FAQs
We present a selection of questions we often hear. If you can’t find an answer to your question here, please drop a mail to support@visiblethread.com.
Product Evaluation Queries
Q. I would like to evaluate VisibleThread, how do I start?
Q. Is the evaluation fully functional or restricted?
Q. How does VisibleThread figure out issues in documents?
Q. For the on-premise offering, what technical considerations are there for deployment?
General Operational Queries
Q. We are deployed internally and I forgot my password, what can I do?
Q. I have a PDF that consists only of images, can VisibleThread parse this?
Reference Practices
Q. What is a Reference Practice?
Q. What kinds of reference practices ship out of the box?
Q. Can I customize reference practices?
Q. Can I mix and match reference practices in the same document set?
Plain Language Queries
Q. What is a hidden verb and should I always rephrase it?
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Q. I would like to evaluate VisibleThread, how do I start?
A. You can evaluate a fully functional copy of VisibleThread, available as a software service (SaaS) by signing up for our .
The free evaluation provides you with your own sandbox, along with full administrative user privileges allowing you to add colleagues as users, etc. We encourage you to upload documents and see the results. Once you’ve signed up, the dashboard will allow you download the MS Word Add-in to edit documents. We recommend that you try the Add-in. Back To Top
Q. Is the evaluation fully functional or restricted in any way?
A. No, the evaluation is fully functional and has no restrictions.
Q. How does VisibleThread figure out issues in documents?
A. VisibleThread scans content automatically as soon as documents are uploaded. This scan identifies document aspects, such as noun frequency (used in the discovery area) and quality. VisibleThread also discovers how the content compares against structural Reference Practice. (see FAQ on what is a Reference Practice?).
Q. For the on-premise offering, what technical considerations are there for deployment?
A. The VisibleThread on-premise offering is delivered as an “appliance.” This means all dependent software is in it’s own VM (Virtual Machine) and runs with minimal configuration. Contact our support team for more information.
Q. We are deployed internally and I forgot my password, what can I do?
A. When deployed onsite, VisibleThread sits behind your firewall. An onsite deployment is internal to you. For your own security reasons, we never have ‘back-doors’ into any onsite deployments.
Your local VisibleThread administrator can however reset your password using the ‘User Admin’ area in VisibleThread.
They can do so by following these steps:
- Sign into VisibleThread using their user credentials.
- Click ‘User Admin’ on the top right of the VT dashboard. (SCREEN below)
- Select you as a user in the list of users. In the below sample screenshot, the selected user is: ‘don@insure-corp.com’. (SCREEN below)
- Type in the new password in the password fields on the right under User Details. (SCREEN below)
- Click ‘Update’
Step 2 screen
Step 3 screen:
Step 4 screen:
Once these steps are done, your password will be reset, and you should be able to sign in.
Contact our support team if you still have problems.
Q. I have a PDF that consists only of images, can VisibleThread parse this?
A. VisibleThread does not support an ability to parse PDFs that consist only of images. Technically, this is because reliably extracting text from images is very difficult. There are however 3rd party conversion utilities that may be of help.
If you have PDFs comprised only of scanned images, what are your options?
- Use a 3rd party utility to convert image to text first, then upload the result. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology does exist, however VisibleThread cannot vouch for its reliability. There are many utilities. Our tests indicate that the results can be mixed in terms of accuracy.
The best way to find the available utilities is to google these words (or similar): ‘image conversion pdf to word OCR’
- If it is possible, request the PDF in text form from the issuing authority.
Q. What is a Reference Practice?
A. Reference practices in VisibleThread are ways to specify which content is expected to produce a quality IT document. For example, if you expect to see certain sections mentioned or completed in a document like “Security,” this should be specified as part of a Reference Practice. reference practices come in two forms: “structure” and “quality” reference practices.
Structure reference practices verify that particular structural components are present within the document(s).
If you’re defining a transaction oriented system, such as an online tax system or a billing system, then the absence of performance and security “non-functional” requirements exposes high levels of risk at an early stage in your project. To avoid this, you should create a Structure Reference Practice with headings like “security,” “performance,” etc. This ensures that specified content is present in your IT documentation.
Quality reference practices focus on categorized language sets that, if found, indicate potential problem areas in the document(s). For example, the terms “appropriate” and “high” in the following sentence is impossible to measure and test for: “We must deliver appropriate levels of up time, given high user volumes.” This kind of ambiguous language can increase the risk of poorly-architected IT systems, plus heightens the probability of late stage architectural rework.
Q. What types of reference practices ship out of the box?
A. VisibleThread ships with two default practices, one for structure and one for quality. The structure default practice covers:
- Project Drivers
- Performance
- Functional and data
- Security
- Usability
The quality default practice covers:
- Incompleteness (e.g. ‘?’, ‘TBD’, ‘TO DO’…)
- Ambiguity (e.g. ‘appropriate’, ‘many’, ‘high’…)
- Optionality (e.g. ‘maybe’, ‘possibly’, ‘perhaps’…)
- Imprecise (e.g. ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘enough’…)
Both structure and quality default practices can be modified to suit your organization’s requirements, or used to form the basis of a new Reference Practice.
Q. Can I customize reference practices?
A. Yes, you can customize reference practices in four ways:
- Create a new Reference Practice by duplicating an existing Reference Practice
- Modify an existing practice by making your changes and saving
- Create a new Reference Practice from scratch
- Create a new Reference Practice based on an existing document, for instance an ISO specification
To create a new Reference Practice based on an existing document, follow the steps outlined in “Q. Our organization already has Word document templates, can we use them?”
Q. Can I mix-and-match reference practices in the same document set?
A. Yes. A document set can include different types of document side-by-side, and specific reference practices can be applied to given documents.
Q. Q. What is a hidden verb and should I always rephrase it?
A. a hidden verb is a verb converted into a noun. It often needs an extra verb to make sense. For example, in the sentence :
“Please make an application for a personal loan”
the noun “an application” is really hiding the verb “to apply”. This could be re-phrased as :
“Please apply for a personal loan”.
Here are some more examples :
- “Our document will be compliant with XYZ regulations” -> “Our document will comply with XYZ regulations”
- “Appendix A provides a summary of the performance requirements” -> “Appendix A summarises the performance requirements”
- “The Delivery Manager takes the lead in collaboration with the customer” -> “The Delivery Manager leads collaboration with the customer”
The following website gives a more detailed explanation of hidden verbs and shows examples of how to “uncover” them : http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/wordsuggestions/hiddenverbs.cfm
It should be pointed out – Sometimes it makes sense to say it with hidden verbs. But generally it’s best to reduce occurrences of passive language and hidden verbs.
To yield the best results, you should address plain language issues in this order :
- long sentences
- passive language
- hidden verbs
For the full low down on plain language, here is the Federal plain language guidelines document:
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/bigdoc/fullbigdoc.pdf
