Managing Documents with Genius Project

 

Introduction	How Genius Integrates all Documents
How Genius Integrates your Existing Documents' Typology and Format	Integrate any Kind of Documents/Forms in Genius Project
Creating a New Document

 

Introduction

 

Running a project generates a lot of information and documents of all types. It is therefore necessary to have tools available to standardize, classify, list, publish and distribute this information. All of these documents are too often classified in ring binders and then forgotten.

No matter the size of the organization; customers are looking for better, more efficient ways to share information within their organization and with outside key suppliers, partners, and clients. Geniusproject offers a set of functionalities that were developed to facilitate information sharing both within organizations and over the Internet.

Small or informal workgroups need informal means to work together on group deliverables, share documents, and communicate statuses with one another. These groups need to share information easily and effortlessly and the application allows them to do so.

Large workgroups with structured processes need greater information management. They require features like formal publishing processes, the ability to search for and aggregate content from multiple data stores and file formats. Geniusproject is also recommended for this scenario.

When organizations use Geniusproject modules, they can address the information-sharing challenges for both large and small groups within their enterprise. Together, the Genius Inside technologies give users the ability to organize information, readily access that information, manage documents, and enable efficient collaboration—all in a familiar, browser-based and Microsoft open Office–integrated environment.

 

How Genius Integrates all Documents

It could be said that Geniusproject acts as everyone’s replacement Project File, since it provides automatic filing, sharing, and access, and records all of the different versions of each document.

This is a unique reference and contains all of the documents linked to the project and available to the project manager and the project team.

The project file can contain specifications, meeting reports, incidents, dashboards, letters, contracts, etc. It is necessary to organize all of this information, which can be very heavy, either under the form of sub-files or with a typology.

How Genius Integrates your Existing Documents' Typology and Format

 

Geniusproject fits your requirements and vocabulary. Although most documents are common to all types of projects, the majority of organizations have some type of customized documents relating specifically to their business or projects; for instance, an architect will have "construction plans" and IT developers will have "Software requirements". This is why Geniusproject allows you to define and extend document typology. You can define unlimited document types.

Unlimited number of document types defined via easy keyword setup.

Geniusproject provides self definable and customizable document templates and helps structure the information. All data is presented in the same format regardless of who created it. This results in consistency of all edited documents and all distributed information, internally as well as externally. With a central place to create and store documents, it becomes easy to know where to go when you need to create another one. Consistency also brings about re-usability of material, and when new Team members are assigned, the learning curve can be greatly reduced.

In Geniusproject we distinguish between two types of documents; standard documents such as tasks, risks, deliverables etc. they are predefined in the system; and generic documents which are setup by the application administrator.

Integrate any Kind of Documents/Forms in Genius Project

Documents to suit your needs. All Geniusproject documents are user adaptable. New fields, lists, graphics, etc. can be added to meet your exact requirements.

With Geniusproject you can integrate your standards and existing documentation into the project reference system as templates. Geniusproject and its internal models allow you to integrate all files into the reference system, whatever their format (Excel, Word, Wordpro, Paint Shop Pro, etc.).

This includes your own document formats. Geniusproject is an open-ended system that allows you to extend its series of pre-defined documents, according to your requirements.

Creating a New Document

 

To create a new generic document:

• Navigate the Documents tab.
• Click on New Document in the contextual navigation menu.

• A dialog box will be displayed.

 

• Select the type of document you would like to create.
• The template to use (if one or more exist).
• The system will automatically display the workflow associated to the template (if one exists).
• Select the project this new document is for.
• Select the phase the new document should be associated to. If the document is not associated to any phase in particular, you can select "Global".

 

The Document Header

 

When creating a new document, even when using a customized template, Genius automatically builds a document header to classify the document in the appropriate project and phase.

 

The Content Tab 

It consists of a rich text field where the relevant information or the document description can be input.

 

 

Managing Attached Files

 

Geniusproject allows users to attach any type of file to a generic document. This is done via the Attachment  tab.

• Attached files can be opened with their associated application (Adobe, Word, Excel...) simply by double clicking on them. In this case the system will download the file to view it.
• Or, when clicking on the Eye icon for certain types of files, you can preview the contents of the document, like in the image below, without the system downloading it

 

• Open the document in edit mode.
• Navigate to the Attachment tab and place a check in the To delete box corresponding to the document you want to remove.

