AOL File Library: 4,101 to 4,200

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ AOL File Library: 4,101 to 4,200 / aol-file-protocol-4400-4101-to-4200.zip / AOLDLs / Business Management / ACS7_ V7.0 Mechanic's Scheduler / MECHANIC.exe / MECH-W70.EXE / MECHANIC.WIN / PROGRAM.REF < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1995-10-19 | 348KB | 7,606 lines

Reference Guide for Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]: ["PROGRAM.REF"] Appendices A through Z and Appendices A-1 through A-29 Please note that in this reference guide the screens use an 'expanded' format to show the meaning of the selections. Inside the program, however, the program uses light-bars in the menus, with reduced text for each selection but with expanded explanatory text on each light bar option. This "PROGRAM.REF" file is the Reference Guide. If you wish to see the tutorial, read or print "PROGRAM.DOC". Appendix A: Service Agreement U.S.A. and Canada You have UNLIMITED FREE support if you: 1) are a Registered User. 2) call the ACS Support Line between 9 AM and 4 PM Central Standard time any week day. Our phone number is: (214) 690-6017. Support policies: Customers in U.S.A. or Canada Support is part of this purchase price. For routine support, I'm here every weekday from 9AM to 4PM, Central time. For any issues related to loss of data and returning the data from your most recent backup, I'm here or at the end of a cellular phone 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. Since support is so interactive, all support must be done by voice at (214)690-6017, not FAX. Support policies: all foreign customers This letter outlines the registration and support procedures from any country outside of the U.S.A. or Canada, and will amend Appendix A in PROGRAM.DOC/PROGRAM.REF. Normal U.S.A hours of operation for technical support are 9 AM to 4 PM Central Standard US time for all U.S.A. and Canadian users. CST is the same as Chicago time and is one hour behind New York time. If you are calling from a country that is, say, 6 hours ahead, like London, England, then call for routine technical support in the latter part of the day when you are sure to catch me in after 9AM my time. Let's say that you are calling from a time zone for which a great disparity exists such as Australia and are 15 hours ahead of me. If you call at 10AM Tuesday, your time, you will reach me at about 7PM, Monday, my time. Support is part of your purchase price. Since you are calling from out of country, just assume that I am here for support from 7PM to 10PM every week night, my time. Since support is so interactive, all support must be done by voice (214)690-6017, not FAX. Appendix B NEW FEATURES: Proposals/Invoices: This option is accessible from the Activity File menu, A)dd and G)et options and is largely self-explanatory. As you add an activity, observe the bottom of the screen. At one point you will see an instruction about using 'F7' to create a proposal/invoice. After you enter 'F7', the program will branch to the proposal/invoice module and will then prompt you for more information. Note that the comment you enter into any one activity record, up to 200 characters, will then print out in the body of the proposal/invoice, along with all name, address, and zip code information already in the activity record. You may also elect to use your own comments, up to 500 characters, instead of the comment entered into the most recent activity record. For an alternate way of creating invoices, see: Appendix A-8: An Alternate Strategy for creating Invoices from memos in the Activity file Appendix C: Instructions for Manually Importing External Data This appendix shows the methodology for converting data manually. To use the process in Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] to import data automatically, see Appendix J, Option 8: Import Data from ASCII File. When done manually, the program has no way of verifying the validity of external data. You must do this yourself by examining the work file that you will be creating, TESTFILE.DBF, until you are satisfied that it is meaningful (ie, the data fields match up between new and old files). If meaningless data is imported, then the existing data faces corruption. As a safeguard for your original files, create a new subdirectory, \CONVERT, and move over all files from \MECHANIC.WIN to it. Perform all of the following steps in \CONVERT until you are satisfied that the conversion is successful, then bring back all files from \CONVERT to \MECHANIC.WIN. These are the steps to import data. First, acquire a copy of dBASE III [TM], dBASE III Plus [TM] (from Ashton-Tate Corp.), dBXL [TM] (from Wordtech Systems), or any interpreter that is compatible with these. Secondly, make a copy of the structure of the main customer file, PROSPECT.DBF, with these commands: bring up your file --> USE PROSPECT copy the structure --> COPY STRUCTURE TO TESTFILE invoke test structure --> USE TESTFILE bring in records --> APPEND FROM OLDDATA.TXT DELIMITED WITH , from the old data This assumes that you have OLDDATA.TXT set up in a 'comma delimited' format. Comma delimited data looks like this: "John","Doe","Dallas","TX" Observe in this example that four fields are separated (or delimited) by commas, and each field is surrounded by double quotes. You do not need spaces between any one comma and the double quotes that are adjacent to it. Structure for database : PROSPECT.dbf Field Field name Type Width Dec 1 DATE_SYS Date 8 2 SEX Character 19 3 FNAME Character 20 4 LNAME Character 20 5 PROSPECT Character 40 6 ADDRESS1 Character 30 7 ADDRESS2 Character 30 8 CITY Character 30 9 STATE Character 2 10 ZIP Numeric 5 11 ZIP4 Numeric 4 12 PHONE_1 Character 13 13 COMMENT1 Character 60 14 COMMENT2 Character 60 15 REFERBY Character 30 16 SUM_DATE Date 8 17 TIME_SYS Character 8 18 SUMEXP Numeric 12 2 19 LABELS Numeric 1 20 INTEREST Numeric 8 * 21 CLASS Numeric 2 22 RANDOM1 Numeric 3 23 VALID2 Numeric 10 24 PROSPMEMO Memo 10 25 VAL1 Numeric 12 2 26 VAL2 Numeric 2 27 VAL3 Date 8 28 VAL4 Numeric 12 2 29 VAL5 Date 8 30 VAL6 Numeric 12 2 31: GREETING Character 20 32: PMISC1 Character 4 33: PMISC2 Character 2 34: PMISC3 Numeric 4 35: PMISC4 Character 2 36: PMISC5 Date 8 37 TITLE Character 35 38 PHONE_2 Memo 10 ** Total ** 565 Definition of fields. You must enter a value for fields 1,2,5,19,20. 1: DATE_SYS, date main record first came into system. For external data, you can use today's date for all records. 2: SEX, sex identifier such as 'Mr. ', 'Mrs.','Ms.', or 'Doctor'. Your entry must be in the Sex Identifier validation file, Other Options Menu. If you enter '-' for all records, then the sex ID is omitted. 3: FNAME, first name of customer. 4: LNAME, last name of customer. 5: PROSPECT, company name of customer. In the absence of a company name, you should join the first and last name together in this field, such as "John Doe". 6: ADDRESS1, first line of address. 7: ADDRESS2, second line of address. 8: CITY, city of customer. 9: STATE, state of customer, a 2 character code consistent with those codes in the STATE validation file, Other Options Menu. 10: ZIP, the zip code. 11: ZIP4, Zip code plus 4 12: PHONE_1, the phone number. Must be in this format: (214)690-4782 The area code must start on character 2, not 1, of this 13 character string. The phone number itself must begin at character 6. 13: COMMENT1, the first comments field. 14: COMMENT2, the second comments field, a continuation of the first. 15: REFERBY, referred by whom. 16: SUM_DATE, date expenses were summarized last. 17: TIME_SYS, time of last expense summarization. 18: SUMEXP, the amount of the most recent expense summarization for this customer. 19: LABELS, status of labels posted or not posted. Must be set to '0'. 20: INTEREST, category of customer. Must be set to 1 (the default value), or above. Cannot be set to zero. 21: CLASS, ignore this. 22: RANDOM1, ignore this 23: VALID2, ignore this 24: PROSPMEMO: memo field, points to PROSPECT.DBT 25: VAL1 \ 26: VAL2 \ 27: VAL3 \-----------> Ignore these fields, used internally 28: VAL4 / 29: VAL5 / 30: VAL6 / 31: GREETING, the salutation field, defaults to the first name unless you enter a different value. This field is used once you select option B on the Main Program Menu: B) Import or Output Data 32: PMISC1 \ 33: PMISC2 \ 34: PMISC3 \-----------> Ignore these fields, used internally 35: PMISC4 / 36: PMISC5 / 37 TITLE, Professional Title if any. See Labels Menu for usage. 38 PHONE_2 Memo field, used for alternate phone numbers When you are finished with TESTFILE.DBF, examine fields 1,2,5,19, and 20 to make sure that you have made an entry in them as per the directions above. After you are satisfied that TESTFILE.DBF has your data, execute these commands: USE PROSPECT APPEND FROM TESTFILE QUIT These delete all files that end in '.NTX' and '.MEM'. Upon completing this, execute the program: PROGRAM This process will force the program to go through the Installation procedure again. Once it senses that all '.NTX' files are missing, the program will then automatically reindex all files. Once you are in the Main Program Menu, go to Other Options and execute option 9: Repack and Reindex all files. This procedure contains algorithms to cleanup extraneous and inconsistent data as best it can. It will, for example, look to see if multiple records exist in the file with the same company name. If so, the program will increment each one by appending '-1', '-2', and so on. Going through data conversion is a difficult, manual process, more art than science. If you have less that 200 records, you are better off re-entering the records manually than attempting to convert them from their native format into the program. Appendix D Modification of labels: All labels are generated with four label forms: LABEL1.LBL, LABEL2.LBL, LABEL3.LBL, and LABEL4.LBL. All data comes from PROSPECT.DBF. Options Contents ========================================================= | Predefined size: 3 1/2 x 15/16 by 1 | |-------------------------------------------------------| | Label width: 42 | | Label height: 5 | | Left margin: 0 | | Lines between labels: 1 | | Spaces between labels: 0 | | Labels across page: 1 | |=======================================================| Label contents: 1: LABELNA2(FNAME,LNAME,SEX)+LBL9(CLASS,VALID2) 2: LABELNAM(FNAME,LNAME,PROSPECT,SEX) 3: TRIM(ADDRESS1) 4: TRIM(ADDRESS2)+LABELNA3(ADDRESS2,PHONE_1) 5: TRIM(CITY)+", "+LABELNA4(STATE,ZIP)+LBL5(ZIP4)+LBL6(COMMENT1) The 'STRZERO' function is unique to the compiler and converts all zero digits to zero strings. The functions on lines one and two are UDFs in Clipper that tell the printer to skip the company name if it is the same as the first+last name or to skip line one if first and last name are blank. Line 4 has the UDF to insert a phone number into the label, if requested. Line 5 skips state or zip code, if left blank. The UDF LBL6() checks for Canadian codes in comment1, such as 'Canada=V6A1A4'. LBL9() is used in the Bulk Mail Sort. The label modify command in dBASE III [TM] will not work because it will not understand the UDFs. Instead, you must use the stand-alone Clipper [TM] utility LABEL.EXE, and invoke the command: LABEL LABEL1 Appendix E Procedure for Foreign Addresses: overview [those outside of the U.S.A.] Once you select U.S.A as the country of usage in the International Installation Menu, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] presents items in the address that are specific to the U.S.A., such as 'zip code' and 'state.' These address elements are omitted when any other country is selected. Regardless of the country selected at the International Installation Menu, you always have the option of creating information specific to a country by using the 'COUNTRY=' logic available to you in COMMENT1. Let's say that you were placing the name of the country in the 'CITY' line but ran out of space. If you then place the phrase 'COUNTRY=' anywhere in COMMENT1, the program will take that country name and print it on the same line as the city on your label, following the city. For example, if you have this phrase in COMMENT1: COUNTRY=Australia/ When you print a label, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will sense that you want to print a country code that does not fit within the data entry screen and will then place 'Australia' after the the CITY. Observe that this program must see a '/' at the end of your country code to signify the country. Note also that Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will print out the entire country code you enter between 'COUNTRY=' and '/', regardless of how may characters long that code is. Sorting by country code: If you wish to sort by country code in some or all of your addresses, then you would use the 'COUNTRY=' logic of COMMENT1 for your country name. Later, you could then select out those records unique to any one country by using the logic referenced in Appendix A-2: Appendix A-2: Logic behind Comments/name/city selection [select out records in 7 different places in program] Procedure for Canadian and Foreign Addresses: [when entered into the Customer File] With respect to the state validation file: Although you could change the values in the State validation file in earlier versions of this program, that ability to alter values has been removed since this data is static. In addition to states and territories, you can also have these two entries: '--' and 'NA'. Either value could be used for foreign countries. Both of these are valid 'states' and can be used during data entry. Values in State validation file: AL = Alabama MT = Montana AK = Alaska NE = Nebraska AS = American Samoa NV = Nevada AZ = Arizona NH = New Hampshire AR = Arkansas NJ = New Jersey CA = California NM = New Mexico CZ = Canal Zone NY = New York CO = Colorado NC = North Carolina CT = Connecticut ND = North Dakota DE = Delaware CM = Northern Mariana Is. DC = District of Columbia OH = Ohio FL = Florida OK = Oklahoma GA = Georgia OR = Oregon GU = Guam PA = Pennsylvania HI = Hawaii PR = Puerto Rico ID = Idaho RI = Rhode Island IL = Illinois SC = South Carolina IN = Indiana SD = South Dakota IA = Iowa TN = Tennessee KS = Kansas TX = Texas KY = Kentucky TT = Trust Territories LA = Louisiana UT = Utah ME = Maine VT = Vermont MD = Maryland VA = Virginia MA = Massachusetts VI = Virgin Islands MI = Michigan WA = Washington MN = Minnesota WV = West Virginia MS = Mississippi WI = Wisconsin MO = Missouri WY = Wyoming NA = Not Applicable -- = Not Applicable Note for foreign addresses, EXCEPT Canada, Australia, England, and Israel: If you enter either 'NA' or '--' for your state and '0' for zip, then these two items are omitted in the label. Insert your foreign address in the space for the city, where you have 40 characters. An example would be: CITY: The Netherlands or CITY: Tokyo, 150 Japan ===== Overview of placing country code into Comment1 ===== If, for example, you have a Canadian address label that requires you enter 'Canada=' as per the instructions below. You do not have to type in the phrase 'Canada=' every single time into Comment1. If you anticipate that you will be using Canadian addresses frequently, then you can create a default value for this phrase by going to the Main Program Menu and select the Other Options Menu. Once there, select 'C) Customize this system to your needs'. Once in the Custom Options Menu, observe this option: 2) Default State, City, Area Code. Sex ID, Address2, Comments 1 & 2 After you select this option, you can enter this value as a default into 'Comment1': Comment1: Canada= From that point on, all records you ADD to the customer file will have that phrase as a default value. Upper\lower case conventions are irrelevant. These values are all interpreted the same: CANADA=v6a1a4 Canada=V6A1A4 CANada=V6A1a4 canADA=v6a1A4 ===== Canadian addresses: ===== The Canadian Post Office requires that their 6 character 'Postal Code' occupy one line by itself below the address, with a space between the two sets of 3 characters. This program will accommodate this requirement if you observe the following: insert either 'NA' or '--' into state and '0' into zip, as per above. Place all of your address information including the city but not the 'Postal Code' into the Address1 and Address2 lines of your customer record. Then place the 'Postal Code' by itself on the comment1 line in this format: COMMENT1: CANADA=V6A1A4 This phraseology of 'Canada=' can occur anywhere in Comment1 and the 'Postal Code' should be entered WITHOUT any spaces. Once the program detects that you have a Canadian address, it will apply a space in this manner in the last line of the label: V6A 1A4 Lets say that this is the address you want to place into the customer record: Foster Technology 343 Railway Vancouver, B.C. V6A 1A4 You would place this into the customer record in this manner: Company name: Foster Technology Address1: 343 Railway Address2: Vancouver, B.C. Comment1: CANADA=V6A1A4 Note that you are inserting the city and province into address2 while leaving 'City' blank. This is crucial because the program will place the 'Postal Code' into the last line on the label normally reserved for city. ===== Australian Addresses: ===== The Australian Post Office assigns a 4 digit 'Post Code'. This number can appear after the state. Let's say that you had written down this address: Australian Tool and Die, Ltd. 1307 Botany Road Mascon New South Wales 2020 You would then enter that data into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] in this manner: Company name: Australian Tool and Die, Ltd. Address1: 1307 Botany Road City: Mascon N.S.W. Comment1: AUS=2020 Once Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] detects that you have placed 'AUS=' anywhere into Comment1, the program will then take that 4 digit code and place it at the end of the data entered into the 'City' line. Where you entered 'Mascon N.S.W.', the program will print out on line 5 of the labels: 'Mascon N.S.W. 2020'. Note that you could place the 'Postal Code' at the end of the 'City' line, space permitting. For another example of an Australian address, let's say that you had written down this address on a piece of paper: Minet Australia Ltd. 40th Level 100 Miller Street North Sydney, New South Wales 2060 You would enter that address into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] in this manner: Company name: Minet Australia Ltd. Address1: 40th Level Address2: 100 Miller Street City: North Sydney, NSW Comment1: AUS=2060 Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] would then move the '2060' Post Code to the 5th line of the mailing label, following 'North Sydney, NSW'. Note that when you enter the Post Code into Comment1, make sure that no spaces appear in 'AUS=2060'. The program knows that the Australian Post Code is 4 digits long and will not incorporate into the mailing label any additional characters or digits that follow your 4 digit Post Code. ===== Israeli Addresses: ===== The Israeli postal system assigns a 5 digit Postal Code, which follows the city on printed labels. Let's say that you have this address written down: Haim Factor Jackson Factor Associates P.O. Box 1304 Kiryat Tivon 36112 You would enter that data into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] in this manner: First name: Haim Last name: Factor Company name: Jackson Factor Associates Address1: P.O. Box 1304 City: Kiryat Tivon Comment1: IL=36112 When Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] sees 'IL=36112', the program knows that this is a 5 digit Israeli Postal Code and will print it out on the fifth line of the mailing label, following the city. Observe that it doesn't matter where in Comment1 the 'IL=36112' appears. ===== Great Britain: ===== The British postal codes can be of varying length. These, for example, are all valid codes: B26 3QN WS7 8XT BS2 0QE CH1 4LS LS11 0LW TW14 0PH You can insert the code in one of two places: either after the City or in Comment1. If you use the Comment1 line, precede the code with 'UK=', then follow the code by '/' to signify to the program that the code has no more characters. Specifically, to place 'LS11 0LW' in the Comment1 line, enter: UK=LS11 0LW/ When Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] sees 'UK=LS11 0LW/', the program knows that this is a British Postal Code and will print it out on the fifth line of the mailing label, following the city. Observe that it doesn't matter where in Comment1 the 'UK=LS11 0LW/' appears. Appendix F: Time and Billing Stopwatch Subsystem This menu driven feature has the ability to clock each activity and to assign a cost or labor rate [up to 9 of them] to each record in the Customer File. It will give you a detailed financial analysis of every timed activity. Beyond merely accumulating time per activity, it can manipulate charges in such a way as to reflect the way you do your business, with optional minimums, maximums, or fixed fees. Finally, the program will create an audit trail in every timed activity. Note that when you turn this feature 'on' in the Install menu, a field on the bottom right of the screen for the customer record changes from: Time of update : to Billing Class : 0 Observe that the default value of the Billing Class is '0', but that you must place a value in there corresponding to the labor rates you define: rates 1 - 9. When you turn 'off' the billing feature in the Install Menu, the 'Billing Class' field in each customer record reverts back to its original 'Time of update' field. Install menu, option C: Turn on billing/stopwatch subsystem Screen 2: Method of Calculation for Stopwatch Charges, all activities ['billable time' is the elapsed time as determined by the stopwatch.] Method 1 means all activity records are calculated at actual billable time, with no minimum or maximum charges. Method 2 is the actual billable time, subject to a mimimum charge but with no maximum charge. Method 3 is the same as method 2, but with a maximum charge per activity. Method 4 is the actual billable time, plus a fixed fee but not subject to a maximum charge. Method 5 is the same as method 4, but with a maximum charge per activity. Method 6 assumes the value you enter into the Activity record is an expired hour value, in decimal form, then multiplies it times the billing rate. Screen 3: Net Billable Charge Placement: Screen 3 tells the program how you want the calculated net billable charge to be entered into the activity record. If you say F(alse), then the program will place the calculated charge and only the calculated charge into the activity record. If you say T(rue), then the program will add the calculated charges to any you enter into the activity record. Timer Validation: This portion requires that you have a watch and participate in a 2 minute system clock verification test. Use a stop watch or a clock with a visible second hand. This test is critical to the accuracy of the billing module. If the computer clock is different from real time, this module will ajust it accordingly. Appendix G Multiple Contacts within the same company: As you become conversant with the program, you will see how little data entry is required considering how much data management and reports the program is providing. In order to do this, however, some simplifying assumptions must be made in the way the program relates activities to records in the Customer File. To create accurate activity records, with little data entry from you, the basic assumption is made that one and only one company name exists for that company in the Customer File. As you enter a company name in the A)dd option in the Activity file, the program will look for a partial match. If made, the process continues as though you had typed in the complete name. ==== Method one to differentiate names in the Customer file ==== One suggested way to differentiate company names is to place the name of the addressee or person in brackets to the right of the company. Let's say, for example, that you have these individuals to enter, all of them for the same company. COMPANY NAME First name Last name GM John Doe GM Susy Smith GM Ed Zung GM Bill Bowen You could enter these as the company names for the four records: Suggested COMPANY NAME First name Last name GM [JD] John Doe GM [SS] Susy Smith GM [EZ] Ed Zung GM [BB] Bill Bowen The brackets to the right of 'GM' would allow the program to differentiate the records, yet you would always know that 'John Doe' is entered as 'GM [JD]' since his initials would follow the company name by two spaces. Once the label generator senses that you have entered these two brackets two characters apart, it then strips out everything to the right of the first bracket. Observe that this occurs only in the labels menu and in this selection on the Main Program Menu: B) Import or Output data It doesn't matter where in the Company name the opposing brackets appear, only that they are two characters apart. ==== Method two to differentiate names in the Customer file ==== Another option exists within the program to accommodate duplicate Company Names. Remember that when you enter an individual name without a Company Name, the program will create a Company Name consisting of 'first plus last' name. Later, when you print labels, the label generator will look to see if the Company Name is the same as 'first plus last' name and will then skip the Company Name in the label, thereby freeing up one line of the five line label. To insert any company name of your choosing in this skipped line, observe the following logic: 1) Enter a 'DUPL=' code into the comment line of the customer file. 2) At the end of the duplicate name, place a '/'. Each customer record has two lines for comments. Note that you can place the 'DUPL=' code into either line, in any place in that comment line. Also observe that case convention is irrelevant. 'DUPL=' is that same as 'dupl='. Once the program senses that you have entered a 'DUPL=' code, that entire name will be placed into the label in the line where the company name would have gone before. Observe that this duplicate company name logic will also work when you are outputting data. Recalling the Main Program Menu, option B: "B) Import or Output data" Once you select 'B' on the Main Program Menu, you will then see the 'Import or Output Data Menu.' If you select options 2, 3, 4, or 5, then the duplicate company name logic will work with these selections as well. ==== Project management issues ==== Note on project management: If you are attempting to track many persons at one site, working for one company and on one project, the simplest way is to assign a unique number to the category for that project and do not enter a company name what the program asks for one. Remember that if the program detects that you have entered a first and last name without a company name, it will automatically assign the first name + last name to the company name. For example, if you enter 'John' and 'Doe' for first and last name and then omit the company name, the program will create a company name of 'John Doe'. If you track the projects by category number rather than by company name, the program will then group together all records and reports by project. See also Tutorial 6: 'Layer-in' concept. Appendix I: Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation Feature See Main Program Menu, Option 9 Overview: This feature gives you the ability to consolidate data from different stations onto one master station. You can think of the individual stations as 'Remote Sites' and the master as the 'Base Station'. This feature was implemented because many users of this program have asked for the ability to have a roving feature. One manager has many people working for him in the field using this program on their individual laptop portables. He asked if he could consolidate everyone's data onto his desktop computer. With this Consolidation Feature, he now can. Each Remote Site goes to the menu for Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation. This menu has 5 selections: 1) Output records [used from a Remote Site] 2) Input records [used from the Base Station] 3) Change Start/Stop date of Consolidation [used only with outputting records, Option 1] 4) View 'Log File' for Base Station 5) Category Consolidation Feature: The Remote Site then selects the range of records that he/she wants outputted to the consolidation disk. These are the dates that the records for the Master File and Activity file were originally entered into the system. With the ability to select out records by date of entry into the system, you can make incremental consolidations, say every 2 or 4 weeks. An unlimited number of Remote Sites can output their records onto their individual consolidation disks. The Base Station, in turn, takes all of consolidation disks and inputs them one at a time using option 2, Input records. If the program detects that it is importing a duplicate record into the Master File, it will stop, display the questionable duplicate records to you, and then ask you for a decision: to overwrite the original record with the newly imported one, or to abort the consolidation of that one record into the file. All activity records from the consolidation disks, of course, are added as is, without any validation. The Base Station must have a hard disk, but the Remote Sites can have a hard disk or be floppy-based. This feature can also be thought of as providing the functionality of a Local Area Network without the bother and uncertainty of being dependent on a network. Let's say that 4 data entry people are using this program to take information over the phone. If their supervisor wants access to the consolidated records of all 4 people, each person could submit a weekly consolidation disk to the supervisor. The supervisor, in turn, would have a fifth system that functioned as the Base Station and contained only those records brought in using option 2, above. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== "1) Output records" '[used from a Remote Site]' Choice of Data files to output: In this option, you enter your choice of which files you wish to ouput as the remote site. Your choices are: "1 = Customer and Activity File" "2 = Customer File only" "3 = Activity File only" Additional criteria available for outputting Activity records: By default, the program defines the date of the activity record as the date of its creation, the date when it was first entered into the program. You have an option here, however, of outputting activity records based on the callback date, if any. This would be useful, for example, if you have created activity records far in the past, with a current callback date. Your are then asked this question: --------------------------------------------------------------------------| Do you wish to use the callback date as an additional | criteria for outputting activity records? | 'T' or 'Y' = True; 'F' or 'N' = False | --------------------------------------------------------------------------| If your answer yes to the above question, you are then prompted for these dates: -------------------------------------------------------------------------| ==== Definition of date range for Appointments ==== | | Input Screen for Beginning and Ending dates Enter the first date of your outputting: XX/XX/1991 Enter the last date of your outputting: XX/XX/1991 | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------| After having defined the date range for outputting those records, you then have these choices in outputting Activity records: 1 = Output by dates of creation AND callbacks 2 = Output by dates of creation OR callbacks 3 = Output by dates of creation ONLY 4 = Output by dates of callbacks ONLY ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== "2) Input records" '[used from the Base Station]' Potential Conflict of Activity Records: By default, the program does not attempt to display or correct a potential conflict of incoming activity records. It assumes that if you have made multiple activity records on one day for one customer record, then you have done so intentionally. You have the option here, however, of the program alerting you to those cases where an incoming activity record contains the same callback date and company name as one already in the program. If your exercise that option, the program will then display this message when it observes contention in the incoming data with the existing activity file: --------------------------------------------------------------------------| Similar Activity Record Found: | | At this screen, you will decide what to do with the similar activity record that has been identified. You can overwrite the old one with the new or leave the original one intact. "You have 3 choices: 1 = Delete old activity, append new one. 2 = Keep old activity, append new one 3 = Keep old activity, ignore new one. | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------| The activity records in question are displayed to you side by side so that you can see what data is involved. Regardless of whether you elect to use this 'Potential Conflict of Activity Records' logic, the program will identify if any incoming customer records already exist in the Customer file. If a duplicate entry is detected, the following message is displayed to you: --------------------------------------------------------------------------| Duplicate Record Found: Customer File | | At this screen, you will decide what to do with the duplicate record that has been identified. You can overwrite the old one with the new or leave the original one intact. | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------| As with the activity records the customer records are then displayed to you side by side so that you can read the data. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== "3) Change Start/Stop date of Consolidation" '[used only with outputting records, Option 1]' Option 3 is to change the start or stop date of the summary. It defaults to these dates: START DATE :'01/01/1901' STOP DATE :'12/12/2999' This means that any summaries that you generate will be for a 1098 year period. Let's say that you would like to examine activities for a two week period, during which you were on the road visiting a customer. In that case, go to option 3 and enter the date on which the two week period began as the START date, and the date on which the two week period ended as the END date. Now your outputting will reflect just that two week period. [Note: The date selection feature refers to when the records was originally entered into the system.] ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== "4) View 'Log File' for Base Station" Every time you use option 2 as the Base Station to import data, the program keeps a log of each procedure, 'LOG.DBF', in this form: -------------------------------------------------------------- Base Station Importing performed on 06/28/1989 | Start Date: 01/01/1901 End Date: 12/12/2999 | Category Selected: ALL | Number of records imported from Customer file: 5 Number of records imported from activity file: 178 Data imported for Ed Zung, salesman for the Bay area Base Station Importing performed on 06/30/1989 Start Date: 01/01/1901 End Date: 12/12/2999 Category Selected: ALL Number of records imported from Customer file: 3 | Number of records imported from activity file: 288 | Data imported for Southern District salesman, Phil Smith | -------------------------------------------------------------- When you import data as the base station, the program will create a six line entry, starting with 'Base Station Importing...' and ending with your comment. The program creates the first five lines automatically, while you enter your comment for line six. 'LOG.DBF' is an ASCII file that you can manipulate externally with an external word processor, if so desired. ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== Category Consolidation: At this option, you can base your data outputting in selection 1 on either a range of categories or a list of non-continuous individual categories. For example, if you had selected a range, then you could combine all records from categories 1 through 50. You can select any size range, from a range of 50 to a range of 50,000 categories. If you had selected to input a non-continuous list of categories, then you could enter up to 200 categories for consolidation, such as to combine categories 10, 11, 15, and 20. Note that this Category Consolidation logic is available in these three locations in the program: 'Reports for Customers and Activities' [Main Program Menu, Selection 3] 'Appointments Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 7] 'Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 9] Appendix J: Import or Output Data. To see the many options available in this selection, please go to the Main Program Menu. Once there, enter Selection B for the Import or Output Data menu. As you enter 'H' for Help, all of the current selections will be described and defined. Appendix K-I: Overview of Memo Options: Customer file Every customer record has its own word processor! This exciting new feature allows you to create a second screen behind any individual customer record with free-form text of up to 15,000 characters per customer, given a 640K system memory. In this second screen, you can scroll up and down and enter text as though you were in a word processor. Indeed, you can think of this second screen as your own word processor, embedded behind each customer record. In addition to entering text, you can also import external text files, such as contracts or formal bids, into the relevant record associated with that text. In this way, you can browse through the contract for a customer six months after the fact and long after you have forgotten what the content was. If you wish to export the memo to an external text file, you can do that too. The memo option presents itself in one of two ways. When you are in the Add option for the customer file, the program asks you after you have finished entering all data into the first screen if you wish to create a memo. If you elect to do so, then the program will go into the Memo Options Menu. If you are in the Get option for the customer file, you will see this option on the lower left: "F4 Memo Option". Upon selecting that, you will be presented with a comprehensive menu entitled "Memo Option Menu". Each customer record has his or her own memo menu. It contains these options [the customer name appears on top after "Custom Memo"]: ===Custom Memo for Accounting & Tax Service== Memo Options Menu =============== ========================================================== | Tuesday, September 22, 1987 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one | | 2) Output the memo to a text file | | 3) Input a text file into this memo | | [overwrite existing memo] | | 4) Input an external text file into this memo | | [append to existing memo] | | 5) Set Left and Right Margins: | | 5 75 | | 6) Toggle Edit Screen Code Help [Now On ] | | 7) Print options [Printit v3.5 [TM]] | | 8) Create Quick Memo [TM] | | | | R) Return to Customer record | ========================================================== [Current character length of this memo = 0] This menu will tell you at a glance the number of characters in the memo, the current margins, and today's date. You can input an existing text file into the memo with options 3 or 4. As your memo begins to grow and accumulate different items, you can output it to an external text file using option 2. Option 1 puts you into the edit mode. In this option you are presented with a full screen word processor with the following message on the bottom of the screen: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edit Screen Codes: Up arrow = move up 1 line, Down arrow = move down 1 line, Left Arrow = move left 1 character, Right arrow = move right 1 word, HOME = start of current line, END = end of current line, [CONTROL] HOME= start of memo, [CONTROL] END = end of memo, PgUp = Next edit window up, PgDn = Next edit window down, [CONTROL] W = Finished editing and save, ESC = abort editing. Use [INS] key for inserting text, [DEL] to delete, [CONTROL] B to reformat ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message gives you the codes that you can use in the full screen word processor. Immediately above these codes you will observe your cursor. You can type as long as you wish, just as in any other word processor. When finished entering text, you can save it by entering [CONTROL] W, as per the instructions. After you become conversant with the codes, you can replace the six lines of the above instructions with this one line: -------------------------------------------------------------- Edit Screen Codes: [CONTROL] W to save, ESC to abort -------------------------------------------------------------- To toggle back and forth between these 2 different Screen Code help screens, enter option 6 on the Memo Options Menu. 6) Toggle Edit Screen Code Help [Now Off] Note also that you can access each customer's memo from the activity file. When you are either Adding or Getting an activity record, you will observe 'F4' is displayed to you for 'Memo' options. Remember that multiple activity records for any one customer all have the SAME memo in the customer file. Appendix K-II: Memo Options: Activity File Each customer record has one Customer memo associated with it. Each activity record now has one Activity memo also. Why two sets of memos? Prior to version 2.645, this program had only customer memos, not any activity memos. All activity records shared one common customer memo and could access that one memo from any activity record created in the future. Let's say, for example, you established a customer record for "XYZ Corporation" and then imported a 10,000 character proposal into the customer memo for "XYZ Corporation". Later on, as you created many activity records for "XYZ Corporation", you could view the large proposal that you had originally imported into the customer memo from ANY activity that you had created for "XYZ Corporation". Conceptually, it made sense for ALL activities to share the SAME memo in the Customer file. However, the emergence of a new feature, Quick Memo [TM], mandated that each activity record have its own memo also. See Appendix K-III for an explanation of Quick Memo [TM]. Memo options accessible from the Activity File: From the Activity File you can access two memos for any one activity record: the ONE customer memo that all activities for one company share together; and the UNIQUE activity memo that each activity record has, regardless of how many activities any one company has. ----- Activity File: Add option ----- Every time you add a record in the Add option, you will see these options available to you on the bottom of the screen: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter "1" to ignore this entry; enter F2 for Activity Memo | F3 for Quick Label [TM] | F4 for Customer Memo, F7 for proposal\invoice, any other key to continue | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enter 'F2', you will branch to the unique memo for this activity. If you enter 'F4', you will branch to the Customer Memo that ALL activities for this company share in common. The Memo Options Menu looks that same for both. If you look close, after you enter 'F2', you will see this on the bottom of the Memo Options Menu: R) Return to Activity record If you enter 'F4', you will see this Return statement on the bottom of the Memo Options Menu: R) Return to Customer record If you are not sure whether you are in the Customer or Activity memo, the Return statement on the bottom of the Memo Options Menu will tell you. ----- Activity File: Get option ----- Your access to memos at the Add option is similar to the Get screen. Once you enter the Get option from the Activity File, you will see these commands on the bottom of your screen: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ENTER N FOR NEXT, P FOR PREVIOUS F2 Activity Memo | RETURN Exit S FOR SEARCH, M FOR MORE COMMANDS F4 Customer Memo | F3 Quick Label [TM] F7 Proposal/Inv F8 DIAL PHONE F9 HANG UP PHONE | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Again, as in the activity Add option, entering 'F2' will take you to the memo unique to this activity, while selecting 'F4' will bring up the one Customer memo common to all activities for this company. Appendix K-III: Quick Memo [TM] Automatic generation of memo 'Templates' Quick Memo [TM] will create a customized 'template', a letter that has 80% of the text already filled in for you! Quick Memo [TM] is a powerful word processor type feature that will save you time if you need to send out short messages, say 1 to 4 sentences per person, but don't have the time to enter all of the other data that this type of correspondence requires. Quick Memo [TM] can be used in the Customer file, but its real application is in creating multiple activity memos. Referring again to the Memo Option Menu below: ===Custom Memo for Accounting & Tax Service== Memo Options Menu =============== ========================================================== | Tuesday, September 22, 1987 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one | | 2) Output the memo to a text file | | 3) Input a text file into this memo | | [overwrite existing memo] | | 4) Input an external text file into this memo | | [append to existing memo] | | 5) Set Left and Right Margins: | | 5 75 | | 6) Toggle Edit Screen Code Help [Now On ] | | 7) Print options [Printit v3.5 [TM]] | | 8) Create Quick Memo [TM] | | 9) Create Quick Label [TM] | | R) Return to Activity record | ========================================================== [Current character length of this memo = 0] Once you select option 8, Quick Memo [TM] will check first to see if you have given some general definitions about you and your company. If not, then Quick Memo [TM] will ask you for your company name, address, and so on. These same items are used in the Proposal/Invoice generator and Statements section, and can be defined or redefined there. In any case, after you have selected option 8, Quick Memo [TM] will create a 'Template' for you as though you had gone to option 1 and typed it in. The 'Template' contains these four sections: Information about your company, centered The date of the 'template', expanded The addressee data, leftmost justified Filing instructions, on the bottom line of the 'template' Once Quick Memo [TM] has created the 'template' you can add your specific lines of text by entering option 1, 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one As you scroll through the memo, you will observe that Quick Memo [TM] has typed in most of the information that you need, except for the body of the letter or memo. Once you have typed that in yourself, you would save it with CONTROL-W, and then print it out with option 7: 7) Print options [Printit v3.5 [TM]] An example of one 'template' appears on the next page: ----- example of 'Template' memo ----- [your company is on the top, centered] Steve's Television Repair Service 21211 Elm Street Suite 322 Los Angeles, CA 95322 (214)855-6778 Tuesday, April 26, 1988 ACCOUNTING & TAX SERVICE Mr. John Cauble, Jr. 11056 Shady Trail Suite 101 Dallas, TX 75229 Dear John: cc: Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] file [04/26/1988, 7:21:30 PM] Appendix K-IV: Establish system-wide values for Quick Memo [TM] Overview: The first time through Quick Memo [TM], the program will ask you for information about your company and for your preferences on five options within Quick Memo [TM]. This information about your company is then centered on the top of each copy of Quick Memo [TM]. The five preferences or 'switches' that determine the appearance of Quick Memo [TM] are: ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== Choice of Salutation in Quick Memo [TM] Let's say the person's name is JOHN DOE. Your choices are: 1 = 'Dear John:' 2= 'Dear Mr. Doe: 3= 'Dear Mr. John Doe:' 4= 'John:' 5= '' <============= left blank ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== Inclusion/Omission of Heading: This feature creates its own heading, consisting of your company name and the date. If you are using letterhead paper, you can elect to bypass the first 8 lines of your sheet of paper and begin with the date. 1 = Include heading 2= Omit heading Appendix K-IV: [continued] ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== Inclusion/Omission of 'Carbon Copy' information: On the bottom of each Quick Memo [TM], the program creates 'Carbon Copy' or 'cc:' information. You can elect to omit this feature. 1 = Include 'Carbon Copy' data 2= Omit 'Carbon Copy' data ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== Inclusion/Omission of 'Salutation' field: If turned On, the program places the salutation name from the Customer record, such as 'Bill,' into the salutation field instead of the first name, such as 'William. If turned Off, only the first name is placed into this field. 1 = Include 'Salutation' field 2= Omit 'Salutation' field ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== Placement of your header and date. If you enter '1', then the program will center your company heading. If you place '2', then heading will be printed block-style, with the text left justified. 1 = Center header 2= Left-justify header ============== | OPTION 6: | ============== If option 1 is set to between 1 and 4, then this selection appears and offers the following option: Choice of single character that follows Salutation: The default is ":". You can enter any single letter. If left blank, then the program will drop the character altogether, such as: John Doe Appendix L: Overview of Labels Menu : This Labels Menu challenges the power of any self-contained label program that you have ever used ! It can handle 1,000,000,000 different names, spread among 99,999,999 discrete categories, and is fully integrated with the rest of the program. If you want to print 1 label at a time, you can do that with option 1. This 'remembers' the last record you added or retrieved into the customer file. If you want to print out all labels, then select option 2. To print out those names added since the last time you printed the labels, use option 3 in conjunction with 4. You can even print out labels based on a comment, city, state or zip code entered into the customer file. In option 2, you can either print out all labels or only those containing a specific search criteria. This feature gives you the ability to add unique fields to the program by entering them into the customer record comments, then selecting them out later for labels. The reports menu, Report for Customers and Activities, option 4, Main Program Menu, also has this facility. The remaining options give you various select and sort options that give you total control over your data. Additionally, option 7 gives you a clear path to your word processor. Instead of sending labels to the printer, you can elect to send them to a text file, 'VIEW.TXT'. After you leave this program, you can use that text file within your word processor for insertion into a letter head or a boiler-plate text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Options for labels | 1) Generate one label for last record searched or added [no Customer record recently accessed] 2) Produce labels for all records in Customer File [In option 2 you can select on any comment, Customer file] 3) Do labels for those records added since this was selected last. [pushing option 4 resets all records to unposted] 4) Reset all records to an unposted state 5) Insert phone number into labels [default =OFF] [now Off] 6) Activate 'Zip+4' feature in zip code [Zip+4 Off] 7) Send labels to printer or text file, VIEW.TXT [send to Text file] 8) Select size of Label [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across ] 9) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort A) Set Left Margin for Labels: B) Create return address labels C) Drop the company D) Printer port E) Assign text name | H) Help | R) Return to prior menu | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OVERVIEW: Each label will contain this information: First name, Last Name Company name Address 1 Address 2 City, State Zip code [Country, if foreign] Observe that if you have left both the first and last name fields blank in your main record in the customer file, the label will skip line 1. If the company name is the same as the first and last name (but separated by a comma), the program will ignore company name also, For example. If you have this record: First Name: John Last name: Doe Company Name: John Doe <=== must have 1 space between the two words The program will skip company name once it identifies that the company name is the same as the first plus the second name. Each label contains 35 characters at 10 CPI (characters per inch), even though the label may attempt to print out up to 42 characters. If your labels spill over beyond 35 characters, put your printer into the compressed mode (12 CPI). At 12 CPI, the printer can fit up to 42 characters onto the label. Note for Canadian and foreign address: The program can also manage foreign addresses. To see how to do this, go to Appendix 'E'. Procedures for Foreign records and labels....................Appendix E with special programming for addresses in: Canada, Australia, Israel and Great Britain! ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== Option 1 prints out the label for the last record that you examined with the Get option, Customer File. Also, when you are entered records into this file with the Add option, option 1 on this menu will print out the label for the last record added. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== Option 2 generates labels for all records in the Customer file. Of course if you have already gone to the Main Program Menu and selected a category of interest that selects out some records, only those records in your selected category will be printed out. See the Help screen, Main Program Menu, Option 8, for a further explanation of how you can "layer-in" data. That feature has an effect on which labels are printed out, if you elect to "layer" or segregate your data. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== Option 3 works with option 4, but is independent of either option 1 or 2. In brief, option 3 will print out only those labels from your Customer file that have been added since was option 3 was invoked the last time. In a sense, option 3 is "posting" those records for which it generates labels. Then, when you wish to print more labels, option 3 checks to see which are "unposted" and then prints out only those labels. For example, lets say you have 300 records in your Customer file. If you select option 2 to print out your labels, you will print out 300 labels. If you add another 30 records in the next two week period and attempt to print them out again using option 2, the computer will then generate 330 labels. If instead of using option 2 the first time to print out the labels, you had used option 3, you would have generated 300 labels. After adding 30 more records, though, if you had selected option 3 again, you would have had just 30 labels print out--just those that had been added to the Customer file since option 3 was selected last. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== Option 4 resets all records from a "posted " to an "unposted" state. This has the effect of reversing all those entries made by option 3. When you invoke option 4, you will see the following type of information: =========================================================== THIS WILL REVERT ALL RECORDS BACK TO THE UNPOSTED STATE. THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE RECORDS IN THIS FILE IS : TOTAL NUMBER OF RECORDS IN THE PERSON FILE : 11 records TOTAL NUMBER OF POSTED RECORDS : 1 record IF YOU WISH TO ABORT THIS RESETTING PROCESS, THEN ENTER A "R". ============================================================= This screen will show you the total number of unposted records in the Customer file and those that are posted (already have had a label printed out using option 3). Also, at the end of that menu, you have a choice to abort the RESETTING process by entering an "R". ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== 5) Insert phone number into label [default =OFF] [now off] This option will insert the phone number in the line for the second address. ============== | OPTION 6: | ============== Activate 'Zip+4' feature in zip code. If you elect to use the additional four digits in your zip codes, then select this feature [On]. This will print out the additional four digits in the labels; otherwise, they are omitted. ============== | OPTION 7: | ============== Send labels to printer or text file ['VIEW.TXT'] This option is useful when you wish to bring name and address information into a word processor, such as WORDSTAR[TM]. By selectively outputting these labels to an external text file, you can import 'VIEW.TXT' into your word processor, and then manipulate that address information inside your word processor document. When used with option 1: In a hard drive system, every time you write one label to VIEW.TXT, the program will accumulate those labels until you exit the program. Then, when you re-enter the program, this accumulating process will start over again. In a floppy based system, every time you elect to write one label to the text file VIEW.TXT, you overwrite the prior label that was sent to that file. When used with all other options: Whenever you invoke a label option other than number 1 and elect to send those labels to a text file, the program will automatically overwrite the prior VIEW.TXT. ============== | OPTION 8: | ============== Select size of Label: Observe that labels 1 through 4 and 10 will print out 42 characters across, while labels 5 through 9 are restricted to 35 characters per label. Label 11 is the same as label 1, except that the Company line is reversed with Address1, the first line of the address label. The intent of this label is to provide you a way to place a title above the company line. If you place the title in Address1 and then place the entire address in Address2, then this label will print correctly. Note that if you use this label, you have to set up ALL records in the system with this convention: title goes into Address1, while the address that would have occupied Address1 and Address2 now goes into Address2. From this option you can make a selection of label size. Currently, these twelve are supported: [Label 1] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across ] [ Metric equivalent: 89 X 24mm ] [Label 2] [Rolodex[TM], 4" by 2 1/8", 1 across ] [ Metric equivalent: 102 X 54mm ] [Label 3] [Rolodex[TM], 5" by 3", 1 across ] [ Metric equivalent: 127 X 75mm ] [Label 4] [Label, 4" by 1 7/16", 1 across ] [ Metric equivalent: 102 X 37mm ] [Label 5] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 2 across ] [Label 6] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 3 across ] [Label 7] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 4 across ] [Label 8] [Cheshire, 3 2/10 by 11/12", 3 across ] [Label 9] [Cheshire, 3 2/10 by 11/12", 4 across ] [Label 10] [Envelope, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across ] [Label 11] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across ] [same as Label1, Company/Add1 reversed] [Label 12] [LABEL12 = Rediform [TM] Continuous Index Cards, 4" by 7"] Stock number: 6731 The envelope option will assign a left margin of 35 characters, while prompting you for the number of lines you want the printer to feed before and after the label. Note on Laser Printer Labels: If you wish to use a laser printer for labels, then the following 'automatic sheet fed' labels have been field tested with Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]: Brand: Mfg. No: Sheets: Labels per sheet: Avery [TM] 5161, 1" by 4" 100 sheets 20 When you use these labels, observe that the manufacturer identifies these as 1" by 4". In order, however, for Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] to address these labels, you must select Label 5: [Label 5] [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 2 across ] The difference in these measurements is attributable to Avery [TM] counting the space between the labels as part of their label surface. Make sure, also, that you set the laser printer for 60 lines per page, not 66. ============== | OPTION 9: | ============== 9) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort This option has its own Help screen and will perform a third class bulk mail sort from your database. Additionally, you can apply selection criteria against your file of customers for this sort. ============== | OPTION A: | ============== A) Set Left Margin for Labels With this selection, you can indicate the leftmost margin for your labels. ============== | OPTION B: | ============== B) Create return address labels This option will print an unlimited number of copies of one label and is intended for your use as a return address label. It presumes that you have entered a record for yourself in the Customer file and that you have just left that record in the Customer Get screen. Note: Regardless of the label selection you make on selection "8) Size of Label", this option will print only ONE across. ============== | OPTION C: | ============== C) Drop the company By default, all company names are included whenever you print labels or output data to a merge file. If you elect to drop the company name, then the labels will print without any company names. ============== | OPTION D: | ============== D) Select Printer Port From this menu, you define on which of these printer ports are outputted the labels: LPT1 LPT2 LPT3 COM1 COM2 Whatever printer port you select, this selection is independent of the printer used in the reports menu. ============== | OPTION E: | ============== "E) Assign text name" At this option you enter the name of the text file that this program assigns when option 7 is toggled: "[send to Text file]" Observe that you assign an extension, if any. If you want to send to VIEW.TXT, then you would enter: VIEW.TXT Appendix M: Automatic Statements: Overview The Statements Menu is accessed from the Revenue/Expense Summary Menu, option 5: Menu for Statements. Some of the functions are interrelated, such as choosing the start/stop date of the summary in Revenue/Expense also selects the same range in the Statements. This Menu is a true accounting module, unlike the Proposal/Invoice sections in the program that are word processing in nature. Options 1 and 2 will create the statements for you after you have defined some default values in option 3. They draw their financial data from the activity records. They will both print out the same values on each statement, but the Detail Statement will show you the activities that were summarized to the statement. Remember that the statements module will take all positive values, add them together, then subtract any negative ones it finds in activity records. This is important to know if you want to reflect payments made against an account, as with a CPA, or if you want to show payoff history associated with a debtor in a collections system. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Create Summary Statements Displays a single total for those activities summarized to their corresponding record in the Customer file. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Create Detail Statements Shows the total for each record in the Customer file, as well as the individual activities that make up that total. Optionally, you can select out the comment that you had originally entered into each activity record. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) Create Format for Statements Into this option are inputted heading and format information. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Select $ range of Statements: Option 4 gives you the flexibility to define certain economic characteristics of each statement. Specifically, you would make one of these three selections: 0 = all statements printed. 1 = only statements selected that meet a minimum amount, no maximum. 2 = only statements selected that are between a minimum and a maximum value. The selections above refer to the summary of the activities selected, not to a value or charge in any one of them. You, of course, define the minimum or maximum after having made the appropriate selection. ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== 5) Selection criteria for Statements To see how this section works, see: Logic behind Comments/name/city selection..................Appendix A-2 [select out records in 7 different places in program] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start Date Statements Menu End Date | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | | 01/01/1901 | | Please Choose one | | 12/12/2999 | | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- 1) Create Summary Statements 2) Create Detail Statements 3) Create Format for Statements 4) Select dollar range of Statements 5) Selection criteria for Statements [no criteria selected] H) Help Screen R) Return to prior menu | | [Status of Option 4: All records selected, No minimum or maximum selected]| Customer to be summarized: ALL | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix N: Printit v3.5, Print functions provided in memos and VIEW.TXT [Note: The documentation below is supplied by the author of the print functions used in memo and VIEW.TXT, Jack A. Orman. The 'Running PRINTIT' instructions can be used for printing an external file, such as PROGRAM.DOC.] PRINTIT v3.5 Copr. 1987 by Jack A. Orman Armada Sound Lab, Box 858 Southaven, MS 38671 This special version of PRINTIT was written for exclusive distribution by Paul Sax of ACS Consultants. It is not to be distributed except as part of this program and must not be altered in any manner. PRINTIT v3.1 is a standalone version for shareware distribution and is available on many commercial BBSs or directly from the author at the above address. Running PRINTIT The proper format to use this program to print an ASCII file is to enter the program name on the command line followed by a space and then the name of the file to be printed. Example: PRINT35 filename <ENTER> The filename can be any legitimate MS-DOS name including optional drive or path designations. If the file cannot be found, a message will appear on the screen briefly and then it will return to DOS. If the file can be found, a window will open and you will be prompted to enter the following information: Top Margin default= 5 Bottom Margin default= 5 Lines/page default=56 Left Margin default= 2 Number pages 0= no numbers Header String <ENTER>= no header Hitting ENTER at any menu selection will use the default values. The header string is limited to 48 characters and the current date is automatically printed at the end of the header. Most printers default to a 6 line per inch vertical spacing which gives 66 total lines per page on a standard 8 1/2 by 11 sheet. Therefore, the top margin + bottom margin + Lines/page must equal 66 for the printout to be produced in the proper format. For 8 lines per inch spacing, 5 + 5 + 78 would be good starting values. Make certain that the printer is powered up and on-line before running this program to avoid hanging up the system. No checks are performed to test printer readiness. PRINTIT is furnished without liability or guarantee of fitness and suitability for any specific purpose. It is up to the user to determine appropriateness for each application. Jack A. Orman 11/01/1987 Appendix O: Create your own on-line Help/Data Screen! This option allows you to define your own industry-specific Help/Data screen and then view it anytime throughout the program by entering 'F1'. Some applications require that you have detailed lists or codes nearby as you do data entry into the program. This would be particularly true if you are trying to enter codes specific to your industry into the customer or activity records. This Help/Data screen can contain a few entries or up to 15,000 characters. You can either input this industry specific information at the keyboard or, if already typed, import an external text file in place of your manual typing. Observe this option on the Main Program Menu: A) Create an on-line Help/Data screen [ now Off] After you select 'A', you will then see this menu: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Memo Options Menu | =============== | ---------------------------------------------------------- | Monday, November 9, 1987 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one | | 2) Output the memo to a text file | | 3) Input a text file into this memo | | [overwrite existing memo] | | 4) Input a text file into this memo | | [append to existing memo] | | 5) Set Left\Right Margins: 5 75 | | 6) Toggle Edit Screen Code Help [Now On ] | | 7) Print options [Printit v|.5 [TM]] | | 8) Activate Help\Data option [Now On ] | | R) Return to the Main Program Menu | ---------------------------------------------------------- | [Current character length of this memo = 0 ] | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------| Note that this menu is similar in function to the one described in Appendix K, Memo Options, with one exception: at this menu, you have option 8. This allows you to turn 'On' or 'Off' the Help/Data screen. The memo you create here is accessible throughout the entire program just by entering the 'F1' function key! Appendix P: Automatic data back-up As you exit the program, you will be asked if you wish to back up all of your data. If you elect to do so, the program will take all data and memo files, place them into one archived file, and compress them. Dialogue from the program: [assuming that today's date was November 9] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enter the disk drive where your back up disk is located: [Please include a colon following the letter, as in 'A:' or 'B:'] | A: | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Retrieving your data later: | | All of your data files will be saved into one archive file and | 'date'stamped' to help you later in determining which of the archives has the most recent data. The data today, for example was stored in this file: B:1109ACS.ARC The first two letters stand for the month, while the last two identify the date during the month on which this backup was made. Let's say that you see '0804ACS.ARC' on your data disk. This means month '8', day '4', or August 4. If you saw '1123ACS.ARC', this file was created on month '11', day '23', or December 23rd. The purpose for this numbering scheme is so that you can have multiple back up files on one disk, space permitting, and yet tell at a glance which is the most recent one. Later on, if you need to restore archived data, enter a command in the form: ARCE B:1109ACS.ARC /R Use the ARCE command on the archive file with the most current date. After finishing this, make sure that delete all files ending in | 'NTX' and 'MEM' BEFORE you execute PROGRAM.EXE or 'GO'. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also, for an understanding of the two-disk rotating backup strategy, see: User Beware !..............................................Appendix A-6 [Tips for database survival] Appendix Q Using the CALLBACK feature in the Activity file Overview: In the early development of this program, some users would go through this process to create a daily follow up list: 1) Create 'Today's Appointments' report from the Appointments Menu. 2) Place 'Today's Appointments' next to the computer. 3) Go to the Activity file, ADD option and add one activity record for the name of every customer on the 'Today's Appointments' printout. After a while, my customers began asking me to streamline this process. From these requests came the CALLBACK feature. This function is ideal for those who do continuous daily telemarketing. Callback Options: ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== Callback by 'Stack' This 'callback' option is a special case of the Add option on the activity menu . It takes all commitments or appointments that you had made for today, 'stacks' them, and and then scrolls through each record as though you had entered them one at a time from the report: 'Today's Appointments'. It shows you the comment from the activity record where you originally created the future commitment that resulted in today's appointment. It then creates a new activity record for each of today's appointments and waits for you to enter in any comment or future commitment. Before using this option, be well conversant with the Activities file, Add option, as well as the report from the Appointments menu: 'Today's Appointments'. [Once you go through this list, the program will 'mark' off each record so that if you select this option a second time today, the program will only present unprocessed commitments to you.] Appendix Q [continued] Let's say that you had committed to 15 callbacks on a given Monday. Instead of having a printed 'Today's Appointments' report in front of you, the program will automatically 'stack up' those 15 callbacks [or any appointment/commitment] behind the CALLBACK option. Once you select this feature, the program go into a loop 15 times until all callbacks are processed. This loop consists of: 1) Identifying the name of the current customer being processed in this 'stack' of 15. 2) Displaying the date when the original commitment for today's callback/commitment was made in a prior activity record . 3) Showing the comments entered in the prior activity record that had created today's callback/appointment. 4) Creating a new activity record for THAT customer as though you had gone into the ADD option for the activity file. Note that all features in the activity Add mode remain intact, such as: dailing the phone number and creating proposal/invoices. Observe that if you are unsuccessful in competing the callback and you identify that you wish to 'ignore this record', the program will keep that callback in its 'stack' until you have successfully processed it today. If you want to go to lunch, you can abort the processing of the 'stack' of 15 at any time. Once you leave this CALLBACK routine, the program remembers how many were in the original 'stack' [15], and how many remain unprocessed. After lunch, if you re-enter the CALLBACK option, the program will remember where in the 'stack' you left off. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 'Point and Shoot' Callback The 'Point and Shoot' option is similar to option 1, but lets you select any one callback or group of callbacks from the daily list. In this option, observe the leftmost field 'USE_IT'. If you change it from '.F.' to 'T', then each of those will be processed for Callbacks. In option 2, if you scroll from left to right, you will observe these fields: USE_IT FNAME LNAME PROSPECT TIME_SYS Change only the 'USE_IT' field. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== "3) Invoke Flash Report [TM]" By pressing Option 3 repeatedly, you have three selections to choose from: "[Flash Report now disabled ]" "[Prompt you for Flash Report]" "[Always display Flash Report]" Selection 1 will disable the appearance of Flash Report [TM] in options 1 and 2 of this Callback Menu. Selection 2 will prompt you for a single character to display Flash Report [TM] but defaults to a 'False' state and will not require you to accept it. Selection 3 will always display the Flash Report [TM] for any one person in the Callback process. Appendix R: Consolidating Multiple Categories in your reports As you become knowledgeable in the use of the Category function, you'll notice that the 'Select, Move, Delete, and Undelete Category' feature [Main Program Menu, option 8] allows you to mix either all categories together or split out any one. Once you have selected a single category, then all functions in the program--reports, labels, new activities--are accessible to only those records with your designated category. In other words, once a category is selected, ALL other records in the program will disappear until you select another category or elected to 'jumble' all categories together. Over time, users have asked for a way to consolidate multiple categories in their reports, though not necessarily all at the same time. For those users wanting SELECTIVE consolidation of categories, this feature is available in 3 areas: 'Reports for Customers and Activities' [Main Program Menu, Selection 3] 'Appointments Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 7] 'Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 9] ============== | Location 1:| ============== 'Reports for Customers and Activities' [Main Program Menu, Selection 3] Once in this reports menu, observe option #5, 5) Category Consolidation Feature: [Consolidation OFF] After you have selected option 7, you will see this screen: =========================================================================| Category Consolidation: | | At this menu, you can base your reports on either a range of categories or a list of non-continuous individual categories . For example, if you had selected a range, then you could combine all records from categories 1 through 50. You can select any size range, from a range of 50 to a range of 50,000 categories. If you had selected to input a non-continuous list of categories, then you could enter up to 200 categories for consolidation, such as to combine categories 10, 11, 15, and 20. Enter your selection now: '1' will allow you to select a range of | categories, '2' will be for a non-continuous list of categories. | | ======================================================================== This menu gives you the choice of selecting your consolidation based on ONE range of categories or on a list of up to 200 non-continuous ones. An example of range would be those records that fall in the range of category '200' to category '400'. With the 'range' option, those categories are consecutive. When you select a 'non-continuous list', they can be in any random order you want, up to 200 of them. After you have selected your option, the program will prompt you for the data it needs to continue the consolidation. Once you return to the menu 'Reports for Customers and Activities' menu, any report option you then select will be consolidated as per your request. ============== | Location 2:| ============== 'Appointments Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 7] Once in the 'Appointments Menu,' you will observe Selection B: B) Select start/stop date for Appointments, with Category Consolidation Once selected, this option will follow the same logic as the Location 1 procedure. ============== | Location 3:| ============== 'Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation Menu' [Main Program Menu, Selection 9] Once in the 'Base Station/Remote Site Consolidation Menu,' you will notice selection 5: 5) Category Consolidation Feature: [Consolidation OFF] The logic here is the same as shown in Locations 1 and 2. Appendix S Statement of Principles from the Database Designer and Software Author: Paul Sax Overview: This author is puzzled but gratified to hear the chorus of praise that has arisen among the users of Mechanic's Scheduler [TM], attesting to its ease of use. If true, that observation is merely the outcome of a program that achieves its objectives. As a user myself of Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] for my registered customers, I remain convinced that this is the most complicated and ambitious program that I have ever used. Its goal is nothing less than to convert most of your manual data-gathering processes into ONE computerized system. Software, when well designed and developed through the interaction of end users, has the potential to do just about anything. Totally self-contained: Everything referenced in this documentation is available as the program stands. No accessory products are marketed with Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. When the documentation describes the invoicing/proposal function, that is in YOUR program. As you reflect on the various items mentioned in the Appendices, every one of them is in YOUR program! Unrivaled performance: Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will manage up to ONE BILLION records, labels, and phone numbers. Within that data you can segregate up to 99,999,999 layers or categories of data. This is useful, for example, as you load in business cards or mailing lists that come from different sources. Using your Hayes[TM] or Hayes [TM] compatible modem, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] can automatically distinguish between 5 classes of outgoing calls: local, local toll, long distance, long distance toll, or international. As you elect to dial the phone number by entering one key, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] identifies the class of outgoing call and then dials it accordingly! Stable, free of software 'bugs', and mature: The author of Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] well knows the detestable practice of barring programmers from interacting with end users in creating software. For this reason, most commercial software enters the market stillborn, filled with marketing promise but anemic and with no product revisions planned. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] has caught fire nationally and internationally because it has evolved and matured with its expanding customer base. Appendix T: Assigning priorities to Customers As you accumulate customer records, you'll see that beyond scheduling future appointments and splitting out data by categories, you may also want to assign individual priorities to some or all of the customer records. This feature gives you the flexibility of assigning a priority code of your choice, from 1 to 9999, to each customer. The default is '0', and you can change this value anytime in the Customer File just by going back into the Edit mode. Your assignment is arbitrary and can be all inclusive or mutually exclusive. That is, different customers can share one priority code or, if you wish, each customer can have his or her own code. You assign this code in the lower right corner of each customer record. Observe this line on the Add or Get screen, Customer File: Referred by : Priority, if any: You enter your code, if any, to the right of 'Priority'. To extract out those records to which you have assigned a priority code, observe option 7 on the Main Program Menu: 7) Appointments and List of Priorities Appendix T: [continued] Once you select this option, you'll see this Appointments menu: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Appointments Menu | *****Make sure your printer is on line before choosing***** | --------------------- | Please Choose One | --------------------- 1) List out all prior Appointments (Occurring prior to today) 2) Produce today's Appointments 3) Print all future Appointments, excluding today's 4) Print all future Appointments, including today's 5) Display a graphics image of any 14 day period of Appointments 6) Select your start/stop date for Appointments, then print out 7) Similar to option 6, but identifies only UNPROCESSED Appointments [Used with CALLBACK option, Activity Menu] 8) List of Priorities, if any [by date] H) Help Screen for Appointments Menu | | R) Return to prior menu | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Option 8 gives you the flexibility of selecting those records from the Customer File to which you have assigned a priority code. Also, you can indicate that date range, if any, for your selection of priorities. This date range refers to that date when each prioritized customer record was first ENTERED into the system. Appendix U Installation Procedures: When you first invoke the program, PROGRAM.EXE, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] presents you with this screen: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Install Program | ------------------- | | Please Choose One | ------------------- 1) Install program for a hard disk 2) Install program for a floppy disk-based system [1 or 2 drives] 3) For Monitor, select B/White or Color Palette [now black & white] 4) Not implemented 5) Install automatic phone dialing through modem [Dialer OFF ] H) Help B) Turn off system 'BELL', reduces beeping [ Bell ON ] C) Turn on billing/stopwatch subsystem [Timer system OFF ] 12 Pack===>D) Make your own software!: 'flavor' and terminology options First time installation: Observe the options above. You must select either options 1 or 2 LAST. To select an option, enter one key, without a Return. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As you review the installation procedures, observe that you must select 1 or 2 LAST, and that once inside the program you can return to this menu anytime by entering the Other Options Menu, Install option. This menu will respond to one keystroke. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Install program for a hard disk Option 1 will install the program for a hard disk. It performs some system maintenance. If the program detects the presence of a 'CONFIG.SYS' file, it will append two commands to it: FILES=20 BUFFERS=15 If not, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will create a CONFIG.SYS file from scratch. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Install program for a floppy disk-based system [1 or 2 drives] Option 2 sets up the program for a floppy disk system. Once you select this option, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will, in turn, ask you if you have 1 or 2 disk drives in your computer. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) For Monitor, select B/White or Color Palette [now black & white] Just prior to this menu, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] attempts to discern if you have a monochrome or a color screen. If yours is color, you can select from any one of 10 color palettes. At any time in the future, you can come back to this option and change the color settings! ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== Not implemented. ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== 5) Install automatic phone dialing through modem [Dialer OFF ] Option 5 is the automatic phone dialing system and is covered in: Automatic Telephone Dialing System:...........................Appendix X Generally speaking, its best to leave this option alone during the first time installation and come back to it after you have gone through the tutorial. ============== | OPTION H: | ============== H) Help The Help option is the on line 'Help' screen. ============== | OPTION B: | ============== B) Turn off system 'BELL', reduces beeping [ Bell ON ] Option B turns the system bell 'on' or 'off'. As you become more conversant with this program through its tutorial, you may elect to turn this bell 'off'. ============== | OPTION C: | ============== C) Turn on billing/stopwatch subsystem [Timer system OFF ] This option branches to a powerful billing/stopwatch subsystem, explained in: Time and Billing Stopwatch subsystem.........................Appendix F [time and bill every activity, with up to 9 labor rates] ============== | OPTION D: | ============== 12 Pack===>D) Make your own software!: 'flavor' and terminology options Option D is the '12 Pack' option. This program is so comprehensive that it can function in any one of over 20 capacities [originally 12, hence '12 Pack' or 12 Software Packages]. You can select how you want this program to present itself from this menu, or you can come back to this '12 Pack' option at any time. Appendix V: Economic Value of the Portfolio of Customers Finally, a feature commonplace in the investment community migrates to this program. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] now has the ability to determine what the current value is of your Portfolio of Customers. These economic measures have long been applied to stocks, bonds, and other investments, but are just now being applied to determine the economic value to you of a group of PEOPLE. They give you an economic assessment of all of those economic events that could occur, adjusted for the passage of time as well as minimum/maximum constraints. Observe option C on the Main Program Menu: ====================================================================== | ACS | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | | 02/26/1988 | | Please Choose one | | 8:24:54 PM | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- Main Program Menu -- Records: -- 1) Customer File [ 10 ] 2) Activities [ 17 ] 3) Reports 4) Revenue/Expense 5) Other Options Lowest Category: 6) Search Through Data [ 1 ] 7) Appointments 8) Select Category Highest Category: 9) Consolidation [ 1 ] A) Your Help/Data screen B) Import or Output data C) Economic Value D) Future Activities E) Fast Runner | F) Auto Merge | X) Exit | ======================================================================= Appendix V: [continued] Once you select option C, you will see this menu: ======================================================================= | Economic Value of the Portfolio of Customers | =================== | ========================================================== | Friday, February 26, 1988 | |--------------------------------------------------------| | 1) Select default criteria for Aging Analysis | | | | 2) Process and Age Economic Values | | 3) Create report, sorted by Customer | | 4) Do report, sorted by current Economic Value. | | | | | | | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | ========================================================== | | ====================================================================== Overview of options at this menu: Option 1 establishes the global default variables for this analysis. Option 2 does the actual Aging Analysis. Options 3 and 4 give you a choice of how you want the records presented in a report: either sorted by company name of customer and showing the current Economic Value; or sorted in ascending order of the current Economic Value. Detail on option 1: In option 1 of the Portfolio of Customer Menu you define these 4 variables: Global Variables: 1) 'Plateau' value for the Aging Analysis, in weeks: 2) 'Floor' % value for the Aging Analysis: 3) 'Decay Slope', linear or logarithmic: 4) 'Half-Life' value for the 'Decay Slope', in weeks: Appendix V: [continued] Global Variable 1: 'Plateau' value: The 'Plateau' value describes the period of time that passes, if any, without any economic loss. If, for example, you are trying to track the economic value of proposals that you submit, your experience might be that for every proposal that you submit 8 weeks may pass before your customer will evaluate what you have submitted. If your experience shows that this 8 week period almost always occurs without any economic decay associated with it, then each proposal has an 8 week 'Plateau' value associated with it. The purpose of the 'Plateau' value is to allow an aging process to occur while reflecting the reality of that market: in many industries, a period of time passes BEFORE any economic decay can be presumed to start. If you attend trade shows, a 4 or 6 week follow up may occur before which the economic utility of those contacts begins to decay. You tailor the 'Plateau' value for your industry and particular set of circumstances. Once defined, it causes the analysis to extend a 'plateau' for that number of weeks BEFORE starting the decay analysis. You can select any number of weeks to reflect your industry, including the default value of '0'. Global Variable 2: 'Floor' value The 'Floor' value is the percentage you input that places a floor at the bottom of the decay slope. If you enter a 'Floor' value, the program will stop the decay when it reaches that level. The purpose of this is to recognize, for example, that regardless of how long a proposal is outstanding, it may always have some residual value to you. If you define the 'Floor' value to be 25% for a customer that has an potential value of $100,000, then the decay analysis will stop when it reaches $25,000. Note that value is ALWAYS entered as a percentage, not a decimal, and that you can have any value from 0 to 99.99. Global Variable 3: 'Decay Slope', linear or logarithmic: The 'Decay Slope' variable gives you the choice of using a linear decay slope or logarithmic. Appendix V: [continued] The Linear slope describes those economic events that will decline the same absolute amount each week. If, for example, you determine that business cards you acquire at a trade show become worthless in 10 weeks, then you could say they loose 10% of their economic value each week. If proposals that you submit become worthless after 20 weeks, then you could say they loose 5% of their value each week. If you work for a bank and are using this program to track bad debt collections activity, then you have a clear idea of how each person in the file becomes increasingly less likely to pay given the passage of time. In addition to the Linear slope, you have another choice: logarithmic. You can think of this method as being a variation of compound interest. Instead of principal and interest being compounded in your bank account, a potential economic event such as closing a sale is being reduced or decayed in the same manner. For you mathematicians, the logarithmic decay process is: "the change in quantity over any time interval ... proportional to the size of the interval and to the average value of the quantity over that interval." The logarithmic decay process is computed using L'Hopital's Rule. A value decays exponetially if its instantaneous rate of change is proportional to its instantaneous value. There are many natural processes, like bacterial growth or radioactive decay, in which quantities increase or decrease at an "exponential rate." Assuming an initial 'Economic Value' of $10,000, no 'Plateau' value, no 'Floor', and a 'Half-Life' of 10 weeks: Weekly Percentage Cumulative Decay: $ decline: Linear Logarithmic Linear Logarithmic ------ ----------- ------ ----------- Week 1 $500 $669 5% 6.7% 2 1000 1294 5 6.24 3 1500 1877 5 5.83 4 2000 2421 5 5.44 5 2500 2928 5 5.08 6 3000 3402 5 4.73 7 3500 3844 5 4.42 8 4000 4256 5 4.13 9 4500 4641 5 3.84 10 5000 5000 5 3.59 11 5500 5334 5 3.35 12 6000 5647 5 3.12 13 6500 5938 5 2.92 14 7000 6210 5 2.72 15 7500 6464 5 2.53 16 8000 6701 5 2.37 17 8500 6922 5 2.21 18 9000 7128 5 2.06 19 9500 7320 5 1.93 20 10000 7500 5 1.79 Appendix V: [continued] Observe that the logarithmic decay is accelerated in the beginning but begins to trail off after a while. At 10 weeks (the 'Half-Life'), they both have the same amount of accumulated decay: $5000. Note also that after 20 weeks, the logarithmic decay is not 100% completed but only 75%. In concept, this decay rate will trail out to infinity. After 30 weeks, for example, the cumulative decay is $8,750. Global Variable 4: 'Half-Life' value for the 'Decay Slope', in weeks: The 'Half Life' is defined as that point at which the economic value of a contact or event has declined to half of its original value. This value is highly subjective and reflects your appraisal of when the economic status of a proposal, bid, or contact has dropped to half of its original potential value. The 'Half Life' is used by the program with Global Variable 3, the 'Decay Slope', in calculating the weekly decay rate. Variables defined for every customer: Local variables Observe at the bottom left of the data screen for your customer record: =========================================================================== Date 04/15/1986 | Name of contact: Addressed as (Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) :Mr. | First Name :John D. Last Name :Cauble, Jr. | Full Company name of Customer : Accounting & Tax Service == Address of Customer == Address1 :11056 Shady Trail Address2 :Suite 101 City :Dallas State TX Zip Code [Zip+4] 75229- 0 Phone Number :(214)357-5454 Comment one :He is the accountant who does some work for Lolir Lectronics Comment two :(also call (214) 357-5461) Referred by : Priority, if any: Date Revenue/Expense last summarized 01/01/1901 Time of update : Summary of Revenue/Expense for this Customer, all activities | Category Selected 1 | Economic Value: 17000 | =========================================================================== Appendix V: [continued] This 'Economic Value' field defaults to '0'. If you enter any other value, you will see the next screen: ======================================================================= == Data entry screen for Economic Value of this Customer == | | Starting Date for this Aging Analysis: 04/14/1986 | Last date Aging Analysis performed: / / Economic Value of the Aging Analysis the last time it was run: 0.00 Exclusion switch: '0' includes this value in Aging Analysis, '1' excludes it: 0 | ======================================================================= Of the 4 fields, you can change the first and last one only. Definitions of local variables: variables available for every customer Starting Date for this Aging Analysis: Last date Aging Analysis performed: Economic value of the Aging Analysis the last time it was run: Exclusion switch: Local variable 1: Starting Date for this Aging Analysis: When you first enter a value for 'Economic Value' on the customer record, the program inserts that date into the 'Starting Date' as a default value. You can place any date you wish into this field. This date becomes the starting point for the decline analysis. If you had defined a 'Plateau' value earlier, then that 'Plateau' would extend outward from this starting date. Appendix V: [continued] Local variable 2: Last date Aging Analysis performed: Everytime you perform an Aging Analysis, that date is placed into this field. Local variable 3: Economic value of the Aging Analysis the last time it was run: This variable shows what the current value was at the time an Aging Analysis was processed. Local variable 3 reflects the 'Plateau', linear or logarithmic decay slope, and 'Floor' value in effect at that time. This variable, as well as the original 'Economic Value', are printed out in either of two reports available to you in option 3 and 4 in the Menu for Economic Value of the Portfolio of Customers Economic value of the Aging Analysis the last time it was run: Local variable 4: Exclusion switch: This variable gives you the option of turning 'on' or 'off' any one customer record for your Aging Analysis. The purpose of this 'Exclusion switch' is to leave the original 'Economic Value' on the customer screen, if you wish, and yet bypass this record during the analysis. If you replaced, say, '50,000' in the 'Economic Value' field with a zero, you could achieve the same effect but you would lose the information that showed the original value. Quick Label [TM]: Appendix W Quick Label [TM] takes the power and flexibility of the Labels Management menu and makes that power accessible to you in 5 different parts of Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] through one keystroke! Referring back to the Labels Management menu, here are your options: ========================================================================| | | Options for Labels Management == Make sure your printer is on line before choosing == --------------------- | Please Choose One | --------------------- 1) Generate one label for last record searched or added [no Customer record recently accessed] 2) Produce labels for all records in Customer File [Select on any Comment,City, State, Zip code in Customer file] 3) Do labels for those records added since this was selected last. [pushing option 4 resets all records to unposted] 4) Reset all records to an unposted state 5) Generate labels for a zip code or range of zip codes 6) Make labels for a letter or range of letters in Company name 7) All labels, sorted first by zip codes, then secondly by city 8) Insert phone number into labels [default =OFF] [now Off] 9) Activate 'Zip+4' feature in zip code [Zip+4 Off] A) Send labels to printer or text file, VIEW.TXT [send to Printer ] B) Select size of Label [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across ] H) Help [ Metric equivalent: 89 X 24mm ]| | ========================================================================| The flexibility of this menu in giving you total control of your data is UNPARALLELED! Option B, for example, gives you a choice of 4 different label sizes with metric equivalence just by entering a 'B' repeatedly. The details of how this menu works are in: Labels Menu: 12 options that give you control over your data..........Appendix L Prior to Quick Label [TM], everytime you wanted to print out one label from the Customer file, you had to come back to this menu and enter selection 1. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] did remember the last record you either added through the 'Add' option or accessed through the 'Get' option of the Customer file. Customer file: 'Get' option With Quick Label [TM], Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] makes selection 1 for you without your having to branch back to this menu. Let's say, for example, that you are accessing a record in the Customer file with the 'Get' option. On the bottom of the screen, you will observe these commands: ENTER N FOR NEXT, P FOR PREVIOUS Return Exit S FOR SEARCH, M FOR MORE COMMANDS F3 Quick Label F4 Memo Options F8 DIAL PHONE F9 HANG UP PHONE By selecting 'F3', Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will print out a single label with the data from this record. Observe that Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] 'remembers' the current status of all options on the Labels Management menu and prints out this single label with those in mind. If you want phone numbers inserted into the single label, you must first make that selection in the Labels Management menu. Once done, however, Quick Label [TM] will print out individual labels with the phone number wherever Quick Label [TM] is accessed. Customer file: 'Add' option When you add a record to the Customer file, you will note these options on the bottom of the screen: ---------------------------------------------------------------------| To create a new memo for this record, enter a '2'. | Enter a '3' to create one quick label, '1' to bypass memo & label | ---------------------------------------------------------------------| Option 3 will activate Quick Label [TM] and print out one label as you have defined the label to appear on the Labels Management menu. Activity file: 'Get' option Whenever you locate a record in the Activity file using the 'Get' option, the following commands will appear on the bottom of the screen: ========================================================================= ENTER N FOR NEXT, P FOR PREVIOUS | S FOR SEARCH, M FOR MORE COMMANDS F3 Quick Label | RETURN Exit F4 Memo F7 Proposal/Inv F8 DIAL PHONE F9 HANG UP PHONE| =========================================================================| Again, as in accessing the Customer file, 'F3' will invoke Quick Label [TM] and will print out one label without your having to leave this screen. Activity file: 'Add' option When you are adding records to the Activity file using the 'Add' option, the following commands will appear on the bottom of the screen: =========================================================================| To ignore this entry, enter a "1"; for Quick Label [TM], enter F3 | Enter F4 for Memo option, F7 for proposal\invoice, any other key to continue| =========================================================================| If you enter 'F3', Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will summon Quick Label [TM] to create one label. Quick Label [TM]: Appendix W [continued] Activity file: 'Add' or 'Get' option Once you are in the Activity file, 'Add' or 'Get' option, observe the Activity Memo options. Once selected you will be able to print out Quick Label [TM] in the Memo Options Menu, option 9: 9) Create Quick Label [TM] For more information on this, see Appendix K-II. Automatic Telephone Dialing System: Appendix X Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] has a built in intelligent Telephone\Speakerphone Dialing System, that dials all of your phone calls for you and tells you if they are local, local toll, long distance, long distance toll, or international and can output up to 20 follow on codes after dialing long distance. The program stores & dials up to one BILLION phone numbers for you, and will dial from: Dallas to New York, Sydney to Melbourne, or London to Leeds! Overview: This dialer is installed from Other Options Menu, Install menu, option 5. [The Install menu is presented to you upon initial installation, but you can return to it at any time.] Once installed, it can differentiate between local and long distance area codes, and can even dial a local toll call for you. It can dial through your PBX, if necessary, and can even connect to a local access number for a long distance dialing service, and then input up to 20 digits. The dialing feature is available to you at these screens: Customer file, G)et option; Activity file, A)dd option; Activity file, G)et option. On the bottom of these three screens you will observe either F8 to dial and F9 to hang up, should you elect to hang up prematurely. Of the 3 entry points into the dialing system, the most typically used is the Activity file, A)dd option. This will install the program for automatic phone dialing through a Hayes or Hayes-compatible modem. Install procedure for automatic phone dialing: In 2 of the following options you can enter characters mixed with numbers. The purpose of this is to tell the modem to pause between dialing. The comma does this. The exact time of the pause you will have to determine through trial and error, but is generally 2 seconds per comma. For example, 9,,, would tell the modem to dial '9', then wait 6 seconds. The only other valid dialing characters are: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 * # Local Toll Numbers: [your area code] The program will recognize local 'TOLL' calls if you enter the word 'TOLL' as the first 4 letters in 'Referred by: ', in the Customer File, Add or Get option. With a toll call, the program will dial: PBX option + Toll Sequence + 7 digit phone number. Long Distance Toll Numbers: [any one area code other than yours] Long distance toll dialing sequence. This must be an area code other than yours. The program creates this Long Distance TOLL number: PBX Prefix + Long Distance Toll Sequence + 7 digit number. Enter word 'LDTL' in 'REFERRED BY' field, Customer file, for LD Toll. Follow on codes: You can enter any code or up to 20 codes that follow your long distance number, if you wish. Some long distance services, for example, use this feature as a way of entering accounting codes for users. This option then requires you enter F8 twice during dialing. Observe the 'Push F8 Again' message. Note on PBX dialing: You can mix and match pulse with tone dialing. Precede your number with 'T' for tone, followed by 'P' to restore pulse. For example, 'T9,P' would sent a '9' tone, followed by a pause [,], then restored to pulse with 'P'. ==Automatic dialing for countries outside of the U.S.A. and Canada:== Establishing a default 'area code/STD': You can do this in one of two places in Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. On the Installation menu is option 5): Install Automatic Phone Dialing through modem. Once selected, this option gives you the ability to define your 'area code/STD'. You can also select this value from the Other Option Menu, option C): Customize this system to your needs Once there, you can select option 2: 2) Default State, City, State, Area Code Once you define your 'area code/STD', Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will then assign that value to all new records in the Customer file, followed by a '/'. Let's say that you assign an 'area code/STD' of '03'. Every time you add a record to the Customer file, you will see this as in the phone number field: Phone: 03/ For all those numbers that fall within this STD, enter the local number after the '03/', without any spaces. For example: Phone: 03/6465255 Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will interpret this to mean that the 'area code/STD' is '03', while the local number is '6465255'. You can have up to 5 characters in the 'area code/STD', with any combination of leading zeros. If your 'area code/STD' has one digit, while an adjacent STD has 5, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will figure out which are local and which phone numbers are long distance and will then dial them accordingly. For the dialing system to work properly, you must identify an 'area code/STD' for ALL numbers, including local ones. Also, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] uses the '/' as a marker to distinguish between the 'area code/STD' and the local number. Make sure that in your entry for phone number, you exclude any spaces. ===== Australia: ===== Lets say that you are in Melbourne, and have customers in Sydney and Brisbane. Their complete numbers are: STD Local Number Melbourne 03 6465255 [your number, let's say] Melbourne 03 6465252 [a branch office] Sydney 02 6532389 [a customer] Brisbane 07 3741311 [another customer] First, you would enter '03' as your default 'area code/STD'. Then, in the Customer file, you would enter these numbers in the phone field: First record 03/6465252 [a branch office] second record 02/6532389 [a customer] third record 07/3741311 [another customer] Once you told Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] to dial the number, the program would figure out which are local, which are long distance, and would dial them accordingly. ===== Great Britain: ===== Within its STD's, Great Britain also uses a series of 'local codes'. 'Local codes' are defined to exist within one 'Dialing directory'. Different STD's, same 'Dialing directory': In some cases, two towns have different STDs but are so close that they can dial each other with a 'local code' instead of using an STD. Observe, for example, these two numbers: STD Local Number Bradford 0274 723101 [your number, let's say] Yeadon, Leeds 0532 501496 [a customer] Let's say, further, that Bradford and Yeadon are 10 miles apart and Bradford can dial Yeadon by using a 'local code' of '92'. In that case you can enter these numbers in either of two manners: 1) Define your default 'area code/STD' as '0274' and then identify the Yeadon customer with its unique STD in this manner: 0532/501496. Once Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] sees '0532/501496', the program will dial the STD of '0532' and then the local number of '501496'. 2) Define your default 'area code/STD' as '0274' as above, but enter the local code instead of the STD for your Yeadon customer. Let's say you entered: 92/501496. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] would then dial the local code of '92', followed by the local number of '501496'. ===== Dialing Numbers Internationally: ===== Let's say that the number you are dialing does not fit into any of the above categories, as would be the case when dialing from country to country. If, for example, you are dialing from the United States to Australia, the U.S. access code is '011', followed by the country code of '61'. Once dialed, the city code is then entered, followed by the local number. One example would be: '011 61 3 5092911' To dial these types of international numbers in the program, enter the number into either COMMENT1 or COMMENT2 of the customer record, in this form: INTL=011,61,3,5092911/ The 'INTL=' code tells the program to use this number for dialing, not whatever appears in the telephone field. Each comma tells the modem to pause for 2 seconds. The slash '/' tells the program where the last digit lies. Without the slash, the 'INTL=' code will not work. Observe that it does not matter where the 'INTL=' code is found in COMMENT1 or COMMENT2, and case is irrelevant. 'INTL=' is that same as 'Intl='. Once entered into the customer record, the entire code for your international number is carried over into each new activity record. Once inside the activity record, the program will sense that this is an international number and dial it accordingly, when requested from the activity file. If you establish a PBX number, then it is dialed before the international number. Output/Translate to 1-2-3 Lotus (C): Appendix Y Converting Data from Lotus 1-2-3 (C) into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]: Converting data from Lotus 1-2-3 (C) into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] spreadsheets is easy! By using the Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] 'Translate' facility, you can move over up to 8191 records from either the Customer or activity file for analysis within Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. Fields contained in the Customer file: [PROSPECT.DBF] Structure for database: C:PROSPECT.dbf Field Field Name Type Width Dec 1 DATE_SYS Date 8 2 SEX Character 19 3 FNAME Character 20 4 LNAME Character 20 5 PROSPECT Character 40 6 ADDRESS1 Character 30 7 ADDRESS2 Character 30 8 CITY Character 30 9 STATE Character 2 10 ZIP Numeric 5 11 ZIP4 Numeric 4 12 PHONE_1 Character 13 13 COMMENT1 Character 60 14 COMMENT2 Character 60 15 REFERBY Character 30 16 SUM_DATE Date 8 17 TIME_SYS Character 8 18 SUMEXP Numeric 12 2 19 LABELS Numeric 1 20 INTEREST Numeric 8 21 CLASS Numeric 2 22 RANDOM1 Numeric 3 23 VALID2 Numeric 10 24 PROSPMEMO Memo 10 25 VAL1 Numeric 12 2 26 VAL2 Numeric 2 27 VAL3 Date 8 28 VAL4 Numeric 12 2 29 VAL5 Date 8 30 VAL6 Numeric 4 31 GREETING Character 20 32 PMISC1 Character 4 33 PMISC2 Character 2 34 PMISC3 Numeric 4 35 PMISC4 Character 2 36 PMISC5 Date 8 ** Total ** 520 DATE_SYS is the date the record was first entered into the program. SEX is the sex identifier, such as 'Mr.', 'Ms.', or 'Doctor'. FNAME and LNAME are first and last names respectively. PROSPECT is the company name for this person. ADDRESS1, ADDRESS2, and CITY are self explanatory. STATE is the two character code used for U.S. postal codes, along with ZIP and ZIP4. If used outside of the U.S.A., these codes default to 'NA', '0', and '0' respectively. PHONE_1 contains the phone number, including 'STD/area code'. COMMENT1 and COMMENT2 contains comments 1 and 2. REFERBY is the 'Referred by' field. SUM_DATE and TIME_SYS and the date and time, respectively, when the revenue/expense module was last summarized. SUMEXP is the amount that was posted to this record, reflecting ALL activities summarized to this customer from his/her corresponding activity records. Ignore LABELS. INTEREST is the 'Category' assigned to this record. Ignore also CLASS, RANDOM1, VALID2, and PROSPMEMO. Fields used in the 'Economic Analysis of the Portfolio of Customers': VAL1 is the starting Economic Value as entered in the Customer record. VAL2 is the 'Exclusion Switch' for the Economic Value. VAL3 is the 'Starting Date of the Aging Analysis'. VAL4 is the 'Economic Value of the Aging Analysis' the last time it was run. VAL5 is the date on which the last Aging Analysis was run. VAL6 is the Priority, if any, you assign to each customer in the Customer file. Fields contained in the Activity file: [ACT1.DBF] Structure for database: C:ACT1.dbf Field Field Name Type Width Dec 1 SEX Character 19 2 FNAME Character 20 3 LNAME Character 20 4 PROSPECT Character 40 5 DATE_SYS Date 8 6 TIME_SYS Character 8 7 ADDRESS1 Character 30 8 ADDRESS2 Character 30 9 CITY Character 30 10 STATE Character 2 11 ZIP Numeric 5 12 PHONE_1 Character 13 13 COMMENT1 Character 201 14 COMMENT2 Character 1 15 DEL_DATE Date 8 16 EXPENSE Numeric 12 2 17 INTEREST Numeric 8 18 CLASS Numeric 2 19 PROSPMEMO Memo 10 20 MACT1 Numeric 4 21 MACT2 Character 4 ** Total ** 476 These fields are similar to those in the Customer file, with a few exceptions. COMMENT1 is the 200 character comment that you can enter into each activity. Ignore COMMENT2. DEL_DATE is the date of the next commitment, if any. INTEREST is the category assigned to this record, as identified in the Customer file. Ignore CLASS. Methodology for converting these files into Lotus 1-2-3 (C): [version Lotus 1-2-3 (C) 2.01 or later] Bring up the main menu for Lotus 1-2-3 (C). On the top will be displayed these options: 1-2-3 PrintGraph Translate Install View Exit Select the 'Translate' option. As Lotus 1-2-3 (C) branches to the 'Translate' menu, you will asked this question: -------------------------------------- What do you want to translate FROM? | | 1-2-3 release 1A 1-2-3 rel 2 or 2.01 dBase II dBase III DIF Jazz SYMPHONY 1.0 | SYMPHONY 1.1 or 1.2 | VISICALC | -------------------------------------- The 'dBase III' option is the correct one. Once you select it, you will then be asked: --------------------------------------- What do you want to translate TO? | | 1-2-3 release 1A 1-2-3 rel 2 or 2.01 SYMPHONY 1.0 | SYMPHONY 1.1 or 1.2 | | --------------------------------------- Select the option that is correct for your software. Let's say that you are using Lotus 1-2-3 (C), release, 2. Select: '1-2-3 rel 2 or 2.01' on the above menu. Lotus 1-2-3 (C) will then begin its translation process. If you want to translate the Customer file, then enter: SOURCE FILE: PROSPECT.DBF DESTINATION: PROSPECT.WK1 If you want to translate the activity file, then you would enter: SOURCE FILE: ACT1.DBF DESTINATION: ACT1.WK1 Once the '.WK1' worksheet is defined, you can bring up the data in Lotus 1-2-3 (C). Notice that once the worksheet is loaded into memory, Lotus 1-2-3 (C) inserts the names of ALL fields across the top of the worksheet, as in: A B C D ------------------------------------------------------- DATE_SYS SEX FNAME LNAME 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lotus 1-2-3 (C) is a registered trademark of Lotus Development Corp. Appendix Z: Create your own fields Entering codes specific to your application and then creating reports or labels based on those codes: ----- Defining your own codes: ----- This feature gives you the ability to enter codes specific to your industry or application and then create reports or generate labels on those specific codes. These codes are then entered into COMMENT1 or COMMENT2 of each customer record in the Customer file. Let's say, for example, that you had identified these criteria in your real estate customers: 1) Size of home wanted 2) Amount customer wants to spend on home 3) Preference, if any, for location, by zip or postal code 4) Number of floors of home desired Let's say further that you had developed these codes: 1) SIZE=1500SF SIZE=2000SF SIZE=2500SF SIZE=3000SF This first criteria shows the size home, in square feet, that the buyer is looking for. 2) AMT=100K AMT=125K AMT=150K AMT=200K Criteria 2 shows the amount, in thousands of dollars, that the buyer is willing to spend. 