Online documentation and approval 1

[BML]

Does anyone have information regarding electronic documentation and approval? I'm most interested in shareware/freeware/methods for Microsoft Word and Excel add-ins. Also, does anyone know of problems or have success stories for this?

 

[MikeVV]

BML,<br>
<br>
I have been looking into this topic for several years and find that it is wide open for development. The medical, legal and industrial "worlds" are all defining methods for making "electronic" approval processes usable. I have made the following observations: 1) most systems are "proprietary" in that they have been uniquely defined for a specific group of people and a "wide open" system is always considered unacceptable, 2) "red-lining" and re-routing of documents is essential to the approval process, 3) on-line meeting capabilities ("white-boards") must be available for negotiation meetings per telecon to obtain approval in an efficient manner, 4) a variety of documents (Word, Excel, AutoCAD, etc) must be handled with no problems, 5) email of large documents (those containing graphics for example) can be very difficult for those on remote computer systems to open in less than a few seconds. <br>
<br>
The upshot of these needs makes e-document approval a serious project to develop. Microsoft and Adobe have both created software for this purpose and it appears to work well. I have not fully explored these programs but will be doing so in the next few months. I find that e-document approval can be done as follows:<br>
<br>
1) make your documents and save them as .pdf files. These are small files that are easily attached to email messages. They are also simple files in that you are sending a "summary" of your work, not the entire model. As such, reviewers are looking at the final product, not at all the details that went into the product. This simplifies the process of opening and understanding what you are requesting approval of. This is important - sending people a 1.5MB autocad file is not polite practice. Placing a file at a common location on an internet / intranet is also good practice - it allows users to quickly open and view the document. Autocad uses the .dwf format (drawing web format). This file type can be created using the "export file" command. .dwf's can be viewed using the "whip!" plug-in to your browser. Drawing review is done with this tool very effectively once your recipients download the viewer from

http://autodesk.<br>

<br>
2) once sent, follow up with email to request approval. Often I sent a message that states that the recipient has received a message and that I will assume approval unless I hear back. I know this is blunt but it gets the message across - the original message was sent in a serious request for approval, it requires action - now.<br>
<br>
3) The final document may still need to be signed by hand. Windows may have further capabilities and a browse of their site in this regard might prove useful. They are undoubtably making this capability real because it goes to the heart of e-commerce. Encryption issues are holding things up but they will be resolved.<br>
<br>
Mike Van Voorhis<br>
MJVanVoorhis@Compuserve.com<br>