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PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER 3.0 Evaluation Copy Reference Guide This reference guide is designed to provide you with sufficient information to operate and evaluate the Professional Scheduler software package. This is NOT the same as the "User's Guide" that is provided to registered users of Professional Scheduler in printed form. Copyright (C) 1991, J P Systems All Rights Reserved J P Systems P. O. Box 11083 Spring, Texas 77391 (713) 251-0223 PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER is copyrighted software ((C) J P Systems, 1991) and is protected by United States Copyright Law and International Treaty provisions. All rights are reserved. Non-registered users of PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER are licensed ONLY to use the program on a EVALUATION basis to determine whether or not it meets their requirements. All other use requires registration. Any other use of non-registered copies of PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER by any person, BUSINESS, CORPORATION, OR GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION, or any OTHER entity is forbidden and is a violation of this license agreement. Registration provides users a license to use PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER on a single computer. Site/network licenses are also available from J P Systems. User wishing to obtain a site/network license for PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER should contact J P Systems for more information. Users may freely copy evaluation copies of PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER for the trial use by others, upload it to bulletin boards, etc. with the following conditions: PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER must be distributed in unmodified, complete form. This includes this Reference Guide and License Agreement. PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER may not be distributed in conjunction with any other product, HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE without express written permission from J P Systems. WARRANTY J P SYSTEMS DOES NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE SUITABILITY, CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, PERFORMANCE OR RELIABILITY OF THE SOFTWARE. The software is provided "as is" with no warranty made of any kind either expressed or implied. The entire risk as to results and performance is assumed by the licensee. Neither J P Systems nor anyone involved in creation, production or delivery is liable for damages including but not limited to loss of profit, incidental, consequential or other similar claims. No other agreements exist either verbal or implied nor may this agreement be modified by the licensee. This agreement will be governed by the laws of the state of Texas. If parts of this agreement are deemed unenforceable, the remaining parts shall still apply. INTRODUCTION ------------ Professional Scheduler 3.0 is a general-purpose group or individual schedule management software package for use with IBM (tm), COMPAQ (tm) and 100% compatible personal computers. We believe it to be the most full-featured scheduler available (at any price). Previous versions of Professional Scheduler have found productive use in many types of businesses and organizations (including law offices, manufacturing and service organizations, to mention a few). It requires at least 256 Kilobytes of memory, 1 floppy drive, and DOS 3.0 or higher. It replaces Professional Scheduler version 2.0x. NOTE: Users of previous versions of Professional Scheduler must convert their data files if they wish to use version 3.0 with their existing data... See CONVERT.EXE utility, below. The use of a hard disk is recommended. In addition to the features of previous versions, this version provides: 1. Simultaneous use by multiple users on a computer network 2. Event billing and billing report generation 3. Export of event information to a data base 4. Faster operation (especially during conflict checking) 5. Enhanced user interface 6. "Private" events that are invisible to other users 7. Cancelling of recurring event instances. 8. More alarm options 9. Much more... Professional Scheduler 3.0 provides a new level of sophistication in calendar and schedule management. Equally effective as a standalone or a networked application, it is a serious tool with power to meet the most demanding scheduling needs of a business or organization. Professional Scheduler can easily detect and avoid scheduling conflicts that can result from group or individual scheduling. The Professional Scheduler display is uncomplicated and consistent. The end result is easy, conflict-free scheduling. To Professional Scheduler, things that can be in only one place at one time are "resources". In most environments, the main resources are people. However, things like equipment, vehicles, conference rooms, etc. may also be considered resources. With Professional Scheduler you can define your own resources as well as event categories (meetings, appointments, etc.). You may schedule an unlimited number of events between the years 1900 and 2099. The