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Text File | 1988-11-16 | 24KB | 509 lines

Technical Information: Equipment needed: IBM-PC (128K) Floppy or hard disk Color or Monocrome monitor Printer Configuration: Printer Port (LST1:) (If necessary to print to another port, use the MODE command to redirect printer output.) Files contained on this disk: ASSETS.EXE - The main program to execute ASSETS.HLP - The help data file ASSETS.DOC - The usage manual ASSETS.DAT - The main data database file ASSETS.X01 - The key index file ASSETS.X02 - The type index file ASSETS.X03 - The location index file ASSETS.X04 - The user-defined field index file ASREPORT.EXE - The report writer program ASINDEX.EXE - The reindexer program ROKMAR HOME/OFFICE ASSETS INVENTORY SYSTEM INDEX Copyright Notice ............ 1 What Is It For? ............. 2 Set Up ...................... 3 Field Editing ............... 4 Program Usage ............... 5 How To Use It ............... 7 Field Descriptions .......... 8 Interfacing ................. 9 Error Recovery .............. 11 COPYRIGHT NOTICE Page 1 This software product is the copyrighted property of RokMar Computer Systems, and the usual shareware limited agreement applies: 1. No fee may be charged for the retail sale of this product other than a reasonable copy and distribution charge. 2. This product may only be distributed in its original and complete form, including documentation and copyright notice. 3. This product may not be distributed, whole or in any part as a section or part of any commercial product without written permission of ROKMAR COMPUTER SYSTEMS. DISCLAIMER RokMar Computer Systems will not be liable for any damages or claims related in any way to the use of this product and disclaims all warranties or implied warranties by the distributor. Other than these minor trivialities, feel free to copy and give out as many copies of this product as you wish. Place an archived version on any BBS. Should you receive any use from this program, please contribute $10, or if you wish to receive an updated version of this program with bug fixes and possible enhancements, and notices to future updates, send $15 to: Robert O Keith, Jr. 29660 Dixon St. Hayward, Ca. 94544 Anything you might send, $, suggestions, problems will be greatly appreciated and will prompt me to produce many more products for the home and office. The registration fee will also entitle you to a list of other available products. Remember, you did not have to bother to program this for yourself... Have fun, and remember... Press F1 for Help! WHAT IS IT FOR? Page 2 Now that I have my own Home/Office Assets Inventory DataBase system, what do I do with it? What good is it? Most people may or may not think they have much money laying around the house or office. In any case, most will be surprised at how much has been collected over the months and years. In most cases, much of this money sits around mostly unnoticed. People who have used this product have been shocked to find out how much money was tied up in household/office assets, in what areas this money was concentrated, and in what type of merchandise they had. In case of fire, theft, etc., the insurance company wants an itemized list of each piece of merchandise, the model numbers, the serial numbers, the location the article was kept, the purchase/replacement cost, etc. This bit of information can be difficult to piece together with any amount of accuracy, especially in the midst of emotional strife. If this information was gathered together in advance manually, what a maintenance chore this could be: new items are bought, sold, thrown away, lost, etc., every month. This information is also useful for management decisions: adequate security, fire protection, adequate insurance coverage, or even how much money is invested by merchandise type, at certain locations, etc. The Home/Office Assets Inventory DataBase will retain this information on a dynamic medium, where at the press of a button the information can be listed, sorted and summed up by type, location, etc. This product will also print a list, ready to mail off to the insurance company or store offsite at any time. The Home/Office Assets Inventory DataBase Contains: - Pull Down Menu System, very simple to use. - Pop Up windows including help windows so that you don't become lost inside the integrated programs. - Full Feature Search/Inquiry screens, to browse your data by key words. - Index Reports for your own information, (where, how much, of what, etc.) - Full Detailed Reports for safe storage and to mail off to the insurance companies. - Data Entry Input form printable on your own printer at any time. Can you use this? SET UP Page 3 INSTALLING UP THIS SYSTEM ON YOUR COMPUTER. Make a copy of this disk for your own backup at once! An installation program is not included; they are more complicated than simply copying the files to your hard disk, and most of them cause more trouble than help anyway. Installation on any Floppy Disk Drive: Simply copy the original disk and use the copy as the program/data disk. One disk and drive is all that is required for use. These files may also be copied to a bootable floppy disk. Hard Drive: Create a directory (\ASSETS, \HOMEINV, \OFFINVEN, etc.), anything you wish and copy the contents of this disk into the directory. Remember, only rookies copy all of the software including DOS to the root directory. Example: C>COPY A:*.