Keep your documents organized with SeedDMS
Tutorial – SeedDMS
The SeedDMS document management tool helps your team stay focused and offers some powerful features for search, notification, and process control.
A Document Management System (DMS) is a file manager on steroids: a tool that stores files in orderly fashion but with many more features than a normal file manager provides. A team can use a DMS to co-manage documents of all sorts, from invoices to courseware, books, and product specifications, coordinating all their work on the document through an organized workflow.
SeedDMS [1] is a multiplatform, GPL-licensed DMS tool that provides version control, metadata search, and sophisticated workflow management. This tutorial will help you get started with managing documents in SeedDMS.
Why a DMS?
Before I plunge into the details of installing and using SeedDMS, I'll take a moment to address the question of why a DMS is even necessary. The first thing that any DMS gives its users is finer control – of both privacy and security. Total separation between DMS accounts and system user accounts also makes it much easier and safer to add temporary "guests" – customers or interns who need access to internal documents without full access to the system.
Support for metadata like keywords, categories, comments, and arbitrary attributes, together with the possibility to search both the metadata and the actual content of each document, allows users to organize and retrieve their files in many different ways.
Above all, a DMS administrator can decide who should review or approve each class of documents, allowing for a coherent, constant process that each document must pass through before it is officially approved. A DMS makes teamwork easier and team members accountable in ways that are not possible with normal users accounts and shared folders on a file server.
Why SeedDMS
One advantage of SeedDMS is that you can try it without installing anything. The SeedDMS website includes an online demo [2]. Your only limit is that you cannot upload files bigger than 5MB. If you have Docker credentials, you could also start your own test instance of SeedDMS inside an online virtual environment such as Play with Docker [3].
Feature-wise, SeedDMS has the basic functions found on most DMS tools, such as access control lists for both users and groups, plus the possibility to adopt a custom or built-in workflow for reviewing, approving, and publishing documents. The user and administration interfaces are entirely web-based, available in multiple languages, and compatible with WebDAV servers. Thanks to its integration with the Lucene search engine, SeedDMS offers full text search for files in PDF, Word, and Excel formats.
Another interesting feature of SeedDMS is its readiness for multi-site operations: You can install one copy of the source code and then share it among many different, totally independent instances. This makes it easy for consultants, or organizations whose departments have very different ways of working, to give each of their customers a SeedDMS configuration that is optimal for their needs. The same feature also allows each of the organizations that might share the same server to migrate to new versions of SeedDMS with minimum effort and impact on users.
Architecture
SeedDMS itself is a PHP7 application. A working installation is a mix of six components: web server, database, basic PHP libraries, PHP PEAR Modules, assorted utilities like ImageMagick or pdftotext for image and text processing, plus the actual PHP code of the application.
If you run any common, well-supported Linux distribution, you either have most of the background components already, or, if SeedDMS asks for them, you can install them from the default repositories. The PHP core of SeedDMS is divided into two independent parts. One is the back end, packaged as a PHP PEAR module, that accesses the database. The other is the front end that generates the web interface and handles user input.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
So Long Neofetch and Thanks for the Info
Today is a day that every Linux user who enjoys bragging about their system(s) will mourn, as Neofetch has come to an end.
-
Ubuntu 24.04 Comes with a “Flaw"
If you're thinking you might want to upgrade from your current Ubuntu release to the latest, there's something you might want to consider before doing so.
-
Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04
After a brief pause because of the XZ vulnerability, Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for install.
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.