The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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OTHER PROGRAMS IN THE "POWER OFFICE" LINE-UP BillPower --> time & billing with totally integrated general ledger MT-Tracker --> TickleX's scheduling power, plus a client/project database RAMdesk --> pop-up network message system, calculator, scheduler, phone directory, time/work/expense log, data base ReSearch --> research/evidence organizer for litigation support MORE DETAIL ON BILLPOWER and BILLPOWER PLUS BillPower is a system designed to relieve you of the drudgery involved in billing. In a nutshell, it will track the time you work on professional mat- ters, keep up with your receipts and disbursements, and calculate the amount owed by each client. And it will automatically prepare informative monthly statements for all your clients. All on either a stand-alone or pop-up basis! Engineered exclusively for the small firm, this innovative software offers a rare combination of power and ease of use at a fair price. Unlike programs that attempt to electronically emulate ancient manual accounting procedures, BillPower is designed to capitalize upon the power of your computer. If you are an "old hand" at bookkeeping, then open your mind to a real-time system which immediately updates all balances at the time an entry is made; one that does not require periodic batch postings or annual close-outs; one that pro- vides a convenient method for correcting erroneous entries; a system that never erases old data in the interest of consolidation. You'll find both BillPower and BillPower Plus to be advanced products. --> BillPower ($100): time, billing, & bookkeeping for firms with up to three timekeepers -- includes bank account management, income-expense reports, balance sheets, & several bill formats. --> BillPower Plus ($150): time, billing, & bookkeeping for firms with up to fifteen timekeepers -- builds upon BillPower's fea- tures, adding the abilities to keep extensive indexed memos on any subject, maintain notes on thousands of people, conduct con- flict of interest checks, prepare mailing labels, and more. BillPower can prepare several types of reports. Whenever you request one, you will be presented with a screen listing the parameters by which you can choose the information to be included. After you have selected the appro- priate parameters, BillPower will hunt through its data base for informa- tion meeting your specifications. The report may be sent to the screen, the printer or to a disk file. Finally, while other time and billing programs may offer "links" to exter- nal accounting software, BillPower completely integrates its bookkeeping func- tions into the rest of the program. In fact, BillPower Plus can simultaneously update affected G/L accounts (as well as a client's balance and aged receiv- ables) at the time that a disbursement or receipt is entered. This "real-time" approach to bookkeeping, virtually unprecedented in a time and billing program, saves you the time you would otherwise spend making duplicate G/L entries, pos- ting transactions, and/or transferring files from one program to another. With BillPower Plus, a SINGLE entry can handle all the updating that needs to be done. No other program offers such a degree of integration. NONE! TO: INTEGRA COMPUTING, 910 Cobb Place Manor Dr., Marietta, GA 30066 TX 6.1 Name __________________________________________________________ Firm Name __________________________________ Phone ________________ Address __________________________________________________________ City _________________ State ___ Zip _______ County ________ # Professionals _____ # Employees ____ Type of Practice ________________ I first heard of Integra Computing from ___________________________________ Prices and availability are subject to change without notice. Send unregistered** copies of the following: ___ copies of MT-Tracker at $15 $_____ ___ copies of RAMdesk at $10 ea $_____ ___ copies of ReSearch at $10 ea $_____ ___ copies of BillPower at $10 ea $_____ ___ copies of BillPower Plus at $15 ea $_____ Send registered** copies of the following: TickleX for use on ___ (number) non-connected workstations $_____ ___ (number) networked workstations $_____ $60 for each of first 5 wkstations; $50 for each of wkstations 6-10; $40 for each of wkstations 11-20; $35 for each of wkstations 21-50; $30 for each of wkstations 51-100; $25 each thereafter. ___ copies of MT-Tracker at $90 $_____ ___ copies of RAMdesk at $50 ea (only $25 w/each copy of TickleX)$_____ ___ copies of ReSearch at $90 ea $_____ ___ copies of BillPower Plus at $150 ea $_____ +++ Add an extra $60 for each hour of telephone support* you wish to buy $_____ To have programs supplied on 3.5" media, enclose $5.00 extra PER PROGRAM $_____ If you don't live in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico, please add $10.00 more $_____ TOTAL ORDER $_____ ___% Sales Tax for ___________ county, if you're a GA resident $_____ If you live in a country that was formerly governed by communists, and this order is being placed before 1 January 1994, you may subtract 50% -$_____ Please enclose CHECK or MONEY ORDER in US dollars -- GRAND TOTAL $_____ Credit card orders and purchase orders which are not accompanied by payment will not be accepted. A check or money order must show on its face the name & address of a US bank that will accept it. I agree to all the terms of the License, Disclaimer, and Agreement found below. _______________________________________ _________________ SIGNATURE DATE * Telephone support will be provided if you pre-purchase it with this order form. Such support must be used within a year. When you need assistance, you may reach Integra Computing (404-426-5735) most weekdays from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, Eastern Time. Because so much time is required to respond to mailed correspon- dence, letters requesting assistance may not be answered. If you need help, call -- don't write. But please don't even call unless you've pre-purchased support with this order form; if you call without having prepaid for support, each call will cost you a minimum of $15, plus $1.50 per minute. ** Unregistered software is programmed to remind you to register. Please note that no credit will be given at the time of registration for the cost of an unregistered copy. -- LICENSE: BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, RAMdesk, and their documentation are copyrighted in 1985 to 1992 by