Project document maintenance and collaboration can be a time-consuming and difficult task. At RoviSys, we have many projects that require validation documentation. The number of project documents may reach into the thousands. Our customers require us to maintain their documents and software components in an organized manner using standard Configuration Management practices. But it doesn't end there. Collaboration is obviously another important step in the process where documents are transmitted for review, comments and markups are returned by the customer, documents are revised, and the whole process is repeated until documents are approved. Even if you aren't doing validation documentation, the document maintenance and collaboration cycle should be familiar to any project-based business.
The new Configuration Management features in GrandView allow members of the employee project team to define documents and revisions that are to be used for collaboration purposes. Once defined, actual document files can be associated with revision items and electronically transmitted to customers for review. The GrandView Configuration Management module helps to automate the process of maintaining document revisions and recording which files have been transmitted to the customer. Automatic status log generation and team/customer notifications make sure everyone on the team knows when a new document or software item is ready for review.The Documentation view (shown below) allows documents to be sorted by clicking any of the header column names. Document revision and transmittal information are displayed, and files can be downloaded using the appropriate icons.
Configuration Management item revisions created on the Documentation or Software views can be attached to a transmittal. Executing the transmittal will automatically generate a status log with a link to the transmittal as well as optionally email a copy of the transmittal status log to specified recipients and create a file revision. A revision can even be created during the execution of a transmittal using a working copy file. Project team members can download the transmitted files and respond to the transmittal items as part of the transmittal status log thread.
Chris Engelmann, GrandView Product Manager