Front Office

yanSi

I'm looking at Front Office so our users can use Word to contribute content rather than using FormsPublisher.

I have a prototype which contains the following items:
1-a word template which contains input fields and textareas which will accept user input
2-a HTML Parser which converts the Word generated HTML into a DCR.
3-a workflow

The user has to perform these tasks to contribute content:
1-open the Word template and add content
2-click on file->teamsite->save as html and check in

A workflow then takes over and does the following:
1-takes the Word generated HTML and calls the parser to convert it into a format specified by my datacapture.cfg
2-calls iwextattr on the newly generated DCR
3-calls iwgen to combine the DCR with a presentation template to produce the final HTML

Is there a better way of using Front Office?

From what I can see now there are many disadvantages to using the approach that I outlined.

1-cutting and pasting certain text from Word will yield text which contain characters that will result in a malformed DCR. ex: line feed characters in DCR will make FormsPublisher choke.
2-Word templates do not contain as much features as FormsPublisher templates. ex: no replicants
3-If a user has multiple workareas configured for Front Office use, the user has to remember to switch between them or risk putting files where they don't belong
4-There needs to a separate .dot Word template for each data type
5-Separate parsers are may be needed for each .dot Word template
6-MOST DEVASTATING disadvantage is that you can't preview or see the generated html file through My Briefcase. You have to go into CCPro and look at it there which makes you wonder why anyone would want to use Front Office.

TS 6.5
Windows 2000 Server

Bill Klish

You are trying to make Microsoft Word work like TeamSite templating. It sounds like you should be using TeamSite templating and giving your users a quick overview on how to use it, rather than trying to make microsoft word work.

We use Front Office to manage documents, apply metadata, version, etc. Additionally, we invoke approval workflows from within the interface as well. The documents are not template like replacements, but actual full fledged documents.

There are some limitations with Front Office that you mention, having to switch into multiple areas, having client software local to each user PC. We don't use the product all that widely, but it does help out in some instances and has potential to be used more.

Interwoven has not made significant changes to it since TeamSite 5.5 came out. They have just ensured it remains compatible with TeamSite, rather than add new features/capabilities.