Hi Channing,
Thanks for trying out Social Office and for your encouraging feedback. Let me try to answer your questions:
- What is the roadmap or timeline for a GA release of Social Office?
Realistically we're looking at Q1 February or March. But if the community ends up wanting more or less additional functionality that timeline can shift.
- Is there a WAR or EAR distribution that can be deployed to an existing web app server platform like OAS or WebLogic?
We don't have a separate distribution, but you should be able to get it working OAS or WebLogic since it's based on Liferay Portal
- Can components like the document repository be tied into existing content management systems like Oracle Universal Content Manager (UCM)?
We'd have to know more about how UGM works to know for sure but I don't see why not. Liferay is agnostic on repository and we even allow (and recommend) using the file system to back the DL.
- Are there any tools for migrating existing repository content into the Social Office repositories (documents, wiki content, forum discussions, etc)?
Do you mean existing Liferay content? I believe some of that can be migrated by using Liferay LAR files (Community / Org import / export) but it depends on which content types have a data handler written for it. I would try to leverage Liferay's service tier. Look in:
portal-impl/src/com/liferay/portlet{portlet-name}/service/impl/*.java
There are many services you can use to programmatically insert content.
- Does social office come with installation guides or utilities for hooking into a database like Oracle?
Right now, no. There is a script, however, in the download. Look in the tomcat bin directory. You should be able to "Oracle-ize" it. Our engineers are working on an export / import tool that will help migrate across databases but I'm not sure what the timeline is on that.
- Can authentication and authorization be tied into access management suites like Oracle Access Manager or other directory services?
So for this sort of thing what we want to do is leverage the existing Liferay functionality but present the interface to the user in an intuitive way. We have the ability to tie in SSO / LDAP / custom authentication in Liferay Portal, but it's buried in the third level of an Admin portlet.
- Is it as simple to write extensions or applications for Social Office as it is for Liferay Portal?
Absolutely, you can just create a hot deployable portlet. Now the tricky thing is, we're trying to figure out the best interface for exposing the capability to add additional portlets (and pages) to the end user. We're thinking along the lines of having a "Mashup Wizard" or "Page Wizard" that would cover adding new portlets, widgets or mashups to a new page.
