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Precision Software Appli…tions Silver Collection 4
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Precision Software Applications Silver Collection Volume 4 (1993).iso
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tsk30.exe
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READ.ME
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TASK-PRO v3.0
Copyright (c) 1987-1992, by Business Technologies
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
TASK-PRO v3.0
QUICK USERS GUIDE
Please note that filesize constraints prohibit us from including
a full User's Guide with the UNREGISTERED distribution package.
All registered users will receive a printed user's guide along
with their registered version of TASK-PRO. The extensive
context sensitive help system built into TASK-PRO should provide
you with most of the benefits of a User's Guide during the 30 day
shareware trial period.
LICENSE STATEMENT
TASK-PRO is protected by U.S. Copyright law, and is NOT public
domain software. TASK-PRO is distributed and marketed as share-
ware, an approach to software marketing that provides you the
ability to personally evaluate the suitability of a software
package before committing money to it. As a user of the unreg-
istered version of TASK-PRO you are granted a limited license to
use this product for a 30 day trial period to determine if it
suits your needs.
At the end of this trial period you must either become a regis-
tered user or no longer use TASK-PRO.
Registered users are licensed to use their registered copy on a
single machine and to make copies for the sole purpose of backing
up the program. TASK-PRO may be moved between computers only
when there is no possibility of a single registered version being
used at two locations simultaneously.
HOW TO BECOME A REGISTERED TASK-PRO USER
Simply select the USER REGISTRATION option of the INFO main menu
item and you will be prompted to fill in an on-screen order form
that automatically calculates your total registration fees based
on quantity, applicable volume discounts and the postage and
handling charges for the originating nation. After this data has
been entered a standard order form will be printed, along with
the appropriate mailing address.
For special delivery considerations and/or credit card orders
please call Business Technologies at 1-800-688-6163.
BENEFITS OF REGISTRATION
o Registered users of TASK-PRO can BREATH A LITTLE EASIER because
TASK-PRO is NOT JUST SHAREWARE, it's 'GREENWARE'. Six dollars
of every registration fee is donated directly to sincere,
worthy causes dedicated to preserving the earth for future gen-
erations. We'll keep you informed of our progress in this
important area as we send out product upgrade notices.
o Registered users receive a licensed, registered copy of the
most recent TASK-PRO release. Additionally, we have entered
into arrangements with the authors of other top quality
business shareware products to include unregistered versions of
these products on the distribution disk for your evaluation.
o A Complete User's Guide that describes all TASK-PRO features,
including timesheet printing and the special timesheet inter-
face that facilitates the entry of timesheet data.
o Free technical support by phone, Compuserve E-mail, FAX or by
normal mail.
o Notifications of TASK-PRO upgrades.
USER GROUPS / SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS / ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS
PC user groups, and electronic bulletin board operators are wel-
come to add TASK-PRO to their libraries as long as TASK-PRO is
distributed in its original form as the self-extracting archive
file TSK30.EXE. Shareware vendors may also add TASK-PRO to their
libraries subject to the additional condition that their cust-
omers are charged no more than $10.00 to purchase the disk
containing TASK-PRO, including duplication fees and material
costs.
Please do notify us if you have added TASK-PRO to your library,
and you will be placed on our mailing list for product updates.
If you have received TASK-PRO through a user group, a shareware
distributor, or an electronic bulletin board, please do note that
any diskette fee you paid DOES NOT constitute licensing the
software, and you are still obligated to register if you decide
to use TASK-PRO after the 30 day trial period.
SHARING TASK-PRO WITH OTHERS
Please feel free to share the unregistered version of TASK-PRO
with others who may be interested in using it and have not had
to opportunity to try it out.
DISCLAIMER
TASK-PRO is licensed "AS IS", without any warranty of merchant-
ability, fitness of particular purpose, performance, or other-
wise; all warranties are disclaimed. By using TASK-PRO you agree
that Business Technologies will not be liable to you or any third
party for any use of (or inability to use) this software, or for
any damages (direct or indirect) whatsoever, even if Business
Technologies or its agents are apprised of the possibility of
such damages occuring. In no event shall Business Technologies
be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage,
including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential
or other damages. The entire risk related to the quality and
performance of the program is on you.
INTRODUCTION
TASK-PRO is a PC program that greatly automates the job of manag-
ing personnel and task assignments. TASK-PRO also receives wide-
spread use as a trouble report administration system. The TASK-
PRO user can track, prioritize, sort and manipulate tasks,
troubles and personnel quickly and easily.
