Rivet Software » Development

Manage the tagging and filing process with CrossTag User Roles and Workflow

Brian Larson, CPA - Software Quality Engineer — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:23:38 +0000

CrossTag is designed to help you manage the tagging and filing process from start to finish. We’ve put a lot of thought into making it an efficient, yet precise process in which accurate filings are produced every time you file. This post explores what CrossTag can do to help you manage a filing project.

First, the system separates into two roles the template design and data entry tasks that are inherent in an XBRL filing project. In CrossTag, these two user roles are called “Preparer” and “Designer”. Each CrossTag user can be setup as either preparer or designer or both.

The role of the designer is to create templates and modify taxonomies. This user needs to understand the basics of XBRL. The preparer, on the other hand, really does not need to know anything about XBRL. This person just needs to get the data into the templates created by the designer.

Initially, the two user role concept was designed to allow filers to leverage lesser skilled individuals to perform the time consuming data entry duties. However, with our current beta release of the software (CrossTag Spring Release), we’ve solved this problem with technology.

We’ve now given the designer the ability to import data directly from an Excel spreadsheet which eliminates the need for a data entry person. As long as you have an accurate Excel version of your financials, you don’t have to worry about data entry (see my previous blog entry for more information on this). So the designer and preparer roles are still important, but are easily performed by the same person.

We are also introducing, with CrossTag Spring Release, a user-configurable workflow module which augments the simple designer/preparer roles to include specific steps and tasks for these roles and additional roles of reviewer and auditor with appropriate steps and tasks. The module comes pre-configured with several steps and tasks as shown in the chart below.

Steps	Tasks
Create Template	Create entity
	Create taxonomy
	Create templates
	Tag tables/note blocks
	Validate markups
Review Markup	Review entity
	Review elements
	Review templates
Create and Markup Project	Select entity
	Select template
	Save project
	Add values to templates
	Validate markups
	Validate calculations
	Report preview
Review Markup Tags	Review values
	Review labels/definitions
	Review markups
Complete Package	Review calculations
	Save packages
Auditor Review	Send to auditors

The module allows you to add, delete, or modify tasks as needed. When you have the workflow setup the way you want it, you’ll assign a user to each step and initiate the workflow. At that point, an email notification is sent to the user assigned to the first step. The user logs in, completes the assigned tasks and marks the step as completed. Then an email is sent to the user assigned to the next step and so on.

Since CrossTag is a hosted solution (although you can store your data locally) the various users involved in this process can easily collaborate across time zones. As long as they can access the Internet, and have sign-on credentials, they can access the tools and data they need to perform their job.

Each user has access to the “View Workflows” screen where they can see the current workflow step and related tasks, what’s been completed and what’s yet to be completed. This is illustrated below.

We all know that projects rarely go exactly as planned, so we have created a workflow administrator who has the ability to change the workflow while it’s in progress. This user can re-assign users, delete tasks, and even advance the workflow to the next step as needed. Here’s a screen shot of what the workflow administrator screen looks like.

Workflow combined with user roles and worldwide access result in an XBRL tagging project that can be easily managed and controlled. If you want to have your Singapore office work on the template at night and then have the Los Angeles office pick it up in the morning, and manage it all from New York, you can easily do that with CrossTag.

The impact of Agile development and what it means to the CrossTag customer PT 2

Kevin Berens - VP, Products — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:17:28 +0000

How product innovation is combined with feedback from customers – the evolution of CrossTag for XBRL tagging

In my last entry, I talked about how customer feedback was incorporated into the product. However, we try to balance feedback from customers in conjunction with product ideas that we think would benefit our users

In the spring release we have several new features that we would like to enhance (based you’re your feedback) over the next 6 to 9 months. We are introducing the following:

Workflow
Automation via import from Excel
Hierarchies for dimensional tagging
Tagging assistance features including comparisons of tags from other filers
Enhanced search and help me tag

Now, we could follow the traditional way of developing software and think through all the possible scenarios for each of these features, develop these features, go through a process of cutting the items that we do not have time to complete, and finally deliver one (maybe two) of the above features sometime in 2010.

However, with Agile development, we include all of these feature in our CrossTag Spring Release. We try to deliver a feature that has enough functionality to solve some of your basic issues. For example, in this release, we provide tagging assistance to assist when you are tagging an element. This tagging assistance will include the number of filers who are also tagging using that element (patent pending). See the screenshot below:

Now we know and have discussed a number of other uses for this feature. For example, we could:

Add peer group %’s
Include this in the in-use elements
Include this in the markup report (which we did)
Include this in Dragon View
Include this in Dragon Tag
Drilldown to see what companies make up the 57.5% number
Etc, etc

Instead, we keep this somewhat basic, but very useful. We then listen to our customers and, based upon this feedback, incorporate enhancements into the summer or fall release of CrossTag or our other products.