 

• Save the document. At this moment the attached file will be deleted.

 

To edit an attached file:

• Detach the file from the generic document.
• Edit it locally.
• Re-attach the file to the generic document.

 

Managing Links between Documents

 

Managing links is a very unique function in Geniusproject. In many cases, dependencies and links between documents exist (i.e.: linking reference documents or agreements to master agreements). Linked documents are directly accessible.

There are 3 types of links:

• "Links to": Links created by users to connect one document to another in Geniusproject.
  
• "External Links": Links created by users to an external URL outside of genius Project. Can be very useful in creating links to external document references.
  
• "Incoming links": These are links created by the system that are logical links between records such as with previous versions of a record or links between task and assignments. Or, they can be links created automatically by the system back to corresponding "Link to" links.
  

Note: A label on the Link     tab will indicate the number of links on that are there.

 

Creating an Internal Genius Project Link

 

• Open the document that the link will originate from, in edit mode.
• Navigate to the Link  tab and click Add.
• A dialog box will open where you can select the record(s) to link to.

• Specify which type of document you are looking for in the "Document type" field and which project you would like to select from in the "Project" field. The values selected in these fields will narrow down the list of choices for section 1.
• Use the arrows in between sections 1 and 2 to select the desired document(s) to link to.
• Section 2 displays the selected documents.
• Click OK to validate the selection(s).
• The new links will appear in the document.

 

Deleting an Internal Genius Project Link

 

Open the document containing the link to be removed, in edit mode.

• Navigate to the Link    tab and select the link that is to be removed from the "Links to" section.

• Click the Remove button and the link will be deleted from page. Be sure to save the document to finalize the deletion.

 

 

Creating an External Link

 

External links are URLs

• Open the document where the link will be created, in edit mode.
• Navigate to the Link  and enter the URL address in the "External Links" field.
• Click the  to validate the entry.

• Geniusproject verifies the URL and if it is valid it will save the link.

 

Deleting an External Link

 

• Open the document with the link, in edit mode.
• Navigate to the Link tab, select the link to be removed from the "External Links" section and click the  to the right of the link.

Accessing a Link

Simply click directly on the link and the destination document or URL will open automatically.

 

Managing Document Versions

 

Geniusproject allows for easy document version tracking. The version numbers are automatically incremented and old versions are stored.

To create a new version of a Document:

• Select the document to be edited and click Edit on the menu action bar for the view.
• From the Edit menu drop down list, select "Major version" to change the main digit of the version number (1.0/2.0…) or select "Minor version" to change the small digit (1.0/1.1...).The system will then create a new version of the document.

Previous versions are easily accessible from the document itself and in the views.

Users can also restore a previous version with a simple click.

 

Document History Tracking

 

The history section of each document keeps track of document changes, including creation, version, copy and status changes. To access a document’s history record click on the  icon on the top right, above the section line.

 

Sharing and Distributing Documents

 

Making the same information available to a greater group of people in "real time" will undoubtedly save time. That’s why Geniusproject's distribution function is automatic: information is exchanged securely with no specific intervention required on the part of the user.

Each document is created with its own distribution settings that indicate who the document should be, (or has been) sent to. To access distribution settings click on the icon, on the top right side above the section line.

See the chapter "Project team collaboration" for more information.

 

Managing Access to Documents (Security)

 

Geniusproject’s advanced and powerful security and access definition is available for any document. Clear and easy security settings are available in each document. Default security settings can be setup at the system and project level.

To view the access rights settings for a document, click on the icon on the top right side above the section line.

Access rights are defined for each document author. By default, the name of the author is the name of the resource that is creating or modifying the document. This field can be modified; for example, an assistant who wants to create a document for the supervisor can indicate their supervisor’s name as the author.

Write and Read access can also be set in for the project community:

• Public: anyone having access to the system.
• Project: all members of the project team.
• Distribution: the resources defined in the "Distribution" list for this document.
• Private: nobody other than the author(s).

It is also possible to define read access according to business roles.

 

Searching for Documents and Content

 

Geniusproject’s "document" views allow users to easily locate all documents that reside in the system. Available views sort documents by type, by project or even project phase. All of these views can be found in the Documents module.

Geniusproject also has a very powerful full text search engine which crawls through all records and attached files in the system, based on specified searching criteria. For more information how to use the search engine, see Searching in Geniusproject.