Office Automation System (OAS):

Definition and Explanation:

Office Automation (OA) is the use of technology to help people do their jobs better and faster.

or

"The use of computers, micro electronics, and telecommunications to help us produce, store, obtain and send information in the form of pictures, words or numbers, more reliably, quickly and economically."

During the past 25 years, computer technology has helped to dramatically increase productivity in the office. The movements towards automation in the new hardware and software technologies like word processors, spreadsheets, electronic mail, and so on, which make office workers more productive, These combinations of technologies that have a dramatic impact on day-to-day office operations are called office information systems (OIS). In this chapter, we explore office information system, and how they evolved.

Three major types/categories of office applications are:

1. Document management systems

2. Message handling systems

3. Teleconferencing systems

Word processing software lets you create, edit, store, retrieve, and print a text document. Let us examine each part of the definition.

Text document is any text that can be keyed in, such as a memo, letter, fax, and thesis.

Creation is the original composing and keying in of the document,

Editing is making changes to the document to fix errors or improve its content, like deleting a sentence, correcting a misspelled name, or moving a paragraph.

Formatting refers to adjusting the appearance of the document to make it look appropriate and attractive. For example, centralize the heading, make wider margins, or use of double spacing.

Storing the document means saving it on disk so it can be accessed on demand.

Retrieving the document means bringing the stored document from disk back into computer memory so it can be used again or changed some way.

Printing is producing the document on paper, using a printer connected with the computer.

Some people think that WP is a glorified typing, but there are many advantages of WP on typewriter. The main difference between the typewriter and WP is the separation of typing from printing; when you use WP, typing the document and printing the document do not occur at the same time; you print the document on the paper whenever you like. Perhaps you want to print an intermediate draft, just to see how it looks, and then continue making changes.

Second difference between WP and typewriter is that you can save/store your keyed data when you use a word processing package. You can make changes as you go along, or even at some later time, and print out a revised or perfect copy. The key difference here is that only the changes themselves are retyped, not the entire document.

The ability to print at will and to store work distinguishes WP from typewriter. But these are not the only two hallmarks. A word processing package is a sophisticated tool with many options, which are as follows:

Desktop publishing (DTP) enables you to produce well-designed pages that combine charts and graphics with text and headlines in a variety off typefaces, it lets you to do all this at your desk, without a ruler, pen or paste.

Desktop publishing is software involve, using a microcomputer, mouse, scanner, laser or Ink Jet printer, for mixing text,, and graphics to produce high quality output for commercial printing.

The features of DTP include:

• Text
• Graph
• Colors
• Sound
• Animation

Desktop publishing programmers put many different fonts and images at your disposal, but you can overwhelm a document if you crowd too much on to a page. The guidelines that follow will help get favorable reviews for you and your document:

• Use only two or three typefaces in a document.
• Be conservative: Limit the use of decorative or unusual typefaces.
• Use different sizes and styles of one typeface to distinguish between different heading levels, rather than several typefaces.
• Avoid cluttering a document with fancy border and symbols.
• Do not use type that is too small to read easily just to fit everything on one page.

Some firms have large volume of documents that must be maintained in files so that the information can be retrieved when needed. Insurance companies and banks fit in to this category. Initially these firms maintained files in paper form, but the space requirement became intolerable. The solution was to store an image of the document rather than the document itself. This office automation application (AO) has recently being given the name imaging processing system and is currently stimulating the most interest.

Image processing system is also called electronic image management system, allow users to electronically capture, store, process, and retrieve images of documents. These documents may include text, numeric data, handwriting, graphics and photographs. In some cases these may be part of the same document.

Image processing technology promises to reduce the problem of paper overload by providing information management with more efficient use of physical storage space and increased productivity.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR), scanners are used to convert paper or microfilm records to a digital format for storage in secondary storage devices. Once stored, the images can be retrieved for displaying or printing.

Image processing system is used in problem solving when it is necessary to review historical documents for the purpose of understanding a problem. An operator accesses the document management system from a workstation and produces a hardcopy output for the manager.

Reprographics is the process of reproducing multiple copies of a document. Office personnel are usually responsible for making more than one copy of a report, letter, or other documents. When documents are widely distributed, either internally or externally, reprographics often includes collating, folding, binding, or related tasks.

Multiple copies may be made in various ways. When only a few copies are required, it may be cost effective to print out multiple copies using the printer attached to the computer. Most of the time, however, photocopier is used.

