The EDC System
Summary
The EDC Office Automation System provides a set of software tools for creating distributed information interchange systems. It has been deployed and tested at major government enterprises and agencies (the Ukrainian Khartron and Monolith Corporations; the Social Security Fund of Ukraine etc.), where document management is crucial for company's success.
Customer
This product was developed on demand of the Institute of Cybernetics, a division of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Institute of Cybernetics is doing research in theoretical, technical, biological, economical cybernetics, as well as technical development.
Product Features
EDC is an excellent choice for the following industries:
- Manufacture, where priority is the process of software/hardware creation (large equipment construction corporations, power production facilities, airspace and defense industry).
- The most critical issue here is resource management, so the requirement is to provide advanced tools for managing the material flows, design/production processes and document turnover.
- State and public Institutions, where priority is document circulation (finance organizations, public authorities, trading companies and other establishments that combine process management and document management).
- The ultimate objective here is involvement of different informational sources and of numerous employees.
The system includes the following features:
- Powerful tools for differentiating the document access rights
- Open software interface, which facilitates the integration of numerous modules of different origin, and thus considerably expands the system’s capacities
- Confirmed logic of integration with applications
- Extended document routing; document lifecycle management
- Hierarchic data storage; sorting the documents by usage intensity; backup supporting a wide range of media, including streamers and optical disks.
EDC offers a complete set of tools for document creation, registration, routing, accounting, execution control, all in both electronic form or in printed form, and tools for information retrieval in various modes. This enables the personnel to:
- Create storages, work with electronic documents/paper documents
- Search for documents
- Archive the history of each document, including version control
- Process the multi-component and multi-format documents
- Manage the document relations and document collections
- Assign the access permissions to each document
- Interface with a wide range of other informational systems
Implementation
The system is designed in client - server technology and has an easy interface, which reduces the training/maintenance costs.
The server side provides primary processing and verification of data inputs. The functionality is stored in SQL procedures designed for Oracle and IBM DB2. It runs on IBM PC, RISC/6000, AS/400.
The client side includes user interface and custom modules that expand the system functionality. The applications are designed in Visual Basic and Delphi for Windows 95 / Windows NT platforms.
All documents registered in the system have a set of attributes in addition to the contents (document title, author, time created etc.). The set of attributes can vary from one document type to another. Anyway, within a specific document type, this set remains unchanged.
For each document type, a card template is created with document attributes. When creating a document, author takes the necessary card, fills it out (enters the attribute values), and attaches the card to the document.
Persistence is implemented using the most advanced database engines: Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, Informix. Other supported systems, Oracle and DB2, allow for running distributed databases and for clustering / data duplication. Thus, the system storage can have a complex distributed environment structure, which meets the requirements of scalability for large-scale enterprises.
The system provides powerful tools for managing the access to documents for different users. The administrator can assign users the following access types for each document:
- Full control over the document
- No access to the document
- Edit, but not delete the document
- Create new versions of the document, but not edit the contents
- Read the document, but not edit
- Access the card, but not the document contents
The advanced document encryption utility operating on the go, together with the wide range of user permissions, enables the EDC system to serve the classified documents.
Each user's action is logged and thus, all history of processing each document can be traced.
The number of nested levels is not limited. The same document can be included into several folders and catalogs by using the reference technique. Thus, the source document remains intact and is stored in the location as specified by the administrator.
Documents can be routed among enterprise departments, user groups, or individual users. Document routing forwards information (electronic documents) between network units or grants them the access rights, sends notifications and monitors the results.
Tools and technologies
Hardware: IBM PC, RISC/6000
Platform: MS Windows, AIX
Database: Oracle 9i
Languages: Visual C++, Visual Basic
Performance: 10,000 clients (512 workstations in 24 regions)
Effort: 300 man-months
|
