Establishing Documentation Standards

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• Feedback:  Your assessor will provide feedback to you after the completion of the assessment.   Your trainer assessor will also explain your rights to appeal under the colleges appeals process.

Why is it important to have standardised documents within an organisation

Standardized documents play an important role within an organization. Standardized documents have the capability of removing confusion and ambiguity. Furthermore, they assist the businesses in following the same processes and procedures with each and every customer without any regard for who the process is affecting. Standardization is also maintained for the purpose of ensuring that the business practices are just and fair. Standardization of documents leads to consistent quality, structure and appearance of documents thereby making them easier to read and understand. It is also important due to the fact that it builds the trust of the customers in services, products and systems and therefore acts as an indispensable development tool for the organizations.  

Furthermore, standardized documents bring innovation due to the use of reliable data and structured methods that assists in saving time in the process of innovation. Moreover, the dissemination of the ground- breaking ideas and knowledge also becomes easier for an organization. In simple words, standardized documents are important as it allows any member of the organization including the staff to make easy identification and interpretation of the relevant information. Moreover, when the documents are standardized, the image of the company also improves ( Ménard & Ratté, 2016).    

Describe3 different software programs and the type of document they are suited for

Document Management Software

Document management software is software is suitable for the purpose of storing and keeping a track record of the electronic files. Such software performs the function of assisting the user in organizing, managing, sharing and communicating the business critical information. Such software are capable of meeting the required of organization of different sizes ( Yilmaz, O’ Connor & Clarke, 2014).

Word Processing Software

Word Processing Software is a software program in the computer which is utilized for the purpose of composing, editing, formatting and printing written documents. It further assists in manipulating a text document along with applying the basic design to the pages. The documents that can be manipulated include a resume, report, etc. The software also allows correct spelling and grammar, creating and editing tables and inserting elements from different software such as photographs or illustrations.

Database Programs

Database programs assists the users assists the users to input numerous records into a single file and provides the facility of easily searching and manipulating the records.  In other words, with the help of a database program, the user gets the facility of storage, search and retrieval system. It further has the capacity of instantly picking the needed data and producing it to the user along with appropriately managing the data collections.

Describe 6 different documents and their purposes

E- mails

The purpose of e- mail is to send messages or letters electronically. Such transfer of messages or letters is made from one computer to another. Another feature of e- mails is to send a message instantly to more than one address at a single point of time ( Rahman, Chakraborty & Ray, 2018).

Creating Document Templates

Contracts

Contracts can be defined as the formal document that is entered into by the parties for the purpose of entering into an agreement. In other words, the basic purpose of aa contract is to make an agreement enforceable by law.

Letters

Letters are considered to be the common document which is used by the companies for the communication purposes. It is also regarded as the method for gaining the feedback of the recipient of the letter. They are a way through which official communication can be made by the organization.

Invoice

Invoice can be defined as the written request made by the organization for the payment of goods and services. The purpose of this document is to clearly specify the general details such as the name of the company along with the contact details, name of the customer and address, payment term and amount and this document is kept as a proof that the goods or services have been delivered to the customer.

Government Forms

Documents can be lodged with the government only on the basis of specific guidelines. Such guidelines are generally clearly mentioned on the website of the government. Therefore, the purpose of the preparation of these documents is to fulfil the requirements specified by the government.

Reports

Report can be defined as the document that contains information in a graphic, narrative or tabular form, prepared on regular, periodic, ad hoc or as required basis. Reports may serve the purpose of referring to occurrences, events, specific periods or subjects and may be presented or communicated in an oral or written form ( Tregear, 2015).

What is the purpose of a macro?

