OPAS: An Office Procedure Automation System

being developed to support ofice automation. The emphasis of the paper is on a technology that allows people to automate their ofice and business activities. Specifically, using forms as the interface, the authors propose a powerful data manipulation and restructuring facility that not only allows users to extract and manipulate data in the forms, but can be used to interface between new and existing applications as well. Since business and ofice procedures are not discrete activities, but a structured sequence of activities, a means to define and execute procedures is required. Such a means is described in this paper along with its model and an example of its application. Progress in office automation has been stimulated by the desire to increase productivity and by advances in technology. Although office automation is still in an early stage of development, some commercial products have become available, and many users have had some experience with them. However, today's products are mainly tools for office mechanization and not systems for automation. Such is the case for electronic mail, word processors, and calendar management .'-' Office automation requires more than just these tools. This fact has been recognized by many people and has been discussed in many places. " " The development of a system that truly automates the office and its business procedures requires additional facilities significantly beyond the kind just mentioned. To see what is required, let us consider what tasks are to be done in the office environment. In the office people prepare documents and fill out forms of different kinds. They file and retrieve them as needed. Documents and other 0 Copyright 1982 by International Business Machines Corporation. Copying in printed form for private use is permitted without payment of royalty provided that (I) each reproduction is done without alteration and (2) the Journal reference and IBM copyright notice are included on the first page. The title and abstract, but no other portions, of this paper may be copied or distributed royalty free without further permission by computer-based and other information-service systems. Permission to republish any other portion of this paper must be obtained from the Editor.