Gargantua 6 is a powerful and adaptable tool for the management and circulation of all types of contents. Thanks to the exclusive new technologies it is built on, Gargantua 6 is the ideal software platform for work rationalization. It is designed to make information exchange easier within your organization, whether it is public or private, to enhance productivity, secure objectives and help decision-making by supplying competitive advantages.

Gargantua 6 is a totally integrated, but nonetheless modular, enterprise repository, a portal, as well as a content management and legal archiving software.

Gargantua 6 allows thousands of users to process millions of transactions and to manage billions of documents with unrivaled efficiency.

Easy to use and effective, Gargantua 6 meets the needs for managing documents -and their content- during their whole lifecycle: from their creation, modification, approval, circulation, dissemination, right up to their archival or destruction. It settles as both a BPM and ECM essential product in order to guarantee basic needs such as: efficiency, adaptability, productivity and competitiveness. The technology used for designing the platform, its innovations and the quality of its functions, help you with and facilitate everyday work.

The Gargantua 6 software platform is a modern, pre-configured, extensible and user friendly enterprise repository. It comes with a set of standard components adaptable to every company’s activity processes and to content management operations. It optimizes all the tasks and offers real time visibility of what’s happening at any given moment. Gargantua 6’s views allow every user to have a work environment perfectly adapted to his/her specific needs.

What makes Gargantua 6 a strategic product for a reactive company: its modular features, J2EE environment and AJAX technology, its ability to distribute data on several servers, its multi-tier service-oriented and scalable architecture, its XML assets, as well as all automatic process and classification operations brought together into libraries, its open set of API and Web services.

Database Engines

In its standard version, Gargantua 6 uses at least two different database engines: a full text database and a relational database.

Searchtools is the full text database engine for full text indexing and search. This engine is intended to store large amounts of index, actually all the words contained in documents of text type. Searchtools is considered as the most efficient and rapid full text engine. It allows navigation into large sets of information regardless of the classification and the storage mode. 

Oracle, SQLServer, Informix, PostgreSql… are the databases used for securing data flows and links, managing the attributes and audit data.

These two database engines allow for the building of stable, secure, efficient and scalable repositories.

User Interface

Two interfaces are available: Web and Windows, both very simple to use and almost identical despite calling upon different technologies. The Windows interface is meant for users who need advanced functions for handling automatic operations which cannot be configured with a navigator (e.g. OCR with automatic indexing of large amounts of documents).

The Web interface enhances company spread out. It is customizable and adapts quickly to each user’s needs.

The views are different classification schemes of the same database content which adapts to any company activity or personal work strategy. Views are customized in order to fit each user’s specific needs. They are created on the fly when the user connects to a database.

The portal

After the user logs-in with a username and a password, the Gargantua 6 portal is displayed and thus the user is provided with the information he/she needs to carry out his activity. Gargantua 6 portal is an intuitive and totally customizable workspace, an individual company site providing a large overview of data sources and applications, and therefore quick access to these contents.

Gargantua 6 portal is very easily adaptable to your company’s standards and allows accessing, sharing and interacting with reports, analysis or any other document or product intended to grant work comprehension and decision making.

Every user can manage his/her own shortcuts to applications, external websites, the workflow module inbox, content catalogs as well as to general search tools or private search templates…

Gargantua 6 portal makes it easy for each user to access the resources and contents which depend on his/her profile.

Portal Designer is the portal designing and implementing tool. It allows defining the portal’s content and presentation as well as users’ rights for doing so.

In order to make the access to some functions consistent, the administrator can settle specific areas as common -the same for all users- assigning such areas ready-made objects such as irremovable links or functions; and let some other areas free for individual customization. Users customize the "free" areas through the navigator using a dedicated graphic tool.

Gargantua 6 can also be integrated into existing portals.

The Workflow or BPM (Business Process Management)

Gargantua 6  Workflow is an outstanding work organizing tool. It allows the creation of many static or dynamic processes of different complexity which are intended to rationalize and optimize work within any organization. Processing time is thus reduced and execution restrictions are clearly indicated, which results in better performance.

Thanks to its ease of use and its processing speed Gargantua 6 Workflow is the essential tool for information system management. It is based on the assignment of roles (function of a user or a group within an organization) to each process task; as well as on the use of an inbox and a waiting box. 

Gargantua 6 workflow covers all process management steps: creation, administration, circulation and execution of tasks assigned to users, groups or roles. Its numerous functions include: a form creation tool, a graphic process creation tool, an audit tool, an administration tool, a provisional users timesheet management tool and function libraries…

• The process creation tool allows defining -using a graphic environment- of workflow procedures containing tasks as well as processing restrictions. There is no limit in the number of processes or sub-processes created, thus, it is possible to create libraries in order to classify them.

