John,
You need to get one thing clear: DMX does not synchronize with your harddisk (i.e no automatic updating etc). It offers the option to import from your harddisk, but that is one off. And when it imports, it does so to a collection (i.e. folder) not a category.
Peter

Peter,

This request seems to be a common request and a misconception about the capabilities of DMX Pro. 

I, too, need this same functionality.  The check-in, check-out, and versioning features are great, but my client simply wants to share what they have on their corporate file share with their clients via the web.  I think using DMX Pro is still the best way to get this done.

How would you suggest going about this?  For my situation, the updates can be in batch mode and don't have to be real-time.   Would the entire root collection for each client need to be deleted and re-imported each day ?

Any feedback on what you think is the best work-around would be very helpful.

Vic

 

Vic,

I'm not sure, but I think FileManager Pro is probably your best bet. Note that that is a file manager, while DMX is a document management module.

What you guys were looking for is a hybrid, and I'm not sure that is a good idea. If you want versioning and check in/out, you're looking for document management. For that to work, the document management solution needs total control over (i.e. manage) the contents. It doesn't make sense to enforce doc mgt through a wbe interface and then have a regular file share on the internal network. I will illustrate with an example: DMX uses DNN/ASPNET role based security to manage documents. Your file share, however, uses Windows-based security. These are not aware of each other. If a user would inadvertently deny access to the ASPNET worker process on a file, no web-based program (DNN, DMX) could access it any longer. You see that you cannot manage documents in a 2-faced solution like this. You need to make a choice: one or the other.

An alternative is to use WebDAV. This allows users to integrate the contents of the web server in their windows explorer and use the security model of the web service. One such product is MS SharePoint. Note that this doesn't come cheap. I am also working on a WebDAV extension for DMX, but priority right now is on making DMX DNN 4 compliant.

Peter

Hi Peter

It'd be great if you could keep us posted in terms of any progress you make with developing a WebDAV extension for DMX. We've found a lot of our users get hopelessly lost with the process of having to save a local copy of a file for editing, then manually uploading via the web interface to save it back into the system. We get a lot of resistance against using the module as everyone is so used to just saving directly to a folder somewhere. But in terms of Document Management within DNN the DMX module is certainly the best one we've seen and used.

I've seen someone extend a web based system using WebDAV, and the power to take something like your categories, and present them to end users as a standard windows folder structure for opening and saving to, is huge in terms of making it easy for people to use and creating a flexible system.

Unfortunately I haven't come across anything using WebDAV in the DNN space (I've been looking for years!). And as you mention SharePoint doesn't come cheap. We're hoping you're progressing well on making DMX DNN 4 compliant so you can look into something with WebDAV!