The basic purpose of macro is to speed up production by way of ensuring the automation of the repetitive tasks. Furthermore, macro is also used with the purpose of improving the usefulness by way of reducing the associated errors and reducing the time needed for performing the actions. In other words, the basic purpose of macros is to ensure that the documents standards are adequately met. Macros play an important part in automating the formatting functions along with common tasks of the user during the production of the document. The development of the macros also ensure that each and every document produced by the respective staff is in adherence/ compliance with the quality standards of the organization and can be easily produced and reproduced in an efficient manner. Once the relevant macros and templates are developed and the training is provided to the staff regarding their efficient and effective use, the organization needs to monitor how well they are being applied in the work by the staff. Moreover, monitoring is also required for the purpose of examining whether macros are continuously meeting the standards of the organization or not (Gaceb, Eglin & Lebourgeois, 2014).  

However, the macros are required to be chosen correctly as it is the responsibility of the organization to have a check on the documents that are produced by its team members and are prepared with the help of the document template of the organization.  Additional training may also require to be provided to the members of the team who are incapable of using macro due to their lack of knowledge regarding the manner of use.

Developing a Standard for Text Input

What cost constraints may affect your document design and development?

There are a number of costs associated with the design and development of a document. Such costs include salaries or wages to the experts for the preparation of the documents, printing costs, black and white printing or colour printing costs, costs associated with the printing machines, printing paper, etc. All these costs are required to be met by the organization before supporting the design and development of the document. The printing costs are high when the quantity to be printed is more, also the paper costs are included in the costs constraints. Such constraints become a hurdle in the design and development of documents for the organization. Other constraints ae related to quality, commitment, time, facility restrictions, due diligence, staffing, speed, capacity limitation, size of space, functionality, speed, risk obligation, etc.  

Since documentation is one of the most important activities that are required to be adequately completed by the organization, the assistance of the externa experts is obtained for preparing documents in a proper manner. For this, high amounts are charged by the experts for providing such advice. With the passage of time, the costs associated with printing has also significantly increased due to which colour prints are often not preferred. Instead, preference is given to the black and white prints as it appears cost effective to the organizations. Therefore, these costs constraints also requires the business to make some compromises so that the design and development needs can be met adequately (Alhéritière, Cloppet, Kurtz, Ogier & Vincent, 2017).

Describe the document production process you would follow when creating an organisations internal and external document range.

The process of document production is an iterative process that involves drafting, checking and revising the document. The process continues till the time the acceptable quality of the document is produced. Such process assist in the creation of a quality internal and external document range. The dependence of the acceptable quality is on the type of document and the potential readers.

The process initiates with the creation of an initial draft. The first stage is known as the creation stage. After the creation of the initial draft, the draft is reviewed and comments are offered for the purpose of making changes where needed. Furthermore, the comments are reviewed and incorporated in the draft. This means that this stage requires re- drafting of the document at the end.

The next stage is the polishing stage.  The approved re- drafted document is then moved to this stage where the text of the draft is proofread for the purpose of producing the final draft. After proofreading, the final draft will be produced which will then be checked once again ( Lauer, 2015).  

The document then moves to the next stages of the document production process which is the actual production stage. In this stage, the layout text is produced and reviewed. After this, the print masters are produced and lastly the copies of the documents are printed. In this way, the entire internal and external document range can be prepared. One thing that needs to be kept in mind during   the production of external documents is that all the internal matters cannot be discussed in detail in such documents. However, the internal documents will contain each and every aspect in detail.

Importance of Standardized Documents within an Organization

How do the following legislation / regulations effect the design of your document and content?

Legislation / regulations effect the design of your document and content in the following manner:

The application of the ethics code is on the activities that are part of professional and/ or educational roles of Process Work practitioners. It covers areas such as counselling, clinical, research, educational practice of Process Work, supervision of trainees, teaching, social intervention, public service, organizational consulting, administration and program design and evaluation. On these activities, the ethics code is applicable across a variety of contexts such as in case of electronic transmissions, internet, telephone, postal and in- person. This document consists of various elements such as introduction, general principles, preamble and specific ethical standards.  

