Technical Conception and Implementation of an IT-System supporting the flexible Distribution of Documents within a large scale Sales Organization [original]

Ulm University | 89069 Ulm | Germany Faculty of

Engineering and Com-

puter Science

Institute of Databases and

Information Systems

Technical Conception and Implementa-

tion of an IT-System supporting the flex-

ible Distribution of Documents within a

large scale Sales Organization

Master Thesis at Ulm University

Submitted by:

Jonas Schaude

[email protected]

Reviewer:

Prof. Dr. Manfred Reichert

Dr. Vera Künzle

Supervisor:

M. Sc. Johannes Schobel

2015

Version October 27, 2015

2015 Jonas Schaude

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0

License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/

or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California,

94105, USA.

Satz: PDF-L

TEX2ε

Abstract

This thesis aims to discuss and present an IT system to distribute documents within a

large scale sales organization. Therefore, different sales applications on the market are

analyzed and described. Based on this analysis, requirements for the IT system are

defined. The requirements are divided into client-side and server-side requirements.

The server application is realized using an existing ECM system to support the content

throughout the enterprise content life cycle. Therefore, an evaluation of existing ECM

systems is performed with a criteria catalog based on the requirements. Afterwards,

the conception and architecture of the IT system are described, followed by further

insights into the technical implementation of the mobile application. Finally, the features

of the overall IT system are discussed and an outlook on how to extend the IT system is

presented.

iii

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me during the preparation of this

master’s thesis and during my student days.

My deepest appreciation goes to Johannes Schobel for his excellent support and

important guidance through all of this thesis. I also thank Predrag Janjetovic for interest

and support for this master’s thesis.

Special thanks go to my friends, colleagues and to my family. I thank you for your support,

encouragement and opportunity.

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1. Motivation of this Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2. Structure of this Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2. Fundamentals 3

2.1. Content, Documents and Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2.1. Definition ................................ 5

2.2.2. Components .............................. 5

2.3.Decision-Making ................................ 14

2.3.1. Overview ................................ 14

2.3.2. MADMmethods ............................ 16

3. Related Work 31

3.1.DigitalSalesAid ................................ 31

3.2.Showpad .................................... 32

3.3.Comparison................................... 33

4. Requirements 35

4.1.Overview .................................... 35

4.2.ClientApplication................................ 37

4.2.1. Functional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.2.2. Nonfunctional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.3.Server...................................... 39

4.3.1. Functional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.3.2. Nonfunctional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

5. Evaluation 41

5.1. Enterprise Content Management market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

5.2.CriteriaCatalog................................. 42

vii

Contents

5.3.Evaluation.................................... 46

5.3.1. Inputparameters............................ 46

6. Conception and Architecture 59

6.1.Architecture................................... 59

6.2.Server...................................... 60

6.3.Client ...................................... 61

6.3.1. GeneralWorkflow ........................... 62

6.3.2. Datastructure ............................. 64

6.3.3. Metadata ................................ 64

6.3.4. Datamodel............................... 64

6.3.5. Files................................... 66

6.3.6. RESTAPI................................ 66

7. Implementation 69

7.1. Model-View-Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

7.1.1. Model.................................. 70

7.1.2. View................................... 74

7.1.3. Controller................................ 75

7.2. Frameworks and Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

7.3.Summary .................................... 79

8. Conclusion and Outlook 81

8.1.Conclusion ................................... 81

8.2. Requirements comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

8.3.Outlook ..................................... 83

A. Appending 85

A.1. Enterprise Content Management systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

A.2. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Power iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

A.3. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

A.4. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

viii

Introduction

It is no secret that the success of companies depends, among others, on sales. Sales

organizations and therefore sales representatives are crucial because of selling services

or products. Thereby, profits are maximizing, market share is expanding and sales

are increasing. For this, sales representatives have to meet customers and explain

how the offered services meet the customers need by demonstrating the company’s

service. Thereby, often paper based marketing material is used. However, this has

many disadvantages. Paper based marketing material may be outdated because of price

changes and it is not possible to perform an interactive demonstration (e.g., dynamical

price-quantity diagrams or videos). Another point is the weight of paper that must be

transported to a customer meeting which results often in logistical problems.

1.1. Motivation of this Thesis

With the increased prevalence of mobile devices and the expansion of the internet, new

possibilities for companies have begun to arise. Sales organizations use IT systems to

improve processes and therefore increase the value of the company itself. For example,

mobile applications connected with a central IT system can provide sales representatives.

They can thereby use mobile devices to demonstrate company’s service and will not rely

anymore on paper based marketing materials. This saves time and money and probably

increases the customer satisfaction because of, for example, parallel activities.

This thesis covers the creation of an IT system supporting the flexible distribution of

documents and evaluates powerful tools that may be used for the realization. Thereby,

1. Introduction

requirements on the IT system have to be collected. There are already different IT

systems supporting the flexible distribution of documents. These tools have to be

evaluated and compared based on given requirements. The evaluation can be performed

with different decision making methods. These need to be analyzed. A criteria catalog

has to be created for the evaluation to strongly justify why an option is preferred. The

implemented IT system is to be used in practice for a company to provide a fast and

reliable access to documents on all mobile devices. The name of the company has been

anonymized, so it is named Epsilon.

1.2. Structure of this Thesis

The thesis starts with fundamentals, which are needed for the further course of this thesis.

In section 3 existing sales applications on the market are described. Section 4 presents

an overall overview, functional requirements and nonfunctional requirements for the client

and server. Based on these requirements an evaluation of already existing Enterprise

Content Management systems is performed in section 5. For an better understanding

with respect to the overall IT system, the conception and architecture is described in

section 6. Section 7 provides further insights into the technical implementation. Finally,

section 8 discusses the features of the overall IT system, concludes this thesis and

provides an outlook on how to extend the IT system.

Fundamentals

The following sections cover requirements for the further understanding of this thesis.

Section 2.1 introduces some fundamental terms in the context of enterprises and

information technology. Based on these terms, section 2.2 describes an Enterprise

Content Management system based on its components. Finally, section 2.3 introduces

the decision making theory for an evaluation in this thesis.

2.1. Content, Documents and Information

The differences between content, document and information is presented in figure 2.1

based on the conceptual hierarchy. On the lowest level are characters, which can be

a letter from the alphabet, a number or a special character (for example "

", "

" or "

").

Data is defined as a character in combination with syntax. It contains various sequences

of characters (for example "

16.09.2015

"). Information is data with a specific context

(for example "Deadline:

16.09.2015

"). A document is defined as a group of information

(for example "master’s thesis timeline"). Content results in combination of different

electronic resources. These are structure information, describing metadata, layout and

raw-content (for example "master’s thesis"). There are different variants of content.

These are unstructured content, weakly structured content and structured content,

homely unstructured content does not match any structure, pattern or recurrent logic (for

example letters). Weakly structured content contains predictable data at any position

of the document (for example bills). Structured content can be evaluated automatically.

The position of elements is predefined (for example remittance slip) [Rig09, Egg07].

2. Fundamentals

Character Data Information Document Content

Syntax Context

(semantics)

Content

(pragmatics)

Layout

Structure

Raw-Content

Figure 2.1.: Conceptual hierarchy from character to content1.

Content of an enterprise has different phases during its life cycle and is divided into the

following phases: Create, edit, connect, publish, reuse, store, archive and delete. Figure

2.2 shows the relation between these phases. They are mostly sequential but can also

proceed individual. The

create

phase includes the creation and classification of new

Edit

Creation

Connect

Publish

Reuse

SaveArchive

Delete

Start

End

Figure 2.2.: Enterprise Content Life Cycle [Egg07].

content. Existing content can be edited or extended with comments in the

edit

phase. It

is also possible to create different versions of a content. The

connect

phase contains the

connection of different content like raw-content and images. The

publish

phase includes

control- and release mechanisms. Control mechanisms contain controls via employees

based on the layout. The release mechanism shares content in the enterprise. The

reuse

phase contains mechanisms to change or extend already existing content. The

content is stored on the file system in the

save

phase. If the content falls into disuse, it

can be archived in the archive phase or be deleted in the delete phase.

1Source: [Egg07] with modifications by the author.

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems

Nowadays, producing documents has increased rapidly because of the technological

evolution. About 80 percent of enterprise documents are represented as emails, word

documents, digital images or PDF files in the industrial sector [

Goo13

]. Companies

are not able to handle these structured and unstructured documents manually based

on their importance [

Rig09

]. Another problem is the handling of distributed information

by different departments and therefore missing information about the data access.

Companies are more competitive if their documents are more accessible [

AG15

]. To

prevent these problems and improve the services of companies, an overall IT-System is

needed.

2.2.1. Definition

The term

Enterprise Content Management

(ECM) has been introduced by the worldwide

association for enterprise content management, the

Association for Information and

Image Management

(AIIM) international, in 2001. AIIM defines ECM as

the strategies,

methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content and

documents related to organizational processes

. According to this definition, ECM is not

just a single technology, a methodology or a process [Eur15b, Bla15, Goo13, Eur15a].

The fundamental features of ECM can be described as a system that allows the man-

agement of unstructured information. Thereby, a fast access of data will be guaranteed.

Unstructured information does not have any formal structure.

2.2.2. Components

Based on the definition of AIIM, ECM can be divided into five components: Capture,

manage, store, preserve and deliver. Figure 2.3 shows an overview about these com-

ponents in the context of ECM. This component model is function-based and not to be

regarded as an architecture [Kam15].

2. Fundamentals

Collaboration

Business

Process

Management

Workflow

Management

CAPTURE

 Human created information

 Application created information

 Technologies

 Classification

Document

Management

Records

Management

Web Content

Management

MANAGE

PRESERVE

 Archives

STORE

 Technologies

 Repositories

 Library Services

DELIVER

 Transformation Technologies

 Security Technologies

 Distribution

Figure 2.3.: Enterprise Content Management components [Eur15a].

2.2.2.1. Capture component

The Capture component is also called Input component and includes functionalities and

components for the collection (generating, capturing, preparing and processing) of digital

or analog information for the Manage Component [Pro06, Goo13, Kam15].

Information

Capture of analog information means the transformation of human created

information into electronic information. Human created information can involve all form

of information (for example drawings, paper documents or microfilms). Capture of digital

information is the data extraction of application created information like XML documents

or e-Forms and is mostly captured automatically or semi-automatically [

Kam15

Rig09

Technologies

The process of capturing, storing and retrieving of analog documents

is named as

document imaging

. It improves the readability and therefore the quality of

documents, for example by removing isolated pixels or rotating documents. There are

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems

different kinds of recognition technologies for digital generation of information. These

technologies are described in the following [Kam15, Eur15a]:

•Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

: A technique which transforms analog-

typed information (images of characters) into machine-readable characters (ed-

itable and searchable text).

•Handprint Character Recognition (HCR)

: HCR is an extension of OCR and

transforms handprinted analog information into machine-readable characters.

•Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR)

: ICR is in addition to HCR and OCR.

ICR includes mechanisms to improve the recognition, for example, by using com-

parisons with context information or learning fonts during processing.

•Optical Mark Recognition (OMR)

: OMR detects marks (for example bar-codes)

in a predefined area with very high accuracy. It is typically used for processing

questionnaires.

•Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR)

: IDR automatically identifies and cate-

gorizes documents by layout or structure.

The process of capturing, storing and indexing of digital information is named as

Com-

puter Output to Laser Disk/Enterprise Report Management (COLD/ERM).

The digitized information are represented in an uniform structure and format by aggrega-

tion technologies. These digitized information need to be classified to be used by the

Manage Component.

Classification

The classification is an essential step of the capture component and

contains indexing and categorization of digital documents. These will be complemented

by descriptive attributes. The classification process identifies specific attributes of digital

documents or database records for easily and fast retrieving [Eur15a].

There are different methods to classify digital documents which will be described in the

following according to [Rig09]:

2. Fundamentals

•Template-Classification

: Template classification is based on input designs. Static

elements like headlines allow the classification of documents easily. These docu-

ments are, for example, letters or bills.

•Classification with associative search

: Classification is based on the analysis of

content. Documents will be classified by comparison of the content with associated

target classes.

•Phrase-Classification

: The classification is based on phrases and is mostly used

in formalized communication.

•Image-Size-Classification

: A classification by the format of the document. It is

typically used for driver-licenses or recipes.

2.2.2.2. Manage component

The Manage component is used for the management, processing and use of information

[

Eur15a

]. It consists of

Collaboration

Document Management

Records Management

Web Content Management

and

Workflow

Business Process Management

components,

which are described in the following [Kam15].

Collaboration

Collaboration allows multiple users to work at the same content with

different tools. There are two different types of collaboration: Synchronous collaboration

and asynchronous collaboration. Synchronous collaboration on the one hand is the

interaction in real time – for example instant messaging or a video conference. Asyn-

chronous collaboration on the other hand is the time-shifted interaction – for example

email [Egg07, Eur15a].

Collaboration contains the following functions according to [Kam15]:

•Shared usable information databases.

•Shared, simultaneously and controlled editing of information.

•

Knowledge based on skills, resources and background data for shared editing of

information.

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems

•

Administration components like whiteboards for brainstorming, schedules or project

management.

•Communication applications.

•Integration of information from other applications.

The advantages of collaboration are saving costs and time. These advantages means

faster reactions and increasing productivity [Egg07].

Document Management

Document Management controls the life cycle (capture, re-

ceiving, repository, administration, retrieval and processing) of documents through an

enterprise [

Egg07

Eur15a

]. The administration requires different information about

the documents. These are the document by itself, metadata about the document, an

unique identification key, information about the structure and rules. The retrieval of

documents is performed using metadata and an unique identification key. Rules are

used to define the lifetime, life cycle, access rights and different behaviors of documents

[

Egg07

]. According to [

Egg07

] the especially functions of Document Management are

the following:

•Description and marking of documents

•Update and version management of documents

•Distribution of documents

•Search/retrieval of documents

•Archiving and deletion of documents

•Definition of responsibility for the administration of documents

Another related concept in the context of ECM is called

Digital Asset Management

. The

focus thereby are media data and images [Egg07].

Records Management

Some documents need to be archived, for example according

to law. The administration of this task is done by the Records Management. It archives

2. Fundamentals

records with additional information like status, version or editor of the document. A

record is thereby defined as an unchangeable document. The main functions are the

following according to [Rig09, Kam15]:

•Mapping of structured indexes into orderly storage of information.

•Thesaurus-based unique indexing of information.

•Administration of record retention schedules and deletion schedules.

•Protection of information based its attributes.

•Use of standardized meta-data for the unique identification and description of the

information.

Web Content Management

Web Content Management includes the management of

content for the presentation of websites. This includes the representation of information

from the database on websites, tools for the administration of information and protection

of layout, structure and functionality of websites. The essentially functions of Web

Content Management are the following according to [Kam15]:

•

Creation of new or editing of existing information in a controlled generation and

publishing process.

•Preparation and administration of information for the website.

•

Automatic conversion for different representation formats, personalized display and

versions.

•Secure separation of access to public and non-public information.

•Visualization for internet representation.

Workflow/Business Process Management

Generally the Workflow Module and Busi-

ness Process Management includes a connecting, managing and controlling function in

the ECM model.

The Workflow Module represents processes of the Enterprise Content Life Cycle.

Thereby, the efficiency will be increased through faster processes. Generally there

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems

are two different types of Workflows. These are Production-Workflows and Ad-hoc-

Workflows. Production-Workflow are highly structured, what means that it contains a

set of predefined sequences. Ad-hoc-Workflow are unstructured and contains process

sequences that are determined by the user during runtime. The Workflow Module in the

ECM model can be realized as

Workflow Solution

with autonomous clients or as

Work-

flow Engine

without requiring an own client [

Kam15

Egg07

]. The essentially functions

of Workflow are the following according to [Kam15]:

•Imaging of process and organization structures.

•Capture, administration, visualization and delivery of information.

•

Embedding of processing tools for data and documents (for example Microsoft

Office Products).

•Parallel and sequential processing and recording of procedures.

•Reminders, deadlines, delegation and other administration functionalities.

•Monitoring and documentation of process status, routing and outcomes.

•Tools for the configuration and displaying of processes.

The Business Process Management module integrates all relevant applications within an

enterprise including monitoring of processes and combination of all required information.

The essential functions of Business Process Management are the following according to

[Kam15]:

•Complete workflow functionality.

•Process and data monitoring.

•Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).

•Business Intelligence (BI).

Figure 2.4 shows the relationship between Workflow Management and Business Process

Management.

