The Suite Life Reviewed: |
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Overview. Lotus Smart Suite96 is a combination of major applications, which includes: 123 Release 5 (spreadsheet, 16-bit), Word Pro 96 (word processor, formerly AmiPro), Freelance Graphics (presentations), Approach (database), and Organizer (scheduler) for either Win 3.x or Win95.
They are integrated through an application called Lotus Smart Center. It includes Lotus ScreenCam which is a multimedia sound and screen capture utility. The Smart Center application is designed to allow more integration among each of the other applications. We did not make a comparative evaluation of the programs, but only looked at each package separately and how well they were integrated.
Installation. All of the products were on one CD. We installed the Suite using the program's defaults and operating under Windows 3.1. The entire program uses about 120MB, excluding the user guides. The documentation is on the CD and there were no paper manuals. The suite is priced at around $450; however, individual programs sold separately were about $470.
Lotus 123. A 16-bit program, contains a Version Manager that allows you or your team to create various scenarios of data. If you have a mail system, you may send ranges or versions of worksheets as attachments.
There are Smart Masters which provide skeletons for common types of spreadsheets. They are available for such applications as a personal budget, invoices, or sales analyses. There is also a style gallery of 14 style templates. These allow the casual or occasional user to become productive much more quickly.
You can use objects from such packages as Windows Paint or draw some objects directly in 123. You can include "buttons" in your worksheet, and assign a macro to a button. This lets you run a macro by clicking a button in your worksheet.
Word Pro. Word Pro is the word processor formerly known as AmiPro. Many of the newer features are designed to support "team computing". The document creator can establish review and edit rules for others. After the other team members have reviewed and possibly modified the document, the creator can look at all of the changes that have been made. You can choose which versions to use. (Important: You know which changes are from what person so you can be sure to include the changes your boss made!)
The help system includes a function called "Ask the Expert" that allows you to specify "how do I?" questions in your own words, and then a list of possible topics. The answers are presented so you can see the step-by-step instructions while you perform the function.
The grammar checker includes a facility to indicate extra spaces between words or sentences. This is one of the hardest things for the average user to correct unaided. It will flag possible usage of the incorrect word, such as "your" or "you're". "Smart Correct" will correct common mistakes such as misspelling "the" as "hte". (I had to turn it off to show you the preceding mistake.) There is also a Thesarus which will show you alternates for a word.
Freelance. Freelance is the presentation graphics package and uses "Smart Masters" which makes it very easy to define presentation layouts. You select a style and fill in the blanks. There are 11 page layouts, over 100 chart templates, and several table styles.
Data for charts can be imported in any of several standard formats, or it can be entered directly. Freelance includes an Outliner which lets you see your text in yellow legal pad form. Any changes you make here are automatically carried over to the presentation layouts.
There is a "Quick Start" tutorial which shows you a topic and then has you perform the tasks yourself. This seems to be a good technique to learn navigation through the product. The pace of the tutorial is slow enough to let you study the screens and understand what's happening before moving on.
Approach. The relational database is Lotus Approach, which allows you to create database files or access existing database files in several different formats. All the usual database tools are available (searches, sorts, reports, labels, form letters) as well as the ability to create charts, crosstabs, and macro-driven applications. You can set validation rules for accurate data entry, along with convenient lookup lists and default values. Data can be viewed one record at a time in a Form, or many records at a time in a Worksheet. You can join tables on common fields to create a true relational database, and you can display linked data on the same form for both one-to-one and one-to-many configurations.
The on-line tutorial that comes with Approach is excellent, especially for users new to databases. It starts by explaining concepts and terminology, and then each section describes what you're about to learn before you walk through the steps required to do the task. And it's fairly easy to make the transition from the tutorial to the real world. Sample layouts are available to use when you're first creating a database, laying out a form, designing a report, and so on. Help is always available. Some things aren't obvious in the tutorial, such as adding macros to forms to create simple applications.
Organizer. Organizer is a personal - and group - scheduling and time manager. The initial view is calendar, open to today. There are tabs for your address book, a planner, to-do list, and a notepad. You can schedule and change appointments for all members of your group, with options to send notices and attachments. The system will find a time that all resources are available.
The planner looks like a wall chart where you can mark events, tasks, or milestones with various color codes. These can then be shown through to your calendar.
The address book looks like an ordinary address book with a business and home section. The system will dial a phone number from the book and you can have the calls logged.