This results in a win-win situation for Rivet and for yourself.

Customers win in the short term because they have five new features that they can use immediately rather than one feature with all the bells and whistle that they can use in 2010.

Customers win in the long term because they can use the feature and thus provide better feedback. Only the development work that is going to have actual benefit is performed. You will see the features enhanced over the next few releases, thus making their experience in 2009 that much better.

Rivet software wins because we keep our development costs low as we did not develop every variation of the feature imaginable for a product. We might just discover that customers do not use the feature they way we had imagined (or worse yet, they do not like the feature at all). If very little or no feedback is provided, or the feature is not as useful as we thought, we will not spend any more time on the feature and we can focus our efforts somewhere else that will provide customer benefit.

Rivet now puts out a feature and benefit table as part of the release notes. This is because every feature we develop must have customer benefit – or why do it?

Help us continue to develop and enhance the correct set of features. Please email me any comments or suggestions you may have at kevin.berens@rivetsoftware.com.

The impact of Agile development and what it means to the customer PT 1

Kevin Berens - VP, Products — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:57:12 +0000

How feedback from customers get into the product – the evolution of CrossTag for XBRL tagging

What is Agile development (using a Wikipedia reference):

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies that are based on similar principles. Agile methodologies generally promote a project management process that encourages frequent-

Stop – Stop – Stop

As a customer, you could care less how Rivet Software develops software.

What you do care about (in addition to quality), is how exactly does a product feature get into the product? If you suggest a usability idea or a product enhancement, you want to know when you might expect this feature to get incorporated into the product (assuming that the idea will benefit all customers). If you hope to see this feature be incorporated into the product within 3 to 12 months, then you really do care that Rivet uses agile development.

At Rivet, we use agile development and it has been fun to see the CrossTag product morph in the last 6 to 8 months. We are working on our 3^rd release of the product in the last 8 months. The user interface for the CrossTag product has improved thanks to some great feedback from the customers during beta and after the product was released. Not all features get in. Sometimes even some really good ideas are not implemented immediately because of the cost to get these features into the product.

However, I would like to share with you some screen shots that show the morphing of CrossTag in the last 8 months. I will take you through CrossTag version 1 which was released to beta in June to CrossTag 1.5 which was released in September 2008 to the CrossTag Spring Release which will go beta near the end of this month.

Our initial release of CrossTag was June of 2008. The user interface looked like the following:

Some customer feedback we had included:

A) The ribbon is not very useful to me.

B) Search information in the taxonomy viewer was confusing.

C) These options seem like they should be in the ribbon.

D) Using the control properties to add or modify labels, confuses and scares me. The product looks too geeky to me.

E) I have no visual cues to indicate which elements were used in my template.

F) We need more room to do our tagging, the screen is just way too crowded.

G) Re-arrange tabs is in a very odd place.

Based upon this feedback, we quickly shifted gears and produced a product that addressed many of these issues but not all of them.

CrossTag 1.5 was released in September of 2008. The user interface looked like the following:

This was an improvement over the initial release:

A) We moved the reports to the ribbon which gave you slightly more room to view elements.

B) We moved preparer permissions to the ribbon, which gave you slightly more room to tag.

C) We eliminated the need for the control properties and allowed in-line editing of the labels.

D) We added-in use stars so you could see the elements used in the template.

CrossTag Spring Release is due to be released in the spring of 2009, hence the product name. The user interface will look like the following:

This was a huge improvement over CrossTag 1.5:

A) We added entities to the selector panel and now you have more room to do your tagging.

B) We added uniview (markup properties) to the selector panel and now you have more room to do your tagging.

C) We added-in use elements tab so now with a single view, you can see the elements used in the template but without this view being cluttered by all the elements that you have not used.

D) We used Outlook like slider panels which makes the product easier to understand and use.

In my next blog, I will talk about how agile development helps drive innovations and complement this innovation with customer feedback, but I wanted to give you a preview.

In the spring release we have several new features that we would like to see morph over the next 6 to 9 months. We are introducing the following:

Tagging assistance features including comparisons of tags from other filers
Workflow
Automation via import from Excel
Hierarchies for dimensional tagging

As you use these features, we want to enhance these features over times, so please email me any comments or suggestions you may have at kevin.berens@rivetsoftware.com.