2. Fundamentals

diagnosis

process

design

system

configuration

process

enactment

Workflow

management

Business

Process

Management

Figure 2.4.:

Relationship between Workflow Management and Business Process Man-

agement [AHW03].

2.2.2.3. Store component

The Store component is used for the storage of temporary information that does not

have to be archived. According to the definition of [Eur15a], it can be divided into three

different types: Library Services, repositories and technologies. Library Services are

administration components and handle access to information, repositories contains

storage locations and storage technologies [Kam15].

Library Services

The Library Services are responsible for the storage of information

by the capture and manage component. It also provides search and retrieval functions.

The location of the storage is determined by the characteristics and classifications of

the information. It also provides version management to handle different versions of

information and check-in/check-out functionality to control the information provision. If

the ECM contains any Document Management System or Record Management System

the functionalities are handled by these systems. Logging functions to keep track of

document changes are also a part of the library service [Kam15].

Repositories

Repositories are a part of Document Management System [

Eur15a

There are different repositories to store information. These are file systems (mostly

2.2. Enterprise Content Mangement Systems

used for temporary content), content management systems, databases (mostly used

for access information but can also be used for documents or media assets) or data

warehouses (represents information from different sources) [Kam15].

2.2.2.4. Preserve component

The Preserve component handles the long-term storage of unchanging information.

Therefore, it is important to detect the most cost-effective and reliable medium and

mechanism for the archiving. The essentially mediums and mechanisms are the following

according to [Kam15]:

•Write Once Read Many (WORM): These are media like CD-R and DVD-R.

•WORM-Tape: Magnetic tape with WORM characteristics.

•Content Addressed Storage (CAS)

: Magnetic hard drive storage that is protected

by software against overwriting, erasure and editing.

•Network Attached Storage (NAS)/Storage Area Networks (SAN)

: Can also be

used if they meet the auditing acceptability.

•Microfilm

: Can also be used as backup medium if the information is no more in

usage and if there is no machine processing required.

•Paper

: Paper can also be used as long-term storage medium, because it does not

require migration and can be read without any technical aid.

2.2.2.5. Deliver components

The Deliver component (also named as Output Management) provides timely and

secure access of information from the Manage, Store and Preserver component. It also

contains functions that are used as input for the Store and Preserve component, and

can be divided into three categories [

Kam15

]: Transformation technologies (for example

COLD/ERM, XML, PDF, Converts and Viewers, Compression and Syndication), security

technologies (electronic signatures or media asset management) and distribution. The

2. Fundamentals

objective of deliver components is to optimally provide the information for each recipient

and control the use of information as far as possible.

2.3. Decision-Making

This section covers fundamental decision making knowledge as a basis for the further

course of this thesis. Section 2.3.1 provides an overview followed by different MADM

methods in section 2.3.2.

2.3.1. Overview

The

Oxford Dictionaries

defines decision-making as

the action or process of making

important decisions2

. Furthermore, a decision has an overall goal, attributes (or criteria)

as well as alternatives. Figure 2.5 shows the relation between these decision elements

in the whole process of decision-making.

Decision

problem

Overall goal

Decision-making

model

Criteria/Attributes

Single alternative or

set of good

alternatives

Alternative1Alternativek

...

Figure 2.5.: Overview of the whole process of decision-making3.

2http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/decision-making

3Source: [KO14] with modifications by the author.

2.3. Decision-Making

Decision-making is divided into two categories based on the number of attributes.

Single

Criterion Decision Making

(SCDM) and

Multi Criteria Decision Making

(MCDM) models.

The overall goal of SCDM models depends on a single attribute while the overall goal of

MCDM models depends on multiple criteria.

MCDM models are generally classified into

Multiple Attribute Decision Making

(MADM)

methods and

Multi Objective Decision Making

(MODM) methods based on the domain

of alternatives. On the one hand, MODM methods have a large number (up to infinity)

of alternatives in a continuous domain. MADM methods, on the other hand, have a

finite number of alternatives in a discrete domain and rank the alternatives completely

or partially [

KO14

]. The methods in each category are also classified into different

categories based on their type of information from the decision maker.

Decision Making

Multiple Criteria Decision

Making (MCDM)

Multi Attribute

Decision Making

(MADM)

Multi Objective

Decision Making

(MODM)

Single Criterion Decision

Making (SCDM)

information

Ordinal attribute

information

Cardinal attribute

information

Standard

level

A posteriori

information

A priori

presence

information

Progressive

presence

information

Interactive methods

∙ Dominance

strategy

∙ Conjunctive strategy

∙ Disjunctive strategy

∙ Lexicographical strategy

∙ Elimination by aspects

∙ Weighted Sum strategy

∙ Simple Additive Weighting

∙ Weighted product strategy

∙ TOPSIS

∙ ELECTRE

∙ AHP

∙ Completely

solution

∙ Target

programming

Implicit trade-offs

∙ STEM

∙ Method of shifted

ideal

Explicit trade-offs

∙ Surrogate worth trade-off-method

∙ Method of Geoffrion-Dyer-Feinberg

∙ Method of Zionts-Wallenius

Intent

Number of

criteria

Domain of

alternatives

Type of

information

from decision

maker

Methods

Information on

environment

∙ Maximin

strategy

Pessimistic Optimistic

∙ Maximax

strategy

Information on

attribute

Figure 2.6.: Overview about decision-making4.

Figure 2.6 shows an overview about decision-making methods. This thesis deals only

with a finite number of alternatives within a discrete domain. Therefore, MODM methods

are not considered in this thesis. For more information about MODM methods consider

[HPMY12].

4Source: [Oss13], [ZG91] and [Lez06] with modifications by the author.

2. Fundamentals

2.3.2. MADM methods

This section presents different MADM methods. These are Dominance Strategy, Maximin

and Maximax Strategies, Conjunctive and Disjunctives Strategies, Lexicographic and

Elimination by Aspects Strategies, Weighted Sum and Weighted Product Strategies,

TOPSIS Strategy, ELECTRE Strategy and the Analytic Hierarchy Process.

2.3.2.1. Dominance Strategy

The

Dominance Strategy

is a decision-making method that does not require any infor-

mation about the attributes. It is mostly used as pre-selection for other decision-making

methods to reduce the number of alternatives.

The method declares an alternative

as dominant if it is at least one attribute better

and in no attribute worse than the other alternatives

with

j= 1, ..., n

and

j6=i

, where

is the number of alternatives. It compares all possible constellations of alternatives

pairwise. If alternative jdominates alternative i, then alternative iwill be eliminated.

If alternative

dominates alternative

and alternative

dominates alternative

, then

alternative

also dominates alternative

. This means that dominance is transitive. It

is therefore enough to compare the alternatives pairwise to determine the dominant

alternatives. The dominance strategy needs

(n−1)

comparisons in the best case and

n∗(n−1)

comparisons in the worst case, where

is the number of attributes [

Lif09

Oss13

MOK07].

2.3.2.2. Maximin and Maximax Strategies

Other than the Dominance Strategy, the

Maximin and Maximax Strategies

require com-

parable attributes that can be measured on a homogeneous scale. The Maximin Strategy

evaluates alternatives based on their weakest attribute without consideration of other at-

tributes. For this, the matrix in equation 2.1 is calculated, where

Attri

is the

ith

attribute,

is the

jth

alternative,

wij

is the weight of the

ith

alternative and the

jth

attribute,

the number of attributes,

is the number of alternatives and

min(wji)

is the weakest

2.3. Decision-Making

attribute

Attri

of alternative

Aj∀i= 1, ..., n

. The alternative with the maximum value in

column min is the preferred alternative [Oss13].







Alternative/Attribute Attr1Attr2. . . Attrnmin

A1w11 w12 . . . w1nmin(w1i)

A2w21 w22 . . . w2nmin(w2i)

Amwm1wm2. . . wmn min(wmi)s







(2.1)

The Maximax strategy works analog with the column

max = max(wji)

(best attribute)

instead of min to detect the preferred alternative with the maximum value [MOK07].

2.3.2.3. Conjunctive and Disjunctive Strategies

The

Conjunctive and Disjunctive Strategies

define a threshold for the alternatives and

require comparable attributes that can be measured on a homogeneous scale. All

alternatives will be divided into acceptable alternatives and non-acceptable alternatives

based on the threshold.

The conjunctive method, on the one hand, requires that all attributes of an alternative

have to meet the threshold. If an alternative

reaches this condition, then it will be

added to the acceptable alternatives. Otherwise it will be added to the non-acceptable

alternatives.

The disjunctive method, on the other hand, requires that at least one attribute of an

alternative

has to meet the threshold. If alternative

reaches this condition, it will

be added to the acceptable alternatives. Otherwise it will also be added to the non-

acceptable alternatives.

The threshold can be raised step by step till only one alternative meets the requirement.

Thereby, the number of acceptable alternatives can be set to one but the method is not

compensatory. This means that weakness of attributes will not be balanced. Therefore,

it is recommended to use the method only to identify the acceptable and non-acceptable

alternatives [MOK07, Oss13].

2. Fundamentals

2.3.2.4. Lexicographic and Elimination by Aspects Strategies

The

Lexicographic Strategy

requires comparable attributes that can be measured on a

homogeneous scale. It starts with the ranking

r=Attr1, ..., Attrn

of all attributes based

on the importance of attributes, where

Attri

is the

ith

attribute and

is the number of

attributes.

The alternative with the best value in the most preferred attribute is the best alternative.

If two or more alternatives have the same value, then the process will be repeated with

the next most preferred attribute till the best alternative remains or all attributes are

considered [Oss13].

It is possible to get a ranking of alternatives by eliminating the best alternative and

repeating the whole process with the others [MOK07].

The

Elimination by Aspects Strategy

method combines the Lexicographic Strategy (see

section 2.3.2.4) with the Conjunctive Strategy (see section 2.3.2.3). The comparison is

like the comparison of Lexicographic Method but attributes that does not meet a specified

standard will be eliminated from further considerations [MOK07].

2.3.2.5. Weighted Sum and Weighted Product Strategies

The

Weighted Sum Strategy

is especially used in single dimensional problems and

requires cardinal attribute information.

Simple Additive Weighting

(SAW) is a method of

Weighted Sum Strategy and is one of the most popular method of MADM [TH11].

The Weighted Sum Strategy requires information about the attributes provided by the

decision maker [TH11]. These are:

•an importance weight for each attribute and

•a weight for each attribute with respect to the alternatives.

The best alternative is determined by equation 2.2, where

rij

is the weight of the

ith

alternative and the

jth

attribute,

is the importance weight of the

jth

attribute,

is the

2.3. Decision-Making

number of attributes and mis the number alternatives [Mat12].

AW SM

best =max(

i=1

rij ∗wj|∀j= 1, ..., m)(2.2)

The process of Weighted Sum Strategy can be summarized with the following steps

according to [Hüb07]:

1. Identification of attributes and alternatives

2. Evaluation of alternatives

3. Determination of attribute weights

4. Additive aggregation of weighted partial preference values

5. Sensitivity analysis

The

Weighted Product strategy

is similar to the Weighted Sum Strategy. The difference

between the two strategies is the multiplication instead of the addition of attributes

[

Mat12

]. Therefore, the best alternative can be determined by equation 2.3 with the

same variables.

AW P M

best =max(

j=1

(rkj

rlj

)wj|∀k, l = 1, ..., m)(2.3)

2.3.2.6. TOPSIS Strategy

The

TOPSIS Strategy

(Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution)

was created by Ching-Lai Hwang and Kwangsun Yoon in 1981 and requires cardinal

attribute information. It was introduced as a MADM method without any articulation of

preference information. There are different applications of TOPSIS (i.e.,

fuzzy TOPSIS

)

[HY81, Tav12, AMSA11, HM15, PZ15].

The TOPSIS Strategy creates an additional positive ideal alternative and an additional

negative positive ideal alternative. The best alternative is identified with the farthest

distance from the negative positive ideal alternative and the closest distance to the

positive ideal alternative. Thereby, TOPSIS calculates for each attribute the distance

from the negative ideal solution and the distance to the positive ideal solution [Tav12].

2. Fundamentals

The process of TOPSIS strategy can be divided into the following steps [HM15, PZ15]:

1. Modeling of the decision problem

: In the first step the decision maker has to

detect all relevant attributes and alternatives based on the decision problem.

2. Calculate the standardized decision matrix

: Creation of the standardized matrix

in equation 2.4, where

wij

is the standardized weight of the

ith

alternative and the

jth attribute).







Alternative/Attribute Attr1Attr2. . . Attrn

A1w11 w12 . . . w1n

A2w21 w22 . . . w2n

Amwm1wm2. . . wmn







(2.4)

3. Calculate weights for each attribute and construct the weighted standard-

ized decision matrix

: Rate each attribute based on the importance of the attribute.

Generally, TOPSIS does not define a rating score for the attributes but mostly val-

ues between 1 (low priority) and 5 (high priority) are used. Then multiply the

weighted standardized decision matrix with the rated attributes to get the weighted

standardized decision matrix.

4. Calculate virtual alternatives

: Identification of the positive and the negative ideal

solution. The best attributes of the weighted standardized decision-matrix will be

put together to get the positive ideal solution (see equation 2.5, where

is the

best value of the ith attribute in relation to each alternative).

A=wbest

1, ..., wbest

n(2.5)

The calculation of the negative ideal solution works analogous with the worst

attributes instead of the best attributes.

5. Calculate the distance to the virtual positive and virtual negative ideal solu-

tion for each alternative

: The distance is an euclidean distance. Therefore, the

euclidean distance between the virtual positive ideal solution and alternative

have

2.3. Decision-Making

to be calculated with:

D+

i=v

j=1

(wij −w+

j)2(2.6)

where w+

jis the value of the jth attribute from the virtual positive ideal solution.

6. Determine the relative closeness of each alternative to the virtual positive

ideal solution: Calculate the index C+

ifor each alternative iwith:

C+

i=S−

S+

i+S−

(2.7)

The index

C+

determines the relative closeness to the virtual positive ideal solution

and can be used to create a ranking of alternatives.

2.3.2.7. ELECTRE Strategy

The term

ELECTRE

is an acronym for

Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la Realité

(elim-

ination and choice expressing the reality) and was proposed by Bernard Roy and his

colleagues at a consulting company. ELECTRE is classified as an outranking method

of decision-making. An outranking method uses aggregating preference information

instead of value function approach.

The method exists in different versions. These are ELECTRE

, ELECTRE

III

, ELECTRE

and ELECTRE

TRI

, and are all based on the same

fundamental concept that will be described in the following. ELECTRE

(devised by

Bernard Roy in 1968) is one of the earliest outranking multi-criteria evaluation methods.

The ELECTRE method needs the following information from the decision maker:

•an importance weight gjfor each attribute

•a weight for each attribute with respect to the alternatives

Generally, ELECTRE can be described with the following steps according to [

TSSR15

F¨

15]:

2. Fundamentals

1. Normalizing the decision matrix

: Calculate the normalized decision matrix by

replacing the weight based on the following calculation:

wij =wij

qPM

i=1 w2

(2.8)

where M is the number of alternatives and

wij

is the standardized weight of the

ith

alternative and the jth attribute.

2. Weighting the normalized decision matrix

: Weight the values of the normalized

decision matrix with the importance weight of the attributes based on the following

calculation:

wij =wij ∗gj(2.9)

where gjis the weight of attribute j.

3. Determine the concordance and discordance sets

: All alternatives will be com-

pared pairwise. Therefore, a concordance set

Ckl

and a discordance set

Dkl

will

be calculated. The concordance set contains all alternatives that are better than

alternative

; i.e., better means that

wkj >=wlj

for attribute

. The discordance

set, on the other hand, contains all alternatives that are worse than attribute

; i.e.,

wkj < wlj .

4. Calculation of the concordance and discordance index

: The power of each

concordance set is represented via a concordance index. Analog the discordance

index. The concordance set is calculated with:

Kh,i =X

j∈Ckl

gj(2.10)

The discordance set is calculated with:

Dh,i =maxj∈Dkl |wkj −wlj|

maxj|wkj −wlj |(2.11)

2.3. Decision-Making

5. Construct preference-relation

: The last step calculates a threshold value

that

can be determined as average concordance index:

c=1

M(M−1) ×

k=1

l=1

Ckl |∀k6=l(2.12)

Analog a threshold for the discordance dominance dcan be calculated:

d=1

M(M−1) ×

k=1

l=1

Dkl |∀k6=l(2.13)

Alternative joutranks alternative kif Cjk > c and Djk < d.

