It is of course great if workflows where possible are streamlined, - customized for the individual user if possible. That it is not thé workflow, but yóur workflow.

At Infor Library & Information Solutions we try to implement this principle as much as possible. The concrete implementation is realized primarily through “persistent” profiles and customized defaults.

Persistent profiles

Persistent profiles are profiles that you define once and then use again and again. Profiles can be applied “everywhere”. A few striking examples:

in V-smart

• at import
• at export
• when detecting ”identical” descriptions & the merging thereof
• when searching in “foreign” sources via SRU

in Iguana

• for searching, customers can define preferences, so that a search automatically returns works in (e.g.) French
• a customer can store his interests

in V-link

• targets can be presented or not (or in a different order or lay-out) depending on profiles

and many others.

Customised defaults

“Customised defaults” means that preferences (whether or not by an explicit request) are applied again and again. Two striking examples are the determination of the chart type in (Open) V-insight and the “Save as default” option in V-smart.

The chart type in (Open) V-insight is stored per user automatically. The assumption is that the last chosen type is the best possible default for the next selection. That way, a user does not have to choose a type. This is done automatically for him or her, but if desired he or she can change that type.

The most striking example is the “Save as default” option on most input forms in V-smart: through this, users can define their preferences per form and reuse them whenever sensible. This facilitates personalized forms and speeds up working with the application.