* A:\ASSETS The executable program file of this system is ASSETS.EXE, so to run, move to the drive and directory where the programs are installed and type: ASSETS Example: One floppy drive: A>ASSETS Hard Disk:C>CD \ASSETS C>ASSETS The pull down menu will come up on your screen. If you have never used this type of menu, Press F1 for Help. Press F1 anywhere inside this system, and a help screen will appear. FIELD EDITING Page 4 Using the data entry fields. The data entry screens and the inquiry screens have one or many entry fields. The data in each of these fields may be edited after some value has been entered. The type of edits available for each field include, inserting characters inside data already edited, deleting characters, etc. This scheme is similar to word processors, spread sheets, etc. Following is a detailed list of each function and the key to be used for each. Key Function ____ __________________________________________________________ Ins This will toggle into or out of the insert mode. The cursor will be a block character when inside the insert mode. When inside the insert mode, any data above and to the right of the cursor will be moved over and the data typed will be shoved inside, inserted. Del The Delete Key: The character above the cursor will be deleted and the data to the right will be moved over to fill the space created by the character deleted. BS The Back-Space Key: The cursor will be moved to the left; any data above the cursor will be deleted; the data to the right will be moved to the left. --> The right arrow key: The cursor will be moved one character to the right, no data will be affected. <-- The left arrow key: The cursor will be moved one character to the left, no data will be affected. Up The up arrow key: The cursor will jump up to the previous data entry field. Down The down arrow key: The cursor will jump down to the next data entry field. Return The return/entry key: The cursor will jump down to the next data entry field. Esc The escape key: This will exit the mode of the program without doing any updates to the database. PROGRAM USAGE Page 5 A Walk through of the system. This section will be listed in sections in the order of initial usage. Any semi-experienced user can breeze over this section quickly and not work through the exercises, but keep in mind the overall program flow and the uses of each function. 1. (RPTFORM) Print an input form. This is the last option on the menu. Once this is printed, you may print as many as you wish or make photocopies of the printed version. With this version you can manually take inventory, listing the pertinent data on the sheets, then use the sheets as data entry forms to sit at the computer and enter the data. The first field on the sheet is the key field. This can be any value you wish, but it must be unique. Numbering the items is usually the simplest way to choose a unique key, but the add function will accept any unique string of characters. 2. (ADD) Enter the data. This is the first option on the menu. Simply transcribe the data directly from the input sheets into the add function. Press F1 if any field is confusing, a pop up help window will appear. A full description of each field is described in a later chapter. 3. (UPDATE) If you make any entry mistakes, use the third menu option. These functions will allow data entry record modifications or to delete the entire record. Again, Press F1 for guidance. 4. (INQUIRY) At any time, you may wish to search through the data for a particular item, to do this, use the forth menu function. This is the most complicated screen, but don't worry, it does no updates so you can not hurt anything by pressing the wrong button. The three inquiry screens work basically the same but work against different keys, TYPE, LOCATION and the USER- DEFINED key. Specific key info is at the upper left of the screen. A quick run through: - Enter the screen via the menu. - Enter the key value desired. This may be the whole key, the first few characters of this key, or to begin at the beginning, leave the field blank. Then press F2 to begin the search. - Continue to press F2 to search from the last record on the screen... - Or, Enter a different search key value... - Or, Press F7 to scroll backwards; F8 to scroll forward. - The up/down arrow keys will move the high-lighted line upward or downward. - Press the F3 key, and the high-lighted record will be shown in detail inside another window in the middle of the screen. PROGRAM USAGE (cont.) Page 6 5. (RPT INDX) These reports are for your use as management information. Simply selecting the menu option desired and pressing return will cause the report to begin printing, so have the printer on and ready. 6. (RPT FULL) These reports are detailed reports sorted by the menu option chosen. They are for your permanent off-site storage and to be sent to insurance agencies, etc. HOW TO USE IT Page 7 Anyone who has been through a fire, burglary, or any of numerous disasters, and have had to try to list everything they own, how much the items were worth, and prove it, (Serial numbers?) all this in the midst of an emotionally trying time, wishing they had been better prepared. Insurance companies usually request an updated listing of inventories every six months. Pictures should also be included with this list. An even better solution is a video tape recording of the articles, time and date stamped. The entire room can be panned across catching everything in the room. Don't forget articles left inside closets or behind/under furniture. Anything one might forget to take a snapshot of usually shows up in a video tape, somewhere in the background. Remember to get a shot of the camera. Of course, pictures are