Direct access to the MCMS database

re: Direct access to the MCMS database

Chester Ragel — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:30:00 GMT

Thanks for pointing out this to me...

re: Direct access to the MCMS database

Steve Stevens — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 03:15:00 GMT

So querying the CMS database directly breaks the support boundaries? That is stupid.

Plus realisticly, how would MSFT know? I can roll the SQL logs as part of "normal" maintenance. How would a query break CMS anyway?

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Emmanuel Desigaud — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:36:00 GMT

For me, we have to access directly to the database beacause the CMS API is not as complete as it should be ...

So the good question is "When will MS fill all holes ?"
We haven't seen a service pack for a while. Stefan, does MS ear us ? :)

Regards,
Emmanuel

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Saul Tombuk — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:04:00 GMT

One of the standard requirements from customers is to extend workflow. The two main workflow requirements are: Sending emails on certain actions (submission), and three stage workflow (author - 1st level editor - 2nd level editor)

Our first attempt to do this was to create to follow the idea that querying the CMS database would invalidate support, so we setup a small database with lists of users and groups who were 1st level, 2nd level etc.

The first comment from the client was, this is a nightmare to maintain. It's really important to be able to access the groups in CMS, else integrated enhanced workflows can't be built.

Is it possible to get a SP or something to get this functionality, and it supported?

Thanks
Saul

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Stefan [MSFT] — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:09:00 GMT

SP2 is in the works but it will not provide such features. The recommended way to access user information is to bind one dedicated AD/NT group to every rights group. Then add AD/NT users to this rights group. This allows to query the group membership using normal ADSI and there would be no need to access the groups.

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Emmanuel Desigaud — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:35:00 GMT

Sounds good ... <BR><BR>Glad to see changelog quickly :p <BR><BR>Emmanuel

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Saul Tombuk — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:43:00 GMT

The problem with this is the exact reason why customers buy CMS from us. As they add new channels, they create new groups with sets of authors and administrators for those channels. What there complaint is they don't want to set these up on two systems, all they want is to add the group through Site Manager, and the workflow picks up the change.

With our clients, which bearucratic in natures, there is a need to have seperate groups for seperate areas of the site. We need to provide integrated workflow.

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Chester Ragel — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:45:00 GMT

Stefan, I've three questions related with Microsoft Support,

Question One

1. If the database is consistence
2. No custom module is used in the solution which directly handles the MCMS database

Then are we inside the Microsoft Support boundaries?

If the answer is yes then (have two questions related with the answer yes),

Question Two

Somehow (without using any custom module which directly handles MCMS database) if the MCMS database becomes inconsistence

Then can't we get the Support of Microsoft?

Question Three

If we use some other tool which directly handles MCMS database and if the database is consistence then are we in the safe side?

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Emmanuel Desigaud — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:45:00 GMT

What Stefan suggested is a workaround : it means that a solution was find to bypass the problem but this solution is far from being the most _elegant_. I faced the same problem when I wanted to extend the CMS workflow.

"Workflow extension" is sold by everyone (specialy the marketting team) but after the fact, it seems that nobody succeed on extending the workflow due to a lack of the API :)

But this is another discussion :)

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Stefan [MSFT] — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:55:00 GMT

Emmanuel, your comment is not correct. We have a couple of customers which successfully implemented their own custom workflow extension. In addition there are 3rd party workflow extensions which nicely integrate with MCMS like K2 and TeamPlate.

re: Direct access to the MCMS database (update)

Emmanuel Desigaud — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:24:00 GMT

I'm not talking about solution like Teamplate or K2 because they have their own workflow engine.

Depending of your workflow customization, we can not implement this through the API.
I'm ok that sending an email alert, keeping 3 workflow levels can be easily done but what about a more complex workflow ? We have to use Saul's tip or I missed the magic trick :)

Emmanuel

I really don't like to be the bad guy

Stefan Goßner — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 11:56:46 GMT

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Don't touch that MCMS database

Andrew Connell [MVP MCMS] — Fri, 20 May 2005 21:42:40 GMT

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Stefan Goßner — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:46:44 GMT

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Stefan Goßner — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 18:32:19 GMT

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Some people never learn :-(

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