TASK-PRO provides facilities to greatly reduce the amount of time
and effort expended in processing timeslips and timecards within
an organization. TASK-PRO prints timeslips and provides a handy
'back door' interface (known as the Timeslip Interface) which
allows timeslip data to quickly and painlessly be recorded by
TASK-PRO. As TASK-PRO timeslips provide an up to date record of
hours worked vs. hours budgeted, incorporating TASK-PRO into the
time reporting process can be a healthy personnel motivator.
TASK-PRO features a state of the art mouse and keyboard driven
user interface and provides a full context sensitive hypertext
help system. TASK-PRO is of the highest quality, and has been
exhaustively debugged and enhanced over the years.
Under the TASK-PRO system the user maintains any number of tasks
in one or more task files. The user may choose to keep all tasks
in a single file or to maintain a separate file for each major
project. In TASK-PRO these task files are referred to as
'folders'. Tasks may be moved and copied between folders (or
between computer systems). The user is allowed to record
detailed information for each task, and is provided with the
ability to also enter a free text memo giving a detailed
description of those tasks which require such a description.
Within a folder tasks may be sorted by priority, the name of the
person assigned to the task, the deadline assigned to the task,
the date the task was entered, the task start date or a field
which is completely definable by the user. A flashing red
indication is provided for all tasks which have past their
deadlines without being completed.
TASK-PRO also maintains a complete database of personnel, along
with an individual availability calendar for each resource
indicating time available for work on tasks. The availability
calendar for each resource takes the form of an actual on screen
multi-year calendar with which the user can interact to indicate
partial work days, holidays, vacations, trips, training time,
weekends and other special events. Information from these
calendars is utilized in the production of the powerful Resource
Allocation report, which indicates on a resource-by-resource
basis how effectively available time is being utilized.
TASK-PRO was designed to target the needs from middle management
on down. The IMPORT and EXPORT capabilities allow an entire
organization to use TASK-PRO effectively through the
dissemination of export folders (either over a LAN or through
distribution of export files on floppy). Alternately the
organization may prefer to maintain a single copy of TASK-PRO
and to produce TASK-PRO reports and timeslips for distribution.
1.0 REQUIRED EQUIPMENT
TASK-PRO runs on IBM PC's and compatibles with 256k of system
memory and CGA, EGA or VGA graphics adaptors. TASK-PRO will
utilize a system mouse if one is present and the mouse device
driver has been installed. TASK-PRO may work with other equipment
configurations.
2.0 INSTALLATION
The distribution file, TSK30.EXE, is a self extracting executable
which produces all the files you'll need to run TASK-PRO. You
should run this file in a dedicated directory that you have
created to host TASK-PRO, preferably on a hard disk. We
recommend a directory name of TASK, although you may use a name
that you prefer.
After running TSK30.EXE you should run the SETUP program to
tailor TASK-PRO for your system. This program will walk you
through five simple questions about your system and produce the
file TASK.BAT, which will run the TASK-PRO executable file for
you and plug in the command line options consistent with the
answers you supplied. After you have run SETUP you're ready to
run TASK-PRO.
3.0 RUNNING AND EXITING TASK-PRO
To run TASK-PRO simply go to the TASK-PRO directory you created
and enter 'TASK' at the DOS prompt. TASK-PRO will immediately
run. Sample data has been provided to allow you to work with
TASK-PRO "right out of the box". Please keep in mind that the F1
key will always provide you with context sensitive hypertext
help, and that the mouse can be used extensively to interact with
TASK-PRO.
To exit TASK-PRO simply select the QUIT option of the TASK-PRO
main menu. For main menu entries that have no submenu functions
(such as QUIT) you'll have to click on QUIT once to highlight it
and once to actually quit (otherwise you couldn't get help with
the mouse, you'd always move to an option and execute it
immediately).
4.0 ADVANCED USAGE
Be aware that TASK-PRO has some useful attributes that you may
some day wish to take advantage of. For example, like any
program the TASK-PRO executable may be placed on the DOS path.
Additionally, TASK-PRO will search your PATH for the help file
PTSK.HLP. Moving TASKPRO.EXE and PTSK.HLP to a commonly
accessible LAN directory might be a disk space saver.
Additionally, please read carefully about the '-d' and '-s'
command line options described in the following section, as they
will provide additional capabilities.
5.0 TASK-PRO COMMAND LINE SWITCHES
Some of the behavior of TASK-PRO is controlled from command line
switches. Feel free to edit TASK.BAT to change command line
switches to suit your needs, although you should first
familiarize yourself with the configuration produced automatic-
ally by the SETUP program.
