PREFERENCE

Online Mainframe Help and Reference

Pathlore's PREFERENCE® is a centralized online help and reference system that works concurrently with your mainframe applications. With PREFERENCE you can store help information and thousands of reference documents online and make it all available to staff who use these applications to do their jobs. With PREFERENCE, employees can access consistent, reliable information and receive assistance without depending on co-workers, supervisors, manuals, help desks, or trial-and-error. Indeed, PREFERENCE offers the high-value mentoring employees need-at the exact moment of need.

The help users need, when they need it

EASY TO DEVELOP

PREFERENCE makes creating online help and reference easy. Trainers don't need to be programmers-they need only understand employee stumbling blocks and decide how to help. With PREFERENCE, trainers:

• Implement online help and reference without having to change application code
• Control the content and scope of the assistance employees receive-dynamic help windows, reference materials, examples, decision matrixes, and windows to external data from VSAM and DB2 files (used to present ever-changing information, such as rates that might fluctuate daily)
• Use the product's built-in hierarchy of volume, chapter, topic, section, and screen to easily organize and present online information
• Create and maintain only one version of online help and reference-no modifications are needed for specific access methods, terminals, or keyboards
  

PREFERENCE lets trainers:

• Create help screens and reference pages using a built-in editor
• Import uploaded ASCII text files created by using a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word.
• Set up time-saving defaults and reader options
• Capture application screens
• Test while editing-without compilation
• Index with flexibility, including any desired term (usingPREFERENCE can improve indices by adding terms employees request)
• Produce standard reports for resource allocation and account charge-back, as well as custom reports
  

For maximum flexibility, PREFERENCE:

• Runs on IBM and IBM-compatible mainframes under MVS and VM
• Works in conjunction with a variety of teleprocessing access methods
• Draws on the full range of 3270 terminal functionality with graphics, color, and 24 PF-key keyboards
• Offers reader menus in multiple languages and writer/edit menus in French, English and Italian
  

EASY TO USE

PREFERENCE gives employees help from within applications, so they stay on-task. All they have to do is press a PF key or enter a command-or the application itself invokes PREFERENCE. After receiving assistance, they return-with a keystroke-to where they were in the application.
With PREFERENCE, applications explain themselves, coaching employees to do their jobs effectively. A PREFERENCE pop-up help screen overlays the application screen, so assistance can be easily assimilated.
And PREFERENCE offers many ways to access reference information. Employees can move quickly to the desired portion of the reference volume by:

• Selecting a chapter, topic, or section from the table of contents
• Entering an index term and specifying a search of the term in the current volume or group of volumes
  Or, employees can access reference information by:
• "Jumping" to related information via hypertext, which brings this information instantly on-screen
• Returning to a bookmark
• Paging through the full text of a reference volume
• Scanning for an occurrence of a key term in the full text
  

BETTER INFORMATION, BETTER DECISIONS

To ensure employees get exactly the help they need, PREFERENCE incorporates smart help and decision support:

• Smart help tailors assistance to the task at hand-the current application, screen, field (and values within each field), cursor position, and so on. Smart help can display valid entries for a field, or coach an employee through closing a sale.
• Decision support ensures employees make the right decisions. PREFERENCE can lead employees through a series of questions, evaluate the response, and present the best choice. This can enable, for example, a customer support representative to recommend the best product to a customer.
  

PREFERENCE also offers several other employee-oriented features. For example, employees can toggle between as many volumes as needed. Selected data can be transported from a help window to the application screen, saving keystrokes and avoiding errors. And, if necessary, employees can print reference materials.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Supports any 3270 device, including PCs connected to the mainframe as 3270s
• IBM 30xx, 43xx, ES/9xxx, Z-Series or compatible
• All supported release levels of MVS, VM, or OS/390
• Optional XA memory support (above the 16 M line) for MVS
• MVS teleprocessing interfaces with VTAM, TSO, CICS, IDMS, or IMS
• VM teleprocessing interfaces with CMS or VTAM
• Optional External Data Access support from independent files and databases