Overview and screenshots

Applications are configured using the Configuration Tool (left). This is called the Configuration Mode.

Configured applications run in an Internet browser (right). This is called the Operation Mode.

The most important step in configuring an application is to identify business objects and define their attributes.

Aware IM offers a comprehensive set of standard attributes types - Text, Number, Date, Timestamp, Document, Picture and others (left). Each attribute type has a number of parameters - you can specify the initial value, possible choices, valid range of values for the attribute etc (right).

With Aware IM it is easy to link objects - all you need to do is define an attribute in one object pointing to another object. Note that along with standard attribute types, the list of available attribute types also contains the objects you have defined (left), so you just select the required object from the list of attribute types (right). There is no need to link database tables and define extra "relationships" tables!

In this example the Member object is linked with the Loan object through the attribute MyLoans.

Application menu with a set of standard operations that let you create and find your business objects (left).

The screenshot on the right shows what happens when you select the New Object operation from the menu - Aware IM prompts you to select the desired object type.

Search forms that let you search for all objects of the selected type or build your own search (left).

The screenshot on the right shows the result of a search - a list of found objects is displayed. You can navigate to a particular object by clicking the Edit button.

Business object forms that let you enter and edit business objects. Drop down boxes for attribute choices, calendar controls for dates, tabs etc are automatically generated.

For "link" attributes business object forms include tables of linked objects (left). You can press the "Add from list" button to select an existing object to add to the list of linked objects or you can create a new object and automatically link it to the current object (right screenshot shows a table with the buttons). 

You can navigate to the linked object by clicking on its entry in the table.

Business rules specify what should happen and when. A rule consists of conditions and actions. Actions can perform a wide variety of tasks - send e-mails, generate reports, print documents etc.

Properly specified rule is consistent, independent of other rules, intuitive and easy to understand for business people. Thus the logic of your application is transparent and not hidden in scripts or programming code.

Business rules can be specified in a number of ways:

  - use the Standard Form to specify conditions and actions separately (left)

  - use the Textual Form to enter the text of the rule directly (right)

If you do not remember names of objects, attributes, keywords and allowed values Context Assistant will help you.

Collections of rules may be best viewed and/or entered as rule tables.

Customize automatically generated business object forms if required:

  - place attribute controls on the same row

  - insert named separators between sections of the form

  - insert HTML sections

The screenshot on the left shows an example of such a customization whereas  the screenshot on the right shows the result in the Operation Mode.

Alternatively you can provide the entire forms prepared in your favourite HTML editor.

Provide custom presentations for business objects - use the Presentation Designer to prepare an on-screen layout for a single business object or multiple business objects (left).

Business objects found by a search will be displayed using this custom presentation (right).

Customize application menu - instead of the standard menu with generic operations you can define a custom menu containing menu items that invoke specific operations - for example, create a particular object or perform a specific search (left). Choose between two different styles of menu available or provide your own menu style altogether.

The result of a menu customization in the Operation Mode is shown by the  screenshot on the right.

Customize colors and fonts used in your application and/or choose between two predefined application styles (left screenshot).

The screenshot on the right shows the second application style in the Operation Mode.

With Aware IM you can easily store and retrieve documents to/from the database. What's more - Aware IM will also generate documents from document templates. You can define document templates in MS Word, MS Excel, HTML and plain text formats. Custom types of document templates can be added as well.

Document templates can be designed using your favourite programs such as MS Word or Excel. You can define tags inside the templates to refer to attributes of business objects (left) and Aware IM will perform the "document merge" replacing the tags with the values of attributes when a document is generated (right).

Tags may contain not only references to attributes but also expressions (including aggregate calculations), functions and formatting statements.

Design your reports using the Report Designer (left). Just like with other document types using tags inside a report allows you to refer to attributes of business objects that will be included in the report. You can provide aggregate calculations, functions, include sub-reports, specify conditional inclusion of elements in the report and even identify presentation rules that will display elements in different colors, fonts etc depending on certain conditions. The screenshot on the right shows the result of the report generation in the Operation Mode.

If your application needs to send e-mails define e-mail templates (left) and provide rules that will send e-mails when required (right).

You can set up Aware IM not only to send e-mails but also to handle incoming e-mails (left). All you need to do is define business rules that will perform the required actions based on the e-mail contents (right).

Define access levels to control access of different categories of users to business objects, their attributes, documents etc (left). You can hide a business object or its attribute completely for a particular user or make it read-only or make it available to its creator only (right).

If you want to define access restrictions based on certain conditions you can always specify access control rules.

Generate documentation for your application.

Aware IM will automatically generate the documentation in HTML and MS Word formats. The documentation will include descriptions of all business objects, attributes, business rules etc defined for your application.

Schedule periodic tasks.

If you want your application to perform certain tasks periodically define scheduling items and identify recurrence pattern and range.

Import/Export data from other applications

Aware IM supports export (left) and import (right) in comma separated CSV file format, which means that you can exchange data with other databases and applications.

Define communication with other systems through predefined and custom channels.

With Aware IM you can directly communicate with other software systems or hardware devices either through standard mechanism such as web services or TCP/IP sockets or through custom defined communication channels that can be plugged into the system.

Define communication with other systems through predefined and custom channels.

With Aware IM you can directly communicate with other software systems or hardware devices either through standard mechanism such as web services or TCP/IP sockets or through custom defined communication channels that can be plugged into the system.

Write custom extensions in Java if required.

If you are a programmer you can use the industry-standard Java programming language to create functional extensions and plug them into Aware IM. You can plug in processes, function libraries, document template types, report calculation components and custom communication channels.