Project Goal and Objectives

Once it became evident that the Montana and Wyoming staff would find it helpful to have an online companion to the hardcopy address book, the MT-WY Connect project was initiated.

Project Goal

The goal of the MT-WY Connect project is to provide an online "electronic" version of the MT-WY address book, which has been produced in pocketable hardcopy book form for many years. It is important to note that the online version will NOT supplant the usual hardcopy book; the hardcopy book will continue to be produced. One can think of the online version as a more flexible and complete companion of the hardcopy MT-WY address book.

Project Objectives

Objectives for the creation of the online companion to the traditional hardcopy address book include the following.

• Most importantly, the online version should be updateable in "real time." That is, it should be possible for edits to be made at any time to contact information in the online version in a manner that all using it will see the most up-to-date contact information at any time.
• It should be shareable with each individual worker on smart phones, tablets (e.g., iPads), and computers.
• It should provide these three useful automatic features:
  
  • Clicking a phone number should automatically bring up the phone dialer (on smart phones) with the number inserted, ready for dialing.
  • Clicking an email address should automatically bring up the email program (on any device) with the email address inserted, ready for typing content.
  • Clicking a location address should automatically bring up Google Maps, ready for navigating to the the given location.
  
  
• Various helpful views of the contact information should be available in the online version which are unavailable in the hardcopy address book.
• It should be possible to produce a document of addresses for printing to a page of labels.
• It should be possible to generate the hardcopy address book from the online version.
• It should be possible to generate a Google Contacts file that is up to date with the online version in importable form for installing on a smart phone.
• There should be a way for workers in their fields to make changes themselves to family contact information through a simple interface that propagate to all using the system.
• It must work at least as well as the systems used by our neighbors.