Team@Work Control Center is an administrative application. You must have ôAdministratorö privileges to use it.
In general the Control Center is used for server administration, database administration, definition of user accounts and privileges and definition of general parameters of the system.
The Control Center is a typical client application - it needs a server running to connect with it and it does not need to be run on the same computer as the server runs. However some specific functionality such as database management needs the application to be started on the same machine where the server is running. This will be noted specially in the text below.
Control Center has four parts: Server Statistic, User Management, Database Management and Setting.
This window gives information about the current state of the system. There are two fields: ôConnected Usersö and ôWorking Projectsö. The first section shows how many users are currently connected to the server and which application they are using. The second section contains names of all projects which are running at the moment.
This window does not retrieve the statistics in real time. If you need the latest information you have to click the ôRefreshö button. There is a time stamp on the left side of the button showing the time when the last refresh has been committed.
Team@Work has its own user management subsystem which makes it highly independent from the external security solutions in the company and avoids making compromises between Team@Work and other security issues.
The administrator can change user accounts and roles in the ôUser managementö part of Control center. The window is divided into two panels. All employees and external collaborators are listed in the left panel. Selecting one of them his/her data is filled in the right panel. Available information is the name, the e-mail and the telephone of the selected staff member. This information is entered in the Team@Work Designer and can not be changed here. Administrator can change only the user name and password. If this employee is already registered in the system then the "User Name" box is filled with the user name. The password filed is left empty (for security reasons). There are several rules concerning user names and passwords:
the user name is not case-sensitive. This means that you can enter the user name with upper or lower case letters freely: user names æadministratorÆ and æAdministratorÆ are the same
the user name must be unique (taking into account the above freedom for letter cases)
the password must be at least 6 characters long. The system will not accept shorter passwords
the password is case sensitive: you must strictly follow the letter case when typing the password
the password is not displayed by default - the corresponding fields are empty.
if you change the user name you must enter the password and its confirmation as well.
You can edit more the one user. To edit some other user just select him/her from the "staff" section. The information from the current employee is not lost. When pressing "Save" button all changes are saved in the Team@Work database.
There is a ôDiscardö button in the panel as well. It is used for removing the changes, which are made in the current session. The last saved information is restored in the window.
Team@Work supports its own database which makes it independent from external database installations.
Database management section is used for administrating the Team@Work database.
In general database management contains three functions: definition of physical database location (path), definition of database backup rules and switching between real database and demonstration database.
Sometimes you need to move the database on different location. For example, when the current hard disk runs out of space, the database should be moved to another. Team@Work Control Center allows to move the entire database on a different location.
This functionality is accessed in the ôCommon parametersö panel and can be used only from the same computer where the Team@Work server is running. If the control center is used remotely this section is disabled.
You can select different paths for the backup and working directories. The working directory must be on the same machine where the server runs. When the ôApplyö button is pressed the real transfer of the database begins. As a result, every user currently connected to the Team@Work server is disconnected and should re-login again. This implies for the control center as well - you should log in again after moving the database. It is obvious therefore, that the database transfer should be performed when no or very few users are connected to the server (you can check the count of the users in the ôServer statisticsö panel of the Control Center).
Team@Work supports database backup operation. Currently only the full backup is supported. This means that the whole database with active projects, archive (finished projects) and users is saved.
The database backup functionality is located on the right side of the ôDB Managementö panel. You can backup the current database or to restore it from an existing backup using the ôBackupö and ôRestoreö buttons.
Team@Work supports automatic database backup. You can define a schedule for it.
Daily, weekly and monthly backup modes are available. When you select the mode you must fill different additional fields:
for daily backups: time of the day
for weekly backups: day of the week and time of the day
for monthly backups: day if the month and time of the day.
Having this information Team@Work server will follow the defined schedule and will make backups periodically.
The backups are made in ô.zipö files. The name of the backup contains the date where the backup has been made. This means that each backup will have unique file name (the backups are permitted not frequently than once per day). Therefore after many backups you will have many old useless files. To avoid this Team@Work allows you to define how many backup files should be kept. When the limit is reached, the older file is removed and the new backup is stored on its place. Thus no backup ôgarbageö is generated.
Team@Work comes with a demonstration database for faster learning and training of newcomers. It is filled with organization structure, staff, workflows and projects. The demonstration database can not be backed up, restored or relocated.
You can switch between demonstration database and the real database. There is a special button which switches between them.
Switching the database results in restarting of the server. This means that all active users will be asked to login again. Please take into account, that the users are different in different databases. users defined in the demo database are employee of a fictional company used for developing the demonstration. User in the real database are the real users of the system. They have different accounts, privileges etc.
This section is used to set different parameters of the server. Currently the only setting are connected with definition of working days and holidays in the year.
There are three sections in the panel.
In the first section you can define the default non-working days. Typically they are Saturday and Sunday, but there are many exceptions. Selecting some of days you define these days as non-working days for the whole current year.
There are additional holidays in every country. These could be national holidays, company special dates etc. You can define these days in the second section of the panel. Just click on ôAddö button to select form a calendar a specific date (for example, July 4) and it will appear in the list. If you want to delete an inserted date, select it and click on the ôDelö button.
The last section allows you to define exceptions from the normal weekend scheme. If some day in the year is a holiday by default (e.g. it is Sunday), but the company needs to work in this day, you may add this date to the list of additional working days. The functionality is the same: add and delete buttons.
You can add textual attachments to every date inserted in the additional holidays and additional working days lists. Click on the ôreasonö cell in the corresponding table and write.