Zope Intranet

25 November 2001

Guideto using Zope as an intranet server.


Requirements:

Develop an intranet for the company to replace the current "sharedfolder" system. Ease of use/maintenance, granular access control,central management interface, user management tools all required.

Functionality:

There will be a single overall site, with subsections for eachdepartment. The primary site should include a news section, a companydirectory, and primary navigation to each of the subsections as well asa help section. Each department will have seperate navigation and willconsist of a primary information page about the department and areasfor forms, files, or other features as needed.

Implementation

Zope (Z Object Publishing Environment) is a web application serverwritten in the Python programming language. It is Open Source, meaningthat you get the source code when you download it, and if you wish tochange or add some fundamental functionality to the server, it is assimple as hiring a Python programmer (or using one on already on staff)to make the needed changes. is a fairly full featured framework thatallows developers to quickly and easily add functionality as needed.Many people have developed Zope products that are available free ofcharge at Zope. It uses a custom markup language for somefunctionality, but this will be transparent to all but the mosttechnical users. Installation will be done by a system administrator,and is a fairly simple process.

Technical notes.

Content Management Framework

We will use CMF as the basis for the intranet site. Zope One of themost powerful Zope products is one made by the Zope Corporation (thecreators of Zope) called Content Management Framework. This is a portalsystem which includes basic content management, user management, and acohesive UI. It is fairly trivial to add most existing Zope products toa CMF site, though some do require a minor amount of editing of DTMLand Python text files. There are also a fair number of CMF specificproducts that integrate seamlessly with no additional work on the partof the user (Calendars, Photo Albums, Weblogs, Polls, Surveys, WorkflowManagers, etc).

ZDiscussions

ZDiscussions provides a traditional threaded message board. There willbe one central message board with a folder for each department and thena general folder (departments may add as many subfolders as they deemnecessary).

FlexFAQ

Another fairly standard component of a site, the FAQ will be managedusing a very simple tool called FlexFAQ, which will allow a designatedemployee to maintain the FAQ system with no need to know how to runZope.

Forms

All forms will be available online, and all handbooks etc will be putonline in both HTML and PDF format.

Trouble ticket entry/tracking

At this point it looks like iTrack is the best trouble ticketmanagement system for Zope. A very simple interface (view, add, edit)it will allow users to view/change status and assign tasks to users.

Project Management

DC Workflow is currently being evaluated as a possible projectmanagement tool.

Department Sections

  • HR - The HR section will feature allHR related forms available for download or online processing (userswill only be able to submit forms using their own user id) as well as aweekly company newsletter.
  • IT - The IT department will havetrouble ticket entry/tracking system, network status, IT news, andequipment/software inventory database.
  • Acctg - The accounting section willprovide online/downloadable expense forms and guidelines.
  • Sales - The sales department willinclude information on latest closes, track company progress andhistory, and a repository of all sales demos/material.
  • Development - This will consist of alldocumentation (requirements, standards, etc), software repository, etc.
  • Marketing - The marketing section willhold all marketing materials, all press releases (using the KM|Net Newsproduct), and a schedule of events.
  • Office mgmt - The Office Managementsection will be comprised of all general forms (supplies, etc),information on physical plant, etc.



Tech Notes.


Installing Zope

Linux: make sure you have Python2.1 or greater installed, and in yourpath, then download the current stable Zope. I recommend installingfrom source, which would involve putting the archive file where youwant to install, then untaring it, cd'ing to the new directory, andtyping

python w_pcgi.py

(unless you don't want pcgi, in which case you'd use wo_pcgi.py. Oncethe process is done installing, I generally change the password

python zpasswd.py -u username -p passwd access

where you insert the username and passwd variables of your choice. Youmay also need to change permissions on the var directory if youinstalled as root.

Windows: make sure you have Python2.1 or greater installed, and in yourpath, then download the current stable Zope. Run the exe.

Installing CMF

Grab the latest version. Unpack the archive. Copy (or move, or symlink)all the folders in the CMF-1.x into the /lib/python/Products folder,restart zope.