following are the basic elements of a Professional Scheduler event: 1. Date and time (or recurrence) 2. Type or category of event (meeting, party, etc.) 3. Duration of the event 4. Resources that are part of the event 5. Billing or charge for the event 6. Attribute (public or private) 7. Miscellaneous text Events may also have alarms and "ticklers" (reminders of upcoming events) associated with them. Events may have a fixed date, or be "recurring" (ie - occur daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). Professional Scheduler may be used as a memory resident (pop-up) utility, or as a standalone application. When used in "runprog" mode, Professional Scheduler provides for the automatic execution of programs at specified dates and times. Extensive edit, search, print, and other capabilities make Professional Scheduler one of the most valuable tools in time and schedule management since the invention of the calendar. INSTALLATION ------------ You may install Professional Scheduler on your hard disk by copying all Professional Scheduler files to your hard disk. It is a good idea to create a directory specifically for these files. If you wish to be able to execute Professional Scheduler from any subdirectory on your system, you must specify its location to DOS (see "path" command in your DOS manual). To install Professional Scheduler on a floppy disk, copy all Professional Scheduler files to a "working" diskette. RUNNING PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER ------------------------------ PS.EXE is the executable file. Start the program by entering the command below at the DOS prompt. Items in brackets: "[ ]" are considered optional. The '/' character may be replaced by a '-' character. The parameters may be given in any order. PS user/resource [filename] [/P /C /R /T] ...then press the Enter key user/resource - This is the name of the user (or resource) that is in a sense "logging into" the Profes- sional Scheduler system. This name must be one word and should not contain any spaces, commas, or semicolons. This is the only required parameter. The user "supervisor" is a pre-defined user. This user is the only one that can create other resources. If a resource name contains spaces, commas, etc., use the first word of that resource name as the user/resource parameter. filename - If you wish to use data files other than the default "PSDATA" files, specify the file name here. For example, "MYDATA". /P - run as a "pop-up" /R - run in "RUNPROG" mode /C - video compatability flag If a filename is not given on the command line, Professional Scheduler assumes the default data file names (PSDATA.ADT, PSDATA.ATX, and PSDATA.ALR). If it cannot find the PSDATA files in the current directory, it searches the directories specified in the DOS search "path" (see your DOS manual "path" command). If the files still cannot be found, they are created and initialized in the current directory. If you supply a filename on the command line, Professional Scheduler looks for data files by that name in the same directories that it would look for the PSDATA files. For example, if you specify a filename of MYDATA, it would look for MYDATA.ADT, MYDATA.ATX, and MYDATA.ALR. These files would be created if they cannot be found. A filename extension is not necessary and will be ignored if provided. The ".ADT", ".ATX", and ".ALR" extensions are automatically provided by Professional Scheduler. You can exit Professional Scheduler by pressing the Escape (Esc) key. Professional Scheduler must be able to locate a configuration file named PSCONF to operate correctly. This file is also searched for in the current directory, as well as the specified path. If PSCONF cannot be located, execution will not continue. If you have set up a password, you will be asked to enter it. The password verification process is "case-sensitive". This means you must enter the password exactly as you entered it when you first set it, including capital or lower case letters/numbers. When you run Professional Scheduler, you will see three boxes or windows. The one at the upper right hand corner of the screen contains a calendar layout of the current month. A video indicator within that month shows the "current day" within that month. That indicator is referred to as the DAY INDICATOR. You may move the day indicator to any day within any month by using the cursor and paging keys. The window is referred to as the CALENDAR WINDOW. The large window on the left part of the screen contains a list of events. It is called the EVENT WINDOW. It contains a video indicator that is called the EVENT INDICATOR. You may also move it within the event window to any event by using the cursor and paging keys. The small window on the lower right hand part of the screen contains miscellaneous status information to be discussed later. It is called the STATUS WINDOW. In addition to the three "windows", the current time and date are displayed on the upper left hand corner of the screen, as well as the name of the current user. Several "function keys" are displayed on the bottom row of the screen. At any one time, either the EVENT WINDOW or the CALENDAR WINDOW will be "active". The active window will contain a bright double