2.3.2.8. Analytic Hierarchy Process

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a method of the decision theory to solve decision

problems and was developed by Thomas L. Saaty between 1971-1975 while working as

a professor at the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)

[

FRL15

AH08

Jun94

]. It is an often used method which is rooted in the structure and

the easy usage compared with other methods of the decision theory [

OL99

]. AHP

needs cardinal attribute information and is based on three principles: decomposition,

comparative judgments and synthesis of priorities. These three principles cause the

popularity of AHP. The decomposition applies identification of the objective, definition

of the criteria (or attribute) and selection of alternatives based on the problem. The

criteria will be divided into manageable sub-criteria. These sub-criteria can also be

divided into more specified sub-criteria and will be ordered in a hierarchic structure

before they will get successively dissolved. The comparative judgments applies the

pairwise comparisons of criteria to solve the decision problem with respect to their parent

node. This is the most effective way to compare properties. The decision maker is able

to concentrate on the comparison of two properties without any influences. Furthermore,

the consistency will also get improved. The synthesis of priorities applies the calculation

of each alternative. For this the local priorities of the criteria in a cluster will be multiplied

2. Fundamentals

with the priority of the parent element. After all criteria have been calculated the ranking

of the alternatives can be determined by adding back all priorities [Tsa08].

Objective

Overall goal of the decision problem

Criteria

Criterion1Criterion2Criterionn

Subcriterion1.1 Subcriterion1.2 Subcriterion2.1 Subcriterion2.m

Alternatives

Alternative1Alternative2Alternativek

...

Subcriterion1.l ...

Cluster

Figure 2.7.: Hierarchy of AHP [Koo15, Gir15].

Axioms AHP is based on four axioms (the fourth was added later) [RGF09, Tsa08]:

1. Reciprocal:

aij =1

aji

(2.14)

where

aij

is the weight of the

ith

attribute and the

jth

alternative. The axiom means

that if an alternative (or attribute)

times better than an alternative (or attribute)

jthen jis 1

2as good as i[Jun94].

2. Homogeneity:

aij 6=∞(2.15)

If the decision maker compares two alternatives (or attributes)

and

then

is not

infinitely better than

. In other words: The comparison of the two alternatives (or

attributes) should not differ too much.

2.3. Decision-Making

Independence of judgments within the hierarchy: The axiom means that it has to

be possible to transform the decision problem into a hierarchy. Every cluster in the

hierarchy is only depending on the next higher level and depends only the next

lower level. The attributes of one cluster are not allowed to affect themselves. This

requires that the structure of the hierarchy looks like figure 2.7.

Expectations: The last axiom means that all attributes (or criteria) and alternatives

that matter in the decision problem have to be represented in the hierarchy.

Process

The process of AHP can be described with 6 steps according to [

CR10

] (see

figure 2.8). These steps will be described in the following. Note that step 2, 3 and 5 are

characteristically for the AHP process [BM94].

Decompose the problem into a hierarchical structure with decision elements.

Construct a set of pairwise comparison matrices.

Determine the relative weights of decision elements by calculating the

eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

Aggregate the relative weights of decision elements to obtain and overall rating

for the alternatives.

Are all pairwise comparison

matrices consistent?

Yes

Define the problem, objectives and outcomes.

Figure 2.8.: Process of AHP according to [CR10].

1. Defining problem, objectives and outcomes

: The most creative task in solving

a decision problem might be the definition of decision elements that are important

[

Saa90

]. The definition of decision elements is the basis for AHP and can be

separated in two parts:

•Defining objectives, criteria and

2. Fundamentals

•Defining possible alternatives.

Criteria are attributes based on objectives. These criteria can be broken down into

sub-criteria. However, these may also be broken down into additional sub-sub-

criteria and so one.

2. Decomposition of the problem into a hierarchical structure

: The decision

elements (overall goal, criteria and alternatives) will be arranged in a decision

hierarchy (see figure 2.7). The overall goal is on top level of the hierarchical

structure followed by possible sub-goals, criteria, possible sub-criteria and finally

the alternatives on the lowest level. The sub-elements on the next lower level of an

element are also named cluster. It is important to map the decision problem into

the hierarchic structure completely according to axiom 4. This means that each

element of the hierarchic structure has to be in relation with the element in the next

higher level. According to [

IL15

] it is recommended that each cluster has seven

plus or minus two elements.

3. Construction of comparison matrices

: AHP uses a simple pairwise comparison

of criteria based on the next higher element. Therefore, the decision maker re-

sponds the question which criteria is more preferred with Saatys discrete judgment

scale (see table 2.1) in consideration of axiom 4. He thought that five discrete

attributes (1 = equal importance, 3 = moderate importance, 5 = essential or strong

importance, 7 = very strong importance and 9 = extreme importance) would be

enough to judge qualitative decisions. The judgment scale has been proven in

practice and validated by physical and decision problem experiments. Each elem-

ent of one cluster will be compared in a matrix (see equation 2.16, where

the

ith

attribute). It is clear that

aii = 1

as each element has equal importance to

itself. Furthermore, it is enough that the decision maker only compares a triangular

part of the matrix (

akl

with

k= 1, ..., n

and

l=k, ..., n

) because the remaining

weights can be completed with axiom 1 (reciprocal axiom). Therefore, AHP needs

2.3. Decision-Making

2n(n−1) comparisons [Ahl13, MK13].







A1. . . An

A1a11 . . . a1n

Anan1. . . ann







(2.16)

Intensity of im-

portance on an

absolute scale

Definition Explanation

1 Equal importance

Two activities contribute equally to the ob-

jective.

Moderate importance of

one over another

Experience and judgment strongly favor

one activity over another.

Essential or strong im-

portance

Experience and judgment strongly favor

one activity over another.

7 Very strong importance

An activity is strongly favored and its dom-

inance demonstrated in practice.

9 Extreme importance

The evidence favoring one activity over

another is of the highest possible order of

affirmation.

2,4,6,8

Intermediate values be-

tween the two adjacent

judgments

When compromise is needed.

Reciprocals

If activity

has one of the above numbers

assigned to it when compared with activity

, then

has the reciprocal value when

compared with i.

Rationals

Ratios arising from the

scale

If consistency were to be forced by obtain-

ing

numerical values to span the matrix.

Table 2.1.: Fundamental scale according to [Saa90].

4. Determination of the relative weights by calculating the eigenvalues and

eigenvectors:

According to [Ahl13] the elements of the matrix can be described as

aij =wi

(2.17)

2. Fundamentals

where

is the weight of the

ith

attribute (table 2.1). This equation can be

transformed with axiom 1 into

⇒aij ∗wj

= 1 (2.18)

and

⇒

j=1

aij ∗wj

=n(2.19)

This equation can be transformed into

⇒

j=1

aij ∗wj=n∗wi(2.20)

The matrix has an unit rank because every column is a constant multiplied with the

first one. Therefore, there is a single eigenvalue

λi

with

i= 1, ..., n

and

∀i6= 0

. It

is also known that

Pi=1 nλi=tr(A) = n

because

sumi=1naii =n

. This non-zero

eigenvalue will be denoted with

λmax

with

λi= 0, λi6=λmax, λmax =n

[

Tsa08

Therefore, equation 2.20 can be transformed into

⇒A∗w=λmax ∗w(2.21)

and

⇒A∗w−λmax ∗w= 0 (2.22)

This equation can be transformed into the following eigenvalue problem. The eigen-

vector

in equation 2.23 represents the weight vector of the pairwise comparison

matrix.

⇒(A∗ −λmax ∗I)∗w= 0 (2.23)

⇒det(A∗ −λmax ∗I)=0 (2.24)

where

is the comparison matrix,

λmax

is the eigenvalue and

is the identity

matrix. The solution of equation 2.24 are the eigenvalues

λmax

. There are

different algorithm to calculate the eigenvalues like

Jacobi eigenvalue algorithm

2.3. Decision-Making

inverse

power iteration

. A eigenvector can be determined for each eigenvalue

. The solution for the absolute weight factors is the maximal eigenvalue

λmax

of the eigenvector

wmax

. The latter can be calculated with equation 2.24 and is the

absolute weight factors of the different criteria [Ahl13].

An example for the calculation of the relative weights based on the power iteration

is given in the section A.2 according to [MK13, Koo15].

5. Consistence check

: A matrix is declared as consistent if alternative

is 2 times

important as alternative

and alternative

is 5 times important as alternative

then alternative

has to be 10 times important than alternative

. Saaty suggested

to use the consistency index

C.I.

to determine if a

-by-

matrix is consistent or

inconsistent (see equation 2.25) [

BCFG06

]. The consistency of a matrix can be

determined with the consistency ratio

C.R.

(see equation 2.26) based on

λmax

The random consistency (

R.C.

) is shown in table 2.2. The matrix is consistent if

C.R. <= 0.1

. If the decision is absolutely consistent then

λmax =n

. Otherwise the

judgment of the hierarchy should be completely revised because the decision will

not be adequate [MK13].

C.I. =λmax −n

n−1(2.25)

C.R. =C.I.

R.C. (2.26)

n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

RC 0 0 0.58 0.9 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.45

Table 2.2.: Random consistency indices for different number of criteria n.

6. Calculation of the global weight of each alternative

: The rank of the alterna-

tives is determined by calculating the global weights of alternatives. The global

weight can be calculated with

palternative

i=X

wj∗lij (2.27)

2. Fundamentals

where

palternative

is the global weight of the

ith

alternative,

is the weight of

criterion

and

lij

is the local priority with respect to criterion

and the

ith

alternative.

The alternative with the highest global weight is the best alternative.

Related Work

Currently, there exists variety of sales applications on the market. Two examples for

mobile sales applications are

Digital Sales Aid

and

Showpad

. These applications are

discussed and described in the following based on internet research.

3.1. Digital Sales Aid

Digital Sales Aid

(DSA) is a mobile iOS application from Salesforce mobile team that

provides functionalities to find, share and deliver product information to customers. The

application is integrated with Salesforce CRM. Therefore, the content library can be

used and data can also be associated with leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities.

Content can be updated on the website

using a WYSIWYG editor. Users of DSA are

able to download and synchronize content to the mobile device. Thereby, files can be

opened offline by browsing through preset categories or searching by title. DSA supports

the most common file types such as Microsoft Office files, PDF files, photos or videos.

Additionally, interactive HTML5 content is also supported. Figure 3.1 shows an example

of HTML5 content in DSA. Users are able to access recent activities by a historical view

[BR15].

1http://www.salesforce.com

3. Related Work

Figure 3.1.: HTML5 model cola example in DSA.

3.2. Showpad

Showpad - Sales Acceleration

(Showpad) is a combination of an online platform and a

mobile application. The mobile application is available on iOS, Android and Windows

Phone. It provides built-in integration with common cloud hosting services like Box,

Dropbox and Google Drive. Thereby, content can be uploaded and managed from a

cloud-based file-sharing application. Showpad is organized using

channels

that function

like categories to create content structure. Users are able to synchronize content, profiles,

internal branding and custom forms. Once synchronized, content can be opened without

a connection to the internet.

The mobile application supports most common file types such as Microsoft Office files,

PDF files, videos, photos and also HTML5 content. Users are able to access files by

browsing or searching (see figure 3.2). The look and feel of the mobile application can

be customized to meet the company’s guidelines and branding, as presented in figure

3.3 [BR15].

3.3. Comparison

Figure 3.2.: File search in Showpad. Figure 3.3.: User interface in Showpad.

3.3. Comparison

In this section, two different sales applications are described. Both mobile applications

offer offline functionality and the most common file types. The functionality of both is

very similar. Users need to login into the application and the synchronization of content

is automatically initiated. After the synchronization is successfully completed, users are

able to view all available files. The user access control of both systems can be managed

from one single point by system administrators.

The results of this analysis are also used for the requirements analysis in section 4.

Thereby, CRM systems receive no consideration.

Requirements

The research goal of this thesis is the design and implementation of an IT system

supporting the flexible distribution of documents to mobile devices. The first part of this

section describes the desired IT system. Based on this description, requirements for

the IT system are defined. Requirements are crucial for the development of software

applications because, thereby, a precise software development is guaranteed. The

requirements are divided into

client-side

and

server-side

requirements. These are

further divided into functional and non-functional requirements.

4.1. Overview

The IT system should provide the marketing department of

Epsilon

with the distribution

of documents (e.g., marketing materials) for sales representatives. Using such a system,

they would have up-to-date documents and would be able to perform interactive product

presentations at the customer’s location. The IT system consist of a client application

and a server application. The client has to be a smart mobile application to be present

IT system to be present at customer visits. An overview about the fundamental function-

ality of the IT system is presented in figure 4.1 using the example of a document release

process.

There are four involved groups of actors, called product managers, marketing managers,

IT administrators and sales representatives.

4. Requirements

Sales

Representatives

Server application

Marketing

managers

Client application

IT Administrators Product

Managers

Figure 4.1.: Document release process.

•Product managers

create and distribute initial documents of products, which con-

tain basic information about products (for example data sheets). The created

documents are hosted on the server.

•Marketing managers

edit documents and create attractive documents (e.g., multi-

media documents or brochures) in cooperation with different (not specified) agen-

cies. Therefore, they are downloading, editing and uploading the documents on

the server and assigning the documents to specified user groups or users (e.g.,

sales representatives in specified countries).

•IT administrators

manage the server application. This includes primary the admin-

istration of access rights.

•Sales representatives

use the documents assigned by marketing managers for

product presentations at the customer.

An use case diagram represents actions of an user with the system. These actions

are represented as diagram and are mostly applied in software engineering methods

that are based on the UML [

Son03

]. The use case diagram for the client application is

presented in figure 4.2 whereas the use case diagram for the server application is seen

in figure 4.3 based on the describe document release process (see figure 4.1).

4.2. Client Application

Sales

Representatives

Client application

User

verification

Open

documents

Browse

documents

Sort

documents

Search for

documents

Synchronize

documents

Administrate

documents

history

Wrap-up

process

Filter

documents

Administrate

favorites

Server application

Figure 4.2.: Use case diagram of the client application.

Marketing Managers

Server application

Authorization Authorization

Client application

Administrate

documents

IT Administrators

Product Managers

Administrate

permissions of sales

representatives

Administrate all users,

groups and documents

Authorization

Figure 4.3.: Use case diagram of the server application.

4.2. Client Application

This section describes the requirements for the client application. The requirements are

divided into functional and non-functional requirements.

4.2.1. Functional Requirements

Functional requirements define the functions of the system.

•CFR1 Login functionality

: The client application has to provide a sign-in and

sign-out functionality for sales representatives. Thereby, sales representatives

4. Requirements

can be identified and authorized for different interactions with the server-side IT

system.

•CFR2 Browse and access documents

: An crucial function of the client applica-

tion is to access and view documents.

•CFR3 Sort documents

: There should be a function to sort documents alphabeti-

cal.

•CFR4 Search function

: To enable fast document access, a search function should

be provided.

•CFR5 Filter

: Sales representatives should be able to filter documents using

specified tags.

•CFR6 Synchronization

: The documents on the client application needs to be

synchronized with the documents on the server application. Therefore, a synchro-

nize function to download the documents and keep them up to date needs to be

provided.

•CFR7 History

: To assist sales representatives keep track of documents they have

recently used, a history needs to be provided.

•CFR8 Summarize

: The mobile application has to provide functions to wrap-up a

customer visit.

•CFR9 Favorite functionality

: A favorite functionality for documents needs to be

provided for the preparation of customer visits.

•CFR10 File types

: The mobile application has to provide PDF files, HTML5

applications and MP4 files.

4.2.2. Nonfunctional Requirements

Nonfunctional requirements define characteristics of the system.

•CNR1 Mobile application

: The client has to be provided as smart mobile applica-

tion. Due to the fact that sales representatives of

Epsilon

mostly use Apple iPads,

the mobile application needs to be compatible to iOS.

4.3. Server

•CNR2 Layout

: The layout should be intuitive and logical. It should also meet the

Epsilon styleguide.

•CNR3 Multilingualism

: The mobile application has to be offered in multiple lan-

guages as it will be used EMEA wide. Therefore, it should be easy to add further

languages.

•CNR4 Offline functionality

: Selected documents must be available offline to

guarantee a product presentation at customer visits without any problems. Sales

representatives need to prepare customer visits by downloading all necessary

documents. This function must be provided by the client.

•CNR5 Performance

: The mobile application should provide fast access to the

files.

•CNR6 Dedicated corporate solution: The mobile application should be a devel-

oped in-house.

