Action Announces An End to the E-Mail Crisis -- Debuts Easy-to-Use Personal Work Management Application for Lotus Notes; New Breed of Productivity Software Helps Companies Maximize Their Investment in Groupware/Messaging.ALAMEDA Alameda (ăləmē`də, –mā`də), city (1990 pop. 76,459), Alameda co., W central Calif., on an island just off the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay; settled 1850, inc. as a city 1884. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 1997--Action Technologies, Inc., a leader in workflow and business process automation software, today announced availability of ActionWorks OnTrack for Lotus Notes Messaging and groupware software from IBM Lotus that was introduced in 1989 for OS/2 and later expanded to Windows, Mac, Unix, NetWare, AS/400 and S/390. Notes provides e-mail, document sharing, workflow, group discussions and calendaring and scheduling. , a ready-to-run work management application designed to help individuals manage the flood of e-mail messages and dramatically improve personal and organizational productivity. ActionWorks OnTrack was unveiled last week at Lotusphere, Lotus, annual user conference. Built upon Action's patented, widely-acclaimed workflow engine Workflow engine is a software application meant to manage and execute modeled business processes. It is a key component in workflow technology. It will typically make use of a database server. , ActionWorks OnTrack is an extremely powerful work management tool for knowledge workers. ActionWorks OnTrack empowers individuals and enhances their productivity by automatically categorizing e-mail into a simple framework for managing work, coordinating projects and meeting commitments, all within their company's groupware Software that supports multiple users working on related tasks in local and remote networks. Also called "collaborative software," groupware is an evolving concept that is more than just multiuser software which allows access to the same data. or electronic messaging See e-mail and messaging system. system. The proliferation proliferation /pro·lif·er·a·tion/ (pro-lif?er-a´shun) the reproduction or multiplication of similar forms, especially of cells.prolif´erativeprolif´erous pro·lif·er·a·tion n. of computers, video, cellular, fax, e-mail, voice mail and the explosion of the Internet have combined to create an overwhelming glut glut pronounced as rut, slut Vox populi An excess of a service or skilled labor in a particular area. See Physician glut. of information and has literally resulted in a communication overload crisis. For today's professional knowledge workers, the communication overload crisis is hitting hardest in their groupware/messaging environment in the form of thousands of uncategorized e-mail messages. A report published by the management consulting Noun 1. management consulting - a service industry that provides advice to those in charge of running a business service industry - an industry that provides services rather than tangible objects firm Ernst & Young shows that since 1987, more than 26 million electronic mail addresses (messaging) electronic mail address - (Usually "e-mail address") The string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message. E.g. "john@doc.acme.ac.uk". The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet. X. have been created, leading to billions upon billions of email messages. ActionWorks OnTrack addresses the current deficiency of groupware/messaging platforms and provides a complete environment for managing information and work. ActionWorks OnTrack seamlessly integrates with Lotus Notes Mail to provide a cohesive system for categorizing e-mail, managing work, coordinating projects and meeting commitments. "A guiding principle in our design of ActionWorks OnTrack was the recognition that better organizations manage work by forming and meeting commitments," said Terry McGowan, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Action. "The faster they fulfill their commitments, the more successful they will be. ActionWorks OnTrack revolutionizes the traditional workflow model by delivering on the promise of what workflow should be -- a tool to help `me.' We firmly believe the capabilities implemented within OnTrack form an essential component of every knowledge worker's tool kit." With ActionWorks OnTrack, individuals are able to accomplish more work in less time by effectively presenting and managing requests, questions and projects in one location, all using their favorite Notes options such as views, folders and agents. When using Lotus Notes Mail, users simply select an OnTrack message option and initiate and track the status of work-related requests, ask questions, coordinate meetings and create and manage projects. ActionWorks OnTrack automatically separates real work from FYI "For your information." See digispeak. FYI - For Your Information information and displays the messages in various views, depending upon the individual's personal work style. "ActionWorks OnTrack is one of the first work management products that fits into the third wave of the workflow market evolution -- the `me-centric' wave," said Connie Moore, vice president for GIGA Information Group. "Action has provided tantalizing tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. insights on ways to manage and complete work by combining the power of electronic mail, calendaring, groupware, Intranets and workflow engines at the desktop." "Although it has become a ubiquitous information delivery tool, e-mail alone is not an effective work or project management medium," said David