line border. The active window is the one "listening" to your keystrokes. The TAB key is used to switch the active window. The status window is never "active". It only displays status information. In Professional Scheduler, you will make many choices which are presented in the form of a menu. All menus basically work the same way. You can use the up and down arrow keys until the horizontal bar is on the desired choice. Then you press the Enter key to make that selection. You may also enter the number corresponding to the desired choice. NETWORKING ---------- For network use, the data files (.ADT, .ATX, and .ALR files) discussed above should reside on a network disk drive, where all workstations may access the data. Each workstation using Professional Scheduler should have it's path set up to access those files. It is not necessary for PSCONF to reside on a network disk drive, as it contains individual configuration information. If users share a PSCONF file, they will not only be configured identically, but each time a user changes his or her configuration, it will change all other user's configurations. Use of individual PSCONF files can be achieved by always starting Professional Scheduler from a local directory that contains a private PSCONF file. Another way to achieve this is to place the directory name of PSCONF before the directory name of the other data files in the PATH statement. IMPORTANT: The first "resource" defined to Professional Scheduler comes pre-set as "supervisor". Use this user name when you first run Professional Scheduler. Once you are in, you can modify it to any name you want. Even if you change it, anyone that uses this name will have "supervisory priviliges". In a network situation, the supervisor should use a password to prevent other users "logging in" as the supervisor. The supervisor has special priviliges that could cause data loss if used irresponsibly. Only the supervisor can add or modify resources or event categories. The supervisor can modify or delete any public event, whether or not the supervisor owns that event. The supervisor cannot view or otherwise access the private events of other users. Users (including the supervisor) must provide their user name (resource name) when they execute Professional Scheduler. All users are encouraged to set a password to prevent unauthorized access to their scheduling information. All non-supervisor users can only modify or delete their own events (public or private). They cannot view the private events of any other user. They cannot create or modify resources and event categories. CONVERTING DATA FROM PREVIOUS PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER VERSIONS ------------------------------------------------------------- Professional Scheduler 3.0 cannot use data files built by previous versions of Professional Scheduler. However, the old data can be modified and converted for use by version 3.0 with the CONVERT.EXE utility provided in the package. This utility converts all three types of data files (".ADT", ".ALR", and ".ATX"). Use this utility as follows. CONVERT olddata newdata <Enter> The olddata name should be the name of the old set of data files. For example, "MYDATA", "PSDATA", etc. You need not provide a file extension. The new data name will be the name of the new (converted) data files. If files by that name already exist in the directory, they will be overwritten, so please use caution. IMPORTANT: The supervisor's name is the name of the first resource ever entered. Remember that if that supervisor's name contains spaces, commas, etc., use the first word of that supervisor name as the user/resource parameter. GETTING HELP ------------ Press the F1 key at any time if you need some help. When F1 is pressed, a window will appear containing a menu from which you may select the item you desire help on. When an item is selected, help information will be displayed in the window. You may quit viewing help information by pressing the Escape key. If there is more information than fits in the window, press any key to view more. SCHEDULING A NEW EVENT ---------------------- To schedule a new event, move the DAY INDICATOR or the EVENT INDICATOR to the date that you wish to have the event, then press the F4 key. You will then be asked to make a series of choices in defining the new event as follows: 1. Attribute (select public or private). A private event cannot be seen by anyone other than you. A public event is visible to all, but can only be modified by you and the supervisor. 2. Charge or billing information (select "no charge", "charge for the event", or "charge per hour") 3. Event type (select from previously defined or define a new one) 4. Start time of the event 5. Duration in hours and minutes 6. Recurrence (Select one-time, or various types of recurrence). 