How Does PAW Work?
Consolidating Data and Automating Processing
PAW is a desktop product designed for business users with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach to handling data. It tracks the steps you take as you work on your data, creating repeatable business processes that can be run quickly. With each step, you see the results, much like a spreadsheet. Furthermore, it provides features that correspond to what you're trying to do – such as "get distinct values", "match/merge", "filter by value" so re-running the process gives you the results you expected.
Processing steps to re-calculate a dataset
Results immediately available for analysis
Integrating, Summarizing, and Analyzing DataYou can start by importing data from Excel files, databases, websites, and text files into datasets. Then you can do joins between the datasets, or summarize them with drill-down capability. You can get distinct values and filter data. All of this happens as you actually work with your data, much like a spreadsheet. In the process of actually working with your data, PAW creates the process so you can re-run it very easily with new data or at a later date.
Massaging, Migrating, and Loading Data into SystemsApart from analyzing data, a key part of any business processing is making changes to information in a database. PAW enables you as the end-user to directly load data to a database or call web services exposed by your IT department. Typically, you might need an IT application with a UI to do this. You can transfer files to other systems directly from your desktop where they might need to get processed through existing processes. PAW empowers your business to do a lot of data processing with minimal effort in terms of building applications. 
Loading data into a database Automating Business ProcessesAs you develop a whole set of processing to meet your needs, you will have created something that others in your department would like to benefit from. You might even want to use the same process for other data, for example analyzing project costs based on the project code. You can make your processing customizable based on user-specified data values ("project code" could be an input) and combine processes into tasks like "Run weekly reports" PAW creates a wizard-like interface so you or your colleagues can use it like an application that you developed. 
Identify customizable inputs 
Combine processing into a single easy-to-run task |
Collaboration with PAW
Office workers spend a lot of time maintaining and exchanging data in a workgroup. PAW makes the job of keeping data organized and everyone on the same page very easy. It works for ad-hoc collaboration (i.e. request a group to get upcoming vacations) and for more structured data exchange for which you might be tempted to build a website and back it up with a database.
| Solution Options | PAW Collaboration | Website and database | Excel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | 1. Create table and fields in PAW
2. Share dataset online 3. Email dataset URL |
1. Write requirements
2. Prototype screens 3. Get estimates and approve funding 4. 1-3 month development cycle 5. 1-2 weeks of testing |
1. Create table with fields in Excel
2. Email file |
| Usage | 1. Users import shared dataset
1b. Specify filter parameters to view subset of data 2. Users can make modifications locally and publish changes 3. Updates from other users are automatically received 4. New entries can be received as part of a refresh |
1. User can bookmark page and search for data
2. Update data and submit changes 3. Run reports to get offline copy of data |
1. One individual needs to maintain updated copy
2. Changes must be emailed with color highlights 3. Individual needs to constantly manually merge |
| RESULTS |
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Email shared dataset details with URL
Message after publishing data to collaboration server
