Recipe6.Journal

Recipe 6. Journal

Workgroups are by their very nature collaborative, and collaboration depends on communication. The journal is a terrific tool for facilitating workgroup communication. With a journal, a team member can post his or her thoughts on a particular aspect of a project for all the other team members to see. Responses can come from any other member, and a many-tiered dialog is under way. A journal application not only lets multiple users enter notes and comments, but it also allows the journal entries to be easily modified and viewed.

The Journal application introduces a new record management concept: the archive. An archive is a collection of records, typically organized by date. In the Journal application, the user has the option of declaring each journal's archive type: daily, weekly, or monthly. A daily archive contains all the entries made on a particular date, whereas a weekly archive consists of all entries made during a 7-day period, and a monthly archive is composed of 30 days of entries. The Journal application adapts to show the user different archive periods depending on the journal's archive type.