2.2 Getting around

2.2.1 Introduction

2.2.2 A typical page

2.2.3 Actions - making things happen

2.2.4 Special pages

2.2.1 Introduction

The default Business Collaborator interface, introduced for Business Collaborator version 4 was designed to

• be easy to use
• offer a clear and uncluttered view of the information being displayed
• provide an intuitive layout for new users
• be controlled by actions on menus

Alternative interfaces, in addition to the Version 4 interface, are available for users to choose from:

• the Classic (button) interface which presents the majority of the available information and actions together
• the Toolbar interface which is driven largely by icons which should be familiar to Microsoft users
• the Text interface contains no graphical information and is designed for users with low bandwidth connections to the Business Collaborator server
• the Version 4+ interface displays the Version 4 interface in the right-hand frame but a Windows Explorer-type folder hierarchy in the left-hand frame.

Note

The home page of your Business Collaborator server may offer links to log in to alternative interfaces. The interfaces available will be at the discretion of your system administrator.

2.2.2 A typical page

Figure 2.2-1 shows a typical Business Collaborator page - it is the view of the folders and objects inside a workspace. Here, the workspace is called "Project Collaboration".

Figure 2.2-1: A typical view of a workspace showing the menus, folder contents and personal objects

Let's take a quick tour:

1. The location bar indicates where you are in the hierarchy of workspaces and folders you belong to. As you move into folders inside other folders, this line will update showing you where you are. An icon for the current level indicates what kind of object it is, e.g. workspace, folder, database, discussion or meeting. To get back to a folder further up the structure, simply click on its name in the location bar and you will be taken straight there.

If members have been added at some level to the tree structure you are in, will be displayed to show you where these members were added - see section 4.2.

You can always get to your home page by clicking on your name in the location bar or on .

2. At the far right of the location bar, your user name is displayed along with your user level - see section 5.7.2.
3. Four of the column headings - Type, Name, Owner and Modified - can be clicked on to sort the page contents according to that particular attribute. Clicking on the same column heading a second time will reverse the ordering. A small, grey arrow shows which attribute is being used to sort the objects and its direction indicates the ordering. Sorting is on Type by default.
4. The main part of the page displays a list of all the folders and documents within the current folder. A typical line is shown in Figure 2.2-2:

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   Figure 2.2-2: A folder and document in a folder view - see below for the significance of each label

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   Each line will contain most of the following information:
1. If the line represents a folder which contains other objects, the first symbol in the line will be a indicating that the folder has contents. Clicking on this will unfold the folder contents to display them in the current view - the folder will now be displayed with . Empty folders will display neither icon.
2. A check box for selecting this document or folder (see section 2.2.3.4).
3. The "Type" column displays an icon indicating what type of object this is, e.g. a folder, a particular type of document such as Microsoft Word or image or a specific Business Collaborator object type such as a relational database, . Clicking on this will take you into a folder or open a document.
4. A - clicking on this will bring up a menu containing all the actions which can be carried out on this folder or document. These actions may include Rename (see section 2.2.3.5), Replace (see section 6.3) etc. In these help files, an action on one of these menus will be indicated as, for instance,   |  Rename  .
5. The "Name" column contains the name of the folder or document. Clicking on this will take you into a folder or open a document. If the document is under version control (see section 3.7), the number of the current version will be displayed beside the document name.

Document and folder names can be long and self-explanatory. For more on naming conventions, see section 3.1.
6. The column immediately after the folder or document name is used to display a number of specialist icons such as the Members icon, , (see section 4.2), the View Reviews icon, , (see section 6.3), and the Document Locked icon , (see section 6.2). These will only be visible under the appropriate circumstances.
7. In Business Collaborator, folders and documents can have descriptions. These descriptions inform other users about the nature and purpose of documents and folders. For instance, you may add a description "Still need to finalise section 2" to a document so that your colleagues know that this is not the polished version. Similarly, a description "Deliverable reports for client use" indicates that this folder is not for internal drafts of documents.
8. The events column lets you know what kinds of actions have been carried out on the object. For instance, a document may have been read, , renamed or replaced - or a folder may have had documents added to it - . Clicking on an event icon will tell you more about the action which was performed, when and by whom. For a complete list of events and how to clear these icons from your view of Business Collaborator see section 4.7
9. The owner of an object is the person who initially added it to Business Collaborator. (Even if you revise someone else's document, the owner shown will still be the person who originally created it.) See section 4.5 for more about owners. Click on the owner's name to find out more information about the owner - see section 5.6.
10. The "Modified" column displays when the last change, of any kind, occurred to this object.


