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<HTML_CONTENT xmlns:ibis="http://www.ibisph.org">

        <ibis:doc>
                <name>home/Welcome</name>
                <summary>Documentation Page</summary>
                <description>
                </description>

                <author>Garth Braithwaite</author>
                <company>Utah Department of Health/Software Technology Group</company>

        </ibis:doc>


        <TITLE>IBIS-PH System Documentation - Welcome</TITLE>


        <CONTENT>
                Welcome to the IBIS-PH System Documentation.  This page provides an overview
                of the system documentation for the three applications that comprise the
                IBIS-PH system (View, IBIS-Q, Data Admin).  This documentation does NOT include
                end user documentation.  It is intended to aid system administrators, content
                managers, application developers, and potential adopting agencies learn how
                to install, extend, and manage the IBIS applications.  Please see the 
                <a href="#prerequisits">Reader Prerequisite Knowledge</a> section below 
                which describes the intended reader audience and the requisite knowledge 
                needed for the content contained on this site.
                <br/><br/>

                <div class="Error">
                        <h2>Documentation Status:</h2>
                        Due to limited funding, the documentation presented on this site is not
                        complete nor has it been proofed or edited.  The View System documentation
                        is up to date for System Information, Installation, and Content Management
                        other than the IBIS-Q related pages.  The appendicies are mostly accurate
                        but not 100% proofed or complete.  The various reports listed have not
                        been tested recently and most likely do not work.  The IBIS-Q documentation
                        is lacking in all areas other than the content management section and 
                        Appendix A - of which neither has been proofed.  The Data Maint and Admin 
                        documentation is complete for System Information and Installation but has 
                        not been proofed.  The IBIS-PH Admin Technical Reference is an MS-Word 
                        document and is quite old but the database data element definitions are 
                        still mostly correct and accurate in this document.
                </div><br/>

                <h2>Documentation Orgainization:</h2>
                The documentation is organized into three sections which correspond to the 
                three IBIS-PH web applications (see the <a ibis:href="home/Architecture.html">Architecture</a>
                page for a more detailed definition of each application and where it fits).  
                Each application's section documentation is then broken down into a series 
                of high level categories.  Each category contains an introduction or overview 
                type page that describes what type of pages and information that are contained 
                within the category.  The main categories that are consistent across all 
                application documentation sections include:

                <ul class="ExtraWhiteSpace">
                        <li><h3>System Information</h3>
                                This category contains pages that are helpful to understand the 
                                application from the 30,000 foot level like architecture, features, 
                                requirements, naming conventions, the directory structure and files 
                                descriptions.
                        </li>
                        <li><h3>Administration/Installation</h3>
                                This category provides the details on how to setup and install the 
                                application, how to configure and customize it, as well as any system 
                                issue type pages.
                        </li>
                        <li><h3>Content Management</h3>
                                These pages are task oriented and provide the needed information on 
                                how the "super/power user" can understand and maintain the "data" or 
                                content presented.
                        </li>
                </ul>
                <br/>

                Other high level categories are typically referred to as an "Appendix".  
                These appendices contain technical reference information.  Examples are:

                <ul class="ExtraWhiteSpace">
                        <li><h3>Implementation Reference</h3>
                                Contains pages that describe the actual design and lower level 
                                implementation detail.  This includes topics like request flows, 
                                how errors are handled, URL parameters and what they do, etc.
                        </li>
                        <li><h3>Technical Reference Categories</h3>
                                These include pages that provide detailed information like Java Docs, 
                                XSLT APIs, data file element descriptions/model pages, view related 
                                topics, special reports etc.
                        </li>
                </ul><br/>

                <a name="prerequisits"/>
                <div style="font-size: 0.9em;">
                        <h2>Audience and Reader Prerequisite Knowledge</h2>
                        The intended audience for this documentation includes directors, program
                        managers, web content managers, system administrators, system developers, 
                        and project managers.  This documentation does NOT include any end user 
                        documentation nor does it provide use cases or any of the Unified Process's 
                        documentation artifacts.  
                        <br/><br/>

                        The System Overview type sections provide high level general information 
                        that is applicable to all types of users like project managers, system 
                        administrators, software developers, and content managers.  The content 
                        management sections are geared toward the "super user" or "power user"
                        who have specific knowledge about web content but does not have system 
                        developer or administration skills needed to deal with the core black 
                        box application code (Java, JSPs, Javascript, XSLTs, C, etc.).  These 
                        content manager type users do have to know about XML and the type of 
                        content contained within those elements and what those elements do.
                        Another type of content manager user is the backend SAS data expert.
                        These users need to know how to deal with SAS, SAS Datasets, and SAS
                        programming in general.  They also will need to know how the IBISQ CGI
                        application control files work and how to edit those files.
                        <br/><br/>

                        The balance of the documentation is geared toward seasoned Java web 
                        application system administrators, Java web developers, RDBMS DBAs,
                        and to a certain degree web developers.  The intent is to provide just 
                        enough information so that this type of reader can semi understand, 
                        install, deploy, and extend the system.  If the reader does not have 
                        the perquisite Java application server, Java development, web (HTML, 
                        CSS, Javascript), XML, RDBMS/DBA skills experience/knowledge for that 
                        given topic then they will need to reference other sites/materials to 
                        learn about that technology before being able to understand the 
                        content presented on this site.
                </div><br/>

                <div class="Note">
                        This documentation site uses the IBIS-PH View System's transformation 
                        engine, CSS, and XSLTs.  Most documentation pages are presented as HTML 
                        pages (which are simply HTML_CONTEXT XML files transformed via the 
                        appropriate HTMLContent.xslt to produce the html page).  As such most
                        have the typical left hand menu navigation and the ability to be formatted 
                        as a printer friendly page etc.  Other pages, like the Java API docs 
                        are true stand alone HTML pages (created independently) which means 
                        that these pages do NOT have the IBIS-PH Documentation System's 
                        navigation or look and feel.  When viewing these pages, the reader 
                        will simply have to rely on their browser's back button etc.  Finally, 
                        other parts of the system documentation are delivered as MS-Word 
                        documents, Visio diagrams etc. and will need these applications for 
                        viewing and likewise will not have navigation etc.
                        <br/><br/>

                        If there are problems found with content meaning, spelling, grammar, 
                        or questions in general please contact <a href="mailto:ibis@utah.gov">Utah's 
                        IBIS-PH System Administrator</a>.
                </div>

        </CONTENT>
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