The OpenEngagement Document Management System (DMS) is a component of the OpenEngagement Content Management System (CMS), which also includes the Knowledge Management System (KMS) and is scheduled to also include a Shared File Space (SFS) and Web Builder System (WBS).

The OpenEngagement DMS is a complete DMS specifically designed for CaseWare Working Papers users. The Open Engagement DMS provides a central location for storing, querying and managing Working Papers client files, as well as other relevant documents related to a firm's clients (documents not related to any given client would more likely be stored in the KMS), along with a powerful and easy to use interface. The OpenEngagement DMS may be accessed through a web browser or directly through Working Papers.

The OpenEngagement DMS is also useful as a general-purpose DMS, and so is useful even without Working Papers. It is, however, designed to handle active and archived engagements and is very powerful when used in combination with Working Papers.

The OpenEngagement DMS may be used in one of two distinct manners, as a Hosted or a Local Solution. With Hosted Solutions, the OpenEngagement DMS server is hosted by OpenEngagement. Local Solutions allow users to download and install the OpenEngagement CMS, hosting the server themselves. In both cases, users access the DMS through web browsers and through Working Papers. Hosted Solutions are easiest for firms to use, requiring little setup and less maintenance than Local Solutions.  Local Solutions are also quite straightforward to setup, and new users may be up and running almost immediately. Both solutions allow for full support from OpenEngagement. 

The primary decision for OpenEngagement DMS users is choosing between using a Hosted or a Local Solution. This documentation will cover both systems, but some sections apply only to one or the other.

With a Hosted Solution, OpenEngagement provides an OpenEngagement DMS instance on one of its servers. With the Local Solution, firms will download the OpenEngagement DMS installer and install it on one or more servers within their organization. They may install the OpenEngagement DMS inside or outside a firewall, as they see appropriate.

The Hosted Solution will offer a greater ease of use, requiring less setup and less maintenance. It will, though, necessitate an internet connection. It is recommended that users download more than one engagement at a time from the OpenEngagement DMS where there are risks of loss of internet connections, in order to not loose productivity during network failures. Firms with reliable internet connections should not have any problems in this respect. OpenEngagement provides very highly reliable service, based on multiple levels of redundancy and 24/7 monitoring.

Hosted Solutions handle database replication, backups and the rotation of backups, relieving the users of these and other such responsibilities. They also provide greater performance tuning than is done out of the box with the Local Solution. Hosted Solutions take advantage of Open-BSD, Linux and Windows operating systems, and fronting the OpenEngagement DMS HTTP server with Apache and Squid. This may be done by users of the Local Solution as well, but involves some setup. With Hosted Solutions as well, OpenEngagement takes advantage of a technology known as Zope Enterprise Objects, or ZEO, along with load-balancing to utilize multiple computers to host a single OpenEngagement DMS instance, in order to maintain high performance even with high traffic volume. This is possible but quite difficult to set up for users of Local Solutions.

The installer provided to install the Local Solution is quite simple to execute and can run on any Windows XP or Windows 2003 computer. It sets the OpenEngagement DMS up as a Windows service (which means the OpenEngagement DMS will start and stop with the computer on which it’s installed – whenever that computer is rebooted, the OpenEngagement DMS will automatically start.) The OpenEngagement DMS also provides an HTTP server and a database, meaning, although performance can be tweaked by using additional tools, no other applications are necessary to run the OpenEngagement DMS; it is self-sufficient. Working Papers is the only application it must be integrated with, and it is therefore relatively easy to install, though by no means the near zero effort associated with the Hosted Solution. With significant amounts of data or traffic, good hardware is necessary to provide adequate performance.

There are three interfaces to the OpenEngagement DMS, a web browser interface, the Go-Between and the Quick Upload. The Go-Between provides an interface to OpenEngagement DMS from CaseWare Working Papers. Quick Upload will generally be used by firms only once, to perform the initial population of the DMS and KMS.

The OpenEngagement DMS may be running with any number of web browser or Working Papers interfaces connected to it at any time. With Local Solutions, firms can explicitly start and stop the DMS. When the OpenEngagement DMS first starts, there are initially no interfaces to it. The OpenEngagement DMS is, nevertheless, running, and may be accessed through a web browser or Working Papers interface at any time. Hosted Solutions behave equivalently: they are running at all times, waiting for users to access them through a web browser, Working Papers or the Quick Upload.

The OpenEngagement DMS supports two web browsers, Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla Firefox. Most other web browsers work as well, but some may show some drawing errors.

If you are using a Hosted Solution, firms will be given the URL to access the site through a web browser and configuration settings for the Go-Between and Quick Upload by OpenEngagement.

If you are using a Local Solution, the URL is generally the name of the computer on which the OpenEngagement CMS was installed, followed by /CMS. For example, if you are on the same computer on which the OpenEngagement CMS is installed, you would enter the URL http://localhost/CMS. If the OpenEngagement CMS is installed on another computer than the one you are now using, use the network computer name. For example, if the OpenEngagement CMS is installed on a computer named europa,  you would access the OpenEngagement CMS through a web browser by entering http://europa/CMS as the URL. If you are outside the network, and the site is accessible, use the full URL, as you would when accessing OpenEngagement’s demo site, http://www.openengagement.com/demo.

