Customizable and Online Message Processor offers an open and extensible Web-based message lifecycle management system for software development projects.

For example, a recent software product development project needed a review of error messages by a widely distributed team composed of developers, information developers and testers. Everyone on the team needed to provide review comments, not only on technical content but also on English wording. To improve collaborative efficiency, the team needed a tool to handle the task: ideally light weight, easy to deploy and maintained by the team.

Customizable and Online Message Processor provides basic message lifecycle management functions such as add, edit, review and delete messages. More specifically, this tool:

1. Provides a rule-based content validation function to verify input according to predefined rules, messages that are not compliant will not be saved into the system
2. Tracks modifications and comments made by each individual
3. Allows import and export of XML file in a format directly consumable by your software.
4. Can be easily modified or extended to meet the requirements of your projects.
5. Is very simple to deploy as a Web application.

This tool is based on Ruby on Rails, which provides a productive and extendable framework for Web applications. In addition, Rails brings simplicity to database-related design and implementation for developers with its unique and innovative active record, which wraps complex database related transactions.

How does it work?

Customizable and Online Message Processor is extendable and customizable. Depending on your requirements the tool can be deployed to use immediately it can be tailored to your needs before use. Based on the MVC model which is automatically generated by Rails, the tool can easily perform the following functions beyond normal functions of a message review system:

• The message convention rules can be customized
• Import/export according to product requirement
• Comments and change history for trace

The tool can be further developed for specific requirement such as user authentication.

More details can be found in the readme file which is inside the package.

Zhong, Hai Jun is a staff software engineer at IBM Systems and Technology Labs in Shanghai, China. He joined IBM in 2005 and is currently working on IBM BladeCenter Start Now Advisor project. He is interested in open source project.

CheKim Chhuor leads the BladeCenter Start Now Advisor testing team in the Systems and Technology Lab at IBM in Shanghai. His current focus is on blade technologies and systems architecture. Previously he worked at IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York, on various system management products and at IBM in Montreal, Canada, as a consultant. Chhuor has many years of Web infrastructure consulting experience and holds many IBM certifications on WebSphere, DB2, and On Demand Business.

Ningjie Zhou is a project manager for IBM BladeCenter Start Now Advisor. She graduated from Shanghai JiaoTong University in 2005 in Computer Science and joined IBM after graduation as a software engineer. In her first two years with IBM, Ningjie has worked in the technical field and writing firmware code for IBM BladeCenter Advanced Management Module. In 2008 she changed to a project manager role in software product development.