5. At the bottom of each page is displayed the list of your Personal objects. Unlike the workspaces you belong to which are shared with other people, your personal objects are personal to you and cannot be accessed by other users. Your Personal objects may include:
• Your waste bin, - is where objects that you have deleted will be placed - see section 3.6.3.
• Your bag, - functions like a clipboard; when you copy or cut objects, they will go into your bag and will subsequently paste them elsewhere - see section 3.6.2
• Your query bag, - stores search queries which may be run again at a later date, i.e. reusable search queries - see section 14.
• Your notification settings, - shows you all of the automatic event notification which will be sent to you by Business Collaborator. Notification may have been set up by you or on your behalf by one of your colleagues. Also, the notification may have been set at any level in the hierarchy and so this is a quick route to viewing or changing all the notifications currently set for you - see section 12 - Notification
• Your Business Collaborator address book, - contains a list of all the people you commonly work with and is used to make it easy to select users when you are, for instance, adding members to a folder. For more on your address book, see section 4.4.
• Your Business Collaborator meetings schedule - provides a calendar of all meetings which have been scheduled in Business Collaborator to which you are invited - see section 5.4.
• Your personal email area - if you have one, is indicated by this icon. Web-based email gives you access to your email no matter where you are and allows you to store email along with other project documents - see Section 7 - Web-based email.

Note 1

If sorting is not available, i.e. the column headings are not clickable, you may need to switch on this configuration option from your Edit Prefs page - see section 5.7.2.

Note 2

In the Version 4+ interface, the contents of the folder or workspace highlighted in the left-hand frame are displayed in the right-hand frame. Clicking on the unfolds the contents of this object in the left-hand frame only. Folders with members are indicated by a .

2.2.3 Actions - making things happen

2.2.3.1 General

2.2.3.2 Actions on the current folder

2.2.3.3 Actions on individual objects

2.2.3.4 Actions on selected objects

2.2.3.5 Other menus

2.2.3.1 General

In order to minimise the amount of information presented to you, only the actions which you can carry out will be available to you at any time. You may not be permitted to carry out an action because:

• Someone has restricted your access rights. Check the information page for the current object to see the Access Details Table - see section 3.8.
• The action is not appropriate in your current location. For instance, you are not permitted to add documents to your home page. Similarly, you may only "publish" documents within a web site (see Section 10 - Website publishing) and you will only be permitted to "import table" into a relational database.
• The action is not possible in your current context, e.g. you will not be able to Paste until you have something in your bag that has been cut or copied (see section 3.6).
• Your user level (see section 5.7.2.1) does not include the action you are looking for. Check your  User  |  Edit Prefs  page to ensure that you are an "Expert" user.
• You have chosen not to display actions by editing your personal preferences (see section 5.7.2.3). Click on  User  |  Edit Prefs  to check your preferences.

To go into a folder or workspace, click on its name.

To open a document, click on its name.

To carry out any other action, you will probably require an item from one of the menus. The main contents of the menus are listed in the following sections.

2.2.3.2 Actions on the current folder

The current folder is the one indicated in the location bar. The  Add  menu above the location bar allows you to add a selection of different type of object to the current folder. These will include some of the following Business Collaborator object types:

• Document - e.g. and - see section 3.1
• Workspace - see section 4.1
• Folder - see section 3.3
• Discussion - see section 5.2
• Web link (URL) - see section 5.3
• Meeting - see section 5.4
• Relational database - see Section 8 - relational databases
• Mailbox - see Section 7 - Web-based email
• Mail folder - see Section 7 - Web-based email
• Web site - see Section 10 - Website publishing

If you are permitted to add members to the current folder, you will also be able to add them from an item on this menu.

The  View/Change  menu contains all of the actions associated with finding out about or changing the current folder (or whatever type of Business Collaborator object you are currently inside). Again, the items available in the menu will largely depend on your current location.

For folders, the actions available on the  View/Change  menu will typically be:

• More info - clicking on this displays the information page for the object. In addition to a variety of other information, it shows the access rights for the object (see section 4.6).
• Catchup - clear the event icons displayed for the whole of the current location. The events will still be stored but your view of the object will no longer display them - see section 4.7
• Notification - set email notification for yourself or others on the current location - see Section 12 - Event notification.
• Hide Actions - menus for altering objects in the current location will no longer be available. The icon will be replaced by the icon. (Note that the time to refresh pages of the Business Collaborator version 4 interface will be considerably reduced if these menus do not require to be created.)
• Hide Descriptions - the description column will no longer be displayed. Although this may reduce the amount of information on the screen, it is recommended that descriptions are always shown as they provide important supplementary information.

