Feature Article

Monday, April 21, 2008

Enabling Information Sharing Integrity

By Jake Sorofman, JustSystems

In industries where data constantly changes, working with out-of-date information can carry a very high price. Yet financial services, manufacturing, life sciences, and other companies risk paying that price every time they use static documents as the basis for delivering and collaborating around information that is subject to constant change. The data in these static documents becomes stale as soon as the documents are published, giving recipients a snapshot in time rather than a current view of business.

Most companies accept the rapid obsolescence of their documents as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Its not. When dynamic documents replace static documents, users can bring together disparate, distributed data and content and combine it in a single document that is always accurate and up-to-date.

Dynamic documents blend the rich context, persistence and portability of traditional, static documents with the live data and an interactive user experience of business applications. In turn, dynamic documents promise to transform information sharing and collaboration—and other document-centric promises—in any industry marked by constantly changing, mission critical information.

Under the hood, dynamic documents have inherent properties that make them uniquely suited to the tasks of information sharing and collaboration.

First, dynamic documents contain persistent links to live source data. When data changes in an underlying data store, it automatically and immediately changes in the dynamic document. Likewise, if the data changes in the document, it changes in the data store. In turn, documents are always in sync with the systems of record.

Second, dynamic documents can dynamically render specific views of information based on a specific user, role, point in a workflow process, or result of a web service query. This ensures the document displays information that is the most relevant and appropriate to the context of its usage.

By sharing and collaborating on dynamic documents, companies realize faster cycle times for collaborative process. The time that would otherwise be needed to reconcile and validate the data in static and disconnected documents is effectively eliminated. Dynamic documents also minimize information rekeying, saving time and eliminating errors.

Information Sharing In Action

In the air—An airline pilots electronic flight bag (EFB) or interactive electronic technical manuals (IETM) are perfect examples of the rapid, constant change that dynamic documents can handle. Airlines must share the most authoritative, up-to-date information with their pilots and maintenance crews. The cost is too high to deliver anything less.

The challenge here is two-fold. First, ensuring that the documents are absolutely up to date when the documents themselves comprise hundreds or even thousands of data elements that may be changing. Second, ensuring that only the most relevant information is provided, so people in complex roles and under pressure to turn aircraft at the gate do not have to comb through pages of irrelevant information.

Dynamic documents ensure the information presented is literally always up to date not since the last publishing, but since the last refresh or local print. Dynamic documents also store the application logic in the document itself, so it is highly aware of its environment imagine a document invoking a web service query about local weather conditions and dynamically rendering the policy and procedure for icy conditions, windy conditions, northerly winds, etc.

At the bargaining table—Dynamic documents also deliver value in more collaborative processes, such as a manufacturers sales and operations business processes. Here, sales, marketing and operations departments jointly grapple with issues that cross departmental boundaries, including forecasting demand, coordinating production, and making trade-offs in profitability by dynamically matching demand and production.

Today, this process relies on multiple static spreadsheets with nearly constant confusion about the latest versions. With a dynamic document, each participant gets the latest version with up-to-date XML links to pricing, procurement, and other variables stored in ERP, CRM, SCM and other enterprise systems of record. No more manual reconciliation and validation and no more anxiety about whether the information is right.

In the supply chain—Another collaborative issue dynamic documents address is seamless information sharing in trading partner relationships. Imagine a high-tech manufacturer with hundreds of suppliers and with a contract manufacturer that actually assembles the manufacturers product a common business model in high tech.

The manufacturer has supply chain management software, but not all of its suppliers do. Instead of requiring every supplier to install costly supply chain software, the manufacturer utilizes dynamic documents, so they can collaborate around demand forecasts, inventory data and production schedules.

A supplier receives an e-mail from the manufacturer with the dynamic document attached. The supplier uses the dynamic document to access the latest information, spots a potential shortfall in the manufacturers inventory and quickly addresses it before it becomes problem.

Likewise, the same high-tech firm could seamlessly share forecast data with its contract manufacturer in a dynamic document. In the same document, the contract manufacturer could share its capacity data and production schedules. Manufacturer and contract manufacturer could collaboratively align capacity with demand to maximize revenue and minimize cost and risk.

While the examples are endless, the point is clear: Dynamic documents provide the only information sharing and collaboration medium that can counter the high cost of static documents with data views that are appropriate, accurate, and current for employees, partners, and customers.

About the Author
Jake Sorofman is senior vice president of marketing and business development for JustSystems, the largest ISV in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies. Contact Jake at .

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Related article: The Document as Application: The Convergence of Document Publishing and Application Development

Filed under: Document Engineering : Dynamic Content : Mashups : Structured Content : XML

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