Monster Media 1994 #2

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USERMAN 1.00 Complete usermanagement for RemoteAcces 2.xx systems A program by KISS Software USERMAN Users Manual Page 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction Contents..............................................1 What is Userman.......................................2 Options/features......................................2 Disclaimer............................................3 Packing list..........................................3 Registering Userman...................................3 Support...............................................3 Submitting Bug Reports................................3 UMsetup - Configurable options Checktype.............................................4 Amount/Number.........................................4 Levels to check.......................................4 New level.............................................4 New group.............................................4 New flags.............................................4 Sysop message.........................................4 User message..........................................5 Message...............................................5 AKA...................................................5 User-/Sysop board.....................................5 Sender................................................5 Subject...............................................5 Comment...............................................5 Reset fields..........................................6 Toggle fields.........................................6 UMsetup - General options Using the helpsystem..................................6 Keys in the recordmanager.............................6 Using the multilingual system.........................7 Sending messages......................................7 Format of Sysopmessage................................7 Metastrings...........................................8 Considerations........................................9 Be creative/some ideas................................9 Userman Safety options.......................................10 Speed................................................10 Output...............................................10 Behaviour/when to run................................11 Limitations..........................................11 Index................................................12 USERMAN Users Manual Page 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS USERMAN? Userman is a program that monitors/accompanies a user from the first call to your board to the last call...and beyond... Traces first call, last call, times called, downloaded files, downloaded Kb, uploaded files, uploaded Kb, subscriptiondate, birthdate, ratio Kb, ratio files, credit and messages posted. ALL fields of the USERS.BBS can be changed according to your requirements. (dependent or independent of the user's info) It can send welcome messages, check subscriptions, kill users, monitor ratios, upgrade users etc. etc...the limit is your imagination.. Easy to install: Just put all the files in one directory and make sure the RA environment is set. OPTIONS/FEATURES * Supports a variety of multitaskers such as Desqview, DoubleDOS, Windows.. * Save to run, Userman refuses to run when someone is online. Changes to the users.bbs are only made after the users.bbs has been renamed. You always have a copy available of before any changes made by Userman. * An indexed, context sensitive helpsystem with cross-references in UMsetup to assist you in the setting up of Userman. * Very easy to use but very complex in possibilities. * Multilingual, users can be send messages in their own language, taken from their record in the users.bbs. * Can send (optional) messages to the user(s) in a user definable message. * Can send (optional) a message to the Sysop with a report of the changes made to the users.bbs. * More then 40 metastrings make it possible to write a fine tuned message with personal data to the user. * Supports automatically JAM or Hudson messagebase. * Internal editor and filepicker. * All fields of the users.bbs can be checked and changed. * Uses international date- and timeformat. * Includes a complete subscription manager. * Can send welcome messages to new users. * Can monitor user ratios. * Can kill long-time-no-call users. * Can global change the users.bbs and notify users. * Etc. etc......the limit is your imagination, be creative! USERMAN Users Manual Page 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER There is absolutely no warranty for this program or guarantee it will work. The user of this program assumes all risk. While I feel