SAP Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management is a part of SAP Enterprise Portal.KM provides a central, role-specific point of entry to unstructured information from various data sources in the portal .Knowledge Management functions support you in structuring information and making it available to the correct target audience. These functions include search, classification, and subscriptions.
Knowledge Management is a part of the usage type EP (Enterprise Portal). To be able to use the full scope of the Knowledge Management capabilities in SAP Net Weaver, the stand-alone engine Search and Classification (TREX) is required. You can distribute TREX and the portal on different servers for better scalability.
KM Concepts
Repository Framework
The repository framework provides the technical basis for KM applications. It includes the central Java classes and interfaces of the Knowledge Management Platform. The repository framework also provides services for dealing with content. Documents are physically stored in a virtual hierarchy and a namespace in the repository framework. They can be stored on different systems such as Windows, Lotus Notes, WebDAV, and HTTP. Access to these systems is controlled using repository managers.
Types of Repositories
Internal Repository
CM Repository Manager
CM repository is used as the main repository for storing documents and folders that are managed by Content Manager.
Persistence Modes
CM repository managers can be set up in various modes as follows:
DB Mode
All data (documents, folders, and metadata) is stored in the database. If there is a large number of write requests in your CM usage scenario, set up the CM repository in database mode. Since all documents are stored in the database, this avoids unintentional external manipulation of the data. Another advantage of storing all data in the database is that the procedure for data backup and restore is easy since only the database needs to be backed up.
DBFS Mode
Metadata and folders are stored in the database, but documents are stored in the file system. This mode is faster than the database mode if you have large documents since there is no database data streaming. This mode also enables the size of the database to be controlled more easily since documents are stored in the file system.
FSDB Mode
Folders and documents are stored in the file system, but metadata is stored in the database.In this mode, the file system is predominant. File systems are not transactional, so this mode has restrictions and affects performance. If read and write operations take place for one document in the file system at the same time, these operations have to be coordinated by the repository manager. This happens by recording both write accesses and read accesses in the database. This affects performance.
Example CM Repository Manager Configuration
Name = documents
Description = Standard repository for content
Prefix = /documents
Repository-ID in DB = documents
Send Events = true
Persistence Mode = DB
Property Search Manager = CMPropertySearchManager
Repository Services = properties, feedback, comment, rating,
ACL Manager Cache = ca_rsrc_acl
Memory Cache = ca_cm
Memory Cache for small Content = ca_cm_content
Security Manager = AclSecurityManager
File System Content Cache Directory = /tmp/cmdocumentscontentcache
Max. Size of File System Cache = 100
Maximum Number of Cache Files = 10000
External Repository.
File System Repository Manager
You use a file system repository manager to access a directory hierarchy in a file system and make its contents available for read and write access.
Features
The file system repository manager supports the following actions that can be applied to files and directories:
· Creating
· Changing
· Renaming
· Deleting
· Copying
· Moving
If you are using the repository in read-only mode, the creating, changing, renaming, and deleting of files and directories is not supported.
The following functions are not supported:
· Locking documents
· Creating links
· Using predefined properties
· Versioning
Creating Repository
Services
Services are background jobs that keep running and help in achieving specific functions for KM.
Types of Services
Repository Services
The repository services connect individual repositories with services, such as indexing, subscription, and status management. For example Time-Dependent Publishing Service
Time-Dependent Publishing Service
This service enables authors or content managers to specify a time interval during which a document is visible to users who have read permission for the document
Global Services
Global services are responsible for many tasks required by all repository managers or applications. For example, Property Metadata Service
Property Metadata Service
The property metadata service offers the opportunity of using your own predefined properties in Knowledge Management in addition to standard properties. The property metadata service supports additional metadata. Because it supports language bundles, the service enables the use of language-dependent field names. Properties can even be displayed on the interface in local languages.
Assigning the services to a repository
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is a hierarchical structure of categories in which you classify documents according to content, organizational, or other criteria. Documents that are stored in different physical repositories can be included in the same category. This allows portal users to navigate in a uniform structure throughout an organization even if information is stored in heterogeneous storage locations. Content managers create the folder structures of taxonomies and prepare them for automatic classification. Tools are also available for manual classification purposes.
