This invention provides a visual and textual system, including a set of intuitive icons representing different activities, for indicating status of and/or change in a document or documents and/or in project operations, using the icons to indicate the presence of different classes of changes that have been introduced in the version displayed. Three distinct classes of status/changes are indicated, each class using one of several visually distinguishable icons to indicate the class and including additional textual information associated with the icon. Icons from different classes of activities have different shapes to allow for easier distinction between the classes.

The Context Based Configuration Management (CBCM) system is designed to track changes in, and status of, enterprise- level programmatic operations. Enterprise decision-making and operations rely on management of nontraditional configuration management (CM) components. The CBCM system will unify off-the-shelf decision-history and decision-map systems to commercial configuration management systems. Significant knowledge management (KM) enhancements can be made to both the mapping frameworks, as front ends to the CM system, as well as adding intelligence to the CM components to improve enterprise-level assessments and forecasting. Specific CM objects will be customized to handle both the unique configurable enterprise components as well as the unique enterprise contexts. The KM enhancements focus on collaborative decision/history map development including multilevel independent forward and backward linking between large numbers of independent CBCM systems via the Web. This Web-based interactivity will allow significant and unobtrusive communications and context enhancements to provide more extensive individual and organizational inputs/comments to a given enterprise strategic decision-making activity.

A user interacts with a CBCM system through a graphical user interface (GUI) with symbols representing different types or classes of decision objects that are placed on parallel time lines, and are linked to show interdependencies between these objects. Information about a decision object (metadata) is entered and/or displayed by clicking on the corresponding symbol. All information is stored in an object-relational database that can be queried to provide information or to generate a report.

This work was done by Yuri O. Gawdiak, Mohana M. Gurram, David A. Maluf, and Luis A. Mederos of Ames Research Center. NASA invites companies to inquire about partnering opportunities and licensing this patented technology. Contact the Ames Technology Partnerships Office at 1-855-627-2249 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Refer to ARC-15312-1.

Topics:
Body structures Cartography Cartography Collaboration and partnering Data management Documentation Historical reference Imaging and visualization Imaging and visualization Optics Optics People and personalities Software Technical review Vehicle front ends

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    This article first appeared in the April, 2015 issue of NASA Tech Briefs Magazine.

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