Sets up the document viewer.  This includes which actual viewer to use (OpenAnnotate, PDF.js, etc) as well as sets up which document actions are available.

Since the above concepts can be difficult to envision, here’s a demo video that shows how to configure a case management interface in OCMS:

In utilizing the OpenContent Case application to build our case management interface, no development time is required.  Once OCMS is installed, a configuration-only approach is taken to build the interface.  If users want updates to the interface (add/remove actions, different metadata displayed, etc.) or new departments want to come online with new document types, no additional development is needed.  The application can be configured and updated with no downtime since no deployments are necessary to update and apply configurations.

Summary

OpenContent Management Suite is a configurable application that TSG has been improving over the years at many of our clients, incorporating best practices into the product as it has evolved.  By using OpenContent Admin, we can build and configure case management interfaces much more quickly vs. building code from scratch.  Additionally, changes to the configuration do not require server restarts or downtime for users.