Integration. We could use OLE and link a Lotus chart into a Word Pro document. Approach can create a database from Lotus Notes data or a 123 spreadsheet, or it can link to a specific place in an open 123 spreadsheet and make direct changes. (Lotus 123 can also display spreadsheet data using Approach views.) Approach and Organizer can share address lists, and Word Pro can use Approach addresses for mass mailings. And although you can copy an image from a PicturePlus to a file in graphics formats, Approach cannot integrate with Freelance directly but must use 123 as an intermediary.
Jo and John Horan are HAL-PC members. Jo is the Alpha Four/Five SIG leader.
Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, Corel has resurrected WordPerfect 7 and placed it on a collision course against WinWord 7. WP7 is a 32-bit program, rich in features and a useful assortment of adjunct programs that is available in two "editions". The Standard edition includes WP7, Quattro Pro 7 (spreadsheet), leverages Win95 multitasking to provide file and macro conversions, simultaneous task performance, and extensive integration and support of both Internet and OLE2. You'll also notice a small, gray square in documents. Use your right mouse button to click on it for context sensitive formatting options - nice, convenient touch. For misspeeled words, you'll see a red underline and a choice of autocorrect or not...and again, click the right mouse button for suggestions. For legal reasons, I need a positive indication of which page goes where and of what set. WP7 can automatically add a "page of" on each page; e.g. "page 3 of 8".
Quattro Pro, formerly of Borland Software, sports a relatively new look and some nice features, such as template support. You can overlay a template to your basic spreadsheet without changing the original copy. Not typical of spreadsheets is support for graphic files such as WPG (WordPefect graphics) and JPEG (for Internet publishing) and a toolbar that you can change to suit your particular work environment. More specifically, Quattro Pro includes more than a hundred new "@" functions; e.g., nested totals or subtotals, lookup tables, arrayed data, etc. And, not surprisingly, you can "hot link" your data to a particular Web page and your spreadsheet can become an HTML table! QPro "notebooks" can now be embedded in a field in Lotus Notes.
There is a very nice, handy integration between InfoCentral (essentially a personal info manager), but it also links data so you can see it from several different viewpoints. It supports Caller ID and like the best of integrated products you can "synchronize" the dates, appointments, etc. with Novell's GroupWise (a workgroup scheduling program). InfoCentral is not as quick to learn as other parts of the Suite.
Presentations, a visual communications program, that rivals PowerPoint. Lots of nice, new, useful features, including direct support of object and text animation. This will make an excellent sales presentation tool and perhaps more interesting than static 3D. A Web page created by Presentations can be changed continuously (See: Note below) and the basic application does not have to be present. Alas, there is no support for animated charts. There is extensive context sensitive help and a wide variety of colors, fonts, decorative art to design plain or fancy, simple or complex, or whatever meets your objective. It supports drag and drop. For instance, in an organization chart, if you wish to change offices/people around, just click and drag to quickly change the chart. In addition, you can connect a slide show to a particular Web page.
Note: Both QPro and Presentations that you have uploaded as an Internet HTML page can be changed in real time. For instance, fast changing prices or product specs can be viewed on the Web as quickly as you can change the basic document. The viewer's browser must support frames for most effective use of this feature.
As for the other programs, you'll find them useful. Starfish's SideKick 95 has been around for many years as a solid "scheduler/organizer" and its Dashboard is a task automation launcher. You'll also have AT&T's WorldNet Service and Netscape 2.x and Quick View Plus, which is a premo file viewer (a very basic version is in cluded in Win95).
Will the WordPefect 7 Suite win users back? As much as Corel has done to improve both the software and support of it, I don't see a real compelling reason to change from a suite that you are satisfied with. For most users, a suite is a good value. However, it is my philosophy to buy individual components that I think are the best in each category. For instance, I use WordPerfect 7, but I bought Microsoft's Excel to replace Quattro Pro. This suite is a powerful package and aggressively marketed (i.e. very competitive pricing). SRP: Standard $395 (CD version) and Professional $695.
For more information go to http://www.corel.ca.
Richard Serbin, a HAL-PC member, is president of Texas Commercial Brokers, Inc. of Houston and can be contacted at txcomb@hal-pc.org.
NOTE: In Part 2, two other suites will be reviewed. Editor
E-mail me at mfoster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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