4.3. Server

This section describes the requirements on the server application. These are also

divided into functional and non-functional requirements.

4.3.1. Functional Requirements

Functional requirements define functions of the system.

•SFR1 Document administration

: The server application needs to provide func-

tionality for the administration of enterprise content. Thereby, it is important to

consider the enterprise content lifecycle (section 2.1).

•SFR2 User administration

: To manage the authorization of users, the server

application also needs to provide mechanisms for the user administration.

•SFR3 Document assignment

: The server application has to provide a mecha-

nism to assign user rights to documents.

4. Requirements

•SFR4 Web accessibility

: It should be possible to administrate the documents

using a web browser.

•SFR5 Application programming interface

: The server application must provide

an API for connecting the server and the client application.

•SFR6 Microsoft Office support

: Microsoft Office files are, among other file types,

commonly used at

Epsilon

. Therefore, this requirement has to be fulfilled but is

actually not premeditated. It is a added to say ready for future development.

•SFR7 Workflow support

: The server application should support workflows to

improve the productivity and efficiency of business processes.

4.3.2. Nonfunctional Requirements

Nonfunctional requirements define characteristics of the system.

•SNR1 Usability: It should be user-friendly to administrate the server application.

•SNR2 Hosting

Epsilon

prefers an internal hosting. Therefore, the server applica-

tion should be an on-premises software.

•SNR3 Support

: To leverage the availability of the server application, technical

support is also required.

Evaluation

The server application should be realized using an existing ECM system (see section

2.2) to support the content throughout the enterprise content life cycle. Therefore, an

evaluation of existing ECM systems has to be performed to find the best match. The first

section provides an overview about existing ECM systems. Then the criteria catalog for

the evaluation is described followed by the actual evaluation using the AHP method.

5.1. Enterprise Content Management market

Nowadays, there are lot of ECM systems. The worldwide market of ECM systems grew

8,6%

in 2013 [

GSC+14

]. Gartner Inc., an american information technology research

and advisory firm, evaluated 22 different ECM systems in

Magic Quadrant for Enter-

prise Content Management

[

GSC+15

] from September 2014. Another independent

technology and market research company, Forrester Research, evaluated 13 providers

The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Management, Q3 2013

[

WLCMJ15

] from

September 2013. Based on these studies in addition with fundamental investigation,

ECM systems were selected as potentially alternatives. They will be shortly described in

the following and in section A.1, based on internet recherche and interviews with contact

persons of the ECM sales team.

•Agorum Core

: Agorum Core is a Document Management System platform in its

current version 7.7.0 and was released on Mai 2015. It is available in two different

versions, Agorum Core Open (free software) and Agorum Core Pro (commercial).

Agorum Core Pro is in five different licenses available. Detailed information about

5. Evaluation

the differences can be found at [

Ago15b

]. The platform itself provides multilingual

support and can be fully customized by configuration files. The main features of

Agorum Core are document search, manage documents, workflows, information

retrieval (via wikis and forums) and collaboration. A detailed overview about the

provided features can be found at [Ago15a].

•OpenText ECM Suite

: The OpenText ECM Suite is an aggregation of manage-

ment applications that include document management, record management, email

management and web content management. The management software is divided

into content management, records management, archiving, capture, email solu-

tions, content-centric applications and ECM in the cloud, platform and developer

extensions, and OpenText Brava (a collaboration software). OpenText introduced

OpenText Cloud to provide services for the management, the collaboration and

messaging [GSC+14].

•M-Files DMS

: The current version of M-Files is M-Files 2015 and was released

in April 2015. It is available as cloud version or as on-premise version. The

producer describes M-Files as an enterprise information management system that

manages all business contents (documents, projects and business processes)

in combination with intelligence by different systems. M-Files uses a metadata

model for the file management. Therefore, the solution is very flexible because

files are not hard-coded and users are thereby able to customize the context to

their requirements [GSC+14]. More information can be found at [MF15].

5.2. Criteria Catalog

The Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management study by Gartner provides a

general overview of already existing ECM systems but does not match the requirements

on the IT system with its weighted requirements. To identify an ECM system that

completely meet the defined requirements (see section 4), an evaluation based on the

defined requirements in addition to the functionality of ECM systems has to be performed.

5.2. Criteria Catalog

The criteria catalog for the evaluation is presented in the following based on the top-level

criteria and its sub-criteria.

•System

: The system criteria summarizes all general functional properties of the

ECM system and can be divided into the following sub-criteria:

– Costs

: Costs can be broken down into two main categories: These are

one-time costs and regular costs. One-time costs include, for example, ECM

purchase costs, additional fix costs for offline functionality or support costs

(general functionality services). Regular costs include, for example, license

costs per year, training costs or support costs (special standby services).

– Installation

: The installation can be broken down into the complexity of the

installation, requirements and the functionality of the installation. Complexity

of the installation includes expenditure of time and general complexity during

the installation. Installation requirements can be divided into the number of

requirements and its complexity. The functionality of the installation of an

ECM contains possible features of automated install routines or recovery

processes of backups.

– In-house

: In-house is a special requirement of

Epsilon

. On the one side the

category contains information about possible target audiences and on the

other side

Epsilon

specified attributes. For example: If

Epsilon

is able to

provide support, install the ECM system or develop add-ons to extend the

functionality.

– Support

: The support includes general availability (7/24, weekdays or week-

end support) and different types of support. These are online/offline support,

videos and workshops. Workshops contain sessions or web conferences.

– Scalability

: This criteria rates if the ECM system is able to scale properly

to large dimensions. It also includes any kind of limitations relating to the

scalability.

5. Evaluation

– Documentation

: The documentation can be divided into an user-guide and

a documentation based on the software development kit or the application

programmable interface.

•Usability

: The usability criteria measures the level of usage of the ECM system.

A system with a good usability is a system that is close to users needs and

requirements. The criteria can be divided into the following sub-criteria:

– User interface

: Usability of the user interface contain adaptability of the

user interface by itself. This includes, for example, customization of the data

representation or the design.

– Access to information

: The access to information can be divided into the

representation of information, access types and media integration. Represen-

tation of information can be performed with various types like, for example,

lists, hyperlinks, calendars, contacts, tasks or surveys. There are generally dif-

ferent access types, like access via web, mobile or desktop application. Media

integration is defined as the provided file types by the ECM like, for example,

office documents, PDF files or multimedia files (like videos or audios).

– User and rights management

: The user and right management is crucial

for security, for example for the authorization. It can be divided into three sub-

criteria: Supported directory services, administration tasks and granularity of

rights management.

•Extensions

: Another criteria are extensions, which allows the customization of

the ECM to users needs. They can be divided into the following sub-criteria:

– Connection

: The connection can also be divided into the extension via

plugins and via application programming interfaces. In this criteria catalog,

plugins are characterized by the difficulty level of the installation, the stability

and the complexity. There are different application programming interfaces,

for example web service or SAP.

– Workflow support

: The workflow support is characterized by the difficulty

level of the integration and the compatible workflow systems. The difficulty

5.2. Criteria Catalog

level of the integration is differentiated between the general handling of work-

flow integration and the necessary time for integration.

– Multilingualism

: The multilingualism differentiates between predefined lan-

guages and extensions. Extensions can be differentiated between templates

and self-created files. Thereby, the complexity of the creation process is

relevant.

•Administration of documents

: The administration of documents is a core func-

tionality of an ECM system and can be divided into the following sub-criteria:

– Indexing

: The term indexing describes the process of applying metadata to

a document in the context of an ECM system.

– Offline functionality

: Offline functionality can be divided into two different

use cases: View and edit documents.

– Document functionality

: The document functionality supports users in the

management of documents. This includes the following sub-criteria: Annota-

tions on the document, editing of documents (for example multi-user support),

searching for documents (for example efficiency or range of search), version

management of documents, archiving documents and importing documents.

•Security

: Another important aspect of the criteria catalog is security. It can be

divided into the following sub-criteria:

– System stability

: The system stability of an ECM system is crucial within an

enterprise as documents have to be available at all time.

– Data protection

: There are different possibilities to create backups of the

ECM system (for example incremental backups). The backup can be charac-

terized by the complexity, the procedure, the needed time and the compres-

sion rate. Another important characteristic is restoring individual documents

in case of a failure.

– Logging: Logging contains the range and the details of the log.

5. Evaluation

– Encryption

: There are different encryption methods. These are, for example,

the public key cryptography.

5.3. Evaluation

The evaluation to find the best matching ECM system is achieved using the AHP method

(see section 2.3.2.8). AHP allows handling dependencies in different hierarchies of the

structure and also considers cognitive tendency to order elements in categories. Another

advantage of this method is the respect for quantitative and qualitative attributes during

the decision making process by the fundamental scale. AHP is able to decide complex

decision problems and also provides consistency checks to rate the quality of the results

[MK13].

5.3.1. Input parameters

The AHP evaluation is realized with BPMSG

, an online AHP application. Input parame-

ters for the calculation are the hierarchical structure, the weight of the criteria as well as

the alternatives.

5.3.1.1. Hierarchical structure

The hierarchical structure of the criteria has been presented in section 5.2. The overall

goal of the decision making problem is named as

Find the best matching ECM system

This hierarchical structure is transformed for the usage with the online AHP system (see

listing 5.1).

Listing 5.1: Input text for the AHP hierarchy

1Find the best matching ECM system: System, Usability,

2Extensions, Administration of documents, Security;

3System: Costs, Installation, In-House, Support, Scalability,

1http://bpmsg.com/academic/ahp-hierarchy.php

5.3. Evaluation

4Documentation; Usability: User interface, Access to

5information, User and rights management; Extensions:

6Connection, Workflow support, Multilingualism;

7Administration of documents: Indexing, Offline

8functionality, Document functionality; Security: System

9stability, Data protection, Logging, Encryption;

5.3.1.2. Criteria

The criteria are weighted based on the importance of the presented requirements (see

section A.3). The result of the weighted criteria is presented in table 5.1. As the matrices

are reciprocal, only half of the comparisons are presented.

System Usability Extensions

Administration of

documents

Security

System 1 1 1 1/3 1/3

Usability 1 1/3 1/3 1

Extensions 1 3 3

Administration

of documents

1 3

Security 1

Table 5.1.: Weight of the criteria

5. Evaluation

Objective

Best matching

ECM system

Criteria

System

Usability

Extensions

Administration

of documents

Security

Sub-criteria

Cos ts

Installation

In-House

Support

Scalability

Documentation

User interface

Acces s to information

User and rights

management

Workflow support

Multilingualism

Offline functionality

Document functionality

System stability

Data protection

Logging

Encryption

0.1506

0.1384

0.2954

0.1670

0.2487

0.1037

0.0830

0.2717

0.2969

0.1166

0.1280

0.3333

Support 0.5714

0.1429

0.2857

Support 0.2081

0.1311

0.6608

0.4450

0.2881

0.0641

0.2029

1.6%

1.3%

4.1%

4.5%

1.8%

1.9%

4.6%

16.9%

4.2%

8.4%

5.2%

3.3%

16.4%

7.4%

4.8%

1.1%

3.4%

Global priorities

Figure 5.1.: The weighted hierarchical structure of the decision problem.

5.3.1.3. Alternatives

A feature-based overview of the introduced ECM systems (see section 5.1) is presented

in table 5.2. The information is based on internet recherche and interviews with contact

persons of the ECM systems.

5.3. Evaluation

Product RM

DMS

Technical

support

Multilingual

support

Supports

MS Office

In-house

usage

Share Point

2013

3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Alfresco One 3 3 3 3 3 3 7

Agorum Core 3 3 3 3 3 ˜7

Bitfarm-Archiv 3 3 3∗3 3 3∗7

ELO Enterprise 3 3 3 3∗3∗7∗7

IBM Connec-

tions

3 3 3 3 3∗3∗3

Logical DOC 3 3 3 3∗3∗3∗7

Xerox Do-

cuShare

3 3 3 3∗3∗˜7

OpenText ECM

Suite

3 3 3 3∗3∗˜7

Docu Ware 3 3 3 3 3∗˜7

Liferay Portal 3 3 3 3 3 3∗7

Hyland Software

OnBase

3 3 ˜ ˜ ˜ 3∗7

EMC Documen-

tum D2

3 3 3 3∗3∗˜7

Saperion ECM 3 3 3∗3∗3∗˜7

HP Autonomy

ECM

3 3 3∗3∗˜ ˜ 7

Newgen Om-

niDocs ECM

Suite

3 3 ˜3∗3∗˜7

Oracle WebCen-

ter Content

333˜3∗3∗7

M-Files DMS 3 3 3 3∗3∗3 7

Table 5.2.:

Feature-based overview of ECM systems. The ˜ means that there was no

information present via internet research nor according to a contact person.

The ∗means that there are limitations. 49

5. Evaluation

To reduce the number of potential ECM systems, the dominance strategy (see section

2.3.2.1) is used. Thereby, the

in-house usage

criteria of an ECM system is not consid-

ered. The resulted ECM systems after applying the dominance strategy are

Microsoft

SharePoint

Alfresco One

and

Liferay Portal

. In addition to these ECM systems,

IBM

Connections was also added because of its already existing in-house usage.

Microsoft SharePoint

: Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is a business collaboration plat-

form in its current version SharePoint 2013 SP1. The latest update was released on

September 2014 [

Mic15g

]. Microsoft SharePoint is available in three different versions.

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Standard

Edition and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Edition. General core capabil-

ity areas of Microsoft SharePoint are collaboration, social computing, portals, search,

records management, business intelligence and composite applications. An overview of

a Microsoft SharePoint 2013 farm is demonstrated in figure 5.2.

SharePoint Farm

Web application

Site collection

Site

...

Web application

...

Top Level Site

Site collection ...

...

Figure 5.2.: SharePoint Hierarchy [Mic15e, Goo13].

Thereby, a site type can be one of the following categories [Mic15e]:

•Collaboration

: Collaboration sites contain team sites, blogs, develop sites, project

sites and community sites. They may be used, for example, to interact with various

5.3. Evaluation

people, collect ideas, observations and expertise, build, test and publish apps for

Office, or manage and collaborate on a project.

•Enterprise

: Enterprise sites contain document center, eDiscovery center, records

center, business intelligence center, enterprise search center, my site host, commu-

nity portal, basic search center and visio process repository. These sites are used,

for example, to manage documents, manage preservation, search and export of

content, presenting business intelligence content, delivering an enterprise-wide

search experience or view, share or store visio process diagrams.

•Publishing

: Publishing sites contain publishing portal, enterprise wiki, product

catalog, publishing site and publishing site with workflow. These sites are used, for

example, for publishing knowledge or managing product catalog data.

Microsoft SharePoint uses lists and libraries as repositories. An advantage of document

libraries are tools to control access rights in terms of adding, deleting, editing or reading

documents. Therefore, a detailed user access management is available. Lists store

data in rows and columns like Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or databases [

Cur13

Microsoft SharePoint offers an office web apps service application, which provides

a browser-based viewing and editing of Microsoft Office documents [

Goo13

]. There

are two features to provide multilingualism in Microsoft SharePoint, called Multiple

Language User Interface (MUI) and Variations (Enhanced translation workflow and

machine translation services). The MUI feature changes the display language for default

UI elements. Custom UI elements that have been added using third-party plugins are

not translated automatically. The Variations feature works with the site content. Thereby,

published sites from the pages library are copied automatically and queued for translation

and publishing [Mic15c].

The platform requires at least a hardware with 8 GB RAM, 64-Bit 4 core processor and

80GB disk space [Mic15f] and supports the following directory services [Mic15d]:

•Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) 2003 SP2 and AD DS 2008

•Sun Java System Directory Server version 5.2

•Novell eDirectory version 8.7.3

5. Evaluation

•IBM Tivoli version 5.2

Microsoft SharePoint provides the following APIs:

•

Server-OM-APIs for Silverlight applications, web part, ASP .NET web applications

or applications for SharePoint

•.NET-Client-OM-APIs for .NET applications

•JavaScript APIs for web part, ASP .NET web applications, applications for Share-

Point, HTML/JavaScript applications or applications for Office

•

REST/OData for ASP .NET web applications, applications for SharePoint, HTML/-

JavaScript applications, applications for Office, LAMP web applications or iOS/An-

droid applications.

•

Silverlight-Client-OM-APIs: Silverlight applications, web part, ASP .NET web

applications or applications for SharePoint

•

Mobile Silverlight-APIs for Windows Phone Silverlight applications or Windows

Phone XNA applications

Microsoft provides support for Microsoft SharePoint via web, a 7/24 support via phone,

on-premises support by a Microsoft partner, support by video tutorials for administrators

and end users and support by training from Microsoft partners.

