eav is for Developers or Business Analysts who need to:

• Outline how applications work in order to prepare for a re-write or modernization effort
• Understand how programs work
• Learn how programs and other components fit together with one another
• Quickly become knowledgeable at a detail level about an application or a set of applications
• Perform impact analysis regarding pending changes to data structures or definitions
• Document entire application portfolios for audit or compliance purposes

eav needs Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or higher to hold the source code and related eav documentation. If eav is going to be used by more than one person the SQL Server database must reside in a networked location. Users of eav must be running Windows XP or later versions of Microsoft's operating system.

• The installation process takes less than five minutes. It is performed using a standard Windows Install Shield installation.
• The population of the eav repository (initial Object Scanner execution) can take several hours depending on the size and number of programs, maps, copybooks, streams and other components that are defined to eav. On average, allow 5 seconds per component for the load, parse and documentation build process.
• Once the data is loaded in eav you will be able to review code and diagram the flow of your programs and applications within minutes. The user interface is geared to the mainframe COBOL or Natural developer, so learning and understanding the workbenches may take a few hours.
• Special projects may require days of analysis and documentation work using the tools. These projects would take weeks or months using the traditional manual methods.

Yes. Classroom training is available, both onsite and via a webinar. Most customers find that using the tool suite is the best training.

Yes, there is an extensive help system available via the eav interface that contains details on every screen and feature within the program.

• eav provides business and technical teams with hands-on access to business rules, application flow, and program content using a powerful graphical interface.
• eav has a large SQL Server database that holds your application source code. The format of the stored source code varies based upon the "language" of the component. The level of granularity also changes depending on the component type. SQL is used by eav to query into the underlying database.

Yes. Any user can have access to eav, but only users who are authorized for specific source code can view that source code. This security is managed through the use of Entities.

Yes. eav has the eavEdit feature that allows you to "check out" source modules, make modifications, and then "check in" those changes so that they are applied to the production environment.