confident this program will not harm your system in any way, by using this program, you agree to assume full responsibility for any adverse effect to your system. Where applicable, all trademarks referred to here are the property of their owners. PACKING LIST These files should be included in the package you obtained: Userman.exe The executable mainprogram UMsetup.exe The configuration program for Userman. UMsetup.hlp The helpfile for Umsetup. Userman.doc You're reading it right now. Examples.zip Example messages in Dutch and English. Userman.reg Contains registering info. File_id.diz Description for BBS. REGISTERING USERMAN Userman is shareware and has taken countless hours to create and maintain. If after evaluating Userman and you decide it is exactly what you need, please support the shareware concept and send in your registration and payment today. Register from within UMsetup. Until then an 'unregistered evaluation copy' message will pop up on some places and the Sysop will be reminded by a message to register Userman. Besides that the originline of your messages will be hardcoded. In NO WAY Userman is crippleware. SUPPORT Support will be given through the international RA_UTIL echo and the Dutch equivalent of it. Individual support will be given to registered users if you write me a message by FIDO netmail to Dirk Kissing at 2:283/330, or to dirk@kiss.wlink.nl (May be later dirk@kiss.netland.nl) via Internet. SUBMITTING BUGREPORTS If you encounter a bug or unexpected behaviour please submit a bugreport containing: 1. The kind of checking that was done. (if possible) 2. The number of the DOS error or address of the error. (if any) Without this information it's almost impossible to retrieve a bug. USERMAN Users Manual Page 4 ----------------------------------------------------------------- UMSETUP - Configurable Options CHECKTYPE Select one of the thirteen possibilities to check users on, more than once using the same checktype is no problem. For detailed descriptions and examples see the help included with UMsetup by pressing <F1> once or twice. AMOUNT/NUMBER The value of this field is what it is all about; All checking is done and related to the value of this field. When the checktype is subscriptions, birthdate, first or last call it represents the number of days. When the checktype is downloaded or uploaded KB it represents the amount of Kb to check. Etc etc. CHECK LEVELS Select if you want to check levels higher, lower or equal to the number you choose in the next field. For example: Check levels Greater then 99 NEW LEVEL This is the level users get assigned if the search condition was found to be true. No changes will be made however when set to 0. NEW GROUP This is the group users get assigned if the search condition was found to be true. No changes will be made however when set to 0. NEW FLAGS These flags will be given to the users who met the search condi- tion. When set to '--------' however, no changes will be made. 'X'= set flag on. 'O'= set flag off. You'll have to enter the complete flag you want the user to have since all bits are completely translated. So if you want a flag like '---X--X-' and the users's flag is already '---X----' then you'll have to enter '---X--X-'. SYSOP MESSAGE If you want to receive a brief message of the changes made by Userman, toggle this option to 'YES'. If the option is set to 'YES' a report of the current record will be included in the message. If the option is set to 'NO', changes made by the current record will not be included. USERMAN Users Manual Page 5 ----------------------------------------------------------------- USER MESSAGE If you want the user to receive a detailed message of changes made by Userman, or a general message, set the option to 'YES'. To fine tune your message more than 40 metastrings are available. A metastring is a textvariable which contents will be replaced with personal data of the user from the users.bbs. MESSAGE Enter the name of the textfile to import/use as text for the mes- sage addressed to the user. There must always be a version of the file present with the extension *.1, representing the number of the user's language in the users.bbs. Higher extensions then 1 represent other languages you have available on your board. AKA Select an AKA to use in the user message. The origin will be taken from config.ra if Userman is registered, if not 'Your Sysop is testing this program, feed back!' will ap- pear in it. The tagline will show '---Userman Unregistered'. USERBOARD Pick the messageboard the message should be written in. UMsetup already checked your local boards, comfortable uh!? It will investigate whether to use the Hudson or Jam base. SYSOPBOARD The board for