Why use OrgDesigner? When can You use OrgDesigner? More Information...
OrgDesigner is a software-tool you can use to design, maintain and publish models of your organization. Keywords are Communication, Reuse of data and Efficiency.
| Design | Designing and realizing models of organizations is a complex process. Most important is good communication in the design-team. This can be supported by clear diagrams at various levels of detail. Examples: Organization Diagram, Activity Diagram, Matrix. You can use standard DrawingTechniques (ISO, IDEF, QPL) or define your own. For quality, there is an analyze-function to check consistency. |
| Maintain | Complex models are normally hard to maintain. Where did I
use the document 'Special invoice'? You will have this problem if you use
a simple text-editor and drawing program. In OrgDesigner, you can create
relations between objects, which makes the answer to the question very simple.
No duplication of data is needed, so if you change the name of a
Department, all the Diagrams on which this department appears are also changed!
And of course, various functions are available to find what you are looking
for. Examples: TreeView, ListView,
PropertyView. If you published data with OrgDesigner, you can do an automated update. No more 'out-of-date' procedures! |
| Publish | To support communication, OrgDesigner makes the data available for publishing in a format you need. Currently you can export data to HTML, XML, ODBC and ASCII, or use the clipboard. Examples: Generated HTML (demo), Generated XML (demo; XML-enabled browser required like I.E.). You can also use the HTML-Editor for documents in 'free format' (Example). And there is the SiteView for an Explorer-like view of your documents. |
See the overview for the relations between diagrams, the OrgDesigenr screenshot or the Fact Sheet for a summary of facts.
See also OrgDesigner Compared!
| 1. | To save Money. | |
| If you use OrgDesigner, you will be able to save efforts in the following areas: | ||
| a. | Better communication. This can happen in the design-teams as well as in the training or production-environment, where you want your employees learn or use certain procedures. | |
| b. | Reuse. You only have to enter data once (e.g. in the design-phase). After that, you can use it for training and production purposes (e.g. manuals). Or use it (after a number of years) for redesign. | |
| c. | Efficiency. Because of the flexible template-based publishing functions, you can make direct use the data that is available. And very important for the maintenance: the publish-function can also perform an update that preserves your modifications! | |
| 2. | To do things better. | |
| a. | With OrgDesigner you can eliminate some boring tasks like entering the same data again or creating a drawing in an other format. Remember: with every duplication of data, the final quality decreases! | |
| b. | In OrgDesigner you can create a lot of different relations between objects. These relations can help you to store a lot of information of your business, but it can also help you to retrieve the information easily (preventing duplicate entry of data). | |
| 3. | To do things you didn't do before. | |
| a. | OrgDesigner can be used to produce output for many purposes, using the same data. That makes it worthwhile to complete the model you created and keep it up-to-date. This enables you to handle more complex processes than before! | |
You can use OrgDesigner when you want to produce results described below, or when you need support for your way of working.
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Results |
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1. |
The contents of a website in which you show your customers how your company is organized. Diagrams are present for the organization hierarchy, and the main processes. With an Internet browser, your customers can find their way in the information you provide them. With a simple mouseclick. |
| 2. | A document that is the base for an ISO-certificate. Currently, all the data you enter can be used in the HTML-editor to create HTML-documents (which can be published, printed or imported in a wordprocessor). After modifications of your processes in OrgDesigner, you can do an update automatically! |
| 3. |
A quick and clear diagram. You can use it in any way you want, because is it available in standard formats (.emf, .gif). Via the clipboard or file. |
| 4. | Based on data you already have stored (in files or a database), you can generate standard diagrams very fast using the New Diagram Wizard. Or automatically via OLE-Automation. |
| 5. | The online user-documentation for your information systems. In OrgDesigner you can relate functions of your system to activities in procedures. Depending on your system, you can even startup functions of your system from an Internet-browser. This is particularly useful for new users or in training situations. Such an interface exists for SAP R/3 and Oracle Forms. |
| 6. | From one source, you can produce a range of diagrams, since each object can appear on many diagrams in many forms. For customers you can create a formal organization diagram (with initials and titles), while you want a diagram with the same structure for internal purposes with persons firstname. |
| Ways of Working: use OrgDesigner... | |
| 1. | From scratch: You want a tool to create a fast first drawing of a process you are modeling. |
| No problem! You don't have to be complete: leave things out if you want to. Make alternatives (use the wizards). Detail complex activities. | |
| OrgDesigner support: if you enter data in a diagram, it is stored in the dictionary, and it can be used for other diagrams. If you think of a better name for an activity, it is instantly changed on all the diagrams. You can make a hierarchical decomposition of activities (or relate them afterwards). | |
| 2. | Analysis: You want to know the impact of a major change. |
| If you made a model of the situation with OrgDesigner, you have several ways to have a closer look at your objects of interest: in the TreeView, you can see on which diagrams these objects appear, and all the other available relations (such as 'is part of', 'is executed by'). In the DiagramEditor, you can get a graphical impression. And in the PropertyView, you can have an object-centered view (with the possibility to browse to related objects). | |
| Example: you never knew what the department 'Customer support' was doing, and had some plans for it. Then you saw the situation described in OrgDesigner. All the activities were clearly listed, and so was the interaction with the environment (customers, sales). Now you probably can make a better plan what to do. | |
| 3. | Organization diagram: you are only interested in organization diagrams. |
| No problem! You don't have to share data with others. You can make many diagrams of the same organization (for internal / external use, for projects, etc.). There is no need for relations with the processes in your organization. If you already have organization-data, you can import it and use the wizards to generate diagrams very fast. | |
| This can be opportunity for improvement: the structure of an organization is always related to its processes and activities. A change on one side always has a consequence on the other side. | |
| 4. |
Top-Down: You want to describe a situation by stepwise refinement |
| No problem! OrgDesigner supports hierarchies for organization units and activities. The possibility of creating more than one diagram for an activity or organization unit allows you to describe alternatives. You can also use this to describe different aspects: step 1 is to get consensus about how to organize a process (use an activity diagram with only activity names), step 2 is to allocate organization units or positions to the activities (use the activity diagram with role involvement names). | |
| But there are more ways. If you have a high-level activity-diagram, you can make a detail-diagram of each activity on the diagram. OrgDesigner automatically maintains the hierarchy. Just select the activity on the diagram and choose 'New Diagram' from the menu. | |
| 5. | Bottom-up: First you want to enter data of 'elementary' objects, and afterwards assemble them as a new object on a higher level. |
| No problem! E.g. If you have entered a number of activities, you can create the 'is part of' relation to a top-activity by dragging the activity from the TreeView to an activity diagram of the top-activity! The number of levels is not limited. The same is true for organization units. | |
| 6. | Input-Output: After designing an activity as a 'black box' (only describing what products go in and out), you want to make another step. |
| For this step you have two possibilities: 1. define where all the outputs are going to, and where the inputs are coming from (other activities), or 2. make a decomposition of the black box and define how the activity internally works. | |
| Do step 1 if you want to make one level more complete. Do step 2 if you want to get into more details (see top-down). | |
| 7. | Role-based: First you identify all roles in Activities of the Organization Units or Positions. Then you start analyzing and connecting the Activities (match the output of Activity1 to inputs of other Activities. |
| A Matrix can be very helpful for this process. | |
More details on this subject can be found in the on-line help of the Demo.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating! Download the pudding and start eating! In the on-line Help of OrgDesigner you can find a lot information about OrgDesigner.
If you have any questions, remarks or suggestions about the pudding, don't hesitate and mail us!