Generally, each firm that uses a Local Solution will have one person install the OpenEngagement CMS, and that person will indicate to all other OpenEngagement CMS users in the firm how they are to access the OpenEngagement CMS, both through a web browser and through Working Papers. They would also likely give each OpenEngagement CMS user their username and initial password, though it is also possible to have the CMS generate random passwords and email these to the new users as their accounts are created.

It is possible to open two or more browsers on the same computer to work with the OpenEngagement CMS if this is convenient. One limitation to this, though, is that all browsers must be logged in as the same user account. If you wish to log in as two different users simultaneously, for example to test the security settings, you may use IE and Firefox at the same time. Firefox is an excellent, free, open-source web browser, which is very easy to download and install. It is also possible to open two or more web browser interfaces on different computers to work with the OpenEngagement DMS.
 
Regardless of how many web browsers are currently open and using the OpenEngagement DMS, users can also access the OpenEngagement DMS through any number of instances of Working Papers. The Go-Between and Quick Upload are installed in the same manner and behave the same regardless if the firm uses a Local or Hosted Solution.

Generally, within a firm, most users would access the OpenEngagement DMS primarily through Working Papers, using the Go-Between to upload and download client files. Most users will work primarily with the Go-Between, searching for engagements relevant to their work, downloading them, working on them for some time, and uploading them when finished, or uploading several times will still working, in order that their work will be backed up safely by the OpenEngagement DMS. These users will likely use the web interface only occasionally.

Other users, who will have greater permissions within the OpenEngagement CMS, must perform other tasks only possible through the web browser interface, such as creating users accounts, defining the site structure, assigning users roles and so on. They will also be able to use the OpenEngagement CMS, through the web browser, to easily get an overview of the firm's work. They can perform tasks such as seeing how many engagements a given person is working on currently, how may engagements are currently in the preparation stage, or review stage, which people a given engagement is waiting on, and so on.

There are no tasks that can be done only through the Go-Between other than downloading Working Papers Client files, as is discussed in this documentation; otherwise anything that may be done through the Go-Between may also be done through a web browser, though the Go-Between is generally a more convenient interface. It allows the user to perform the most common actions: navigating or searching the DMS to find an the engagement they wish to download, signing-out engagements, downloading editable copies, downloading read-only copies, and uploading with or without signing-in engagements.

It is possible to use the OpenEngagement DMS in a DMS-centric manner or a CaseWare-centric manner, and it is also possible to switch between the two. That is, it is possible to primarily use the web interface, and use this to launch Working Papers when necessary, and it is possible to primarily use Working Papers, using this to load and save client files to and from the OpenEngagement DMS using the web browser interface only when necessary. However, certain actions may be performed only through the web interface, including creating user accounts, assigning roles, and creating objects of any type other than Engagement. It is possible to perform these tasks when setting up the OpenEngagement DMS, and then primarily use the Working Papers interface, and only use the web interface occasionally as necessary.

Likely though, users with many permissions will find it convenient to work largely through the web interface, while those with few permissions, who perhaps can only prepare or view a number of Engagements and do not have access to most of the site, may prefer to work largely through the Working Papers interface. These users, though, may find the web browser interface is useful, as it allows them to access the KMS.

The Go-Between is necessary to download or open any Working Papers client files that are within the DMS. Even when working through a web browser, it is not possible to download a Working Papers client file without an instance of the Go-Between configured to work with Working Papers.

Other than this limitation, users can do anything through a web browser that can be done through the Go-Between. Users can still upload Working Papers client files, and perform all other tasks. With the exception of downloading client files, the web browser interface is strictly more powerful than the Go-Between, though users may find the Go-Between more convenient.

When a user downloads a Working Papers client file through the web browser, the DMS will automatically start Working Papers, if it is not already open. Working Papers will then, behind the scenes, launch the Go-Between to download the file. In order to do this, the Go-Between has to be configured to connect to the correct DMS server. Therefore, before attempting to download a client file using the web browser, users should first attempt to do so at least once using Working Papers. This will ensure that the Go-Between is properly configured to communicate with the DMS. It is not necessary for the Go-Between to store the user name and password; if the Go-Between does not have this information stored, it can prompt the user when necessary.

When not using Working Papers client files, there is no benefit in using the Go-Between.

These steps should be followed by firms using Local Solutions, but are unnecessary for Hosted Solutions. Users should also perform the steps listed in the next section, Quick Start Guide for All Users.

1. Run the Server installer
The installer may be downloaded from this web site. Users will also likely wish to download and install the Go-Between, but should install the server first.

2. If necessary, install SSL
This is not provided by OpenEngagement for Local Solutions out of the box. Firms may enable SSL a number of ways, with the easiest being the use of Apache and the mod_ssl module.

