ACTION Mail System

Consensus Software Awards

Brief product description

The ACTION_MAIL  System is a secure Notes-based engine for enterprise-wide task management. The system generates a simple e-mail message to each user on a regular basis, providing ready access to action items assigned to them, across a wide  range of ACTION_MAIL-enabled  databases, (also known as 'participating business  forums'). The name: ACTION_MAIL is an acronym: ACTion Items On Notes: My Action Item List.

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Consider the following pre ACTION_MAIL scenario: Rob has 79 active actions arising from 16 separate databases. These include operational and project-related issues of varying priority, spanning seven different locations including  Auckland  and  Jakarta. Each application automatically e-mails him whenever a  new  action is assigned (and possibly also a reminder if it's overdue). Rob's mail  file receives  an ongoing barrage of notification and reminder messages. Some of the action items are now months old. Rob has no real visibility of what he's supposed to be doing and the backlog of outstanding actions is increasing daily.

Enter the ACTION_MAIL System. Every Wednesday at 5:00 am Rob receives a single e-mail message listing all his active actions (i.e. not completed or cancelled).

For each  action  the message specifies the originating business forum and the task description, and contains a Doclink (i.e. a Hypertext link) directly to the action document in  the source database. With a single mouse click, Rob can access  the  relevant  action  document and  update the status or add comments. The e-mail also links to a view in the ACTION_MAIL System, enabling Rob to sort his actions in order of priority, status, etc.

Rob can edit  his  personal ACTION_MAIL  profile document to change the notification frequency or  to  disable notification messages altogether. An Administrator can create multiple profiles with minimal effort, by selecting the relevant names from the Notes Name and Address Book.

Innovation

• Creating a business advantage

• Social change or empowerment of users

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Enterprise-wide  task management is a simple idea:  the Notes-based component of an entire organisation's  workload, as defined by a myriad of different tasks spread across numerous separate applications, can be managed in a manner which provides visibility and coherence to users and their management.

However, the  idea has  proven to be very elusive in practice. The common criticism that  the Notes platform is prone to a proliferation of databases, is clear evidence of the problem:  As the number of databases increases, it becomes increasingly  difficult  for  users to keep track of what they're supposed to be doing. Notes  development in larger organisations is often decentralised across multiple development teams, and each application typically focuses on the needs of specific stakeholders. In contrast, the challenge of enterprise-wide task management is  to decouple the user's workload from all the detail of the underlying physical environment, including servers, directories, applications, databases, replicas, views, etc.

The  ACTION_MAIL  System  addresses this challenge by consolidating the user's workload into a single, personalised 'to do' list. From an architectural perspective, the System comprises two key elements:

1. A standardised set of design elements (forms, views, agents) which can be readily 'bolted on' to  any new or existing Notes application to make it ACTION_MAIL-enabled;

2. A central ACTION_MAIL engine  which performs  core functions such as maintaining user  profiles  and generating ACTION_MAIL e-mail  messages in accordance with these profiles.

The simplicity of the System from the user's perspective effectively 'raises the ceiling height' of  the Notes  platform, by eliminating much of the perceived complexity typically associated with a proliferation of notes-based applications. Discussions with developers at Lotus Development in the US and its IRIS  subsidiary (the  original  developers  of the Notes product) provide strong evidence that the ACTION_MAIL System offers a highly innovative solution to the challenge of enterprise-wide task management.

Performance

• Enthusiastic customer support

• Proof of real world performance

• Real user benefits

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The ACTION_MAIL  System  has  been fully operational at ACI Packaging since 2nd February 2000. It  supports approximately 1,100 active users, generating notification messages on a regular basis (typically weekly), as defined by each user's profile document. The majority of users are Australian, but there are also significant numbers in New Zealand,  Indonesia,  India and Hong Kong.

Action items are currently generated by 62 'participating business forums' (i.e. ACTION_MAIL - enabled  Notes  databases)  running  on 14 Notes servers both in Australia and overseas,  spanning  a  wide  cross-section of ACI's business operations. Examples include:

IRIS - ACI's Incident Reduction Information System, an occupational Health and Safety System.     (IRIS won an award from the Victorian Work Cover Authority, for excellence and innovation in workplace health and safety systems). PROF - ACI's  customer complaint-handling system. PROF, which stands for: Preventing  Recurrence of  Failures, is  a sophisticated, Notes-based workflow application for handling both product and service complaints.

Plant  Production Meetings System - a set of Notes databases used at morning production meetings at each of 10 separate glass manufacturing plants throughout Australia  and  overseas. Action items are  raised to deal with the myriad operational issues related to breakdowns, product quality, inspection, coatings, etc. In the Penrith Plant Production Meetings System for example, there is a total of  8,934  action items,  but  only  32  of  these  currently  appear in ACTION_MAIL notification messages;  (the rest have already been either completed or cancelled).

Notes-based applications and  the action items they generate, are becoming
increasingly integral  to the way ACI does business.The ACTION_MAIL System helps users stay on top of their workload by providing a powerful tool which is:

• easy to  use. Users  access their ACTION_MAIL periodic notification message, via the same interface as they use for their other e-mail messages.

• secure. Apart from Administrators, within the ACTION_MAIL System users can see  only those action items either assigned to them or for which they are specified as the 'Notification to' party;

• under user  control. Users  can adjust the notification frequency and enable or disable message notification via their profile document.

Potential

• Designed for international use

• Enterprise structured for growth

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The ability to  execute is a fundamental organisational capability. All too often in  large organisations there's a breakdown between the direction set by management and  what actually happens at  the  'coalface'.  As information technology  relentlessly permeates almost every facet of corporate life, work is increasingly being assigned and managed by on-line systems rather than the more traditional means  such as minutes of meetings distributed in hardcopy form. Workers need powerful  tools  so  that they can easily keep track of what work they're  expected  to do. Management needs ready access to status information so that they can step in when there's a breakdown in the timely execution of key business tasks.

ACI's  experience  with  the ACTION_MAIL  System provides clear evidence of the System's business potential. The System synthesises action items arising from 62 'participating  business  forums' spanning a wide cross-section of the organisation, including such disparate areas as Marketing and Sales, Product and Mould  Design, Manufacturing, Finance, Training, Occupational Health and Safety, Customer Service, Information Technology, and Senior Management. Users of the ACTION_MAIL  System are based  in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, India and Hong  Kong,  and  the  System can be deployed to other countries with relatively minimal effort.

The highly generic nature of the System means it could be used by virtually any organisation with a  significant number of Notes-based applications. The architecture could also be ported to other platforms.

The System is highly scaleable. All of the processing and data transmission activity occurs overnight,  utilising existing server and communications infrastructure at off-peak periods. The  architecture of the ACTION_MAIL System means that the processing load can be readily distributed across multiple Domino  servers. Powerful administration tools streamline the task of profile document creation;  for example, the System automatically checks whether profile documents  already exist for any of  the  selected  users,  thereby avoiding duplication. 

Other information

Your web-site:      http://www.acipackaging.com

How and where would you like to demonstrate your product to the judges

Live demo, conducted on site at ACI premises in Hawthorn, Melbourne

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