Document Collaboration System for Zimbra Open-Source Edition
The importance of co-editing documents in modern business is hard to overestimate. The ability to draw up contracts and agreements with the participation of employees from the legal department, to write commercial offers under the supervision of superiors on-line and so on, allows the company to save thousands of man-hours that previously were spent on numerous approvals. That is why one of the main innovations in Zextras Suite 3.0 was the appearance of Zextras Docs - a solution that allows you to organize full-fledged collaboration with documents directly in the Zimbra Collaboration Suite Open-Source Edition web client.
Currently, Zextras Docs supports collaboration with text documents, tables and presentations, and also knows how to process a huge number of file formats. The interface of the solution is not much different from the interface of any text editor, so employees of the enterprise do not have to spend a lot of time training to switch to using Zextras Docs. But the most interesting, as always, is "under the hood." Let’s take a look together at how Zextras Docs works and what advantages this document collaboration solution can offer.
Most of all, Zextras Docs will appeal to those who already use Zimbra OSE and Zextras Suite in their enterprise. With this solution, a new service can be introduced into production without increasing the number of information systems and, as a result, can do without increasing the cost of ownership of IT infrastructure. Note that Zextras Docs is only compatible with Zimbra OSE version 8.8.12 and later. That is why if you are still using outdated versions of Zimbra, we strongly recommend upgrading to version 8.8.15 LTS. Due to the long term of support, this version will remain up-to-date and safe for several more years, and will also be compatible with all current additions.
The advantages of Zextras Docs can also include the possibility of its full deployment on the enterprise infrastructure. This avoids the transfer of information to third parties, as is often the case when using hybrid or cloud services. That is why Zextras Docs is ideal for enterprises with a strict information security policy and for those system administrators who prefer to completely control the data flows and processes occurring in the enterprise. In addition, a locally deployed document collaboration service allows you to avoid the risks associated with the inaccessibility of a cloud service when problems arise with a service provider or when problems arise with high-speed Internet access.
Zextras Docs consists of three parts: a standalone server, extension, and winter. Each of these three parts does its part:
In order to deploy Zextras Docs in the enterprise, you must first select one or more physical or virtual servers for it. After that, you need to download the server application distributions for Ubuntu 16.04 , Ubuntu 18.04 or CentOS 7 from the Zextras website, and then unzip it and install it. At the final stage of the installation, the server will ask you to specify the IP address of the LDAP server, as well as the username / password pair that will be used to enter data about the new server into LDAP. Note that after installation is complete, each Zextras Docs server will be visible to all other infrastructure nodes.
Since the Zextras Docs extension is already contained in the Zextras Suite, it will be enough just to enable its use for those users and groups who should have access to document collaboration tools. The Zextras Docs Zymelet can be activated from the Zimbra admin console. Note that after adding the Zextras Docs server to the Zimbra OSE infrastructure, you need to update the Zimbra proxy server configuration. To do this, just execute the / opt / zimbra / libexec / zmproxyconfgen file as the Zimbra user, and then run the zmproxyctl restart command to restart the proxy service.
For all questions related to the Zextras Suite, you can contact the representative of the company "Zextras" Katerina Triandafilidi by e-mail katerina@zextras.com
Currently, Zextras Docs supports collaboration with text documents, tables and presentations, and also knows how to process a huge number of file formats. The interface of the solution is not much different from the interface of any text editor, so employees of the enterprise do not have to spend a lot of time training to switch to using Zextras Docs. But the most interesting, as always, is "under the hood." Let’s take a look together at how Zextras Docs works and what advantages this document collaboration solution can offer.
Most of all, Zextras Docs will appeal to those who already use Zimbra OSE and Zextras Suite in their enterprise. With this solution, a new service can be introduced into production without increasing the number of information systems and, as a result, can do without increasing the cost of ownership of IT infrastructure. Note that Zextras Docs is only compatible with Zimbra OSE version 8.8.12 and later. That is why if you are still using outdated versions of Zimbra, we strongly recommend upgrading to version 8.8.15 LTS. Due to the long term of support, this version will remain up-to-date and safe for several more years, and will also be compatible with all current additions.
The advantages of Zextras Docs can also include the possibility of its full deployment on the enterprise infrastructure. This avoids the transfer of information to third parties, as is often the case when using hybrid or cloud services. That is why Zextras Docs is ideal for enterprises with a strict information security policy and for those system administrators who prefer to completely control the data flows and processes occurring in the enterprise. In addition, a locally deployed document collaboration service allows you to avoid the risks associated with the inaccessibility of a cloud service when problems arise with a service provider or when problems arise with high-speed Internet access.
Zextras Docs consists of three parts: a standalone server, extension, and winter. Each of these three parts does its part:
- Zextras Docs server is a LibreOffice engine, sharpened for collaboration and integration with Zimbra OSE. It is on the Zextras Docs server that all documents that users access are opened, processed and stored. It must be installed on a dedicated computing node running Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, or CentOS 7. If the load on the Zextras Docs service is large enough, you can select several servers for it at once.
- The Zextras Docs extension does not need to be installed, as it is built into the Zextras Suite. Thanks to this extension, the user is connected to the Zextras Docs server, as well as load balancing when using multiple servers. In addition, through the Zextras Docs extension, multiple users are simultaneously connected to one document, as well as files are downloaded from local storage to the server.
- The Zextras Docs Zimlet, in turn, is needed to integrate the service into the web client. It is thanks to him that the Zimbra web client has the opportunity to create, as well as the function of previewing Zextras Docs documents.
In order to deploy Zextras Docs in the enterprise, you must first select one or more physical or virtual servers for it. After that, you need to download the server application distributions for Ubuntu 16.04 , Ubuntu 18.04 or CentOS 7 from the Zextras website, and then unzip it and install it. At the final stage of the installation, the server will ask you to specify the IP address of the LDAP server, as well as the username / password pair that will be used to enter data about the new server into LDAP. Note that after installation is complete, each Zextras Docs server will be visible to all other infrastructure nodes.
Since the Zextras Docs extension is already contained in the Zextras Suite, it will be enough just to enable its use for those users and groups who should have access to document collaboration tools. The Zextras Docs Zymelet can be activated from the Zimbra admin console. Note that after adding the Zextras Docs server to the Zimbra OSE infrastructure, you need to update the Zimbra proxy server configuration. To do this, just execute the / opt / zimbra / libexec / zmproxyconfgen file as the Zimbra user, and then run the zmproxyctl restart command to restart the proxy service.
For all questions related to the Zextras Suite, you can contact the representative of the company "Zextras" Katerina Triandafilidi by e-mail katerina@zextras.com
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