Note

The  Paste  action (when available) will appear in the  View / Change  menu of a folder view and the folder's own menu. Of course, the action will only appear for any folders where the object(s) are permitted to be pasted.

2.2.3.3 Actions on individual objects

Different actions are possible for different types of objects. For instance, Replace will allow you to replace a document in Business Collaborator with one from your local computer (see section 3.5) but this action does not make sense on a folder and so it will never be available. The actions permitted on an object in the folder view are indicated in the menu for that object - click on to bring up this menu.

Certain types of document will have additional actions which can be performed on them, e.g.:

• Zip files can have their contents extracted using  |  Extract  
• HTML and Plain Text files can be edited directly using  |  Edit .

Depending on the attributes of an object, it may also have certain additional actions available on it. For instance, an object with a prescribed metadata type (see Section 13 - Metadata) may permit    |  Edit Metadata  . There are also a number of ways in which the available actions may be limited, primarily by setting Access Rights (see section 4.6) but also by making objects Private see section 13.2.2).

2.2.3.4 Actions on selected objects

Actions such as Cut, Copy and Delete (see section 3.6) are located on the  Selected  menu. This is because these actions can be performed on several documents and/or folders at once. In order to select the objects to be cut, copied or deleted, check the check box for each object.

Any other actions which can be performed on several objects simultaneously (such as publishing documents in a web site - see Section 10 - Website publishing) will appear in this menu.

If the action specified cannot be carried out on all the selected objects, an error message will be returned. Deselect the objects indicated by the error message and try again.

2.2.3.5 Other menus

The  User  menu allows you to change information about yourself (Edit Details - section 5.6) and how you wish to use Business Collaborator yourself (see Edit Prefs - section 5.7). It also allows you to change your password. You should always remember to log out when you have finished using Business Collaborator - this is also available from the  User   menu.

The  Search  menu provides shortcuts into the three searches which you will require most frequently:

• Object search - look for an object stored somewhere in the workspaces you belong to (which will by default show you the last query you defined)
• Default search - provides a simple search query (which is particularly useful if your last search was a complicated one)
• Last search - repeats the last search which you ran and displays the results which currently match these search criteria

For more information on searching, see section 5.5.

The  Help  menu provides shortcuts into the most popular sections of the online help:

• The main contents page from which sections on any topic can be accessed
• A Quick guide for new users
• A list of frequently asked questions - with associated answers
• A glossary of terms linking directly into the relevant sections of the help pages
• A summary of the new and altered features in the current version of Business Collaborator

2.2.4 Special pages

2.2.4.1 Personal Object pages

2.2.4.2 Info pages

2.2.4.3 Forms

2.2.4.1 Personal Object pages

Figure 2.2-3 shows a view of the contents of a personal object - in this case a bag. A personal object page is very similar to a folder view, with a list of objects displayed in the main part of the page and actions available via menus.

Figure 2.2-3: View of a typical Personal Object - the bag.

In addition,

• The location bar shows the Path through your Business Collaborator folders which you followed to reach the current object. Clicking on any links in this path will allow you to navigate out of the personal object and back into a folder view.
• The collection of personal objects at the bottom of the page also includes which will always allow you to reach your Home page, directly from any personal object.

The actions which you can perform in your personal objects will, on the whole, be different from those you can carry out in folders or workspaces.

Note

As a result of workspace auditing restrictions (see Section 9 - Workspace auditing), you cannot read or download documents directly from your bag or your waste bin. Instead, you will need to paste (see section 3.6) or undelete (see section 3.6.3) the document into a folder in order to open it.

2.2.4.2 Info pages

Information pages are obtained by clicking  |  More Info  on an object or   View/Change  |    More Info  when inside a folder - see Figure 2.2-4. These pages may contain actions which are not available elsewhere:

• Access - only available to workspace owners, allows you to change the access rights settings for the object (see section 4.6)
• Show History - obtain the object's entire event history.

To return to a folder view, use the location bar. You should always use internal Business Collaborator navigation to move between locations, rather than using your browser's "Back" button.

Figure 2.2-4: A typical Information Page - here for the Relational Database, Contact List.

2.2.4.3 Forms

When you click on a menu item, you will often be presented with a form to complete - for instance, Figure 2.2-5 shows an Add Folder form. Under normal circumstances, you would complete the form and then commit the changes by clicking on "Create folder". If, however, you wish to return to the folder view without saving your changes, simply click on at the bottom of the page.

You should always use internal Business Collaborator navigation to move between locations, rather than using your browser's "Back" button.

Figure 2.2-5: A typical form - the Add Folder form.