ZIIA is an Enterprise Information System designed to support business Activities. ZIIA is available free online at ZIIA. It is developed by GHR Software based on guidelines from the GHR Consortium.

ZIIA (Zero Investment Instant Access) is available:

Immediately: See setup section below.

Free: No subscription, no costs, no adds, no nothing.

Online: Simple access via Internet Explorer (or other browsers supporting Microsoft .NET2).

OnDemand: None intrusive SAAS (Software As A Service).

To get quickly started we advise you to go through the less than 20 minutes tutorial HERE.

ZIIA offers free instant access to services and functionalities usually found in heavyweight systems such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), SCM (Supply Chain Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), BI (Business Intelligence) or PLM (Product Lifecycle Management). ZIIA is not designed to compete with historical ERP systems because it adopts a different approach.

ZIIA uses Web 3 technology with rich and interactive user experience working both online and offline (based on latest Microsoft .NET Technology and Internet Explorer). ZIIA also exists in mobile version and runs on any system running "Windows Mobile 5/6" (most phones, smartphones, Pocket PC, Tablet PC, …). The mobile version of ZIIA is not yet available to the public.

Note: If you're using an old Windows (anterior to Windows XP with Service Pack 2) you might need to install the "Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package" (from Microsoft website, HERE at time of writing) and the "Office 2003 Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies" (from Microsoft website, HERE at time of writing). If the files have moved, just search them with the quoted names.

The picture below shows the screen you'll see once connected to ZIIA at ZIIA:

Here's a screen shot of a typical screen:

Setup new account for your company (in 10 seconds)

Setting up an account for your company requires only your company name (or a company pseudo if you don't wish to use your real name) and will take you about 10 seconds; here is the process:

Note: If you have an old Windows (anterior to XP SP2) then you might need to install the "Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package" (from Microsoft website)

Point IE (Internet Explorer) to ZIIA (or run the executable for the Desktop version).

Enter your company name (or a pseudo if you prefer) in the "Corp." field and click "Create".

You can now log in with the company name you entered, the login "admin" and the password "admin" (you should change these in the "Elements/Authorisation" menu, in which you manage all user security aspects).

The below picture illustrates the login GUI:

From then you will have full access to the system and be able to start with any of the wanted functionalities presented below.

You can perform all your tests with the "admin" account. Later (before passing in production with ZIIA) you should use the "Elements/Authorisation" menu in order to create suitable user accounts with the appropriate authorisations. See Managing user accounts (authentification and authorisation) for this.

Main concepts

ZIIA is structured around three core concepts: Elements, Use Cases and Workflows. Basically, Workflows utilize Use Cases, Use Cases utilize Elements and Elements play Roles (in processes). But, both Elements and Use Cases can also be used alone. However as explained below, this should be exceptional, as usage should always start via Workflows. This structure makes the system very efficient and simple to use.

There are different kinds of Workflows. The domain Workflows finishing in "WF" ("CRM WF" for example) present a list of Activities for a given domain which can be performed independently. For example, the "CRM WF/Create quotes" Activity allows creating quotes for clients and would therefore be used by sales people who have access to CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

Other Workflows are for example the "BP WF" (for "BP" for Business Process) which presents the Activities along a business process perspective (rather than a domain focus), for example "Sell products to clients BP WF" which controls all the Activities necessary from quote to delivery for selling products to clients (this overlaps different domains, for example CRM and SCM)

Elements contain Entries. For example, for the "Client" Element, the email address is an Entry.

Here is a summary of these concepts:

"Workflows" provide "Activities", which are in turn preconfigured "Use Cases"

"Use Cases" provide functions which generally span a number of "Elements" and aren't isolated

"Elements" play Roles and provide functions which are specific to the Element and isolated

The main available functionalities are presented here regarding this organisation and with a short description and relevant concepts:

Workflow control:

SPC BP WF (Sell Products to Clients): Provide selling process from quote to ship, stock and account update, ...

CRM WF (Customer Relationship Management): Provide front office Activities, customer management, placing orders, ...

