PCD Awards 2004
SUBMISSION

Category:  Extraordinary PCD Tools 

Deployment State:  In-Production

Product:  ActiveGuide®

 

Extraordinary PCD Tools are technologies (tools, products, protocol) that were not previously available commercially or otherwise.  Innovative PCD Tools and Techniques are things that facilitate embedding support into other software, act as agents to deliver decision support at the time of need, integrate disparate end-user software, help anticipate and resolve performance challenges, use general inference techniques to eliminate complexity, reduce the need for conventional IT support, replace more conventional means of support, and the like.  These can be new components of existing PCD Tools and Techniques if they are sufficiently unique.

Excellent examples of Extraordinary Performance Centered Design Tools are those that facilitate creating and integrating performance support environments, such as alternate interfaces, merging disparate systems (via interface integration, middleware, agents, and the like); capturing and disseminating business processes and best practices; improving business processes; embedding “wizards” and other productivity enhancers into existing systems; providing decision support and workflow support; providing resources to quickly troubleshoot problems, answer customer questions, and the like.  Any tool that clearly stands head-and-shoulders above the rest in its category - or that defines a unique category -  for enhancing the creation of EPSS / Performance-Centered Solutions is a candidate for an Extraordinary PCD Tool.  Hardware and hardware devices that fit this description are also candidates.

Entry Title ActiveGuide® :Real time workflow and process support
Submitted by: Rocket Software, Inc.
Contact Name: Ray Walsh
Phone: 617-614-2161
E-mail: Ray.Walsh@RocketSoftware.com
Address: 275 Grove St, Suite 1-300
Newton MA 02466
Logo:
Corporate logo Product logo
                                      

 
Classification:

Please classify your entry:

 

Specialty performance support tool that address one or more elements of the PCD lifecyle:

Process/workflow modeling and/or simulation

User experience, interface development/generation, usability

Content, information, knowledge engineering

Real-time assembly of performance objects

Other specialty tools that address PCD lifecycle element(s) (describe)

Other (describe):
               Supports and integrates with real-time workflow
               Adapts in real-time to different paths to process completion
Product / Component Name & Brief Description: ActiveGuide creates real time adaptive performance support within any workflow that is reliant on browser-accessed enterprise applications (CRM, etc.). It empowers process experts (without programming skills) to create contextalized support that dynamically mediates between live users and live applications to guide even untrained users to successful process completion.
Vendor: As above.
Operating Environment
  1. The ActiveGuide studio runs on MS Windows PCs (Win95+).
  2. The small ActiveGuide output file is deployed to the application/web server.
  3. The deployed file runs in 99%+ browsers on Windows, Mac and Linux OS
  4. The deployed file requires no player, plug-in or download by the user. (Note: optional audio wav files stream.)

 

 
Product/Component Detailed Description: The ActiveGuide studio provides tools that enable non-technical content and process experts to quickly create sophisticated performance support (or even completely change the user's view of and experience with the application interface). This is created directly against the live application pages opened within the studio with no need to touch the application itself. In one click the author deploys the content from a single authoring session in one of three ways: 
  • As serial content that takes the user from beginning to end through a process. 
  • As onDemand support that offers rôle-, process- or task-based support in a secondary window. The support offered continually adapts to remain relevant as the user's changing process stage. 
  • As action- or point-specific support that supports single steps in a process.

Authors take themselves through the business process within the application as viewed within the studio's browser and define where and what type of support they want to provide. Then, using click-and-point against the live application page, they create the "Actions" (all reusable and sharable) that will comprise their support and ActiveGuide translates them into code. The actions include: 

  • Presenting text and graphic messages to the user. 
  • Presenting audio and animation to the user. 
  • Drawing the user's attention to page elements with Highlights and animation. 
  • Launching new pages, video or other applications. 
  • Managing the clickable objects and links on the page to: 
    • Neutralize user clicks.
    • Respond to user clicks. 
    • Re-purpose user clicks (i.e. perform new actions, etc.). 
  • Filtering user input and interactions with the application (consistency testing, masking, etc.). 
  • Discovering, capturing and responding to prior user choices in the application. 
  • Presenting users on/off options for such things as: 
    • Audio.
    • Experience-specific support levels. 
    • Display of related business rules. 
    • Do It For Me.

The content can be launched internally (e.g. from a point within an application page) or externally (e.g. from a support page/directory prior to user login) or both, all created in the same authoring session. Unique features and benefits: 

  • Rapid WYSIWYG authoring. 
  • Instant write-test-revise cycling. 
  • Presents support in the application as the user sees it now (even if application appearance has changed since authoring) rather than as the author saw it. 
  • Directly mediates between the user and the live application like a live co-browser. 
  • User resource required: a browser (no player, plug-in or download needed). 
  • Server resources required: a single directory in which to store the content file. 
  • Extremely low server demand. 
  • Unlimited simultaneous users.
Product use: The tool is designed to improve the performance of those completing process through the use of enterprise and other applications (such as CRM, ERP, legacy applications, etc.) that are accessed through an HTML GUI. 

