For instance, we configured Orbis Professional to monitor data in a shared Excel worksheet, with the Orbis software responding via an email message whenever changes were made to a particular field. A useful wizard helped guide us through the process, making it easy to select the fields to monitor, and apply range checks and other criteria using standard SQL instructions. The wizard also prompted us to set the frequency with which to check the data and also the content and recipients of the email messages. And alerts are not limited to email. Any mechanism accessible to the email system, such as pager and SMS messaging, is also available, along with Outlook tasks and the placing of information into Outlook or Exchange folders.
Profiles get a wizard of their own and are configured in much the same way.
However, instead of just monitoring data, they can be used to copy selected data into private Outlook and shared public Exchange folders. The data in the email copies can then be regularly synchronised with the original database, which means that Outlook forms, Visual Basic and other scripting tools can be used to build custom applications, run from within the email client. For users wanting to try the software, Orbis Lite can be downloaded free from the Intelliware Web site. It is a fully functional implementation with support for the entire range of data sources, but only a handful of alerts and profiles. However, the free tool cannot be used with public Exchange folders or external messaging systems.