AtoM Heratio — Project Briefing

Version: Framework 2.11.7 / Plugins 3.21.17 Date: 16 March 2026 Organization: The Archive and Heritage Group (Pty) Ltd Owner: Johan Pieterse (johan@theahg.co.za)

What Is AtoM Heratio?

AtoM Heratio is a comprehensive modernization of Access to Memory (AtoM) 2.10 — the world's leading open-source archival management system used by thousands of institutions globally. Heratio transforms AtoM from a single-purpose archival tool into an enterprise-grade GLAM platform (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) and Digital Asset Management system.

It adds approximately 300% more functionality through 80 modular plugins — without modifying a single core AtoM file. All customizations sit in two layers on top of base AtoM, maintaining full backward compatibility and upgrade paths.

Target Market

GLAM and DAM institutions internationally:

• National archives and government record offices
• University and research libraries
• Museums and cultural heritage institutions
• Art galleries and exhibition spaces
• Digital asset management organizations
• Heritage and conservation bodies

Competitive Position

System at a Glance

Sample Instance (PSIS)

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    AtoM 2.10 BASE (Symfony 1.x)              │
│  Routing · Templates · ACL · Propel ORM · sfPluginAdmin      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  LAYER 1: atom-framework v2.11.7 (REQUIRED)                  │
│  ├── Laravel Query Builder (Illuminate\Database\Capsule)     │
│  ├── Extension Manager (CLI + Service)                       │
│  ├── 90+ Services                                            │
│  ├── RouteLoader + RouteCollector                            │
│  └── Helper classes                                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  LAYER 2: atom-ahg-plugins v3.21.17 (80 plugins)             │
│  ├── 16 locked core plugins                                  │
│  ├── 6 stable GLAM sector plugins                            │
│  └── 58 optional feature plugins                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Technology Stack

Server Infrastructure

Complete Plugin Catalog (80 Plugins)

Core & Theme (Locked)

GLAM Sectors (Stable)

Browse/Manage Plugins

Descriptive Standard CRUD

AI & Automation

Data Ingest & Import/Export

Compliance & Regulatory

Heritage Accounting & Finance

Digital Preservation

Rights Management

Research & Public Access

Collection Management

Exhibitions & Public Engagement

Integration & API

Reporting & Admin

Key Features Delivered (2026)

WCAG 2.1 Level AA Accessibility (March 2026)

• Global ARIA landmarks, live regions, focus management on every page
• Auto table scoping, form validation ARIA, keyboard navigation
• Colour contrast AA, prefers-reduced-motion, forced-colors
• Automated axe-core testing (10 Playwright tests)
• Built-in accessibility statement page

Voice Command System

• 100+ commands in 11 languages (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Dutch)
• Navigation, search, dictation, AI image description, PDF reading
• Enable/disable toggle, continuous listening, hover-read TTS
• Right-click type input for manual command entry

AI Services (Local — No Cloud Required)

• NER — Named entity extraction (spaCy, server 115)
• Translation — Offline via Argos Translate (10 languages)
• Summarization — BART-based seq2seq (server 115)
• Spellcheck — aspell CLI
• Image Description — LLaVA:7b via Ollama (server 115 GPU, 0.2s/image)
• Condition Assessment — AI damage detection with Spectrum 5.1 vocabulary (15 damage types)
• LLM Suggestions — Description generation via Ollama/Anthropic Claude
• Face Detection — OpenCV local, AWS/Azure cloud options

Smart Media Handling

• PDF detection with OCR transcript reading
• Video/audio detection with transcript playback
• TIFF deep zoom via IIIF/Cantaloupe
• 3D model viewing with AR support

Backup Strategy

• Full, incremental, and scheduled backups
• Hourly/daily/weekly/monthly scheduling with admin UI
• Per-schedule retention policies
• Email notifications on success/failure
• CLI: php symfony backup:run-scheduled

Embargo Enforcement

• 4 embargo types: full, metadata_only, digital_only, partial
• Browse/search filtering (embargoed records hidden from public)
• User/group/IP range exceptions
• Auto-lift on expiry with notifications

Wikidata/VIAF Authority Linking

• 5 external sources: Wikidata, VIAF, Getty ULAN, LCNAF, ISNI
• Live API search and auto-linking
• EAC-CPF export enrichment
• Completeness scoring and dedup pipeline

Queue Engine

• Background job queue with dispatch, chain, batch, retry
• 5 CLI commands, admin UI, systemd workers
• Rate limiting, exponential backoff

Custom Fields (EAV)

• Admin-configurable per entity type (7 field types, 6 entity types)
• Repeatable fields, validation, import/export

Open Issues (9)

218 issues closed.

Roadmap

Near Term (Q2 2026)

• SAMAB 2026 paper submission (deadline: 30 May 2026)
• HTR vital records pipeline (in progress on 115)
• LLaVA fine-tuning for conservation (training data export, LoRA on 115)
• Auto-update deployment to client servers (#72)

Medium Term (Q3-Q4 2026)

• Full Laravel AtoM Heratio (replace Symfony entirely)
• IIIF AI extraction pipeline (#220)
• Mobile PWA wrapper (#47)
• SAML/SSO authentication (#30)

Long Term (2027+)

• Archivematica integration (#42)
• LDAP/Active Directory (#29, #124)
• Preservica migration tool (#77)
• Multi-tenant SaaS offering

Documentation

Instances

GitHub Repositories

The Archive and Heritage Group (Pty) Ltd — Johan Pieterse AtoM Heratio Framework v2.11.7 / Plugins v3.21.17