R.A. Kelly. You may use any program on as many computers as you like, as long as it is never installed with a SERIAL NUM- BER (provided to you when you register as a user) on more than one computer at a time and as long as you do not alter the program in any way. You may distri- bute any of these programs to potential new users, provided that you never di- vulge your SERIAL NUMBER to anyone, that you charge no fee for the program, and that you do not bundle it with (or use it as an incentive to purchase or lease) any other product or service, without the written consent of R.A. Kel- ly. All rights not expressly granted above are reserved in R.A. Kelly. -- DISCLAIMER: BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, and RAMdesk may contain design and programming flaws. Before using ANY software on a regular basis, try estimat- ing the potential harm that could result from your reliance upon it. Please don't use any of these programs unless you're willing to assume the associated risks, such as billing and report inaccuracies and data loss. BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, RAMDESK, AND THEIR INSTRUCTIONS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WAR- RANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE). NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE PROVIDED BY INTEGRA, ITS DEALERS, DISTRIBU- TORS, AGENTS, OR EMPLOYEES SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OF ANY KIND REGARDING BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK, AND YOU MAY NOT RELY UPON SUCH INFORMATION OR ADVICE. USE OF BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. NEITHER INTEGRA NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSI- NESS INTERRUPTION, AND LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION) ARISING FROM THE USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK, EVEN THOUGH INTEGRA MAY BE ADVISED THAT SUCH DAMAGES ARE POSSIBLE. -- AGREEMENT: As used in this Agreement, the terms "BillPower" ,"TickleX", "PopForm", "ReSearch", and "RAMdesk", if not followed by a series or version designation, mean any version or series of BillPower, BillPower Plus, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk provided to you now or in the future. Your attempt to use BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk constitutes your acceptance of the terms set forth in the foregoing LICENSE and DISCLAIMER (which are incorporated into this Agreement). Your attempt to use BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk also constitutes your agreement that if you bring any legal action relating to BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk, 1) your sole remedy for the damages for which any defendant is found liable (including direct, indirect, incidental and con- sequential damages) will be the recovery of whatever you paid to register as a user of the program, and 2) you will pay all defendants' attorneys fees and other legal costs if you do not prevail on all claims made in your pleadings. The terms of this Agreement are governed by Georgia law. If any of this Agreement's terms shall be held invalid to any extent, the remainder of this Agreement shall be unaffected by such invalidity. THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS CONSTITUTE THE ENTIRE AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND INTE- GRA. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION, INFORMATION, OR ADVICE FROM ANY SOURCE MAY ALTER THE AGREEMENT AS SET FORTH ABOVE. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR OF LIABIL- ITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO SOME OF THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. YOU MAY HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH MAY VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. TICKLEX TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CHAPTER 1 BUILDING BLOCKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 SETTING UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Common Customization Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Batch File Customizing (European notation, etc.) . . . . . . . . 11 Customizing for laser printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 EVENT TYPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 CHAPTER 2 USING TICKLEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Alternative Main Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Information Shown on Main Menu's Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 17 Moving Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Screen Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Making an Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Blinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Clones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 A Note about Reminders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Editing/Examining Individual Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Editing a Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Frequently Scheduled or Recurring Events . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Earliest and latest dates of occurrence . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Events separated by a certain number of days . . . . . . . . . 25 Events that occur every second or third month . . . . . . . . 26 Holidays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Wrapping it all up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 To-Do List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Six-Month View (and calendar calculator to find any day) . . . . 30 Weekly View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Omitting Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Tagging Events for Omission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Actually Omitting Events, Plans and Projects . . . . . . . . . 32 Hunting for Entries and Preparing Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Event chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Printed calendars (weekly, monthly, yearly) . . . . . . . . . 37 Other Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Custom reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Finding Free Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Re-Scheduling Several Events Quickly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Morning Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 CHAPTER 3 UTILITIES (BACKUP, RESTORE, PRINTER DRIVERS, ETC). . . . . . . . . . 