Now that you know the object CelDial Sales for 1st quarter 2000 represents a spreadsheet showing sales data, you might want to view the actual sales data for the first quarter. You should still have the CelDial Sales for 1st quarter 2000 object open in its Description View.
The Start Program window opens. From the Start Program window, you can choose to start Lotus 1-2-3 to view the actual spreadsheets, or you can choose Paint (the graphical browser included with Microsoft(R) Windows(R)) to view the simulated spreadsheets in bitmap format.
The program that you chose starts and opens the spreadsheet represented by the CelDial Sales for 1st quarter 2000 object.
The spreadsheet shows that sales moved steadily higher since the beginning of the first quarter.
When you finish reviewing the sales information, close the application that is displaying the spreadsheet. If you find the object representing the spreadsheet useful, you can save it into a collection, which you will learn to do in a later exercise.
Now you need to do a quick review of sales for the fourth quarter of 2000 to determine if the fourth quarter figures are a significant improvement over the first quarter. You can launch Lotus 1-2-3 to view a similar spreadsheet for the CelDial Sales for 4th quarter 2000 using another method:
Lotus 1-2-3 or Paint starts and opens the spreadsheet that is represented by the CelDial Sales for 4th quarter 2000 object.
You notice that sales continued to grow during the fourth quarter and the figures are significantly higher than those shown on the 1st quarter spreadsheet. The campaign that began in the first quarter is working!
When you finish reviewing the sales information, close the application that is displaying the spreadsheet.
Because you know the ad campaign for 2000 is working, why not apply the same strategies towards the 2001 campaign? You need to find out if there is additional related information that will help you make plans.
Information catalog objects can be related to one another without being grouped together. The relationship is called a linked relationship. There might be objects that contain information related to CelDial Sales Information that will help you plan your strategy.
See Finding related objects to help plan your marketing strategy for 2001.
The Information Catalog Manager remains running while you work with a started application. (Started applications must be accessible from your workstation and set up properly by your Information Catalog Manager administrator.)
You do not have to close the started program to see or work with your information catalog. To work with the Information Catalog Manager while running the application, go to your active window list (Ctrl+Esc), or the task bar if you are using Windows, and select from the Information Catalog Manager windows listed there. Or, you can minimize the program window. When you close the application, the Information Catalog Manager is still open on your desktop.
If you have worked with the source information and want to save your changes, you might be able to save the changes only to your own workstation drive or private LAN drive.
To include the revised version of an object in the information catalog for others in your group, your Information Catalog Manager administrator needs to update the descriptive details and the object.
Work with the Information Catalog Manager administrator to establish how you plan to use objects in your information catalog. You can attach a comment to an object to communicate information to your Information Catalog Manager administrator. You might want to request updates to descriptive data or the creation of a new object.
The Information Catalog Manager administrator can give users authority to update objects in an information catalog. See Additional tasks for Information Catalog Manager users for more information.