What is DOCDES
DOCDES is the procedure for designing document templates which can be used in some ITAS applications to create documents such as Contract Notes, Shipping Advices, Warehouse Release notes, Certificates of Conformance, Treasury Contract notes, Invoices etc.
The basis for each design is a WORD/RTF document. Various editing tools are available, such as Microsoft Word, which can be used to assist in the design of the template for layout and content. When used in an application, the design/content of the template determines the subsequent population of the document by retrieving relevant information from the ITAS database, as indicated on the rules encoded in the template. The default extension for creating a new template is RTF (if the user is authorized to use WORD, Navigator/User Prefs).
Microsoft WORD provides various protection and security features that can enabled for any template. These protection facilities can be set to disable subsequent edit of amount fields and any items that should not be amended from the original population, especially for Sales Invoices. If a company wants to inhibit any ITAS access to editing a document, irrespective of WORD protection, Hivedome can activate a S01/CMP privilege (e.g. TRADE/FORMEDITNEW) that will create the documents in Read-Only protection and only selected (or none) users would be able to edit the form. There is a further ITAS/CMP privilege control i.e. DOCMAN/FORMEDIT that must be selected for any user to edit any form in the DOCMAN procedure.
Templates that are created in DOCDES are stored in user defined folders so that similar document styles can be grouped together e.g. Contract Advices folder, Insurance Declaration folder, Invoices folder.
ITAS-designed rules control the content and presentation of the resultant documents. Rules may reference data items on the ITAS database and 'clauses' attached to rules indicate the format of the expanded data. Examples of these rules are Dates in full description, apply foreign language translation. The list of rules and where they can be applied is available (right-click on folder name). Before a template may be used, it must be verified, parsed and locked. This procedure will provide a report of warnings, failures and OK status on the referenced data.
A DOCDES folder must be linked to the ITAS menu options that want to use its templates. Highlight the folder, mouse right-click and use the feature Menu Options. This feature allows for specific folders to be further categorised e.g. TRADE link will enable categories of Insurance Declaration, Shipping Instruction, Warehouse Release Note. The Menu options assigned determine which rules can be used for that folders' templates; this needs to be confirmed by using the right-click/lock feature on every template. There is a database of rulenames (gf_docdesrules) that is centrally maintained by Hivedome and distributed with every release.
Other DOCDES template descriptors are available using right-click on template name; Set electronic signature, set language. These processes are described in more detail.
The documents created in the ITAS applications based on DOCDES templates will be in RTF format and are secured for amendment, printing and emailing from the document management procedure DOCMAN.
These documents are secured by their applications in program defined folders in the itas\comp\xx folder e.g. ContractDocs, Invoices, Delnotes. These folders can be secured from prying eyes and only made available through ITAS applications; need to discuss with Hivedome as to the procedures.