EAD encoding is used for the delivery of finding aids on the internet, for a retroconversion program of legacy finding aids and for description of parts of the record groups. It is also used for several projects like daofind (http://www.daofind.de - with some pages in English language), that develops the MEX-tools and for the creation of a gateway to party and unions records of the former GDR as a reference implementation for the construction of a gateway to archives in Germany.
The EAD finding aids are integrated into the search engine MidosaSEARCH. It offers a key term slot and a structured navigation entry through the structured holdings guide, to which all available online finding aids are linked. The list of search results shows the lowest classification header with the possibility to open the full structure. The results are linked to the place with the term inside the corresponding finding aid. Inside a finding aid an embedded search with another term is offered before navigating to the next place. (http://www.bundesarchiv.de -> midosaSEARCH - with help-function in English)
The retroconversion program is done by a contratctor who deliveres them in EAD format. Data from the BASYS database can be exported into EAD. Direct encoding in EAD during description is done with the tools MidosaXML or MEX which is also used to encode legacy text files.