Zotero Groups solution for Corporate

M.Petiteville

Hello everyone,

I work for a large corporation, in a team that could really benefit a biblio manager in order to organize and keep memory of past internal and external works.
So, of course, Zotero was the first tool I thought of.

However, it seems that Groups are only available through Zotero Storage, which is a major deal-breaker for our IT Security team. Despite all the guarantees of encrypted and secured server solution, there is no way that we would be allowed to store internal documents on an external server.

Let's also note that this is not a question of cost as some ressources could be allocated to the tool, it's mostly a question of data security.

I know this is not a new subject but I just couldn't find any straight answer as to whether its doable to host groups on a private server (I believe it is not) and whether there are developments towards this functionnality expected in the near future.

My question for the team would be :
Is there any way, even if it means paying a licence, to get our IT to set up Groups on a local server, now or in the near future ?

Thank you for your help

adamsmith

Nothing simple or out of the box, no. You can, however, run the entire dataserver yourself/locally (which will also require a slightly modified Zotero client, i.e. the Desktop tool) -- there's no official support, but all code open on the Zotero github.

M.Petiteville

Thank you Adam for your answer. When you say 'run the entire dataserver yourself', my understanding is that this wouldn't work for the Groups functionnality.

Am I wrong ?

adamsmith

You'd be wrong, yes. The dataserver is _not_ a WebDAV server (which a competent IT can set up in <1h locally but won't work for group).
The dataserver is the full server infrastructure that Zotero uses for syncing, with all its functionality, including groups.

M.Petiteville

Thank you Adam for your help.

You guessed right, I'm not a competent IT, so some of my questions might seem a little off, I'm just trying to get elements that I can bring to IT teams to fasten the process ^^.

I get that there's no _official_ support for setting a dataserver but I'm guessing that *someone* *somewhere* has already done it.

Anybody has any kind of doc or walkthrough that could help me push this subject with my IT ?

adamsmith

This is the most recent I know of, though there may be other: https://github.com/FiligranHQ/zotprime
I think the basics have remained the same, though of course significant updates in the last 3+years.

The current Zotero server code is at https://github.com/zotero/dataserver

(edit: and to avoid misunderstandings, I didn't mean to imply anything about your competence -- I'm just saying WebDAV is an easy solution, but likely won't work for what you need. Installing and running the dataserver isn't trivial)

M.Petiteville

Thanks Adam for your answers, this is really helpful !
I'll definitely transmit this to the IT and I hope we can get this running.

No offense taken, I knew you weren't demeaning. I just know the limits of my skills :)

Take care and thanks again for your help