This documentation is designed to be read online, in one window, with the
software running on another window, ideally side by side. A PDF version is
available in the Support section of www.cogix.com.
The software is designed to be largely self-documenting. Each screen
includes instructions on its use and available options. This guide focuses on
explaining concepts and operational information in greater depth.
In this documentation, the term "questionnaire"
is used as shorthand for survey, poll, assessment, or form. From ViewsFlash's
point of view, these are all variations on the same theme of asking one or more
questions, tabulating the answers, and displaying results. Sometimes "poll" is
used for its brevity.
Concepts
The software deals with Places, Questionnaires, Styles and
Invite Lists. A place is where a user creates a series of questionnaires,
protected by Access Controls. For instance, a company might have HR, Marketing,
Sales, and Public places, where different users create surveys that run
independently of each other. All questionnaires in each place must share the
same Styles; a user who wants to create questionnaires with different styles
needs to use more than one Place.
The ViewsFlash application user interface
The HTML user interface is simple,
with a trail-crumb along the top and a menu bar down the side. To navigate,
use the links at the top of the page or on the side of the page. Actions are
performed by filling out the form fields on a page and pressing the Go, Submit
or other buttons. For example:
This page is used during questionnaire creation. This questionnaire is called
Service, and it is hosted in the Examples place. Clicking on Examples in the crumb trail
at the top of the page navigates to the Examples place. The links on the left-side
menu bar vary from page to page. The Help link opens up this documentation
at the corresponding page. The links with
and
open up
further options. In this case, the Setup option is open, showing seven pages
that are used to set up a questionnaire. The current page is highlighted in
orange. Pages also use links to illustrate the most common next steps, like
this:
Clicking on Next will go to the recommended next page.
Skills needed
There are three sets of
skills needed to use the ViewsFlash software. In a large organization, they
will usually be represented by the IT department, the Design and Production
department, and the users who construct and analyze questionnaires. In a small organization, they might
be one or two people. In this documentation, we personify these skills as the
Administrator, the Designer, and the User, respectively. Here are their respective
responsibilities and skills in more detail:
| Person |
Administrator |
Designer |
User |
| Responsible for |
Installation, configuration, web
server, directories, permissions, security, backups. Interoperation with
databases, JSP pages, and web services. |
Look and appearance of polls and
surveys; integration with content management system, if any |
The questions to ask, when to
ask them, what to do with the responses and results |
| Skills |
System administration, database
administration |
HTML, content management system knowledge |
Editorial, analytical |
| Effort required |
Moderate, one-time. |
Depends on degree of customization
desired; one-time |
Ongoing |
| Further reading |
System
administration, dealing with installation and setup, how to
set configuration parameters, and databases.
Production
is recommended.
|
Production,
dealing with the production cycle, creating Style Templates, how to embed
them in containing pages, how to interface with content management systems |
Creating
questionnaires, where the creation process is explained in this and
subsequent pages.
|
Everyone should read the Architecture
White Paper for information about System Architecture, Performance and Requirements.
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