Journals

A journal is a place to record what happens over time. You can use it as a progress report within a project group, as the minutes of a meeting, as a joint analysis report, as a periodic evaluation or, for example, to record a phone call.

The name journal is therefore mainly an umbrella term. You and your team decide what to use it for. What is special is that a journal can be a record of a single moment, finished there and then, or a document that grows over time: you add information, can respond to what others have written and so keep the development of a topic together.

A journal is stored in Drive and is protected like any other file. You can only reach it if you have access to it. Within a group, members can work on the same journal together.

Creating a journal #

In a personal Drive or in a group's Drive, create a new journal through New journal. Give it a recognisable name, so it is clear what it is for.

In a group Drive, the group members can read the journal and add entries to it. That creates one shared timeline instead of separate reports or notes in different places.

Adding and keeping entries #

A journal consists of entries: separate messages you add to the journal. An entry can contain, for example, a conversation report, a progress update, an observation or an agreement.

When you add an entry, your name and a date are recorded. That shows who added the information and which date it belongs to.

• New entry adds an entry, by default with today's date.
• The editor bar appears when you click into a message box. It offers options such as bold, italic and creating a table.
• Change date (only if allowed, see Settings) lets you assign a different date to an entry: click the date and time next to your avatar at the bottom right of a message.
• Pin, in the editor bar, pins a message to the top of the journal; it stays at the top, even when new entries are added later.
• Delete removes the message from the journal.
• Search entries and the tag filter help you find information again.
• Tags: you can add a tag to your message yourself. In the settings you can indicate whether people choose from a preset set of tags, or whether everyone may define their own.

Entries are sorted by date by default. Pinned entries stay at the top; the other entries follow the timeline.

The date of an entry #

The date of an entry does not always have to be the day you write it. Suppose you write a report today of a conversation that took place yesterday. Then it may be useful to give the entry yesterday's date. That way the timeline matches the moment the event took place.

To keep the timeline reliable, it can be set at organisation level whether users may change the date of entries. Depending on that setting, you may or may not be able to choose a different date.

Collaborating in the same journal #

A journal is meant for working on information together. Colleagues can add new entries and respond to the development recorded in earlier entries. That way progress, reasoning or reporting stays together in one place.

When someone else has the journal open at that moment, you see that person under Viewing now (in the box on the right of the screen).

Organising journals recognisably #

When you use several journals, it helps to organise them in a fixed way. Within your organisation, document types, labels and statuses are defined for that. They let you indicate what kind of journal it is, which characteristics apply and which phase it is in.

The organisation administrator (the application administrator or programme lead of your organisation or partnership) has the rights to set and edit these. Contact this person if you have questions about this or want to change something. Ideally, agreements about this were made when you started working with Databeamer.

Are you responsible for this yourself? Read more in For organisation administrators.

Journals and management information #

Document types, labels and statuses can also help to gain insight into the use and progress of journals within an organisation. When journals are set up consistently, these characteristics can be used for optional management information.

Think, for example, of insight into the number of journals per type, the distribution across statuses or the characteristics that occur with certain journals. Which information is available depends on Databeamer's capabilities and the organisation's set-up.

Read more in Management information from Databeamer.

Settings and export #

A few settings help to use journals consistently (through Settings in the box on the right of your page):

• Tag presets indicate which tags or labels your team can use.
• Only allow preset tags limits use to the configured presets. This check is enforced by the app on the device.
• Allow changing entry dates determines whether users can change the date of an entry.

Do you want to keep or process the content outside Databeamer? With Download as Markdown you export the journal as a text file that can be opened in other applications as well.

Security detailsWhat is this?

A journal is based on a Drive file and is protected in the same way as other files in Databeamer.

• The content of entries is encrypted with the key of the journal file. That key is tied to the group key of the folder the journal is in.
• Every change, such as adding or editing an entry, is recorded as a separate operation and signed by the author's device.
• The server can see that the journal exists, who performed an operation, when that happened and who has opened the journal. The text of entries and the content of tags are encrypted.
• Contributions are not anonymous: the author is tied to the operation.
• A new group member can read a journal's existing history. When a group member is removed, previously decrypted entries are not re-encrypted.

Read more about key rotation when someone leaves a group.

Note: document types, statuses and labels set at organisation level are visible to the server. So do not use these characteristics for information that is itself confidential or sensitive.