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Alfresco Consulting

Suggested Packages

  • Project Architecture Jump Start
  • Architecture and Implementation Checkpoints
  • WCM Architecture Jump Start
  • Implementation Assistance Package
View package details below
 
 

Alfresco Consulting has deep experience with Alfresco technologies and specializes in architecture and design work. As a resource both to customers and partners, Alfresco consultants see dozens of implementations and can thus recommend optimal approaches. They work closely with the Alfresco engineering team, contribute to the products and help set product direction with Alfresco Product Management, all of which gives them unique insights into the technology. In addition to customer work, Alfresco consultants spend time sharing their expertise and best practices with partners, customers and community through blogging, developing product extensions, and writing white papers.

Alfresco consultants’ main goal is to mitigate risk of an Alfresco implementation, and they will help you avoid common problems before they arise. This saves the customers both time and money in forms of reduced rework, faster development time, and more future-proof designs.

Our services model is very flexible - the services hours can be used over several months on an ad-hoc basis. The majority of services are provided remotely.


Frequently Asked Questions


Who are Alfresco Consultants?

Alfresco consulting is a small team of senior technologists with a minimum of 8 years of enterprise software experience and deep experience in ECM & Social Computing, and project management experience. In addition to consulting, they are also involved in onsite training and frequently work with OEM clients, giving them a unique set of insights into Alfresco technology.


What Kind of Projects Do You Typically Engage in?

There are four broad categories of Alfresco projects:

  1. Document Management Projects. For document management applications, the typical tasks involve creating a content model, customizing the User Interface, configuring rules, writing Web Scripts, creating workflows, integration with other system and more. While none of these are difficult by themselves, having an expert guiding your developers and architects will result in reduced development cost with lower risk. While these projects have been successfully completed by many customers, having Alfresco consulting involved results in faster rollout times and solutions that have fewer upgrade issues.
  2. Web Content Management Projects involve many more decisions than on the DM side. These projects can get quite involved, since they involve decisions about how to model content, create relationships between web projects, architect the deployment and delivery topologies and understanding how these fit into the web site design. Architecture guidance for your first project is highly recommended by Alfresco to navigate this variety and come up with an optimal design for your needs.
  3. Alfresco is often used as a framework for developing content-oriented applications or to integrate with other technologies. These “Content as a Service” or Integration Projects involve intimate understanding of Alfresco core services and other internals. Since the architecture approach is the key decision point, having a guide who intimately understands the Alfresco internals is especially important.
  4. Alfresco Surf and Alfresco Share are a new framework and application in Alfresco 3.0. As internal Alfresco resources, consultants have intimate familiarity with these technologies and will help guide you through these customizations.

What Types of Services Does Alfresco Consulting Offer?

Alfresco consulting specializes in high value activities such as architecture and design reviews, mentoring, enablement and best practices. While Alfresco consulting can be engaged on a time and materials basis, several consulting packages are offered that meet common project requirements. All packages can be used over a period of time (usually within a six month period), as needed.

Since customers typically spread their hours over time, this means that we work with several clients at the same time – providing these services remotely allows us to do this effectively.

  1. Development Mentoring - we work with your developers to identify the best ways to meet your specific requirements, providing code and configuration samples to guide them in the right direction.
  2. “Phone an Alfresco Expert” - purchase a set of hours, and use them at your convenience over the course of the implementation (our most popular offering!).
  3. “Surgical Strike.” - While we are not in a position to do longer projects, some customers do have cases where they need to develop a specific feature for their implementation in a timely manner. While getting up to speed on technology might take weeks for internal resources, Alfresco consultants can fill that need for smaller projects (i.e. typically duration less than two weeks or even a few days).

Please note that Alfresco consulting does not provide full project implementation services – for that, Alfresco recommends its extensive network of Certified Alfresco Systems Integrators.


Can You Give Some Guidelines or Suggested Packaged Offerings?

Below are the consulting packages we offer, along with some usage guidelines:

  1. Project Architecture Jump Start (10 hrs)
    (Recommended minimum for DM Projects)
    • 4 Hours Design & Architecture
    • 4 hours Configuration Assistance (authentication, clustering / high availability etc.)
    • 2 Hrs –implementation checkpoints throughout the life of the project
  2. Architecture and Implementation Checkpoints (20 hrs)
    (Recommended minimum for “Content as a Service” or Integration Projects)
    • 1 Hour – Project Overview and Goals
    • 4 Hours Design & Architecture
    • 4 Hours Content Modeling Assistance
    • 4 Hours – Project-Dependent “Phone an Alfresco Expert”
    • 3 hours Deployment Topology Assistance
    • 4 Hrs –Implementation checkpoints throughout the life of the project
  3. WCM Architecture Jump Start (20 hrs)
    (Recommended minimum for WCM Projects)
    • 1 Hour – Project Overview and Goals
    • 3 Hours – Content Backend Design
    • 3 Hours – Deployment Topology Design Assistance
    • 3 Hours – Site Architecture Issues Assistance
    • 6 Hours – Project-Dependent “Phone an Alfresco Expert”
    • 4 Hrs –Implementation Checkpoints
  4. Implementation Assistance Package (40hrs)
    • Activities in 20 Hr Package
    • Implementation –specific issues (workflow, search, etc).
    • Developing customer-specific sample to solve a problem

Custom Packages

The above packages are just guidelines. We will work with you to give you an assessment of how many hours might be most beneficial to your specific case.


How Do We Engage or Determine if Alfresco Consulting is Appropriate?

We will help you. Alfresco professional services is a premium offering – the majority of an implementation is typically performed by customer staff or a Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator, and our offering is complementary to both of these resourcing approaches.

If you are interested in Alfresco consulting, you can work with your Alfresco account executive to arrange an initial needs assessment. During the call, we will determine if there’s alignment between your needs and our capabilities. If there is, we will suggest the most appropriate package after going over your high-level requirements. If we feel you need a larger engagement than we can offer, we will work with you to select an appropriate Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator.


How does Alfresco Consulting Work with Support?

Sometimes an issue initially gets posted to a consultant but as it progresses clearly becomes a support issue. At that time, a formal handoff is made to Alfresco support to ensure continuity.


How Can I use Alfresco Consulting in Conjunction with a Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator?

Alfresco consulting prefers to work as part of your implementation team, be they in-house technical staff or a Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator. If you’ve chosen to use a Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator for your Alfresco implementation, we typically augment their team as a dedicated Alfresco subject matter expert, assisting with specific Alfresco architecture and design issues and providing guidance on the best way to achieve your requirements with the technology. A discount is offered on our hourly rates for implementations that are led by a Certified Alfresco Systems Integrator.


Next step: Contact your Alfresco account executive »