Promotes the Best Use of the Native Application

I coined the methodology “Enhanced Native Architecture” (ENA) back in the late 90’s to help set Esquire’s products apart from our competition. Its definitely a competitive advantage and I’m glad its trade marked.  Intellectual property is so important to a technology company.

ENA builds upon the user interface and features of the existing parent software application whenever possible. ENA keeps custom applications consistent with parent software native functionality.

The Five Tenets of ENA

1. Promote Native Look and Feel
   Use the look and feel of native parent software dialog boxes to promote efficient usage, as if it were being used out-of-the-box. This maintains consistency between the custom application and the parent software application.
2. Don’t Reinvent It
   If a feature already exists in the parent software application, use it. Don’t re-build it, or re-invent it.
3. Improve Workflow
   If an important feature is difficult to get to, bring it to the forefront with a menu option or toolbar button. No need to build a beautiful “high-tech” bridge when a simple click will do.
4. Fix It
   If a feature is broken, fix it, don’t re-build it.
5. Speed It Up
   If a feature or process is slow, speed it up with streamlined programming that does not change the look and feel of the native parent application.

Real World Example of ENA:

Microsoft Word’s styles are powerful but they can be extremely difficult to use and train users on. When faced with the demand to provide clients with a better solution for styles we decided to provide quick accessibility to native Word features without building unique dialog boxes. The solution we created,  iHyperstyles was developed using the five tenets of Enhanced Native Architecture.

(100% .NET) … always look for this seal

“With accuracy and turnaround critical elements, law firms must produce documents ranging in difficulty from simple memos to complex agreements, as well as disclosure documents and briefs,” states Susan McClellan, Esquire Innovations’ Marketing and Operations Manager. “This new version of iCreate provides a fully integrated system of templates and automation that construct documents with the click of a button and on-screen prompts that ask the ‘right’ kinds of questions.”  [All XML and LINQ technology]

iCreate promotes best use of MS Word, streamlines document production, increases staff productivity

iCreate 7 leverages MS Word’s Enhanced Native Architecture™ (ENA and promotes the best use of Word, drawing on the most effective features for legal documents instead of highly programmed customizations or substitute functions. By retaining the look and feel of the parent software dialog boxes, iCreate 7 promotes streamlined workflow and reduces end user training requirements. And by retaining Word’s native formatting, an electronic document can effectively be used for collaboration purposes, without concern that the formatting will be rendered completely useless.

“Firms that implement iCreate find they significantly reduce the time users spend drafting, formatting and reformatting MS Word documents,” according to McClellan.

After installing Office 2007, an Information Systems manager from an Esquire Innovations’ client law firm in Boston stated that she had a difficult time “finding things in Word 2007. But, when she installed iCreate, she was thrilled to find that “it made using Word 2007 so much more intuitive.”

In-house customization saves money

Designed to meet the high demands of the legal industry, with enhanced administration, a sleek user interface, centralized template launcher, advanced pleading administration, numbering and formatting toolbars for repurposing documents, an open XML document format compliancy and contact management integration with dynamic address updating, iCreate 7 has enormous capabilities for quickly creating, editing and standardizing legal documents.

iCreate 7 is highly customizable by in-house staff without VBA experience. McClellan reports that “the package has a small application footprint, is simple to administer, can be implemented in a short amount of time, and the source code for customizable components is open.” She adds that “the updating and customization of templates is handled in-house, making upgrades inexpensive and quick to implement.”

Software ready for Office 2007

Esquire Innovations reports that along with iCreate 7; the company has also released new versions of iScrub, a metadata management solution for Microsoft Office documents; iRedline, a document comparison and collaboration application for Microsoft Word; and iDocID, a powerful document management system-integrated ID stamper. This new generation of products is available as the combined package iOffice System 7.

Here’s a feature of Document Inspector I just don’t get. When the “Headers, Footers and Watermarks” are removed, the Document Inspector removes everything in the footer, including the page number.

For long documents such as agreements, contracts and corporate documents where the footers are complex, this can cause some major problems…and heartache! This can be Undone, but if you forget and save it first, then it is gone.  …What…?

And your firm is solely using the Document Inspector?