DMS connectivity
If you need to edit and co-author documents within your document management system, then Kseniya Fedoruk has the right solution for you.
Kseniya Fedoruk shows how to edit and co-author documents within your document management system.
For those people who work on team-based projects, it’s hard to imagine daily computing tasks that don’t use sync and share platforms or services. Dealing with document processing will also be high on the agenda. Combining these two elements certainly makes sense to us!
It’ll come as no surprise that users prefer to work with documents within their environment, without having to involve third-party tools. With OnlyOffice Docs, you can easily implement this scenario.
OnlyOffice Docs is an open-source web-based office suite that provides you with online editors for text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The suite is compatible with OOXML formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) and contains a wide range of editing, formatting and styling tools along with collaborative features.
OnlyOffice Docs can be seamlessly connected with multiple sync and share platforms such as Nextcloud, Confluence, Alfresco, ownCloud, Seafile, Plone, SharePoint, Liferay, HumHub, Chamilo and many others. This enables you to edit and co-author office documents right from your solution’s frontend.
The easiest way to start an instance of OnlyOffice Docs (Document Server) is to use Docker. In this case you’ll be installing the editors and all the dependencies at once: sudo docker run -i -t -d -p 80:80 --restart=always onlyoffice/documentserver
Alternatively, you can install OnlyOffice Docs using a snap package: sudo snap install onlyoffice-ds
Additional configuration options such as changing the port, activating HTTPS or setting environment variables can be found in the appropriate OnlyOffice/ Docker-DocumentServer repository on GitHub.
Furthermore, there’s an ability to connect the mentioned services (or any other document management system) with OnlyOffice’s desktop tool, a free open-source office suite pack that comprises offline editors. This enables you to work on documents stored in your sync and share cloud via the desktop program’s interface and quickly switching between offline and online modes.
Such kind of integration also brings additional benefits:
The ability to make use of local plugins, fonts and a spellchecker tool
Direct access to print service
Advanced work methods with the buffer without any browser clipboard limitations
Access to Private Rooms for end-to-end encrypted collaboration.
You can download the latest version of OnlyOffice Desktop Editors for Linux on the official website (www.onlyoffice.com/download-desktop.aspx).
Among the available packages are DEB, RPM, Flatpak and AppImage.
You can also install it via a snap package: snap install onlyoffice-desktopeditors
Moreover, the application is pre-installed on Linuxfx, SparkyLinux, Linspire, Escuelas Linux, Linkat, as well as available on Linux Mint and at the Zorin OS Software Store and Deepin App Store.
Adding a DMS provider
First of all, you need to create a folder using the DMS provider as a name in the providers directory with the following path:
/opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/providers/
Then, create a config.json file while specifying the following parameters:
Provider ID that’s used to refer to the desktop tool in the JavaScript commands (such as onlyoffice).
Name displayed in the provider choice section when adding a cloud (for example, OnlyOffice).
Parameters for checking portal availability, including the URL used in the request (such as status.php) and the headers added to the ajax request, for example {"OCS-APIREQUEST": true}.
The relative URL which indicates that the type of the opened file is a document (/apps/onlyoffice/, say), as well as the relative URL added to the entered IP or domain when creating a new connection (e.g. /)
Icon for the connection list (for example, ./assets/ listicon.svg) and icon for the provider button on the connection page when the list is empty (such as ./assets/buttonlogo.svg).
You can use the following code as an example for your config.json file:
{
“provider": “onlyoffice”, “name” : “ONLYOFFICE”, “check": {
“url": “status.php”, “headers": {
“OCS-APIREQUEST": true } },
“editorPage” : “/apps/onlyoffice/”, “startPage” : “/”,
“icons” : { “connectionsList” : "./assets/listicon.svg”, “buttonLogo” : "./assets/buttonlogo.svg” } }
Next, create two icons for the application page and put them in the folder specified in your config.json file. The required size for the connection list icon is 36x36, and provider button icon should be 148x38. Supported image formats are .png, .jpeg, and .svg. We advise using an .svg file for correctly displaying on HiDPI monitors.
When you’re ready with the config.json file, launch OnlyOffice Desktop Editors or restart it if needed and switch to the Connected clouds section to check if the established connection works correctly. Once you’ve added the DMS provider, you’ll need to log in to your cloud account and configure document opening and notifications that are displayed to the user.
How it works
Let’s see how it works using an example of Nextcloud with integrated OnlyOffice Docs. Log in to Nextcloud from the desktop tool. We can now create new files, and open existing ones for editing and collaborating:
Choose between real-time and paragraph-locking co-editing modes
Review documents
Track changes
Communicate via built-in chat
Leave comments
Compare documents.
When the editing session is over, you can close the tab. The connected account will be available in the corresponding section of the desktop tool, so you can easily return to work on documents at any time:
That’s it! Connect OnlyOffice Desktop Editors to your document management system and work on documents easily and effectively.