Abstract: A method, and apparatus, and a software product for implementing a method for interacting with a computer-based management system including authoring and communicating composite data messages, each composite data message comprising both free-text and structured data, such that the structured data represents the intended meaning of the free-text in a form understandable by the computer-based management system. In one version, authoring includes converting free-text to structured data. One version includes communicating the composite message.