The future of Share sites

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davidciamberlan
Alfresco Employee

The future of Share sites

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Hi,

only for curiosity (that I hope is of general interest): if Share will be discontinued, what will be the destiny of the Share Sites? Will they still exist?

If not, are Alfresco going to propose an alternative "structure" for the repository?

1 Solution

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resplin
Intermediate

Re: The future of Share sites

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"Sites" is not just a Share concept. It is part of the versioned REST API:

Alfresco Content Services REST API Explorer 

More guidance on the future of Share was given during DevCon 2018. See minute 40 of this presentation:

Collaborate with Alfresco - YouTube 

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9 Replies
angelborroy
Alfresco Employee

Re: The future of Share sites

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It looks like Sites are going to be in the future, as Richard Esplin‌ states at https://community.alfresco.com/community/ecm/blog/2018/01/03/architecture-changes-for-alfresco-conte... 

However, they are going to loose features (wiki, blog,...) that integrators should replace by any other products outside Alfresco.

Hyland Developer Evangelist
resplin
Intermediate

Re: The future of Share sites

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"Sites" is not just a Share concept. It is part of the versioned REST API:

Alfresco Content Services REST API Explorer 

More guidance on the future of Share was given during DevCon 2018. See minute 40 of this presentation:

Collaborate with Alfresco - YouTube 

jpotts
Professional

Re: The future of Share sites

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If various Share site tools go away, I see no reason for the "Site" construct to remain. Sites are painful in that they cannot be nested which creates a limit on the number of sites you can have in a given repository (because folders that have too many children are problematic).

So, if sites only have a document library, then they add no value beyond what a folder in the root of the repository provides.

resplin
Intermediate

Re: The future of Share sites

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Thank you Jeff for continuing the conversation.

The value they provide is a bundle of permissions attached to the site roles. This is only a convenience on what can be done with folders, but some developers say that it helps them to build solutions faster.

Would you agree, or is it not enough benefit to be worth the additional concept?

douglascrp
Advanced II

Re: The future of Share sites

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Maybe removing restriction on where the site objects can be created would be enough.

That would solve the problem  mentioned, and would keep the useful set of permitions, as you mentioned.

jpotts
Professional

Re: The future of Share sites

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More often, I find that customers are working around the site permissions. For example, you want someone to have access to a specific folder, and instead of inviting them to the site, the customer adds the user/group directly to the folder permissions, then sends the link to the folder to the person they wanted to share it with.

There is nothing you can do with site permissions that cannot be done using "normal" folder permissions.

If you have people who are using site memberships AND structures in the non-site repository structure, it gets worse because people have to think about how to provide access.

So I see zero value in keeping this around.

However, I agree with Douglas' suggestion that if site folders could be created anywhere, that at least addresses the "number of sites" limitation. It doesn't address the competing approach to permissions, however.

Another way to think about it is to pretend we're in a post-Share world and you're explaining Alfresco to someone who's never used it. How will you explain the concept of a site? It would sound something like this...

"You see, a site is a folder like any other folder, but it has this extra folder called "documentLibrary" which doesn't do anything, it's just an added level of hierarchy that means nothing. Now, when it comes to permissions, we have Site Managers, Site Collaborators, and Site Consumers. For a reason no one can remember, you cannot use Site Coordinator even though you can add a user as a Coordinator to a non-site folder. What's the difference between a Site and a Folder you ask? Nothing, just the extra level of meaningless hierarchy and the inability to use Coordinator. I know, it doesn't make sense. This is left over from 2018. It was a really tough time in our nation and the world, but I don't need to tell you that!"

douglascrp
Advanced II

Re: The future of Share sites

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Those are good points indeed.

cesarista
Customer

Re: The future of Share sites

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I agree with Jeff. A folder was always the limit of a site "function" when collaboration features tend to zero (including pages, dashlets, activities and/or notifications or search context). And in that context both established the rootpaths of collaboration and application use cases. But with some collaboration features disappearing, the difference between them start to be diffuse, and as Jeff noted, they involve some clear disadvantages. Closer to a legacy feature than a real one. A similar formulation could be done between alfresco-content-app and Share.

Regards.

--C.

resplin
Intermediate

Re: The future of Share sites

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Thank you for the interesting and useful discussion. When the time comes to deprecate Share, we will have to think carefully about the value of the concept of a Site in the repository and in the v1 REST API.

I'm glad this is a problem I can postpone for some time, as Share will be around for a while. <grin>