This is the
third article in

of any organi:
zation depends
on effective
communication.
Most communi-
cation depends
on the written
word, and it is the content rather than
the format of these text items that
conveys their primary value. To fully
profit from the ever-expanding corpo-
rate paper trail, organizations must be-
gin to address the management of
textual information and provide con-
tent-based access to data.

To facilitate this new focus, soft-
ware tools that mimic the manual pro-
cess of creating text are making their
debut, helping writers shape a docu-
ment's meaning and content. Among
the new products in this class are out-
lining tools, document-assembly tools,
information managers and several
'groupware offerings, including Lotus
Notes and Symbolics' Concordia.

To assist writers in developing and
fine-tuning the structure of a docu-
ment, outlining software programs
work to emulate the classical manual
approach from which they were de-
rived. The programs understand the
structure of an outline—for example, a
Roman numeral heading CI, II and so
on) that, has alphabetized subheadings
(A, B, C), which in turn can contain
numeric Subheadinges a, 2, 3).

As headings are moved, the software
automatically renumbers the structure.
Some products can even associate

MARTINO

APPLIEO INTELLIGENCE

short textual notes with each heading or
subheading, which are also moved in
tandem with the heading or subheading.
An outline can be reviewed in either col-
lapsed form (just the skeleton) or ex-
panded form to include associated notes.
Document-assembly products, another
category of text-management tools, help

Software Tools Copy Manual Process of Creating Text

nate these deficiencies by creating

scripts that describe how segments are

to be combined. When a segment is

changed, the seripts can help determine
which documents are affected, thus cre-

ating an electronic trail.
This process can be useful in many
business applications. Lawyers, for in-

Managing tHe Eleetronlc Trail

boeuiitent-Ašsenibly Brodnets
na ib Create Neiv Docitinehts from Existie Files

z ek IHtotrmatloH

to create new documents from existing
boilerplates. While word processors com-
bine many segments of text into one
document, it is difficult to trace which
segments went into which documents. In
addition, word processors also create a
new file for the document, resulting in
higher storage reguirements.
Document-assembly products elimi-

John Avakian

stance, generate many documents, such as
wills and contracts, that use similar and
even identical sections of text. Other orga-
nizations also reuse text items: User
guides, for example, very often extract
text from reference manuals, and text
contained in a human:resources guide
may also be used in an employee hand-
book that is distributed to prospective

employees. Information-management

products are a third class of tools that

Pan be applied to track and retrieve

textual information.

Personal information managers
(PIM3) provide facilities for capturing,
modifying, retrieving, recombining and
reproducing unstructured information.
PIMs are designed to let users work

with random, free-form short pieces of
text and to establish relationships
among these pieces of text. The result
is a structure similar to an outline, but
unlike outlining products, PIMs assign
items to the categories in the outline.

PIMs are personal tools; they are not
designed to support "shared under-
standing" in work-group environmentS.
Individuals create structures that are
meaningful personally, but. not. neces-
sarily to others in the group.

A new class of information managers
known as groupware promotes eflicient
collaborations among work groups.

Groupware applications range from
ventures such as engineering projects to
the preparation of documents for publi-
cation. Each member of the group re-
views sections (and possibly drawings)

o£ the final document; group members'
comments are incorporated into the fi-
nal document and can be traced,

readable si searchable formats. 8

The concepts in this article are de-
scribed in a new volume, Test Man-
agement, of The James Martin Re-
port Series. For more information
on this volume, call (800) 242-1240
or (617) 639-1958. For information
on seminars, contact Technology
Transfer Institute, 741 10th St., San-
ta Monica, Calif. 90402 (213) 394-
8305 (in the United States and Cana-
da). In Europe, contact Savant, 2
New St., Carnforth, Lanes., LA5 9BX
United Kingdom (0524) 734 505.

First Look ! Dažaflex Upgraded,

Continued from Page 79

around, version 3.0's ovčarji was fasi-
er than version 2.3b's.

'The OOP user interface is implemented
as an include file, so there is no additional
memory overhead if a developer chooses
to use the eni zb Hi mne

bolstered to 16 on-line indexes by 16 data
elements per index, up saje [A

10-by-10 maximum. Indexes

NE a OL, DRAEELO Ta IA
the user interface with 4GL macros, such
as the Enter or Entergroup commands.

The Enter command, for example, can
handle all appends, deletes, gueries,
searches and edits to a database, as wellas
serolling through records.

Overall, the programming language has
been cleaned up considerably over version
2.3b and expanded to support.a new com-
mand set that most programmers will con:

the! language. The source code for the 4GL
- macros is available in a disk file for study
and editing by those who feel brave. Like-
a ova

veral new commands have solved
pokania the 2.3b implementa-

je most notable are true logical func-

or, mo), case statements and.

a A rk
a a em in North Car-

CASE | Data Modeling Completes 4.0

Continued. from Page 79

grams, and Bachman Entity Relationship
diagrams.

Without this data-modeling horsepow-
er, the current version of Visible Analyst
Workbench lacks a key feature of its high-
er-priced competitors, according to CASE

analysts.

Corporations that have passed over Vis-
ible Analyst Workbench for other tools,
such as Index Technology Corp-s Exceler-
ator, will now have a reason to consider
the product, said David Sharon, president,
of CASE Associates Inc., an Oregon City,
Ore., research and consulting firm that

specializes in CASE.

%1n the past, lusers of Visible's toolslnad
to go out and buy someone else's data-
modeling tool to round out their tool set,"
Sharon said, "With data modeling added to
the process-modeling and design
component, they have a complete analy-
sis and design solution."

| With Visible Analyst Workbench 4.0, us-

ers will be able to create data models at
either the project level or the corporate-
wide level. Version 4.0 maintains data in-
tegrity among multiple projects spread
across an orala company oflicials
said.

Another key lase of the new version
is its ability to automatically diagram and
print large projects, according to John.
Nash, sales manager for the Waltham, —
Mass., company.

"If yow've chosen so many entities thatiit
can't print on a page, it will organize it for
you in logical pieces and give you a mapof
je to put the pieces together when it
prints out," Nash said. :

Visible Systems is in the middle of.
changing its price structure and has not.
yet settled on a price for the upgrade.

'The current release of Visible Analyst
SREČA costs $1,785 for a single-user
version and $4,950 for a three-node net-
work version.

Visible Systems Corp. can be reached at,
(617) 890-2273.8