• Form Concept is an e-forms easy designing solution. The forms can be used independently or assigned to objects in order to control their circulation. At the end of the process the data may: become attributes; be associated to the objects they were assigned to, or simply remain in the form.

Data entry areas are accessible only to authorized profiles so the form may not be exactly the same (invisible areas, read only areas, etc.) in different tasks according to access and security criteria.

• User interface: when a user logs-in the interface is automatically customized according to his/her profile and access rights. Available functions, the content of the inbox, waiting box…, as well as the list of the tasks classified by process, by urgency level… are organized and displayed in a clear and simple way.
• Documents input: it is possible to input files of any type at any step of the process, by scanning (many scanners are managed directly through Gargantua 6) or importing them. E-mails and Office documents can be directly inserted in processes.
• Real time follow-up: it is possible to assign a "manager" to a process or to a set of processes. The manager is informed (by e-mail or workflow message) of passing delays or the risk of going beyond the deadlines so that he or she can take the appropriate decision. Any authorized user can also consult the history of a running process.
• Lifecycle management: setting-up the lifecycle management allows -for specific types of documents- managing tasks and their related content with precision in order to efficiently guarantee essential needs in updating, approving, publishing, respecting deadlines… 
• Document version management: the revision, the follow-up of minor or major versions, as well as the version numbers guarantee the reliability of the information which is put at the user’s disposal, in accordance with quality standards.
• Users timesheet management: for a specific period (e.g. calendar year), it is possible to enter the leave schedule and select substitute users to each role in order to ensure the continuity of the service.
• Custom automatic operations: within a process some of the tasks may be automatically executed (collecting data from external applications, starting operations which may or may not be triggered by other events or data, sending e-mail…)
• Content preservation: the circulating objects are inserted into Gargantua 6 databases according to a specific classification schedule. The attributes contained in the forms and assigned to these objects (documents or folders) allow making all types of searches on content.
• Audit: all events, transactions, form data modifications, etc.; are logged and saved for a period defined according to the process type. This information allows the generation of statistics about processes execution time, processing time, but also about user’s individual or general average productivity…

Content Management (ECM) – Document Management (EDM)

Gargantua 6 platform is a modern and scalable secure enterprise data repository. With Gargantua 6 information is captured, managed and it is possible to make it change and develop when necessary, as well as to find it out and organize it according to each user’s specific needs. The content management system adapts to each user, and not the opposite, thanks to the views which are customized classification schemes of the content.

Data classification
In Gargantua 6 databases the documents of all origins -scanned paper documents, forms, Office files, etc.- are organized in folders and subfolders in a very simple way. The "tree structure" classification schemes provide easy understanding of the content and are a simple way of creating structures, adding and classifying folders and documents… This is the standard method of classifying the content which is inserted in the databases directly or thanks to a workflow process.

The key element being the document, with the "pin" tool it is possible to bring together, under a common designation, files of all types: several scanned pages (e.g. invoice of several pages), scanned pages with Office files (e.g. scanned incoming mail and its answer created with a word processing application, forms, e-mails…). This allows indexing only the "pin" which contains the set of documents. 

Data types
All data types can be stored in Gargantua 6 and particularly:

• Data coming from different electronic files: image, sound, video, text or spool -these two last file types can be indexed in the full text database.
• Scanned paper documents, manually or automatically indexed.
• Indexing forms and/or processes’ forms which can become the attributes of the circulating objects they were assigned to.

Gargantua 6 classifies the files in three main types: "text" (whatever the origin), "image" and "other". All three types can be indexed.

Multi-base structure
The multi-base structure of Gargantua 6 allows for the creation of an unlimited number of databases, totally independent from one another regarding user’s access rights as well as databases’ structure and the objects they contain. The various databases can actually be seen as independent products installed on distinct servers.

An authorized user can connect to several databases at the same time and can perform various operations inside each of them. There is no need to close one database to work on another. These operations can be folder or document transfers or duplications, but also simultaneous searches made on several databases, etc. 

The views
Gargantua 6 views are a major innovation allowing each user to organize the data his/her own way, so that every classification scheme adapts to each user’s idea of how the data should be used, e.g.: viewing only parts of  catalogs defined by date or attributes criteria.

The views are created on the fly when the user logs-in. It is a new and adapted approach of content.

Indexing folders and documents
In Gargantua 6 attributes can be assigned to every object. These attributes (also called metadata or index) can be grouped to form models. The number of models in a database is not limited and neither is the number of attributes added in a model.

The attributes can be of different types among which: character, integer, float, currency, date, simple list, open simple list, multiple value list, hierarchical list, list linked to another list, Web address, link between fields, field whose value is controlled by algorithms, etc. You can choose to make them mandatory. The indexing may be totally handmade or controlled by index lists values that can be specific to each attribute and/or to each model, in order to limit the choice in values. The values may also be linked to one or several thesauruses.

