Information is received by the Depot in the form of emailed text and documents which it automatically categorizes and archives for later retrieval. Information captured by the system is automatically organized and stored for later retrieval. Information can contain design rationales, documentation, source code, and other project related information. Information captured by the system can be redistributed as appropriate to concerned parties. This helps to insure that all decisions and design changes are propagated to all of the people who are affected, allowing people to stay aware of relevant changes in the project.
Users gain an increased awareness of the status of tasks that interact with their own work.
Information Organization Information is organized around a topic hierarchy. The name of a topic is used in most cases to determine which messages enter that topic. A Message will be found in all of the categories it matches, allowing it to be found in whatever topic the user happens to be thinking in terms of during the search. The topic hierarchy can evolve over time as the nature of the group's work evolves. New topics can be added, old topics removed, and existing topics can search for new keywords.