How often did you need to profile company's users, and relations among them, relying just on groups and local roles? Right now you can design, manage and query you entire organization in Plone, using new, rich user interface and integrate it with your existing add-ons. (all slides has been "grafically refactored" by nekorin, thanks for that!)

1. Bringing real-word relations to life
Plone as an organization manager

2. who are we?
Andrew Mleczko
Plone archaeologist
andrzej.mleczko@redturtle.net
Massimo Azzolini
RedTurtle’s co-founder and project manager
massimo@redturtle.net

3. The general picture
✓ This talk is about
“Carneade”
✓ It’s the core of a DMS
Plone based: Ercole
✓ Customer:
Provincia of Ferrara
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mleczko/3518027412/

4. Ercole project
Ercole I d'Este
Duke of Ferrara
(26 October 1431 – 15 June 1505)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ercole_I_d’Este.jpg

5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/emraya/2929959881
At the very beginning there was Lotus

6. At the beginning there was Lotus
✓ in 2003 RedTurtle developed a first release of this DMS using
Lotus Domino
✓ in 2005 the quality management part was added
✓ in 2007 the project needed a more “open source” soul
✓ in 2008 the Plone age started

7. Plone as a DMS
‣ on-line form
‣ document generation
‣ pdf conversion
‣ storing
‣ cataloging & archiving
‣ security & permissions

8. Plone as a DMS
‣ on-line form
‣ document generation
‣ pdf conversion
‣ storing
‣ cataloging & archiving
‣ security & permissions

9. Plone as a DMS
‣ on-line form
‣ document generation
‣ pdf conversion
‣ storing
‣ cataloging & archiving
‣ security & permissions

10. Plone as a DMS
‣ on-line form
‣ document generation
‣ pdf conversion
‣ storing
‣ cataloging & archiving
‣ security & permissions

11. Plone as a quality
management
system
✓ citizen registry
✓ process definitions
✓ dossier management
✓ integration with the DMS

12. Plone as an enterprise intranet
‣ 800 authenticated users (editors)
‣ >200 000 documents
‣ 2 Data.fs separated
‣ Yearly growth ca 30.000
documents
‣ Peak traffic: 20 concurrent write
transactions per second

13. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wynnie/1885037521
Customer needs ‘real life’ relations

14. charts / graphs

15. charts / graphs

16. charts / graphs

17. how it was

18. 1. add user in Lotus

19. 2. Add to several DB’s ACL

20. 3. Add it to “Organigramma”

21. 4. Manage it on AS/400

22. Plone
what you get out of the box
✓ User and group
management
✓ Sharing - local roles
management
✓ PAS
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gadgetgirl70/201696636

23. Plone
what you get with add-ons
✓ Membrane
supports Members as content
types in Plone
✓ plone.app.memberschema
extend default memberdata
with custom schema
✓ plone.relations
define and query complex
relationships between objects
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phploveme/3375142156

24. Plone
what we missed
✓ relation should provide
additional metadata and
security
✓ easy way for developers to
register new relations
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddy/69234689/

25. Plone
what we missed
✓ relation should provide
additional metadata and
security
✓ easy way for developers to
register new relations
✓ user friendly interface for
managing them
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddy/69234689/

26. other demands
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennyrosso/2485681355

27. creating
customized
vocabularies
✓ all the “project managers”
✓ all the Office A members
✓ signers for a given dept.

28. requirements
grow during
development
✓ once you start you can’t
stop
✓ specialized offices:
‣ accountancy
‣ protocol
✓ extra roles
http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bizior

29. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wynnie/1885037521
carneade blueprint

30. http://www.flickr.com/photos/oscarmota/1155257083
See it in action

31. managing person and office

32. managing person and office

33. adding relations

34. adding relations

35. adding relations

36. adding relations

37. adding relations

38. adding relations
class ISalesOffer(Interface):
""" Sales offer. """
first_discount = schema.Int(
title=u'First level discount',
readonly=False, required=False)
second_discount = schema.Int(
title=u'Second level discount',
readonly=False, required=False)
total_amount = schema.Int(
title=u'Total amount',
readonly=False, required=True)

39. using extjs interface

40. using extjs interface

41. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wynnie/1885037521
How we built it