SCM WF (Supply Chain Management): Provide back office Activities, product management, stock management, …

Use Case execution:

Order UC: Handle the orders with quotes, payments, shipments, …

Stock UC: Handle the stocks with updates, replenish, inventories, …

Element management:

Account: Manages accounting, financial control, …

Authorisation: Manages accreditations, logins, modules, …

Client: Manage clients, history, contacts, notes, …

Customisation: Manage Elements customisation, specific attributes, …

Data Update: Manage data, backup, restore, …

Order: Manage orders, items, price, client, …

Product: Manage products, changes, cost, description, …

Stock: Manage stocks, products, thresholds, …

The following sections present each of these functionalities, starting by the Workflows, because depending on which Workflows are needed, all the Use Cases or Elements might not be necessary. This is an important aspect because it makes using ZIIA simpler as the main entry point is the Workflow you wish to execute.

Workflow control generalities (Workflows/***)

Workflows provide sets (ordered or not) of business oriented functions (called Activities) which have meaning to the user. Usually, users will always go to the appropriate Workflow menu in order to find and execute the necessary Activities. This approach is meant to make the system easy to use by guiding the user through using the Use Cases in a preconfigured fashion. Indeed, Use Cases usually offer many scenarios and depending on the context (user, department, …) many of these will not be pertinent.

For example, the "Use cases/Order UC" Use Case doesn't offer the same scenarios (possibilities) between the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) Workflows (CRM and SCM are typically "front office" and "back office" and aren't performed by the same teams). In the CRM Workflow the user can for instance create quotes and confirm orders. In the SCM Workflow the same Use Case (i.e. "Use cases/Order UC") allows switching orders to the "shipped" status once it is shipped (this updating the current stocks).

The Workflow forms usually present a list (ordered or not) of buttons with self explanatory labels. Each button will activate another form (configured Use Case/Activity or Element) which will be configured to perform the requested Workflow.

For illustration, here are the SCM and CRM Workflow forms:

Domain Workflow: CRM WF (Customer Relationship Management)

This Workflow supports the Activities necessary to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). These range from creating quotes for clients to responding to product information requests.

Prerequisite (for all Activities, some may work without fulfilling these prerequisites):

Available products DB: Use "Elements/Product" to manage the product database

Available stock: Use "Use cases/Stock UC" to manage the stock

The usual Use Cases in CRM are:

Create clients: Creating new clients in the client database

Create quotes: Providing quotes to clients for a list of products

Confirm quotes: Confirming clients quotes thus confirming the order and updating stocks

Provide product information: Replying to clients requests on products (technical information, prices, …)

Provide product technical support N/A:

Manage mailing campaign N/A: Organising commercial actions (mailing, promotions, …)

Domain Workflow: SCM WF (Supply Chain Management)

This Workflow supports the Activities necessary to Supply Chain Management (SCM). These range from handling the stocks to organising shipments.

Prerequisite (for all Activities, some may work without fulfilling these prerequisites):

Available products DB: Use "Elements/Product" to manage the product database

Available stock: Use "Use cases/Stock UC" to manage the stock

The usual Use Cases in SCM are:

Ship confirmed orders: Ship orders to clients and remove the products from the current stocks

Upgrade stocks: Managing the stocks (replenish a product, update product list)

Create products: Create new products in the products database

Business Process Workflow: Sell products to clients BP WF

This Workflow supports the Activities necessary during the sales process. These range from creating quotes for clients to shipping the order and updating the stocks in the warehouse.

Prerequisite:

Available products: Use "Elements/Product" to manage the product database

Available clients: Use "Elements/Client" to manage the client database

Available stock: Use "Use cases/Stock UC" to manage the stock

In its usual flow, this process includes the following steps:

Create a new order (quote) for a client who wants some products (user is for example a sales employee):

The user selects the client.

The user selects the products.

The system calculates the total price.

The user creates the order which will have "Quote" status.

Confirm the order (user is for example a sales employee):

The user edits the order which will be in "Quote" status

The user switches order status to "Confirmed" and updates. The user receives payment from the client.

The system updates the stocks by removing the products from the stocks in the adequate quantity.

Ship the order (user is for example a warehouse employee):

The user edits the order which will be in "Confirmed" status.