7. Text (Several lines of details about the event) 8. Resources (Select one or more users, etc.) For details on entering the various parts of the event, refer to the "Entering Data" section at the end of this document. New events are checked for conflicts if you have configured Professional Scheduler to do so (see Configuring Professional Scheduler, later in this document). THE EVENT MENU -------------- If you press the Enter key when the event indicator is on an event, a small menu will appear that will allow you to perform certain actions on the highlighted event as follows: 1. View the event 2. Modify the event 3. Delete the event 4. Check for conflicts 5. Grab the event (in preparation for moving or copying) 6. Move or copy a previously grabbed event Short-cut keys are also displayed on the menu. By pressing the key indicated on the menu, you can perform the indicated function without ever displaying the event menu. TICKLERS -------- A tickler is a reminder of an upcoming event. An event with a "tickler" set is indicated by the "T" indicator at the end of the event entry in the Event window. To set a tickler, move the event indicator to the desired event and press the "T" key. The "T" key is a toggle, so you may also use it to delete a tickler or set of ticklers. When you press the "T" key, you will be prompted for one or more numbers between 1 and 99. This represents the number of days before the event that the tickler will be activated. For example, if you have an important deadline coming up and want to be reminded 1 month in advance, 2 weeks in advance, and 3 days in advance. You should set three ticklers, entering 30, 14, and 3 when prompted for number of days. PRINTING -------- To print all available information about an event, use the cursor keys to move the event indicator to the desired event and press the "P" key. This will cause the information to be sent to the printer device. This "device" may also be a file. In addition, there is a separate PRINT menu accessed through the Utility menu. ALARMS ------ You may set an alarm for any event that has a valid time. An event with an alarm is indicated by a musical tone character at the beginning of its entry in the Event window. Press the "A" key on an event to turn its alarm on. The "A" key is a toggle, so you can both set and remove alarms using the same key. When setting an alarm, you will be asked to enter the number of minutes prior to the event that you want the alarm to sound. You may enter a value between 1 and 30 minutes. If you just press the Enter key without supplying a value, the alarm will sound at the exact time of the event. When the alarm actually sounds, it will cause your keyboard to "lock". If you press the Escape key, you will turn the alarm off. If you press the space bar, you will cause a "snooze" for 3 minutes. This means that your alarm will be temporarily turned off until 3 minutes have passed. After three minutes, it will sound again. You may select the alarm beep tone through the configuration menu. EVENT COMPLETION ---------------- Any non-recurring event may be marked as "completed". To mark an event as completed, move the event indicator to that event and press the space bar. A completed event will have a checkmark (√) at the leftmost location of the event. The space bar is a toggle, so you may use it to "un-complete" an event. Overdue events are uncompleted events that were scheduled before the current time and date. The status window always shows how many overdue events there are. Overdue events can be easily spotted by the exclamation mark character (!) at the beginning. Recurring events cannot be "completed". Thus, they can never be "overdue". Completed events cannot be modified. COPYING AND MOVING EVENTS ------------------------- Events can be copied or moved. However, before you can copy or move an event, it must be "grabbed". To grab an event, move the event indicator to the event you wish to grab then press the "G" key (Remember, you can also press the Enter key to get the Event menu, then select "grab"). This causes Professional Scheduler to remember this event. When you grab an event, the status window will display the message "Grabbed Event Ready". You can now perform certain actions with a grabbed event by pressing the "N" key. When you press the "N" key, the "Grabbed Event Action" window will appear and provide you with several choices. First, you may move (reschedule) the event. If you want to move it to another day, move the day indicator to this other day BEFORE pressing the Enter key. Moving an event may automatically check for conflicts (depending on whether automatic conflict checking is turned on). You may also copy the event to the desired location by selecting the "copy" option of the "Grabbed Event Action" menu. This creates an exact duplicate of the event (with the exception of date, if copied to another day). If you move or copy a recurring event, it will NOT move or copy the type of recurrence. Finally, you may copy any part of the grabbed event to another event. For example, if you grabbed an event of type "Meeting", you could make any other event of type "Meeting" by using this option. This action causes the event to stay "grabbed". USEFUL KEYS ----------- A - set/reset an alarm C - check an event for conflicts D - delete an event G - grab an event for copying or moving M - modify an event N - perform an action on a grabbed event P - print an event R - chart (graphically represent) events of indicated day T - set one or more "ticklers" for an event V - view details of an event X - execute first line of an event's text SPACE - mark an event as completed ENTER - display event menu ESC - Cancel current operation/exit F1 - Get help F2 - Select new events starting at indicated date F3 - Jump to new month F4 - Schedule a new event F5 - Display the utility menu F6 - Configure UTILITY FUNCTIONS (F5) ---------------------- The utility functions are selectable by pressing the F5 key. When F5 is pressed, a menu will appear from which you may select a particular utility function as follows. 