the Sysopmessage will be taken from the first record that requires one. So if the first 3 records are not to be included in the Sysopmessage, but the fourth is, then the board is taken from the fourth record. SENDER Enter the name of the sender of the message. SUBJECT Enter the subject of the message, metastrings may be used! COMMENT This is a very special field, it's contents will be written to the comment field of the user when the search condition was true. When it is empty no changes will be made. Metastrings may be used. You can use it to write some informative facts to it like: 'Changed on %DATE% checking %CHECKTYPE% (%CHECKNUMBER%), Level was %OLDLEVEL%' This would be replaced in the users record with: 'Changed on 25-04-94 checking subscriptions (0) level was 25'. When a user has doubts on the changes made to his record, you can exactly look up what happened and tell him! USERMAN Users Manual Page 6 ----------------------------------------------------------------- RESET FIELDS All of these fields can be reset if you want it: Subscription date, credit, downloaded files and Kb downloaded, uploaded files and uploaded Kb, calls and messages posted. Pay special attention to the subscription date since RemoteAccess offers a subdate.q-a. If you don't reset the field the questionnaire can still be used. TOGGLE FIELDS All of these fields can be toggled: Transfer priority, no kill, deleted, page priority and post billing. Pay special attention to the 'deleted bit': You can toggle it to kill users in conjunc- tion with the 'last call' checktype. (If last call is higher then 100 then toggle bit). The actual killing should be done by Rauser. UMSETUP - GENERAL OPTIONS USING THE HELPSYSTEM Whenever you need help in UMsetup press <F1> and a context sensi- tive helpsystem is popped up. Pressing <F1> again brings up an index of the the helptopics to choose from. When a topic in the text is white on cyan pressing <enter> selects that topic. When more topics are available in a certain helptopic they will be colored white. Selecting/moving of topics can be done with the cursor keys or mouse. <ALT-F1> brings you back to the last visi- ted helptopic. KEYS IN THE RECORDMANAGER ALT-C Copy contents of current record and append after last re- cord. ALT-E Edit the selected usermessage. ALT-I Insert empty record after last record. ALT-K Kill the current record. ALT-M Copy messagefile to other extension. ALT-P Pick a file to use as textfile for the usermessage. When selected inside the editor other files then '*.1' can be edited or deleted. Ctrl-Home Go to first record Ctrl-End Go to last record Ctrl-PgUp Go to previous record Ctrl-PgDn Go to next record Ctrl-Enter Save changes For more keys see the helpindex in UMsetup. USERMAN Users Manual Page 7 ----------------------------------------------------------------- USING THE MULTILINGUAL SYSTEM Every user had to select a language when he first logged in on your board, or may be you selected it for him. The language is identified by the number in the users record in the users.bbs. 1 stands for language number 1, 2 stands for language number 2, etc. etc. Userman tries to pick a textfile with the same extension as the users's language number when writing a message to him. If that file doesn't exist Userman tries to pick the file with the exten- sion '*.1', if that file doesn't exist no message will be writ- ten, but the Sysop will be notified instead in the Sysopreport. SENDING MESSAGES As you know by now Userman is capable of sending all kind of mes- sages to your users. It's all pretty straight forward i think, but keep these things in mind: 1. If a path in messages.ra does not exist, no messages will be send. (For UMsetup uses this path) 2. If a messagebase does not exist, Userman will create it. 3. Posting will only be done in local boards. SYSOP MESSAGE FORMAT A Sysop message will look like this: SUBSCRIPTIONS Equal to 31 (record 8) Theo Hofkamp Level stays 135 D:\RA\USERMAN\SUB31.2 BIRTHDAY Equal to 0 (record 6) Juan Manuel Level stays 135 D:\RA\USERMAN\BIRTHDAY.2 LAST CALL Greater then 100 (record 7) Arnoud Plaisier Toggled deleted bit D:\RA\USERMAN\LAST100.1 The first line of a recordreport shows: CHECKTYPE , EQUAL,GREATER OR LOWER, CHECK NUMBER (RECORD NUMBER) The second line of the recordreport shows: USERNAME, what happened with his level OR if deleted bit is set reports that instead, and the name of the textfile sent as mes- sage. USERMAN Users Manual Page 8 ----------------------------------------------------------------- METASTRINGS A metastring is a kind of variable which contents will be repla- ced with actual data, user specific or general, depending on the type of metastring. Userman recognises these