The Database File Manager (dbFM) has been developed by eServGlobal to maintain documentation within a formal Intranet site, comprising:

• Documents -e.g. reference files, published to large or small audiences
• Articles - e.g. announcements, events, resources etc.
• Workspace - to allow teams to exchange information
• Document Publishing - i.e. document sharing, tracking, work-flow etc.

The first three categories are handled by Drupal and its associated help. The fourth category comprises a Database File Management (dbFM) system. In general, this help applies solely to dbFM, however, membership to Workgroups may be used to control dbFM access rights. For this reason, limited aspects of Workgroups are covered in this help.

The file manager allows users to upload their files into a hierarchical directory structure - actually storing the files as compressed blobs in the mySQL database. The file manager may be used as part of a replicated website. dbFM has been written such that normal mySQL replication can deal with most of the website's tables BUT the replication of dbFM's data files (which may be quite large) can take a lower priority, being replicated using http.