The following command line switches are defined:
-c ..... Color Mode.
-m ..... Monochrome Mode.
-x ...... Disable Printer Graphics.
-z ...... Disable Printer Checking.
-d ...... Specify Data Directory.
-b ...... Disable Mouse Usage.
-s ...... Specify User Field Label.
-a ...... Alt Data Entry Style.
-p ...... Select Serial Port.
-u ...... Run TASK-PRO Timeslip Interface.
-q ...... Indicates that printer does automatic carriage returns.
Either the '-c' or '-m' switchs must also be given. If the '-d'
option is not given, then TASKPRO assumes the current directory
as the data directory. The '-d' option must be followed
immediately (with no spaces) by a valid DOS pathname (e.g.
'-dC:TASKDATA').
The '-s' switch allows you to change the 'Systems Affected' task
field to a field more meaningful to your application. This
option must be followed by a space and a the user label in quotes
(e.g. -s "Rental Unit").
The '-x' switch tells TASK-PRO to use dashes rather than graphics
characters to underline the headings of printed reports.
The '-z' switch tells TASK-PRO to not check status lines for the
availability of a printer before printing.
The '-p' switch must be followed immediately by the character '1'
or '2' or '3' or '4' (e.g. '-p1'), to indicate the serial port to
use for autodialing (a modem must be connected to this port).
This switch may be omitted if autodialing is not desired or a
modem is not connected to the computer.
The '-a' switch makes a slight change to how data is entered into
data entry forms. If this option is present then depressing the
ENTER key indicates that the user wants to accept all data
entered on a form. If this is absent then the F6 key ends a data
entry session and the ENTER key simply advances to the next data
entry field within the form.
The '-q' switch tells TASK-PRO that your printer automatically
does a carriage return when a linefeed is received - this is not
necessary for most printers.
6.0 USING TASK-PRO FROM WINDOWS
TASK-PRO has been successfully run under Windows 3.1 with no
problems. You should use the PIF editor to produce a PIF file
which runs TASK.BAT, and in this file you should specify 240K
minimum memory required, as well as any serial ports you are
using for autodialing. The PIF file should be named 'TASK.PIF'.
7.0 THE MENU SYSTEM
The TASK-PRO main menu is the bar menu that appears across the
top of the screen at all times that TASK-PRO is running. You may
move between the items of this menu with the left and right
cursor control keys, and any associated pull-down menus will
automatically appear. You may also move between main menu items
by depressing the hot key for the item (highlighted in yellow)
while holding down the ALT key (this is simply a shortcut for the
experienced user). If you are not within a data entry window or
a pop-up menu then you may also move directly to a main menu
option by positioning the mouse cursor over the main menu choice
and clicking the left mouse button. In general the mouse may be
used to select any option in any menu within TASK-PRO, and
clicking the right mouse button will exit all but the main menu
level.
For main menu options that do not have an associated pull-down
menu the option is activated by depressing the ENTER key once the
option is highlighted. If such an option has been selected with
the shortcut ALT hotkey keystroke then the keystroke must be
entered a second time (or optionally the ENTER key must be
depressed) to activate the option.
For main menu options that have pull-down sub-menus, the sub-menu
option is activated by highlighting the desired option with the
up and down cursor control keys and depressing the ENTER key.
Alternatively the option may be activated by hitting the
highlighted hot key in the sub-menu (without depressing the ALT
key).
Help information about any sub-menu option may be obtained by
highlighting the option and depressing the F1 key.
8.0 DATA ENTRY WINDOWS
Data entry windows allow the user to enter data into the TASK-
PRO system. The user may move between fields by positioning the
mouse cursor on the desired field and clicking the left mouse
button. To operate without a mouse the up and down cursor
control keys, as well as the TAB key, allow the user to
move between data entry fields. Depressing the CONTROL key
while hitting the left and right cursor control keys will also
move one field to the right or left where appropriate.
The left and right cursor control keys, as well as the ENTER key,
allow the user to move from field to field within the form. The
insert key toggles text entry between insert and overstrike mode.
The delete key deletes characters under the cursor. The F6 key
successfully ends the data entry into the form form and the ESC
key aborts the data entry process. Help for any field is avail-
able by depressing the F1 key while the cursor is positioned
within the field.
If the '-a' command line switch has been included when TASK-PRO
was run a slightly different user interface convention is enabled
which causes the ENTER key to successfully end the data entry
into the form.
