Templates within EVA Netmodeler
Templates provide the ability to associate one or more standard document templates with a given type. Templates are stored in a directory on the EVA Netmodeler server. When users create items of a type with template attributes,
the associated templates are "cloned", placed in a documents directory on the server, uniquely named, and linked to the newly created item. The user may then load the cloned copy by clicking the hyperlink provided in
the edit browsers to load and view the contents of the document, or to modify it using the appropriate helper application. Once edited, the new content can be uploaded back to the server. When this is done, the previous version
is automatically time stamped and versioned, and the newly uploaded version is linked to the item.
Note that it is not possible for the user to change the name or extension of the document stored in a template property type. If this is a requirement then the ArchiDocument property type should be used instead.
Users can view the list of available versions and select which one they want to link to when retrieving. An example of the use of this feature is described below.
Say we want to manage projects in a fairly standard way. For each project, we want a Management Motivation, in the form of a Power Point presentation, a Feasibility Study which is a Word Document, a
Budget which is an Excel spreadsheet and a Project Plan, which will be held in Microsoft Project. We will also have a variety of other attributes for the project, such as a name, initiation date, priority, approval status,
owner and so on. We would include in our Project type definition four Template type attributes, viz. Motivation, Feasibility Study, Budget and Project Plan. We would create templates for the structure and content that we want
using the four applications mentioned, storing them in the templates directory. Next, we would link the names of these templates to the relevant properties in the Project Default item, by editing the Default.
When a
user subsequently creates a new Project, it will automatically get the required set of documents created on the server, uniquely named, linked and ready for editing to reflect the unique content for that project. As these are
updated, the version management will provide a secure nondestructive store of the versions that have been stored in the repository. Users can navigate to relevant documents very easily from the Project within EVA Netmodeler.
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