Transmission
Moving some information with or without attached documents from one place to another
- Post - public reliable, and takes place mostly overnight
- Courier - private, expensive, and takes place on demand
- Email - reliable, cheap, but has its limitations - usually only on size, but also on content
- FTP - reliable, cheap, has virtually no limitations - BUT requires setting up usually via a third party server
- Email is a way of sending a message. It is is however often taken as being the message which was transmitted
- Email is structured in that the following information can be extracted
- The Recipients (including copied to and even blind copied to)
- The Subject
- The Message - its contents
- Any attachments
Email - a definition
- Email is a way of sending a message. It is is however often taken as being the message which was transmitted
- Email is structured in that the following information can be extracted
- The Recipients (including copied to and even blind copied to)
- The Subject
- The Message - its contents
- Any attachments
FTP - another way
- The movement of a file (containing documents) from one place (your pc or server) to another (pc or server)
- Protected by passwords
- Convenient for sending zip files via third party server
- Others to whom you may have emailed a link can then download without passwords using HTTP
Problems with an email package
- These are generally associated with using email from an "email package".
- As seen above, an email is NOT actually unstructured in terms of its parts.
- However when using an email package, there are often autoreply facilities
- "reply to"
- "reply to all"
- "quick reply"
- These enable a response to be typed in. The resulting email is generated automatically back to the originator and includes the text just received.
- So the whole "conversation" is now visible in one place.
- If it has been going on for a while, there are now several emails all looking the same
- May be NOT, because the text received can be ALTERED.
- Email Packages are thus UNSUITABLE in particular for raising and answering RFI's
Advantages of an email enabled application
Email facilities embedded into an application enable a document controller to:
- generate and despatch emails automatically - e.g. transmittals using FTP via third party server
- receive emails directly so they can be registered and absorbed semi automatically remembering that an incoming inspection (data validation) must be performed.
- NOTE: Direct Email is best enabled to bypass corporate email systems.
Archiving Comments
- Do you copy a box load of drawings when they arrive ?
- No - So why keep a copy of an email then ?
- Yes - Keeping originals and working from copies is not the same !
- Public and Private emails
- There is no difference whether it arrives by email or post.
Points to Note
- Why do something intrinsically different for paper than electronic
- Both Paper and Electronic documents must be archived.
- Understanding how email etc operates is essential to evaluating software