Alfresco boosts collaboration with ECM update

Alfresco Enterprise 3.2 is available as a full cloud deployment

Enterprise content management (ECM) vendor Alfresco today launched a new version of its flagship enterprise-grade ECM product, designed to offer improved collaboration and email management capabilities and support for cloud-based deployments.

Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.2 has been engineered to take account of the changing ways in which teams work today, taking its lead from innovations in the social media world, according to the firm's director of product marketing, Paul Hampton.

"We have always had the ability to capture wikis, blogs and documents for your projects, but we have found that the way people find their information is changing," he explained.

"The way you find people is to log-in to your Twitter account and see who's following you. People want a similar model in the organisation because they're so used to it outside work."

With this in mind, Alfresco Enterprise 3.2 features rich user profiles, allowing customers to see the projects that colleagues are working on and find important information in a more Web 2.0 manner.

Also featured is IMAP support for email client access and email archiving, allowing users to share important emails with colleagues by simply dragging and dropping from their inbox to a project where the whole team can see it, said Hampton.

"It also combines with records management to go beyond traditional reports and documents," he added.

"If you have an email exchange with a customer or partner you need to be able to capture and manage these records. So with this product you can drag it and manage the email as a corporate record."

Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.2 can also be used via mobile devices, and features native multi-tenancy support and a range of deployment options including full cloud deployment, the firm said.