Get Up To Speed with Interleave
Takeaway:
I recently wrote an article covering the installation of a very powerful Enterprise-ready process automation system called Interleave. This tool is exceptional for tracking and accountability. It's features go beyond the scope of many small company needs (but shouldn't keep smaller ventures from deploying it) so it can cover just about any company.
Getting the system up and running was no cake walk but it's do-able for just about anyone. Using the system can, at first, seem very daunting (due to the incredible amount of features), but it needn't be so. It's just a matter of making Interleave fit your needs.
With that in mind, let's get to work.
Entities and Customers
One of the first things to understand about Interleave is that most everything revolves around Entities. The nice thing about this system is that Interleave doesn't decide what an Entity is (or does) you do. So an entity can be an invoice, a process, a function, a meeting, a department, an employee, a request, help desk ticket, the sky is the limit here. That's why Interleave is so flexible.
To add an Entity you must first add Customers. Now a Customer should be thought of in a more flexible way than traditionally thought of. A Customer can be a client, customer, employee, agent, etc. Let's say we are going to add a department so we can keep track of certain processes within the department. We'll go with Graphic Arts and tracking art assigned to a story about Linux Kernel Development.
To add the new Customer click on the Customers tab new the top of the screen (see Figure A below.)
Figure A
If you are logged in as administrator you won't have to go to the administration page to add Customers and Entities.
Once in the Customers page (see Figure B below) you need to click the "Add a customer" link.
Once you are in the Add A Customer page (see Figures C and D below) you need to fill out the required data. Remember, in this case you are creating a customer for a specific department so you can "bend" the required fields to suit your needs (say use the Address section to list the office locations of each employee within that department). Remarks could be just about any type of information you might need to have (IP addresses, computer OS type, favorite candy bar...).
Figure C
You can check to see if a customer name is already used by entering the name in the Customer field and pressing the "check" link.
Near the bottom of this page is the really important information. Here you assign the customer an owner. Of course to assign an owner you will have to have entered the owner into the system (NOTE: Adding users was covered in the first article). The customer owner, in this case our customer being a department, could be the person that manages the department or the person that accepts the work the department generates for approval.
You will also want to check the "Read-only to other users" box if you want to ensure that only the owner of the department can edit the customer. Once you have finished entering the necessary data, click the Save To Database link to save the customer. Now that the customer is saved you will see the customer listed in the Customers page (see Figure E below.)
From the Customer listing, if you click on a particular Customer that Customers' information page will appear (see Figure F below.) From here you can do a number of nifty tricks.
There is a row of five icons in the upper right hand of the customer information. These icons are (from left to right see Figure F above):
- Graph Customer activity
- Show Customer journal
- Open Customer information in PDF file
- Use results for mail merge
- Print customer information
Now most of these features aren't useable until the customer has had activity in the system.
Now that we have a Customer, let's add an entity. Remember, this entity will relate to a story covering Linux Kernel Development. So click on the Customers tab and then click the "Add an entry" link associated with the Graphic Arts customer and the new Entity window will open (see Figure G below.)
Now one of the only drawbacks to this system is there is no way to create a global category database. So each category will have to be entered by hand and it will be up to the administrator to control the categories used.
One of the things you will notice is the default status is "Awaiting Closure". When creating an entity obviously the status should be changed to Open.
One nifty little feature that was added (and one that could be very helpful in tracking progress) is the "Insert date, time, and your name" icon above th e large text area. If you click that button it automatically inserts a line like:
[Sun Dec 16 2007 10:14:19 GMT-0500 (EST)] - Administrator jlwallen:
I would highly recommend every time you open this Entity up to make changes you add that line to the bottom of the information in the text box. This will help you track any changes made to the Entity.
When you want to add a due date, click the due date box and a calendar will appear (see Figure H below). Select your date and the calendar will disappear.
Once you have all the information filled out (and necessary files attached) click Save To Database to create the Entity. Now we have an issue. How can the graphics department see or use the Entity? Never fear there is a solution.
Users and Profiles
Within the Interleave system you can create Profiles to add groups to your system. Each Profile created can have a variety of permissions and associated available actions. Let's create a profile for the Graphic Arts department. To create a new profile go to the Administration page and click the Users & Profiles tab. Within this tab (see Figure I below) there is critical information to creating a profile that will keep the various users safe from doing any damage.
The first thing you will want to do is find the CID (Customer Identification Number) of the Graphics department (in my case it is 2). This number you will enter in the "Limit To Customer Numbers" field. This will then limit this profile to only the groups assigned. Another very important field is the Clearance Level. In the case of our Graphics department you would want to give them full access but only to the entities assigned to them. This will allow them to function within their department but now take any action on other departments.
Once you have all the necessary information click Apply Changes and your profile will be saved. Now when you add a new user, and they belong to the Graphics department, you will assign them this profile.
Forms
One of the very nice features of this tool is the ability to create your own forms. Forms allow you make just about any process simple. Need to have a form for your Graphics department to submit their graphics with? Simple: create a form for them to use. Forms do not have to be in the shape of "download-then-print-and-fill-out" type. They can be HTML forms complete with editable elements.
By default there are two Customer-usable forms installed "Joe's Own Helpdesk" and "Default". Let's create a very simple form for the Graphics department to use to upload files. To do this go to the Administration page and click on the Templates tab. Now click on New Template, give the template a name, and select HTLM Entity Form Template. Click Create. Now click on the All tab to see your new template listed. Click the Edit button to work on the template.
You will notice near the top of this page (see Figure J below) there is a compilation error. This is because no tags have been entered into the form. You have to add a minimum of #CUSTOMER# and @CUSTOMER@ tags for the form to work. Here's what we are going to enter:
@CUSTOMER@
#CUSTOMER#
#OWNER#
# ASSIGNEE #
# FILEBOX #
# SAVEBUTTON #
This will create a very simple form to allow the user to upload a file to the system. Once you have entered that data and entered a Subject, click the "Save template to database" button and the form will compile. Now this form is ready to use by those that are assigned the Graphics profile.
When a user from the Graphics department logs in they will have an Add tab at the top of their Dashboard. If they click that they will see all the available forms assigned to their profile (see Figure K below.)
You can get as detailed with the forms as you want. You can add text areas, check lists, drop downs, etc. These forms can easily become your Interleaves' bread and butter.
Extra Fields
Let's say the default entry fields for your entities or customers lacks some critical fields for your companies use. Not a problem. Go to the Extra Fields tab and select the New entity extra field tab. From here (see Figure L below) you can create a new field unique to either your company or to a customer.
The Type drop down contains 25 different types of entries you can use. Each time you select a different type the entry fields below the type change to suit the needs of that type. Poke around to see the different types you can add.
What the user sees
When a user assigned to our Graphics profile logs in, that user will see all assignments assigned to the Graphics Department profile (see Figure M below.)
As you can see user Haversham Happenstance can view the Entities assigned to the Graphics department. Haversham can click on an Entity, check out the attached files, work on the files, and check them back in. Haversham will also have permission to change the status, priority, owner, assignee, make notes, and send email out, regarding the Entity, to users in the profile.
Final Thoughts
As you can see Interleave is a system that could change your companies process from a jumbled mess of spreadsheets and emails into a well-oiled, trackable process machine. And we have just skimmed the surface of the power of this system. We have yet to dig into the report generation and other higher-level features.
So if you have a small company in need of tracking a single department or a large company needing to track multiple departments, Interleave is the way to go.
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