42. ZCA engine
✓ easy to extend for developers
✓ pluggable using ZCML
✓ intuitive and simple interface:

43. ZCA engine
✓ easy to extend for developers
✓ pluggable using ZCML
✓ intuitive and simple interface:
>>> carneade = getUtility(ICarneade)
>>> carneade.belongTo(office2, office1)
>>> carneade.addEmployee(john, office2)
>>> carneade.listEmployees(office1)
[<john CarneadePerson>]

44. Relations provides security
✓ using PAS localrole plugin from carneade
we can extend Plone security
✓ every relation could provide plone role:

45. Relations provides security
✓ using PAS localrole plugin from carneade
we can extend Plone security
✓ every relation could provide plone role:
>>> member = getAuthenticatedMember()
>>> member.getRolesInContext(office1)
['Member']
>>> carneade.addBoss(member, office1)
>>> member.getRolesInContext(office1)
['Member','Manager']

46. Create new relations with ZCML registration
✓ using custom meta.zcml we can
make relations registration quite easy

47. Create new relations with ZCML registration
✓ using custom meta.zcml we can
make relations registration quite easy
<carnede:relation
for=".interfaces.ISimpleRelation"
name="office_manager"
relation_title="Office manager"
plone_role="Manager" />
✓ and help separate core engine from customer specific implementation

48. User interface: extjs
http://www.extjs.com

49. User interface: extjs
✓ cross-browser JavaScript library for building rich
internet applications
✓ redturtle.extjs (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/redturtle.extjs)
to easily use it in Plone
✓ JSON-RPC to integrate with Plone

50. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillbazeley/1375857324
Relation provider plone.relations

51. Relation provider: plone.relations
✓ build on zc.relationship and five.intid
✓ highly optimized for simple relationship queries across
large data-sets
✓ plone.app.relations - content centric API for defining
and querying relationships

52. extend it
integrate it

53. Extend existing relations

54. Extend existing relations
✓ We can subclass more generic relations to create real-life relation
chain:
‣ Project manager → Works for → Belong to
class IBelongTo(Interface):
""" Very generic relation marker interface. """
class IWorksFor(IBelongTo):
""" Some specific relation marker interface. """
class IProjectManage(IWorksFor):
""" A very specific relation marker interface. """

55. Extend existing relations
✓ Relations can be filtered by interface they are providing:

56. Extend existing relations
✓ Relations can be filtered by interface they are providing:
>>> carneade.listWorksFor(office21)
[<projectmanager CarneadePerson>,
<normal_employee CarneadePerson>, ...]

57. Integrate with existing packages
✓ Class needs to implement IRelationEnable

58. Integrate with existing packages
✓ Class needs to implement IRelationEnable
<class class="my.app.Folder">
<implements
interface="carneade...IRelationEnable" />
</class>

59. integrating with
existing packages
✓ That's it!
✓ You can also use predefined
vocabularies, like:
‣ list of all office
responsibilities
‣ list of all contract
employees
‣ list of all freelancers

60. what’s next?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vermininc/2337307518

61. membrane
integration
✓ allow carneade Person to
become Plone member
✓ better integration with Plone
PAS
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyrivertown/2314032302

62. enhance
performance
✓ separate catalog for search
✓ refactor vocabularies
✓ use zope.catalog or
Products.ZCatalog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luciano_meirelles/3461046001/sizes/o/

63. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/boonna
drag and drop

64. local roles like rules
provide a simplied
(like rules vs code are)
version of the local roles
management we showed
Nekorin 2008

65. local roles like rules
1. apply the role choosen from a set,
2. to actual user,
3. if he has a given relation
4. with a selectable object
http://beatqs.deviantart.com/art/eggs-105415135

66. releasing software
✓ The project is going to be
shared with another public
administration
✓ Provincia of Ferrara is
evaluating releasing it using
a GPL-like licence
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mleczko/3335493624

67. ✓ It is starting growing
✓ Provincia of Ferrara is a
early subscriber
✓ more members on
www.plonegov.it

68. how carneade
can be useful
for
Nekorin 2008

69. how carneade
can be useful
for
Nekorin 2008

70. Questions!?
Andrew Mleczko
andrzej.mleczko@redturtle.net
Massimo Azzolini
massimo@redturtle.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/2326448445

71. Grazie. Thank you. Dziękujemy za uwage.