The user switches order status to "Shipped" and updates. The user prepares the package and ships it.

The system updates the stocks by removing the products from the current stocks in the adequate quantity.

These three steps are typically done by three different people and at different times.

The first step ("Quote" phase) may never be followed up, also, a same client might request a number of quotes before confirming. At this point the user needs to know his products to advise the client.

The confirming phase, which requires payment, might be handled by a different user with access to payment facilities (cash, credit card, check verification, loans, ..).

Then, the shipment step will likely be done every morning and the user will edit all the orders which need shipping and ship them. This person might also be in charge of reordering products to replenish the stocks.

Element management generalities (Elements/***)

This section describes the management of Elements (for example "Elements/Client" or "Elements/Product") from a generic point of view. Indeed, the management functions are independent of the actual content of the Element which is manipulated.

The Element form is separated in two: the upper part is generic and the lower part is specific to the Element (for example, between a product and a client, the difference will only be in the lower portion). The upper part provides the different functions necessary to manage the Elements, while the lower provides the fields which define the actual content of the Elements.

The management functions available in the upper part are shown in the illustration below:

"Create", "Update", "Edit", "Consult" and "Delete" are all basic functions used to manage the Element:

"Create": Create a new Element using the values in the fields, wherever these come from (typed, consult or edit for example). This will generate a new Element in the database and not overwrite an existing one (even if the Element was opened in "Edit" mode).

"Update": Update the currently edited Element. This will not create a new Element, rather it will overwrite the currently edited Element.

"Edit": Edit an Element. The list of available Elements will appear in a dialog and the selected Element will be opened leaving the "Update" button available to be able to update the Element.

"Consult": Consult does the same as "Edit" except it disables the "Update" button thus forbidding updating the Element. "Create" left available for example to create a copy of an existing Element.

"Delete": Deletes the currently edited Element. This button is only enabled in edit mode.

On the right are the attachment functions

The list shows all the attachments attached to the Element. The "Get" button downloads the selected attachment, the "Add" button adds an attachment and the "Remove" attachment removes the attachment (and deletes it from the database)

The other functions are:

The "Filter with form values" list is used by the "Edit" and "Consult" modes in order to filter the available Elements. For this, you can fill in some of the fields, and only the Elements which fields match those entered will be listed in the "Edit"/"Consult" dialog. The "Filter Intuitive" mode will give expected results in most cases (ignore case and partial match), "Filter Strict" requires the entries to perfectly match and "Filter RegEx" is an advanced mode which uses .NET Regular Expressions.

"Clear form" as its name implies is used to clear all the fields in the form.

History management allows to undo previous changes and transactions performed (EXPERT ONLY).

The notes area (activate through "Notes" button in toolbar) allows adding notes to the data

The units area (activate through "Units" button in toolbar) allows changing the units of the values displayed in the current form (currencies, lengths, areas, weights, …). Two options are available: change the unit in the text without converting the value or change the unit and convert the value.

The category area (activate through "Categories" button in toolbar) allows to assign categories to Elements. For example, a product which has categories "sellable" can be used to place orders and in the price lists. If it has "stockable" it will be managed in the stocks. Of course, it can have both. The category names are self explanatory and should be used as suggested.

The role area is used to see and select (in the Power Element) the roles an Element can play.

When used from Use Cases, the "Managed mode" toggle will often be activated ("Managed mode" means "Managed by Use Case mode"). When this is the case, some fields will be read only because these fields are handled by the parent Use Case. However, you can always disable the "Managed mode" toggle if necessary to manually modify these fields, for example to "force" a different price for a product in an order (this must be used with great care, in particular if fiddling with links to other Elements). The philosophy of this is to never block the users with arbitrary constraints, the user can take responsibility.

Customising the system for your organisation

ZIIA is a customisable system. It is possible to extend the Elements in order to include new entries as desired. These new entries are automatically managed by the system with the same features as the default entries.

To customise Elements use the "Elements/Customisation" Element shown below with customisation of the "Client" Element:

You must first enter the Element name to customise in the "Name" field (in this example, the Element "Client" is being customised). You can then simply add and suppress new entries with the two buttons. Then indicate its name, type (including compulsory or not) and value in the table.