metastrings and re- places them with, User metastrings: %USERNAME% : Full name of the user. %USERFIRST% : First name of the user. %HANDLE% : Handle. %USERLOC% : Location where user lives. %COMPANY% : Contents of company field in USERS.BBS. %ADDRESS1% : First line of address. %ADDRESS2% : Second line of address. %ADDRESS3% : Third line of address. %VOICEPHONE% : Voice-phonenumber. %DATAPHONE% : Data-phonenumber. %DOWNLOADS% : Number of downloads. %DOWNLOADSK% : Amount of KB downloaded. %UPLOADS% : Number of uploads. %UPLOADSK% : Amount of KB uploaded. %CREDITS% : Amount of credit. %CALLS% : Number of calls made. %POSTS%' : Number of messages posted. %SUBDATE% : subscriptiondate. (if any) %SUBDAYS% : Days until expiration of subscription. %FIRSTDATE% : Date of first call. %FIRSTDAYS% : Days since first call. %LASTDATE% : Date of last call. %LASTDAYS% : Days since last call. %BIRTHDATE% : Birthdate. %AGE% : Current age of the user. %USERRATIO% : Ratio number. %USERRATIOK% : Ratio Kb. %FORWARDTO% : User who personal mail is forwarded to. %COMMENT% : Contents of commentfield in USERS.BBS. %NEWSECURITY% : User's security after changes made. %OLDSECURITY% : User's security before changes made. %NEWGROUP% : User's group after changes made. %OLDGROUP% : User's group before changes made. General metastrings, %CHECKNUMBER% : The number/amount you checked on. %CHECKTYPE% : The type you checked on. (f.e. calls) %SYSOPNAME% : Full name of the Sysop as in CONFIG.RA. %SYSOPFIRST% : First name of the Sysop. %SYSTEMNAME% : Name of the BBS as in CONFIG.RA. %SYSTEMLOC% : Location of the BBS as in CONFIG.RA. %DATE% : Current date. %TIME%' : Current time. USERMAN Users Manual Page 9 ----------------------------------------------------------------- CONSIDERATIONS/WARNINGS Imagine you check the first record on expired subscriptions and lower users in security if this is true. Say..the level goes from 100 to 25. The second record however checks level 25 users on downloaded KB ratio......This way you could trigger a chainreac- tion. Most of the times unwanted, but sometimes quite handy! BE CREATIVE/SOME IDEAS If you already took a look at the UMsetup program you know that because of the lots of combinations, a variety of options can be used....i myself am sure that even i who wrote the program, don't know them all...if you find some interesting options or combina- tions let me know, i'll put them in the docs. Here are some ideas: 1. Check on calls greater then 0: This condition is true for eve- ry user. This way you could global change all settings in the users.bbs and inform the user with a message. If you don't change anything, you could just write a general message to all :-) 2. Check subscriptions lower then 0: Already expired users will be found! 3. Check last call greater then 100: set deleted bit if true. You could then send a message like: Hello %USERFIRST%, Don't ask %SYSOPFIRST% why you had to register again....i'll tell you: your last call was %LASTDAYS% days ago... If you call once in a period of %CHECKNUMBER% days i promise i won't delete you again! Anyway...welcome back! %SYSOPFIRST%,, Sysop %SYSTEMNAME% It's really fun to read reactions to this kind of messages :-) 4. Check calls equal to 1: send a welcome message which will be send only once, even if the times called stays 1 forever.. 5. Check calls greater then 100: upgrade good callers. 6. Check uploaded Kb greater then xxx: reward good uploaders. 7. Check first call equal to 3650: User is already calling for ten years..give him a lifetime subscription... 8. Check your subscription levels on times called higher then 1 and send a report with all the current user settings in order to check them/inform the user. Ask the user to make changes if address or something is wrong.....supply the menu options off course. 9. Give new users a download credit of a certain amount of Kb (Standard to the new user level) and if this is reached lower the level and send a message. Kind of testperiod. 10.Give new users a few weeks full access by setting the subscriptiondate for new users to two weeks. Use it as an introducing level to your board. USERMAN Users Manual Page 10 ----------------------------------------------------------------- These are just a few options, i'm sure there must be many more, let me know please! (More are mentioned in UMsetup help) USERMAN - SAFETY OPTIONS When Userman is executed this happens: The program checks for the existance of any rabusy.* semaphore file in RA's homedirec- tory. If one does exist Userman refuses to continue. If no semaphore files are found it starts (block)reading the users.bbs and (block)writes changes to a file called users.new. During this process all messages are written. When all users are checked and users.new is closed Userman again checks for the existance of the rabusy.