43 CHAPTER 4 LOG MODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 CHAPTER 5 POP-UP TICKLEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 CHAPTER 6 TICKLEX ON A LOCAL AREA NETWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 CHAPTER 7 USING TICKLEX WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 CHAPTER 8 SHARING DATA AMONG SEVERAL COMPUTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 CHAPTER 9 EMPLOYEE/DEPARTMENT GROUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 CHAPTER 10 AUTOMATED EXECUTION (MACROS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 APPENDIX A: MESSAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 TICKLEX INSTRUCTIONS NOTE: Despite your natural inclination, you should never access TickleX by entering "ticklex" at the DOS prompt. See the BUILDING BLOCKS section of CHAPTER 1. NOTE: If you're using an unregistered copy of the program, it will begin to beep at you in several weeks, reminding you that it's time to register. Don't worry -- no data will be destroyed, and you'll always be able to use the program, despite the fact that you delay registering. INTRODUCTION TickleX is an advanced tickler, scheduler, calendar, and to-do list that can also be used to track hours worked, expenses, and in- come. It's unique in that it integrates these facilities with the ability to handle simple "project management" tasks, such as docket control. The program operates on an IBM-compatible PC. It requires about 450 Kilobytes of memory when being accessed, but only 7 Kilo- bytes when waiting in the background as a "pop-up" (see the POP-UP TICKLEX chapter). It can handle up to 12000 Appointments, Deadlines, Trips, Vacations, Exercises, Miscellaneous events, and Reminders, all at once (see the EVENT TYPES section of CHAPTER 1). Several program and data files are required to make TickleX work: TX.BAT batch file used to enter TickleX TICKLEX.EXE main program TICKLEX.OVR overlay file for the main program PC-BEEP.EXE TickleX's (or RAMdesk's) alarm program RAMDESK.CFG data that customizes PC-BEEP.EXE, above EDITX.EXE TickleX's text editor PRNTINIT data to help TickleX work with your printer PRNTDRVR.EXE program that quickly creates PRNTINIT, above M-JOURN.LBF, .LBI TickleX's schedule database files M-WORK.LBF, .LBI TickleX's log database files RECUR.x files containing recurring event data BLANKCAL, BLANKCL Main Menu calendar grids INCMEXPNS.DAT listing of income/expense categories LASRCODE laser printer codes for various functions x.HLP help files x.RPT customized report files x.LBT plan template files INTRODUCTION 6 THE BUILDING BLOCKS Before you begin using TickleX, you should first acquaint your- self with some basics. To begin with, make sure your monitor's con- trast is set so that the screen can display different shades. If it's not set properly, TickleX's instructions will occasionally seem con- fusing. ENTERING THE PROGRAM You should access TickleX by entering "TX xxx", where xxx are your initials. This causes the TX.BAT file to execute. ---> NEVER ACCESS TICKLEX BY ENTERING "TICKLEX" <--- Don't even rename the TX.BAT file. With only one exception, TickleX must ALWAYS be entered through a batch file called TX.BAT. If you want to access TickleX through an automated menu program, you may do so, as long as the the menu program calls TX.BAT (rather than directly calling TICKLEX). The exception to the rule that TickleX must be entered through TX.BAT comes into play if you wish to use the program as a "pop-up" and want it to be loaded automatically whenever you turn on your com- puter. See the CHAPTER 5 (POP-UP TICKLEX). KEYBOARD ENTRIES Using TickleX requires you to make data entries at your computer keyboard. When you are asked to `enter' something, you should type in the response at the keyboard and then finish your entry by pressing RET (the "Return", or "Enter", key). `Enter', therefore, implies that you will complete your entry with a RET. If you are asked merely to `press' a key, you should not press RET after you have pressed the appropriate key. `Press' means that you need make only one keystroke; 'enter' implies that more that one keystroke is permissible, since all entries must end with RET. CONTROL CHARACTERS On-screen instructions will frequently instruct you to press control characters. A control character is represented graphically as a letter preceded by an up caret (eg: ^A or ^H). If you are instructed to press a control character, you must hold the Ctrl key down, while simultaneously pressing the appropriate letter key. For example, to press ^T, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the "T" (or "t") key. Do not actually press the up caret key; the up caret is used merely as a graphic representation of the control key. 1 -- BUILDING BLOCKS 7 THE `RET' KEY RET (the return key) serves two functions in TickleX. First, it is the key used to end all entries. And second, if, in response to a screen prompt, you press it before you press any other keys, it acts to tell the program that you wish to ignore the prompt and retain the current response, if any. If, for instance, TickleX asked you a name, you could just press RET, and the program would infer that you wished to ignore the question. Depending upon the circumstances, TickleX would then move on to the next question in a series, or it would abort the procedure in which the question occurred. ESC (the Escape key) will usually serve to tell TickleX not only to ignore a response, but also to abort the procedure entirely. PAUSING When you find the computer in the middle of some lengthy proce- dure, such as printing a report, and you want to pause, press the space bar. Doing so will cause the process to stop until you press the space bar again. This use of the space bar will not work in all of the program's operational modes, but it will in most. Pressing the space bar may take a few seconds to have an effect, so be patient. ABORTING If, instead of wishing that the computer pause in the middle of a procedure, you prefer to abort that procedure altogether, press ESC (the Escape key). As with the space bar, this key may not work in all parts of the program, and it may take a few seconds to act. MESSAGE LINES The last line or two on the display screen will nearly always have a message for you. The message will often contain either in- structions or an error message. If you are ever unclear about what you are supposed to do next, look at these message lines, which will be printed in reverse video. If the intent of the message is not clear, you might find an explanation of it in the MESSAGES appendix to these instructions. 