Though the FCO-IM method guarantees an higher accuracy for your information model, which leads to less rework after initial release and usage, it also requires you to put in a lot of thinking effort from the very beginning. And though this approach is very supportive for incremental work, beginners tend to think of it as tiresome.

Since CaseTalk 8.12 new construction functions have been added to also allow users to construct your information model needs without the tedious work of facts, expressions and qualifying and classifying.

Construction

The construction features available in CaseTalk 8.12 allows you to:

• construct an Object Type without adding much detail;
• construct a Fact Type to connect Object and Label Types;
• construct Subtype by adding it to it's Supertype.

CaseTalk 8.14 added:

• construct Label Types.

CaseTalk 8.15 added:

• splitting Fact Types compliant with the N-1, yet have more than 2 roles;
• keep an administration on altered expressions to check for user confirmation on the result;
• from the diagram alter the Role Played By part.

Solid

Strict and experienced FCO-IM users will probably raise their eyebrows, as we would've before we added these functions. Although the information model can be constructed quickly, CaseTalk will still keep a very sharp eye out on the quality of your model. All model wellformedness rules are still being checked to maintain solidity.

That way CaseTalk will still require or recommend you to:

• add soft semantics (edit already present expressions)
• add population (edit through the population editor)
• add various (required) constraints (using wizards or via diagramming)
• identification fixup through replacement (how-to).

Beneficial

By adding the new construction functionality, even beginners may experience the precise methodology while still gradually growing accustomed to the precise world of fact based modeling. And in practice even experienced users may find it a relief to be able to construct object types quickly during interview sessions, while working out the details at a later time. The new construction features are therefor beneficial to beginners as to experienced users.