Developing software applications that solve real-world problems requires getting to know your market space. For software companies this typically involves aggregating data from a number of sources including customers, support personnel, enhancement requests, sales staff, and post-mortems from consulting engagements. While there is no doubt that normal requirements gathering techniques help, there is no better way to understand your customers’ needs than to “walk a mile in their shoes.” When working with companies in the AEC industry, getting a firsthand glimpse into how your software is being used can be an eye-opening and memorable experience.

Recently Robie Lewis and I had the opportunity to tag along with the lead Quality Examiner at an oil sands refinery construction site near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta (Canada). At this facility, enormous reactors and miles of piping are used to process oil sands rich with bitumen into a wide range of synthetic crude oils. The construction project is part of an overall plant expansion designed to double the capacity of the facility. Luckily for us, our visit was on a sunny, warm day in July. I understand that this area of Canada can see temperatures as low as -40 degrees during the winter – BURRR!

In visiting the site, we were warned ahead of time that certified steel-toe boots were required, along with various other safety gear. Before being permitted on to the job site, a safety orientation program/test was administered which is mandatory for all visitors to the facility. The safety orientation program depicted the various dangers we would encounter. The reality of man vs BIG machine was very intimidating. Imagine staring straight up from the base of a 150 ft tall reactor which resembled one of NASA’s solid rocket boosters while a crane not 15 feet away is hoisting a 20-ton structure in the air.

Spending time with the Quality Examiners on the job site wearing their steel-toe boots, hard hats, safety goggles, and a fluorescent safety vest brought to life how they perform their inspection roles while interacting with a document control process. Taking the time to understanding the people, the process, and the environment is important when implementing valuable solutions. I know the information gathered from this experience will improve the overall solution for this customer and will undoubtedly influence future Document Locator implementations.

Photo: Robie and I suiting up for our tour of the construction site.

When Document Locator v5.2 is made available, some new bells and whistles are included that existing and prospective customers have requested. I could certainly go into endless detail about the various product enhancements that have been added or mention the notably increased performance made against our internal benchmarks, but not today. Rather I felt like commenting on how PDFs – now officially accepted as an ISO 32000 standard – are increasingly being utilized for electronic markup, digital signature and digital turnover in the AEC Industry (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction).

The allure of the “paperless office” has been marketed to most every industry since the early days of digital imaging – aka the early 80’s for those of us not old enough to remember. There is certainly a minority of companies and industries that have been successful digitizing their paper-intensive operations. However, the majority of business operations fail to become paperless when their operational documents require a human signature or any form of manual markup process. The release of MS Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat 8.0, both of which include a secure digital signature technology, present mainstream platforms that eliminates the historical road blocks to running a paperless operation.

Imagine having a digital workflow for your organization that automatically creates electronic documents, routes them in a workflow process, includes digitally stamping and signing documents, and provides for easy search and retrieval along with bulk distribution. That electronic world has become a reality at several Document Locator shops. With the addition of the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat add-ins to Document Locator v5.2 (part of the base product offering for those existing customers who are dying to know), customers will be able to easily check-out documents and apply comments, digital signatures, stamps and more to PDF documents directly from inside of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 (and Reader) or newer.

Thus far the feedback from the beta customers using the Adobe Acrobat integration has been terrific. The add-in functions in a similar manner to the existing product add-ins presently found in the majority of the MS Office applications, Brava! Desktop, and AutoCAD. With the technology to easily store, route, search, and now digitally sign documents, Document Locator will continue to improve business efficiency while reducing paper waste and storage. Enjoy.

The countdown is on, and it’s been all hands on deck here at ColumbiaSoft as we approach a pending version release for Document Locator. For trivia masters, this will technically be our ninth major release of the software (although it will be labeled as version 5.2). And as with all significant releases that came before it, this one will add some valuable new capabilities to the system – particularly in the areas of email compliance and also with document delivery.

Look for a sneak peak at some of what Document Locator version 5.2 will have to offer right here in our document management blog in the coming weeks. Our product manager, Scott Zieg will also join in and give some inside, pre-launch details.