1 -- BUILDING BLOCKS 8 SETTING UP TickleX must be placed into a MANAGEX directory on your computer. If you've gone through the automated install routine, that's already been handled for you. You should also copy the BACKUP and RESTORE programs from your computer's DOS diskette to the MANAGEX directory (or, alternatively, make sure that they're in your computer's directory "path"). COMMON CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS When you first begin using TickleX, you will have to answer a number of CUSTOMIZING questions. If you make any mistakes in filling in the blanks, don't worry; you may always come back to this series of questions later if you press "U" at the Main Menu and then "C" at the Utilities menu. -> Drive used for TickleX: Enter the letter designation (C,D, etc.) of the hard disk on which you want to store TickleX's data. If there's room, you will probably use the same disk for both program and data. -> Initials: Enter the initials of each employee for whom Appoint- ments, Deadlines, etc., will be stored by TickleX. An employee is an individual or office that you want to track with the program. If you wish, you may also tell TickleX the name of the employee whose initials you're entering. To do so, just press ^C to begin entering the name (up to 15 characters) at the bottom of the screen. -> Printer Port: The program needs to know the parallel port to which your printer is attached. Press the 1, 2, or 3 key. By the way, you may temporarily alter the printer port at the time a report is prepared if you simply press the 1, 2 or 3 key just before begin- ning the hunt through the database. -> Reset Printer: Before preparing a report, the program will momen- tarily reset your printer (unless you've indicated a Laser prin- ter). If you find this to be an unnecessary annoyance, answer "NO" here. -> Printer Lines per Page: Enter the number of lines your printer is set to print on each sheet of paper. If you're unsure, just press RET to keep the default setting (66). If you're using a laser printer, this figure is irrelevant, so you should enter "LASER". If you indicate that you're using a laser printer, TickleX will offer a wider variety of reports than would otherwise be the case. TickleX will assume that you're using a Hewlett Packard Laser Jet printer (or one that emulates the Laser Jet). If your printer cannot emulate 1 -- SETTING UP 9 the Laser Jet, the program's reporting functions may not operate properly. In this case, see the "Batch File Customization" section below. -> 24-hour Time, etc: If this item is answered "YES", TickleX will use 24-hour (instead of 12-hour) time. It will also use the DD/MM/YY date format, instead of the usual American MM/DD/YY format. -> Use Main Calendar Date: If "NO", TickleX will, at the time you begin entering a new event into the system, prompt you for a date before taking you to the data entry screen. If "YES", TickleX will assume that the date you want is what is shown on the Main Menu calendar, hence shortening the procedure. -> Batch Entries: If you regularly enter several events in a row for the same date, this item should be "YES". If you normally enter only one event at a time, this item should be "NO". If you answer "YES", TickleX will assume that, in addition to your normally entering several records in a row when in the "MAKE" routine (for new records), you will likewise normally edit several events in a row whenever you're in the "EDIT" routine (for old records). -> Prompt for Reminders: If you want TickleX to automatically prompt you for up to 10 reminders when you finish entering an event, this item should be "YES". -> Prompt for Priorities: If you find it useful to assign priorities to your deadlines (to-do's), you'll want TickleX to prompt you for a priority at the time you enter a deadline into the system. The default for this item is "NO", because very few people actually pay attention to the priorities originally assigned to deadlines when they're put into the system. Instead, as each new day arrives, they review ALL of that day's deadlines and decide AT THAT TIME which deadlines are most important (completely ignoring whatever priority was originally assigned to each event). But, if you in- sist upon having TickleX prompt you for a deadline's priority as you enter it into the system, you should answer this item, "YES". When TickleX knows that it should follow priorities, it will dis- play each deadline's priority number at the left margin of each day's full-detail "daily view"; and you'll be able to hunt through the database to produce a report in priority order. -> Prompt for Alarms: If you plan to use PC-Beep (TickleX's companion alarm program) to provide pop-up alarms for the events entered into TickleX, you should answer this item, "YES". If you do, TickleX will ask you for an alarm time whenever you enter an event. -> Colors: Press "M" until the main foreground color you want appears. Press "S" until the secondary color appears. Press "B" until you have the desired background. Press RET when you're finished selecting clolrs. Only computers equipped with color video cards will be given the colors options. 1 -- SETTING UP 10 There are some secondary items that may be customized if you press the F9 key after passing through all the above ones: -> There are three types of events whose names you may change: GOTCHAs, EXERCISEs, and MISCELLANEOUS events. To give each a dif- ferent name, just type the name you want. Whatever the name you substitute for GOTCHA, the event type will have the characteristics of GOTCHAs and DEADLINEs (eg: they'll be automatically brought for- ward from day to day). If you change the name of MISCELLANEOUS or EXERCISE, the traits of the event will become similar to those of ordinary APPOINTMENTs. Please don't make ANY changes here until you're thoroughly familiar with the program. -> TDY & Leave: Military offices may find these references more ap- propriate than "trips" and "vacations". -> Employees or Departments: Choose the term by which you wish to refer to the people, positions or offices in your firm. -> Workday Begin and End Times: Whenever you ask the program to find a block of free time, it needs to know how early and how late you want it to check each day. Without reasonable begin and end times, the program would always find free time in the middle of the night. -> Partition Interval: