From Functional Requirements to Tech Design

The most important part of designing a Documentum solution is to understand and translate the business and functional requirements into Documentum configurations and customizations. You have to create maps of all of the major components of requirements, matching each requirement to solution. You might use a traceability matrix or you might organize your specification similar to the functional requirements. It depends on the project scope and business expectations. My opinion is that if you need a traceability matrix the solution is too wide in scope or there are some trust issues with the business.

Document Types to Object Types

Scope of project phase
When reviewing the list of doc types in the functional specification do not take for granted that these are the final types of documents. A business analyst cares about capturing all of the possible documents, not necessary thinking about the scope of the project when he does so. Be sure to explicitly describe the scope of the project in your design. For example, the doc types may cover all content in the enterprise in order to create a comprehensive object model, however the scope of the current phase of the project may be a subset of those types. Do not over commit to the business what content will be covered in the first phase. When you demo the functionality, only show that phase’s content being imported and published. Try to reduce scope creep by repeating the project’s phase expectations and assuring that all content will eventually be brought into the system. This is a good opportunity to talk about a roadmap of the phases required to fully actualize the business’s total content management with Documentum.

Model review and rework
Roll up attributes as you work through each object type, finding commonalities across object types. Think about all the UI, TBO, ACL ramifications of your design. If the object model is huge, try to consolidate, look into using aspects as an alternative to many object types or many attributes.

Implementation design
Depending on the scope, you may be releasing the object types in phases. If this is the case, make sure the phase’s object types cover all of the document types, business processes and security requirements. You may want to prototype some of the object types and their relationships to importing and folder linking. For one-offs in a dev environment, Documentum Application Builder is the fast way to do this. For more methodical approaches, Composer is more portable and best practice going forward.

Metadata to Attributes

Match with OOTB attributes first
Don’t reinvent the wheel, search for a suitable existing attribute first then create a custom one. If there’s a requirement for a comments field, use the log_entry attribute. If there’s a status field, use the r_version_label.

Source of values

• Value assistance could be used for the easily maintained attribute values, which would be maintained using Doc App Builder or Composer. This uses docbasic.
• You could get a custom object to query for attribute values, which would be maintained by the business via the UI.
• You could query registered tables or views which could integrate with linked database tables
• You could read and parse a properties file maintained on the server.

UI constraints: repeating attribute, large text boxes
Think about how the users will react to the WDK repeating attribute dialog box. For large strings, you’ll have to put a text area in the forms.
Taxonomy to Folder Structure

Search ramifications
Giving context to search results is an important way to transfer knowledge. Repeating key attribute/value pairs (for searching) with folder hierarchy labels (for browsing) usually makes sense. If it doesn’t, maybe you are trying to put too much metadata on the object.

Simplify where ever possible
If you are going deeper than four levels, you better have a good reason. At a certain level there’s a “project” or “deal” or “product” level which repeats over time. This level should be closer to the top level, have some automated way to build new folders as new “projects” are added, and have an automated or easy way to archive, thus reducing the clutter of old content over time.

Business Process vs. share drive organization
Folder structure may be organized in many ways. A business process oriented structure may make more sense than strictly following the share drive approach of silos of data structured by business group. Avoid organizing content by date only. If there’s an end of quarter date use it, but don’t rely on it solely to find content.

Mix of common, evolved classification with more structured rules
Chances are good that you are moving from one established way of structuring content to another. Doing this right so the users know what they are doing in the new system without hours of training can be difficult, especially because the old way is usually not the best way. If the company is large, your headache is merging structures, if the company is small your headache is reorganizing silos of information. Sometimes both.

Modify according to folder/object type map
As the reality hits the road and you’re building folders and automating the linking of content to them, expect changes to the design, additions to the attributes needed, and delays to build and customize the right way.

Folder Structure mapping to Object Type plus Attributes

• Match Object Type and Attribute Key/Value pair Combinations to Folder paths
• Prototype the search and browse functionality
• Do subfolders follow the document templates?

Business Process to Workflow
This is where you’ll read the functional requirements of a process of getting content approved and have to figure out the specific activities involved for a workflow. Sometimes, Common business processes may not translate into a formal workflow. In this case, describe the steps of using the application and how the work can get done without a formal workflow. You’ll have to determine how to create decision point that splits the workflow if there’s a yes/no decision to be made. A common example of an auto-activity is the requirement to send a notification email with a link to the workflow’s package

Importing content
Check all assumptions involved with importing content into the system. It might be assumed that all content related to the first phase should somehow get into the system. The problem with this is that the contributors of the related content may not be ready to participate in the Documentum system. They may not be in the first phase.