Well XML, ie ODT, sort of works in that you can enter stuff etc.

 Normally formatted documents from Open Office or even Word actually work if you just cut and paste, I am thinking of things like text collour embedded pictures, tables etc.   However the one we are playing with is a moderately complicated fill form which has been repeatedly modified over the years and that does not work perfectly.

 Once we have the basic system running I might try to regenerate the form cleanly in Open Office, I suspect that might actually work.

 I will try to remeber to let you guys know if I can make this perform.
 

We are finally moving to using electronic documents top do our common tasks and one of the first projects to be tackled is the document control system.   The main document I am dealing with at the moment is the Engineering Change Request (ECR) form which is currently in the form of a Microsoft Word template (fill form).   I would like to have the users fill in the form in Pegasus rather than making a word document then saving and attaching it.   Partly to streamline the process so everything gets done in Pegasus and pertly because as far as I know neither MS Office nor Open Office properly support using the default Windows mailer from their send button.   Also if I use mail stationary I can provide a title for the email which I wish to use for filtering and of course the distribution list thus cutting down on user errors.

Is anyone else doing this kind of thing and if so how are you going about it.

 So far I have tried cut and past the DOT file into Pegasus and just dragging the DOT file into the Pegasus Message tab of the mail window.   The latter seems to work better as the fill fields actually work as Click and Type fields rather that having to select the text and retype it.

 It does not appear to be possible to create a suitable fill form with the Pegasus mail table tool, fair enough that it perhaps rather beyond the remit of an email editor.

This is the Way we plan for the system to work. 

Any member of staff may initiate an ECR by opening a piece of mail stationary using the fill form to create the ECR, they send it to the documentation manager.   The documentation manager checks the ECR, then moves the ECR in EMAIL form into a public folder.   The Documentation manager also opens another piece of very basic email stationary to inform members of the ECR review group that there is an ECR waiting for their comments.   When members of the group next open Pegasus filtering rules are used to send a txt file confirming that the ECR has been displayed on their systems automatically.   Members of the review group use the Annotations field of the email ECR in the public folder to add their comments and if they object to the proposed change they also email the members of the group to say so.

Three days after the email ECR has been displayed in everyone's inbox the ECR is deemed approved if no objections are raised.   Once approved ECRs are moved to an approved folder where the directory permissions prevent any changes, the folder is public and all staff can view it.

 
The above replaces the previous system of printing copies of every ECR for each member of the group and having a monthly meeting to discuss them.



 

Normally this is done via a template.  I'm using the helpdesk template fo this right now and it's setting on my toolbar.  There are probably a number of others that do this as well. Drop me a line at techsupp@tstephenson.com And I'll provide you with the templates I have on hand.

I had a look at the templates I was sent, thanks to those who sent them.   They certainly created a formatted fill form for data entry but of course the email was basically just plain text.

 I think they will be very useful for the various notification emails but will not quite do the trick for the ECR form itself.

 I think I may well look at using Adobe Acrobat as Pegasus will display PDF files which are part of the message content, If pegasus is using Acrobat reader to display the form it should work quite well.   I hope to work on this during the week I will try to remember to let people know how it goes.

Regards

Chris
 

Just to update on my progress or lack of it...

The form we use for ECRs was originally created using Microsoft Word as a DOT file.   If we copy the content from Word it displays in Pegasus OK but Pegasus crashes when we try to send it.   If we copy the content from Open Office into Pegasus we can send the form and it is possible to enter data into it before sending but is tends to loose shape a bit on arrival, things like cells which were merged when sent being unmerged on arrival and some loss of the layout.

 I am wondering if there is any point in properly re creating the form in Writer or Calc to see if that works better.

The big problem I run into though is that if I protect the form I cannot select its contents to copy into Pegasus.

 At the moment I am not so keen on trying to use attachments as we would like to actually see the ECR on opening the email.

 I guess really this whole process should be done using a database and we are trying to use email to do something it was never designed for, it did just look like a really neat and simple way to do the job.
 

[quote user="chriscw"]At the moment I am not so keen on trying to use attachments as we would like to actually see the ECR on opening the email.[/quote]

In that case it has to be plain text or html.  A formatted document from word or any other application can't be sent except as an attachment - unless you first convert it to one of those two formats.