Document Manager

A powerful weapon in the paper war!

ATLAS Document Manager enables the forest manager to readily view all relevant documents related to any forest entity in ATLAS GeoMaster .

These documents can be contracts, orthophotos, resource consents, file notes or any other document held as an electronic file somewhere on the organisation’s computer network. If some documents are not in electronic form it may be necessary to scan them, but once done they will never be lost in boxes or obscure folders again. Document Manager can be used to link these electronic documents to the relevant entity recorded in ATLAS GeoMaster e.g. a forest, stand, or event. Note that Document Manager does not store or manage the documents themselves; it only manages references to documents (e.g. the file path and name).

Linking

Document Manager can link documents in a wide range of formats eg text, images, or web addresses. When accessed from GeoMaster, the documents are opened within the appropriate application, in the same manner as Windows® Explorer. If logical groupings of documents are created, it makes finding the appropriate document later on much easier. These groupings don’t need to be related to the location of the files on the computer network.

The structure of GeoMaster entities is maintained within Document Manager so that it is possible to find all the documents related to a single entity or alternatively, to find all the entities related to a single document. For example, if a stand is selected in Document Manager not only its own list of documents, will be displayed but also those linked to the compartment and forest to which the stand belongs. Another example is listing all GeoMaster entities associated with a given document so that the content of the document can be updated.

Types

The system is ideal for completing routine tasks quickly and easily, such as finding aerial photographs associated with compartments or work plans associated with operations. However, because Document Manager can link to any electronic document its other strength is in keeping track of unusual non-routine documents. These can take hours to track down or even be overlooked in a traditional hard-copy filing system.

Another feature of Document Manager is the option of including meta-level information, such as a description, valid period, or a contact person associated with the document. This could be a valuable time-saver when the relevance of a document may be in question.

Maintaining

Over time it is not unusual for computer networks to change with consequent changes in folder structures. When this happens the file paths links in Document Manager may also need to be updated. This process can be undertaken quite efficiently because editing the file path of one document will cause Document Manager to provide the option of updating all the document links that had the same path. Also, where several entities refer to the same document, their document lists are all updated automatically. This makes the maintenance of the system relatively straightforward.

Document Manager integration with the ATLAS suite of Forest Management Tools:

Integration between ATLAS modules enables information from one application to be accessed or presented within another which greatly increases the power of each module, and the suite as a whole. Forest management decisions are generally related to specific forests, compartments, stands and other areas of land.

ATLAS GeoMaster is a key source of standard area-based information about the forest and the activities that take place within it. Document Manager enables any other type of information available in electronic form to be associated with the land areas and events defined in GeoMaster so that when managers are planning operations they can have all the necessary information in one place.

Use Document Manager to take care of managing links to documents; add in these other modules to efficiently and effectively undertake a wide range of tasks: