How do I create folder templates in 22.3? Business Workspaces vs Folder Templates, when to use

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

We are in the process of deprecating the Template Workspaces module. We have several binders, cases and folder templates. Where can I find general information on how each type should be used? I cannot seem to get my current folder templates to work with business workspaces. They may have been built on the TW module, but I do not know how to tell. I'd like to create new ones to replace the old, but have not found a way to do this. Also, is nesting Business Workspaces best practice? Trying to figure out our options. Any documentation, resources, or information you have would be helpful.

appuq

The simplest implementation is "Connected Workspaces" If you look at its setup documentation you will see that you need

1. Classification a.k.a Document Type (real-life examples Invoice,PO, Patient Record). You cannot do a Workspace without that.
2. Categories a.k.a User Defined Metadata. It is important in the context of finding things. Think of it as "tagged Information".You can also use this to create objects based on their names (real-life examples Folder for user John Doe (SSN:1234 ). So in a manual use case, you would force the user entering this to part with that information and when CS creates it it refers back to the naming rules and creates this container.
3. A place where it can be created like a Folder . This is what you are doing when you create a Workspace Types Object. the Workspace object you make will tie to a category so you can make Dynamic names. This is the Object that you can configure to make "hierarchical" objects as well
4. Visual representation of this Object. You interview your business/functional user and you ask them what ll should they see. Typical examples (Photos, Patient Lab Results).Just a collection of high-level folders that people like. This is what you do in the area of Content Server Document Templates
5. This is the minimum for "Connected".If you have a leading application like (Maximo, SAP, etc) that can provide the information a manual user is doing then this suddenly becomes an "Extended ECM Implementation"

Extended ECM is a product that OT has continuously revised based on industry best practices/requirements for 20 years. During this process, they have introduced many things that would qualify a product to be compliant. You might need to read up on those specifics

In this https://webapp.opentext.com/piroot/eep/v240100/eep-cgi/en/html/_manual.htm

I would concentrate on the Concepts Chapter and leave everything if you are not a CS or leading app developer/technical resource

There may be a better PDF that explains "Connected Workspaces".AFAIK OT has created some utilities that help move things in older code into new code at the end your TW objects have unique representations of DataIDs which can be moved into new "Connected Workspace" implementations using simple tools like WR, OI, and so on.

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

This is all very confusing. Are "Connected Workspaces" and "Business Workspaces" the same thing? We are on Content Server/ECM version 22.3 and our menu item "Document Templates" came from adding Template Workspaces years ago. In version 24.2 is Document Templates and Business Workspaces both available under the Enterprise function menu. If so, is there where the folder templates are created? I do no see an option under the Business Workspaces menu item.

appuq

"Connected Workspaces" are the framework for "Business Workspaces". In other words if you do not have a leading application and you expect "humans" to do the work of Creating, Classifying, Tagging then that is an implementation of "CW"

in my 23.4 XECM version as of some model year OT stopped supporting many old products and is built on a single software so my guess is 22.3 is one in that iteration.

In any case if you have access to your CS if you go to Document Templates Administration you get two things .Configure Content Server Document Templates is the Document Type setter, think of it as if the Folder has the same Classification as the Document Template , then Add Item will offer that.

The second one is where you create Templates called

What we all do is we will create a Business Workspace, then add Folders inside it

There is an old offering called "Item Templates" since you are already confused I won't go into that.

My XECM Menu looks like this I will use this only if I have a Leading app to be added

Otherwise my main area of work is here

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

Ok, I'm getting the picture now. Another question… I currently have some folder templates that are heavily used. Inside of them our users add binders and cases. We are moving away from the binders and cases as they are deprecated. Can I replace the binders and cases within the folder templates with a Business Workspace template? Is there any hierarchal structure that would prevent this? For example - can I have a folder template that includes 6 folders and a Business Workspace, and within that BW another BW template nested that a user can add?

appuq

You may want to read up on three important terms in Extended ECM, Hierarchical workspaces, Cross Application WS & Composite workspaces. These are possible but take more functional planning and I generally advise only if you see the state objectives for that.

In short, an Instance of a Connected workspace(What I mean is someone had done the whole 9 yards of setting up that) can be a Container of Other workspaces or folders.

I am unable to vision the actual requirement and generally would probably need to understand the full requirements. It might be best to employ OT Professional Services($$$) and have them model your application

BTW I encourage you to try modelling it yourself. There is no right or wrong way in this. You can fail and learn from your mistakes . What I do is ask people for what makes sense in their XECM view of the actual end users, Most of them will be cool saying would like to see 20 different folders. In actuality, after a year you will be presented with a million objects and subfolders with no items. These are just dataids in CS that will take a lot of computing to maintain. When possible try to find objects by advanced search by use of categories & classifications

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

Currently we have a top level FOLDER with more folders and a BINDER under it, within that BINDER, we have CASES. We are looking to replace the binder and cases with business workspaces, the top level staying a folder structure (custom code to create this structure due to unique permissions). In this instance, should the binder and cases both be replaced with a business workspace? I will read up on the topics you mentioned. Future proposed structure - Top level Folder\folders and 1 BW (the BW being nothing more than the named container with more BWs under it) \BW (with actual tax year data within each). Should we be using a BW to replace both the Tax Returns Binder and the Tax Year Cases?

Jaco Conradie

Hi Angela,

I don't see why Tax Returns needs to be a BW. It's not as if you are going to create more Tax Returns folders. The individual years, e.g. Tax Year 2023 can be a BW.

I do however understand that there can be a requirement where a BW needs to be in a BW.

For e.g, we had a client that made a Project BW with a host of folders as a structure, and inside , one of the sub folders needed to be Meetings that had its own structure (Agenda/suppl docs, comms etc) They wanted this to be a BW to make each Meeting conform to the structure.

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

You make a very good point. Currently our Tax Returns are Binders and I believe we have to migrate to a BW. Is there a way to migrate to a folder?

PJ Hermans

I have no experience with folder templates that contain binders/cases/workspaces. I'd first set up a trial for that (with business workspaces) on a test environment.

I can think of one reason to keep the older binder in the folder template after it has been converted to the new type: you may want to keep it if you have specific roles/permissions that you wish to maintain on that level for all subworkspaces (like 'tax returns members').

After conversion, in the existing folders the old binder will remain a workspace, but it will have changed to subtype 848.

As a side note I'd like to advise you to test the conversion of your binders/cases well.
We're also still converting and the main problem is that some binders/cases refuse to be converted while for most it is no problem at all.

We have encountered two specific issues, both of which could be fixed with database updates provided by our implementation partner:

1. items in the recycle bin that were deleted before the conversion, cannot be restored
2. shortcuts that refer to items within the converted workspaces, stop functioning

Angela_Morehouse-Brown

@PJ Hermans Thank you very much for the info and your lessons learned. We do use shortcuts in some places so we will definitely add this testing to our task list. Good to know about some stubborn ones not converting. I think we'll build a few queries to verify if we have any issues with the conversion of subtypes. Thanks again.