Frequently Asked Questions about Papyrus Objects

Question How can Papyrus obtain data from various DB2 and IMS environments?
Can the data read from the database be further edited by the user?

Answer Yes. With Papyrus Objects data entity objects are defined, and linked through a messaging interface such as MQ-Series, or a Type Manager interface to the database. A messaging adapter converts messages to objects, while a Type Manager creates proxies for external data instances. The administrator can drop the data and the building block templates in a new letter template on the Desktop. The data variable editing rights are defined by the administrator.

Question Can the document be customized by the end user, while paragraph access can be controlled by an administrator? Can the customized paragraphs be stored individually?

Answer Yes. The user can usually just customize an INSTANCE of a letter and this can be stored. The user can define his own TEXT templates and store them to his own LIBRARY folder. The user has NO ACCESS to the Repository, which only contains CLASS definitions, provided by the developer.

Question Can comments be stored for each customized paragraph?

Answer Yes. Any number of comment or detail fields can be defined by the developer.

Question Is it possible that next time the same document is regenerated for the same customer, the customized versions of the wording come in, and not the standard wordings?

Answer Yes, in principle. The proper procedure is not to regenerate the letter, but to retrieve the letter original from archive or storage. Regeneration is possible also, but then the original letter generation task has to be stored as well, which is possible if necessary. This way it is not necessary to also retain the information, which paragraphs (or document elements) have had customizations done, who they were done by, and who they were done for.

Question Is it possible for document elements to become automatically active on a certain date/time, or automatically expire on a certain date/time.

Answer Yes. This is provided by the Papyrus Objects version control.

Question Can document elements be reused as much as possible, by sharing document definitions and text elements across multiple document applications?

Answer Yes. With Papyrus the document definition code exists only once and is managed through the CLASS. The actual text or customization parameters are stored as attributes in a template. The templates can be referenced in multiple documents

Question How is security implemented? Is it possible to use RACF or ACF2 information with different levels of security, administrators, document designers, end users, etc?

Answer Yes. There are several areas. SECURITY is achieved by encryption of objects and communication, ACCESS CONTROL, which is achieved by user id/password and AUTHORIZATION, which is done by role and policy definitions. Papyrus Objects can interface to RACF/ACF2 to read their definitions through a Type Manager.

Question Can this security be used to control who is allowed to access certain instances of documents across different departments?

Answer Yes. Role and policy definitions control document access for library and archive.

Question Can Papyrus Objects be used to manage text elements also for mainframe batch production runs including the use of version control?

Answer Yes. Papyrus DocEXEC V6 can read the Repository and Library in batch also.

Question Is there a workflow component in Papyrus that can move a document through it's life cycle, monitor the status of a document and provide reporting on where documents are?

Answer Yes. There is a development state, which controls the life cycle for development of CLASS and TEMPLATES. The state processing of the instances is freely definable, which controls the data collection, letter generation, four-eye-signoff, and the output process. The access to the documents is based on the state and authorization and thus provides a workflow scenario for development and production processes.