About the Workbench Suite

This topic describes the features of the Workbench Suite.

The Workbench Suite includes these five main parts:

  • Workbenches
  • Navigation Forms
  • Critical Numbers
  • DataViews
  • DataSearch

Use the Workbench Suite for easy communication between employers and employees. Employees can use the forms in the Workbench Suite to answer these questions:

  • How am I doing?
  • What should I be doing?
  • How do I do it?

Workbenches

The Workbench Suite includes eleven standard workbenches. These are either manager workbenches or regular workbenches.

Navigation Forms

The navigation forms are 17 flow charts in the Workbench Suite. Employees can use them to learn how specific processes work. You can click on a step in a navigation form to launch a related form.

Critical Numbers

The Workbench Suite includes around 100 standard critical numbers. Critical numbers are key performance indicators, or KPIs, that employees can use to track their progress and success. You can add critical numbers to forms as controls or gauges, and create new critical numbers. You can drill down into critical numbers to see specific details, and create snapshots to obtain the history of a critical number.

Critical numbers use a goal, alert, and actual value system to quickly show users their success through color-coding.

DataViews

DataViews work similarly to an Excel spreadsheet. Use DataViews to view and sort information. DataViews can be one of three types: predefined, form, or drilldown. DataView layouts are a very helpful tool in the Workbench Suite; save multiple layouts to review, track, and sort information for one DataView.

You can print DataViews and export them to Excel or XPS files.

DataSearch

Use DataSearch to search for information stored anywhere in the application. The search results are listed numerically or alphabetically by data source. For example, you could search for all instances of the text string "Young" across all data sources. The results list every data source in the system where "Young" is found, for example in customers, orders, items, vendors, purchase orders, and so on. You can expand the data source to see a list of every occurrence within that data source.