Forums

Hi Tatoko.Org Experts,

During I am converting the baseline of Taroko "Sigma" engineering project management tool for our new project (The Construction of Mass Transit System Project in Bangkok - Red Line, Contractor: Mitsubishi-Hitachi-Sumitomo Consortium, short for MHSC here after), I found the Document Transmittals and normal Letters (Correspondence) are not co-existing in the "Letters" data table anymore. I think this kind of "Database Structure" is quite good and has many advantages but it seems the creation of a Document Transmittal becomes not be done from Sigma_XXX.fmp12 directly anymore. This means if I wanna make the "Document Control Database (Documents)" of Sigma_XXX works, I will also have to work on other databases (e.g. DTMS"N".fmp12 and maybe also "PIMS??"). Is my guess right? If my guess is right, then I will have to either have a temporary method for letting users doing the creation of the Documents Transmittal or I will have to work on the DTMS"N".fmp12 and maybe also "PIMS??".

We (MHI Taiwan Design Team) hope that we can activate the basic function (e.g. let Document / Correspondence Controllers to take care of the creation of Documents / Drawings / Transmittals / Letters, let normal users to be able to find or browse records and download or browse the related electronic files ... etc.) of Sigma_MHSC in the early project stage first and then take turns to activate other Sigma_MHSC advanced function later and many project workflows / processes are not settle up yet. It is really not good or appropriate for me to work on the modification of Sigma_MHSC, DTMS"N".fmp12 and maybe also "PIMS??" simultaneously with many unknown factors which will affect my schedule on the modification of Sigma_MHSC.

Can anyone of the appropriate Tatoko.Org Experts suggests how I can fix the problem(s) which I mentioned above please?

Hi Cyrous, I believe what you are asking about is using Sigma as a simple in-out document register. A kind of a tracker for a paper based process. This has been done in past (MARS) and for the most part the functionality is still in place in Sigma. There is a switch in Admin->HomeInfo to switch from DTMS to Letter status tracking. Also if you look on the History and Approvals page in docs you will see there is a tab for transmittals and another for letters. The letter association works fine, however pulling status in this way has not been used for many years and any functionality in this area cannot be guaranteed and will require a large amount of reengineering and debugging. Also the idea of a "Transmittal" as a kind of letter has been abandoned. If the doc or doc status arrives on a letter it is a letter, not a transmittal. A transmittal has a specific meaning in Sigma.

We do not recommend using this method as it is very old fashioned, It cannot provide accurate doc statistics (not reliable), and it will severely limit any future wide scale deployment. It also encourages bypassing the system via email etc.

By far the greatest value added by Sigma is to accurately track the in out and status of documents. The only way this can be done reliably is if the traffic itself is managed by Sigma and associated DTMS.

I understand you might not be ready yet to deploy to other companies. In this case a better solution is to set up a DTMS (SIMS) for each subcontractor and one for the client (PIMS DTMS1). Note, Sigma is always DTMS 0. The DC then maintain these DTMS as the documents are received. They will send the transmittals form DTMS on behalf of the submitting orgs. Likewise, status letters from the client will be entered by DC into PIMS. Yes this is additional overhead, but the docs would need to be registered anyway, and this way the DTMS is ready and fully populated with history when you are ready to hand it to the subcontractor.

The DTMS is a very simple database and there are only a handful of rules which need to be followed for it to work.

s

(09-22-2016 02:34 AM)Sam Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Cyrous, I believe what you are asking about is using Sigma as a simple in-out document register. A kind of a tracker for a paper based process. This has been done in past (MARS) and for the most part the functionality is still in place in Sigma. There is a switch in Admin->HomeInfo to switch from DTMS to Letter status tracking. Also if you look on the History and Approvals page in docs you will see there is a tab for transmittals and another for letters. The letter association works fine, however pulling status in this way has not been used for many years and any functionality in this area cannot be guaranteed and will require a large amount of reengineering and debugging. Also the idea of a "Transmittal" as a kind of letter has been abandoned. If the doc or doc status arrives on a letter it is a letter, not a transmittal. A transmittal has a specific meaning in Sigma.

We do not recommend using this method as it is very old fashioned, It cannot provide accurate doc statistics (not reliable), and it will severely limit any future wide scale deployment. It also encourages bypassing the system via email etc.

By far the greatest value added by Sigma is to accurately track the in out and status of documents. The only way this can be done reliably is if the traffic itself is managed by Sigma and associated DTMS.

I understand you might not be ready yet to deploy to other companies. In this case a better solution is to set up a DTMS (SIMS) for each subcontractor and one for the client (PIMS DTMS1). Note, Sigma is always DTMS 0. The DC then maintain these DTMS as the documents are received. They will send the transmittals form DTMS on behalf of the submitting orgs. Likewise, status letters from the client will be entered by DC into PIMS. Yes this is additional overhead, but the docs would need to be registered anyway, and this way the DTMS is ready and fully populated with history when you are ready to hand it to the subcontractor.

The DTMS is a very simple database and there are only a handful of rules which need to be followed for it to work.

s

Hi Sam,

I've got what you meant and started working on those DTMS"N".fmp12.

There is one important step that I want to share with you. Because there were an external data source "Sigma_Demo.fmp12" in each of the DTMS"N".fmp12. For letting the converted Sigma_XXX.fmp12 work properly, I changed the external data source "Sigma_Demo.fmp12" of each DTMS"N".fmp12 to "Sigma_XXX.fmp12" before I work on them.

Thanks again.

Cyrous

Hi Sam,

As what you explained, if I decided to let Document Controllers of MHSC to maintain Sigma_MHSC, PMIS and SIMS, I have to make the value of "Home::Doc_status_method_switch" to "DTMS". Right?

And What are "Home::LettersSkipApproval_Auth1" and "Home::LettersSkipApproval_Auth2" for. It's very hard to tell what they are really for by only reading the explanations of them on "Home Info" layout. Can you please explain these to me? Thanks.

Cyrous