Once done, when working on an Element, use the "Custom button" shown below to access this custom data:

This will display the custom entries in a table like below:

Caution: Currently, customisation should be done before Elements are created or anterior Element will become invalid.

Managing user accounts (authentification and authorisation)

User account management is done in the "Elements/Authorisation" Element. You can then click "Edit" to edit your User account management is done in the "Elements/Authorisation" Element. You can then click "Edit" to edit your authentification and authorisation settings. Once done, you should use "Update" to update the settings in ZIIA's database. You can also use "Create", and this would create a second setting which would be used in addition to the initial, but this doesn't have any utility, so we rather advise using "Update" and only having one authentification/authorisation setting.

The authorisation/authentification Element is shown below:

In this form you can:

"Add user": You must first enter the user name in the "Add and suppress users" field, then click "Add user". You can then enter his password and set his authorisations for each module.

If "Grant all" is set to "-1" the user will have full access to all the available modules. This is the case for the "admin" and shouldn't be overused (it could be the case for some special "super users" for example. For any module, "-1" gives full access to the module, "0" gives no access (unless of course "Grant all" is set to "-1", in which case the module values aren't used at all). Values above "0" (for example 1,2,…) give different levels of access to the module's functions (for example, "1" might allow creating clients but not deleting them, whereas "2" might allow deleting them).

Each module's documentation provides the different possible authorisation values depending on its own functionalities.

"Suppress user": You must first enter the user name in the "Add and suppress users" field, then click "Suppress user". The user is then deleted from the system and will no longer have access to it.

Multi site corporations

ZIIA allows managing multi site corporations. When a site is created, the parent site (which is the corporation or maybe another site) contains the site and the site inherits the parent site. For example, the products available at the parent level will be usable from the site level and the orders created at the site level will be visible at the parent level. This is a pyramidal approach.

Site management is done it the "Elements/Authorisation":

In practice, this allows all common Elements (for example central stocks, product catalogue, …) to be shared amongst sites, while site specific Elements will not be visible from one site to another (like clients, orders, local stocks, accounts, …).

Customising reports

All Elements in ZIIA include a report function which allows exporting the Element to standard applications like Word and Excel. The format and content of these reports is fully customisable by replacing the default reports with your own ones. For this you must use the "Elements/Report templates" menu and edit the default available Element (use "Edit").

The reports are in the attachments (button "Attachments"). You should first download the one you wish to change and then remove it ("Remove" button). Then modify it as wanted and add ("Add" button) it back. Finally, "Update" the Element. This new report will then be used.

Also, you can create multiple customisation for each Element, you simply add as many reports as you want, you just need to be careful about the names. For example, for a Word report of Client, the default report name is "templateWordClient.doc". You can add additional files with names following the patter "templateWordClient_XXX.doc" with "XXX" whatever you want.

Internalisation

ZIIA is fully internationalised. It can support any language. It currently implements English and French.

We call for contributors for all other languages. Contact us if you feel you can help, we will provide you the necessary message files.

Working offline

ZIIA is a web 3 application, meaning that it is usable off line and provides synchronisation capabilities. These are accessible from the "Welcome" tab and are shown below:

First use "Extract" to create a local database. Then uncheck the "Connected" toggle and continue your work. When you want to go back online, simply check "Connected" again and use "Synchronise" to integrate your work back into the main database.

Backing up and restoring your database

ZIIA is a free and open system, it doesn't tie you in by locking your data in any way. You can retrieve the internality of your data at any moment through the simple "Elements/Data update" Element illustrated below:

With this you can:

Export the database to your hard disk in complete XML files (easily readable and understandable in a text editor)

Import the database back, you can even import it into a new name (thus allowing easy replication of your system)

Delete the database. This deletes all the data for the current organisation from the system

Support and Inquiries

under construction, all comments are welcome

ZIIA, ZIIA EIS, ZIIA Logo, KCard, GHR Consortium and GHR Software are all trademarks of GHR Software.

All content is property of GHR Software. Contact us for reproduction authorisation.