Document management for the small office

Krystal DMS

India's Primeleaf Consulting distributes Krystal DMS [4] in four commercial versions, plus a Community Edition. Compared with the commercial versions, the Community Edition has functional restrictions and does not include support.

The Community Edition manages documents up to 512MB and is more suitable as a test platform. The client-server application can be used with a database back end, included with the Community Edition, via a web user interface; you do not need an additional database.

Although Krystal DMS is certified for Red Hat Enterprise Linux v5.x, which is no longer being updated, it also works without problem on recent distributions. Because it is written in Java, users need to install a Java Runtime Environment on the client and use a browser with a Java plugin. The Community Edition for Linux download [5] requires you to register on the manufacturer's website.

Distribution Model

The price for the four commercial versions [6] depends on the number of users. All versions offer a one-year subscription model that includes free email and telephone support. During this period, all updates are free of charge. Pricing for the Xpress Edition ranges from $300 for one user to approximately $800 for five concurrent users.

The Enterprise Edition for medium and large offices costs $8,750 for five concurrent users and reaches a subscription price of $40,000 per year for 100 users. These rates are always for on-premise installations on the user's intranet.

Alternatively, Primeleaf also offers a hosted cloud solution starting with the Standard Edition, in which offices are billed on a monthly or annual basis, and prices are based on the number of users.

First Impressions

After downloading and unpacking the tar.gz archive, which weighed in at around 17MB, you first have to change to the newly created krystalce subdirectory, then make the krystaldms.sh script executable with root privileges using:

chmod +x krystaldms.sh

Now, simply start the DMS by typing ./krystaldms.sh.

The shell script indicates successful activation by outputting a short status message to the terminal. At the same time, this step enables the internal database back end and the built-in web server. Now, the document management program can be accessed from any Java-enabled web browser on the intranet. Users enter the URL http://<IP host address>:8080 and type ADMINISTRATOR as the username, with admin as the password in the login window that appears. The work area (Figure 2) then appears.

Figure 2: The web interface in Krystal DMS looks cluttered.

Before using Krystal DMS, you need to configure the system. The DMS comes with sample data that nicely illustrates the use of the system.

The Control Panel button top left in the browser window takes you to the configuration options.

The control panel provides most of the important settings in the Manage Users and Manage Document Classes option windows. Creating one or more users is obligatory, which the admin does in the Add User dialog. Document Classes refers to the various document groups, which can be compared to individual folders that contain a specific group's documents.

Users can delete the three existing document classes and replace them with their own. You can add new document classes with the help of a dialog that appears after pressing Add Document Class.

The class then appears in the control panel, but not in the workspace. For this to happen, you need to assign user-specific rights by pressing the Manage Permissions button below the document class in the control panel. After enabling these by pressing Submit, the new document class then finally appears in the workspace.

Users can then press the Add Document button below the class to add documents in a straightforward dialog. The documents can then be accessed via the corresponding document class and appear in a tabular overview in the workspace.

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