TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I was asked yesterday to help business analysts find the right word.
This is harder than it sounds.
They're developing a system that permits a user to follow some typical
routing and approval process - it's not important to describe the whole
process. Users use the system to do work that requires review and
approval.
Users may assign work for which they are responsible to a colleague or
subordinate. Those "users acting on behalf of other users" are being
called surrogates and delegates, respectively. For example, a user may
wish to appoint a surrogate or delegate to have vacation coverage in
this system.
Let me explain the distinctions between the two terms. Assume a user is
a senior manager with an admin. In this system, the manager appoints his
admin as a "surrogate" - someone who can approve work "as the manager."
To the rest of the user base, it will appear as if the manager approved
the work.
In contrast, that same manager can delegate work to another user. That
"delegate" has all the same privileges as the manager does, but the work
is nevertheless done under the delegate's name. So far, so good, right?
OK, here's where we start to get a bit gray. (Forgive use of the
masculine pronouns; it's just easier for me to choose one.)
Can anyone think of a term to describe the person to whom a user grants
read-only access? This is yet another option to the system. As it was
explained to me, a user may need to permit others to view his work, but
not change it or approve it. They didn't like "observer" and
"spectator." "Representative" also didn't fly, as it conveyed full
access.
Can anyone think of a word to describe users who can do no more than
view work, sounds as if it ranks lower than "surrogate" or "delegate,"
and still conveys the intended meaning?
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
