Fields Area

The NE does not just store information, but adds value to your information by making it easy to keep a wide variety of contextual data along with it. One way in which this contextualization is done is by allowing you to attach meta-data to NEs and tiles and to update this meta-data on the fly. Because these meta-data fields are searchable, it is easy to track information and to access precisely what you need when you need it. The NE has an area devoted to managing these fields, on which you can access fields for the active NE, for any NE associated with the active NE and for any tile on its tile scroller.

In the fields area you can write yourself notes, track developments in NEs by making and updating checklists, noting important dates, ranking the relative importance of an NE, or leaving yourself audio prompts. You can also determine the role the NE is to play in a object model.

The fields area is composed of two fields, the front field and the back field. Fields are introduced on the back field and are accessed and edited on the front field. The two-part structure is designed to make it easy to update fields on the fly without risking the integrity of the field structure on the one hand, and to easy to build new data field structures themselves on the fly.

Fields can be created for NEs and for tiles, and can be viewed for the active NE, for any NE in any association area, or for any tile. The NE or tile is highlighted when its fields are displayed, and its name appears at the top of the field. The background for the field name at the top of the field also indicates whether fields for the active NE, for an associated NE or for a tile are displayed.

•	If the active NE's fields are displayed, the background looks like: (as in the example above)

•	If an associated NE's fields are displayed, the background looks like:

•	If a tile's fields are displayed, the background looks like:

Fields can be used for several purposes, including managing collaborative work. For instance, if your project has produced 20 documents, each of which must be reviewed by 5 bodies, you could include each document as a separate tile all under the same NE, and, for that NE, introduce 5 check fields in the back field of the NE, one for each reviewing body. Upon completion of each review of a document by a body, the relevant check field could be ticked off in the front field of the appropriate tile. In this case you could easily and conveniently track the review process for each document.