The worlds of document publishing and application development are converging.
Traditionally, publishing processes focused on static documents in print, PDF,
HTML, and other formats. While the Web introduced rich media formats, this only
provided a more compelling multidimensional rendering of static information.
The reality is that business depends on dynamic data, and static documents only
provide a snapshot in time. Users who need the most current information possible
must go to the source – the business applications and other systems of record.
This sort of “on-the-glass” user experience is fine for some business
processes, but other business processes are document centric, depending on the
persistence and rich context that a document format uniquely provides. This has
forced users to copy and paste data into documents, breaking the link to the sources
of record and freezing the data in time.
Traditionally, the choice has been between live data without context —
or context without live data. But another choice is emerging: the document as
the application. Here, the persistence and context of a document converge with
the dynamism and interactivity of a business application. This will be a fundamental
change in how we think about documents and a transformation to document-centric
business processes.
Unlike portal-style business applications, documents persist as self-contained
artifacts. They present a fully contextual view into information, which is organized
with a deliberate intent and purpose. Many business processes are document-centric.
For information workers, documents transfer knowledge and communicate information
when it must stand alone.
Business applications provide some degree of context for data, but they’re
not persistent. The stateless views they present are fleeting and episodic,
which makes portal-style business applications a poor substitute for many processes.
Consider the example of a technical manual for maintaining the hydraulic system
of a commercial airliner or the standard operating procedures for powering down
a nuclear power plant. These are both examples of information that must be conveyed
in the context and with the persistence of a document, yet these documents are
subject to ongoing change, as complex arrays of data within sources of record
are updated. Putting inaccurate or out-of-date information in the hands of the
end consumer can lead to rework or redesign costs, launch delays, regulatory
noncompliance, or worse.
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