* semaphore files. If they don't exist then first the users.bbs is renamed to users.old and then users.new is renamed to users.bbs. If a user logged in during runtime of Userman then changes have to be made permanent by renaming manually users.new to users.bbs USERMAN - SPEED Userman is pretty fast for a program as complex as it is.., speed can be dramatically increased however by using a write delayed cache. I use Hyperdisk, simply the best. USERMAN - OUTPUTSCREEN This is a screen created by Userman: UserMan 0.60ß+ by KISS Software Users checked : 812 Record number : 7 Messages sent : 13 Downloaded files : 0 Uploaded files : 0 Downloaded Kb : 0 Uploaded Kb : 0 Subscription : 0 First call : 0 Last call : 8 Ratio Nr : 0 Ratio Kb : 0 Birthday : 0 Credits : 0 Calls : 5 Posts : 0 ────── Conditions true : 13 Pretty selfexplaining i think. The record number is the number of the Set-up record currently used to check the user. I included it because it might look sometimes as if Userman runs slowly, which is not true when for example 25 records have to be checked on every user! USERMAN Users Manual Page 11 ----------------------------------------------------------------- I have chosen to check 1 user sequentially with all Set-up records before checking another because this way all changes made to the same user are listed together in the Sysop message. USERMAN - BEHAVIOUR/WHEN TO RUN Userman is a program that under normal circumstances should be run only once a day. This moment should be your normal BBS up- date event at night. When it is run more then once a day messages are send again and when you use the 'toggle option' somewhere it would be toggled back to the setting it was before....believe me, once a day is enough. For testing purposes you could run it seve- ral times, but be aware to NOT change any settings. USERMAN - LIMITATIONS The maximum number of records to check is 40, if you need more let me know. The maximum size of the Sysopmessage is 32Kb, if bigger it will be truncated to this size. Other limitations are listed in UMsetup. Thanks for trying Userman, Dirk Kissing, 2:283/330 or dirk@kiss.wlink.nl USERMAN Users Manual Page 12 ----------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX %address1% 8 considerations 2, 9 %address2% 8 creative 2, 3, 9 %address3% 8 credit 3, 6, 8, 10, 11 %age% 8 credits 8, 11 %birthdate% 8 crippleware 4 %calls% 8 deleted 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 %checknumber% 6, 9 disclaimer 2, 3 %checktype% 6, 9 downloaded 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 %comment% 9 dutch 4 %company% 8 editor 3, 7 %credits% 8 english 4 %dataphone% 8 expired 9 %date% 6, 9 extension 5, 7 %downloads% 8 filepicker 3 %downloadsk% 8 flags 2, 5 %firstdate% 8 format 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 %firstdays% 8 global 3, 9 %forwardto% 9 group 2, 5, 9 %handle% 8 helpsystem 2, 3, 7 %lastdate% 8 hudson 3, 6 %lastdays% 8, 9 international 3, 4 %newgroup% 9 jam 3, 6 %newsecurity% 9 keys 2, 7 %oldgroup% 9 language 3, 5, 7 %oldsecurity% 9 level 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 %posts% 8 levels 2, 5, 10 %subdate% 8 limitations 2, 11 %subdays% 8 maximum 11, 11 %sysopfirst% 9 messagebase 3, 7 %sysopname% 9 messageboard 6 %systemloc% 9 messages 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 %systemname% 9 metastrings 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 %time% 9 multilingual 2, 3, 7 %uploads% 8 multitaskers 3 %uploadsk% 8 new 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 %userfirst% 8, 9 options 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10 %userloc% 8 outputscreen 10 %username% 8 packing 2, 3 %userratio% 9 posts 8, 11 %userratiok% 9 priority 6 %voicephone% 8 questionnaire 6 adddress 4, 5, 8, 10 rabusy 10, 10 aka 2, 6, 6 ratio 2, 3, 4, ,8, 9, 11 amount 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 ra_util 4 behaviour 2, 4, 11 registering 2, 4 billing 6 reset 2, 6 birthdate 3, 4, 8 safety 2, 10 birthday 8, 11 semaphore 10 bugreport 4, sender 2, 6 called 3, 10 speed 2, 10 calls 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 subdate 6, 8 checktype 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 subject 2, comment 2, 6, 9 submitting 2, 4 condition 5, 6, 9, 11 subscriptiondate 3, 8, 10 USERMAN Users Manual Page 13 ----------------------------------------------------------------- support 2, 3, 4 sysopboard 6 timeformat 3 toggle 2, 5, 6, 8, 11 trademarks 3 transfer 6 umsetup.exe 4 umsetup.hlp 4 uploaded 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 userboard 6 userman.doc 4 userman.exe 4