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Question

Question

Boss thinks Laserfiche can perform ECM on databases, not just documents. Help!

asked on July 18, 2016 Show version history

Someone I know (really, it's not me) has a boss who doesn't understand the difference between data, a record, a database field, and a document. He's asked me to have Laserfiche perform retention policy on not just documents, but also database fields in the database of third-party software.

I've explained that Laserfiche performs retention on documents that are associated with metadata in the Laserfiche database. I've also explained that having Laserfiche delete rows of records in software would certainly break that software, because usually software is designed in such a way that multiple tables and views would be affected (via foreign keys, calculated fields, shared data, Linked Server connections, etc.) and that designing a system such as this is a flawed concept.

The gist of what I want to say (to my friend's boss, not my super awesome boss) is that Laserfiche is part of a data management system, specifically the component that deals with documents. Other sister systems would need to manage data in databases, if such a system could even be designed without compromising software integrity.

If anyone has a way of articulating what an ECM is and isn't, please help. An official Laserfiche explanation of how Laserfiche should be used and should not be used would be wonderful.  If you think I'm off base on this let me know. I'm a software developer and systems integrator, so I have my biases.

Thanks much.

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Replies

replied on July 21, 2016 Show version history

Laserfiche has wide variety of ways it can integrate with other software, including the ability to run commands on SQL databases to allow integrations with 3rd party software. However, I agree that it might be problematic to have Laserfiche actively deleting data in databases used by other software (rather than just reading the data or inserting data). There's a couple reasons for that:

  1. Laserfiche is unaware of how the other software uses this data, so any modifications would rely on a very thorough understanding by the person building the integration to avoid errors, poor behavior in the other application, or unintentional data loss
  2. By trying to manage these database from within Laserfiche, you're rebuilding logic that should already be handled by the other applications
  3. Laserfiche is likely not the most efficient way to handle the database modification. It is built around the idea of managing documents and metadata associated with those documents, not maintaining databases for 3rd party software.
  4. Using Laserfiche for extensive monitoring and updating of 3rd part databases is going to put load on the Laserfiche system, particularly workflow, which could potentially slow down vital document management processes (or at least require a more heavy-duty machine)

 

It's difficult to say whether Laserfiche could or should do the things being asked without more specifics, but general, it is not designed to manage databases used by other software, and actually deleting rows from a database accessed by other software sounds risky.

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