IBM Connections Content Edition

: IBM Connections Content Edition uses the

ECM software IBM FileNet P8 Content Manager. IBM FileNet P8 Content Manager

contains functionality for the administration of relevant documents and contents. This

includes version control, check-in/check-out, WebDAV (an extension of the HTTP protocol

that allows clients to perform web content authoring operations), PDF publishing and

Microsoft Office integration. Thereby, the platform provides the handling of unstructured

data like scanned paper documents, HTML, XML, PDF documents, emails, video or

audio files and provides the management of complex files [

IBM15

]. IBM FileNet P8 is

based on three core components. These are content engine (CE), process engine (PE)

and workplace (WP) / workplace XT (WP XT) (see figure 5.3).

5.3. Evaluation

Workplace /

Workplace XT Process Engine

Database

Storage

LDAP

Content Engine

Custom Applications

HTTP / HTTPS / WebDAV

IIOP (for REST)

JDBC

HTTP / HTTPS

JDBC

NFS/CIFS/API

LDAP(S)

IIOP/T3

HTTP

IIOP/T3

HTTP/HTTPS/IIOP/T3

Figure 5.3.: IBM FileNet P8 core components [IBM15].

•CE component

: The CE component is a J2EE Java Bean application that provides

services for creating, retrieving, updating, deleting and securing all content. It

also provides interfaces for handling event-based actions, document life cycle

and integration with various storage mediums. It provides a java and .NET API,

which offers methods to create, retrieve, update and delete objects, folders and

documents.

•PE component

: The PE component provides workflow management like per-

sonal inboxes, work object routing, group queues, process tracking and process

orchestration capabilities.

•WP / WP XT

: These components provide user interfaces for the work with the CE

and PE components.

IBM FileNet P8 Content Manager also provides the localization of content in different

storage systems and databases. Therefore, attributes, content with phonetic search like

word stem or synonyms are used. Such queries can also be stored for future requests.

It also provides templates for processes, formulas, classifications, definitions, search

formulas and user interfaces. The provided operating systems, databases and directory

services are presented in the following:

•Operating systems

: Microsoft Windows, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX and Linux.

5. Evaluation

•Databases: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle.

•Directory Services

: Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory and Sun Java

System.

The IBM Connections platform provides standards like J2EE, XML and SOAP. It also

provides enterprise application integration. The objective management service admin-

istrates content, controls relations between content and its external objects, security

concepts, processes, information about the lifetime and enterprise application integration

transactions. The J2EE Content Engine allows for searching, classifying, saving data

from foreign repositories.

IBM provides support via web, a 7/24 support via phone, on-premises support, support

by video tutorials and support by training.

Alfresco One

: Alfresco One is a Java based system. Therefore, it runs on all operating

systems that are able to run Java Enterprise Edition. The architecture of Alfresco in

presented in figure 5.4.

Alfresco offers two primary web-based clients. These are Alfresco Share and Alfresco

Explorer. Alfresco Share is implemented using Spring Surf and manages the collabo-

ration aspects of content management and streamlining the user experience [

Alf15b

Alfresco Explorer is implemented using Java Server Faces and exposes all features of

the content application server [Alf15b].

Alfresco content application server provides the following services:

•Content services (transformation, tagging, metadata extraction)

•Control services (workflow, records management, change sets)

•Collaboration services (social graph, activities, wiki)

Programmatic access is supported via HTTP and SOAP, application access by CIFS,

FTP, WebDAV, IMAP and Microsoft SharePoint protocols. Microsoft SharePoint proto-

cols additionally enable Alfresco One the connection to Microsoft Office applications.

There are mobile applications for the mobile platforms iOS and Android available. Al-

fresco One provides additionally SDKs for Android, iOS and Appcelerator (applications

5.3. Evaluation

Physical Storage

Relational DB File System

Alfresco Content Application Server

Content Services

Content Repository

Control Services Collaboration Services

Alfresco Content Application Server

Spring Surf

OS File System Office Mobile Rich Desktop Application

JSF Platform

Alfresco ExplorerAlfresco Share Web Site Portal

DM WCM RM DAM Collaboration

Figure 5.4.: Architectural components of Alfresco One [Alf15b].

in JavaScript) [

Alf15c

]. The application programming interface can be realized by a

JavaScript API (ECMA Script), a RESTful API, a Repository FreeMarker Template API

and a surf platform API. Alfresco uses Content Management Interoperability Services

(CMIS) for creating, querying, updating and deleting documents and folders. REST

calls are used for functionality that does not support CMIS [

Alf15a

]. The user access

is controlled by roles. Thereby, it is possible to determine what a user is allowed to do.

Detailed information about the user access can be found at [

Alf15e

]. Alfresco supports

the following authentication mechanisms: NTLM, authentication and user registry export

through the LDAP protocol, authentication and user registry export from Active Directory

through the LDAP protocol, authentication through a windows domain server, authentica-

tion through a kerberos realm and authentication using an external SSO mechanism.

Alfresco handles multilingual document support by the share UI, which decides what

language is desired based on the browser’s locale settings.

Alfresco One provides three different support variants. These are departmental, enter-

prise and premier. All of these support variants provide support via web, phone and

5. Evaluation

forums. The enterprise and primer support additionally provide 24x7 support. Detailed

overviews are available at [Alf15d].

Liferay Portal

: Liferay Portal is also a Java based platform system. Therefore, it runs

on all operating systems that are able to run Java Enterprise Edition. Liferay Portal con-

tains two core components: Liferay CMS and Liferay Collaboration [

JHK+15

]. Features

of Liferay CMS are, for example, a web content management system, a repository that

houses documents, video, audio, images and other media types (these can also be other

content repositories like, for example, Alfresco or Documentum), creation of metadata

sets, creation of different workspaces, a web UI interface, templates, live page editing

and scheduling, search functionality across all assets and multi-language support. It

provides built-in support for more than 40 languages and it is also possible to add other

languages. Liferay Portal supports check-in/check-out, sort and mange mechanisms.

Features of Liferay Collaboration are, for example, knowledge bases, wikis, message

boards, blogs, reportings, rss feeds, activity tracking, instant messaging, an AJAX-based

webmail client, calendars, dynamic data lists, polls. Detailed information can be found

at [

Lif15b

]. Liferay Portal uses SharePoint protocols to work with Microsoft Office files.

Some technical specifications are presented in the following [Lif15c]:

•Operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix

•Databases: IBM DB2, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Sybase

•Web Services

: JSON, Hessian, Burlap, REST, RMI, Spring HTTP, WSRP and

WebDAV

•Single Sign On

: CAS and Siteminder. Support for JAAS, JOSO, LDAP, Netegrity,

Microsoft Exchange.

•Security

: Pluggable Authentication, Email Verficiation, Granular Permissioning,

LDAP Authentication, Session Management

Liferay Portal requires 300MB of disk space and at least 1 GB of RAM. According to

[Lif15a], Liferay supports the following performance:

•Liferay Portal can support 27,000 virtual users on a single server

5.3. Evaluation

•

Liferay Portal’s Document repository supports

10,000

virtual users while accessing

2,000,000 documents in the document repository.

•

Liferay Portal’s WCM supports

300,000

virtual users on a single Liferay Portal

server with average transaction times under 50ms and 35% CPU utilization.

Liferay provides two different support variants. These are Gold (8/5 support via web

and phone) and Platinum (24/7 support via web and phone). Support via videos or

tutorials is available at the website of Liferay

. It is also possible to book training sessions.

On-premises support is generally not provided directly by Liferay.

The described alternatives have to be weighted in the next step. The result of the

evaluation is provided in the following and in section A.4. As the matrices are reciprocal,

only half of the comparisons are presented.

In-House MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 3 9 9

IBM Connections 1 9 9

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Support MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 3

IBM Connections 1 1 3

Alfresco 1 3

Liferay 1

Connection MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 3 3 3

IBM Connections 1 3 3

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

2http://www.liferay.com/university

5. Evaluation

Multilingualism MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 3 3 1/3

IBM Connections 1 1 1/3

Alfresco 1 1/3

Liferay 1

5.3.1.4. Result

The result of the evaluation is presented in figure 5.5. Based on these results, the

following rating of ECM systems is presented:

1. Microsoft SharePoint (30.4%)

2. IBM Connections Content Edition (26.4%)

3. Alfresco One (21.4%)

4. Liferay Portal (21.8%)

Thereby, Microsoft SharePoint is selected as server component.

Objective

Best matching

ECM system

Criteria

System

Usability

Extensions

Administration

of documents

Security

Sub-criteria

Costs

Installation

In-House

Support

Scalability

Documentation

User interface

Access to information

User and rights

management

Workflow support

Multilingualism

Offline functionality

Document functionality

System stability

Data protection

Logging

Encryption

0.1506

0.1384

0.2954

0.1670

0.2487

0.1037

0.0830

0.2717

0.2969

0.1166

0.1280

0.3333

Support 0.5714

0.1429

0.2857

Support 0.2081

0.1311

0.6608

0.4450

0.2881

0.0641

0.2029

1.6%

1.3%

4.1%

4.5%

1.8%

1.9%

4.6%

16.9%

4.2%

8.4%

5.2%

3.3%

16.4%

7.4%

4.8%

1.1%

3.4%

Global priorities Microsoft SharePoint IBM Connections

Content Edition Alfresco One Liferay Portal

0.0070

0.0031

0.0217

0.0128

0.0044

0.0048

0.0115

0.0152

0.0132

0.0667

0.0167

0.0235

0.0129

0.0082

0.0411

0.0186

0.0120

0.0027

0.0085

0.0070

0.0031

0.0153

0.0128

0.0044

0.0048

0.0115

0.0152

0.0132

0.0469

0.0117

0.0138

0.0129

0.0082

0.0411

0.0186

0.0120

0.0027

0.0085

0.0007

0.0031

0.0020

0.0128

0.0044

0.0048

0.0115

0.0092

0.0132

0.0276

0.0069

0.0138

0.0129

0.0082

0.0411

0.0186

0.0120

0.0027

0.0085

0.0009

0.0031

0.0020

0.0064

0.0044

0.0048

0.0115

0.0065

0.0066

0.0276

0.0069

0.0334

0.0129

0.0082

0.0411

0.0186

0.0120

0.0027

0.0085

30.4% 26.4% 21.4% 21.8%

Figure 5.5.: Result of the AHP process.

Conception and Architecture

This section covers basic issues in respect to the concept and architecture. At first,

the architecture of the overall IT system is described in more detail. Based on this

architecture both the server and client component are discussed.

6.1. Architecture

The high-level data flow of the overall IT system is presented in figure 6.1. The mobile

application uses the REST API provided by Microsoft SharePoint to request and receive

content (i.e., documents). Generally, the mobile application stores and represents a

virtual copy of the content from Microsoft SharePoint. Sales representatives navigate

through this virtual copy and are able to download and open selected files based upon

their privileges. The mechanism of the virtual copy guarantees that the storage of the

mobile device will not get unnecessary full with unused files. A disadvantage of the

mechanism is that sales representatives have to prepare a visit by downloading the

necessary files. In case this preparation phase, a function to receive and download all

files is also available.

6. Conception and Architecture

Smart Mobile Device

Intranet

Microsoft SharePoint

Content

database

Server

object

model

Client.svc

web service

Mobile application

Database

Service

Network

Service

Internal Storage

Application

Directory

SQLite

Database

User

Interface

JSON

HTTPS (OData protocol)

Web browser

HTTPS

Figure 6.1.: High-level data flow of the overall IT system.

6.2. Server

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 provides all necessary functions of the requirements (see sec-

tion 4) without any additional extensions. It only has to be configured. The configuration

includes user administration and metadata of files.

The REST API of Microsoft SharePoint is fully comparable to the

server object

models

and provides interactions between any technology that supports REST and

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 [

Mic15b

]. The

client.svc web service

handles con-

structed RESTful HTTP requests using the Open Data Protocol (OData) standard, which

corresponds to the desired client object model API. RESTful HTTP requests are used

to perform typical CRUD operations against Microsoft SharePoint entities [

Mic15b

Possible HTTP methods for the RESTful service are shortly described in the following

[Mic15b]:

•GET: To read a resource.

•POST: To create or update a resource.

•PUT: To update or insert a resource.

•DELETE: To delete a resource.

6.3. Client

RESTful HTTP request examples to demonstrate Microsoft SharePoint REST service

are described in the following [Mic15b]:

URI Method Description

web/title GET Retrieves the title of a list.

lists GET Retrieves all lists on a site.

lists/getbytitle(’listname’) GET

Retrieves a single lists meta-

data.

lists/getbytitle(’listname’)

/items

GET Retrieves items within a list.

lists/getbytitle(’listname’)

?select=Title

GET

Retrieves a specific property

of a document.

The URL endpoint has to be appended to

http://server/site/_api/

, whereby

server

represents the name of the server, whereas

site

specifies the name or path to

the specified site [

Mic15b

]. Detailed information about the syntax of SharePoint RESTful

services can be found on [Mic15a, Mic15b].

6.3. Client

The client application needs to be compatible with an iPad device based on the re-

quirements in section 4. There are generally four possible development variants for the

mobile application: Web application, hybrid application, mixed application and native

application.

•Web application

: Web applications (for example jQuery Mobile Applications)

are typically developed with web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 or JavaScript.

Thereby, they are platform independent and only need a web browser for the exe-

cution. Web applications are websites with the look and feel of native applications

but provide only limited access to hardware components [SSP+13].

6. Conception and Architecture

•Hybrid application - web

: Hybrid applications use the same web technologies

as web applications. The applications, however, run within a native application

container like the WebView component in iOS. Thereby, the application can use

additional features of the devices hardware [SSP+13].

•Hybrid application - mixed

: Hybrid applications are also developed with web

technologies. However, the HTML5 elements will be mapped to the corresponding

native platform elements during build time of the application [SSP+13].

•Native Application

: Native applications are specifically developed for one respec-

tive platform. Thereby, the standard API of the platform is used. Native applications

offer the best possible functionality because of the direct use with the provided

programming libraries and interfaces [SSP+13].

According to [

SSP+13

], native applications should be used if the application is perfor-

mance critically or if the application needs specific features of the device. Because of this

the client application is implemented as native application because of its performance

critically requirement (see section 4.2).

6.3.1. General Workflow

This section describes the high-level workflow of the mobile application. Thereby, figure

6.2 presents an overview about the general workflow. The first activity after the mobile

application has been started is to check if there are valid user credentials available

(e.g., the user was successfully logged-in at least one time on the server). If so, the

application checks if new metadata is available by sending a RESTful HTTP request to

Microsoft SharePoint. The request is running asynchronous in background that sales

representatives will not recognize any activity. After the request was sent, the sales

representative is forwarded to the

Browse screen

. The

Browse screen

presents all

available content for the sales representative based upon his rights. They can switch

between the

Browse screen

Recents screen

Info screen

Favorites screen

and

Wrap-

Up screen

and are also able to start a content synchronization. Individual activities like,

for example, filter or search functions are not presented in this figure.

6.3. Client

Browse screen

Valid user data

available

No valid user

data available Check user data

Valid user data

available

No valid user

data available

Synchronize

metadata

Download all

available files

User wants do

download all

available files

User does not

want to download

all available files

Check for new

metadata

Info screen Logout

Favorites screen

Wrap-Up screen

Recents screen

Valid user data

available

Synchronize data

No valid user data available

Start application

Check user data

Delete all data of

the application

Figure 6.2.: General workflow of the mobile application.

If there is no valid user data available the the application presents the

Thereby, sales representatives are able to enter their username and password. After

sales representatives confirmed their credentials, a RESTful HTTP request to verify the

data is send to Microsoft SharePoint. If the entered credentials are not valid, the sales

representative will get an error message and returns to the

. Otherwise the

metadata of the mobile application will be synchronized with the server application. The

synchronization means that the mobile application will receive the content structure of

the available data (i.e., the files and folders with metadata like title, length or modification

date) and stores these data in the local database. If the synchronization is completed

the sales representatives will be asked if they want to download all files to make them

6. Conception and Architecture

available for offline usage. After the procedure is completed the sales representative will

be forwarded to the Browse screen.

6.3.2. Data structure

As already described, the mobile application provides an image of the available content

structure from the server application. The virtual copy on the mobile application is

generally metadata based. Thereby, it is possible to completely change the structure

of the representation easily as the structure is not hard-coded. After discussions with

contact persons, the mobile application should provide the same folder based structure

as Microsoft SharePoint to ensure familiarity with the already known system.

