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MetaKON MS-Office-Interface
With the MS-Office-Interface an efficient coupling is provided between PDM and Microsoft Office products such as MS-Word, MS-Excel, MS-PowerPoint, and MS-Project.
Description
MS-Office-Interface offers a simple and comfortable management for records which have been created with Office applications.
The corresponding MS-Office application is started with a double click on an Office document in MetaKON®. MetaKON® automatically checks in the background if e.g. MS-Word is running or starting again or if it is using the running process.
Values, e.g. from the header or footer, can be transferred to MetaKON® with the aid of a register function in an Office application. During the registration the information (e.g. developer, creating system, document and project number) is displayed in the registration dialog, checked and modified, if necessary. The information validated and supplemented in this manner is then returned and written down in the document. With this procedure a data consistency between the PDM system and the document is ensured.
Thus the values of a created Office file are always up to date since the data is managed in MetaKON® and updated only there.
The interface can be expanded to any further MS-Office document and customized models. There are no additional adaptations necessary in MetaKON®. Only macros inside the Office applications are adapted with the standard languages such as Visual Basic. For that, sample macros and completed modules are delivered with the MS-Office-Interface. A high flexibility with simple aids is guaranteed.
Principally the interface reduces the operation steps to a minimum. Connections and MetaKON® objects are generated automatically whenever possible, and all available pieces of information are used. Dialog windows are filled in advance and require little additional data. And also has not to be entered in twice, but is put at everyone's disposal with the interface from MetaKON® and the respective MS-Office application.
The range of the interface functions are not fixed at all, but they can be adapted to the company-specific interests. This is true for the flow of information as well as for the data processing.
Features:
General
files:
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registration and filing of MS-Office files in MetaKON® |
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starting of the MS-Office application by a double click from PDM |
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data transfer from MetaKON® to MS-Office |
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data transfer from MS-Office to MetaKON® |
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updating of attributes from PDM |
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automatic number generation |
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macros can be adapted individually |
Advantages:
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simplest handling with the aid of functional integration |
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company wide investigation possibilities, irrespective of a file location |
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checking of the version and change management |
System
Specifics:
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Microsoft® Windows NT/95/98 |
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MS-Office products |
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Metaphase™ version 3.0 or higher |
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MetaKON® version 2.2 or higher |