not enough, serial numbers, costs, etc. are still required. You should also keep your own version of this file, but include photocopies of receipts, and store this off-site in a safe location. How many think to keep backups of software offsite? This system will tell you how important that might be. Hints/Reminders: - Include items often forgotten in this list: Expensive Clothing Articles Landscaping Purchases Books Telephones Computer Software Lighting Fixtures Customized Curtains The Hot Water Heater Kitchen Appliances and Utensils Tap Water Filters Children's Articles Outside Articles - Search through the closets, garages, in the automobiles, off-site storage, cellars, etc., places not frequently visited. - Items that may be lended to someone else at the time inventory is taken. - Include important papers which may become lost or destroyed. FIELD DESCRIPTIONS Page 8 Field Description Size Cobol Pic ----------------- --------------------------- ------ --------- ASSET_KEY A unique key 5 X(5) DESC The Description of the 25 X(25) article of value. TYPE The Type code. A category 8 X(8) for the article, ie., tools, equipment, etc. LOCATION_STORED The Location Code where the 8 X(85) article is stored, ie., garage, offsite, xa-01-01, etc. USER_DEFINED A User-Defined code for any 8 X(8) special purpose requirement, ie., persons name, sub- breakdowns of Type or Location, anything you wish. DATE_PURCHASED The date the article was 6 X(6) purchased. (MMDDYY) PURCHASE_COST The purchase cost or value 7 9(5)v99 of the article. (characters) PURCHASED_FROM Description of where the 25 X(25) article was purchased from. APPRAISAL The appraisal value, if 9 9(5)V99 applicable. MODEL_NUMBER The article model number. 10 X(10) SERIAL_NUMBER The article serial number. 20 X(20) COMMENT1 First line of Comments. 50 X(50) COMMENT2 Second line of Comments. 50 X(50) INTERFACING Page 9 This feature is for the advanced computerist, and is not required to use this package as it was intended. If, though, you are interested or have a special requirement, such as including a portion of this data in a financial statement, or using a spreadsheet for more elaborate calculations on the data, or even want to extract the data maintained here and upload it into another database, you will want to read this section completely. This database application package contains a very useful report writer/data extractor. This can be used to create your own reports, specify any subset of fields to extract, browse the data very quickly, extract data into an ASCII file uploadable to any word processor, spreadsheet, database package, report writer, etc. This feature does not work under the menu system, so you will have to be at the operating system prompt to use these commands. The command name is ASREPORT. The following descriptions will use the A> prompt. Don't be confused if you are using a different disk drive and see something else. For a demonstration, type: A>ASREPORT ASSETS The entire list of records will scroll across your screen. This is interesting if used as a browse of the data. Now try: A>ASREPORT ASSETS ASSET_TYPE DESC Notice that only the data fields you selected, and in the order you selected appear. Interesting? The format of this command is: A>ASREPORT ASSETS [file-element1 file-element2 ...] The file elements are those listed in the previous chapter and must be spelled exactly. If the file elements are not used, all elements will be extracted. If listed on the screen, the right most elements will be truncated. Now lets print something: A>ASREPORT ASSETS TYPE DESC LOCATION_STORED PURCHASE_COST > PRN Another way to do this would be: A>ASREPORT ASSETS TYPE DESC LOCATION_STORED PURCHASE_COST > MYFILE A>COPY MYFILE PRN The first method extracts the data and redirects the I/O to the printing device. The second method extracts the data and redirects the I/O into a file of your own choosing. INTERFACING (cont.) Page 10 Why extract the data into another file? This is one of the nicer features of this system. This file can be imported into any spreadsheet, (Lotus 123, etc.), database, or word processing program. The data may be used by the spreadsheet program to be reformatted, sorted in other ways, or used for more elaborate calculations. The database may use this data to be uploaded into other databases or report the data in other formats. The data may be included into a word processor for use inside a financial report, or for any other special purpose. ERROR RECOVERY Page 11 The error messages displayed in the error window at the bottom, or inside other windows at various locations should be obvious, ie., RECORD NOT FOUND, etc. There is one killer: INDEX CORRUPTED. The index corrupted message means that the database has been corrupted, and the whole system is hung up. Nothing will work. All is not lost. To recover from this, a special program was developed called ASINDEX. To recover, type: Floppy system: A>ASINDEX ASSETS Hard Disk: C>ASINDEX ASSETS A corrupted database happens when inside the system and the power is lost, if there is a disk error, etc. It is not a normal condition and should not happen frequently. REMEMBER TO BACKUP YOUR DATA REGULARLY!!! The database routines used in this system will put the disk drive through its paces. Occasionally, a machine will return a "index corrupted" message when using any of the functions which access data. This could mean that the disk drive is slightly out of alignment, even though most of other programs may work. If this is the case, reindexing and running the system on another machine may be necessary.