Anne's Framing Questions

In an email from June 27, 2006, Anne reminded us:

Here I would like to interject for a moment to ask the question: what was our original purpose in seeking a central place for us to go for information, reports, plans, etc.?

I would like to add the following questions for consideration in the discussion:

1. What are the desired outcomes of having a central place for all these shared items? I envision having links in the future between documents, say quarterly reports/resource model/financials that would be best done with files in one place.

2. What tasks do we envision relative to each type of document ie changes to annual plans, quarterly report text, inputting of updated financial forecasts, addition of css-mgrs meeting agendas, etc...

3. Can both confidential and non-confidential materials be kept in one central place with confidential materials kept in a hierarchy of password-protected access folders?

What are we trying to solve?

What are the documents we could be talking about?

Operational Plan.  

Quarterly Reports

Resource Model

Budgets and Forecasts

Meeting Schedule, Agendas, Outcomes

Process Documentation

Which technologies are likely to best for each?

Confidentiality is one forcing factor.  Documents with sensitive data need to be closely protected.  We need to be able to have documents locked down so that as few as three people only are able to view and update. 

Interactivity is a forcing factor.  The Budgets and Forecasts area is represented with a complex set of layered spreadsheets, which only work when the formulas in one sheet are actively updating from data in other sheets.   Rolling up linkages among these sheets are greatly enhanced by storage in a single file tree.