1        Create a document

Start by creating an eaDocX document in the normal way.  There are just a few types of eaDocX content which are not reviewable, but if you keep to a relatively simple document, then that should be ok.

2       Add Some Collaborations

This step is optional. You can send out a document for review with no explicit collaborations, and Reviewers will be able to add comments and discuss them.

Collaborations let you ask questions about specific bits of your document: individual elements (Requirements, Use case, Components etc), diagrams, or even steps within scenarios. Collaborations might also ask for votes, or request that a reviewer indicate compliance with any of those aspects of your document.

To create Collaboration Requests:

• Look in the eaDocX Preview Pane, and make sure you have checked ‘Show Collaborations’.
• Then right-click on any Heading, diagram or table row, and select Collaboration | Add Question, Add Vote Request, Add Compliance Request, and fill-in the details.

There are also options for you to create Comments and Approvals, but these are just there in case you have users who want to send their feedback the old-fashioned way.

Your Reviewers will now see these Collaboration Requests when they open your document.

Note: for vote requests, put each option which you’d like people to vote about on a separate line:

These Collaboration Requests allow you to focus the attention of your reviewers on very specific areas of your document.

3       Create some Reviewers

Collaboration Edition needs to know who is allowed to review your document, so create some people  – EA | Extensions | eaDocX | Document Management | People.

Then, you can associate those people with your document as Reviewers. Open your document, and select Tools | Document Management | Collaboration Details. From there, you can add reviewers. Or, use Tools | Document Management | Document Details.

You will need to setup a password for each user. It is your responsibility to get this password to each user in a secure manner: if you just paste it into an email, along with the URL (see below) then anyone intercepting the mail can access and comment on the document.

(as of Beta 1, there is no facility for Reviewers to set their own password)

If you select  Tools | Document Management | Collaboration Details you should see something like this:

Next, save your document as an HTML file, as above. If you have done the setup correctly, then the HTML should be saved in a location which can be seen by the Collaboration Edition Web Application.

NOTE: on most computers, because your Web Server is in an Admin-protected folder, in order to write a file directly from EA/eaDocX, you will have to start EA with Admin privileges. OR, you can create another folder elsewhere on your machine or network, where EA can write to, and from which the Web Server can read your files.

You can now create the email which will tell Reviewers how to find your document.

4       Telling Reviewers

In the page above, select a Reviewer, and choose ‘Copy Reviewer URL to Clipboard’.

You can then create an email, and add this URL to it. Your Reviewer then just clicks on the URL, which opens the Collaboration Edition Web Server, and lets them login using the password which you set.

Your reviewers can now login and create comments, and answer any questions you created in (2)

5       Finally – seeing the feedback

As your reviewers add their comments, answers, votes and compliance statements, you will see it in real-time in your EA model.

Questions, Vote Requests and Compliance requests are saved as children of the eaDocX Document:

Comments, answers, votes and compliance statements are version specific, so they are saved as children of the Version:

 

You can also see summaries of the comments, answers etc in the Collaboration view:

 

This will also show exactly which item (Element, diagram, package) in your EA model the feedback was about:

 

Right-click on these items to find them in the EA model, and you’re in exactly the right place to make any necessary changes to EA.

Job done.