Telex is the service, which enables user to transmit and receive printed messages over a telephone line. Users have to be telex subscribers, with their own telex equipment and code number, in order to send or receive messages. The telex service started in 1930 and from the mid 1970s it developed significantly as an international message transmission system.
Data transmission speed as compare to other methods of telecommunication is very slow and only a restricted set of characters can be used in messages.

Fax machine connected to a telephone, uses computer technology and communications links to send quality graphics, charts, text and handwritings almost everywhere in the world. The sending material (paper) is placed in the fax machine at one end, where it is digitized. Those digits are transmitted across the miles and then reassembled at the other end to form identical version of the original. All this activity takes only minute or less.
Personal computer users can send and receive faxes directly by means of a fax/modem. The only missing ingredient in the scheme is paper.
Fax is not only faster than overnight delivery services, but it is also less expensive. Fax contributes to problem solving by sending

documents to member of the problem solving team quickly and easily, regardless of their geographic location.

Teletext is a system for supplying commercial and other information through existing television networks. The data such as news, weather, sports reports, stock market data, airline and train schedules, TV guides etc. is transmitted via a television channel at the same time that the channel is being used to broadcast conventional television.

Videotext or Viewdata gives a home user access to information in databases via a personal computer or converted television set. The method of Access is via telephone lines, coaxial cable, or optical fiber.

Videotext is similar to Teletext in that it provides electronic reference to material but there are two main differences.

• Firstly it is available to subscribers only.
• Secondly it provides two-way communication. This means that users can interrogate the data held in the system and also supply information to it. The system uses a combination of telephones, computers, television, and communication networks.

E-mail is the process of sending messages directly from one computer to another. In this system the sender transmits the message over the telephone network to a central computer, which allocates disk storage to act as an electronic mail box for each user. Using a password for secret purposes the user then can collect the message when required.

Several optional features of E-mail are

• If you want everyone in the firm with a terminal to read the message, it is placed on an electronic bulletin board, which everyone can access.
• If you want to receive confirmation when the recipient retrieves your message, it can be sent as registered mail.
• If you do not want the recipient to route the messages to others in the network, you can send it as private mail.

• Speed: (electronic transmission is almost instantaneous)
• Economy: (no speed for stamp, labor, paper)
• Efficiency: (a message is prepared once but can be sent to thousands at the touch of a button)
• Security: (access can be restricted by the use of password)
• Document can be retrieved and stored to word processing and graphic packages.
• Electronic delivery and receipt can be requested.
   

• The necessity for users to have a terminal close at hand, otherwise messages can't be received or sent.
• Electronic mail handles only one-way communication. However, if you desire two-way conversation, you must either send multiple e-mail messages back and forth or use another medium.
• The limitation of only being able to communicate with registered users, but not with other parties.

A voice mail system enables a regular voice message, sent over the phone, to be digitally stored at the receiving location. When accessed, the message is converted back into voice form. These are used by an increasing number of organizations and often employ software that runs on the organization's private box exchange (PBX) equipment, rather than on the organization's host computers.

Voice mail systems require a computer, disk storage, and voice mailboxes that are similar to E-mailboxes. However, the sending and receiving instrument is the telephone. Like E-mail messages, digitized voice messages can be played back, sent along to one or more other members of the organization, saved, or deleted. As it is sent along from person to person, a message can usually be; voice-annotated by anyone handling it.
 

With voice mail, one person calls a voice mailbox rather than a personal phone number. In stand-alone voice systems, the message is simply stored, awaiting pick-up by the person receiving the message; in integrated voice mail/PBX, the message receiver has the option of picking up the phone. People can usually access their voice mailboxes from any telephone (both inside and outside the organization). The telephone keypad is used to listen to messages in the mailbox, save them, delete them, or send them to others. This permits field representatives or traveling executives to maintain contact with the home office and to keep up with their messages. Salespeople can use these systems to enter orders over the telephone from the customer's office. Some universities are using voice mail systems to enable students to register for classes. All of these applications can provide organizations with a competitive edge.
Is voice mail just a fancy answering machine? They serve similar purposes, but do not use the same storage techniques. A voice mail system translates the word of message into digital impulses, which it then stores on disk, just as any other data.

Paper handling is the bane of organizations. Paper must be transmitted, filed, and stored. It takes up much of people's time and requires the felling of considerable number of trees. Is there a way to accomplish the same business tasks without using the paper?
One answer lies in business-to-business transactions conducted via computer network. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is direct electronic exchange between organization's computer systems of standard business documents such as invoices, purchase orders.
Businesses use a great deal of paper in transmitting orders. One method devised to cut down on paperwork is electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI is a series of standard formats that allow businesses to transmit invoices, purchase orders, etc. electronically. In addition to eliminating paper-based ordering forms, EDI can help to eliminate errors in transmitting orders that result from transcription mistakes made by people. Since EDI orders go directly from one computer to another, the tedious process of filling out a form at one end and then keying it into the computer at the other end is eliminated.

