Questionnaire Contact Information: To help facilitate publishers in mailing questionnaires to companies for information gathering, the Pathways system provides a facility for maintaining the name and addressing information for a contact who will be completing the questionnaire form. This information is optional, and allows publishers to keep addressing information for personnel who will not be listed in the actual directory. If a questionnaire contact is not on file, questionnaires may be sent directly to the company address using a standard job title (e.g. "Marketing Manager") as defined by the publisher.

Executive or Personnel Information: The Pathways system allows publishers to maintain information about the executives or personnel associated with each company. There is no limit to the number of executives that may be associated with a company, and executives may be associated with either a main company location, or any of its associated branches or subsidiaries. Each personnel record may contain a name, title, phone, fax, e-mail address, and free form biographical information. Additionally, each executive can be categorized by job title and area of responsibility as defined by the publisher. To help publishers present executives in specific orders, a "drag & drop" facility is available for ordering executives for presentation in the directory. This facility allows users to easily place executive names into orders that can not be accomplished through sortation of any piece of associated data. For those publishers who have a need to maintain additional fielded information for personnel, the Pathways system provides the capability for custom databases to be seamlessly integrated into the software.  This feature allows publishers the flexibility of maintaining any amount of additional data and associating it with individual personnel records.  When publishers use this feature, an Executive Detail button will be enabled on the Pathways screen used for data entry of personnel related information.  When data entry personnel click on the button, the new custom screen will be displayed allowing data entry and editing of the additional data items that have been defined for the publication.

Financial/Statistical/Operational Information: The Pathways system provides publishers up to 5 optional fields that can be defined to hold this type of data for a company. To provide maximum flexibility, the system also allows publishers to define their own related databases, create the necessary screens for maintenance of these new databases, and seamlessly tie the new screens and databases into the Pathways system. This facility gives publishers an unlimited number of options for maintaining and publishing miscellaneous information about companies.

Advertising/Editorial Enhancement Information: The Pathways system also provides capabilities for maintaining information about advertising or editorial enhancement information. This information may be related to either a main company or one of its subsidiary/branch locations. There is no limit to the number of ads or editorial enhancements that can be associated with a company. When entering ad information, publishers are allowed to define basic information about the ad including type of ad, color, position, and size. The system also allows publishers to keep a contact name and address that is to be used for any questions about the ad. This facility allows publishers to keep information about ad agency contacts or others who are not directly associated with the advertiser. The Pathways desktop publishing interface modules have built-in intelligence that allows them to determine if a company is an advertiser, or if they have requested editorial enhancements such as a bold listing. If so, the extract routines can associate the listing information with a different desktop publishing "style tag." By doing so, publishers can define different style attributes for information associated with these special "style tags." Recognizing that placement of ads is critical to directory publishers, the Pathways system also includes a feature that allows advertising records to be defined as being "anchored" to a particular company or product listing. As the Pathways software processes "templates" to create desktop publishing interface files containing company or product listings, it determines if the listing has associated advertising. If it does, special "markup" syntax will be placed in the interface file being generated. Once the interface file has been imported by the desktop publishing software, the special "markup" syntax will be interpreted by the DTP software and will be used to help place the advertising in the final directory pages.  Some desktop publishers are capable of automatically placing electronic files.  Others will require the layout personnel to manually an draw ad frame and place the electronic artwork into it. During the extraction process, a report is generated listing all advertising that is to be placed into each interface file.  If a publisher is using a DTP software that does not support automatic generation of advertising frames, the layout personnel will use the information from the report to help them manually place the advertising. For those publishers who offer lead generation services, the Pathways system can also be used to aid in automatically assigning Reader Service numbers to advertising. As advertisements are entered into the system, they can be defined as requiring one or more reader service numbers. When "templates" are processed to generate the desktop publishing extract files, reader service numbers are assigned to the advertisements as their "frame anchor" is placed in the interface file. All advertising reports produced by the system will display the assigned reader service number(s).

Product/Service Information: One of the most powerful features of the Pathways system is its handling of company related products and services. Publishers can begin maintaining information about new products or services within minutes, by simply adding a new product master to the database using a series of screens provided. As new product masters are entered, a publisher may also define specific types of detailed information that is to be maintained about the product. As an example, a publisher might want to begin maintaining detailed information about widgets that companies manufacture. Using the Pathways system, a publisher first determines what code is to be used to identify widgets as a type of product. Once the code is determined, it is entered along with the associated product master name. If a publisher wants to keep information such as the color and size of the widget, information is also entered that defines the individual questions or "specifications" that are to be maintained about widget products. This "specification" definition takes only a few minutes. Once the product master and its related specifications have been defined, the system will allow data entry for widget products. Using this powerful feature, publishers can immediately begin maintaining information about new products without requiring any programming changes. There is no system limitation as to the number of products or services that can be associated with a particular company. However, if publishers prefer, there is an option available that will limit the number of a particular type of product that can be associated with a single company location. This limitation may be different for each product master in the system. It is also possible for publishers to limit the types of companies that can have a particular product associated with them. As an example, a manufacturing company may not be allowed to have an associated "service" type product. These limitations may be defined for each type of product.

Company to Company Relationships: Another powerful feature of the Pathways system is its ability to allow publishers to maintain information about relationships between companies. As an example, a directory might list names and addresses for both manufacturing and distribution companies. The directory might also include listing of distribution companies that are used by each manufacturer, and vice versa. With the Pathways system, this is extremely easy to do. Publishers simply define the types of relationships they wish to maintain, and then enter a relationship record for each manufacturer/distributor combination. The system will automatically keep both sides of the relationship in synchronization. In other words, the system will not allow a particular manufacturer to indicate it uses a specific distributor, while allowing the distributor to exclude the manufacturer as one for which it distributes. The Pathways system has no limit as to the types of relationships that can be defined between companies. It also has no limit as to the number of relationships that can be defined for a company.