Beta@Work - Beta 99 in the office

Paper forms not welcome
A public office is using Beta 99 for the administration and distribution of fines.
 
Forms and more forms
The work in the public office in question was dominated by paper forms, despite the extensive use of IT. Take fines for example: in each department, clerks were busy transferring the details to other forms, which were then filed with the administrative headquarters. The forms were completed manually and mountains of paper grew and grew. Each official had to file a duplicate for reference purposes, which was stapled and then archived.
The journey from the writing of the ticket to the notification of the fine was very long and winding and open to mistakes, not to mention the time that was lost. The whole process was cumbersome and unwieldy and proper tracking of the papers was virtually impossible. Queries by members of the public were frequently only answered with long delays as several different members of staff had to be contacted. The reason for all this was the insufficient integration of the PC workstations in a centralized workflow system.
 
Wish list
An ideal solution must provide the following:

• Editing of forms at PC workstations
• Clear layout of the individual forms
• User interface support for the editing (GUI)
• Automatic forwarding of the documents (workflow integration)
• Transparent processing steps
• Saving of original documents (revision backups)

The Beta solution
The authorities decided on Beta 99, as this system fulfills all requirements in a comprehensive and optimized system. Beta 99 is the ideal interface solution between the OS/390 host and the workstations of the responsible staff members. Thanks to state-of-the art technology including COM architecture, VB scripts and DHTML pages, Beta 99 provides a completely open solution that can be integrated into all existing systems. The output of Beta 99 can be further processed by any application.
The system uses Action Sheets, which can be produced and laid out according to the specific requirements of the customer's front-end operation. They are based on DHTML language and ensure that properly designed forms can be called up on the screen.
An Action Sheet basically works like an intelligent entry form. While the data is entered in a form that can be processed by the host, it is constantly checked as to its credibility. As soon as the fines are converted into electronic documents and saved, all further processing is done exclusively by means of Action Sheets, whereby the original file remains unchanged. Upon archiving, editing comments are attached to the original document as XML resources. Beta 99 saves all documents in a secure NTFS area, while a separate meta data record is written to an SQL database for each document. During the processing, the user actually views the original document, while the changes are made exclusively to the meta data record. Each modification is thereby identified with a time and editing stamp. The resulting Working Diary allows for the efficient tracking of the document, as it can at any time be established, where and when changes were made and by whom.
Due to the application of XML-based scripts, the forwarding and further processing of the documents (workflow) is automated to an extensive degree.
VIiDOC Information Integrator shows the way to a future without forms in quadruplicate, providing a real service to the public - surely a welcome vision, not only to paper-struck public officials.
 
Improved workflow thanks to Beta 99
 
The number of necessary steps in the entry and processing of fines is greatly reduced.

• The authorities are able to reduce their costs for paper and archive space.
• The fines are much more readily available in electronic format and can thus be processed more efficiently.
• User-friendly Action Sheets provide for simplified, safe and highly transparent editing.
• Continuous monitoring of the credibility of the entries considerably reduces the number of errors that could otherwise easily occur in the processing of fines.