Many firms use EDI to reduce paperwork and personnel costs. Some large firms, especially discounters, require their suppliers to adopt EDI and, in fact, have direct computer hookups with their suppliers.

Using electronic fund transfers (EFT), people can pay for goods and services by having funds transferred from various accounts electronically, using computer technology. One of the most visible demonstrations of EFT is the ATM, the automated teller machine that people use to obtain cash quickly. For example, make payments to a supplier, or pay salaries into employees' bank accounts, or transfer funds from one bank account to another account by sending electronic data to his bank.

Electronic funds transfers are not limited to transfers between institutions and individuals. Banks and other financial institutions transfer funds among themselves electronically, on both the national and international level.

Person-to-person data communication is one of the more exciting ways of using your personal computer. A bulletin board system (BBS) uses data communications systems to link personal computers to provide public-access-message systems. Most bulletin boards are formed to benefit people in a club or with a common hobby; others are linked to a particular business. Electronic bulletin boards are similar to the bulletin boards you see in student lounges. Somebody leaves a message, but the person who picks it up does not have to know the person who left it. To get access to someone else's computer, all you really have to know is that computer's bulletin board phone number. You can use any kind of computer, but you need a modem so you can communicate over the phone lines.

Anyone who has a personal computer can set up a bulletin board. It takes a computer, a phone line, a modem, and particular software. You just tell a few people about your board, start up your computer using the BBS software, and sit back and watch the messages start scrolling down your screen. But note that your computer must be left on to receive the calls.

The term teleconferencing refers to electronic meetings that involve people who are at physically different sites. Telecommunication technology systems allow meeting participants to interact with one another without traveling to the same location. The major types of teleconferencing exist:

a. Audio conferencing

b. Video conferencing

c. Computer conferencing

d. Telecommuting

Audio teleconferencing (conference phone calls) enables participants to hear each other only. A speakerphone may be used at one or more locations to allow groups to participate in the meeting. Audio teleconferencing is by far the least expensive.

Want to have a meeting with someone across the country .and go over some documents, without having to go there? Videoconferencing is a method whereby people in different geographical locations can have a meeting, and see and hear one another, using computers and communications.

Videoconferencing systems range from small videophones to group conference rooms with cameras and multimedia equipment. The system combines voice and television images that allow two or more groups to interact with one another. Video teleconferencing was first widely demonstrated in 1964 at New York's World Fair when AT&T introduced its picture-phone.

Generally, video teleconferencing participants gather in relatively expensive, specially equipped rooms that can handle the complexities of simultaneous video and audio transmission. In business applications, video teleconferencing can be particularly effective because interaction between people is usually different when they can see each other.

Computer conferencing involves computer terminals and E-mail or electronic Bulletin boards. Conference participants broadcast messages to each other (or post them on a common electronic bulletin board); participants do not have to be present to receive messages. The messages are keyed in and then displayed on computer screens; hence, the "conversations" that take place are electronic. Computer conferencing is a method of sending, receiving, and storing typed messages within a network of users.

Computer conferencing can be particularly useful in project management. As critical pieces of a project are finished, possibly at numerous geographically dispersed sites, this information is recorded in the public electronic mailboxes of each project manager so that he has a real-time update on both costs and progress. The project managers can also communicate with each other through the mailboxes regarding any unusual events or any other important matters.

Improvements in data communications, increased power of PCs and changes in working practices are leading to the spread of telecommuting. This allows employees to work at home using computer equipment, which is linked via the public communications network to computers in head office.

Telecommuting is beneficial to both employers and to their employees. Office accommodation costs are reduced, physical commuting is reduced to a minimum, and employees are not forced to live near their offices.

Telecommuting
Advantages	Disadvantages
To Employer: Less office space and furniture needed Gives access to employees who may find conventional or full time employment difficult.	Difficulty in controlling employees and ensuring they are working Data and confidential Information will be less secure Higher communication costs Lack of company culture- and values
To Employees: Less time and expense traveling to and from work More flexibility Fewer interruptions than at the office (depends on home environment)	Space taken up at home with office equipment Lack of social rewards from being, part of an office No definite distinction between office and home can lead to longer working hours More Interruptions than at the office (depends on home environment)

 

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