1. Printing groups of events The event print options in this menu refer to all the events currently selected for display in the event window. By making selections here, you can print events at two levels or detail, print a billing report, or export event information for later use in a database or spreadsheet. You can change the destination of the print information from a printer to a file via the Configuration Menu (F6 key from the main screen). 2. Setting/clearing event filters This utility function allows you to "filter" the events you want to see in the Event window. If you don't "filter" events, Professional Scheduler will display all events without discrimination. Typically, you will be interested in a subset of the events on the system. Range values are inclusive. Active filters are indicated by highlighted video in the first two lines of the status window. If a specific filter is not active, it is displayed using a normal video attribute. 3. Setting the number of view days This utility function allows you to specify the number of days you wish to see in the event window at one time. This number is always displayed in the status window below the calendar on the lower right hand portion of the screen. 4. Deleting groups of completed events Selecting this option will have you select whether you will be deleting only completed events or both completed and uncompleted events. Once you have made that choice, it will prompt you for two dates: a start date and an end date. After you enter those dates, Professional Scheduler will delete all the specified events between and including those two dates. 5. Viewing/Processing overdue events Select this option to view all overdue events. Optionally, you may delete, reschedule, or mark "completed" each overdue event. If rescheduled, you have the further option of rescheduling to the date indicated in the calendar window, or providing a new date. 6. Running a tickler check This option activates any ticklers that are scheduled for the current date. Each tickler will be displayed in a window. You must press the Escape key to stop viewing tickers, or any other key to view more ticklers. 7. Set a password This option allows you to enter a password. If you enter a password, Professional Scheduler will ask you for that password before allowing you to access the event data information. You must not forget the password. 8. Set the tax rate This option allows you to enter a tax rate to be used in calculating any billing information. ENTERING DATA ------------- Often, you are required to enter text into a field. Examples of these are time, date, event categories, resources, etc. In all such cases, the same set of text editing keys may be used as follows. Key Effect --- ------ Home Moves cursor to leftmost position in the field. End Moves cursor to rightmost data location in the field. Left arrow Moves cursor one position to the left. Right arrow Moves cursor one data position to the right. Backspace Deletes a character to the left of the cursor. Delete Deletes the character at the cursor. Enter Indicates you are finished entering data for the field. Escape Indicates you wish to cancel the current operation Entering dates -------------- If requested only to enter a month, enter either the number of the month or the name of the month. You may abbreviate the name of the month by entering as much of the name as would make it unique from the other months. If entering a year, enter the entire year (ie. - 1991). If entering a complete date, the format is very flexible, as shown by the following valid examples: september 10, 1991 OR 9/12/1991 etc. Entering times -------------- Professional Scheduler will accept time in either military of civilian format. The colon character (:) is optional. For example, enter the time of 3:00 pm as follows: "300p", "3:00p", "1500", or "15:00". If you press only the Enter key when prompted to enter a time, it means "no time". Entering durations ------------------ Enter event durations in hours and minutes. To specify a duration of 6 hours and 20 minutes, enter one of the following: "6h 20m", "6 hrs 20 min", or even "340 m". Professional Scheduler will round durations down to the lowest 5 minutes. Entering categories ------------------- When you are prompted to enter an event category, Professional Scheduler will list all the choices on the screen and place a reverse video indicator over the first one. You may move this indicator to different categories using the up and down cursor keys. If there are more event categories than fit in the window, you may use the PgUp and PgDn keys to page through the categories. You may insert new categories anywhere by pressing the F3 key. You may also modify existing categories by pressing the F4 key. Once you have moved the indicator to the