When the program prepares the "Printed Daily Schedule" report, it needs to know how many partitions should be printed per hour. If you desire two partitions, enter "30" min- utes; enter "15" for four, etc. By the way, the "Printed Daily Schedule" is always centered on 1:00PM, and the Begin and End times entered above are used to estimate the total number of hours you want shown on that report. -> Show Partitions on Standard Reports: Normally, the program does not waste space in displaying partition lines on its standard re- ports. If, however, you want it to partition each day into half- or quarter-hourly blocks, answer "YES" at this item. BATCH FILE CUSTOMIZATION There are also a few things you can customize at the batch file level. In the TX.BAT file, there is a line that starts with the word, "TICKLEX". This line may contain parameters which instruct the prog- ram to make certain assumptions. For instance, if you wish to use password protection when using the program on a network, the second parameter following "TICKLEX" should contain the character sequence "PW". See the TICKLEX ON A LOCAL AREA NETWORK chapter for more on this subject. To use European date notation (eg: "24.5.92", instead of "24 May 92"), the 11th parameter should be "x", and the 12th should be 1 -- SETTING UP 11 "EURODATE". Example: "ticklex x x x x x x x x x x x EURODATE" To show calendars of the European type (Monday to Sunday), instead of American (Sunday to Saturday), the 12th parameter should contain the character string, "CAL". Examples: "ticklex x x x x x x x x x x x EURODATECAL" "ticklex x x x x x x x x x x x EUROCAL" If your printer is connected to your computer's SERIAL port, rather than to its parallel port, you should insert a couple of lines into the TX.BAT file, just above the "TICKLEX" line. The first line should contain the appropriate MODE command (see your DOS manual) to enable your serial port to communicate with your printer (these parameters should be in your printer manual). The second line should read, "MODE LPT1:=COM1" (or "MODE LPT1:=COM2", if using comm port 2). Also, Printer Resetting should be set to "NO" (see the "Common Customization Options" section above). If you're using a laser printer that CANNOT emulate the Hewlett Packard Laser Jet (and if you have been unsuccessful in modifying the the LASRCODE file, discussed in the next section), you should make sure that the second parameter contains the character sequence "NLJ". Examples: "mttrack x NLJ x x x x x x x x x EURODATECAL" "mttrack x PWNLJ x x ABC DEF F:\MANAGEX C:\MANAGEX x MR 1" Finally, if you use desqVIEW, you should add a line at the bottom of the TX.BAT file, saying "EXIT". CUSTOMIZING FOR LASER PRINTERS If your printer is not compatible with the Hewlitt Packard Laser Jet series, you may not be able to take advantage of some of the re- ports offered by the program. But there is still a slim possibility that you can, if you'll need to modify the LASRCODE file with a text editor, such as EDITX.EXE (Ctrl-E from the Main Menu). LASRCODE is originally created when you select either the LaserJet or DeskJet printer option in Utilities module's "PrinterSelection" routine (which causes the the PRNTDRVR.EXE program to execute). The LASRCODE file contains a series of lines, each of which begins with a description of a code and ends with the actual code that will be sent to your printer to achieve the results described. The codes that are currently in that file are for the Laser Jet series of printers. If your printer has different codes for exactly the same functions, you may substitute them. 1 -- SETTING UP 12 Be sure to change only the code section of each line (following the equals sign). The code must consist of actual characters, not hex or decimal numbers. If you use EDITX.EXE, remember that, to enter the ESC key (or any control-key combination), you must first press Ctrl-P, then the ESC key (or other control-key combination). If you can't successfully modify the LASRCODE file, you'll need to tell TickleX that it should ignore the file. To find out how to do so, read the "Batch File Customization" section's discussion of the NLJ command at the second parameter. 1 -- SETTING UP 13 EVENT TYPES An APPOINTMENT is an event scheduled for a particular time and day. A lunch date, for instance, would be entered as an Appointment. A DEADLINE is an event for which your firm is responsible. It's char- acter is such that failing to meet it may get you into trouble (a "to- do", for instance, is in reality a Deadline). A MISCELLANEOUS event, on the other hand, is something which you expect to take place, but for which you aren't responsible. For instance, if another office is supposed to answer a complaint by 20 August, you would enter that ev- ent under the Miscellaneous category. If YOUR office is supposed to answer a complaint by 20 August, you would enter it as a Deadline. If the Deadline is absolutely crucial, it should be entered as a GOTCHA (which is a super Deadline). An EXERCISE is a test or a period of training. You might prefer to use this category for scheduling an employee's work or some other major category of event. The TRIP and VACATION categories are self-explanatory. Multi-day events, such as Vacations and Trips, need be entered only once, for the date on which the event begins (eg: the beginning date of your vacation). Whenever you need to change something about that recorded event, you need edit only one record, the one entered for the event's beginning date. Yet, despite the fact that only one entry is actually kept in the data base, your daily schedule for each day of the multi- day event will reflect that event. It's necessary that you recognize the importance of Deadlines (including Gotchas). If you occasionally enter an Appointment as a Miscellaneous event, or a Trip as an Exercise, there won't be any ser- ious ramifications. But a Deadline should always be entered as such (or as a Gotcha). You see, only Deadlines and Gotchas are deemed im- portant enough by TickleX to be brought forward when they're past due. In this way, TickleX will continue reminding you of a Deadline, even after it's been passed, until you check it off. If something really should be entered as a Deadline, and you instead enter it as an Ap- pointment or Miscellaneous event, TickleX won't keep hounding you to take care of it after it's scheduled date passes. In other words, that item will be dropped from your "to-do" list after the scheduled date. In most cases this won't cause any problems, but there may be times when you'll wish you had entered something as a Deadline, so that you'll keep being reminded of it until it's done. A REMINDER is an entry reminding you that an Appointment, Dead- line, etc., will occur at some time in the future. A Reminder must be set at least one day prior to the event of which you wish to be re- minded. For instance, you might wish to be reminded on Monday that you have an important meeting on Tuesday. Or, you might want to be reminded that a report is due in a couple of weeks (the actual due date would be entered as a Deadline, and a Reminder could be set a couple of weeks prior to the due date). 