AIM

1. Before You Start

You'll get the best results if you have:

• A rough list of your core systems (e.g., ERP, billing, portals, databases, mainframes)
• A general idea of your top pain points (e.g., vendor lock-in, outages, manual processes)
• Basic awareness of constraints:
  • Deadlines
  • Budget range
  • Regulatory obligations
  • Staff limitations

You don't need perfect documentation. AIM is built for messy reality.

2. Create a New Assessment

1. From your dashboard, click "Start New Assessment."
2. Enter:
   • Name (e.g., "Court Modernization 2026" or "Harbor City Cloud Migration")
   • Organization
   • Environment type (on-prem, cloud, hybrid)
   • Archetype (new build, integrate, replace, etc.)
3. Click Save.

You can always edit these fields later.

3. Answer Assessment Questions

On the Assessment Questions tab, AIM will guide you through a series of questions about:

• Current Systems – What you have today
• Pain Points – What's not working well
• Constraints – Deadlines, budget limits, political realities
• Regulatory Requirements – HIPAA, CJIS, PCI, records laws
• Technical Requirements – Uptime, security, integration needs
• Staffing & Timeline – Team size, skill levels, project timeline

Answer in plain language. AIM's Constraint Normalizer will turn these into structured codes (C-1, C-2, etc.) for use in recommendations and reports.

4. Preview Recommendations (Optional)

Once you've answered the assessment questions, you can optionally preview recommendations before generating reports:

1. Go to the Recommendations tab.
2. Click "Generate Recommendations."
3. AIM will:
   • Identify capability gaps based on your assessment
   • Apply RAO (Ranking and Optimization) scoring
   • Generate a ranked list of technology recommendations

You'll see:

• RAO scores – Overall fit rating for your context
• Tier badges – Must Have, Strong Candidate, or Consider
• Dimension breakdowns – Cost, Maturity, Security, Lock-in Risk, Complexity
• "Why it matters" – Explanation of why each product is recommended

5. Generate Reports

AIM offers multiple report types for different audiences. On the assessment workspace, you'll find:

Click any report button and AIM will automatically generate recommendations (if needed) and produce your report. Reports can be previewed inside AIM and exported to PDF.

6. Generate Target Architecture Diagram

AIM can generate a visual diagram of your recommended target architecture:

1. Scroll to the Architecture Diagrams section.
2. Click "Generate Target Architecture."
3. AIM will create a diagram showing:
   • Recommended technology components
   • Integration connections between systems
   • Logical groupings by layer or function

The diagram is based on your recommendations and is included in your reports. Each diagram is versioned with the recommendation version it was generated from (e.g., "Rec. v1"), so you can track changes over time.

7. Review Recommended Vendors

On the Recommended Vendors tab, you'll see the vendors associated with your recommended products:

• Vendor cards – Each vendor shows their recommended products, compliance certifications, and pricing info
• Compliance badges – FedRAMP, SOC 2, GovCloud certifications at a glance
• Lock-in risk – Visual indicator of vendor lock-in level
• Quick actions – Links to vendor websites, pricing pages, and sales contacts

Use this tab to quickly identify which vendors you'll need to engage for procurement.

8. Interpreting the Results

A few tips:

• Check constraint coverage – Make sure the top recommendations actually honor your most important C-constraints.
• Look at RAO dimensions – A higher score isn't always "better" if it violates a non-negotiable constraint.
• Use the roadmap – You don't have to implement everything at once. Start with quick wins.
• Review pricing – Some products may require vendor quotes. Use the "Contact Sales" links to get accurate pricing.

9. What to Do Next

• Run a second assessment for another department or project.
• Use the reports in leadership presentations or council packets.
• Adjust constraints and regenerate to explore "what-if" scenarios.
• Use Project PULSE (after recommendations/report are generated) to track execution health over time — without task-level overhead.

If you get stuck, visit the FAQ page or contact support. AIM is designed to be simple enough for non-architects and powerful enough for system engineers.