Object-oriented Documents@Work

Research and Proof-of-Concept Projects

These are current efforts to explore the role of new technologies and approaches to document management, workflow, and work management.

Internet Java Document and Workflow Client

Enterprise Web Document and Workflow Access

Unified Visual Basic and Java Document Object Models

Internet Java Document and Workflow Client

Standard Web browsers provide weak support for document management. We have been constructing a prototype Java application that provides a document management window at the client which is linked to a server process. Among other features, this application will:

Serially transfer a collection of documents over a private client-server TCP/IP session using a repository-to-client transfer queue.
Maintain a directory of work in process documents on the workstation, and provide an offline window to list and manage them
Launch the appropriate ActiveX viewer, such as Word or Excel, from the list window, either automatically on document receipt, or subsequently at user request.
Locally store, display, and update indexing attributes for the documents, including modifications.
Automatically recognize modified documents and transfer these document(s) and attributes back to the server and update the host repository.

A server side Java application interfaces with the document repository and index facility.

This work complements the efforts of the current Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Working Group on World Wide Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WEBDAV)

Enterprise Web Document and Workflow Access

We have built a working prototype of an insurance HTML Web server application to allow employees or agents to access client and policy documents while at home, traveling, or visiting clients and producers.

This was constructed using the IBM VisualAge/Smalltalk Web parts to access a document index and repository at the home office. Among the research issues were addressing document security issues by transferring documents directly from the repository to the browser client without using the standard approach of storing them on a web server.

Unified Visual Basic and Java Document Object Models

Most document management and workflow vendors now provide object-based ActiveX controls to augment their C APIs. The AIIM sponsored Document Management Alliance (DMA) has provided a working draft of its DCOM-based programming interface, which was highlighted at AIIM ’97. The Object Management Group (OMG) sponsors a Document Management Special Interest Group, which will be building distributed document object models for CORBA using their RFI/RFP process. The Internet document management (IETF WEBDEV) working group has its own model approach, which is more HTML based than object based, but will be a major market force.

Each of these has varying concepts of the relationships between folders, documents, document parts, representations, versions, and indexing/search processing. We participated in the DMA vendor training and have been working to reconcile the models so that our corporate solutions can operate across multiple vendors as well as in client/server and Internet/Intranet environments with the greatest degree of consistency and code reuse.

A version of this unified model has been implemented at a large property and casualty insurance company to provide consistent document indexing and access across multiple vendor document management systems. This was accomplished in VisualAge/Smalltalk and is being mapped to Visual Basic and Java object implementations.

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Last Changed: 08/19/00

Comments to: Gary Gershon (Gershon@Celsus.Net)