1 -- EVENT TYPES 14 Each Appointment, Deadline, etc., may have up to ten Reminders linked to it. This linking, a TickleX exclusive, is handled automat- ically. Linking Reminders to the tasks to which they refer is advan- tageous when you need to change the original task. When such a change is made, all the linked Reminders are automatically changed appropri- ately. Assume, for instance, that you originally scheduled an Ap- pointment for 1 September, and made a Reminder for 25 August (remin- ding you of the 1 September Appointment). If you subsequently changed the 1 September Appointment to 31 August, TickleX would also automati- cally change the 25 August Reminder so that it reflected the Appoint- ment's new date (31 August). The date of the Reminder, itself, would also be changed to 24 August, in order to maintain the 1-week interval between Appointment and Reminder that had originally been established. A PLAN is a special file that lists the expected tasks for a pro- ject with which you are involved. This listing contains the anticipa- ted time interval between each task. When you enter or change a date in the Plan, TickleX will automatically change the dates for all rela- ted tasks accordingly. Plans are useful in planning complicated pro- jects, such as lawsuits or exercises involving plentiful milestones. By the way, GOTCHAs, EXERCISEs, and MISCELLANEOUS event types may be renamed. See the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1. 1 -- EVENT TYPES 15 USING TICKLEX THE MAIN MENU -- Alternative Main Menus You may use any of TickleX's four Main Menus, each consisting of a large calendar and two menu lines at the bottom of the screen. The menu lines list the most frequently used program options, but not all. To see a complete listing, press the F1 key. To switch to among the Main Menus, press the TAB key. Whichever Main Menu is last used before you exit the program will be the menu to which TickleX will default the next time you load it. One of the Main Menus displays the types of events scheduled for each day. Each day's box on the calendar contains up to eleven a's, D's, etc. Each of these characters represents an Appointment, Dead- line, etc., that falls on that date. The more characters you see in a day's box, the more things have been scheduled for that day. To save space, however, no more than one Reminder (reminding you of an actual event sometime in the future) will be shown in each day's box. Another Main Menu displays the blocks of time that have been scheduled for each day. Each day's box contains from zero to twenty- four rectangles, arranged in two rows of up to twelve rectangles each. Each rectangle represents one-half hour that's already been scheduled for that day. The top row shows which half-hour blocks have been scheduled between 7:00 AM and 1:00 PM. The bottom row represents 1:00 to 7:00 PM. You will also note that there is a vertical line marking each hour (on the half-hour) from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM. This calendar will quickly give you a very rough idea of how much time has been scheduled for each day of the month. A third Main Menu will show BOTH event types AND time scheduled (7:00AM to 5:00PM) for each day. A long box at the bottom of the three aforementioned Main Menus will display the first several characters of each of four Gotchas and Deadlines scheduled for the day that is highlighted. If there are fewer than four Gotchas and Deadlines, other types of events may also be shown (reminders and events tagged for omission, however, will not appear here). Now, there's one last Main Menu that's very popular. It splits the screen in half, displaying a calendar on the left and up to seven- teen abbreviated event descriptions on the right. Each day's box in the calendar will be blank if there's nothing scheduled that day. If, on the other hand, there's at least one event whose ending time is later than its beginning time, the box will display a rough horizontal 2 -- USING TICKLEX 16 bar chart illustrating the times during which that day's events take place. If no time has actually been blocked off during that day, but there IS some non-time-blocked activity, the box will contain a single dot. -- Information Shown on Main Menu's Calendar By default, each Main Menu will show events scheduled for ALL your employees. If you wish to see only one particular employee's schedule, press the F3 key. Then, tell TickleX which employee you want shown on the calendar. If you want ALL employees to be dis- played, just press RET when TickleX asks you for one. An alternate way to change the employee being shown on the calen- dar is to simply press the number key corresponding to that employee's ID number. For example, pressing "1" results in employee 1's being shown on the calendar. Pressing "0" tells TickleX to show ALL em- ployees on the calendar. Of course, this scheme works only for em- ployees 1 to 9, so if you want to see an employee from 10 to 200, you'll have to use the F3 key. Pressing the F7 key will allow you to select a specific PROJECT (as opposed to an employee) whose events you wish to see, to the ex- clusion of all others. -- Moving Around You can move from day to day with the arrow keys. When you land upon a day for which you'd like to see more detail, press the RET key. When you do, the calendar will be replaced by a screen that fully des- cribes each of that single day's events. To zoom back to the calen- dar, just press the RET key again. Whether you're looking at the large calendar or an individual day's events, the arrow keys work identically: left arrow: go back one day; right arrow: go forward a day; up arrow: go back one week; down arrow: go forward a week; PgUp: go back one month; and PgDn: go forward one month. Whether you're looking at the big calendar or an individual day, you have the