In AppColl, you can predefine products, technologies, and keywords that inventors can select from when submitting an invention disclosure. These fields help organize and categorize disclosures for easier filtering and reporting.

Note: You must be a committee member to access the setup options described below. If you're not a committee member, please contact your administrator.

Accessing Setup Options

To get started:

Hover over the Inventions menu.

Click on the relevant setup option:

Setup Keywords

Setup Products

Setup Technologies

1. Adding Keywords

1. Go to Setup Keywords.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Enter a Name and an optional Description.
4. You can check Obsolete if you want to prevent future use while retaining the keyword for existing disclosures.
5. Click Save.
   
   
   You can also: Mark the keyword as Required.

Choose whether inventors can Request new keywords, Add new keywords, or Only select from existing options. We recommend not allowing new additions to avoid duplicates.

2. Adding Products

1. Go to Setup Products.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Enter a Name, a required Description, and an optional Version (e.g., 1.0).
4. You can also provide:

• Release Under NDA Date
• On Sale Date
• Public Release Date (Note: These are not visible to inventors).

Mark the product as Required or Obsolete, if needed.

5. Click Save.

3. Adding Technologies

Technologies in AppColl can be organized hierarchically, with parent and child categories.

1. Go to Setup Technologies.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Enter the Technology Name.
4. Select a Parent Technology, if this is a subcategory (optional).
5. Click Save.

Example hierarchy:

• Hardware
• DSP (child of Hardware)
• Software
• Audio Software (child of Software)

You can build your taxonomy to reflect your organization’s technical domains.

Using These Fields in Disclosures

When inventors fill out a new disclosure, they will see dropdown options for Products, Technologies, and Keywords—only if at least one value has been added for each category.

Required fields will be indicated with a red dot.

Once submitted, these fields can be used to:

• Filter disclosures on the Inventions main page.
• Run reports using the Reports tab (e.g., “Show me all disclosures by keyword”).

Tips & Best Practices

• Use the Obsolete checkbox instead of deleting options to preserve historical data.
• Use hierarchies in Technologies for better categorization.
• Avoid allowing inventors to freely add new entries to prevent inconsistencies and duplicates.