DNE Maps
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DNE Maps |
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Maps are composed of three parts:
Maps are composed of NEs linked together. Each NE represents a point, object, or stage in the map. As well as being an object in the map, an NE manages access to all the information relevant to that object in the map. This includes both structured information (meta-data fields, created by a map author, that can be updated in DNE Maps) and unstructured information (files, web pages, etc.). Each of the geometric shapes in the example here is an NE.
User-determined meta-data fields can be kept on everything in the map. There are six kinds of fields: book fields and text labels, check boxes, dates, ranks and lists. Fields can be kept on every NE and file in your map. Sometimes fields provides information about an NE or file, and sometimes fields asks for information about an NE or file. This information, whether you update it or simply view it, is also searchable. The author of a map adds any combination of meta-data to anything in the map. The author may add content to a field, or may leave the meta-data blank, allowing the content to be added or edited in DNE Maps.
DNE Maps manages links to files, so a file can be any piece of information, saved in any format, located on your hard drive, your network or on the internet. Because DNE Maps can use information in any format, you can use DNE Maps without changing the way you work. However, value is added to this information beyond the file itself, in the form of information fields which allow you to keep and update a wide variety of meta-data fields with regard to the file itself and the role it plays in your map.
DNE Maps allows you to work with models of any size and complexity, to update files as well as information fields with regard to all NEs. DNE maps can be used to manage simple processes or complex information systems.
Maps come in two types: map templates and maps.
A template is essentially a map before it gets opened, and possibly edited, in DNE Maps. A template is like the skeleton for a map: you can build many different maps in DNE Maps using the same template. This allows you to use a template to manage processes that will used over and over again. For instances, a travel agency might deal with both air travel and train travel. So, travel agents would have two different templates, an "air travel" template and a "train travel" template. Whenever a client wants to book air travel, the travel agent would use the "air travel" template and whenever a client wants to book air travel the travel agent would use the "train travel" template. When they add whatever information is necessary for a particular booking, they would save all these edits to a new map, leaving the template ready for the next client. Templates are always created in the Dekstrus DNE.
Whereas the template is the skeleton common to a collection of maps, each map is made by adding unique information to the common skeleton. While the skeleton for all air travel bookings might be the same, the details - the clients name, where and when the flight is to take place, whether insurance is bought - differ for each case. Once a template is brought into DNE Maps, it can be edited, so it's no longer a "template" and just called a "map". When a client, Mrs. Jones, comes in to book a flight to London, the "air flight" template is opened. But all the personalized information you add - her name, where and when she wants to fly, whether she wants cancellation insurance, etc. - makes it a new and individual map, particular to Mrs. Jones alone.
DNE Maps manages processes while allowing you to maintain information in whatever format you prefer. Any piece of digital information can be linked to a DNE Maps NE.
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