It is possible to reorganize a model by dragging and dropping its elements with the mouse. As a consequence, all the folders and documents that are assigned the model will be automatically reorganized according to the model’s modifications. The same thing happens when new attributes are added to a model.

Indexing within Gargantua 6 is very ergonomic: it can be done really quickly and using only the keyboard. When you index series of documents, some tools enable you to re-use the information that has already been typed and to transfer it automatically from one index card to another. In order to help users when they enter data using documents displayed on the screen, Gargantua 6 offers index loupes that automatically position themselves on the areas corresponding to the fields that must be filled out. Folders and pins can only be indexed with attributes.

Depending on its type a document can be indexed with:

• The attributes contained in its model, if the document has one.
• Full text indexing tools.

With full text indexing, except a list of non consistent terms, all the words of a document can be considered indexes and thus used as keywords within a search. This indexing mode is used for "text" documents or for the result of OCR operations on image documents.

• Both previously mentioned modes: a "text" document indexed in full text mode can also be assigned attributes.

Functions common to BPM, ECM and EDM modules

No matter which module you are working with! Many functions are shared and accessible in exactly the same way for all modules.

Scanning
At any time, from a form, a task or an ECM / EDM database, you can start scanning. Gargantua 6 directly drives many scanners, from the simplest to the most complex ones with no need for external modules. Consequently you can insert the scanned documents into the database in one step only. You can also save time by building up automatic operations, saving functions and parameters (lightening, contrast, compression…) customized according to the paper type and quality. The best-known and adapted to image input compressors (JPEG, CCITT, PNG…) are also available with Gargantua 6.

Import and input modules
You can import any kind of electronic files directly into Gargantua 6. The files remain in their native format and can be viewed most of the time without having the native application. Direct connection with the main e-mail applications allows for the importing of e-mails and attachments.

Viewing - Consulting
Gargantua 6 offers several viewers which allow viewing some 150 file formats. There are also many image processors for image quality enhancing, adding notes, etc. Other file types (sound, video…) are displayed or executed thanks to dedicated applications directly from Gargantua 6.

Search modes
No matter where the objects are located (circulating objects, archived objects) they can be found thanks to search tools. A search can be limited to one or several processes or databases, as well as to a selection of folders within a same database. There are many search modes among which the main are:

• Non-guided search on attributes, folders and pages’ name, notes’ content, documents’ content… In such case all the attributes are taken into account for the search.
• Special searches limited to notes’ content, folders and documents’ names…
• Full text searches on the content of text documents or OCR operation results on an image file.  In this search mode many options are available, among the main ones we can list:
• Boolean operators, parenthesis and other logical functions.
• Spelling mistakes automatic corrector for wrongly typed keywords:
  E.g.: if you type "fotography" the engine will find all documents containing "photography" which is the correct spelling.
• Truncations on the right, on the left or on both sides.
  - Wild cards: enable the user to retrieve words whose spelling is not sure.
  - "NEAR" option: distance (n words) between keywords. You can also specify if the keywords should be in the same sentence or paragraph.
  - Creation of simple or complex logical functions using all available operators.

After a full text search, when the retrieved documents are displayed, the expression used for the search is highlighted or appears in a particular color thus it can immediately be noticed. The number of hits for every document found is shown in the results table.

When you launch a full text search and get a document inserted through OCR, the initial image is always linked to the document and can be displayed with all the graphics, photos, text areas, etc.

• Boolean or guided search with the use of Boolean or comparison operators (AND, OR, =, <>, >, <, etc.). This search type can only be applied to attributes.
• Complex Boolean search that applies on one hand classic operators to attributes; and "CONTAINS" or "DOES NOT CONTAIN" operators to text contents on the other hand. It may be combined with (simple or Boolean) full text search.
• "Funnel" search, enabling you to launch a new query from the results of another one (each query may be of a different type) in order to narrow down your search.

Search templates can be created. They can be private or public. You can choose to make them readily accessible through shortcuts or to assign a function key to them.

The result table shows search criteria values for each retrieved object, but extra values -that are not search criteria- may be displayed for further information. This might be useful to differentiate easily between two results that look identical at first glance.

Search results depend on the rights that have been allocated to the user who is carrying out the search. All the results can be directly exported, transferred by e-mail or by a process or saved on external media.

Objects management and security
In Gargantua 6 permissions can be set on any of the objects regardless of their location in the database. This assigns specific rights to each group or user group involved in a process or seeking to access a database and its content. An administrator defines all security levels and access rights assigned to roles, users and groups, for the whole platform, for each database, for each process…