ABOUT MECA



The Sapient Team


Eric Liu, Ripple Parikh, Jon Frey, Joon Oh


Application Overview
Master Event Calendar (MECA) developed by Sapient Corporation

TARGET END USERS

Employees in medium-to-large size companies.


APPLET DESCRIPTION

MECA provides a consolidated view of events via their intranet,
communicating important event information throughout the enterprise
and enabling  coordinated team efforts. Any employee with password
access and permission can add, delete, and modify events on the calendar. 
Employees can view events by month or by day, depending on the level of 
detail they need.

MECA allows users to subscribe to "groups" of events.  A user may create 
a group for an individual, a project, an office, an entire corporation, or
whatever, and associate events with those groups.  Group properties may be 
altered by the owner of the group. 

END USER FEATURES

* View events by month at a high level or by day at a more detailed
level.

* Add, delete, and modify events, with new information immediately
posted.

* Define time zone for each event, thus enabling employees to view tasks
without confusion caused by multiple time zones.

* Automatically sort events chronologically.

* Add, delete, and modify groups owned by the user.

* Subscribe to different groups of events.

Requirements
* Software Requirements
  Netscape LiveWire
  Netscape Enterprise Server
  Netscape v3.0 or higher
  Informix Online Workgroup Server
  Windows NT 3.51 with Service Pack 4 or higher

* Installation for Windows NT
  Double click on MECA.exe and follow the installation instructions
     choosing the default values.

Configuration
* What do I need to run MECA?
  1.  Make sure that Javascript is enabled on your browser.
    Under "Options" and then "Network Preferences", click on "Languages"
    and make sure Javascript enabling is turned on.

  2.  Enable LiveWire on the Enterprise Server.

  3.  Setup the database
    Type in the following sequence of commands (at the DOS prompt)to set 
    up the database with MECA tables.

      c:\>cd \dbms\ifx
      c:\>dbaccess - db_create
      c:\>dbaccess - base_data
      c:\>dbaccess - sample_data (if you need to load some sample data)
      
    The database is now set up for use.
   
  4.  Compile the directory.
    Using the Site Manager, find the the installed directory.  Click on 
    it once then under "Site", choose "Build Application". Name the application
    "meca".

    Using build.bat, go to the installed directory in the command line
    and type "build".

  5.  Add MECA application to the LiveWire Application Manager
              Web File Path: \meca.web
              Initial File : init.htm
              Default File : init.htm
         Max. DB Connection: 1
         External Libraries: None
      Client Object Maint. : client-cookie

  6.  Start a Netscape session.  In the Location Field, type:
    "http:////"


Getting Started
Groups:

Upon logging in for the first time, you will have to set up a new group
for yourself.  This is done by clicking the "Create Group" button on
the init.htm screen.  Fill in your group information and hit "OK".  The 
application will send you back to the login screen, where you may log
in using your newly created name and password.

Note:  You may log into the application initially with name='user' and 
password='user'.

To subscribe to groups, enter MECA through the initial login screen and click 
"Group Subscription" in the "Month View."  Then, subscribe to the desired 
groups you have access to.  

The user can manage the list of owned groups through the "Administer Groups" 
button in the "Month View" screen.



Events:

To add events to the calendar, hit "Add Task" from the "Month View" screen.
Fill in the appropriate information in the "Task Information" screen and hit
"OK".

The main calendar "Month View" shows up to three short descriptions per 
day for any month entered.  If a day contains more than three events, 
only three will be shown with the forth line being "more...".

From the Month View, the user can:
1.  go to a specific Day View,
2.  add a new event (for any day).

If the user clicks on the day number in the calendar, the user will be 
shown the "Day View".  The Day View will show all detailed information for
the chosen day, one task at a time.  To see a task's information, clicks on 
the short description, and all the time/date and long description 
information will be shown.

From the Day View, the user has several actions that can be performed:
1.  a user can add a new event (for any day),
2.  a user can click on an event and modify any information on that event,
3.  a user can click on an event and delete that event from the database.

Note that the user can only perform steps 2 and 3 if the groupPermission for 
the group associated with the event is "All" and/or the user is the owner of the
group.

Definitions
  
   * Group properties.*  The following is a list of properties a group
      can have.  
        loginName:   (8 chars)  The login name for the group.  Can not 
                     include spaces, quotes, periods, commas, or slashes.
        loginPassword:  (4-10 chars)  The password for the group.
        groupOwner:  (8 chars)  The login name for the owner of the group.
                     A group can be owned by someone other than the group
                     itself.  ie. groupA can create groupB with groupA as
                     the owner.  However, now, groupB is not allowed to 
                     create groups itself.  Only groups where the groupOwner
                     is the loginName can create other groups.  This rule is
                     set to insure that unbound nesting of groups does not
                     occur.
        groupDescription:  (25 chars)  A description that is more 
                     descriptive than the loginName alone.
        groupType:   ('G' or 'L')  Everyone has access to global groups, whereas
                     the group owner can restrict access to private groups.
                     
        groupPermission:   ('A' or 'V')  "All" access (read, write, delete)
                     can be set for a group or "View" only (read).  A group 
                     with "all" access set gives permission to all groups
                     with access, the permission to read, write
                     and delete tasks into the group.  "View" access set is
                     view only for groups with access.

        * Note:  MECA does not differentiate between groups and users.  A group
                 can own other groups if it is a parent groups.  Parent groups 
                 are simply groups where the login name is equal to the group owner.

   * Event properties.*  An event has the following properties:
        eventId:     The unique id within the database for this event.
                     EventId is system generated.
        loginName:   The loginName of the group that created this event.
        eventGMTTime:     The time string entered by the user.
        eventStartDate:   The start date of the event.
        eventStopDate:    The end date of the event.
        shortDescription: The short description of the event.  The short
                     description will appear in the month view.
        longDescription:  The long description of the event.  The long 
                     description will appear in the day view.


Known Bugs

1.  When using the Netscape Navigator Beta 3.0 version 6, deleting a
    a task causes the screen to blank out.  This can be filled in by 
    pushing the reload button.  This bug does not occur in version 5 
    and below of the Netscape Navigator.

2.  The URL is limited to only 4KBytes.  Thus a limit exists for the 
    amount of information that can be passed from one screen to another
    through a form.  This will limit the number of groups a user can subscribe
    to at one time.

3.  MECA is not yet a secure application.  A user can access a page within MECA
    without going through the login screen first if the client cookie has not
    expired.

4.  MECA only supports four time zones (PST, MST, EST, CST).

5.  Events on the month view sometimes get scrambled due to a bug in 
    Netscape's memory allocation scheme.  If this happens, Reload the
    screen.

About Sapient
Sapient Corporation (NASDAQ: SAPE), headquartered in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, is a leader in design, development and implementation of
systems to help organizations rapidly achieve their business objectives.
Founded in 1991, Sapient has a proven track record of delivering
information technology solutions to the worldıs leading organizations on
a fixed-price, fixed-time frame basis.  Sapientıs clients include
Digital Equipment Corporation, Merrill Lynch, Owens Corning, Pacific
Bell Internet Services, PSE&G, and Wells Fargo.  Sapient employs
approximately 350 people with additional offices in New York and San
Francisco.