6.3.3. Metadata

The metadata based representation needs different information to handle the folder

based structure. These are described in the following:

•Unique ID

: The content needs an unique identifier number to address the content.

•URI: A URI to the content is required to download and save the content.

•Modification date

: The modification date is needed to detect changes on re-

sources.

•Size

: The size is needed to get information about the download process. Thereby,

sales representatives are able to estimate the needed time for the download based

on the internet bandwidth.

•Title: The title is used for the representation of the file on the iOS device.

6.3.4. Data model

The structure of the data model is presented in figure 6.3 and will be described in

the following. The

File

table contains an attribute

length

that provides information

6.3. Client

about the file size, an attribute

guid

(Global Unique ID) to identify the resource and an

attribute

is_local

that provides information if the file exists local. The

Folder

table

also contains an attribute

guid

for the identification and an attribute

item_count

that

provides information about the number of items the folder contains. More information

about the

Folder

and

File

table are provided by the

Metadata

table. The latter

contains attributes

created_at

updated_at

client_url

(provides information

about the relative file path in Microsoft SharePoint) and

title

(provides information

about the representation). The

FileLogWrapUp

table contains attributes about the

location of the sales representative (

longitude

and

latitude

) and a timestamp

attribute

created_at

. Information about a customer visit is presented by the

WrapUp

table. The table contains like the table

Favorite

and

Recent

, an attribute

name

that

provides information about the representation and timestamp attributes (

created_at

and

updated_at

). The

FavoriteItem

table contains an attribute

created_at

that

represents a timestamp. The

FileLogRecents

table contains attributes about the

location (longitude and latitude) and a timestamp attribute created_at.

File

Metadata Folder

FileLogWrapUp WrapUp

FavoriteItem Favorite

FileLogRecents Recent

guid

is_local

length

created_at

client_url

updated_at

title

guid

item_count

created_at

longitude

latitude created_at

name

updated_at

created_at

longitude

latitude

created_at name

updated_at

created_at

created_at name

updated_at

0...n 1

0...m

1 1

0...1

1...n

Figure 6.3.: ER-Diagram of the mobile application.

6. Conception and Architecture

6.3.5. Files

Files are stored in

ApplicationDirectory/files/guid.filetype

on the internal

storage of the iOS device. The

guid

is thereby the global unique identifier of the file

and is provided by the database. The

filetype

is extracted by the

client_url

. If

the user downloads a file successfully the

is_local

attribute of the file in the database

will be updated and set to

true

. The mobile application needs to support PDF files,

MP4 files and HTML5 applications. Based on discussions with contact persons, HTML5

applications are provided as ZIP packages with a predefined folder structure. Thereby,

index.html

file has to be present in the root directory of the ZIP packages. This

file is used as entry point if sales representatives starts a HTML5 application.

6.3.6. REST API

The connection of the mobile application with Microsoft SharePoint is realized using

the REST API. The RESTful HTTP request to receive all items in the document library

Epsilon is presented in listing 6.1.

Listing 6.1: REST request to receive all items in the document library Epsilon

1http://server/site/_api/web/getbytitle(’Epsilon’)/Items

The XML response is presented in listing 6.2. Thereby, all available files and folders

in the document library

Epsilon

are listed. The

FileSystemObjectType

provides

information about the type of the element (e.g. file or folder). Detailed information about

the file or folder (for example the

servers relative URI

) are available using an additional

RESTful HTTP request for the specific file or folder.

Listing 6.2: XML response of the REST request

1<entry m:etag="2">

2...

3<d:FileSystemObjectType m:type="Edm.Int32">0

4</d:FileSystemObjectType>

5<d:Title>Product Propof</d:Title>

6.3. Client

6<d:Modified m:type="Edm.DateTime">2015-05-11

7T11:59:52Z</d:Modified>

8<d:GUID m:type="Edm.Guid">733bf668-2204-42ff

9-a62f-995c9c291e15</d:GUID>

10 ...

11 </entry>

12 ...

The mobile application uses JSON responses instead of XML because of its reduced data

size. Therefore, the RESTful HTTP request

header is set to

application/

json;odata=verbose

. The components of the mobile application will be described in

the following section in detail.

Implementation

The following section describes implementation aspects of the mobile application. Mi-

crosoft SharePoint will thereby not be described as all necessary functions are provided

by default and no further implementation needed to satisfy the requirements described

in section 4.3. Therefore, this section concentrates on the implementation of the mobile

application.

7.1. Model-View-Controller

The mobile application is developed based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architec-

ture. MVC divides a software application into three parts: The

model

manages the data

model, the

view

represents the output and the

controller

manages interactions. Figure

7.1 presents the collaboration of the MVC components [Sch12].

Controller

View Model

Figure 7.1.: Collaboration of the MVC components [Sch12].

7. Implementation

7.1.1. Model

An overview of the model classes in the mobile application is presented in figure 7.2.

These can be categorized into three different categories: Models for

Cells

, Models for

iOS Core Data and Service classes.

Model

iOS Core DataCells Service classes

CellBrowse

CellFavorite

CellFavoriteList

CellFile

CellFilter

CellRecent

CellWrapUp

Favorite

FavoriteItem

File

FileLogRecent

FileLogWrapUp

Folder

Metadata

Recent

ServiceDatabase

ServiceFilesystem

ServiceFilter

ServiceKeychain

ServiceLocation

ServiceNetwork

ServiceSort

WrapUp

ServiceDiskStatus

NSManagedObject

UITableViewCell

Figure 7.2.: Class diagram of the models in the mobile application.

There are different types of service classes available. Some of them are historically

created and are not used actually any more like, for example,

ServiceLocation

. Important

service classes are described in the following:

•ServiceDatabase

: The ServiceDatabase class provides operations for the com-

munication with the database of the mobile application. These are, for example,

methods to get all files in a specified path or to add a file to a favorite list.

7.1. Model-View-Controller

•ServiceFilesystem

: The ServiceFilesystem class provides functions for dealing

with the file system. These are, for example, functions to create directories or

delete files like the database file (e.g., during the log-out process).

•ServiceKeychain

: The ServiceKeychain class provides functions to store and

retrieve configuration values like the username and the password.

•ServiceNetwork

: The ServiceNetwork class provides functions to retrieve meta-

data and download files from Microsoft SharePoint.

•ServiceDiskStatus

: The ServiceDiskStatus class provides functions for the info

screen. Thereby, information about the free disk space and used space are

presented.

7.1.1.1. Notification

There are generally two different types of notifications: Pull or push notifications. The

difference between these to types will be described based on the scenario of the mobile

application. On the one side, if the mobile application uses pull notifications, the client

has to ask the server if there are new files available. On the other side the server informs

the client about new files (i.e., push notification). After discussions with contact persons,

the mobile application uses pull notifications to check for updates. The procedure to

check for new files is presented in the following:

1. Initialize a variable newFilesCount for new or changed files with 0.

Send a RESTful HTTP request to receive all available files for the sales represen-

tative from the document library.

3. Loop through all items (e.g., files and folders)

•

if the item is a file then send another RESTful HTTP request to receive

metadata about the file

–

If the file type of the file is supported by the mobile application (the

supported file types are separately stored within the mobile application)

then check the file if the metadata has changed. If the metadata has

7. Implementation

changed or the file does not already exists in the local database increment

the variable newFilesCount.

The user interface represents the calculated variable

newFilesCount

to inform sales

representatives about possible updates (and if so, how many files needs to be updated).

7.1.1.2. Update Metadata

The method to update new metadata is presented in the following. The method is used if

a sales representative logs in or wants to synchronize for updates.

Initialize an array with string dictionary types for the files (

files

) and an array

string dictionary types for the folders (folders).

Send a RESTful HTTP request to receive all available files for the sales represen-

tative from the document library.

Initialize an integer array for the index of files (

indexFiles

) and an integer array

for the index of folders (indexFolders).

4. Loop through all items (e.g., files and folders)

•

if the current item is a file then store the current index to the array

indexFiles

Otherwise store the index to indexFolders.

5. if the length of indexFolders and indexFiles is 0 then return.

6. Otherwise continue and loop through the array indexFiles.

•Send another RESTful HTTP request to receive metadata for the file

•Initialize a string dictionary type for the file (file) and store all metadata.

•Append file to files.

7. Loop through the array indexFolders

•Send another RESTful HTTP request to receive metadata for the folder

•

Initialize a string dictionary type for the folder (

folder

) and store all metadata.

7.1. Model-View-Controller

•Append folder to folders.

8. Filter all files based upon the supported filetypes of the mobile application.

9. Loop through all files in the local database (localFile is the current item).

•

Initialize a variable

removeLocalFile = true

that provides information if

the file in the database should be removed.

•

Initialize a variable

removeFile = true

that provides information if the file

by itself should be removed.

•Loop through all files (file is the current item).

–

if the global unique ID of

localFile

equals the global unique ID of

file

∗

Compare

localFile

and

file

if the

length

updated_at

at-

tribute changed. If the attributes are not changed then set

removeLocalFile = false.

∗

Update the metadata of the local file with the received metadata

file.

∗Set the variable removeFile = false

•

removeLocalFile

is true then delete the local File and update the at-

tribute is_local of the local file in the database.

•

removeFile

is true then delete the file in the database as the file does not

exist anymore in the repository of Microsoft SharePoint.

10.

filter

files

for new files (files that are not in the database yet and store these

filtered files in the database)

11.

Loop through all folders in the local database (

localFolder

is the current item).

•

Initialize a variable

removeLocalFolder = true

that provides information

if the folder in the database should be removed.

•Loop through all folders (folder is the current item).

7. Implementation

–

if the global unique ID of

localFile

equals the global unique ID of

file

∗Update the metadata of the local folder with the received metadata

∗Set the variable removeLocalFolder = false

•

removeLocalFolder

is true then delete the folder in the database as the

folder does not exist anymore in the repository of Microsoft SharePoint.

12.

filter

folders

for new folders (folders that are not in the database yet and store

these filtered folders in the database)

7.1.2. View

An overview about the view classes of the mobile application is presented in figure 7.3.

Cell

classes contains UITableViewCell elements and the LaunchScreen presents the

view during the start of the application. All other user interface elements are included in

the Main.storyboard file.

View

CellBrowse CellFavorite CellFavoriteList CellFile CellFilter CellRecent CellWrapUp LaunchScreen Main.storyboard

Figure 7.3.: The view classes of the mobile application.

The user interface of the mobile application is realized using a split view (see figure 7.4).

The left side of the split view contains the navigation including a tabbar with buttons

(browse, favorites, wrap-up, recents and info). The right side of the split view contains

detailed information for the selected navigation item.

7.1. Model-View-Controller

Figure 7.4.: Basic user interface of the mobile application.

7.1.3. Controller

The relationship of the controller classes is presented in figure 7.5. It represents

the technical implementation of the general workflow described in section 6.3.1. All

Controller views except the

SplitController

and the

TabController

inherit from

UIViewController

. The

SplitController

inherits from

UISplitViewController

and the TabController inherits from UITabBarController.

Tabbar

BrowseController

DetailController

EditItemControllerFavoriteController

FilterController

FullscreenController

InfoController

FavoriteListControll

LoginController

RecentController

SplitController

SyncController

TabController

WebController

WrapUpController

Figure 7.5.: General workflow of the controller classes.

7. Implementation

The interaction with files and folders is implemented in the

DetailController

. If the

user selects a file that is not already downloaded on the mobile device then the download

will be automatically started in the background. The user gets information about the

download process and the file size during the download (see figure 7.6).

Figure 7.6.:

Download on the mobile

application.

Figure 7.7.:

View playback on the mo-

bile application.

If the user selects a file that is already present on the mobile device it will be opened via

a WebView. Video files (MP4 filetypes) are embedded in a HTML file (see listing 7.1)

which will then be loaded.

Listing 7.1: Method that is called if the WebView appears

1override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {

2if (webViewPath.pathExtension == "mp4") {

3var webData: NSString =

4"<html><head></head><body>" +

5"<video id=\"waterfallVideo\" controls=\"true\"

6allowfullscreen=\"false\" src=\""+webViewPath.

7stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding

8(NSUTF8StringEncoding)!+"\" width=\"690\"

9height=\"690\"/>" +

10 "</body></html>"

11 self.btnFullscreen.hidden = true

12 self.btnFullscreen.userInteractionEnabled = false

7.2. Frameworks and Libraries

13 wvContent.loadHTMLString(webData as String,

14 baseURL: NSURL(fileURLWithPath: NSBundle.

15 mainBundle().bundlePath))

16 } else {

17 var url = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: webViewPath)

18 var request = NSURLRequest(URL:url!)

19 wvContent.loadRequest(request)

20 }

21 }

If the user selects a ZIP file (HTML5 application), it will be extracted into a tempo-

rary directory on the mobile device. After extracting, the

index.html

file in the root

folder of the ZIP file will be loaded inside the WebView of

DetailController

. The

implementation of this process is demonstrated in listing 7.2.

Listing 7.2: Method that extracts and start a HTML5 application.

1func startHTMLApp(filePath: String) {

2let tmpDir = NSTemporaryDirectory() as String

3let unzipStatus = SSZipArchive.unzipFileAtPath(filePath,

4toDestination: tmpDir)

5webViewPath = tmpDir.stringByAppendingString

6(filePath.lastPathComponent.stringByDeletingPath

7Extension).stringByAppendingString("/index.html")

8performSegueWithIdentifier("DetailToWeb", sender: self)

7.2. Frameworks and Libraries

The mobile application uses different frameworks and libraries. The most important will

be introduced shorty in the following. The administration of frameworks and libraries is

mainly managed with

CocoaPods

, a dependency manager for Swift and Objective-C

7. Implementation

Cocoa projects. The handling of the dependency manager is very easy. An existing

XCode project has to be initialized with the command

pod init

. This creates a

Podfile

containing default values. The

Podfile

contains the used frameworks of

the current iOS application with its version. An example of a

Podfile

is demonstrated

based on the mobile application in listing 7.3 (

MCD

is thereby the name of the mobile

application).

Listing 7.3: Podfile of the mobile application.

1source ’https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git’

2platform :ios, ’8.2’

3use_frameworks!

5target ’MCD’ do

6pod ’Alamofire’, ’1.2’

7pod ’SwiftyJSON’, ’2.2.0’

8end

Frameworks are commonly described like pod <name of the framework>,

, whereby

version

may be represented as complex structure. For example

’> 0.1’

(any version higher than

0.1

) or

’~> 0.1’

(Version 0.1 and the versions

up to 1.0, not including 1.0 and higher) [Coc15].

The

Core Data

is a framework for object life-cycles, object graphs and persistence

[

App15a

]. It is used by

ServiceDatabase

to handle the SQLite database access

within the mobile application. The main features of the framework are described in the

following according to [App15b]:

•Change tracking and undo support.

•Maintain Relationship.

•The framework loads only data that is currently needed.

•Automatic validation of property values.

•Schema migration.

7.3. Summary

•Optional integration with the applications controller layer.

•Grouping, filtering, and organizing data in memory and in the user interface.

•

Sophisticated query compilation using NSPredicate. Thereby, complete queries

can be executed. An overview about the syntax of regular expressions can be

found on [ICU15].

The

SwiftyJSON

framework handles JSON responses using swift. The mobile applica-

tion uses this framework because of its easy handling of JSON data.

HTTP-REST requests and responses are handled with

Alamofire

, a HTTP network

library written in Swift. It provides neat features like chainable request/response methods,

authentication with NSURLCredential (is needed for the authentication with Microsoft

SharePoint) and progress closure.

Another called framework is called

SSZipArchive

and is a simple library for working

with ZIP files. The framework is manually added as no compatible

CocoaPods

version

is provided. It is used to unzip the already mentioned HTML5 applications.

7.3. Summary

In this section different aspects of the technical implementation are presented. At the

beginning the MVC components of the mobile application are described. Code examples

highlight interesting implementation aspects of these components. Afterwards, relevant

frameworks and libraries are discussed.

Conclusion and Outlook

This section summarizes concepts and approaches for developing the overall IT system.

Furthermore, an outlook for additional features and other ways to extend the application

is given.

8.1. Conclusion

The purpose of this thesis is to improve the distribution of documents within a sales

organization. The first part of this thesis introduces fundamentals, which are needed for

the further course of this thesis. Thereby, ECM systems are introduced and described.

