New or Changed Facilities in cattaDoc 3.0

Read a detailed description of the main changes in cattaDoc version 3.0.

Change document class

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In version 1 and 2 of cattaDoc a document was fixed to one class, i.e. either being an internal, incoming or outgoing document (the two remaining document classes, resource documents and contacts, are more special cases).

But documents are sent to a business partner who returns it with comments and changes which you then work on again. All made easy by e-mail and/or online collaboration. One version is outgoing, the next is incoming, then outgoing etc. It is all the same document.

These processes can now be captured and recorded in cattaDoc 3.0.

But please note that as a consequence the former event New version has been split into two:

• Create new version - for outgoing or internal documents. If used for an incoming document, the document class is changed to outgoing document.
• Receive new version - for incoming documents. If used for an outgoing document, the document class is changed to incoming document.

At the same time it is now possible to change an internal document to an outgoing document - and vice versa.

In version 2.2, documents could only be sent to contact persons designated as Addressees. In version 3.0, documents can also be sent to contact persons designated the new role, Sender & Addressee.

Person groups or filters

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Version 2.0 added a 2-pane interface to facilitate linking documents to program / project / sub-project as well as company to programs and vice versa. Version 2.2 enhanced this by enabling many-to-many relations between companies / contact persons on the one hand and documents on the other hand.

The lists only display active objects. This means that in most cases the lists displaying program/project/sub-project and companies are manageable in size.

This, however, is often not the case for contact persons. There are simply too many persons, making it difficult or time-consuming to scroll up and down to find one or a few persons. This is the reason for person groups or person filters.

When you select Link to person, the default list of all persons are displayed. But in cattaDoc 3.0 you can now apply a named filter only displaying a number of pre-defined persons. This makes it faster to link a number of persons to a particular document.

A person group or filter can contain any number of persons from any company. The person groups are created and maintained by a cattaDoc system manager via System -> Person groups (under User management). They are similar to distribution lists in e-mail systems.

It you maintain a multi-language site you can maintain a localised version of the person group or filter names in inc/incSwitchPersongroup.php.

Document publishing

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Version 3.0 adds a facility to publish a document version to a folder other than the cattaDoc document repository, e.g. publishing to a web server.

• Only versions of documents marked for publishing are published.
• The cattaDoc system administator can define, if documents are marked for default publishing or not (in system/cdStart3.inc.php.
• Published versions are saved without version indicator. A new version (with the same extension) will overwrite the former version.
• The cattaDoc system administator defines if the published version is saved with the original file name or with the cattaDoc-generated file name.

Contact person links to a private person

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In versions prior to cattaDoc 3.0, a contact person was always related to one company. Which make sense - at a given point in time. But people move around from one job to another, from one company to another company - and consultants like myself can even work for several companies at the same time.

So, from cattaDoc 3.0 it is possible to link a company contact person to a private person - a private person being an object with no company affiliation and defined as such.

Consequently, it is now possible to enter address details for persons and not only for companies, as was the case before version 3.0.

Technical changes

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Behind the surface a significant number of changes have occured in version 3.0 of cattaDoc:

1. The 5 document tables in the database have been combined into one new document table. This has enabled:
   • The improved and simplified search facilities. Please note, however, that there is a downside: Several searches will be take longer time than before because of socalled outer joins, i.e. search including tables with no corresponding rows.
   • The change document class events, e.g. changing an incoming document to an outgoing document to reflect a document creation process involving a number of companies or organisations

2. Similarly, the 3 separate tables for programs, projects and sub-projects have been combined into one prox table.

3. Two new class master data tables have been added:
   • docclass - for document classes
   • pclass - for "prox" classes, i.e. programs, projects, sub-projects, teams etc.

4. The 3 link tables have changed names and structure:
   • docrel --> docprorel
   • personrel --> docpersrel
   • company_p1 --> compprorel

5. Two tables have been added for person groups or filters:
   • The master data table persongroups
   • The link table ugrel

6. All boolean constants have changed values to 0 / 1. See system/cdStart3.inc.php and system/cdStart4.inc.php.
   However, the old values - e.g. "no" and "yes" - can still be used.

7. A new sub-folder has been introduced in the cattadoc folder: /sysinc. It contains all the system include files which have been removed from the /inc folder.
   The /inc folder now only contains the include files needed for language translations and hence maintainable by the local cattaDoc system administrator.

8. A facility for changing IDs have been added to the system administration menu. It covers companies and contact persons as well as programs / projects / sub-projects.
   Only to be used if absolutely needed!

Partly French translation

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Thanks to Fabien Boniver a French translation of cattaDoc has begun. The first results are included in cattaDoc 3.0.

Please note, however, that the French translation is still not complete.