DoView
version 2.0 Technical Information for Corporate IT Departments
Introduction
This information sheet is
to answer questions Corporate IT departments may have in regard to the use of
DoView across a corporate site. Corporate site licenses are available for
DoView and pricing is listed on the DoView buy page
(http://www.doview.com/buy.html).
Why
should Corporate IT provide DoView when staff already have generic drawing
programs available?
DoView helps users draw
outcomes models. These are also known as logic models, program logics, program
theories, ends-means diagrams and strategy maps. They are used in strategic
planning, monitoring, evaluation, evidence-based practice and related fields.
They visualize a hierarchical model of all of the steps needed to achieve higher-level
outcomes within a program, organization or sector. DoView is being used
worldwide in private, academic, not-for-profit and government settings.
In building and using
these models DoView meets a set of user needs not met by generic drawing
software, these are:
1. It helps the user
build a ‘model’ rather than just make a ‘drawing’. This means that essential
features of a model that are often left out of drawings (e.g. line and arrow
links between boxes being left out because of space limitations) can be
included within the DoView model. In contrast to generic drawing software,
DoView lets the user insert underlying links in the model and then provides
options for how they are visualized. For instance, if the links exist they can all be automatically 'turned' on for a particular step (box) in the model without having to redrawn them all.
2. DoView encourages
users to develop models broken up into modules (compact 1 x 1 pages)
and supports quick hyperlink drill-down navigation between them (page-jumps). These compact diagrams are of a size
optimized for dataprojecting, viewing as HTML within a browser, viewing as a
PDF, and for printing out on letter/A4 paper. This ensures portability across
different media. Such modularity also has the advantage of increasing
efficiency by encouraging sharing and reuse of similar modules from different
models. Generic drawing software does not tend to support the rapid real-time development of modular models.
3. DoView has been
optimized for building and working with dataprojected outcomes models in
real-time in meetings (when compact models are being used it is optimized for 1024 x 768 resolution used on most dataprojectors). This increases meeting productivity and reduces workload
by eliminating the need to draw a model first by hand and then taking it away
from the meeting for a staff member to spend hours trying to emulate it in
generic drawing software. It also means that stakeholders in meetings are more
likely to ‘own’ the model they have built. Normal drawing software is not optimized for working like this.
4. DoView limits the
formatting options available to the user for three reasons. Firstly to ensure
that they do not create any models which cannot be easily viewed in different
media; secondly to make sure it is very simple for users to use in front of an
audience when a model is dataprojected; thirdly because all of the possible
formatting features are being used in progressive releases of DoView to
visualize different aspects of outcomes models. The complexity of the choices available in standard drawing software overwhelms a user and their audience when it is being used in real-time in meetings.
5. With just a couple of clicks DoView can create a fully featured web-based model ready for putting up on an intranet or the internet. This web page model has the innovative feature that a copy of the original file which created the web page model can be included in the web page model. This means that anyone who is interested in using the web page model themselves can then immediately download it, and if they have DoView installed, can immediately edit it and use it for their own purposes. Those viewing the model can also immediately download a PDF version of the model. Normal drawing software does not typically provide this type of download capability which is tailored to rapidly spreading best-practice examples of models. Examples of web page models can be found at www.outcomesmodels.org.
6. DoView includes an innovative cloning feature which allows the same entity to exist in many places within a model (clones are 'live copies' which are replicants of each other). It is then very simple to update such elements in that if they are updated in one place they are updated right across the model. It also helps avoid a technical problem in drawing models which is called siloing (where lower level steps are exclusively nested under higher-level outcomes) which distorts the models representation of causality in real-world programs (where a good lower-level strategy may often contribute to a number of higher-level outcomes)>
7. As a tool for developing visual evaluation plans, DoView visual evaluation plans can be created in something like 1/3 to 1/2 the time it takes to create a traditional text based narrative evaluation plan. An example of a visual evaluation plan in web page format created by DoView can be found at http://www.outcomesmodels.org/models/healthcareinformationforall50.html
What
are its system requirements?
