CMDBuild newsletter n. 44

July 2014

CMDBuild is a configurable web application to model and manage a database containing assets (CMDB stands for "Configuration and Management Data Base") and handle related workflow operations.

CMDBuild is promoted by the Municipality of Udine and developed by Tecnoteca srl.

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Work in Progress

The CMDBuild 2.2 version was released in June. New important features are now available, e.g. the Task Manager enabling the configuration of automatic activities and the Wizard Connector's execution, the BIM / IFC extensions to manage and display architectural models, and the possibility to translate also the CMDBuild custom elements into multiple languages.

Within the next few days the intermediate version CMDBuild 2.2.1 will be released. It will extend the use of the “IP Address” attributes with the management of the mask and of the IPV6 version, and it will improve the management of the “mail templates”.

As you can read in the next news, we are working on the implementation of a new generalized mechanism called CMDBuild GUI Framework, which will allow you to publish forms / widgets for the interaction with CMDBuild on external portals of different technologies.

CMDBuild GUI Framework

A limit found in the configuration of new CMDBuild instances is the unavailability of a flexible and quick-to-implement solution that provides CMDBuild features to non-IT users willing to work on intranet portals or on external web-pages (pre-existing or custom).

Such needs occur for example by starting and following the procedure to handle an IT request or a breakdown report, by consulting FAQs to solve a problem by yourself, by consulting the Service Catalogue and subscribing new services, by allowing a supervisor to agree to staff requests, by consulting the updated situation of one's own assets, etc.

In order to do this, at the moment CMDBuild provides two solutions: a JSR-168 portlet, which can be activated only on the open source Liferay Portal and is able to repeat part of the CMDBuild GUI but not to customize the graphical and functional aspects, or a general SOAP webservice, which requires advanced technical competences and non-immediate implementation.

The new GUI Framework will be able to solve such needs and to overcome the current limitations:

• it can be activated on portals based on various technologies, since it has been developed in javascript / JQuery environment
• you will have more flexibility while designing the graphical layout, defined through an XML descriptor, and you will also be able to intervene on the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
• it will grant short configuration periods thanks to predefined functions (communication and authentication logics, etc.) and to graphic native solutions (forms, grids, upload buttons and other widgets)

The projecting and implementation activities for this new solution (which is going to be released in autumn) have been realised thanks to the contribution of the University of Bologna and the Regional Council of Tuscany.

CMDBuild in the Field

Because of its open source license and its popularity among public and private administrations, the Italian Republic Senate has chosen CMDBuild as platform to manage in an integrated way its own ICT services. The Senate's purpose is to make the ICT management more efficient, saving in this way human and financial resources.

For this purpose, over the last few months a procedure was started in order to compare offers for the supply of support activities and Tecnoteca was hired for the job.

After the Senate's computer technicians set up the data model and the Incident Management workflow, and completed the process analysis for the assignment / withdrawal / move / replacement of workplaces and other hardware, Tecnoteca is now implementing the related workflows.

Further activities will be carried out for the configuration of connectors, for user and groups profiling and for the personnel training, in order to go into production within the end of the current year.

CMDBuild will support the Senate's IT Governance management according to the ITIL “best practice”.

The project was also presented during the last CMDBuild Day held in May. Slides and videos are available.

openMAINT download

From the end of June, you can download the new openMAINT application, dedicated to the Property & Facility Management and implemented on the asset management system CMDBuild.

As for CMDBuild we chose to use the services of the open source repository SourceForge, achieving more than 500 downloads just in the first month.

In order to better understand how openMAINT works, you can watch the video on the home page of the website (at the bottom right), consult a demo overview or request us an account to access the online demo.

We also prepared an Overview Manual which supplies some information about our philosophy in design and setting up openMAINT.

Furthermore, you can download some slides related to this application and its brochure.

Support services

Tecnoteca web pages related to the CMDBuild services were updated in order to allow a quicker consultation.

By releasing the new application, we also published some pages dedicated to the openMAINT services.

We provided openMAINT users a proper comparison table so that they can easily see the difference among the services available to everybody and those reserved to the customers paying the maintenance subscription.