There are many different methods to evaluate decision problems. This thesis can not

deal with the whole spectrum of decision making theory. Thereby, MODM methods are

introduced to evaluate decision making problems with a finite number of alternatives in

a discrete domain [

KO14

]. Further, functional and non-functional requirements on the

overall IT system are defined describing actions on the server and client application.

Based on the requirements, an evaluation to find the best matching ECM system as

server application is performed with AHP. Thereby, different systems in the ECM market

based on studies in addition with fundamental investigation were selected as potentially

alternatives. The evaluation figured out that Microsoft SharePoint is the best matching

ECM system as server application. Afterwards, the conception and architecture of the

overall IT system is presented. The client application is implemented as native iOS

application based on the requirements. In addition, some implementation highlights of

the mobile application is presented. This section provides an overview about the thesis

and requirements comparison followed by an outlook.

8. Conclusion and Outlook

8.2. Requirements comparison

This section discusses requirements from section 4 in regards to their successful realiza-

tion.

Requirement

Achieved

Description

CFR1 3Sales representatives are able to sign-in and sign-out.

CFR2 3Documents can be accessed and viewed.

CFR3 3A sort functionality is realized.

CFR4 3A search functionality is also realized.

CFR5 3A filter functionality is also realized.

CFR6 3

The synchronization is realized. Thereby, sales represen-

tatives are able to download all available files, selected

files or only the structure of the repository.

CFR7 3A history functionality is also implemented.

CFR8 3A basic wrap-up functionality is realized.

CFR9 3A favorite functionality is realized.

CFR10 3

PDF files, HTML5 applications and MP4 files are sup-

ported by the mobile application.

CNR1 3The mobile application is compatible to iOS.

CNR2 3The layout matches the Epsilon styleguide.

CNR3 3

Multilingualism is supported by Base Internationalization.

CNR4 3

Selected files are stored on the mobile application.

Thereby, no internet connection is requirement to open

these files.

CNR5 3

The mobile application provides fast access because it

is implemented as native application without any middle-

ware.

CNR6 3The mobile application was developed in-house.

8.3. Outlook

Requirement

Achieved

Description

SFR1 3

Document administration is provided by Microsoft Share-

Point.

SFR2 3

User administration is provided by Microsoft SharePoint.

SFR3 3

Document assignment is provided by Microsoft Share-

Point.

SFR4 3Web accessibility is provided by Microsoft SharePoint.

SFR5 3

An API to connect any application with Microsoft Share-

Point is provided.

SFR6 3Microsoft Office is supported by Microsoft SharePoint.

SFR7 3Microsoft SharePoint supports workflows.

SNR1 3The administration is user-friendly via web browser.

SNR2 3Microsoft SharePoint is an on-premises software.

SNR3 3Support for Microsoft SharePoint is available.

8.3. Outlook

The realized IT system offers a lot of possibilities. Furthermore, it may be desired to offer

a customer visit preparation process. Therefore, the handling of the mobile application

would be more comfortable. An example for such a process is described in the following:

In the first step, the sales representative has to select the industrial sector of the

customer. For example pharmaceutical or biotech.

Then the interested categories of the customer have to be selected. For example

like infusion-therapy or drugs.

3. Finally, some tags can be added. For example antibiotic.

Based on this input, matched content could be selected in Microsoft SharePoint

and automatically be downloaded to the mobile device.

Additionally, the IT system could be connected to the customer relationship management

system to provide more information about customers. Thereby the customer satisfaction

could be increased. Another idea to improve the overall IT system is to connect the

mobile application with calendars of the sales representatives. Thereby, customer visits

could be prepared in time. Necessary content could be automatically downloaded. The

customer visit could also be analyzed during a wrap-up process or by statistics like

8. Conclusion and Outlook

opened files during the customer visit. As it can be seen, the overall IT system is a great

potential and versatile use for sales organizations.

Appending

A.1. Enterprise Content Management systems

•Bitfarm-Archiv

: Bitfarm Archiv is an open source Document Management System

platform in its current version 3.5.4 and was released on December 2014. It

provides features like revision safe archiving, integrated open source OCR full text

indexing (section 2.2.2.1), automatic keywording and workflow support [Bit15].

•ELO ECM Suite 9

: Elektronischer Leitz Ordner (ELO) is a software platform in

its current version 9. It is available in three different versions, ELOoffice (recom-

mended for small organizations), ELOprofessional (recommended for medium-

sized organizations) and ELOenterprise (recommended for large organizations).

Detailed information about the variants can be found at [

ELO15

]. The ELOen-

terprise variant includes an integrated workflow, OCR full text indexing (section

2.2.2.1), automatic keywording and an enterprise search technology.

•LogicalDOC

: LogicalDOC is a Document Management System. Its current version

7.3 exists in three different versions, LogicalDOC Enterprise & Cloud, LogicalDOC

Business and LogicalDOC Community. An overview about the differences between

these version can be found at [

Log15

]. The core features of LogicalDOC can

be divided into document management, document import and synchronization,

collaboration, administrative, protocols and integrations.

•Xerox DocuShare

: According to a contact person of Xerox, DocuShare was the

first web-based Document Management System offered to the market in 1997.

The latest version 6.6.1 R2 was released in November 2014. Its main features

A. Appending

can be described as core content management, business process automation,

intelligent Capture, collaboration and governance, risk and compliance [

Xer15

The management tool supports multiple languages. These can be downloaded

and edited with a localization kit.

•DocuWare

: DocuWare is a product suite of document management software and

is generally available as DocuWare Cloud or as DocuWare on-premise. There

are three licensing variants available, DocuWare Business Server (recommended

for small organizations with one server), DocuWare Professional Server (rec-

ommended for medium-sized organizations with unlimited file cabinet size) and

DocuWare Enterprise Server (recommended for large organization with unlim-

ited support of organizations) [

Doc15a

]. An overview about the functionality of

DocuWare can be found at [Doc15b].

•Hyland Software OnBase

: OnBase is an ECM software product suite by Hyland

and is currently in version 15. The developer organizes the capabilities of OnBase

15 in capture, manage, access, integrate, measure and store component. Detailed

information can be found at [

Hyl15

]. According to [

GSC+14

], Hyland has increased

its presence in larger enterprises.

•EMC Documentum

: EMC Documentum is an ECM platform by EMC Corportation

and is available as on-premise system and as online system in the cloud. It

provides all elements of an ECM system by a set of full-functioned and scalable

products [

GSC+14

]. The advanced, configurable client for Documentum ECM is

named as Documentum D2. More information about EMC Documentum D2 can

be found at [EMC15].

•Lexmark Enterprise Software

: Enterprise Software, formerly Perceptive Soft-

ware, is a stand-alone software by Lexmark International. The fundamental func-

tionality includes capture, workflow capabilities, search and analytics technologies,

content management and a cloud-based video content management platform

[GSC+14][Lex15].

A.2. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Power iteration

•HP Autonomy ECM

: Autonomy ECM is an ECM Suite by HP and includes tools

for capture, process automation, records management and governance, documen-

tation and WCM [GSC+14]. More information can be found at [HP15].

•Newgen Omni Suite

: Newgen Omni Suite is a software suite by Newgen Soft-

ware, an India company. It includes several software like OmniDocs, OmniScan,

OmniFlow, records management system and ZapIn. The functional components

of Newgen Omni Suite can be divided into document management, capture and

imaging, workflow, records management, WCM, social and extended components

(for example like digital asset management, advanced searches or email archival).

More information can be found at [New15].

•Oracle WebCenter Content

: Oracle WebCenter Content is an enterprise content

management solution and includes document management, capture and imaging,

OCR, BPM, records and retention management, digital asset management and

web content publishing. The enterprise content management solution can be

completed by Oracles Portal offerings (for example Oracle ERP tools [

GSC+14

]).

More information can be found at [Ora15].

A.2. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Power iteration

The calculation of the eigenvalue uses a iterative method based on

squaring

normal-

ization and calculation of the weight.

Evaluation Matrix

A1. . . An

A1a11 = 1 . . . a1n

Anan1=1

a1n. . . ann = 1

cjc1=Pn

i=1 ai1. . . cn

Normalized Matrix

A1. . . An

a11

c1. . . a1n

an1

c1. . . ann

1. . . 1

row-sum

Weight

w1=r1

wn=rn

A. Appending

Firstly the evaluation matrix has to be normalized. Therefore, the sum of the

columns (

cj=Pn

i=1 aij

where

is the number of columns) have to be calculated.

The elements of the matrix have to be divided through the calculated sum of the

columns (

aij =aij

with

i= 1, ..., n

and

j= 1, ..., m

) to get the normalized matrix.

Then the rows of the normalized matrix will be added summarized (

ri=Pn

j=1 aij

The weights of the alternatives (principal right eigenvector) are calculated by

dividing the summarized rows through the number of elements in the row (

wi=ri

In the second step the evaluation matrix of step 1 has to be squared. The square

evaluation matrix will be used to calculate the weight of the alternatives according

to step 1. The process of

squaring, normalization, calculation of the weight

will be

repeated as long as the values of the calculated weight differentiates strong.

A.3. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Criteria

Costs

In-

stallation

In-

House

Support

Scal-

ability

Docu-

mentation

Costs 1 3 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3

Installation 1 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3

In-House 1 1/3 5 5

Support 1 5 3

Scalability 1 1

Documentation

Table A.1.: Weight of the system criteria

User interface

Access to infor-

mation

User and rights

management

User interface 1 1/7 1/5

Access to information 1 3

User and rights man-

agement

Table A.2.: Weight of the usability criteria

A.3. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Criteria

Connection Workflow support Multilingualism

Connection 1 5 3

Workflow support 1 1/5

Multilingualism 1

Table A.3.: Weight of the extensions criteria

Indexing

Offline functional-

ity

Document func-

tionality

Indexing 1 3 1/5

Offline functionality 1 1/5

Document functionality 1

Table A.4.: Weight of the administration of documents criteria

System stability

Data protec-

tion

Logging

Encryption

System stability 1 3 7 3

Data protection 1 5 3

Logging 1 1/5

Encryption 1

Table A.5.: Weight of the security criteria

A. Appending

A.4. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Attributes

Installation MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Scalability MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Indexing MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Offline functionality MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Document functional-

ity

MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

A.4. Analytic Hierarchy Process: Attributes

System stability MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Data protection MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Logging MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

Documentation MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 3

IBM Connections 1 1 3

Alfresco 1 3

Liferay 1

Workflow support MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 3 3 3

IBM Connections 1 3 3

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

User and rights man-

agement

MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 3

IBM Connections 1 1 3

Alfresco 1 3

Liferay 1

A. Appending

costs MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 9 9

IBM Connections 1 9 9

Alfresco 1 1/3

Liferay 1

Access to informa-

tion

MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 3

IBM Connections 1 1 3

Alfresco 1 3

Liferay 1

User interface MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 3

IBM Connections 1 1 3

Alfresco 1 3

Liferay 1

Encryption MS SharePoint IBM Connections Alfresco Liferay

MS SharePoint 1 1 1 1

IBM Connections 1 1 1

Alfresco 1 1

Liferay 1

List of Figures

2.1. Conceptual hierarchy from character to content1............... 4

2.2. Enterprise Content Life Cycle [Egg07]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.3. Enterprise Content Management components [Eur15a]. . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.4.

Relationship between Workflow Management and Business Process Man-

agement[AHW03]................................ 12

2.5. Overview of the whole process of decision-making2. ............ 14

2.6. Overview about decision-making3. ...................... 15

2.7. Hierarchy of AHP [Koo15, Gir15]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

2.8. Process of AHP according to [CR10]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.1. HTML5 model cola example in DSA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3.2. File search in Showpad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.3. User interface in Showpad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.1. Document release process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.2. Use case diagram of the client application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.3. Use case diagram of the server application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5.1. The weighted hierarchical structure of the decision problem. . . . . . . . . 48

5.2. SharePoint Hierarchy [Mic15e, Goo13]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

5.3. IBM FileNet P8 core components [IBM15]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

5.4. Architectural components of Alfresco One [Alf15b]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5.5. Result of the AHP process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

6.1. High-level data flow of the overall IT system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

6.2. General workflow of the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

6.3. ER-Diagram of the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

7.1. Collaboration of the MVC components [Sch12]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

7.2. Class diagram of the models in the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . 70

7.3. The view classes of the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

List of Figures

7.4. Basic user interface of the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

7.5. General workflow of the controller classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

7.6. Download on the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

7.7. View playback on the mobile application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

List of Tables

2.1. Fundamental scale according to [Saa90]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.2. Random consistency indices for different number of criteria n. . . . . . . . 29

5.1.Weightofthecriteria.............................. 47

5.2.

Feature-based overview of ECM systems. The ˜ means that there was

no information present via internet research nor according to a contact

person. The ∗means that there are limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

A.1. Weight of the system criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

A.2. Weight of the usability criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

A.3. Weight of the extensions criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

A.4. Weight of the administration of documents criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

A.5. Weight of the security criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Bibliography

[AG15]

AG, Comarch:

Comarch ECM - Workflow

https://www.comarch.

de/files/file_1581/Comarch-ECM-FactSheet-Workflow.pdf

Version: Aug 2015

[Ago15a]

AGORUM:

Feature-List of the DMS/ECM agorum

core

http://www.agorum.com/homepage/english/

features-of-agorum-core-dms-ecm.html. Version: Aug 2015

[Ago15b]

AGORUM:

Produktuebersicht

http://mein-dms.agorum.com/

dokumentenmanagement-produktuebersicht-agorum-core-mein-dms

Version: Aug 2015

[AH08]

ADAM, F. ; HUMPHREYS, P.:

Encyclopedia of Decision Making and Decision

Support Technologies

. Idea Group Reference, 2008

https://books.

google.de/books?id=CWq-MgEACAAJ. – ISBN 9781599048437

[Ahl13]

AHLERT, M.:

Einsatz des Analytic Hierarchy Process im

Relationship Marketing: Eine Analyse strategischer Optionen bei

Dienstleistungsunternehmen

. Gabler Verlag, 2013 (Basler Schriften zum

Marketing

https://books.google.de/books?id=IjghBgAAQBAJ

– ISBN 9783322964809

[AHW03]

AALST, WilM.P. van d. ; HOFSTEDE, ArthurH.M. ter ; WESKE, Mathias:

Business Process Management: A Survey. Version:2003.

http://

dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44895-0_1

. In: AALST, WilM.P. van d.

(Hrsg.) ; WESKE, Mathias (Hrsg.):

Business Process Management

Bd.