desired category, press the Enter key to select it. If you press the Escape key without first making a selection, you will cancel the operation. You may alphabetize or sort event categories by pressing the F9 key. Entering resources ------------------ Selecting resources is similar to selecting an event category. However, since you can select more than one resource, there are some basic differences. You can still use the arrow keys and the PgUp and PgDn keys to move the indicator to different resources. However, you use the SPACE BAR to select each resource. Each time you press the space bar, a "Selected" indicator will remain displayed to the left of the resource. If you change your mind about a resource, the same space bar will "un-select" the resource at the indicator. When you are finished, press the Enter key to end the selection process. If you press the Enter key without first selecting a resource, then you only select the resource at the indicator. Entering text ------------- Event text information consists of six lines of 40 characters each. Enter each line separately and terminate them by pressing the Enter key. The standard text editing keys may be used to edit each line. Entering charge amounts ----------------------- The following example shows several valid charge amounts: 7.50, 200, $120.75. As you can see, the decimal point is optional if there are no decimal amounts, and the dollar sign is optional. Entering tax rates ------------------ Tax rates are entered as percentages. For example, to set a tax rate of 7 1/4 percent, enter the following: 7.25. CONFIGURING PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER ---------------------------------- Pressing the F6 key displays the configuration menu. The configuration facility allows you to customize Professional Scheduler to your individual requirements. Through the configuration menu you can: 1. Set the time format displayed by Professional Scheduler (AM/PM or 24 hour format). 2. Set the alarm beep tone. 3. Specify the key combination that will "pop-up" Professional Scheduler from any application. 4. Specify a compatability mode for video operations. Select "compatible" only if there is excessive "snow" on your video display during operations. 5. Select color or monochrome video. Some older color monitors (particularly CGA) look better if you select monochrome. 6. Printer location. To use your printer, this should normally contain "PRN". However, you may cause printing to be redirected into a file by providing a file name instead. 7. Specify whether events that occur on different dates may be printed on the same page. 8. Specify whether to enable or disable automatic conflict checking. Generally, it should be "enabled". 9. Indicate whether or not to display a "running total" billing display at the bottom of the event window. AUTO-EXECUTE (RUNPROG) MODE --------------------------- When you start Professional Scheduler with the "RUNPROG" option (ie. "PS /R <Enter>"), Professional Scheduler will place the computer in a timed execution mode. In other words, it will constantly compare the time and date of all events of type "RUNPROG" to the current time and date. When there is a match, the first line of the event's text field will be sent as a command line to DOS. After execution of that command, Professional Scheduler regains control and continues searching for more events to execute. If you press the Escape key, you will terminate the program and return to the DOS prompt. While the computer is in this mode, a window containing the time, date, and mode information will move around the screen every 10 seconds. The movement is to prevent the phosphorous on the screen from getting "burned out". EVENT DATA EXPORT ----------------- One of the choices given in the print menu (selected via the F5 key, then selecting the first choice) is "EXPORT comma-separated database records". When this function is selected, the event information in the EVENT WINDOW is exported to the current print device or file. Exporting provides a way to use Professional Scheduler event information in a database or spreadsheet for further analysis or reporting. The format of this "exported" data is "comma separated values", or CSV. Most spreadsheet and data base programs can read such files. Basically, each unit of information about an event is separated by a comma. Carriage return and linefeed characters are placed at the end of each event "record". The order of the event information within each record is as follows. year - 1991, 2001, etc. day - 1 - 31 month - 1 - 12 time - in format specified via configuration duration - in decimal format (ie. 1h 30m --> 1.5) type - event type charge - $0.00 if no charge charge type - "PER HOUR", "PER EVENT", or "N/A" total charge - $0.00 if no charge number of resources - number of participants/resources resource - name of resource resource... - etc. The following is the record for a non-charge event of type "Meeting" with 3 participants, or resources that lasted 2 hours. 1991,7,17,10:00a,2.0,Meeting,$0.00,N/A,$0.00,3,John,Susan,Robert<CR/LF> The following is the same event, but with a charge of $20.00 per hour. 1991,7,17,10:00a,2.0,Meeting,$20.00,PER HOUR,$40.00, 3,John,Susan,Robert<CR/LF>