Keyword tags and email

In Q2, 2007 I changed companies, which also meant a change to Outlook email. The immediate frustration of Outlook was the inability to put an email message in more that one folder. (You can copy a message to multiple folders, but this duplicates messages). On top of that the Outlook 2003 search is anemic. Upgrading to outlook 2007 helped searching, but the problem of how to file email remained.

Then I discovered an Outlook add-in product called Taglocity which allows you to add keyword tags to messages. After using keyword tags for several months I realized that this approach actually woks better that filing messages in multiple folders. The reason is that you can search on multiple keyword tags. Its a bit like searching for a message that exists in multiple folders. Although that is something I never did with folders, I do it all the time with keyword tags and find it very useful. The only problem with Taglocity is that it is an add on to Outlook, which means that if I use the web interface, I don't have access to my keyword searching.

The interesting thing about using Outlook now for over two and a half years is that it is no better or worse that Notes email; just different. And that although the Exchange back end has been reliable, there are just as many calendar issues with Outlook as there were with Notes. It seems like the calendar is just a very difficult problem to solve.

SharePoint Adventures

My present company is a Microsoft shop and, although we have a very small Notes setup, we decided to use SharePoint as a collaboration tool. So far we have WSS 3.0 up on VMWare, and plan to go to the full MOSS as soon as we have the data center question resolved (more on that in another post). Obviously each product has its weaknesses and strengths, and it has been very interesting comparing the way things are done in SharePoint with the way things are done in Notes. Here are a few little things that I have found in SharePoint that I really like.

New version of DocMaster: 4.2.14

DocMaster is a Single Database Document Management System. Its is used to manage large collections of loosely related documents, for example Policies & Procedures, Application Help, User Manuals, System Documentation etc. Of course the DocMaster User Manual and Application Help are written in DocMaster. Originally developed in 1994, it has been constantly enhanced over the years in response to user suggestions. Here is a link to the original DocMaster posting with more details.

A Thought on SharePoint as File Server 2.0

A while ago Ed Brill had an article in his blog which mentioned SharePoint being described as File Server 2.0 (a phrase coined by Sean Burgess). This got me thinking - originally Vista was going to have a new data storage and management system called WinFS. I had even read somewhere that WinFS was going to be very much like Lotus Notes in the way it handles data. Then in June 2006 Microsoft shelved those WinFS plans. Did they pull the plug because SharePoint was going to fill that need? Basically could they make more money packaging the functionality as SharePoint that they would building WinFS into Windows? Of course there is no way to know one way or the other, but the phrase File Server 2.0 certainly did get me thinking.

Added Document Issues in DocMaster release 4.2.x

What do you do when you are reading though a published document like a policy or procedure, and find a problem or error? DocMaster now has an answer: create an issue. Issues are a special form of comments, complete with a simple (but customizable) workflow. In the screen shot below you can see an example of a new issue, along with the issue categorization and workflow.

Added Sarbanes Oxley (Sox) to DocMaster in release 4.2

One of my responsibilities at work is to ensure that IT is Sox compliant. Unfortunately the usual manual processes based on spreadsheets and word documents simply don't work very well, and are a lot of effort to maintain. And since Sox procedures should be integrated with other IT procedures, it made sense to extend DocMaster to specifically support Sox.

Possibly the most useful feature added is the "Sox Documentation" view, which includes a color coded calendar showing the current status of Sox monitoring. This is a huge time saver, and has organized our Sox work so well that, at the end of May 08, we are completely up to date! See screen shot below with annotations.



Adding monitoring tasks to the calendar is pretty easy: simply check the appropriate month check box on the control document. See screen shot below.



Sox documentation usually consists of control narrative documents, which are summarized by a spreadsheet. The problem is that it is impossible to keep the narrative documents in sync with the spreadsheet. DocMaster solves this problem by using a separate document for each control, and then summarizing these documents in a Control Matrix view. That normalizes the information, and because the information is now only maintained in one place, total solves the synch problem. DocMaster has special views of the Sox control documents, but those control docs can also be put in folders, along with other policies & procedures.

Once Sox controls are in place, you are required to monitor them to ensure they are working. DocMaster allows you to attach monitoring documents to the controls. This means that when the next monitoring event is due, you can use previous monitoring as a template - a tremendous time saver. It also means that when auditors look at your documentation, they can easily find all monitoring - a tremendous money saver! To track actual monitoring there is a view of all monitoring, categorized by month. See screen shot below.



Release 4.2 also added document issues, but more on that tomorrow.

More Excel Woes!

Although the technique "copy as table and paste into spreadsheet" works, it is limited, e.g. if the view is too wide, you can't copy it as a table (but shrinking the column widths does work). Also, graphic icons in a view don't get pasted.

An alternative thought occurred to me: Why not export the view as a Lotus 123 file, and then import it into a IBM Symphony spreadsheet. Surely two IBM products would be compatible with each other? Surely...? Not a chance! The error message is "IBM Symphony do not support this file format." (love the grammar!) Unfortunately Open Office can't import Lotus 123 spreadsheets either, and I haven't yet been able to find any filters on the web. I'll keep trying because there is a need coming up in a few weeks.