I was just trying to finish my last tasks before World. One important task is finishing a mock-up for a client. A mock-up for their new xCP 2.1 application. Doing this I more and more wonder about this new concept CaseManagement. Is this just an other buzz word or does it realy introduce a new paradigm in ECM?
The basic functional difference is the ability to create an object with relations, transactions (sorry have to say stateless processes, very good name……?) and have structured datasets (contentless objects, another perfect name to explain to an end user….?). All nice technical functions that I really like but does it make that much difference to the end user? Is this the ECM chicken with the golden egg or just some extra nice modern features?
Where it gets interesting is looking at the challenges of a case. Simply put, a case is a large amount of related information about a set of tasks that have to be performed or a goal that has to be reached. The challenge for every user within a case management solution is the overview. How do I see within one glimpse what the case is about and what am I supposed to do with it? With all those great technical options, relations, transactions etc.. it is so difficult to see the tree within the forest (nice Dutch expression, but I think everybody would understand this one instantly).
So why is Case Management a gamechanger and what is the basic necessity for a good Case Management system? In the end it is easy, maybe not for the average Documentum consultant, but the answer is: USER EXPERIENCE. Simple but so true. To be able to give an end user a system that is workable, it needs to have such a perfect user design that within seconds a caseworker knows what it all is about.
A normal Documentum consultant who was used to work with WebTop did not really know or want to know what User Design was, for the simple reason that designing any good user experience in WebTop was a challenge or should I say impossible.
But now we have xCP. This gives the designer a real flexible tool to fully design the interface and give the person the right display of information to work very efficiently and like what they are doing. The interaction, or should I use an other buzz word, the agile approach, you can have with the usergroup before you start to create a technical solution, but simply create a mock-up is baffling. Users cannot wait to get the system, workshops are actually fun to do and the results using tools like Axure are super. So far my thoughts about the new xCP and tomorrow some more detail about the options of a good design. (As far as this simple Documentum consultant understands it).