full range of options shown in the same two-line menu at the bottom of the screen. And the TAB key also works in the daily view to toggle between alternate views of the day: --> three spell out the beginning and ending times for each event: 1: without a small calendar in the upper right corner; 2: with a small calendar in the upper right; 2 -- USING TICKLEX 17 3: with a small calendar and each event's full notes; --> two fill in blocks representing the events' times: 1: without a small calendar in the upper right corner; 2: with a small calendar in the upper right; Pressing "W" while in either the monthly or daily view will take you to a weekly view of the data. When finished with the weekly view, press RET to return to the screen from which you entered it. -- Screen Printing If you ever need to print a screen's worth of data, you may press the Shift-PrtScr key combination, which works just as it does with most other programs. If you're in the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, however, you'll have more flexibility if you press Ctrl-PrtScr, instead of Shift- PrtScr. Doing so will present you with a couple of options. MAKING AN ENTRY When you choose the Make option, you will be asked to spec- ify the sort of event you are about to enter. Most are discussed in the EVENT TYPES section of CHAPTER 1. If you choose to enter a new Plan, you will be taken through the straightforward sequence discussed in "Editing a Plan", below. Event "Clones" are also discussed below. When you are asked to enter the date, a small calendar may ap- pear on the screen. You have the option of either: 1) entering the date at the prompt; or 2) using the cursor movement keys to locate the desired date on the calendar and then pressing RET. The PgUp and PgDn keys will change the month displayed on the calendar. If you don't know the date you need to enter, but do know that it is a certain number of days before or after a given date, enter the given date, followed by a plus or minus sign, followed in turn by the number of days you wish to add or subtract. If, for instance, you need to enter the date that is 120 days after 2 OCT 89, you should enter "2 OCT 89 +120". TickleX will automatically figure the correct date for you. If you need to move forward or backward a given number of months (instead of days), just highlight the appropriate date on the calendar and press the PgUp or PgDn keys appropriately. After you've selected the date, a new screen will appear. Here, you will complete your entry. One of the items to be filled in is the employee affected by the event. If you wish to schedule more than one employee, each should be separated from the next by a comma (eg: "ABC,DEF,GHI,JKL" will tell 2 -- USING TICKLEX 18 TickleX that you wish to schedule identical events for each of four employees -- ABC, DEF, GHI, and JKL). NOTE: If you don't need to fill in an item, just skip it by pressing the RET key. Never feel compelled to make an entry for an item that you don't think is important. If, for in- stance, the beginning time is not important, don't fill in that item. The only items that TickleX absolutely requires are a date and an event/description. There are three "Time" items, one for each of the beginning and ending times, and one for an alarm. If you enter a time that has al- ready been "blocked off" for the day, TickleX will remind you of a possible conflict and afford you the opportunity to change the entry if you need to. NOTE: TickleX assumes that an event with no ending time (or an ending time identical to the beginning time) is not inten- ded to be "blocked off". Hence, you may schedule multiple Deadlines for 11:00 (no ending time), without TickleX's re- minding you of possible conflicts. If, however, you have an Appointment scheduled from 11:00 to 12:00, subsequent at- tempts to enter anything during that period will trigger TickleX's time block protection response. The "Priority" item may appear if this event is a Deadline or a Gotcha (assuming you've customized the program to ask for priorities - - see the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1). Here, fill in the prior- ity level you wish to assign to the event. You may use any number from 0 to 9 or any letter from A to Z. The lower the number or let- ter, the higher the priority (eg: 0 is a higher priority than 1, 9 is higher than A, and A is higher than B,). The item called "Project" (or "CaseNumber", if you are also using BillPower) contemplates an alphanumeric entry up to twelve characters long. You need not enter anything, but you may wish to, since this item may help you to search through the data base quickly to find only those events involving a specific project (case, job). If you enter something, you may use the same scheme your office has always used to identify each project. For instance, the project for John Smith might be called "8801-JS-1" or "Smith, J", or "SMITJO", or anything else. By the way, pressing F1 here will result in a display of the list of projects entered into the program in the past. NOTE: If the time, project/case, or event of the record you're presently entering is the same as the corresponding item in the preceding record just entered, you can save some time by just entering "S". Whenever "S" is entered for a time, project/case, or event, TickleX will pick up that item's text from the record you've just finished entering. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 19 After you enter the "EVENT/DESCRIPTION" item, you will be affor- ded the opportunity to add up to 14 lines of notes to the entry. -- Blinking Events If an event is so important that you want it to blink whenever it's displayed on the Main Menu, press ^B (Ctrl-B) at the end of the EVENT/DESCRIPTION item. When you do, stylized "B" will appear. -- Clones A Clone is an almost exact copy of an event. Let's suppose you have an event already entered into the program and you want to make a copy of it for another day or another employee. To do so, select "Clone" when asked for the type of event at the bottom of the screen. The cloning process is very straightforward. First, you'll be asked which date contains the item to be cloned. Then you'll be shown a list of the items already entered for that date. When you select one of them, that item will be "cloned", and you'll be allowed to edit the new copy, so that you can change its date, employee, or anything else. When you save the new copy by pressing F6, you will have successfully made a change or two to your