3) LOC=75081 LOC=75082 LOC=75083 LOC=75084 Criteria 3 shows the location preference, by zip or postal code, that your buyer has. 4) FLOORS=1 < one floor, no basement FLOORS=1A < one floor, one basement FLOORS=2 < 2 floors, no basement FLOORS=2A < 2 floors, one basement This criteria tells you the number of floors preference, if any, that this buyer has. Observe that as you develop codes for all buyers, you do NOT have to use every code for every buyer. If one buyer has no location code preference, then omit this criteria. It does matter, though, that you enter the codes CONSISTENTLY into the Customer file, COMMENT1 or COMMENT2. Otherwise, you will not be able to extract them later. ----- Selecting Reports: ----- Once you select option 3 from the Main Program Menu, you will see this Reports menu: --------------------------------------------------------------------- | Start Date Customer and Activity Reports End Date | | 01/01/1901 Please Choose one 12/12/2999 1) Do ONE report from the Customer file 2) Generate ONE report from the Activity file 3) Set start/stop date of these Reports 4) Select by any Comment,City,State,Zip,Customer [no criteria selected] 5) Category Consolidation Feature: [now OFF] H) Help for reports R) Return to prior menu | Category of Customers [defaults to ALL]: ALL | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Option 4 will allow you to select out any code or combination of codes from the COMMENTS fields. When you select this option, you will first see this menu: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Selection Criteria Menu | ========================================================== | | Tuesday, August 9, 1988 | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) Select by character: | | [comments, first/last name, company, city] | | | | 2) Select by value or range of values: | | [Revenue/Expenses, Category, Zip, Economic Value] | | | | 3) Select All 'tagged' records | | | | H) Help | | | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | | ========================================================== | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option 3 is covered in : Appendix A-7 [Select out records by characters, values, or 'tag'] Option 1 and 2 of this menu are similar in function. For now, select option 1 from this menu and you will see: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Exclusivity of Selection: | | | False = All Inclusive Record included if meeting at least ONE search criteria. True = Mutually Exclusive Record included only if meeting ALL search criteria at the same time. | Enter T or F : [T] | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- In this menu, "Exclusivity of Selection", you must select whether you want only those records to be selected that have all sets of codes in every record or select records regardless of the number of matches made per record, as long as at least one match is made in any one record that is selected. True [or T] means all matches have to be made in any one record for it to be selected. False [or F] means that as long as one match is made in that record, it will be selected. After making your selection at this "Exclusivity of Selection" menu, you can make your specific selections at this menu: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter those values you wish to select out. | Any field left blank will include all records in that field. | | ___________________ [first name] ___________________ [last name] __________________________ [company name] __________________________ [city] ___ [state] ____________ [zip code] _____________________________ [comments, first selection] _____________________________ [comments, second selection] _____________________________ [comments, third selection] | _____________________________ [comments, fourth selection] | | [COMMENT1 and COMMENT2 are searched together] | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- At this screen, you can input up to 4 sets of codes or phrases. You can enter any word, phrase, or code on which to base your selection. If left blank, all records will be printed out. If you make an entry there, the program will search through the comments and select out only those records that have your word or phrase in the comments section. You can also select by any combination of first name, last name, company, city state, or zip code. [Note that you can have up to 4 different codes or phrases entered here and all records will be pulled which have any one of them or any combination of them]. In this real estate example, let's say that the following house became available on the market: 2000 square feet, $125,000 price, located in zip/postal code '75083, and has two floors, without a basement. These codes would then correspond to that information. SIZE=2000SF AMT=125K LOC=75083 FLOORS=2 If you entered those values or codes into the 'comments' entries in the above menu and set "Exclusivity of Selection" to True, the program would then select out those records or customers that contained these criteria. ----- Accessing this logic from the Import or Output Data Menu:----- Observe this option on the Main Program Menu: B) Import or Output Data Once you select that option, you will see this menu: --------------------------------------------------------------------- | Import or Output Data Menu | | Thursday, April 21, 1988 1) Select output criteria for merge file [no criteria selected] 2) Output records to Wordstar/Mailmerge[TM] 3) Output records to WordPerfect[TM] 4) Output records to dBASE III [TM] | 5) Output records to Microsoft [Reg. TM] Word 4.0 | | R) Return to prior menu | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Selection 1 contains the same logic as the reports menu. That is, you can select records for output to your word processor based on codes you entered into the comments fields in the Customer file. ----- Selecting this option from the Labels Management menu: ----- Once in the Labels Management menu, observe option 2: 2) Produce labels for all records in Customer File [Select on any Comment,City, State, Zip code in Customer file] Again, the logic is available here to you to select out labels based on codes that you had predefined earlier and entered into the Customer file. For a complete list of the five locations in the program where you can apply this Selection Criteria logic, see: Appendix A-2 Logic behind Comments/name/city selection ----- Creating your own Help screen for these codes: ----- Instead of writing down the codes for your specific application, a place exists in the program to contain that data. Also, you can display those codes and their definitions at any time throughout the program just by entering one function key! This industry-specific Help screen can have up to 15,000 characters in it. To see how this works, examine Appendix O, 'Create your own industry-specific Help/Data Screen' Appendix Z: Create your own fields [continued] Miscellaneous or Other Codes: [move your codes from Customer to Activity file] Let's say that you have created codes as per the logic just described and have entered them into the Customer file. Let's say further that for purposes of pulling out reports later you want those codes to be present in each activity record as well. Precede your codes in the Customer file with 'MISC=' and then follow those codes with ']'. If, for example, you create this code: SIZE=2000SF This could mean that the customer wants a house with 2,000 square feet. If you want that code to go into every new activity record created, you would enter this: MISC=SIZE=2000SF] The 'MISC=' designation tells the program that this is a 'Miscellaneous or Other Code' that you want placed into each activity record. If you place ']' at the end of your code or codes, then the following will appear in each activity record: MISC=SIZE=2000SF It does not matter where in Comment 1 or 2 this 'MISC=' occurs; nor does the case matter. 'MISC=' is interpreted that same as 'Misc='. Appendix A-1 Act Now! [TM] feature: Act Now! [TM] is a new feature that creates an activity record, if requested, directly from the Customer Add or Get function. The need for this has become clear in feedback from my customers. Prior to version 2.645, all customer records were added into the Customer file through the Customer Add option. Once in the Customer file, you could then add an unlimited number of activities into the Activity file for any one customer. To add the first activity record, though, required that you leave the Customer Add function, exit the Customer File, and then go to the Activity Add screen. Over time, users began mentioning how cumbersome this process was when they were adding many customer records, each with an initial activity. The reason these functions are separate is because of a programming practice used throughout Mechanic's Scheduler [TM], modular programming. These modules or 'blocks' of program code account for the discrete functionality of each menu and screen. In any case, with Act Now! [TM], you can now add an initial activity record for a new customer WITHOUT LEAVING the Customer Add or Get option! Observe below the options that appear on the bottom of the screen when you are adding a customer record: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- '1' to go to next record; '2' to create a new memo for this record, | Enter a '3' to create one quick label, | Enter a '4' to 'ACT NOW!' or Activity Now, 1st activity record | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enter '4', Act Now! [TM] will immediately branch to the first activity record. You would then be presented with the blank activity screen, assuming you had entered 'Bill Johnson' data at the customer record, similar to this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of contact: Addressed as (Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) :Mr. | First Name :Bill Last Name :Johnson | Full Company name of Customer : Bill Johnson | Category Selected 1 Activity date :04/27/1988 Address line one :1211 Elm Street Address line two : City :Dallas State TX Zip code 75433 Phone Number :(214)222-3333 Comments : | Next Appointment 01/01/1901 Time : 00:00:00 | Revenue/Expense from this activity : 0.00 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After you finish entering the activity data, you will then branch back AUTOMATICALLY to the Customer Add function. Appendix A-2 Logic behind Comments/name/city selection This feature will SELECT out data for you using a powerful search criteria. This function should not be confused with options 3 and 4 on the 'Fast Search Through Data' menu, which only DISPLAYS data to you. You can select out records from eight key locations in the program with this powerful selection criteria. The mechanics of how you do this are explained in: Appendix Z: Create your own fields In summary and recapitulating Appendix Z, you go through a two step process when you access this selection logic. First, you respond to this 'Exclusivity of Selection' menu: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Exclusivity of Selection: | | | False = All Inclusive Record included if meeting at least ONE search criteria. True = Mutually Exclusive Record included only if meeting ALL search criteria at the same time. | Enter T or F : [T] | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Once you do that, you are then offered these selection choices: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter those values you wish to select out. | Any field left blank will include all records in that field. | | ___________________ [first name] ___________________ [last name] __________________________ [company name] __________________________ [city] ___ [state] ____________ [zip code] _____________________________ [comments, first selection] _____________________________ [comments, second selection] _____________________________ [comments, third selection] | _____________________________ [comments, fourth selection] | | [COMMENT1 and COMMENT2 are searched together] | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- You can select any one criteria or any number of them in combination with each other. The 'Comments' field is ideal for entering industry specific code in your application, as explained in Appendix Z, Create your own fields. This powerful logical selection feature is offered in eight locations: ----- First location: ----- The Labels Menu, option 2: 2) Produce labels for all records in Customer File [Select on any Comment,City, State, Zip code in Customer file] ----- Second location: ----- Customer and Activity Reports, option 4: 4) Select by any Comment,City,State,Zip,Customer [no criteria selected] ----- Third location: ----- [accessed from the Main Program Menu:] B) Import or Output Data Import or Output Data Menu, selection 1: 1) Select output criteria for merge file [no criteria selected] ----- Fourth location: ----- [accessed from the Main Program Menu:] selection 8 Category Options Menu, option 5: 5) Change category based on COMMENTS,NAME,CITY: [merge multiple categories into 1 with this criteria] ----- Fifth location: ----- Statements Menu, selection 5: 5) Selection criteria for Statements [accessed from option 4, Main Program Menu, Revenue/Expense Report] ----- Sixth location: ----- The Labels Menu, option C: C) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort ----- Seventh location: ----- 3) Summarize and Post [accessed from option 4, Main Program Menu, Revenue/Expense Report] ----- Eight location: ----- 3) Unlimited choices in creating activities [accessed from option D, Main Program Menu, Future Actvities] Regardless of where you access this SELECTION criteria, the logic is that same behind each of these seven menus. With it, you have nearly unlimited versatility in selecting out data for reports, labels, and word processing form letters. Appendix A-3 Foreign resellers and distributors: [appendix not implmented now] Appendix A-4 Registration Procedure: ----- Foreign Registration ----- If you elect to become a registered user of this commercial grade software, then you can pay for this program over the telephone with a credit card by calling U.S.A (214)690-6017. In the next screen, the program will ask for a validation number from you. You will receive this number over the telephone from the ACS Credit Card Registration Hot Line. This number changes every time you go through this process. Make sure that you leave the validation number screen in place until you receive the validation number back from ACS. You must pay for this program with a credit card. If you do not have one, go to a friend or colleague, write a personal check to them, and then use their card for this purchase. ACS is not set up to process checks for purchases made through our ACS Credit Card Registration Hot Line. The ACS Credit Card Registration Hot Line will accept either of these credit cards in payment for this great program: MasterCard, Visa, Diners Club, Carte Blanche, and American Express. 'Request to Purchase': When you call, indicate that this is a 'Request to Purchase' and provide this information: your 'Random Generated Number', as displayed on the next screen the credit card name, the amount in United States dollars, the credit card number, the expiration date, your name, your WORK and HOME phone number. including area code or STD Invoice generating module: Once you input the registration number successfully, this program will prompt you for the information that it needs for an invoice and will them print out a two part invoice. The first sheet will be for your records, while the second one is required for the credit card people and should be sent back to us, signed. Our direct dial business\voice line: 2146906017 Between 8 AM and 10 PM Central Standard United States time, you can always reach the ACS Credit Card Registration Hot Line person through 2146906017. The same international dialing codes apply to this business\voice line as apply to the FAX number below. Our FAX number: 2146904782 Our United States FAX number is (214) 690-4782. The '214' is our area code or STD. To reach us, you must use whatever international dialing codes your telephone system requires, including any U.S.A. outbound codes specific to your country. This number, 2146904782, is treated as a normal phone line and can be reached in the same way that you would dial any phone number in the United States. Appendix A-5: Automatically Create Future Activities Observe option D on the Main Program Menu: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | | 08/09/1988 | | Please Choose one | | 5:38:25 PM | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- Main Program Menu -- Records: -- 1) Customer File [ 10 ] 2) Activities [ 17 ] 3) Reports 4) Revenue/Expense 5) Other Options Lowest Category: 6) Search Through Data [ 1 ] 7) Appointments 8) Select Category Highest Category: 9) Consolidation [ 1 ] A) Your Help/Data screen B) Import or Output data C) Economic Value D) Future Activities E) Fast Runner | F) Auto Merge | X) Exit | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Once you select option D, you will see the next menu: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Automatically Create Future Activities | ========================================================== | | Tuesday, August 9, 1988 | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) Create future activities | | [by day of week or day or month] | | 2) Create future activities by yearly date | | 3) Unlimited choices in creating activities | | | | H) Help | | | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | | ========================================================== | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select either option 1, 2, or 3 from the Menu to Automatically Schedule Future Activities. Automatically Schedule Future Activities: Overview This feature is useful is scheduling multiple activities automatically for customers who require frequent and periodic appointments. At this menu, you have three options: "1) Create future activities" "[by day of week or day of month]" "2) Create future activities by yearly date" "3) Unlimited choices in creating activities" ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Create future activities [by day of week or day of month] This option will allow you to create multiple activities in the future. With this option, you can generate one activity every 3 weeks for 18 months for one customer. Another possibility is to make activities every day for a 3 week period. A third example would be to create activities on alternating Thursdays for one customer for 24 months. You can elect to make those activities on a day of the week, such as every third Thursday, or on a date of the month, such as making activities on the 1st, 5th, and 18th of every month for one customer. This option will automatically create for you activities in the future, based on your input. You can input the following variables: 1) Start Date of your activity period. 2) End date of your activity period. 3) Day of week or date of month on which activity will occur. 4) Cycle of activities (weekly, every 2nd week, every 3rd week). You can also delete a set of prior activities that you had created automatically with this option. ============== | SCREEN 1: | ============== ============ Add/Delete Option ============ At this menu, you can elect to either add records automatically or to delete former activity records that you had created automatically. If you elect to delete former activity records, you can think of this procedure as the reverse as adding them. You will be prompted for most of the same information as you were when you originally created them. The program can sense the different between records that you manually enter into the activity file and those created automatically in this module. If it finds two of these records having been created on the same day, you will be notified at the screen and neither will be deleted. ============== | SCREEN 2: | ============== Now select the day of the week on which you wish the activity to occur. Use the following codes: 1 = Monday 2 = Tuesday 3 = Wednesday 4 = Thursday 5 = Friday 6 = Saturday 7 = Sunday 8 = Everyday (7 days a week) 9 = Day of week not relevant, select future activities by date of month. [You can select up to 10 different dates during any one month, such as scheduling an activity for the 10th, 15th, and 25th.] As the program creates your activity records automatically, it can also enter a 60 character message from you into the comments field. ============== | SCREEN 3: | ============== If you selected option 9 in Screen 2, then this screen would appear. From it, you can select up to 10 days from which to generate activities. As those days occur during the period you have selected earlier, this program will generate an activity record on that date. For example, if you enter '1, '2', and '6', then you will automatically create an activity on the 1st, 2nd, and 6th of every month that falls within your range. ============== | SCREEN 4: | ============== If you had selected option 1 through 7 on Screen 2, then you would branch to Screen 4. At this menu, you select the weekly frequency at which your future activities will be scheduled. If you input a '1', then an activity will be scheduled every week. A '2' means every two weeks; a '3' means an activity will be scheduled every three weeks. You can enter any number. If you enter '13', then the program will schedule your activities every 13 weeks. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Create future activities by yearly date With option 2, you can elect to create an activity on any date in the future, for as many years as you wish. If, for example, you want to create an activity record that occurs every '06/28', then option 2 will do this for you. All leap years, of course, are taken into account in this option. ============== | SCREEN 1: | ============== At this screen, you would enter the number of years into the future that you want this activity scheduled. ============== | SCREEN 2: | ============== At this screen, you would select the calendar date on which you wish the activities to occur. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== "3) Unlimited choices in creating activities" This selection gives you unlimited flexibility in creating activity records into the future using a number of powerful criteria. First, it asks to select the date range, if any, of the existing records you wish to use. By date, this step means the date that the record was entered into either the Customer or Activity file. Then the program asks you: "Do you wish to use the selection criteria menu to create records?" If you answer 'yes' to use the selection criteria menu, then option 3 will ask you which of the two files you wish the 'criteria selected' to be used against: Customer or Activity file. Appendix A-6 User Beware - Caveat Cliente ! Tips for database survival: Steps to maintain your sanity and the high level of performance of this program: 1) Back up your data periodically. Using the Automatic backup option contained in this program, you are guaranteed restoring your data should the operating system or hard drive fail. For more information on this process, see: Appendix P: Automatic Data Back-up upon exiting the program 2) Adopt a strategy for your backup disks. A simple two-disk, rotating procedure will save you grief later if you experience a hard drive crash. Format two disks and label them 'Backup 1' and 'Backup 2'. Place a write-protect tab on 'Backup 2' and put that disk into your software vault. Use the other disk, 'Backup 1', for your routine automatic backups. Periodically, examine that disk with a 'DIR' command to see if it is filling up with your data. You could make a mental note that the backup disk WITHOUT a write- protect tab is the 'Production Backup Disk'. As it becomes full, place a write-protect tab on that disk and put it into the software vault. Take the disk that had the write-protect tab and remove it. Then reformat that disk and begin using it as the 'Production Backup Disk'. You need not keep any elaborate lists of what data is on which disk. As long as you see a disk WITH a write protect-tab, you will know that this one belongs in the software vault. The disk WITHOUT the write- protect tab is the 'Production Backup Disk'. The data, by the way, is squeezed together on each date on which you make a backup. If, for example, you backed up data on September 15, 1986, then you would observe this file on your backup disk: 0915ACS.ARC. The '09' reflects the month of the backup, while the '15' shows you the date. 'ACS' is my company name, while 'ARC' shows that this is an Archive file. The program does not perform an incremental backup. Every 'ARC' file is a self-contained image of ALL the progam's data on that date. Why are multiple backups necessary? Experience has shown that when a hard drive goes down, its' controller is often bad PRIOR to the last backup. If this happens, the most recent backup may be corrupted and you would then be forced to use the backup prior to that one. 3) Anticipate hard drive problems. If a bad sector exists on your hard drive, the operating system has no way of avoiding doing read/write to the corrupted area. Any database program will, by definition, access much data during the execution of its main program. If a bad sector resides on your hard drive, the operating system may periodically and at random write to that area. Corrupted data, indexes, and memory files often come from this one cause. A number of utilities exist that will test every sector on your hard drive for corruption. Once identified, those sectors are 'marked' inactive in the directory and will not be accessed anymore. The best among this group is Peter Norton's [TM, Peter Norton Computing, Inc.] DISKTEST.COM. You will find this utility when you purchase his Norton Utilities - Advanced Edition [TM, Peter Norton Computing, Inc.]. Any active database user should use this utility at least every month, if not every week. Let's say your hard drive is C:. The syntax to check for bad sectors is: DISKTEST C: If the utility asks you for 'Disk test or File test', indicate that you want a 'Disk test' by entering a 'D'. [note that DISKTEST.COM is sometimes identified by its' short name of DT.COM.] For more information on this product, call Peter Norton Computing, Inc., at: End User Sales: (800) 365-1010 (213) 319-2030 FAX (213) 458-2048 4) Do not use any 'front end' program that branches to Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] and then returns back once Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] is finished. This type of program resides in memory. It may conflict with Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] and it will reduce the amount of memory available for Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. An example of a 'front end' program is AUTOMENU [TM]. 5) Maintain a clean File Allocation Table [FAT] in your directory. The operating system is continually opening and closing files. In a large database program, this activity is intensified. If you restart the computer while the operating system has some files open, it 'forgets' to close them. These 'forgotten' file closings can cause a problem when you later continue the cycle of opening and closing files. The command to 'close' these files is: CHKDSK /F Good directory and FAT hygiene dictates that you do this weekly if you use a database program often. Definition of 'System Error': An Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] System Error occurs when, in the course of running the program, you see this error on the top right of the screen: Continue? Procedure for dealing with a 'System Error': First, enter an 'N' to quit. This will return you to the drive where the program is located. Second, delete the 'DEFAULT.MEM' file. This will clear out all memory variables and will force re-installation. Third, delete all files ending 'NTX'. These are indexes and will be rebuilt automatically when the program senses that they are missing. Fourth, make sure that no memory resident or 'front end' programs are loaded into memory. If they are, remove them from the 'AUTOEXEC.BAT' file and re-start the computer. Once these four steps are performed, restart PROGRAM.EXE with 'GO'. 'GO.BAT' resides in \MECHANIC.WIN and, in turn, invokes PROGRAM.EXE. You will be greeted with the Installation menu. Follow its' instructions and restart the computer as per the instructions of the Installation menu. After bringing up PROGRAM.EXE the second time, the program will sense that the indexes are missing and will, accordingly, rebuild all of them. After you arrive at the Main Program Menu, select Option 5, Other Options. Once at this menu, select number 9: Repack and Reindex files. These steps will complete the 'System Error' recovery procedure. If your data is corrupted at this point, then you must restore the most recent backup as per: Appendix P: Automatic Data Back-up upon exiting the program Memory issues: You cannot branch into this program from another program or menuing system. If you are using any kind of front end menu, such as Automenu[TM], the program will be unable, in time, to read its files. Go into \MECHANIC.WIN and execute this utility: CD \MECHANIC.WIN MEMORY <========= you enter this program responds with this =====> Machine is 14 % full. 555 bytes are free. Observe the '% full' number. It should be between 8 and 16%. If higher than that, you have something loaded into memory that is conflicting with the program. Remove it until the '% full' number is reduced to between 8 and 16. To rebuild corrupted indexes: Let's say that you are entering data and your power circuit has a voltage surge, thereby locking up your computer. When you power up again, your indexes may have become corrupted and either you cannot go into the program or the data files become unreadable. If that happens, use this procedure in \MECHANIC.WIN: DEL *.MEM <===== you enter these DEL *.NTX <====== GO <====== 'GO' invokes PROGRAM.EXE At this point, the Installation menu will appear, indicate that you are on a hard drive and follow the instructions. The program will then recreate all the old indexes and attempt to read the old registration files. Alternate methodology to rebuild corrupted indexes: Look in \MECHANIC.WIN and execute this command: DIR *.BAT If you see a file named "CRISIS.BAT", then invoke this file instead of the prior procedure. It accomplishes the same thing. CRISIS <========= you enter this Hard drive issues: It takes 10 to 15 minutes for the hard drive and controller to warm up. If you power the computer on and off every day, eventually you will have read/write problems. Either give the computer at least 15 minutes to warm up before going in the program, or leave the computer running around the clock, but turn off the monitor when you leave at night. If left on day and night, the hard drive and mother board will actually run better and longer. Appendix A-7 Selection Criteria Menu [Select out records by characters, values, or 'tag'] The program gives you the ability to select records based on your selection criteria in eight places. These locations are covered in: Logic behind Comments/name/city selection..................Appendix A-2 [select out records in 8 different places in program] Appendix A-7 will define your selection criteria choices at the Selection Criteria Menu below: | Selection Criteria Menu | =================== ---------------------------------------------------------- | Thursday, January 26, 1989 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Select by character: character used randomly| | [comments, first/last name, company, city] | | | | 2) Select by value or range of values: | | [Revenue/Expense, Category, zip,economic value] | | 3) Select All 'tagged' records | | | | 4) Select by character: leftmost character used | | [first/last name, company, city] | | | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Overview for "Exclusivity of Selection", common to Options 1 and 2 "Exclusivity of Selection:" In the first menu, "Exclusivity of Selection", you must select whether you want only those records to be selected that have all sets of codes in every record or select records regardless of the number of matches made per record, as long as at least one match is made in any one record that is selected. True [or T] means all matches have to be made in any one record for it to be selected. False [or F] means that as long as one match is made in that record, it will be selected. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Select by character: character used randomly [comments, first/last name, company, city] Selection Process: Second Menu: Comment Selection At the screen after "Exclusivity of Selection", you can input up to 4 sets of codes or phrases that you entered previously in the COMMENTS field. You can enter any word, phrase, or code on which to base your selection. If left blank, all records will be printed out. If you make an entry there, the program will search through the comments and select out only those records that have your word or phrase in the comments section. You can also select by any combination of first name, last name, company, city state, or zip code. [Note that you can have up to 4 different codes or phrases entered here and all records will be pulled which have any one of them or any combination of them] If you place one character in the last name, such as 'L', then all records that have the letter 'L' occurring anywhere in the last name will be selected. If you wish only those records to be selected that begin with 'L', then you must use selection 4 below. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Select by value or range of values: [Revenue/Expenses, Category, Zip, Economic Value] The comments from option 1 on "Exclusivity of Selection" apply here also. Where option 1 makes your selection based on character or characters inputted, option 2 will do this based on values or a range of values. With this option, for example, you can select out a range of zip codes or categories. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) Select All 'tagged' records Whenever you are in the Customer file, Get option, you will observe this on the bottom left of your screen: F2 Tag/ Untag By entering this key repeatedly, you can make any individual record 'tagged' or 'not tagged'. By default, ALL records are 'not tagged. When you enter 'F2', you will see 'Tagged Record' appear on the top of the screen of the record you are examining. Also, while in the Activity file, Get option, you can see this description on the bottom left: F5 = Tag If you enter F5 repeatedly, you will observe the 'tagged' status appear on the top line of the record. This ability to individually select out records is independent of any codes you enter into the Comments fields or any other selection criteria. When you wish to 'untag' all records, go to the Other Options Menu and observe option: 4) 'Untag' records ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Select by character: leftmost character used [first/last name, company, city] If you wish to select only those records that BEGIN with the letter or letters you enter, then this selection will retrieve those records that start with the leftmost character or characters you requested. Appendix A-8: An Alternate Strategy for creating Invoices or Proposals from memos in the Activity file Overview: Why would you use this strategy when Appendix B describes how to create Proposal/Invoices? The invoices created through Appendix B are in the nature of quick, single sheet forms. It supports a highly simplified form that is adequate for many people. Once you create that invoice, no record is retained. This alternate strategy, however, allows you to create invoices or proposals of much greater flexibility, of your own design, and of up to 15,000 characters in length. Additionally, a record is maintained in each activity record that allows you to later retrieve it or to search for key words that appear in its text via the Search Through Data Menu. Using the Memos available to you in each activity record, you can create printed Invoices or Proposals for the signatures of your customers. Later, you can recall and review any Invoice or Proposal from the historical activity records. == Procedures == Using your word processor, create a Invoice or Proposal Template that contains the skeleton of your Invoice or Proposal. Included in this Template should be a signature block for your customer, if required in your business. All information specific to that activity should in a 'fill-in-the-blanks' format that you can complete later once you create the activity memo. Once complete, convert this Invoice or Proposal Template to an ASCII file if it is not already in this format. Move the Invoice or Proposal Template into the \MECHANIC.WIN subdirectory. Let's say that you have assigned this name to it: 'INVTMP', for Invoice or Proposal Template. When you create a new Activity record, go to the Memo Options menu. ===Custom Memo for Accounting & Tax Service== Memo Options Menu =============== ========================================================== | Tuesday, September 22, 1987 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one | | 2) Output the memo to a text file | | 3) Input a text file into this memo | | [overwrite existing memo] | | 4) Input an external text file into this memo | | [append to existing memo] | | 5) Set Left and Right Margins: | | 5 75 | | 6) Toggle Edit Screen Code Help [Now On ] | | 7) Print options [Printit v3.5 [TM]] | | 8) Create Quick Memo [TM] | | | | R) Return to Activity record | ========================================================== In the Memo Options Menu, execute option 8: 8) Create Quick Memo [TM]. The complete instructions for this feature are contained in: Appendix K-III: Quick Memo [TM] After Quick Memo [TM] is successfully created, observe option 3: 3) Input a Text file into this memo. After you select this option, enter 'INVTMP' as the text file that you wish to Input into this memo. Once this operation is complete, observe option 1: 1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one Select this option and you will then see your Invoice or Proposal Template spread out before you. Using the PgUp and PgDn keys, navigate around this memo and fill in the blanks of this Invoice or Proposal Template until you are satisfied that it is complete. Once the Invoice or Proposal Template in this memo is finished, exit the memo with CONTROL-W. These keystrokes will save those additions that you have added to the Invoice or Proposal Template in this specific memo. After saving your additions to the memo, observe this option on the Memo Options Menu: 7) Print options Select option 7 to then print out this completed Invoice or Proposal. Appendix A-9: 3rd Class Bulk Mail sorting [all rates current January, 1989] Overview: The U.S. Postal Service gives a special rate to users of 3rd Class Bulk Mail. To qualify for this rate, the U.S. Postal Service requires that you turn over to the Bulk Mail clerk your letters or flats in a special 3rd Class Bulk Mail sort and enclosed in 3rd Class Bulk Mail sacks. The savings can be dramatic. A three ounce letter going first class costs $.65, while the same letter going 3rd Class Bulk Mail costs $.167, a 74 percent savings. Stated another way, what you would spend to mail 1,000 three ounce packages first class will pay for 3,900 of the same packages if you have the 3rd Class Bulk Mail rate. To see their comprehensive overview, contact the USPS and ask for Publication 49: "Third-Class Mail Preparation." ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort, All records Option 1 will perform a five-level Bulk Mail sort against all records in the currently selected category. If no category is selected, then all records across all categories will be sorted. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort [sort only new records added after last sort] This option is similar to options 3 and 4 on the prior menu: Options for Labels Management 3) Do labels for those records added since this was selected last. [pushing option 4 resets all records to unposted] 4) Reset all records to an unposted state If you read the Help screen on the Labels Management menu for options 3 and 4, you will then understand how selection 2 works on this menu. This selection will perform a Bulk Mail sort on only those records added since this option was selected last, subject to Category selection criteria, if any. To restore records to an 'Unposted' state, return to the prior menu and select option 4: 4) Reset all records to an unposted state ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) Selection criteria, if any A discussion of the Selection criteria menu is contained in the Output section below. Also, the options available in the Selection Criteria menu are covered in Appendix A-2. ============== | Output: | ============== This program will provide you: 1) the correct five level sort required by the U.S. Postal Service to qualify for 3rd Class Bulk Mail rates. 2) a Shipping Manifest for the U.S. Postal Service. 3) your labels printed in the correct 3rd Class Bulk Mail bundles. Acquiring a 3rd Class Bulk Mail permit: Contact the Bulk Mail clerk at your nearest post office. Tell him or her that you wish to acquire a "Permit to Use Precancelled Stamps or Envelopes." You will fill out PS Form 3620, pay $60 for one year's use, and receive a permit number. Request the Bulk Mail clerk to provide you with these labels: PS Blue label "F" PS Red label "D" PS Green label "3" PS Orange label "S" PS Tan label "MS" The U.S. Postal Service can then sell you precancelled stamps in rolls of 500 units. Procedures: Every time you leave 3rd Class Bulk Mail sacks with the Bulk Mail clerk, you will be required to fill out PS Form 3602-PC, "Statement of Mailing Bulk Rates." On side B, indicate that you want '3rd Class, Basic.' This rate will cost you $.167 for the first 3.3 ounces. The 'number of qualifying pieces' on PS 3602-PC is derived from the 'Shipping Manifest', created by this program. Mailing requirements and physical considerations: You are required to mail a minimum of 200 pieces per mailing. For letters, the maximum size is 11 1/2 " by 6 1/8" by 1/4". Each bundle of letters or flats must be wrapped with rubber bands, with no single bundle exceeding four inches. Logic of 5 Level Sort: -- Level 1 -- 10 or more pieces to the same firm. Affix PS Blue label "F". -- Level 2 -- 10 or more pieces to the same five digit zip code. Affix PS Red label "D". -- Level 3 -- 10 or more pieces to the same three digit zip code. Affix PS Green label "3". -- Level 4 -- 10 or more pieces to the same state. Affix PS Orange label "S". -- Level 5 -- All remaining pieces constitute the Mixed State Package. Affix PS Tan label "MS". Each bundle of 10 or greater is removed from the stack. When all bundles have been removed after performing the sort across one level, then the logic of the next higher level is applied against the remaining pieces in the stack. Note that if a single bundle is greater than 4 inches, the U.S. Postal Service requires that you split that bundle into the necessary number of bundles to satisfy the 4" rule, then affix the appropriate label to the front of each bundle. Observe option "C" on the Labels Options menu below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Options for Labels Management | -- Make sure your printer is on line before choosing -- --------------------- | Please Choose One | --------------------- 1) Generate one label for last record searched or added [no Customer record recently accessed] 2) Produce labels for all records in Customer File [Select on any Comment,City, State, Zip code in Customer file] 3) Do labels for those records added since this was selected last. [pushing option 4 resets all records to unposted] 4) Reset all records to an unposted state 5) Generate labels for a zip code or range of zip codes 6) Make labels for a letter or range of letters in Company name 7) All labels, sorted zip codes 8) Insert phone number into labels [default =OFF] [now Off] 9) Activate 'Zip+4' feature in zip code [Zip+4 On ] A) Send labels to printer or text file, VIEW.TXT [send to Printer] B) Select size of Label [Standard, 3 1/2" by 15/16", 1 across] C) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort H) Help | R) Return to prior menu | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Once you have selected option C, you will then see this 3rd Class Bulk Mail menu: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort Menu | =================== ---------------------------------------------------------- | Thursday, January 26, 1989 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort, All records | | | | 2) 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort | | [sort only new records added after last sort] | | | | 3) Selection criteria, if any | | [no criteria selected] | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | ========================================================== | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | If you wish to apply any selection criteria to this 3rd Class Bulk Mail sort, then you would select option 3: Selection criteria. The options available in the Selection Criteria menu are covered in Appendix A-2. Additionally, the Selection Criteria menu has its own Help file, as below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Selection Criteria Menu | =================== ---------------------------------------------------------- | Thursday, January 26, 1989 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Select by character: character used randomly| | [comments, first/last name, company, city] | | | | 2) Select by value or range of values: | | [Revenue/Expense, Category, zip,economic value] | | 3) Select All 'tagged' records | | | | 4) Select by character: leftmost character used | | [first/last name, company, city] | | | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | In any case, once you select option 1, 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort, from the 3rd-Class Bulk Mail Sort Menu, the program will then print out your labels in the correct 3rd Class Bulk Mail sort. To determine where one bundle starts and another ends, observe this first label from a recent 3rd Class Bulk Mailing: ------------------------------------------ Mr. Wendell Adams [Orange lbl S: 10] | Adams Software | 801 Henryetta | Suite 2 | Springdale, AR 72764 | ------------------------------------------ The text to the right of the name in brackets tells you that this bundle contains 10 pieces and to use Orange Label "S". This label is the first of those ten pieces, while the remaining nine in this bundle immediately follow this one. Below are codes as they appear in brackets, and their meaning: Codes: Meaning: PS Blue label "F" [Red lbl D: ] PS Red label "D" [Green lbl 3: ] PS Green label "3" [Orange lbl S: ] PS Orange label "S" [Tan MS lbl: ] PS Tan label "MS" The number to immediate right of the colon inside the bracket tells you the number of pieces in this bundle, counting this one. Observe that PS Blue label "F" is not implemented in this program. This has no empirical bearing on the U.S. Postal Service requirements since the program must have one unique name for every company. In any case, in those few instances of your having at least 10 multiple records for the same company, the program has no way of knowing if they all belong to the same physical address--a U.S. Postal Service requirement for label "F". Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] also creates 'MANIFEST.3RD', a text file that is a Shipping Manifest. You can print this out after you leave the program and present it to the Bulk Mail clerk. The same analysis appears on the screen at the completion of the printing of the labels and is reproduced below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Shipping Manifest: | [Analysis of Third Class Bulk Mail] | Total Pieces, Level 2: 72 Number of Bundles: 6 Total Pieces, Level 3: 76 Number of Bundles: 5 Total Pieces, Level 4: 53 Number of Bundles: 5 Total Pieces, Level 5: 30 Number of Bundles: 1 Total Pieces, all Levels: 231 | [This Shipping Manifest is duplicated in text file 'MANIFEST.3RD'] | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Appendix A-10: The Flash Report [TM] The Flash Report [TM] is a powerful new feature that displays to you all associated activities for any one customer or client while at the Customer Get screen. Prior to version 3.0, while talking to a customer or client, you might locate that person's record in the Customer file, Get option. You might then exit the Customer Menu, go to the activity file and then look up all corresponding activities. Now, you can acquire all of this information without ever leaving the Customer file, Get option. While looking at the person's record, you will observe 'F7 The Flash Report [TM]' on the bottom of this screen: =========================================================================== Date 04/15/1986 | Name of contact: Addressed as (Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) :Mr. | First Name :John D. Last Name :Cauble, Jr. | Full Company name of Customer : Accounting & Tax Service -- Address of Customer -- Salutation: John D. Address1 :11056 Shady Trail Address2 :Suite 101 City :Dallas State TX Zip Code [Zip+4] 75229- 0 Phone Number :(214)357-5454 Comment one :He is the accountant who does some work for Lolir Lectronics Comment two :(also call (214) 357-5461) Referred by: Priority, if any: 0 Date Revenue/Expense last summarized:01/01/1901 Summary of Revenue/Expense for this Customer, all activities 0.00 Category Selected 1 Economic Value: 15000 F2 Tag/ Enter N for Next, P for Previous F6 Act Now[TM] Return Exit Untag S for Search, M for more commands F7 Flash Report [TM] F3 Quick Label[TM] F4 Memo Options F8 Dial Phone F9 Hang up Phone | ========================================================================== | If you enter 'F7' all activities associated with this record in the Activity file will be presented to you in a report in about 2 seconds! This report is called 'The Flash Report [TM]' and allows you to see all activities as well as browse through them before returning to the screen above. This feature is also available on the Callback Menu. See Appendix Q: Using the CALLBACK feature in the Activity file..............Appendix Q ['Stack' and 'Point and Shoot' processing options] Appendix A-11: Quick Stats [TM] This remarkable new option will give you a quick statistical overview of your records. Once selected at the 'Fast Search through Data' menu, this option will display the occurrence of each unique type of record for these criteria: 1 = First Name 2 = Last Name 3 = Category 4 = Phone Number, by area code 5 = Zip Code 6 = State 7 = City 8 = Street Name [taken from address line 1, assumes first space that follows number is the start of the street name] 9 = Find and Count codes or characters in Customer File 10 = Find and Count codes or characters in Activity File 11 = Priority 12 = Tagged Records In the test data, for example, if you selected Quick Stats [TM] for first name, you would then see: --------------------------------------------------------------------- First Name Alan is contained in 1 record. | First Name Alyce is contained in 1 record. | First Name Ben is contained in 1 record. | First Name David is contained in 1 record. First Name Doug is contained in 1 record. First Name Hugh is contained in 1 record. First Name John D. is contained in 1 record. First Name Rex is contained in 1 record. | First Name Steve is contained in 1 record. | First Name Tom is contained in 1 record. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you select Quick Stats [TM] for last name, you would see: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Last Name Beard is contained in 1 record. | Last Name Cauble, Jr. is contained in 1 record. | Last Name Clary is contained in 1 record. | Last Name Evilsizor is contained in 1 record. Last Name Fisher is contained in 1 record. Last Name Lin is contained in 1 record. Last Name Lolir is contained in 1 record. Last Name Quach is contained in 1 record. | Last Name Scotkin is contained in 1 record. | Last Name Takiff is contained in 1 record. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A-12: 'Background' Options Overview The 'Background' Options are available to you anywhere in the program by entering 'F1'. Regardless of where you are, the 'Background' Options are always 'in the background', awaiting your next request. Once you enter 'F1', you will see the 'Background' Options Menu: ========================================================================== 'Background' Options: | ------------------- | ========================================================== | | Friday, September 22, 1989 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) Industry-specific Help Screen [ now Off] | | 2) Fast Runner [TM] options [ now Off] | | 3) Calendar Options Menu | | 4) Reset modem registers | | 5) Calculator | | 6) Exit to DOS | | 7) view most recent VIEW.TXT | | 8) 'LIST' features | | 9) Labels Management Menu | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | | ========================================================== | =========================================================================== ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Industry-specific Help Screen [ now Off] The Industry-specific Help Screen is covered in: Create your own industry-specific Help/Data Screen...........Appendix O In order for option 1 to be accessible, you must observe if it is turned on. This is evidenced by [ now On] appearing on the far right of its line. If you see that it is [ now Off], go to the Main Program Menu and look at option A: A) Create an on-line Help/Data screen [ now Off] After you select option A, you will observe: 8) Activate Help\Data option [Now Off] Make sure that you have selected number 8 to be [Now On]. Appendix A-12: 'Background' Options [continued] ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Fast Runner [TM] options [ now Off] The Fast Runner [TM] options are covered in: Fast Runner [TM] Options...................................Appendix A-13 If you observe that Option 2 is [ now Off], go to the Main Program Menu, and select Option E: E) Fast Runner [TM] Options [ now Off] At the Fast Runner [TM] Options Menu, you will see Option 4: 4) Turn Fast Runner [TM] on or off: [ now Off] Toggle this option until [ now Off] becomes [ now On]. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== Calendar Options Menu: Contains two types of calendars: day of the week for any 4 week period or perpetual calendar, with holidays. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Reset modem registers If you are branching back from an external communcations program after having invoked Fast Runner [TM] and you observe that your dialer functions no longer work, then this option will reset the modem registers to the condition they were before. Appendix A-12: 'Background' Options [continued] ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== 5) Calculator This on-line calculator looks like a modern day ten key, with memory. ============== | OPTION 6: | ============== 6) Exit to DOS This selection will drop you into the operating system. Be sure to enter 'EXIT' to return to that point where you first invoked 'Background Options.' ============== | OPTION 7: | ============== 7) View most recent VIEW.TXT This option allows you to look at the last report you sent to a disk file, 'VIEW.TXT'. When you are at the various report menus, you have the option, just as you are about to print out the report, of sending that report to a disk file instead. Option 8, Other Options Menu, and selection 7 on this menu, the Background Options Menu, are the two places where you look at the most recent report that you sent to the disk. Appendix A-12: 'Background' Options [continued] ============== | OPTION 8: | ============== 8) 'LIST' features LIST A File Viewing and Browsing Utility Version 7.5 September 1990 Licensed Material. Unauthorized distribution is prohibited. (c) Copyright Vernon D. Buerg 1983-90. All rights reserved This utility is used throughout this program to browse or view various reports and Help screens. The commands presented here are for your information should you wish to go beyond the passive view or browse function it performs. ============== | OPTION 9: | ============== "9) Labels Management Menu" With this selection, you can branch to the Labels Management Menu to make any desired changes in the way your labels are set up, then come right back to that portion of the program where you were printing labels. Appendix A-13: Fast Runner [TM] Options Overview: This option gives you the functionality of a multi-tasking environment without incurring any extra expense or having any headaches or hassle. Many multi-tasking or windowing-like operating systems will not let you run most standard DOS programs. Among those programs that will run, you can experience significant loss of performance. With Fast Runner [TM], you can build a menu with up to 20 of your own stand alone programs, such as a spreadsheet, word processor, or a communications program. At any time thereafter, you can invoke Fast Runner [TM] by entering 'F1'. Once invoked, your Fast Runner [TM] menu will present you with 20 options. Selecting any one of them will cause Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] to open a 450KB 'window', run your program, and then return to the point where you originally invoked Fast Runner [TM]. As your program is run through the Fast Runner [TM] menu, you will observe no degradation in its performance. At the Main Program Menu, observe option E) Fast Runner [TM] Options: =========================================================================== --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | | 09/21/1989 | | Please Choose one | | 09:04:59 am | | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | Main Program Menu -- Records: -- 1) Customer File [ 10 ] 2) Activities [ 17 ] 3) Reports 4) Revenue/Expense 5) Other Options Lowest Category: 6) Search Through Data [ 1 ] 7) Appointments 8) Select Category Highest Category: 9) Consolidation [ 1 ] A) Your Help/Data screen B) Import or Output data C) Economic Value D) Future Activities E) Fast Runner | F) Auto Merge | X) Exit | =========================================================================== Once option E is selected, you will observe the Fast Runner [TM] Options Menu: =========================================================================== Fast Runner [TM] Options: | ------------------- | ========================================================== | | Thursday, September 21, 1989 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) Look at existing Fast Runner [TM] selections | | | | 2) Add to or Modify your selections | | | | 3) Delete any single Fast Runner [TM] option | | | | 4) Turn Fast Runner [TM] on or off: [ now Off] | | | | H) Help | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | | ========================================================== | =========================================================================== ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Look at existing Fast Runner [TM] selections Once option 1 is selected, you will observe these fields: OPTION MENU_TITLE OFF_ON DRIVE DIRECTORY EXE_COM OPTION = Selection #, MENU_TITLE = Fast Runner [TM] menu title, OFF_ON = whether option is turned off or on, DRIVE = disk drive for program, DIRECTORY = directory of program, EXE_COM = name of '.EXE' or '.COM' file The partial display below will show these fields for all 20 of your selections. You are not required to avail yourself of every option, only those that you want to use. =========================================================================== Use arrows to browse. When finished, enter either 'ENTER' or 'ESCAPE': | | OPTION MENU_TITLE OFF_ON DRIVE | ========================================================================= 1 | Communications | T | E: 2 | Word processing | T | D: 3 | Spreadsheet | T | C: 4 | | F | 5 | | F | 6 | | F | 7 | | F | 8 | | F | 9 | | F | 10 | | F | 11 | | F | | 12 | | F | | 13 | | F | | =========================================================================== ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Add to or Modify your selections Once option 2 is selected, Fast Runner [TM] goes through these six steps: A) Do you want to add to or modify an existing option in Fast Runner [TM] [enter 'T' for true; 'F' for false, or when finished adding/modifying] B) Enter selection you wish to modify: C) Enter disk drive where your application resides: [for drive 'D', enter 'D:' D) Enter subdirectory where your application resides: [for subdirectory 'WORD', enter '\WORD'; include all backslashes] E) Enter the name of the executable file located in that subdirectory. [for WORD.EXE, enter 'WORD'; drop any 'EXE' or 'COM' ending F) Enter the title you want assigned internally to this selection: ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) Delete any single Fast Runner [TM] option This option will prompt you for the Fast Runner [TM] selection or option that you want deleted from your list of 20. