The creation and management of annotations on XML documents is sometimes a requirement for content management systems, even very simple systems. An annotation in this context can be defined as a short piece of information with three qualities: it is associated with a particular piece of content, it is created and viewed outside the normal authoring environment or tool, and it is stored separately from the annotated content. In XML documents, annotations are usually associated with a particular element. One use case for annotation is during a document review and revision process, although they are by no means limited to this. Although annotation of XML documents is in itself not difficult, the process becomes much more complicated when integration with document workflow, document versioning, and link resolutions become necessary.

This paper presents a case study of an XML annotation management system implemented on a content repository based around Documentum 4i. The annotation manager in this case was required to deal with all of the situations described above: versioned documents, integrated workflow, the need for annotations to be created outside the normal authoring environment, and the need to display linked documents during annotation. Also detailed in the paper are the design and capabilities of the system, pitfalls that were encountered during the construction of the system in both a design and development sense, and the compromises that were made in order to deliver the system.