System Configuration
The Knowledge Management system configuration includes the following areas in the portal:
1. Content Management Configuration
2. Index Administration
It also allows access to reports for checking the configuration and functions of CM repositories.The system configuration area also includes the creation and structuring of taxonomies for classifying documents.
Content Management Configuration
There are as many Content Management configurations as there are CM usage scenarios and system environments. However, there is one scenario that is covered by the standard installation and that allows you to use CM functions. To modify the standard installation in line with your system environment, you make small changes to the configuration data. Depending on your usage scenario, you may have to make more significant changes to other CM components, such as the user interface, in line with other needs.
As an integrated solution, the Content Management configuration is based on technical components of the portal infrastructure. The portal system landscape is used to access servers with user mapping. User management and the authentication services are used by the J2EE Engine.
Transport of Configuration Data
The Export and Import functions are to move individual configuration objects or larger parts of the configuration, including all referenced configuration data, between portals. For example, this allows you to transfer the configuration from a test system to a production system.
You can perform the transport manually using the commands integrated in the Configuration iView. If you have implemented the Change and Transport System (CTS), you can also have it perform the export and import of the configuration data automatically.
TREX
The TREX engine is a standalone component that can be used in a range of system environments, but is used primarily as an integral part of such SAP products as Enterprise Portal, KM TREX services include search and retrieval in large document collections, text mining, automatic document classification, and search and aggregation of structured data in SAP applications. TREX can handle text from documents in numerous formats, including Microsoft Office and Adobe formats (PDF), and more than 30 languages. TREX search options, such as exact, Boolean, fuzzy, or linguistic searches, and classification options such as query-based or example-based classification, offer great power and flexibility to end users. TREX functions and services can be accessed through the APIs of SAP applications that provide configurable access to TREX services (for example Search Engine Service (SES)
Index
The index management service makes documents in CM repositories accessible for search and classification. This is done in a generic way by providing interfaces to index services that implement these functions. Needs the crawler service, application property service is registered for all repositories that contain documents to be classified. Indexing can be assigned to a repository. Indexing can be monitored through a “Indexing Monitor” iView.
Index Creation and Monitoring
Metadata Properties
Metadata is data about the data. In KM parlance, you define properties for the assets uploaded in KM here. When users create new items in KM folders or upload documents, they enter values for these properties. This gives items Meta information that the system can evaluate in various ways. The Meta information in the properties allows your organization to make better use of existing knowledge.
Creating Metadata Property
Creating Property Groups and Structures
Standard iView
There are around 30 Different iViews available for KM
Mainly used customizable iViews are:
- Search iView
- Navigation iView
KM API’s
All functions of the KM can be carried out or mimicked through KM API’s Can be used along with PDK and WDJ API’s available as JAR files in the Service Market Place KM API’s available for operations like Search, Upload, Rating, Feedback etc.
KM API’s – Example
Setup the valid KM Resource Context, which is required to execute the search.
IResourceContext ctxt = ResourceFactory.getInstance().getServiceContext("cmadmin_service");
IIndexService indexService = (IIndexService)
ResourceFactory.getInstance().getServiceFactory().getService(IServiceTypesConst.INDEX_SERVICE);
IFederatedSearch federatedSearch = (IFederatedSearch)
indexService.getObjectInstance(IWcmIndexConst.FEDERATED_SEARCH_INSTANCE);
SearchQueryListBuilder sqb = new SearchQueryListBuilder();
sqb.setSearchTerm(searchString);
ISearchSession session = federatedSearch.searchWithSession(qel, indexList, ctxt);
sessionCnt = session.getTotalNumberResultKeys();
ISearchResultList searchList = session.getSearchResults(1, sessionCnt);
KM Content
The KM Content page is to access the root directory of the KM platform. You can carry out the following actions here:
1. Navigate through repositories and folders
2. Search for documents
3. Carry out file operations (copying, moving, deleting, and so on)
4. Create new documents, links, or folders
Transporting KM Content
The transport function is to transport KM content from one system to another (for example, for a test system to a production system).
You specify the KM folders or files you want to transport in the transport package.
The system takes the following metadata into account for transports.
1. Standard properties (file size, creation date, last changed by, and so on)
2. Custom properties
Content Managers
Content manager manages folder structures and the documents that they contain. You provide an environment in which authors create documents and make sure that users can find information. The Content Manager portal role has access permission for folders and documents. In addition, service permissions are necessary for some of the functions. For more information
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