3. Configure your email server
This is explained elsewhere in the help system. It is possible to use the CMS without email notifications, and some firms may wish to do this. However most firms will wish for email notification and should ensure the CMS is configured properly to send emails. This is done simply by providing the name of the email server to be used by the CMS. Once this is specified, users should test it by sending some emails to users, once the user accounts are defined.

4. Backups/Mirroring
Firms should arrange to either backup or mirror the directory where the site's database and the uploaded files are stored. This is explained elsewhere in the help system. Mirroring is generally recommended more than backups, but each firm will have their own preference. Ideally, firms will use both mirroring and backups.

5. Change the Administrator passwords
This is explained later in the documentation. The administrator accounts should not normally be used, but the passwords should nevertheless be secure so that others can not gain full access to your firm's site.

The steps listed here should be performed by firms using Local or Hosted Solutions.

This provides a quick overview of the minimum steps necessary to configure a Hosted Solution and using it to maintain a firm's documents. Local Solutions are somewhat more involved to get started with than Hosted Solutions, and so will involve some steps not covered here, but which are covered elsewhere in this documentation, particularly in the previous section, Quick Start Guide for Local Solutions.

The first tasks will be administrative tasks performed by the Site Manager.

1. Create the initial users
First, navigate to Site Setup | Portal Settings and specify, under Password Policy if you want to define passwords for the new users or if you want the DMS to generate a random password (which they can change and which only they will ever see). Once this is specified, the user accounts may be created. This is done in the Site Setup | Users and Groups Administration page. Hit the Add New User button. Fill in the name, email and, if necessary, password of the user and hit the Register button. Hitting the button will take you to the Users Overview page, where you may hit the Show All button to ensure the user was created properly. All users will have the Member role by default. To make the setup simple, firms may use only this default role for all users other than the initial user account, created by OpenEngagement, which will have the Site Manager role. Additional site-wide roles may be assigned later if necessary. Repeat this step for each user of the DMS.

2. Specify the collection of default Sections to be created in each Entity
This is done in the Site Setup | OpenEngagement configuration page.

3. Create an Entity for each client company of the firm
The OpenEngagement CMS initially includes one DMS Area and one KMS Area, which should be sufficient for most firms, and most firms can add their Entities to the DMS Area provided. However, firms may create as many additional Areas as they wish. To Create an Area, from the home page, select the Add Item drop-down, and select Area. This will take you to a page where you must specify the Title and optionally a description for the Area. Fill these in and hit the Save button. This will take you to a view page for the new Area. The Area is now created.

To add the Entities, navigate to the DMS Area in which they will be put. Select the Add Item drop-down and select Entity. Fill in the Title and Entity number and optionally description and Short Name. Hit Save. This will take you to a view page for the new Entity. You can also see in the Navigation the Sections created by default within this Entity. Navigate back to the Area and repeat creating an Entity for each client company of the firm.

Some firms may find it preferable to use the Quick Upload's Initialize DMS functionality to create the Entities as well.

4. Create the File and Engagement objects for all documents and client files the firm wishes to store in the DMS
Most documents will be uploaded using the Quick Upload tool. However, it is also possible to upload them using a web browser. To use a web browser, for each file (Word, Excel, Power Point etc.) you wish to upload, navigate to the Section where you wish to keep the file. To create a File object, select the Add Item drop-down and select File. As part of creating the File object, specify the file you wish to upload to the DMS. Do this as well for each Working Papers client file the firm wishes to upload, though these will be placed in Engagement, not File objects. Note, it is not the preferred method to upload content through a web browser as doing this does not delete the copy on the local drive, which can lead to duplicated files. The Go-Between and Quick Upload properly delete the local copy once they confirm it has been properly uploaded.

5. Assign the local roles
Ensure that each Engagement has a Preparer, Engagement Manager, and, where necessary, Reviewer assigned. As roles are inherited down the tree, these roles may be assigned at any level. The Local Roles tab is used to assign local roles. It is also advisable that all Entities have an Entity Manager assigned. These may also be assigned in the Local Roles tab. You may use the Role Map to check for Entities and Engagements that have and do not have the various roles assigned.

6. Install the Go-Between on each client machine where Working Papers is installed
The Go-Between is very quick and easy to install. It simply places a .dll file on the client computer and registers it. Once installed, users will have a few extra menu items available in Working Papers related to OpenEngagement.

7. Email users the information they need to start using the DMS
All users within the firm will need their username & password, the URL they will use to connect to the DMS using a web browser, a copy of the Go-Between installer, and the Go-Between configuration settings which, in the case of Hosted Solutions, were provided by OpenEngagement. All users should log into the DMS using a web browser and change their password once they receive this email.

8. Begin using the DMS through the Go-Between and web browser
At this point, all users in the firm should be ready to use the DMS. There will still be some work from time to time creating new Areas, Entities, and other content types, creating users, assigning roles, and so on. Firms may also wish to look into taking advantage of additional features available for the DMS, such as keywords, events, news, smart folders, quick tips, user groups, and other such features, all described in this documentation.