The authors are specialist in workflow, process or content and are responsible for improving application adoption, user performance and/or providing user training. The authors, with no IT technical experience, can create adaptive rôle-based, process-based and task-based performance support. The user of the authored content is any application user. 

The tool has just been released (May 2004) and as of the date of this submission does not have a large experienced user base, however: 

Those who are using it or evaluating it presently are either: 

  • Delivering their own enterprise applications and seeking to accelerate sales and adoption rates by offering ActiveGuide's performance support product with their standard and customized installations. 
  • Delivering their own eLearning or Performance Support software and are seeking to extend their products with the ActiveGuide tool set. 
  • Delivering services to the enterprise application performance support after-market as value-added resellers and/or consultants. Their present uses have largely focused on making those applications easier to use by developing rôle-specific and task-specific performance support to: 
    • Obviate the need for offline training and re-training. 
    • Supplement offline training to lessen the loss of knowledge when users transfer from offline training to real life processes. 
    • To make the applications easier to user on a day-to-day basis and thereby improve business efficiency.
Deliverables provided and samples: The author (with no IT expertise) deploys the content as a standard JavaScript file that will run in any browser on any OS. From the same authoring session this can be deployed as: 
  • Serial content that takes the user from beginning to end through a process. 
  • OnDemand support that offers rôle-, process-, task- and action-specific support in a secondary window (that monitors the application window and continually adapts to remain relevant as the user's current process stage). 
  • Point-specific support that addresses single tasks and/or sub-processes. 

The support can be launched in a number of ways (these options all apply to Serial, OnDemand and Point-Specific output formats alike): 

  • Externally: from a support page prior to login. 
  • Concomitantly: simultaneous with the launch of the application or any part of it. 
  • Internally: from links within the application (this option requires links be inserted in application pages).

Examples:

All of these examples are applied against a simple demonstration application. The examples are found here where they are more fully explained.  They include examples of: 

  • Serial support designed for a first time user of a process who needs to complete the live process while learning it.
  • OnDemand support designed to provide support as and when needed. 
  • Creating an alternative GUI for a live application that mediates between the user and the underlying application.
What difference does this tool make? 1. Contextualized
ActiveGuide works with it own "map" of the underlying application page structure and source code (which "map" it automatically creates) to enable the support it renders to be context-specific.

2.Mediates within the Workflow
Most performance support developed by other tools is passive and is either adjacent to the process (such as text, graphics and video) or remote from the process (such as simulations). ActiveGuide delivers support within the process and the workflow where it actively mediates between the user and the business process application. 

3.Adaptive to Users
ActiveGuide creates content that can adapt to user differences.
a. A single authoring session can deploy content that is suitable for beginners and for more experienced users (at the author's or user's option).
b. ActiveGuide does not require a single path to process completion. It can respond to any user-selected path (or force them down a single path).

4. Adaptive to Application changes
Text and simulation based support presents the user with a view of the application as the author saw it when the support was created.  ActiveGuide works with the application as the user sees it now, adapting to changes in its layout.

5.Frictionless
ActiveGuide output runs equally well on everything from intranets to dial-up connections on virtually any browser running on any OS without a player or plug-in and it has very low server demands even with a full user load.

6. Reusable
Every element of the performance support created within ActiveGuide is reusable and shareable. Every file is adaptable to a new domain via simple search and replace.

7.Extendable
ActiveGuide is extendable beyond the existing tools by authors who have familiarity with JavaScript. The possibilities include:

  • Insertion of custom JavaScript as actions within the authoring session (using the Multi-tool).
  • Calling of existing JavaScript functions on application pages from within the ActiveGuide performance support.
  • The calling of other programs from within the ActiveGuide performance support. 
  • The exchange of data with other applications or databases.
 
What else makes this tool extraordinary? ActiveGuide requires no changes or additions be made to the application pages. (If you chose to launch from a page link this does require the insertion of a link to execute the launch and a JavaScript statement in the page with the link. Total of about 250 characters.)

ActiveGuide can adapt to substantial changes in the application interface layout without the need for re-authoring. It does this by analyzing the underlying application page structure at authoring time and applying its fuzzy matching algorithm at runtime.

The extensive range of tools and functionality provided by ActiveGuide makes it possible to create a whole new (and easier to use) GUI layer for browser-accessed applications.

The deployed content makes only trivial demands on the server even while supporting an unlimited number of users.

Even though ActiveGuide delivers far more comprehensive and interactive workflow performance support than other tools it also reduces the time required to create it.

ActiveGuide works with application pages after they arrive in the browser. It doesn't matter how the pages are generated (JSP, ASP, etc.) or even if their content is dynamically created.

ActiveGuide does not require a single workflow path. It can respond to user-selected paths because it does not need to render support serially.

ActiveGuide output is Section 508 compliant.

Low cost of ownership. The combination of a low product price, efficient authoring and reusable performance objects results in a very low cost of ownership.