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Document Management System
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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Document Management System?
2. Where can we deploy this application?
3. How to distribute the documents?
4. How to recover the deleted documents?
5. What is the difference between delete and remove?
6. How deleted documents will be removed from repository?
7. How to configure the number of days the delete document should stay in repository?
8. How can we take out the "Logout" link from menus?
9. What is enabling debugging? How to enable it?
10. How to change the repository location?
11. How to change the logo and name of the application?
12. What are the actions available on the documents?

1. What is Document Management System?

Document Management System is a web application used to manage the documents in an enterprise. Users can create directories and documents, checkout and check-in the documents, delete and move the documents around. This provides the features to see all the versions of the documents and donwload the required one and distribute the documents around by simply passing the URLs. This provides the security based on two roles USER and ADMIN. Users with ADMIN role can do the following actions additional to users with USER role.

  • Recover and remove deleted documents from repository.
  • Create, edit and delete users.
The stable and latest of version of this application is 1.0. This can be downloaded from downloads page. Download the binary version and follow the instructions in configuration page.

Application properties file "application.properties" can be found in the WAR file at the location WEB-INF/classes/org/jmonks/dms. This will have many properties to configure the application to your needs.
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2. Where can we deploy this application?

This application can be deployed in any servlet container like Tomcat, etc., The binary version of downloadable contain the WAR (dms.war) file, which can be directly deployed into the servlet container.
Instructions on how to deploy this application in to Tomcat can be found in configuration page.
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3. How to distribute the documents?

Once system is in place, we can distribute the documents by simply passing the URLs around. URLs can be obtained from the address bar of the browser or properties of the hyperlink (right click on link and select properties) in the web page.
When receiver invokes the received URL in the browser, system will take the user to the particular document (If user is not authenticated, it will ask for the authentication information and then redirects to the required document).
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4. How to recover the deleted documents?

Deleted documents can be recovered from the repository by users with ADMIN role within the number of days specified in configuration.
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5. What is the difference between delete and remove?



When document is deleted, it will be marked for delete, but, it will not be visible to the user with USER role. This will be visible to the users with ADMIN role only with an option (UnDelete link) to recover it from the repository.

Remove is deleting the document permanently from the repository. This can be done by users with ADMIN role only and option (remove link) will be provide only if document is deleted.
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6. How deleted documents will be removed from repository?

There will be a process run periodically (once per day) which cleanup (remove deleted documents) the repository. It check for the deleted documents and past the number of days specificed in the configuration for the cleanup. Before this process picks up that documet, user with ADMIN role can recover it.

Users with ADMIN role can also remove the document permanently from the repository. There will an option (remove link) proivded for this operation.
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7. How to configure the number of days the delete document should stay in repository?

The number of days delete documents can stay in repository can be configured through a property called "dms.delete.interval" in "application.properties" file. This decides, how many days a deleted document should stay in repository. The value specified here will be in number of days. The default number of days would be 7.

WEB-INF/classes/org/jmonks/dms/application.properties:

dms.delete.interval=7

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8. How can we take out the "Logout" link from menus?

The "Logout" link is configurable through the property "logout.link" in "application.properties" file. By default application is configured to show Logout link by setting the value to "true". If we would like to take it out, we can set the value to "false".

WEB-INF/classes/org/jmonks/dms/application.properties:

logout.link=true

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9. What is debugging? How to disable it?

When an error occured in the system, application will show generic error message to the user. If debugging is enabled, the same page print out all the details related to that error in tabular format on the error page. This information will be useful in identifying the problem some times. By default debugging is enabled. This can be disabled by setting the property "enable.debug" to false.

WEB-INF/classes/org/jmonks/dms/application.properties:

enable.debug=true

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10. How to change the repository location?

The default implementation of the reposiotry is done through flat files. When application started, the repository will be created at the path (location) specified by the property "dms.repository.path" in "application.properties" file. The default path specified will be "/repository". If is not exists, application tries to create this directory and setup the repository. It if couldn't create this directory, it will try to create a directory "repository" at the path specified by "user.home" and setup the repository.

If we would like to change the path of the repository to any other location, we need to do the following steps.

  • Stop the application.
  • Copy the contents of the current repository (/repository) to the required directory (/myrepository).
  • Change the value of property "dms.repository.path" in "application.properties" to "/myrepository".
  • Start the application.

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11. How to change the logo and name of the application?

The logo, header and footer shown throughout the application is configurable through the different properies in "application.properties" file. We can change the values of these properties, however we like.

WEB-INF/classes/org/jmonks/dms/application.properties:

project.logo=/images/jmonks.gif
project.name=Document Management System
page.footer=Document Management System developed by JMonks


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12. What are the actions available on the documents?

Once user creates a document in the repository, application would show different options to do differnt actions on the document. Following is the list of actions can be done on existing document.

  • Checkout : This option would allow the user to reserve the document for next check-in and download the version (latest) needs to make changes.
  • Cancel Checkout : This option would allow the user to cancel the above action. This will be visible, if only above action is performed.
  • Checkin : This option would allow the user to check-in the next version of the document. If document is checkout by one user, it can be check-in by any other user.
  • Delete : This option would allow the user to delete (mark for delete) the document. Once it is deleted, it will not be visible to users with USER role. If user is restricted for any of the documents under the hierarchy, this opertion will not be allowed.
  • Move : This option would allow the user to move the documents around. If user is restricted for any documents below the hierarchy, this will not be succeeded.
  • UnDelete : This option would allow the users with ADMIN role to recover the deleted documents from the repository.
  • Remove : This option would allow the users with ADMIN role to permanently delete the deleted documents from the repository.

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