Intelligent Enterprise

Open Text has introduced a content-management framework that's meant to span a large organization's many repositories and provide office workers with a way to add documents without leaving their familiar Microsoft Office applications.

The Open Text Content Services, unveiled this week at the vendor's LiveLinkUp user conference in Orlando, Fla., comprises three integrated components: Enterprise Connect, Enterprise Process Services and Enterprise Library Services.

The first is a new user interface that can be integrated into Microsoft Office, Explorer and Outlook to enable workers to file documents into the content management system directly from the applications employees are most familiar with. When filing a document, the system can be set up to offer simple prompts that staff can answer to tell the system how to route a form, spreadsheet, invoice, or any other content. In addition, Enterprise Connnect can be customized via a bundled software development kit.

Enterprise Process Services enable the execution of rules to establish workflow and business processes across document repositories either within one department or many. Finally, Enterprise Library Services is a single repository that acts as a content hub providing records and metadata management, and archival and search capabilities. Library Services can be integrated with Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server, SAP and Oracle applications, file systems and email.

Enterprise Connect will ship in December, with support for email systems and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2003 and 2007 in the second quarter of 2008. Enterprise Process Services will ship with business process capabilities for Open Text's Livelink ECM in the first quarter of 2008. Enterprise Library Services is scheduled to ship for Livelink in the second quarter of next year.