Any Doc Mgt, Workflow, or Workgroup S/W on Next???
Rolf Binz
NeXTStep. I don't have any details and its also not the main product
of this company (they develop C/S applications with Gupta). But perhaps
it fits your needs. The address is:
NT Systems & Consulting AG
Technopark
Pfingstweidstr. 30
CH-8005 Zuerich
Switzerland
(Sorry I don't know the e-mail address)
Hope that helps!
Rolf
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Rolf Binz
Forensic Sciences
University of Bern
Switzerland
Andy Robinson
NextStep, and I would be very happy to correspond and work with
anyone in this area.
What we need are the 'structured document' features of Lotus Notes -
having predefined fields in a document by which you can search and sort
(e.g. Author, date created, circulation list, subject etc etc) and
route forms - as well as replication.
The possibilities I can see are
(1) get a Lotus Notes starter pack, and use the Notes API to create
some very basic NextStep client - one could use Edit to create and
modify the documents based on templates
(2) do it myself using simple dictionaries to represent each document.
This relaxes enough of the constraints of relational databases to make
something that works a bit like notes - every object can have a few
compulsory fields, but one can add fields at will to any of
them.
Replication does not actually look too hard - you just need a'date
last edited' field, a field for 'deleted', and a wayof assigning unique
IDs (e.g. creating machine + serial number?).
Anyone fancy helping out?
--
Andy Robinson an...@hps1.demon.co.uk
High Performance Sports Tel 0181-211-7000
My opinions in this forum ARE those of High Performance Sports,
because I'm the only one here who can switch on a PC...
Timothy Mills
>These are all major requirements for my company which I'm basing on
>NextStep, and I would be very happy to correspond and work with
>anyone in this area.
>
>What we need are the 'structured document' features of Lotus Notes -
>having predefined fields in a document by which you can search and sort
>(e.g. Author, date created, circulation list, subject etc etc) and
>route forms - as well as replication.
>
>The possibilities I can see are
>(1) get a Lotus Notes starter pack, and use the Notes API to create
>some very basic NextStep client - one could use Edit to create and
>modify the documents based on templates
>
>(2) do it myself using simple dictionaries to represent each document.
>This relaxes enough of the constraints of relational databases to make
>something that works a bit like notes - every object can have a few
>compulsory fields, but one can add fields at will to any of
>them.
>
>Replication does not actually look too hard - you just need a'date
>last edited' field, a field for 'deleted', and a wayof assigning unique
>IDs (e.g. creating machine + serial number?).
>
>Anyone fancy helping out?
Andy,
I suggest you talk with Pangea. They have a wonderful application called,
MindShare, which does what you're looking for. MindShare is actually the name
of the client app which works with their server app, PGE. PGE (or Pangea
Groupware Engine) was written to provide the OO database server side for a
number of different client apps. As far as I know, they're currently
marketing only MindShare, but once you use it, you can see they have plans for
things like document management, etc. From your description above, it sounds
like MindShare is your answer.
Contact David Martel at:
Pangea Corporation
+1-617-983-2506
da...@pangea.com
Timothy
Andy Robinson
> I suggest you talk with Pangea. They have a wonderful application called,
> MindShare, which does what you're looking for. MindShare is actually the name
> of the client app which works with their server app, PGE. PGE (or Pangea
> Groupware Engine) was written to provide the OO database server side for a
> number of different client apps. As far as I know, they're currently
> marketing only MindShare, but once you use it, you can see they have plans for
> things like document management, etc. From your description above, it sounds
> like MindShare is your answer.
I'll write to them. However, I have looked at Mindshare and it only really tackles
part of the problem. Notes is good for many things, and two headings that spring
to mind are 'shared discussion databases' which work a bit like Usenet, and 'structured
documents'. It is the latter that matter to me and MindShare doesn't seem to tackle
that yet.
In Notes, one can easily create an invoice or purchase order form filled out by a salesman
that includes picklists for products, does some calculations for prices, and is linked to
the record for the customer. It then gets routed to managers for approval, has a section
completed by the dispatcher when the order is filled, and so on. As far as I know,
Mindshare messages basically have the usual author and subject fields and can't get anywhere
near this functionality.
Shared mail won't matter for my company as most of us will be in the one place anyway.
Automating company procedures to make sure they run smoothly and reliably is.