9.0 GETTING TASK-PRO TO AUTODIAL
TASK-PRO can dial phone numbers embedded in the description field
of a task. To do autodialing you must have a modem connected to
your computer (or inside your computer) and you must tell TASK-
PRO the serial port connected to the modem with the '-p' command
line switch inside the file TASK.BAT (the SETUP program sets this
for you initially). To autodial a number in a task description
simply highlight the task and hit the F8 key. Similarly, you can
autodial a resource by highlighting the resource within the
PERSONNEL VIEW window and hitting the F8 key (resource phone
numbers are not framed by '#' characters).
A setup menu option allows you to tailor the command sequences
sent to the modem to initiate a dial and to hang up the phone. A
third field allows you to specify a code to use for 'dialing out'
for work environments which require a prefix to dial out. This
code replaces any '^' character appearing in the phone number.
For example, you might have the following description field set
up to dial out, and then dial the number 555-1234:
[Call Midwest Medical at #^555-1234#, ask for Dave. ]
10.0 WORKING WITH CALENDARS
The TASK-PRO calendar system allows the user to interact with an
on screen calendar to indicate hours available for performing
tasks. This information is ultimately used to produce the
RESOURCE ALLOCATION REPORT, which indicates the degree of loading
imposed by task assignments for each resource.
In addition to recognizing command keystrokes, the calendar
interface allows the user to manipulate calendars with the
mouse. The user may click on the text icons along the bottom of
the screen to move from month to month, from year to year, or to
go directly to a specific month. Additionally the user may click
the left mouse button while the mouse cursor is positioned over a
particular day and initiate the entry of a new hours available
for that day. Clicking the right mouse button exits the calendar
and returns the user to the previous window.
The following command keystrokes are recognized by the calendar
system:
ESC - Exit Calendar System.
Arrows - Move highlighted area around calendar.
PgUp - Go To Previous Month.
PgDn - Go To Next Month.
CTL PgUp - Go To Previous Year.
CTL PgDn - Go To Next Year.
'G' - Bring Up Month Selection Menu.
'H' - Set Highlighted day to HOLIDAY.
'V' - Set Highlighted day to VACATION.
'T' - Set Highlighted day to TRIP.
'R' - Set Highlighted day to TRAINING.
'O' - Set Highlighted day to OTHER.
'W' - Set Highlighted day to WEEKEND.
ENTER - Modify number of hours available for
currently highlighted day (or simply
begin entering the number).
11.0 THE TASK-PRO TIMESLIP INTERFACE
The TASK-PRO Timeslip Interface allows for the quick and easy
entry of updates to the HOURS WORKED field for any task without
going into the user interface of TASK-PRO. This is achieved
through a command prompt which understands the following
commands:
FOLDER <name of task folder to update>
ADD <id of task for which hours worked are to be added>
SUB <id of task for which hours worked are to be subtracted>
SET <id of task for which hours worked are to be set>
TOTAL <series of numbers to add>
DIR
HELP
QUIT
The FOLDER command sets the current folder for work. The ADD
command adds hours to a task, the SUB command subtracts hours
from a task, the SET command sets the number of hours worked on a
task, the TOTAL command totals a list of number separated by
blank spaces or '+' characters, the DIR command produces a
listing of all available task folders, the HELP command produces
a help message and the QUIT command returns the user to DOS.
To bring up the timeslip interface go to your TASK-PRO directory
and enter 'TASKPRO -U' from the DOS prompt. The following dialog
with the timeslip interface would add 5 hours to the hours worked
field of task 7 in the folder SYSTEM and set the hours worked
field of task 3 in the folder TESTS to a value of 50.
->FOLDER SYSTEM
SYSTEM-> ADD 7 5
SYSTEM-> FOLDER TESTS
TESTS-> SET 3 50
TESTS-> QUIT
Note that the command prompt contains the name of the currently
opened folder.
12.0 FOR FURTHER ASSISTANCE
If you find TASK-PRO suitable to your business, and take business
seriously, then you really need to become a registered user (and
we really need you to). Registered users will be supported with
technical assistance, will receive a printed User's Guide, and
will be notified of enhancements to TASK-PRO. Additionally,
Business Technologies has entered into an exchange program with
the authors of other high quality business oriented shareware
products that allows us to include the unregistered versions of
these products on our distribution diskettes for your evaluation.
Select the INFO option of the TASK-PRO main menu for the details
on becoming a registered TASK-PRO user (including our phone num-
ber and address).