Case Study WWARN Alfresco

7/29/2019 Case Study WWARN Alfresco

1/3

alresco.com

wwarn.org

ixxus.com

They generate quality-assured, timely inormation to track

the emergence and spread o drug resistance in malaria,

and support and serve the global malaria community

through provision o data resources, research tools and

a global orum or exchange o scientic and public

health inormation.

WWARN was planned and developed by a group

o scientists rom over 50 institutions and 28 countries.

Their Regional Centres play a central strategic outreach

role within malaria-aected communities, and with oces

in multiple locations around the globe, WWARN are

helping to build sustainable, local expertise.

The Challenge

With regional oces in Southeast Asia, East and West

Arica, the key aim o WWARN is to allow sharing o data

between dierent Research Units across the world in order

to build up a global picture o the emergence and spreado antimalaria drug resistance. In order to track the spread

eectively, WWARN needed to be able to process donated

studies at one o the regional centres.

(continued next page)

The WorldWide Antimalaria Resistance Network (WWARN)

A Global Collaborative Project Driven by the Needs o Malaria-Aected Countries

and Guided by Scientic Evidence.

Given Alrescos fexibility or customisation coupled with its wide range o standard eatures, it was an ideal choice or WWARNs needs.

They were a pleasure to work with and Ixxus were happy to help with such a worthwhile cause.

Justin Haynes, Client Engagement Director

Case Study

Customer

The WorldWide

Antimalaria Resistance

Network (WWARN)

Industry

Nonprot

Solution

Document Management

Document Share

Partner

Ixxus

FPO
http://www.alfresco.com/http://www.wwarn.org/http://www.ixxus.com/http://www.wwarn.org/http://www.wwarn.org/http://www.alfresco.com/http://www.ixxus.com/http://www.wwarn.org/http://www.alfresco.com/http://www.ixxus.com/


2/3

With this in mind, the initial project was to

set up an advanced global system which could be

accessed rom WWARNs oces worldwide to

upload processed studies and content rom any

o the malaria-endemic countries around the globe.

The challenge set by WWARN was to create afexible workfow solution or the upload, validation

and verication o these studies, and which could

be used to build advanced workfows.

The group had several urther specic requirements

within this, including the ability to customise content

relationships and metadata, and to search and lter

within both content les and metadata. The user

interace needed to be customisable and extensible,

with the capability o displaying workfow dialogs and

metadata orms.

WWARN considered careully what they would

ideally need rom a workfow solution, and came

up with a list o requirements:

Flexible workow solution that can be used

to build advanced workfows

Custom content metadata

Custom content relationships

Metadata search feature

Extensible user interface that can display

custom workfow dialogs and custommetadata orms

Search within content les

Filter search result on specic type of data le

Support from large community

The Approach

Alresco was chosen due to its very fexible and

customisable platorm, which is extensible on boththe repository level and the user interace level. Alresco

also comes with JBOSS jBPM, a ully integrated workfow

engine or building advanced workfows, which was very

important or the WWARN project. Another positive actor

was the high level o support available rom the Alresco

open-source community. Alresco was leveraged and

integrated with WWARNs existing custom document

upload system via CMIS, which enables sending o

document inormation between CMS systems in a

standard way. Ixxus worked in conjunction with WWARN

to create a proo-o-concept solution with a customadvanced workfow or Clinical Studies. A custom content

model was also built, to describe the content, and the

relationships between content, in this domain. Ixxus

Ixxus have shown themselves to be knowledgeable, fexible and helpul. With collaborators across the world, we have

a real need or eective work solutions. Thanks to their excellent service and understanding o the Alresco platorm,

we have rapidly developed a work tool which will make a valuable contribution to meeting our goals.

Ian Wright, WWARNs Alresco Project Lead

congured the user interace to display both the

custom clinical workfow and the custom model

or the domain. Ixxus also customised the content

upload dialog so it was possible to set up

relationships between content whilst content

was being uploaded.

The Solution

WWARNs existing system was built around

XML, and was used to submit and upload studies

rom research acilities around the world. WWARN

required a method to take all o the study les which

they were uploading, and put these into a Content

Management System (CMS) in order to benet rom

the built-in search capabilities, including the ability

to search and lter within content les and metadata.

Ater an initial investigation using Share, Ixxus

decided it was better to use a regular older structure

in the repository instead o using collaboration sites

as only document content was going to be handled.

Share was integrated into WWARNs own system

using CMIS as a standard interace, so that the

existing WWARN user interace (UI) could be used

to speciy study les and upload them to Alresco

via CMIS.

WWARN were also using an online portal single

sign-on, and Alresco was required to integrate withthis user directory. Ixxus successully integrated the

two, with the result that wherever users are, they

can also access Alresco via the portal.

Case Study The Worldwide AntiMalaria Resistance Network (WWARN)

(continued next page)
http://www.alfresco.com/


3/3

Ixxus approach to the CMS itsel was to split

each study into its own individual older structure within

Alresco. Whenever the WWARN UI is used to upload les

via CMIS to the Alresco repository, a new study older is

automatically created. Ixxus implemented a custom con-

tent model allowing users to search on custom metadata

such as Study ID and to search on custom study types

such as Data Dictionary and Data File. WWARN need-

ed to be able to search specic les and study olders, so

to do this Ixxus extended the advanced search unctional-

ity within Alresco to allow it to search more specically.

Within the existing system used by WWARN, there were

a great deal o implicit workfows which were handled

manually and without automation, resulting in inecient

use o time and resources. Ixxus coordinated with one o

WWARNs specialists in order to study which manual pro-

cesses could be converted into an automated workfow,

then used this inormation to build and implement a clinical

study workfow within Alresco. Whenever a new study

is created via CMIS, an automated advanced custom

workfow process is initiated, ensuring that study les are

checked, audited, validated and veried (by curators, data

managers etc). Reminders were also built into the workfow

to ensure that people were alerted when theyd orgotten

to carry out a task.

order to carry out research studies and draw wider

conclusions about the spread o drug resistance to

malaria; knowledge which is o pivotal importance in

the battle against the disease.

With its inbuilt reminders, the system has made the

processes o uploading and checking study content

a lot more ecacious and accurate. Groups were

implemented so that data managers are alerted to

new tasks popping up (check study, etc) and can

carry out the task themselves, or leave it to another

data manager to do i they dont have time. This

means that workload can be shared more eciently

and tasks completed sooner. The workfow system

implemented by Ixxus was or clinical studies only;

this has been extended to other study types by the

WWARN team.

Integration o Alresco with the user directory meant

that no matter where they were when they signed in

online via the portal, they would automatically have

access to Alresco. This provided a valuable stream-

lining o the log-in process.

Ixxus worked with WWARNs highly skilled team,

providing them with ull training in how to use the

new CMS system and also how to use the build

system provided by Ixxus in order to develop urther

customizations. The processes and workfowsthemselves are now ully managed and maintained

by WWARN.

Results

Because there is concern that resistance to the gold

standard antimalarial drug combination is spreading,

speed, eciency and global accessibility were the most

essential elements to bear in mind when designing

this document management and business process

management system.

By automating workfow processes, WWARN have been

reed up rom a lot o administrative tasks, making the

process o managing and sharing study data ar more

ecient and less time-consuming. Teams in dierent parts

o the globe are able to easily process and share study

data to the same cloud storage system, enabling them to

access essential inormation quickly and with little eort in

Case Study The Worldwide AntiMalaria Resistance Network (WWARN)
http://www.alfresco.com/

Documents

Case Study WWARN Alfresco