2678. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003. – ISBN 978–3–540–40318–0,

1-12

[Alf15a]

ALFRESCO:

The Alfresco API

https://developer.alfresco.com/

resources/alfresco/pdf/AlfrescoAPIReference-v1.0.pdf

Version: Sep 2015

Bibliography

[Alf15b]

ALFRESCO:

Alfresco architecture

http://docs.alfresco.com/4.2/

concepts/alfresco-arch-about.html. Version:Sep 2015

[Alf15c]

ALFRESCO:

Alfresco Documentation

http://docs.alfresco.com/

Version: Sep 2015

[Alf15d]

ALFRESCO:

Support Package Overview

http://docs.alfresco.

com/support/concepts/su-support-packages-table-PDF.

html. Version:Sep 2015

[Alf15e]

ALFRESCO:

User roles and permissions

http://docs.alfresco.

com/4.1/concepts/cuh-user-roles-permissions.html

Version: Sep 2015

[AMSA11]

AFSHAR, Amin ; MARIÑO, MiguelA. ; SAADATPOUR, Motahareh ;

AFSHAR, Abbas:

Fuzzy TOPSIS Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Applied to Karun Reservoirs System

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/

s11269-010-9713-x. Version:2011

[App15a]

APPLE:

Core Data Programming Guide

https://developer.

apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/

CoreData/Articles/cdTechnologyOverview.html#//apple_

ref/doc/uid/TP40009296-SW1. Version:Sep 2015

[App15b]

APPLE:

Technology Overview

https://developer.apple.com/

library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CoreData/

Articles/cdTechnologyOverview.html. Version:Sep 2015

[BCFG06]

BRAGLIA, Marcello ; CARMIGNANI, Gionata ; FROSOLINI, Marco ; GRASSI,

Andrea: AHP-based evaluation of CMMS software. In:

Journal of

Manufacturing Technology Management

17 (2006), Nr. 5, 585-602.

http:

//dx.doi.org/10.1108/17410380610668531

[Bit15]

BITFARM:

Datenblatt

https://www.bitfarm-archiv.de/

downloads/infos/Datenblatt.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

Bibliography

[Bla15]

BLAIR, T. B.:

An Enterprise Content Management Primer

http://www.

kahnconsultinginc.com/images/pdfs/IMJ_ECM_Article.pdf

Version: August 2015

[BM94]

BRINKMEYER, Dieter ; MÜLLER, Rolf A.:

Entscheidungsunterstützung

mit dem AHP. In:

Zeitschrift für Agrarinformatik

(1994).

http:

//www.agric-econ.uni-kiel.de/Abteilungen/II/PDFs/AHP_

Brinkmeyer_Mueller.pdf

[BR15]

BISHOP RUSTY, J.:

Showpad vs. Digital Sales Aid: An In-Depth iPad Sales

Apps Review.http://goo.gl/qf4zQU. Version:Sep 2015

[Coc15]

COCOAPODS:

CocoaPods Guides

https://guides.cocoapods.

org/. Version:Sep 2015

[CR10]

CHAROUZ, Jaroslav ; RAMIK, Jaroslav: A MULTICRITERIA

DECISION

MAKING AT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT. In:

EKONOMIKA A

MANAGEMENT

(2010).

http://www.ekonomie-management.cz/

download/1331826754_2aa4/04_charouz.pdf

[Cur13]

CURRY, B.:

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Pocket Guide

. Pearson

Education

2013

https://books.google.de/books?id=OYtuAAAAQBAJ

. –

ISBN 9780133496918

[Doc15a]

DOCUWARE:

DocuWare Overview

http://de.slideshare.net/

AtifSheikh2/docuware-overview. Version:Sep 2015

[Doc15b]

DOCUWARE:

Working with DocuWare - Functions of DocuWare Basic

Version

https://www.docuware.com/sites/default/files/

DocuWare_Functions_Overview_67.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[Egg07]

EGGERT, S.:

Enterprise Content Management

. Gito, 2007

(Reihe Wirtschaftsinformatik).

https://books.google.de/books?

id=yhp919bNWscC. – ISBN 9783936771886

[ELO15]

ELO:

Comparison of the ELO product range

https://www.elo.com/

wcm/en/products/product-comparison. Version:Aug 2015

Bibliography

[EMC15]

EMC:

EMC Documentum D2

http://www.emc.com/collateral/

software/data-sheet/h9525-documentum-d2-ds.pdf

Version: Sep 2015

[Eur15a] EUROPE, AIIM: Enterprise Content Management Roadmap. 2015

[Eur15b]

EUROPE, AIIM:

What is Enterprise Content

Management (ECM)? http://www.aiim.org/

What-is-ECM-Enterprise-Content-Management

. Version:Aug

2015

[F¨

15]

FÜLÖP, János:

Decision Making Methods

http://www.cs.ubbcluj.

ro/~per/Dss/Dss_7.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[FRL15]

FAVRET, Fabián ; RODRÍGUEZ, Federico M. ; LABAT, Mari-

anela D.:

Comparative Analysis of AI Techniques to Correct

the Inconsistency in the Analytic Hierarchy Process Matrix

http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/bitstream/handle/10915/

42404/Documento_completo.pdf?sequence=1

. Version:August

2015

[Gir15]

GIRMSCHEID, G.:

Projektabwicklung in der

Bauwirtschaft-prozessorientiert: Wege zur Win-Win-Situation für

Auftraggeber und Auftragnehmer

. Springer Berlin Heidelberg,

2015 (

VDI-Buch

https://books.google.de/books?id=

djrjoQEACAAJ. – ISBN 9783662442494

[Goo13]

GOODYEAR, S.:

Practical SharePoint 2013 Enterprise Content

Management

. Apress, 2013 (SpringerLink : Bücher).

https://books.

google.de/books?id=2psQAwAAQBAJ. – ISBN 9781430261704

[GSC+14]

GILBERT, Mark R. ; SHEGDA, Karen M. ; CHIN, Kenneth ; TAY, Gavin

; KOEHLER-KRUENER, Hanns:

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content

Management. September 2014

100

Bibliography

[GSC+15]

GILBERT, Mark R. ; SHEGDA, Karen M. ; CHIN, Kenneth ;

TAY, Gavin ; KOEHLER-KRUENER, Hanns:

Magic Quadrant for

Enterprise Content Management

https://www.gartner.com/doc/

2854918/magic-quadrant-enterprise-content-management

Version: Sep 2015

[HM15]

HAAS, Rainer ; MEIXNER, Oliver:

An Illustrated Guide to the

ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

https://mi.boku.ac.at/ahp/

ahptutorial.pdf. Version:Juli 2015

[HP15]

HP:

Efficiently manage legal department matters

http:

//www.ndm.net/archiving/pdf/20130528_RL_BR_HP_AUTN_

Managing_Legal_Departments_web.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[HPMY12]

HWANG, C.L. ; PAIDY, S.R. ; MASUD, A.S.M. ; YOON, K.:

Multiple Objective

Decision Making — Methods and Applications: A State-of-the-Art Survey

Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012 (

Lecture

Notes in Economics and

Mathematical Systems).

https://books.google.de/books?id=

M0noCAAAQBAJ. – ISBN 9783642455117

[Hüb07]

HÜBNER, R.:

Strategic Supply Chain Management in Process Industries:

An Application to Specialty Chemicals Production Network Design

Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2007 (Lecture Notes in Economics and

Mathematical Systems).

https://books.google.fr/books?id=

l8zN-cam8c8C. – ISBN 9783540721826

[HY81]

HWANG, C.L. ; YOON, K.:

Multiple attribute decision making: methods and

applications : a state-of-the-art survey

. Springer-Verlag, 1981 (

Lecture

notes in economics and mathematical systems).

https://books.

google.de/books?id=X-wYAQAAIAAJ

[Hyl15]

HYLAND:

OnBase

https://www.onbase.com/en/product/#.

VeV8MXvmdTY. Version:Sep 2015

[IBM15]

IBM:

IBM FileNet P8 Platform and Architecture

http://www.redbooks.

ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247667.pdf. Version:Sep 2015

101

Bibliography

[ICU15]

ICU:

Regular Expressions

http://userguide.icu-project.org/

strings/regexp. Version:Sep 2015

[IL15]

ISHIZAKA, Alessio ; LABIB, Ashraf:

Review of the main developments in the

Analytic Hierarchy Process

http://eprints.port.ac.uk/4722/1/

AHP_review_Preprint.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[JHK+15]

JR, Rich S. ; HINKEY, Jim ; KOSTAS, Stephen ; RAO, Jesse ;

HOAG, Cody:

Using Liferay Portal

https://www.liferay.

com/documents/14/21661387/Using+Liferay+Portal+6.

1/a52ce3d9-92bd-4177-ad98-9821659b0c8c?version=1.1

Version: Sep 2015

[Jun94]

JUNIO, D.F.:

Development of an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Model

for Siting of Municipal Solid Waste Facilities

. 1994

https://books.

google.de/books?id=CmGiSgAACAAJ

[Kam15]

KAMPFFMEYER, Ulrich:

Enterprise Content Management

http:

//www.project-consult.de/Files/ECM_White%20Paper_kff_

2006.pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[KO14]

KUMAR, Praveen ; OSURI, Gade M.:

Evaluation of Multi Criteria Decision

Making Methods for Potential Use in Application Security

. Sweden, School

of Computing - Blekinge Institute of Technology, Master’s Thesis, Mai 2014

[Koo15]

KOOTHS, Stefan:

Entscheidungsunterstützung / Künstliche

Intelligenz Teil 3

http://www.kooths.de/teaching/bits-ki/

kooths-bits-ki-3.pdf. Version:Juli 2015

[Lex15]

LEXMARK:

Enterprise Software has evolved

http://www.lexmark.

com/en_us/products/software.html. Version:Sep 2015

[Lez06]

LEZZI, Jana:

Multi-criteria decision making in outpatient scheduling

. USA,

University of South Florida, Master’s Thesis, Oktober 2006

[Lif09]

LIFKA, S.:

Entscheidungsanalysen in der Immobilienwirtschaft

. Utz, VVF,

2009 (Wirtschaft & Raum).

https://books.google.de/books?id=

_StiUUTsC48C. – ISBN 9783831608805

102

Bibliography

[Lif15a]

LIFERAY:

Liferay Portal Performance

https://liferay.

mimacom.com/c/document_library/get_file?groupId=10180&

folderId=0&title=Liferay-Performance+Whitepaper.pdf

Version: Sep 2015

[Lif15b]

LIFERAY:

Portal Features

http://www.liferay.com/products/

liferay-portal/features/portal. Version:Sep 2015

[Lif15c]

LIFERAY:

Technical Specifications

https://www.liferay.com/en/

products/liferay-portal/tech-specs. Version:Sep 2015

[Log15]

LOGICALDOC:

Product Features

http://www.logicaldoc.com/

product/features.html. Version:Aug 2015

[Mat12]

MATEO, JoséRamónSanCristóbal: Weighted Sum Method and Weighted

Product Method. Version:2012.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/

978-1-4471-2346-0_4

. In:

Multi Criteria Analysis in the Renewable

Energy Industry

. Springer London, 2012 (Green Energy and Technology).

– ISBN 978–1–4471–2345–3, 19-22

[MF15]

M-FILES:

Manage every thing in your business

https://www.m-files.

com/en. Version:Sep 2015

[Mic15a]

MICROSOFT:

Determine SharePoint REST service endpoint URIs

https://msdn.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/office/

dn292556.aspx. Version:Aug 2015

[Mic15b]

MICROSOFT:

Get to know the SharePoint 2013 REST service

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us//library/office/

FP142380.aspx. Version:Aug 2015

[Mic15c]

MICROSOFT:

Introduction to multilingual features

https://goo.gl/

24ppxr. Version:Sep 2015

[Mic15d]

MICROSOFT:

Overview of profile synchronization in SharePoint

Server 2013

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/

gg188041.aspx. Version:Sep 2015

103

Bibliography

[Mic15e]

MICROSOFT:

Overview of sites and site collections in SharePoint 2013

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us//library/Cc262410.

aspx. Version:Sep 2015

[Mic15f]

MICROSOFT:

SharePoint feature availability across on-premises

solutions

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us//library/

cc262485.aspx#reqOtherCap. Version:Sep 2015

[Mic15g]

MICROSOFT:

SharePoint Updates

https://technet.microsoft.

com/library/dn789211%28v=office.14%29. Version:Sep 2015

[MK13]

MÜHLBACHER, AxelC. ; KACZYNSKI, Anika:

Der Analytic Hierarchy

Process (AHP): Eine Methode zur Entscheidungsunterstützung

im Gesundheitswesen

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/

s40275-014-0011-8. Version:2013

[MOK07]

MOKHTARI, SOROUSH:

DEVELOPING A GROUP DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEM (GDSS) FOR DECISION MAKING UNDER

UNCERTAINTY

. Orlando, Florida, University of Central Florida, Master’s

Thesis, 2007

[New15]

NEWGEN:

OmniDocs Enterprise Content Management

(ECM) Suite

http://www.newgensoft.com/products/

enterprise-content-management-omnidocs/

. Version:Aug

2015

[OL99]

OSSADNIK, Wolfgang ; LANGE, Oliver: AHP-based evaluation of AHP-

Software. In:

European journal of operational research

118 (1999), Nr. 3,

S. 578–588

[Ora15]

ORACLE:

Oracle Webcenter Content

http://www.oracle.com/

technetwork/middleware/webcenter/content/overview/

ds-oracle-wc-ecm-427843.pdf. Version:Sep 2015

104

Bibliography

[Oss13]

OSSADNIK, W.:

Mehrzielorientiertes strategisches Controlling:

Methodische Grundlagen und Fallstudien zum führungsunterstützenden

Einsatz des Analytischen Hierarchie-Prozesses

. Physica-Verlag HD,

2013 (

Betriebswirtschaftliche

Studien).

https://books.google.de/

books?id=asbyBQAAQBAJ. – ISBN 9783642590030

[Pro06]

PROVOOST, Lee:

A SOA-ENABLED ENTERPRISE CONTENT

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

. Netherlands, Utrecht University, Master’s The-

sis, JUN 2006

[PZ15]

PETERS, Malte L. ; ZELEWSKI, Stephan:

TOPSIS als Technik zur

Effizienzanalyse

http://www.fwl.wi.tum.de/fileadmin/

Downloads/Master_Forst/TOPSIS_zur_Effizienzanalyse.

pdf. Version:Aug 2015

[RGF09]

RIEDL, R. ; GRÜNBERGER, H. ; FRÜHLING, V.:

Das Vereinshandbuch:

Recht - Steuern und Finanzen - Strategie - IT - Markting

. Linde,

2009 (Linde international).

https://books.google.de/books?id=

TxWCrDb6M2oC. – ISBN 9783709301463

[Rig09]

RIGGERT, Wolfgang:

ECM - Enterprise Content Management:

Konzepte und Techniken rund um Dokumente

. Vieweg+Teubner Ver-

lag, 2009 (Vieweg Studium).

https://books.google.de/books?id=

_krV3yC4WXcC. – ISBN 9783834895882

[Saa90]

SAATY, Thomas L.: How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy

process. In:

European Journal of Operational Research

48 (1990), Nr. 1,

9 - 26.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/

037722179090057I

[Sch12]

SCHAUDE, Jonas ; DADAM, Peter (Hrsg.) ; SCHOBEL, Johannes

(Hrsg.):

LitSys light: Entwurf und Implementierung eines webbasierten

Literaturverwaltungssystems

http://dbis.eprints.uni-ulm.de/

870/. Version:July 2012

105

Bibliography

[Son03]

SONG, I.Y.:

Conceptual Modeling – ER 2003: 22nd International

Conference on Conceptual Modeling, Chicago, IL, USA, October 13-

16, 2003, Proceedings

. Springer, 2003 (Lecture Notes in Computer

Science).

https://books.google.de/books?id=nUHJg0t_6ugC

. –

ISBN 9783540202998

[SSP+13]

SCHOBEL, Johannes ; SCHICKLER, Marc ; PRYSS, Rüdiger ; NIENHAUS,

Hans ; REICHERT, Manfred: Using Vital Sensors in Mobile Healthcare

Business Applications: Challenges, Examples, Lessons Learned. In:

9th

Int’l Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST

2013), Special Session on Business Apps, 2013, 509–518

[Tav12]

TAVANA, M.:

Decision Making Theories and Practices from Analysis

to Strategy

. Business Science Reference, 2012 (Premier reference

source).

https://books.google.de/books?id=XGJitQAACAAJ

. –

ISBN 9781466615892

[TH11]

TZENG, G.H. ; HUANG, J.J.:

Multiple Attribute Decision Making:

Methods and Applications

. Taylor & Francis, 2011 (A Chapman &

Hall book).

https://books.google.de/books?id=_C7n1ar4f8IC

– ISBN 9781439861578

[Tsa08]

TSAGDIS, Angelis:

THE USE OF THE ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY

PROCESS AS A SOURCE SELECTION METHODOLOGY AND ITS

POTENTIAL APPLICATION WITHIN THE HELLENIC AIR FORCE

. MON-

ETEREY, CALIFORNIA, Naval Postgraduate School, Master’s Thesis, JUN

2008

[TSSR15]

TRIANTAPHYLLOU, E. ; SHU, B. ; SANCHES, S. N. ; RAY, T.:

Multi-Criteria

Decision Making: An Operations Research Approach

http://

bit.csc.lsu.edu/trianta/EditedBook_CHAPTERS/EEEE1.pdf

Version: Aug 2015

106

Bibliography

[WLCMJ15]

WEINTRAUB, Alan ; LECLAIR, Craig ; MCKINNON, Cheryl ; JEDINAK, Emily:

The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Management, Q3 2013

https:

//www.forrester.com/The+Forrester+Wave+Enterprise+

Content+Management+Q3+2013/fulltext/-/E-res88281

Version: Sep 2015

[Xer15]

XEROX:

Xerox DocuShare 6.6 delivers robust content management

capabilities at an extraordinary value

http://docushare.

xerox.com/global/pdfs/DS66_USletter_Data_Sheet.pdf

Version: Aug 2015

[ZG91]

ZIMMERMANN, H.J. ; GUTSCHE, L.:

Multi-Criteria Analyse:

. Springer, 1991

(Heidelberger Lehrtexte Wirtschaftswissenschaften).

https://books.

google.de/books?id=snZ-coXHpGYC. – ISBN 9783540544838

107

Name: Jonas Schaude Matriculation Number: 667564

Declaration

I hereby declare that I wrote the master thesis independently and used no other aids

that those cited.

Ulm, .................................................................................

Jonas Schaude