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Document Management Across The Web
By: Steven Feldberg, Feldberg Communications

WORLDOX/Web is an extension to WORLDOX that provides secure access to your documents over the Internet, an extranet, or a company intranet.

WORLDOX users log in from a standard Web browser with their WORLDOX user code. Once authenticated, users have similar access and security across the Web as they do in the office.

The standard configuration implements a full-featured Web-based document management solution including:

  • user login and authentication
  • document searching, including full-text searches
  • document viewing
  • document check-in and check-out
  • uploading new documents with profiles
  • "OneClick" searches and template-based searching
  • downloading documents
  • and many other features.


Site administrators can block specific features and limit which fields and field codes (such as Client, Matter, Doc Type, etc.) are available, controlling access by individual users or by groups of users. So you can easily set up your site so that clients see only their documents; further, you can restrict exactly which documents are available to them. And since controls are based on profiles, you do not have to administer each document separately, which is not only more efficient than other approaches, but also reduces the likelihood of errant documents "slipping through the cracks.

It's simple to Web-enable existing WORLDOX sites because WORLDOX/Web rests directly on the foundation laid down by WORLDOX on your local network. If you have a Web server ready to go, adding WORLDOX/Web to your WORLDOX installation can literally take as little as ten minutes.

What's more - and this is key - documents remain in their native format. This means there is no conversion or "publishing" process. WORLDOX/Web automatically converts most document formats, including Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Excel, and others, to HTML on the fly for presentation in the user's browser, eliminating the possibility of document synchronization problems. WORLDOX/Web ensures that collaboration partners are working with "real" documents in real-time, not copies nor copies of copies.

Architecture Overview

WORLDOX/Web runs on a Microsoft IIS box (the Web server) as a CGI program. This machine is the WORLDOX/Web primary server. The Web server provides basic Web services and hosts the primary WORLDOX/Web software (much the same way that Microsoft FrontPage® Extensions reside on IIS).

The WORLDOX/Web primary server is invoked through CGI calls to the WDWEBCGI.EXE executable, which resides in the HTTP server's standard CGI program directory (cgi-bin).

Access to the document repository is achieved through one or more WORLDOX/Web proxy servers running on networked workstations (much like the WORLDOX Indexer). The proxies are located behind the corporate firewall, mapped to the document repository on the local network. This provides the pathway needed by WORLDOX/Web to the documents, under control of WORLDOX on the local network.

The primary server maintains contact with the WORLDOX/Web proxies over the Internet, passing along user requests to the proxy best suited to respond. Authentication occurs via the exchange of encrypted certificates. With multiple proxies serving a single repository, the primary server automatically applies logic that ensures optimal allocation of requests among the proxies.

The modular design of WORLDOX/Web allows for quick and easy inclusion of multiple linked sites. For a firm with offices located in several cities users can surf to a single corporate website hosting WORLDOX/Web for access to documents at all offices. As long as each office uses WORLDOX, adding new offices simply entails adding a WORLDOX/Web proxy at each site. A single primary server can host any number of additional sites.

As Is - Or As You Like It

On the client side - what users see when they're on your site - WORLDOX/Web consists of a collection of page templates that form the standard interface. These are HTML-based pages with JavaScript, WORLDOX/WebScript (a server-side WORLDOX/Web scripting language based on JavaScript), and in-line substitution variables. The substitution variables get replaced with actual data values and formatting elements at run-time by the WORLDOX/Web server.

WORLDOX/Web sites can deploy the default pages supplied by World Software to implement a standard Web-based interface to their WORLDOX document management system. Basic customization is accomplished easily, directly from the WORLDOX/Web server console. You can specify your own company logo or any other graphics file to place on the pages. Enter "personalized" information like your company name, contact information, welcome messages and related items. All this can be done without coding, in the WORLDOX/Web server console program.

Web developers can modify the standard page templates, or create their own pages to work with WORLDOX/Web. HTML provides the basis for page design and development alongside client-side scripting, such as JavaScript, where needed. WORLDOX/Web page substitution variables provide high-level control over page authoring by allowing page designers to specify common elements for pages-such as title graphics, banners, toolbars, and so on.

WORLDOX/WebScript, a server-side scripting language, provides direct access to WORLDOX functionality, substitution variables, and DMS database functions. For Web developers, WORLDOX/Web delivers a platform for assembling sophisticated custom Web-based DMS solutions suited to match your firm's changing needs.

Portal Power

The newest component of WORLDOX/Web is the WORLDOX/Web Portal, which presents a single point of access for electronic documents, word processing files, and a wide array of Web-based resources and services.

WORLDOX/Web Portal presents an expandable grid of cells that can hold images, links, forms - virtually any element allowed in a standard HTML page. Since it's based on an HTML table structure, portal contents expand simply by adding rows or columns to the table. New links or embedded code are entered directly into the table cells with the browser-based interface.

The WORLDOX/Web Portal offers two significant benefits to WORLDOX/Web sites. The first is continuity - the portal is part of the overall WORLDOX/Web site, providing a single point of access for users to their documents and designated resources such as web sites, collaboration tools, e-mail gateways and so on.

The second big advantage is that site administrators can easily add links to their WORLDOX/Web Home page with the browser-based interface. No scripting is required. To place a link to an Internet (or intranet) based resource, simply type the Web address (URL). For the more ambitious, WORLDOX/Web Portal supports embedded JavaScript and HTML forms for truly interactive applications - all within the framework of WORLDOX/Web. This presents tremendous opportunities for putting together company extranets quickly and easily. Even small firms that lack in-house Web development expertise can create company extranets without having to mount extensive development efforts nor spend large sums of money.