Yockelson, vice president at META Group. "ActionWorks OnTrack delivers an intuitive means of presenting and managing requests, questions, and projects while leveraging existing messaging infrastructures." About ActionWorks OnTrack Intelligent Inbox ActionWorks OnTrack turns the standard Notes Mail Inbox into an intelligent inbox by automatically categorizing incoming messages as either "information" or "work." Work-related messages are also threaded so that individuals can quickly and accurately assess the status of the work and determine next steps. Work Views The agenda work view shows individuals the commitments they have made to others and others have made to them. Because each commitment has an associated deadline, the agenda is automatically updated whenever commitments are made, revoked or completed. This real-time status tracking and display of each day's commitments allows users to better manage their work day. Future releases of ActionWorks OnTrack will let users manage their commitments even more effectively by leveraging the calendar and scheduling functionality found in Lotus Notes 4.5. "Best Practices" Project Management ActionWorks OnTrack's user-defined project templates automated recurring processes and let individuals leverage their work by building, improving and reusing their "Best Practices" knowledge. Project templates are easy to create and modify, and contain the recurrent set of objectives, tasks, roles and deadlines for any given project. Integrated with ActionWorks Metro Web Environment ActionWorks OnTrack is enhanced by its ability to accommodate work-related messages generated from enterprise process management applications. WorkLinks, a feature of ActionWorks MetroAction's Web-based workflow application A workflow application is where various applications, components and people must be involved in the processing of data to complete an instance of a process. For example, consider a purchase order that moves through various departments for authorization and eventual purchase. environment, can be used to push structured work to the OnTrack Inbox. Using WorkLinks, a message is generated by the process management application and it automatically appears in the Inbox. The message contains a summary of relevant information and a URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. that navigates the individual to the web-based Metro form where a decision is made and action is taken. A single "click" transports the individual from the OnTrack Inbox to a web-based application See Web application. . Once the work has been submitted for processing, the individual is returned back to the OnTrack Inbox. WorkLinks lets individuals share their knowledge work across functions, groups and organizational boundaries. As an example, a company's chief financial officer may be working on a daily basis within the Notes/OnTrack Inbox and occasionally receive a request for a hiring approval via his organization's human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. application. Worklinks addresses the urgency of the approval and provides the CFO See Chief Financial Officer. with the information needed to process the request promptly. The benefit to the CFO is that ActionWorks OnTrack is the single place to manage personal, team and organizational work. ActionWorks Assistants The next release of OnTrack will feature Assistants which serve as "electronic secretaries" and help individuals assess the status of all their work at a glance. Empowered as if they were a real executive secretary, these Assistants help individuals deal with issues like inability to meet a commitment or dealing with commitments on a mass scale and forewarn fore·warn tr.v. fore·warned, fore·warn·ing, fore·warns To warn in advance. forewarn Verb to warn beforehand Verb 1. them of potential bottlenecks or breakdowns in their work processing. Assistants provide individuals with alerts that their commitments are in jeopardy and then proactively helps them manage the potential impact on other commitments or projects. Pricing and Availability ActionWorks OnTrack for Lotus Notes, supporting Lotus Notes 4.1 and 4.5, is available today with an ActionWorks OnTrack Starter Kit for 100 users list priced at $149/user. Volume discounts and site licenses available. About Action Technologies, Inc. Founded in 1983, Action Technologies Inc. is the premier provider of Internet/Intranet and client/server-based workflow and business process automation software. Action offers a suite of software products including: ready-to-run work management applications; and business process design and workflow automation See workflow. tools used for the rapid design, development and deployment of work management applications for knowledge workers across the extended enterprise. Headquartered in Alameda, Action sells its products worldwide through a direct sales force as well as through systems integrators, VARs and distributors. Additional information and product demonstrations are available on Actions Technologies' web site at http://www.actiontech.com . -0- Note To Editors: Action Technologies, Inc., ActionWorks, ActionWorks OnTrack, ActionWorks Metro and WorkLinks are trademarks of Action Technologies, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective holders. Screen shot available at http://www.actiontech.com/market/press.htm . CONTACT: Action Technologies, Inc. Sumi SUMI Software Usability Measurement Inventory (measures software quality from the user's point of view) Shohara, 510/748-1045 sumi_shohara@actiontech.com |
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