The importance of general principles and preamble is to describe the aspirational goals that perform the function of guiding the Process Workers towards the highest ideal of its practice. The term reasonable, as used in this document, means the already existing professional judgement of practitioners engaged in similar circumstances and similar activities, given the knowledge of the practitioner ( Wheeler & Bertram, 2015).

Codes of practice can be defined as the document which performs the function of complementing the occupational health and safety laws and regulations. The basic purpose of the codes of practice is to offer detailed practical guidance on the manner of ensuring compliance with legal obligations along with their adherence until and unless another solution with better or same safety and health standard is in place. The design of the document of codes of practice covers the introduction, codes, the manner of their usage, their meaning, status, etc. ( Chartered Institute of Building, 2014)

Privacy laws can be defined as the laws which performs the function of dealing with the regulation, storing and use of personality identifiable information of various individuals which can be collected by public or private organizations, governments or other individuals.  Federal and state information privacy legislation governs the privacy laws documents.  The use of electronic documents is also facilitated through privacy law ( Bygrave, 2014)

Copyright is a term relevant for artists, authors, musicians and various other creative people. Copyright can be defined as a legal means with the help of which the work of an author can be protected. It comes under the types of intellectual property through which it provides exclusive distribution, publication and usage rights for the author. The copyright document is designed in a manner such that it provides the statement of corporate values along with the statement of corporate obligations regarding copyright. Furthermore, the content of the document also specifies the instructions for handling the copyright infringement.

What external assistance is available for development of documents

For the purpose of developing the documents, several kinds of external assistance are available. External assistance is available either online or in printed form for diverse requirements varying from dictionaries, templates in word processing programs, thesauruses, grammar book and books regarding how to write different kinds of business communication. Furthermore, an expert is always present in the big organizations for providing assistance during the working hours regarding the development of documents. Moreover, publishers, expert advice and publishing houses can also be consulted for the purpose of receiving the advice at the doorstep.

Among the above available options, priority is given to seeking the expertise of an IT expertise while performing the diverse tasks within the documentation design stage. Such external expertise provides assistance and support during the development process of the document. They further provide help to the training staff reading the manner of using new software applications. In clear words, expertise that are external to an organization includes software developer trainers, IT manager/ staff, short courses, online tutorials and tutors, and external consultants. Such expert advice makes sure that there are no inappropriateness in the documents of the organization. They also suggest the organization to maintain standardized documents so that there is no ambiguity and confusion.

References

Bygrave, L. A. (2014). Data privacy law: an international perspective (Vol. 63). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chartered Institute of Building. (2014). Code of practice for project management for construction and development. John Wiley & Sons.

Alhéritière, H., Cloppet, F., Kurtz, C., Ogier, J. M., & Vincent, N. (2017, November). A document straight line based segmentation for complex layout extraction. In Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR), 2017 14th IAPR International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 1126-1131). IEEE.

Ménard, P. A., & Ratté, S. (2016). Concept extraction from business documents for software engineering projects. Automated Software Engineering, 23(4), 649-686.

Gaceb, D., Eglin, V., & Lebourgeois, F. (2014). Classification of business documents for real-time application. Journal of real-time image processing, 9(2), 329-345.

Wheeler, A. M., & Bertram, B. (2015). The counselor and the law: A guide to legal and ethical practice. John Wiley & Sons.

Tregear, R. (2015). Business process standardization. In Handbook on Business Process Management 2 (pp. 421-441). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.’

Lauer, C. (2015). High-tech invention: Examining the relationship between technology and idea generation in the document design process. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 29(4), 367-402.

Yilmaz, M., O’Connor, R. V., & Clarke, P. (2014, June). An exploration of individual personality types in software development. In European Conference on Software Process Improvement (pp. 111-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Rahman, M. M., Chakraborty, S., & Ray, B. (2018, May). Which similarity metric to use for software documents?: a study on information retrieval based software engineering tasks. In Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceeedings (pp. 335-336). ACM.