Recipe 7. 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 underway. A journal application not only allows multiple users to enter notes and comments, but it also enables the journal entries to be easily modified and viewed.

The Journal application introduces a new record management concept: 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 comprised of 30 days of entries. The Journal application adapts to show the user different archive periods depending on the journal's archive type.