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What does this mean to you ?
How about this, you don't have to draw any more production batch flowcharts.
What takes the average Programmer about an hour to do manually, QuickFlow can do in less than 4 seconds.
But you don't have to wait around for the flowchart to be drawn. ALL of the batch jobstream information is extracted from CA-7 and ALL of the flowcharts are produced in one single run, usually overnight.
If your company has 10,000 unique jobstreams, then you get 10,000 unique flowcharts. ALL of them drawn and available for viewing from within any desktop web browser that has access to your company's Intranet.
This means every Programmer, Operations, or Production Support person can get any batch jobstream flowchart within seconds from the moment they start their web browser.
The Frequently Asked Questions section at the bottom of this page will provide most the information you're likely to want to know about the QuickFlow product.
Take the QuickFlow Test Drive and see for yourself what your flowcharts would look like.
The diagram below illustrates the basic process of how the flowcharts are produced and viewed.
| Q: | So, let's get this straight, QuickFlow extracts the data from the Scheduling Database and draws all the flowcharts in one shot ? |
| A: | Yes. |
| Q: | Then the flowcharts are transferred to my company's intranet where people can view them through their web browsers and download them to their desktop in order to make changes ? |
| A: | Yes. |
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| Q: | How are the flowcharts viewed through the web browser ? |
| A: | Using the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader and through Visio if you have the product installed on your workstation |
| .Q: | Why use the Adobe Acrobat Reader ? |
| A: | It's a cross-platform file format which allows for fast downloading and most importantly for flowcharting, a zoom feature which allows you to view a flowchart from "the big picture" down to the individual jobs. |
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| Q: | The QuickFlow product makes mention of the CA-7 Scheduling Database product from Computer Associates. Are any other Scheduling products like IBM's OPC or ESP by Cybermation capable of being used by QuickFlow. |
| A: | At the present time only the extract procedures for CA-7 have been developed, but other scheduling product interfaces are in the works. If your company has a particular scheduling product ThinkQuick Software can concentrate on the solution your company needs. |
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| Q: | The output of the QuickFlow process is the Adobe .PDF file for web viewing and the flowchart itself in Visio .VSD format. Are any other flowcharting product formats supported, such as ABC Flowcharter, Snapgraphics or Freelance Graphics ? |
| A: | No, only Visio is supported as an output format. Visio was chosen because of it's market leadership, its widespread popularity as a graphics program and the superior way in which graphical objects can be manipulated using the Visual Basic programming language. |
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| Q: | Does this mean I have to buy Visio in order to use QuickFlow ? |
| A: | Yes....and No. QuickFlow comes with one copy of Visio which handles the process of drawing the flowcharts for storage on your company intranet web server. Employees can view the flowcharts in .PDF format using the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader; Visio is not needed for viewing the flowcharts in PDF format. Any further modification of the flowcharts requires the use of the Visio product. The number of additional copies needed is strictly up to your company and will most likely be dependent upon the number of employees who are expected to modify flowcharts. |
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| Q: | How are flowcharts kept up to date ? |
| A: | The QuickFlow process should be run on a regular basis; (daily, weekly, monthly; your choice) in which all the scheduling data is extracted from the Scheduling Database. |
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| Q: | How big are the Adobe .PDF and Visio .VSD files which are generated by the QuickFlow process ? |
| A: | On average, 10K for the Adobe .PDF file and 30K for the Visio file. Past implementations have shown that 15,000 flowcharts take about 500 meg. |
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| Q: | How long does it take QuickFlow to generate each flowchart ? |
| A: | Generally it takes about 2 to 4 seconds per flowchart to generate both the .VSD and .PDF files. This varies depending upon the complexity of the flowchart. Remember that you aren't waiting around for the flowcharts to be drawn. Modified jobstreams are updated overnight via a batch process. You access the flowcharts which are already drawn and are stored on the web server. |
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| Q: | How long does it take for a flowchart to display in my browser. |
| A: | About 1-2 seconds. |
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| Q: | How big a flowchart can QuickFlow handle ? |
| A: | Jobstreams containing hundreds of jobs have been flowcharted. Essentially, if you can get the mainframe scheduling system to run it, QuickFlow can draw it. |
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| Q: | Can the flowcharts be printed. |
| A: | Yes. |
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