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Turn Fast Runner [TM] on or off: [ now Off] By repeating '4' on your keyboard, Option 4 will toggled either [ now Off] or [ now On]. Appendix A-14: Open or Pending Activities Overview: This set of options gives you the ability to set aside activities into a 'bucket' that you designate as still open or pending. Some activities may not have a future commitment date but are unresolved pending some other follow up. You can think of these 'Open' activities as existing in an 'Open' or 'Pending' folder. One example would be a check that is enroute to you. Another example is a proposal that a person is sending to you. Think of the times when someone commits to some act or deliverable but where there is no follow up date on your part. By creating these activities and then designating them as 'Open' or 'Pending', you can isolate just those records. As each check or proposal, for example, is received, you would mark it off as 'Closed', thereby removing it from the 'Open' or 'Pending' folder. All records, therefore, that are still in the 'Open' or 'Pending' folder require follow up to resolve. Observe selection 'O' below on the Activity File menu: ======================================================================= Activity File | ------------------- | ========================================================== | | | ---------------------------------------------------------- | C to process CALLBACKS | | A to ADD data [also, Proposals/Invoices] | | G to GET/EDIT [also, Proposals/Invoices] | | [ and Quick Label [TM] ] | | S for Daily Snapshot of Appointments | | 1 for four week/2,899 year universal calendar| | [01/01/0100 to 12/12/2999] | | O for Open or Pending Activities | | H for Help on Activity File | | | | R to RETURN to prior menu | | ========================================================== | Please enter your choice : | ======================================================================= By default, all activity records are 'Closed'. You can elect to make any single activity record 'Open' by entering the 'F10' key on either the Activity Add or Activity Get screen. Once the 'F10' key is pressed, you will see an 'Open or Pending Activity' message on the top of the activity record. In any case, once you select Option O, you will then see this menu for 'Open' or 'Pending' Activities: ======================================================================= 'Open' or 'Pending' Activities: | ------------------- | ========================================================== | | Thursday, October 12, 1989 | |--------------------------------------------------------| | | | 1) Examine or modify Pending Activities | | 2) Create report for Open Activities | | 3) Restore ALL activity records to Closed | | 4) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] | | | | | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior menu | | | | | | | ========================================================== | ======================================================================= ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== 1) Examine or modify Pending Activities This selection will allow you to browse through all of your Open or Pending Activities. Optionally, you can elect to remove any one of them from the Open list. To remove an activity from the Open or Pending file, change OFF_ON to 'T'. DEL_DATE is the future commit date, if any. To process your changes, enter <ESC>. DATE_SYS is date of first entry. If you modify COMMENT1 and close the record, the Activity file is updated. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== 2) Create report for Open Activities This report will show you those Open or Pending Activities that are left after you have gone through selection 1. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== 3) Restore ALL activity records to Closed This option will restore ALL activity records, current selected category, to a 'Closed' condition. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] This option is functionally similar to the Main Program Menu, Option 3, Customer and Activity Reports, selection 6: 6) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] Appendix A-15: General reports available to you [Selection 3, Main Program Menu] On the Main Program Menu, you will observe selection 3: 3) Reports for Customers and Activities Once you select this option, you will then see the following reports menu: ========================================================================== | Start Date Customer and Activity Reports End Date | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- | | 01/01/1901 | | Please Choose one | | 12/12/2999 | --------------- --------------------- ---------------- 1) Do ONE report from the Customer file [16 selections] 2) Generate ONE report from the Activity file [9 selections] 3) Set start/stop date of these Reports 4) Select by any Comment,City,State,Zip,Customer [no criteria selected] 5) Category Consolidation Feature: [Consolidation OFF] 6) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] 7) Create 'cascading' Report [multi-level,dynamic sort] [Customer File] H) Help for reports R) Return to prior menu | | Category Selected [defaults to ALL]: ALL | ==========================================================================| Overview: All Reports fit into a standard briefcase! All of the reports are printed out on standard 8 1/2" by 11" computer paper, so that you can carry this information with you when you are on the road. This frees you from having to be tied to your computer into order to retrieve customer data. For example, while you are in a hotel room at 10PM, you can refer to your reports to answer questions such as: "Who are my customers in Denver, the names of the contacts at each company, their phone numbers, and what comments have I recorded about them in the electronic Rolodex [TM] as well as on any subsequent customering phone calls I made to them?" At the bottom of your screen, you will observe this phrase: "Category Selected." With this option, you can "layer-in" up to 99,999,999 different layers or groupings of customers. Once you identify a new group of customers, such as a newly-purchased mailing list, you can separate them by assigning a unique CATEGORY number to the group while you are entering their information into the Person file. This "layering" effect will then apply to the data whenever you wish to print labels or reports. The data will appear to be grouped into the categories that you designated. For more information on how this works, go to the Main Program Menu and enter option 8, 'Select Category'. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== Option 1 produces one report from the Customer file. You have these selections available: 1 = report based on company name, no Form Feed 2 = report by last name 3 = report by first name 4 = report by city 5 = report by category, then company name 6 = report by phone 7 = report by state 8 = report by zip code 9 = report by 'referred by' 10 = report by address, line 1 [see Help file at Reports Menu for logic] 11 = report by company name, with Form Feed 12 = Day-timer [TM] Sr, by last name 13 = Day-timer [TM] Jr, by last name 14 = Day-timer [TM] Sr, by Company name 15 = Day-timer [TM] Jr, by Company name 16 = report by Priority, if any Selections 1 and 11 are similar. Selection 1 will run all records together on a page, while number 11 issues a form feed to the printer everytime a new company name appears. === Options 12 through 15 === For those Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] customers who are currently using Loose-Leaf Day- Timers [TM], this program will print on continuous forms that Day-Timers [TM], Inc. sells. Once removed from their perforations, these continuous forms become loose sheets that you can insert into either their Junior or Senior Desk Loose-Leaf binders. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will create an alphabetized 'Address and Phone Directory,' with page breaks between each new letter of the alphabet. If you wish to print an 'Address and Phone Directory' for just one letter in the alphabet, then go to the Selection Criteria Menu, and observe selection 4: 4) Select by character: leftmost character used [first/last name, company, city] If you wish to select only those records that BEGIN with the letter or letters your enter, then this selection will retrieve those records that start with the leftmost character or characters you requested. === Note on logic of address line one: === The program will attempt to sort first by street, then by number. Specifically, this report looks for the first blank space and then assumes that the characters to the left are the street numbers while the characters to the right are the street name. Let's say, for example, that you had entered these lines for address line one in three records: '1103 Elm Street' '152 Elm Street' '5 Elm Street' The report would see the first space in '1103 Elm Street' and would split out '1103' as the street number and 'Elm Street' as the street name. All records would then be sorted first by street name, then by street number. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== Option 2 generates one report from the Activity file. You have seven selections to choose from: 1 = Activity report sorted by Company Name, no Form Feed 2 = Activity report sorted by date activity created 3 = Activity report sorted by city, then date created 4 = Activity report sorted by state, then date created 5 = Activity report sorted by zip, then date created 6 = Activity report sorted by Area Code, then date created 7 = Activity report sorted by Company Name, with Form Feed 8 = Activity report sorted by Company Name, no Form Feed [with address] 9 = Activity report sorted by callback date, if any. Selections 1 and 7 are similar. Selection 1 will run all records together on a page, while number 7 issues a form feed to the printer every time a new company grouping of activity records appear. Selections 1 and 8 are the same report, except that report one excludes the addresses while report eight includes them. Report number 9 displays those activity records that have a callback date and only those, with the most recently scheduled callback first. Activity records without a callback date are excluded from this selection. In report 9, the date range you select in Option 3, if any, refers to those dates when these records where first entered. At this selection, you can select also by the date range of the callback itself. Selections 1 and 7 are similar. Selection 1 will run all records together on a page, while number 7 issues a form feed to the printer everytime a new company grouping of activity records appear. ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== Option 3 is to change the start or stop date of the summary. It defaults to these dates: START DATE :'01/01/1901' STOP DATE :'12/12/2999' This means that any summaries that you generate will be for a 999 year period. Let's say that you would like to examine activities for a two week period, during which you were on the road visiting a customer. In that case, go to option 3 and enter the date on which the two week period began as the START date, and the date on which the two week period ended as the END date. Now your reports will reflect just that two week period. [Note: The date selection feature refers to when the records was originally entered into the system.] ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Select out any comment, city, state, zip or customer for report[s]. This will allow you to select any word or phrase as a basis for creating reports. Whatever comment you select, this criteria will be applied to options 1 or 2 in this menu. ============== | OPTION 5: | ============== Category Consolidation: At this option, you can base your reports on either a range of categories or a list of non-continuous individual categories . For example, if you had selected a range, then you could combine all records from categories 1 through 50. You can select any size range, from a range of 50 to a range of 50,000 categories. If you had selected to input a non-continuous list of categories, then you could enter up to 200 categories for consolidation, such as to combine categories 10, 11, 15, and 20. ============== | OPTION 6: | ============== This option will insert the memo field into the reports generated by options 1 and 2. Once selected, you can specify the number of characters brought into the report from each memo. ============== | OPTION 7: | ============== "7) Create 'cascading' Report [multi-level,dynamic sort]" [Customer File] With this selection, you can define the number of sorts in a report and enter those selected in any order you wish. Here is the order of sorts and the codes as displayed within option 7: ========================================================================= | In selecting the order of sorts, observe the following codes: | | 0 = sort list completed [entered last] 6 = sort by phone 1 = sort based on company name [no Form Feed] 7 = sort by state 2 = sort by last name 8 = sort by zip code 3 = sort by first name 9 = sort by 'referred by' 4 = sort by city 10 = sort by address, line 1 5 = sort by category 11 = sort by priority | 12 = sort by company name | [with Form Feed] | ========================================================================= Let's say that you want list all records by state. Within each state, you wish to see the zip codes in ascending order. To create this you would select these two codes: '7' then '8'. The program then creates a 'cascading' index and gives you the option to either print or to send to 'VIEW.TXT'. Another example would be if you want to see all priorities. Within each priority, let's say, would be ordered all zip codes. Within each zip code, in turn, would be records sorted by first name. Here are the codes to enter, and in this order: '11', then '8', followed by '3' Upon completing this selection, you can also invoke the Counter option, whereby you identify and count how many items are within any one sort. Appendix A-16: Potential problems with DOS 'Environment' space: Overview: excerpted from Jan Fagerholm, Compuserve [TM] 75755,376 "Every time you boot DOS, one of the things it does is to reserve some memory space for itself and for the programs it (you) are going to run. a large part of this space it reserves is named "environment", and as the name implies, its purpose is to allow DOS to tell the program something about items in the computer that the program has available to work with (i.e. keyboard, screen, printer, modem, etc.) as well as what changes that the user (that's you) has specified. (i.e. send printer output to the serial port instead of the parallel port, etc.)" "Specifically, anything that you have set with the SET command, the PATH command, PROMPT, COMSPEC, and SHELL (and some other goodies) as well as some information that DOS needs by default as well as some information that it thinks any program may need to know are all kept in the environment. Every time you load and run a program, DOS ties this environment to it so the program will know what devices it can talk to as well as where they are (and also what changes we have made to where we want things to go)." "...when DOS loads a program, it really doesn't care what kind of program it is - *.COM, *.EXE, *.SYS, *.DEV, - DOS always attaches a copy of the environment to the program, so that the program knows where to find things all by itself. The main reason that it does this is that it cannot anticipate what we will do with the program - move it elsewhere in memory (relocatable, an *.EXE file) load it in memory without running it (TSR), run it from another program (SHELL command), run another program within it (also SHELL command) or just load and run it. In all cases, though, the program in question MAY need to know the environment, and DOS is built to take care of this by attaching a copy of the environment to each and every program that is brought into memory. Normally, that environment is released when a (normal) program is ended, to release the memory space, but a TSR stays resident WITH THE ENVIRONMENT THAT WAS LOADED WITH IT." Specific 'Environment' problem with Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]: Jan's discussion then continues with the treatment of memory resident programs, and minimizing the amount of 'Environment' space occupied with each one. Since memory resident programs will not run with this program, given its current memory requirements, this specific issue is irrelevant. Appendix A-16: [continued] If your operating system is displaying a message that you are out of 'environment' space or you suspect you are experiencing this problem, here is how you would check. First, observe that starting with version 3.0 of Mechanic's Scheduler [TM], GO.BAT now drives the program and passes on this command to the operating system: SET CLIPPER= v018;r038;e000; The execution of this command is critical to the proper functioning of the program. As you exit the program, enter 'SET' from the DOS prompt: C:\MECHANIC.WIN\SET <====== you enter 'SET' Upon entering this command you should see the following message displayed to you: CLIPPER= v018;r038;e000; If portions of the message are omitted or the command is not visible, 'GO.BAT' has failed to pass on this critical 'environment' variable to the operating system. Correction of the problem: Bring up your word processor and edit GO.BAT in \MECHANIC.WIN. Add these two lines to its beginning: SET PROMPT= SET PATH= This will have the effect of removing the 'PATH' and 'PROMPT' variables from the 'environment', thereby allowing the critical 'SET CLIPPER' command to be passed on. Second, observe that a duplicate copy of GO.BAT resides in the root directory of your hard drive where \MECHANIC.WIN is located. Delete that file in the root directory, then return to \MECHANIC.WIN to execute GO.BAT. At the point, GO.BAT will sense that the root directory is missing a duplicate GO.BAT and will make a copy of itself in the root directory. Appendix A-17: Outgoing FAXES Generating & Transmitting FAXES from this program Overview: This methodology will illustrate the three steps necessary for creating outgoing FAXES from routine correspondence and then transmitting them. It presumes that you have a FAX board inside your PC that will convert an ASCII file into the graphical format of the FAX board. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will create this 'routine correspondence' internally and will then pass it to the subdirectory where your FAX software resides. Since the printing cycle is bypassed, the outgoing FAXES will have a higher resolution than if you print the letters, then feed them back into a traditional FAX machine for immediate transmission. While creating this correspondence within Mechanic's Scheduler [TM], you can branch into your FAX software, run its ASCII-to-FAX conversion software, then transmit the FAX. Once finished, you branch back into Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] and pick up where you left off. By using the FAST RUNNER [TM] option, you can run up to 20 large application programs, such as your FAX conversion software, in the 'background' without ever leaving Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. /--------------------------\ | Step 1: | | Using Quick Memo [TM] | \--------------------------/ While creating an activity record, branch off to the Memo Options Menu. In this menu, Selection 8 will create a Quick Memo [TM] for you. Once selected, Option 8 will have created the heading of the top of a routine piece of correspondence, after which you will enter the text necessary to complete the letter. For a greater understanding of Memo options, see these appendices in PROGRAM.DOC: Overview of Memo Options: Every customer and activity record has its own word processor! Customer Memo..........................................Appendix K-I Activity Memos........................................Appendix K-II Quick Memo [TM].......................................Appendix K-III /--------------------------\ | Step 2: | | Entering Text in the Memo | \--------------------------/ At the Memo Option Menu, observe selection 1: "1) Edit the existing memo or create a new one" Once you select option 1, enter your text below the heading created by Quick Memo [TM]. Once you have finished entering the body of your letter, save your text with a Control-W as per the Edit Screen Codes on the bottom of your screen, then exit back to the Memo Options Menu. Optionally, you could append large blocks of existing text into the bottom of Quick Memo [TM] using the methodology outlined in Appendix A- 8 in PROGRAM.DOC: An Alternate Strategy for creating Invoices or Proposals from memos in the Activity files:.....................Appendix A-8 /---------------------------\ | Step 3: | | Outputting to the FAX card | \---------------------------/ At the Memo Options Menu, observe selection 2: "2) Output the memo to a text file" Let's say you have a subdirectory called '\FAX'. After you select option 2 at the Memo Options Menu, the program will ask you this question: "Enter the file name here that you want your text file saved under." If you want to name it 'TEST1' and send it to the '\FAX' subdirectory, you would enter this qualified name: \FAX\TEST1 <============= enter this '\FAX' sends it to the '\FAX' subdirectory, then names the ASCII file 'TEST1'. At this point, you invoke 'Background' Options with the 'F1' function key. On the 'Background' Options Menu, you invoke Fast Runner [TM] to branch into your FAX card software, convert 'TEST1' into a FAX format, send it out using the FAX card, then return to Mechanic's Scheduler [TM]. Fast Runner [TM] remembers where you were and returns you to that exact point. For a clearer understanding of how these options work, see these appendices in PROGRAM.DOC: 'Background' Options...................................Appendix A-12 Fast Runner [TM] Options...............................Appendix A-13 Appendix A-18: 'View' or search options available in Customer file: [six 'views' in Get screen] Overview This option gives you the ability to look at the Customer file in any one of six 'views' or search criteria: "1) Search by Company Name" "2) Search by First Name" "3) Search by Last Name" "4) Search by Phone Number" "5) View or search by Zip Code" "6) View or search by Category" Once you select your 'view,' then all records are stacked or ordered in that sequence. If, for example, you select the last name 'view', then after you search and locate one record, all records before and after that one will be ordered alphabetically by last name. The logic of this option is similar to the one available in the 'Fast Search Through Data' Menu, (Main Program Menu, Option 6) Option 1: 'Lightning fast search through customer file' In the 'Lightning fast search,' you are displayed information quickly, but cannot move back and fourth between records that are adjacent to those that appear in your match. By contrast, in the 'View' or Search Options' you can move back and fourth among the records and observe, say, all phone numbers or zip codes that precede or follow a matched record. Search Procedure: Once in the Customer file, Get option, you will observe this selection on the bottom of the screen: S for Search, M for more commands Once you select 'S for Search,' you will then see this menu: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Company Name 'View' or Search Options : company name | ------------------- | ========================================================== | Saturday, January 27, 1990 | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | | 1) Search by Company Name | | 2) Search by First Name | | 3) Search by Last Name | | 4) Search by Phone Number | | 5) View or search by Zip Code | | 6) View or search by Category | | H) Help | | | | R) Return to prior screen | | Company Name 'View' in effect | | | | | ========================================================== | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Once you select any one of options 1 through 6, the menu will branch back to the prior screen and place the cursor in that field where you wish to do your search. Once a record is found, all records then will be stacked or ordered by that criteria. Whatever criteria you select here will cause one of the following messages to appear on the top to the Customer Get screen that you just came from: "Company Name 'View', records in order by company name" "First Name 'View', records in order by first name" "Last Name 'View', records in order by last name" "Phone Number 'View', records in order by phone number" "Zip Code 'View', records in order by zip code" "Category 'View', records in order by category" As you enter 'N' for next or 'P' for previous, you will be moving back and fourth between adjacent records in that 'view.' Turning Off the 'View' or Search Options: For some users, these six search criteria present too many keystrokes for their search. If you wish to reduce the six search options to one default option for Company name, then go to the Custom Options Menu and observe option G: "G) 6 choices in search criteria: Customer Get" To reduce the number of choices from 6 to 1, select option 'G' to display: "[now Off]" Phonetical searching: If you elect any of these three 'views' and the program fails to find an exact match, then it attempts to find it phonetically: "Company Name 'View', records in order by company name" "First Name 'View', records in order by first name" "Last Name 'View', records in order by last name" After you have selected one of these three, the following message appears on the top of the search screen: == Alternate phonetical cross referencing in effect on Search.== If an exact match is not found then the program will perform a phonetical search, and display this text while doing so: "Searching for phonetical match" Let's say you are looking for 'ANNETTE' but cannot remember how it is entered. If you enter either 'ANETE' or 'AUNET' then the phonetical match displayed to you for either entry is 'ANNETTE'. Let's say further that you had entered 'WOLFGANG' but could not remember the spelling. The phonetical search will display 'WOLFGANG' if you enter either of these spellings: 'WULFFGUNG' or 'WOOLFGENG'. Appendix A-19: If the program asks you to re-register When the program asks for another validation number, that means that it cannot read the data files. One of two conditions would cause this. First, it takes 10 to 15 minutes for the hard drive and controller to warm up. If you power the computer on and off every day, eventually you will have these read/write problems. Either give the computer at least 15 minutes to warm up before going in the program, or leave the computer running around the clock, but turn off the monitor when you leave at night. If left on day and night, the hard drive and mother board will actually run better and longer. The second reason as to why it cannot read the files is a conflict in high memory. You cannot branch into this program from another. If you are using any kind of front end menu, such as Automenu [TM] or Xtree [TM], the program will, in time, not be able to read its files. Go into \MECHANIC.WIN and execute this utility: MEMORY <========= you enter this program responds with this =====> Machine is 14 % full. 555 bytes are free. Observe the '% full' number. It should be between 8 and 16%. If higher than that, you have something loaded into memory that is conflicting with the program. Remove it until the '% full' number is reduced to between 8 and 16 percent. Look for a file in \MECHANIC.WIN called 'CRISIS.BAT'. If you see it, then execute this command: CRISIS <============ you enter this If you cannot 'CRISIS.BAT', then from \MECHANIC.WIN execute these commands: DEL *.MEM <===== you enter these DEL *.NTX <====== GO <====== At this point, the Installation menu will appear. Indicate that you are on a hard drive and follow the instructions. The program will then recreate all the old indexes and attempt to read the old registration files. If, at that point, it still asks for you to register, go to the most recent backup on either 'Customer Backup #1' or 'Customer Backup #2' to bring back the backup you performed prior to the program asking you to re-register. See Appendices P and A-6 for the methodology for doing this: Automatic Data Back-up upon exiting the program..............Appendix P User Beware !............................ .................Appendix A-6 [Tips for database survival] If, however, you have not been backing up the program or it still asks for another validation number, then call me at (214) 690-6017 and I'll give you another validation number. Appendix A-20: Day-Timers [TM] [Output to Senior or Junior Loose-Leaf continuous forms] Day-Timer [TM]: Overview For those Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] customers who are currently using Loose-Leaf Day-Timers [TM], this program will print on continuous forms that Day-Timers [TM], Inc. sells. Once removed from their perforations, these continuous forms become loose sheets that you can insert into either their Junior or Senior Desk Loose-Leaf binders. Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will create an alphabetized 'Address and Phone Directory,' with page breaks between each new letter of the alphabet. If you wish to print an 'Address and Phone Directory' for just one letter in the alphabet, then go to the Selection Criteria Menu, and observe selection 4: 4) Select by character: leftmost character used [first/last name, company, city] If you wish to select only those records that BEGIN with the letter or letters your enter, then this selection will retrieve those records that start with the leftmost character or characters you requested. After you have entered selection 3 on the Main Program Menu, you will be in the Reports Menu. Once there, observe selection 1: 1) Do ONE report from the Customer file [15 selections; includes Day-Timers [TM] forms] After you have entered this selection, observe options 12 through 15: 12 = Day-timer [TM] Sr, by last name 13 = Day-timer [TM] Jr, by last name 14 = Day-timer [TM] Sr, by Company name 15 = Day-timer [TM] Jr, by Company name Appendix A-20: [continued] === Forms needed: === To purchase continuous forms for the Loose-Leaf, Senior Size, ask for Product # '75506.' To acquire forms for the Loose-Leaf, Junior Size, order product #'75507.' === Where you acquire the forms: === To purchase Day-Timer [TM] forms, contact: Day-Timers [TM], Inc. Once Day-Timer Plaza Allentown, PA 18195 === Their phone numbers === Order line: (215) 395-5884 Customer Service: (215) 395-5889 Administration and Manufacturing: (215) 398-1151 FAX: (215) 398-5509 === Requirements for printer === If you print Junior Size forms, then make sure that your printer is set up as 12 characters per inch. To do this, go to the Custom Options Menu and observe selection O: O) Other Custom Options Once in that menu, observe selections 2 and 3: 2) Assign and output Condense string for printer: 3) Assign and output Uncondense string for printer: Enter the decimal code or codes to place your printer into 12 CPI. Selections 2 and 3 have a built-in Help screen that goes into some detail about how to convert from ASCII or Hex to decimal. Also, observe that the Jr. and Sr. forms will require different left margins. Experiment with this, but start with a left margin of 10 characters, then adjust as needed to the left or to the right. Appendix A-21: Inserting Memos into reports Overview: If you wish to enter extended text behind either the Customer or Activity records, you can use the Memo options to record up to 15,000 characters per record. This is covered in the PROGRAM.DOC documentation in: Overview of Memo Options: Every customer and activity record has its own word processor! Customer Memo..........................................Appendix K-I Activity Memos........................................Appendix K-II Quick Memo [TM].......................................Appendix K-III In addition to a Print option available on each Memo Options Menu, you can print out memos in these three locations in the program: Reports Menu: Appointments Menu: 'Open' or 'Pending' Activities Menu: The Reports Menu is accessible from the Main Program Menu, selection 3. To go to the Appointments Menu, observe selection 7 on the Main Program Menu. The 'Open' or 'Pending' Activities Menu is located on the Activity File Menu, selection 'O' (for 'Open'). The Activity File Menu, in turn, can be found as selection 2 on the Main Program Menu. ========== Location 1: ========== Reports Menu: 6) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] ============== | OPTION 6: | ============== This option will insert the memo field into the reports generated by options 1 and 2. Once selected, you can specify the number of characters brought into the report from each memo. ========== Location 2: ========== Appointments Menu C) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] ============== | OPTION C: | ============== C) Insert memo into reports: This option will insert the memo field into the reports generated by the report options on this menu. Once selected, you can specify the number of characters brought into the report from each memo. ========== Location 3: ========== 'Open' or 'Pending' Activities Menu: 4) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== 4) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] This option is functionally similar to the Main Program Menu, Option 3, Customer and Activity Reports, selection 6: 6) Insert memo into reports: [now Off] Appendix A-22: Logic and treatment of 'Salutation' field Overview: Whenever you enter a new record in the Customer file, you will observe that you can enter a first name as well as a 'salutation.' By default during data entry, the 'salutation' is the first name, though you can enter anything you wish into this field. You could, for example, enter 'William' for first name and 'Bill' into the salutation field. First appearance of the 'salutation' field: The 'salutation' field appears whenever you output data from this program into a word processor using selection B on the Main Program Menu: "B) Import or Output data" Let's say that you have created a 'boilerplate' text in a word processor and wish to use its MailMerge[TM]-style facilities. The ability in this program to distinguish between formal first names, such as 'Edward,' and the actual manner in which the person is addressed, such as 'Ed,' will make your 'boilerplate' text read better and be more believable. Second appearance of the 'salutation' field: Whenever you use the Quick Memo [TM] feature in either a Customer or Activity record, the program will examine the salutation and the first name. If different, then the salutation is placed into the Quick Memo [TM] in this form, based on your selection in "Establish or update system-wide values for your company:" =========================================================================== Let's say the person's name is JOHN DOE. | Your choices are: | | 1 = 'Dear John:' 2= 'Dear Mr. Doe: 3= 'Dear Mr. John Doe:' 4= 'John:' 5= '' <============= left blank | | | =========================================================================== Appendix A-22: [continued] If you wish to use the true first name without bringing the salutation into the Quick Memo [TM], then observe this option four in the 'system- wide values:" =========================================================================== Inclusion/Omission of 'Salutation' field: | | If turned On, the program places the salutation name from the Customer record, such as 'Bill,' into the salutation field instead of the first name, such as 'William. If turned Off, only the first name is placed into this field. | 1 = Include 'Salutation' field | 2= Omit 'Salutation' field | =========================================================================== Appendix A-23: Customer Detail File Overview: A miniature 12 field database within the program: The Customer Detail File is an extension to the Customer file that gives you an additional 12 fields of data entry. Four of them have indexes to accommodate quick look up of data in Quick Stats [TM] and in the reports option on this menu. To perform a field-by-field count of the Customer Detail File, go to the 'Fast Search Through Data' menu and observe Quick Stats [TM], selections 13 through 16: 13 = Customer detail file, Field one 14 = Customer detail file, Field two 15 = Customer detail file, Field three 16 = Customer detail file, Field four The Customer Detail File is an adjunct to the Customer file, Add or Get Options. On the Get screen, if you enter [F10] you will then see this menu: ========================================================================== To review or edit this record in Customer Detail File, enter a '1' | | To view or modify field headings for Customer Detail File, enter a '2' To view order of other records in Customer Detail File, enter a '3' For reports from the Customer Detail File, enter a '4' | To return to the prior menu, enter a '0' | ========================================================================== ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== In option 1 in the Customer Detail File you can display or edit the 12 extra fields assigned to the customer record you just branched from. ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== In option 2 in the Customer Detail File change the heading for each of the 12 fields and make them more specific to your application. By default, they are: 'Field 1' through 'Field 12' ============== | OPTION 3: | ============== This option gives you the ability to look at the Customer Detail File in any one of five 'views' or search criteria: "1) Search by Company Name" "2) Search by Field 1" "3) Search by Field 2" "4) Search by Field 3" "5) View or search by Field 4" Once you select your 'view,' then all records in the Customer Detail File are stacked or ordered in that sequence. If, for example, you select the Field 1 'view', then after you search and locate one record, all records before and after that one will be ordered alphabetically by Field 1 in the Customer Detail File. ============== | OPTION 4: | ============== In option 4, you can select to have the following five reports printed from the Customer Detail File: 1) Customer 2) Field 1 3) Field 2 4) Field 3 5) Field 4 Appendix A-24: Zip Code & Area Code look up features -- Reduce data entry time, while increasing accuracy -- Starting in April, 1991, this program has a built in U.S.A. zip code and area code look up table. ACS will provide you with the data file that makes this functional at no extra charge, with this understanding: 1) The upgrade will be provided to you in a 1.2 meg, 5 1/4" format only. If your machine can read only 360 kb disks, then it will not work since the upgrade is too large to fit on this size floppy. 2) Once uncompressed from the distribution disk, the data files and associated indexes consume 4,000,000 bytes of space on your hard drive. 3) Neither ACS, Paul Sax, nor Juskovitch Corporation can guarantee the accuracy of the zip codes, cities, or area codes. Logic of look up: Adding new customer records Case 1: City, State entered, without zip code If you enter the name of a city and a state but leave zip code empty, then the program will look up the zip code for that town. If only one exists in the file, then it will place that value into the zip code field. If more than one exists, then the Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] places all of them into a stack for you to browse through with a 'light bar'. On the top of this stack, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] has counted the number of zip codes contained within this city. Regardless of whether it contains 3 or 80, Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will adjust the length of this stack for you to examine. At any time in this stack, you can select the zip code underneath the 'light bar' just by pressing the 'Enter' key. To accept the default value of the first zip code in the stack, press the 'ESC' or 'Escape' key at any time. As Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] performs its look up, one of these two messages is displayed to the right of the zip code field: "[Zip code found for city ]" "[Zip code not found ]" If a City/State match is found, then the area code for that zip is identified and moved into the area code field. Appendix A-24: Zip Code & Area Code look up features [continued] Case 2: Zip code entered, with or without City, State If you enter a value into the zip code field during data entry, then Mechanic's Scheduler [TM] will attempt to find the city and state the correspond to it. If successful, it displays: "[City and state found ]" If the search is unsuccessful, it displays: "[City and state not found ]" As in case one, if the search is successful, then the relevant area code is identified and moved into the area code field. Logic of look up: Editing existing customer records: The look up logic for editing a record is similar to adding a new one, with one exception. When you edit an historical record, the program will not modify the area code while it does its look ups. Forced edit: Given the multiplicity of zip codes, overlapping municipalities, and margin for error in this kind of look up, the program assumes that you wish to be in an edit mode after it has performed its look up more than three times for any one record. This 'forced edit' appears whether in an Add or Get screen in the Customer file. Once the 'forced edit' occurs, this message is displayed to the right of the current record: "[Zip code look up disabled]" "[Now in edit mode. ]" Appendix A-24: Zip Code & Area Code look up features [continued] Creating a state-specific Zip code file: Observe the "Other Custom Options" Menu, selection G): "G) Reduce Zip code file" With this selection, you can reduce the size of the zip code file by making it specific to a state or a number of states. Once selected, you can indicate the number of states you wish to be included in your new zip code file. If you wish only one, then you would enter '1', though you could enter up to '50'. Appendix A-25: Time zone look up feature: This program now has a feature to lookup and display the time zone of your customer record. It bases its logic on the area code you enter. The time zones for all phone numbers in the U.S.A. or Canada are calculated and displayed. Internally, the program maintains this time zone phrasing: Time Definition of time zone: Zone: PST = Pacific Standard Time MST = Mountain Standard Time CST = Central Standard Time EST = Eastern Standard Time AST = Atlantic Standard Time WATS = Wide Area Telephone Service [800 Service] Hawaii = Area code 808 Alaska = Area code 907 Other = Area code 809 [Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Barbados, and the Caribbean Islands.] In those cases where one area code contains two time zones, the program will display it accordingly, such as: Nebraska Plumbing, 10:30 AM [402/CST,MST:U.S.A.] This information is displayed in five locations: Customer Add screen Customer Get screen Activity Get screen Callback Data Sheet Greeting screen, prior entering program The initial Greeting screen, for example, would display this information while in the test data, with the system date set to 1-3-86: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Appointments are : | Accounting & Tax Service [214/CST:U.S.A.] | Addmaster/Marchant [818/PST:U.S.A.] | Micro Distribution Center [214/CST:U.S.A.] | Texas Commerce Plumbing, 10:30 AM [214/CST:U.S.A.] | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S.A. TIME_ZONE / AREA_CODE data: TIME_ZONE AREA_CODE TIME_ZONE AREA_CODE TIME_ZONE AREA_CODE EST 201 CST 507 CST 816 EST 202 EST 508 CST 817 EST 203 PST 509 PST 818 CST 205 CST 512 CST 901 PST 206 EST 513 CST,EST 904 EST 207 CST 515 CST,EST 906 MST,PST 208 EST 516 Alaska 907 PST 209 EST 517 EST 912 EST 212 EST 518 CST,MST 913 PST 213 CST 601 EST 914 CST 214 MST 602 CST,MST 915 EST 215 EST 603 PST 916 EST 216 CST,MST 605 CST 918 CST 217 EST 606 EST 919 CST 218 EST 607 CST,EST 219 CST 608 EST 301 EST 609 EST 302 CST 612 MST 303 EST 614 EST 304 CST,EST 615 EST 305 EST 616 MST 307 EST 617 CST,MST 308 CST 618 CST 309 PST 619 CST 312 CST,MST 701 EST 313 PST 702 CST 314 EST 703 EST 315 EST 704 CST,MST 316 PST 707 EST 317 CST 708 CST 318 CST 712 CST 319 CST 713 EST 401 PST 714 CST,MST 402 CST 715 EST 404 EST 716 CST 405 EST 717 MST 406 EST 718 EST 407 MST 719 PST 408 WATS 800 CST 409 MST 801 EST 412 EST 802 EST 413 EST 803 CST 414 EST 804 PST 415 PST 805 CST 417 CST 806 EST 419 Hawaii 808 CST 501 Other 809 CST,EST 502 CST,EST 812 MST,PST 503 EST 813 CST 504 EST 814 MST 505 CST 815 Canada TIME_ZONE / AREA_CODE data: TIME_ZONE AREA_CODE CST 204 MST,CST 306 MST 403 EST 416 EST 418 AST 506 EST 514 EST 519 PST 604 EST 613 EST 705 AST 709 CST,EST 807 EST 819 Another example of how the program will display this data can be observed in this screen fragment from the Callback Data Sheet, found in the Callback section of the Activity menu: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -- Callback Data Sheet for Friday, January 3, 1986 -- | Mr. John D. Cauble, Jr. [Salutation = John D.] | (214)357-5454 [214/CST:U.S.A.] | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A-26: Add-on interest This feature will calculate add-on interest and will then place those charges into a newly created activity record. Once selected, option 6 on the 'Revenue/Expense Summary Menu' will then upgrade the summarized value during the posting process to reflect these additional charges. Utmost caution must be used with this function since it does create new activity records, each with new values in the Revenue/Expense field. To understand the logic of this feature, create an administrative record for yourself in the Customer file. From this record on the Customer Get screen, press [F6] repeatedly to invoke the Act Now [TM] feature. Act Now [TM] means 'activity now', and will present a blank activity record to you. In each of these blank records, enter some value in the Revenue/Expense field to reflect amount owed, let's say. After you have created a number of such records, go to the 'Revenue/Expense Summary Menu', and experiment with selection 6 for just those activity records associated with your single administrative record in the Customer File. Option 6 displays these four items: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Add-on interest calculation: | Turn feature On or Off | [ 'T' = true or yes; 'F' = false or no ] | Default name for calculation: Annual rate, as a percentage: | | | Enter period of calculation: yearly, monthly, weekly, daily | [1 = yearly, 2 = monthly, 3 = weekly, 4 = daily] | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The default name used in this calculation is 'interest', though you could place anything you wish there, such as 'other charges'. The annual rate must be entered as a percentage, such as '12.00', not as a decimal value. The period of calculation gives you these options: 1 = yearly, 2 = monthly, 3 = weekly, 4 = daily Let's say that you had selected '12.00' as your percentage and number one for the period, signifying a yearly calculation. If the net summarized value of the relevant activity records is $100, then the program will calculate yearly interest of $12. If you select the monthly time period, the calculated interest will be 1/12 of that, or $1.00. If you select weekly, then it uses 1/52 of the yearly interest for the calculated value. If you select daily, then the program will prompt you for this additional information: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since you selected daily interest, | please establish leap year preference, if any. | Use leap year [ 'T' = true or yes; 'F' = false or no ] | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you elect to establish leap year preference, then the program will first determine if the current calendar falls on a leap year. If so, it divides yearly interest by 366 to arrive at daily interest. Otherwise, the program uses 365 as the divisor. If you enter 'F' to establish leap year preference, then this program will always use 365 as the divisor, regardless of the status of leap year. Shown below is an example of how this logic works when used against the test data that comes with the program, when the interest rate is set to 12%, calculated monthly: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- All detail Revenue/Expense records from the Activity File | | Fourcolor Data Systems, Category is : 1 | $ 33.50, occurred on 03/17/1986 Total Revenue/Expense= $ 33.50 Calculated add-on interest: $ 0.34 Lolir Lectronics, Category is : 1 $ 18.50, occurred on 05/03/1986 $ 22.50, occurred on 04/22/1986 $ 40.00, occurred on 04/18/1986 Total Revenue/Expense= $ 81.00 Calculated add-on interest: $ 0.81 Texas Commerce Plumbing, Category is : 1 $ 40.00, occurred on 04/22/1986 $ 21.50, occurred on 03/17/1986 $ 27.50, occurred on 03/17/1986 Total Revenue/Expense= $ 89.00 Calculated add-on interest: $ 0.89 Grand total = $ 203.50 [before interest calculation] | Add-on interest: $ 2.04 | Grand total after interest: $ 205.54 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To give you an audit trail of this information in the future, the program then places this into the Comments field of the new activity record it has created: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Fourcolor Data Systems | | Add-on interest calculated, 11/24/1991, Sunday, November 24, 1991. Annual rate: 12.00%, calculated monthly. [Sum= | $33.50/Add-on $ 0.34] | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The phrase 'Sum= $33.50' identifies the summarized value of all respective activity records before the interest was calculated. 'Add-on $ 0.34' shows the add-on interest placed into this activity record in the Revenue/Expense field. Appendix A-27: "Alternate Phone Number Options:" Overview The "Alternate Phone Number Options" are available to you the Customer Get, Activity Add, Activity Get, or Activity Callback screens by entering 'Alt F1'. This feature gives you an additional 20 alternate phone numbers PER Customer. For each of the 20 phone numbers, you enter an area code and a descriptive phrase. Each description can be up to 40 characters. On the "Alternate Phone Number Options" Menu, you will observe options 1 and 2. ============== | OPTION 1: | ============== "1) Review or Dial from Telephone List" Option 1 displays a list of all phone number in the alternate list. If no numbers currently exist in your list, the program will display this message: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- No additional phone numbers exist for this Customer. | | Before they will appear here, | you must first enter them into selection 2 of this menu. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============== | OPTION 2: | ============== "2) Edit Telephone List" Option 2 displays a columnar, free form screen into which you enter this information: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | === Additional Phone Numbers: === | | AC Phone Number: Description: | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note that you enter the numbers without any other spacing or characters. The Area Code field, for example, is entered as '213', not '(213)'. The phone number field, likewise, accepts the literal seven characters that constitute the number, without any dashes or other notation. If, at the Install procedure, you indicate that you are outside of the U.S.A. or Canada, then the following logic applies: each Area Code/STD is up to 5 characters, while the phone number is up to 14. Appendix A-28: ===== Background FAX option: ===== A true background fax option is now built into the program if you purchase a field tested CAS [TM]-compatible FAX board from another vendor. In earlier releases you had to 'shell out' using Fast Runner [TM], invoke your fax foreground software, send the fax, then return back as the Fast Runner [TM] window closed. Now you can send a fax without leaving the Memo screen. In the activity Memo Options Menu you will observe option F: "F) Send Fax" Once you enter option F, the program will then display the list of Alternate Phone Numbers for that person. After you select a phone number from that list, the MTEZ [TM] 'Telefascimile Module' takes over in the background and sends the Activity Memo to that person. If you select more than one phone number from the Alternate list, then MTEZ [TM] will send the text to that person also. Each background 'send' instruction takes about one second, then begins its attempt to deliver or re-deliver that fax in the background while you continue doing other work. Zoom Telephonics [TM] recently converted a number of their Zoom [TM] Fax cards to being MTEZ [TM] compatible. Any of these part numbers should work: Zoom [TM] FC 96/24 AFX AFC FCV + If you see these Fax cards in a store, look for this sticker on their box: "Includes MTEZ [TM]" Here are their address and phone numbers: Zoom Telephonics 207 South St. Boston, MA 02111 Sales: (800)666-6191 Switchboard: (617)423-1072 Technical support: (617)423-1076 ===== Background FAX option: ===== [continued] One of my customers has recently observed seeing these Zoom [TM] Fax cards at Best Buy [TM] at discounted prices. Another customer reports purchasing their FC 9624 from PC Connection at (800) 800-0002 for under $100. Another mail order source of Zoom [TM] Fax cards is ComputAbility [TM] at (800) 558-0003. For those customers who wish to acquire a high-end fax/modem, this author has recently purchased a Zoom [TM] FaxModem, VFX V.32 Bis from Price Club [TM] for $300. This excellent external 14400 bbs FaxModem is MTEZ [TM] compatible. MagicSoft, Inc., Lombard, IL, has generously extended their permission to use their CASSEND.EXE routines within this program. CASSEND.EXE is their intellectual property and passes key values from the Memo Options Menu into their MTEZ [TM] background software. MTEZ [TM] is a registered trademark of MagicSoft, Inc. CASSEND.ASM and CASSEND.EXE are Copyright MagicSoft, Inc., 1991 CAS (Communications Applications Specification) [TM] is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation and Digital Communications Associates, Inc. Appendix A-29: "Auto Merge Letters and Faxes:" Observe option 'F' on the Main Program Menu: "F) Auto Merge This simple to use feature will automatically merge, print, or Fax any ASCII letter of your choice with as many records as you select as per your instructions in option 1. It places Quick Memo [TM] on the top of the merged letter, followed by your ASCII letter or template, then prints or faxes it. It queues up to 99,999,999 faxes at one time, then transmits them. If you select the delayed fax option, it will wait for up to two weeks before sending them from this program--unattended! ============== | OPTION "1"| ============== "1) Auto Merge Letters, then print" With this option, you are first prompted if you wish to use the Selection Criteria Menu on which to base the printing of your letters. After that, it then asks you to enter the number of lines you wish to be placed between Quick Memo [TM] and your appended text file and also if you wish to change the current values for the date range. Based on your choice in the Selection Criteria Menu, you are then optionally asked against which of the two main files you wish to apply the search. Option 1 will also ask you if you want to: "Establish or update system-wide values for your company:" This establishes the top portion of the letter, as per your previously defined Quick Memo [TM] definition. To select your file, your are displayed a light bar selection of all available files in the subdirectory of your choice. Your will be asked to enter a default path where you wish to be shown all available files. As the program prints out letters, you will see: "Now printing letter" "[To interrupt the printing, please enter 'ESC']" Appendix A-29: "Auto Merge Letters and Faxes:" [continued] ============== | OPTION "2"| ============== "2) Select Printer Port" Select the printer port you are using for this feature to Auto Merge Letters. 1 = LPT1: 2 = LPT2: 3 = LPT3: 4 = COM1: 5 = COM2: ============== | OPTION "3"| ============== "3) Auto Merge Faxes, then send" With option 3, you can return to the prior menu, send the faxes now or later, up to two weeks or 336 hours later. If you select later, then the program will wait at that point until your designated time occurs. If you elect to send them later, you'll then enter the number of hours and minutes into the future when you wish the fax to be sent. If you select zero in each of the two displayed boxes, then the program will return back to the prior menu without having sent the fax. If you enter '2' hours, '45' minutes, you mean that in two hours and forty five minutes, you wish to send the faxes. If you enter '0' hours, '30' minutes, you desire to send the faxes in the next thirty minutes. Appendix A-29: "Auto Merge Letters and Faxes:" [continued] /--------------------------\ | Definition | | of FAX numbers: | \--------------------------/ As the program performs its merging, it then looks for a Fax number in either COMMENT1 or COMMENT2 of the main person's record. To see this, go to the Main Program Menu, select option 1. Once there, select option 'G'. On the Get screen, you will observe COMMENT1 and COMMENT2 on the bottom. To edit these fields, please enter 'M' for more comments, then 'E' to Edit. Each person's record has two lines for comments. Note that you can place the 'FAX=' code into either line, in any place in that comment line. Also observe that case convention is irrelevant. 'FAX=' is that same as 'fax='. Let's say, for example, this person has a long distance FAX number of (214)690-4782. You would then enter this code into the comment line of the main person record: FAX=1,214,6904782/ The program will interpret the '/' as the end of your FAX number. Between the '=' sign and the '/' delimiter, enter the phone number exactly as you wish it to be dialed. In processing 'FAX=' numbers, the program has no intelligence in discerning between local or long distance calls, as it has if the phone number is entered into the regular Phone number field. /--------------------------\ | International | | FAX numbers: | \--------------------------/ If, for example, you are Faxing from the United States to Australia, the U.S. access code is '011', followed by the country code of '61'. Once dialed, the city code is then entered, followed by the local number. One example would be: '011 61 3 5092911' To Fax this type of international numbers in the program, enter the number into either COMMENT1 or COMMENT2 of the main person's record, in this form: FAX=011,61,3,5092911/ Each comma tells the modem to pause for 2 seconds. The slash '/' tells the program where the last digit lies. Without the slash, the 'FAX=' code will not work. Appendix A-29: "Auto Merge Letters and Faxes:" [continued] ============== | OPTION "4"| ============== "4) Fax Resolution" Your choices in this session of outgoing faxes are: "[Normal = 200 DPI by 100 DPI]" "[Fine = 200 DPI by 200 DPI]" 'Normal' means 200 by 100. 'Fine' represents 200 by 200. Whatever resolution setting you make, this selection is carried forward into the Fax Send option of the Activity Memo as well.