DoView's minimum
requirements are a 600 Mhz Pentium III with 128MB of memory running at least
Windows 2000. Windows 98 and earlier are unsupported. A Mac version is planned
but a release date is yet to be determined.
How
can information be outputted and exported from DoView?
Individual pages within DoView can be copied and pasted via Windows Clipboard into any external software. The software produces PDF
versions of its models which can be used for printing out a model and for
sending a model to people who do not have DoView installed.
DoView
allows the creation of a navigable HTML version of a model. This model can then
be put up on any intranet or the internet. An option is provided when creating
the HTML model such that those browsing the model on the web can download and
open the original DoView file from which the HTML model was created. The web
page model can also include a PDF version of the model for printing the full
model. A web page model with a copy of the original DoView model included is an
effective way for template copies of DoView files to be available for easy
distribution to users via an intranet or the internet.
The HTML version of a
DoView model is saved in a subdirectory of the users choice, it includes the
home page of the model with a name given by the user at the time of creating
the HTML version of the model, plus two subdirectories with the files that make
up the model.
Files can be saved and
opened in the native DoView format, in compressed XML and in uncompressed XML.
Individual diagrams (slices) within a model can be cut and pasted using Windows
Clipboard to standard office software (e.g. Word, Powerpoint, Outlook etc).
What
are the Installation requirements and changes to registry settings?
The software is installed
via the widely used Nullsoft scriptable install system (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page) following download from http://www.doview.com/download.html.
The software requires no
special privileges to run. However the installer requires administrative
privileges as it places two third-party shared DLLs into the Windows system
directory in order to support product registration (http://www.esellerate.net). All other
files are placed within the program installation directory.
No registry settings are
altered apart from those necessary for uninstallation, private application
data, and establishing file associations for the DoView file formats.
The software itself does
not directly access the network. DoView opens the users default web-browser
in order to show web pages linked to by users when they click on an external
hyperlink on a diagram.
What
help and support is available?
From the point of view of
a corporate IT department, DoView’s limited feature set and high usability mean
that it will have low user support demands in comparison to more complex
generic drawing software.
The software comes with a
full extensive Help system (Help > DoView Help); this system is also available online at http://www.doview.com/help/index.html.
A full PDF printable manual is available at http://www.doview.com/files/helppdf/doviewhelpmanual.pdf
Quick Start Video Tours are available within DoView and online at http://www.doview.com/files/videotours2-0/part1/index.html
Extensive resources for users are available on the DoView Resource page (http://www.doview.com/resources.html). These include many additional videos on using DoView, template models, one page tip sheets and articles.
What
is the update policy?
DoView is being enhanced
in response to user feedback. So far all updates have been no-cost updates. Security and bug fixes for version 2.XX are
free. In addition, a number of new features are being added to version 2.XX
releases at no cost. Each release in version 2.XX is a full release copy of
DoView (not just an update). Users simply uninstall DoView and install the new
version by downloading it from http://www.doview.com/update.html (the
installer is approximately 38 Mbytes). For an administered network, depending
on the set-up, an administrator could download the installer for the new
version, uninstall the earlier versions of DoView from the machines that have
it on them and install the new version on the machines. Registration
carries over to new installations of DoView even after it has been uninstalled,
so there is no need to reregister registered copies.
How
does purchase and licensing work?
A fully functioning
14-day trial version of the software can be downloaded from http://www.doview.com/download.html.
Licenses for the software are purchased by credit card over the internet from http://www.doview.com/buy.html using
a third-party internet service http://www.esellerate.net. The full cost of a license for DoView is US $39.95. Discounts are available for bulk license purchases (see http://www.doview.com/buy.html). Use the contact form on the Support Page (http://www.doview.com/support.html) to enquire about corporate site licenses. There is also a version of DoView available which will allow corporate colors to be included - contact DoView from the Support Page.
A registration serial number is sent by email to the
purchaser. The registration serial number is entered into the 14-day trial
version of the software and this converts the trial version into a fully
licensed version that will continue to function indefinitely. One license can
be used by one user on up to two of their machines (e.g. a desktop and a
notebook).
For further information
on any technical aspect of DoView please contact tech (at) doview.com.
V2.0SV
