Welcome to InfoScribe, Infoway's new tool designed for the authoring and publishing of Clinical Requirements and Specifications. This guide will help you get familiar with the InfoScribe environment which was built using a web product called Confluence. Though this page will provide you with some of the basics in terms of getting started with InfoScribe, you can get more detailed help on site features by reviewing the Confluence User's Guide.

On this Page:

Logging in

You will be logging into InfoScribe with your Infoway account. Your Infoway account is also used with InfoCentral and the Infoway corporate site. If you have registered with these sites already, use the same credentials to login here. If you have not yet registered for any of the sites, please proceed to the InfoCentral Registration Page to get your account.

To login, simply click the top right corner of the InfoScribe page (as seen below). You can also navigate directly to the login page here.

 

Link to login page on home screen

 

NOTE: Though you will use the same credentials for the different websites, we are still in the process of implementing 'single sign-on' capability. As such, you will have to logon separately for each of the websites (e.g. if you have logged on to InfoCentral, you will still have to login again to access InfoScribe). As well, some material on InfoScribe will be available publicly, so be sure to login to access the in-progress documents that you are currently contributing to.

 

The InfoScribe Environment

Menu bar


The Menu Bar

The menu bar will be available to you wherever you navigate to within InfoScribe. Here are a few tips on using the various items along the top of the menu bar.

  • Like for many websites, the InfoScribe title and icon in the top left corner will always return you to the Dashboard homepage, regardless of where you are within InfoScribe. Some of the features of the Dashboard are described below in the next section.
  • Spaces are essentially the documents that you have access to within InfoScribe. This might include a Clinical Requirements Document for a certain project, or its related Specifications documents. Each of these will have its own 'space'. We will review spaces in another section below.
  • Create a Page - this allows you to start a new page within a document space. 
  • Search - useful tool allowing you to find keywords within documents you have access to.
  • Help Menu - there are various items here that will help you in your use of InfoScribe. Notably Keyboard Shortcuts that are available to you, as well as Online Help. Online Help will redirect you to the help pages for 'Confluence' which is the tool that InfoScribe was built from. Here you will find extensive help on how the various features work within this environment.
  • Inbox - here you will be able to access all the notifications that may be directed to you, including notifications on edits made to documents you are working on or comments on those documents made by your colleagues. 
  • Your InfoScribe - the rightmost icon provides you with a menu of tools that relate to your profile and settings within InfoScribe. A notable option here is your 'Personal Space' where you can create your own pages for your own personal use (e.g. for meeting notes, to-do lists, etc..). Also of note, the last menu item here is the Log Out option.

Dashboard

The dashboard is the home page for InfoScribe and provides you with an overview of the site, access to the spaces you have permission to view and provides a list of recently updated content. The dashboard is divided into the following sections:

  • Get started

    • This provides you with a quick link to the Confluence help page and the option to Create a New Space 

  • Spaces, Pages and Networks
    • These tabs will display your favourite content and people
  • Recent Activity
    • Displays recently updated content including any edits, comments or other notable activities going onin your InfoScribe spaces.

The InfoScribe Dashboard

Spaces

Spaces are containers for pages with related content, and they come in two main varieties:

  • Site Spaces - These are the areas where you can create content and collaborate with other users. In InfoScribe this will primarily be our Clinical Requirements and Specifications documents. You can create a new Clinical Requirements or Specifications space via the link on the Dashboard page (as seen above), or via the "Create space" option in the "Spaces" menu. 
  • Personal spaces - You and other InfoScribe users, can set up a personal space. Here you can create pages for your own personal use (e.g. meeting notes). You can create your own personal space by selecting "Add personal space" via your user icon on the menu at the top right of the screen.

Your recent spaces will be displayed from the spaces menu on the left hand side of the screen. If you are involved with a number of spaces, you can choose to go to the 'Space directory' from this menu. There you will be able to sort through all your spaces.

Working within spaces

Each space has a home page which is the first page you'll see when you navigate to the space. You can also create any number of child pages to store the content and information you need. As we author InfoScribe, you will note that the page structure is already created for you within the templates that we will be using for both Clinical Requirements and Specifications. Nonetheless, it is important to understand how these spaces are organized. As depicted in the diagram below, a space will have a home page, a series of child pages, and each page may have attachments. Though we will be doing all our authoring within InfoScribe pages, but it may be worthwhile to attach reference materials in the form of attachments.

Diagram: Arrangement of spaces, pages, and attachments

Clinical Requirements and Specification Templates

Though InfoScribe will allow you to manage your spaces and add new pages to them, Infoway has provided the templates for both Clinical Requirements and Specifications with a set format that has the required pages already included.  

The template for Clinical Requirements has sections for:

  • Clinical Context - a review of the scope (e.g. the systems involved, expected users and functionality) as well as definitions relating to the area
  • Clinical Requirements Approach - comprises the Clinicians Expression of Need guided by information and workflow principles, a repository for lessons learned, and a mockup depicting an example interface for the application in question
  • Clinical Requirements - specifically lays out the requirements for the interoperability solution and connects to the Specifications that will guide the technical implementation of said solution.

The template for Specifications has sections for:

  • Overview and Mockup - a general overview along with an enhanced mockup which links directly to related business rules
  • Business Interoperability - a detailed archive of the specification's use cases, business rules and guidance
  • Information Interoperability - includes an interaction diagram, standards used for the specification and a table of data elements and messages used in the specification
  • Technical Interoperability - a repository for technical tools that can be used by the developer including APIs, sample code and sample messages

Navigation and Editing

When you are within one of these spaces, you can navigate to any of your pages using the page list in the left sidebar (see screen capture below). In the main section of the window you will be able to view the content of the page. Within this view, you are able to make comments (see Confluence's guide to commenting here). 

Screen: Navigation to document pages on the left, page view on the right

(+/- boxes allows for hierarchy view of parent child pages)


To edit the page, click on the "Edit" link at the top right of the page. This will bring you to a new view that looks much like other publishing applications (e.g. Microsoft Word). See the editor toolbar below to familiarize yourself with the editing interface. In the view below, some of the important tools are highlighted including the selection of paragraph styles and character formatting (such as bold, italics, superscript), as well as the insert menu. You can get further details and valuable help on using the editor from Confluence's "Using the Editor" guide.

 

The InfoScribe editor toolbar

Permissions

Users on InfoScribe will be playing different roles in the development of our Clinical Requirements and Specifications. As such, depending on your role, you may be granted different permission levels that will provide you with functionality within InfoScribe and within certain documents. In one instance, a user may be playing the role of author and as such will have extensive editing capabilities on a particular document; in another instance, the same user may be acting as a reviewer and therefore has permission to comment on the document, but is not able to edit the document directly. As noted earlier, this might also impact your ability to create a new space using the templates. Should you have any questions about the permissions granted to you, or the need to grant permissions to new contributors, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

InfoScribe 'Sandbox'

In order for our users to familiarize themselves with the InfoScribe environment, we have setup two sample spaces where you can experiment with the various editing and reviewing features within InfoScribe. We have setup two such 'sandboxes': one based on the Clinical Requirements template, and one based on the Specifications Sandbox. Both of these spaces are available to all our InfoScribe users; you may access them with the links below.

Other resources

As previously noted, InfoScribe is based on the authoring tool, Confluence. Though we have not included all of Confluence's features within InfoScribe (notably blogging has been disabled), the majority of its features are available to you. As such, look to some of Confluence's instructional resources for further information:

 

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