newly "cloned" event. -- A Note about Reminders Reminders are created most conveniently at the time you origin- ally enter the event to which they refer. TickleX will automatically prompt you to create such Reminders after each Appointment, Deadline, etc., has been input. But Reminders may also be entered subsequent to your entry of an Appointment, Deadline, etc. To do so, press "R" when asked to specify an event type at the bottom of the screen. You will next be asked the date of the event for which you need a Reminder. Then, TickleX will show you the record number of each primary event scheduled for that date. You will be expected to use the arrow keys to highlight the specific event of which you wish to be reminded (or, if you prefer, you may simply enter its record number). Then, TickleX will flash that record to the screen and ask you to enter the date for which you wish this new Reminder to be set. EDITING/EXAMINING INDIVIDUAL ITEMS When you press "E" at the Main Menu, you'll enter the Edit/Exam- ine mode. Then you'll be asked to enter the date of the event you wish to edit/examine (you won't be asked this question, however, if you've customized the program to assume that the date whose event you want to edit is the highlighted Main Menu date -- see the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1). 2 -- USING TICKLEX 20 Once TickleX knows the date in which you're interested, you'll be shown a list of everything scheduled for that date. You will then be asked to select the specific event you wish to edit or examine. If you don't see the one you're looking for, you've probably specified the wrong date. Use the arrow keys to change the date and display a different set of events. When you finally find the event you want to edit, highlight it and press RET (or enter its record number). The selected record will then appear on the screen, and you may modify it as you wish. Press F6 when you're done. If the record just changed is referenced by any Reminders, they will be automatically updated to reflect the changes you made. Then, if one of the changes you made was to the event's date, you'll be shown each of its Remin- ders, so that you can confirm the changes automatically rendered by TickleX. EDITING A PLAN When you choose to work with a Plan, you'll be shown a listing of all Plans presently on the hard disk. Then, you'll be asked to choose one of them. Before we go any further, however, let's discuss exactly what a plan is and how it's set up. A Plan is a file that may be used to chart the course that a pro- ject is expected to follow. Each Plan may be set up individually or it may be based upon a Template. You may establish a separate Tem- plate for each general category of project your firm handles. A real estate project, for instance, might use a "REALTY" Template. Remem- ber, a Plan is a sequence of events for a specific project. A Tem- plate, on the other hand, is a generalized sequence of events for a general class of project. Once the "REALTY" template is established, for instance, it may be used as the basis for an actual project in- volving real estate. Plan and Template files may be created with EDITX. Each contains a listing of the tasks that usually take place in the type of project to be tracked. Each line in the file consists of a task description, an abbreviation for that task, the type of task (eg: Deadline or Ap- pointment), and perhaps a brief note about that task. Also included is the interval (expressed in days) that is expected between that task and the preceding one. If an item is completely unrelated to the pre- ceding one, the interval item should be left blank. The notes item may also be left blank if you wish, but every line in the file MUST have both an abbreviation and a description. A Template or Plan file may have NO empty lines. TickleX comes with a sample Template file called "SAMPLE". Take a look at it with EDITX (^E at the Main Menu). Note, as you view it, that no actual dates are filled in. Never fill in Plan/Template dates with EDITX. Enter dates ONLY in the main TickleX program. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 21 BRIEF EXAMPLE OF A TEMPLATE: ABB -------DESCRIPTION------- INT TYP DATE ---NOTES------------- INJ Injury - CMP File complaint - ANS Expect answer 30 M SL Stat Of Limitations runs 730 D inj\ SLN Note: Now it's too late 730 N inj\ The first line reflects the injury. Remember, this is just a Template, not a Plan for an actual project. Therefore, no date infor- mation is filled in. The next line is for the filing of the com- plaint. It has no interval item because the date on which it is to take place is not necessarily related to the date of the injury. The third line reflects that an answer is expected 30 days after the com- plaint is filed. The fourth line indicates that the statute of limi- tations will expire 730 days after the injury takes place. The "inj\" in the notes item ties the SL interval to the first line, which begins with "INJ". Were in not for the "inj\" notation, the fourth line's interval would be assumed to be tied to the immediately preceding line (the "ANS" line). The fifth line is a note for the 4th line. Its type is 'N', and it must use the remarks section to refer to the event from which the 4th line's interval is calculated. NOTE: By default, the program assumes that the interval includes all days. But if the interval should include only workdays (that is, non-weekends and non-holidays), place "WDO" into the notes item on the line containing that interval. When you set up a Plan for a project, it will initially consist of an exact copy of the Template from which it was copied (assuming you didn't write an original Plan "from scratch" in EDITX). No dates will actually be filled in. Extensive changes to the body of the Plan must be made in EDITX (by pressing ^E at the Main Menu). Filling in dates, however, is handled by pressing "P" at the Main Menu. This "P" (Plan) option is the one to choose if you want TickleX to fill in dates for related tasks automatically. The ^E option (EDITX) won't allow you to fill in dates. If you want to fill in some Plan dates, press "P" at the Main Menu. You'll be shown a listing of all Plans presently on the hard disk. Then, you'll be asked to choose one of them. If you wish to create a new one, enter a name for it. TickleX will then remind you that it doesn't exist and show you a listing of the Templates from which the new plan can be copied. If an appropriate template exists, type in it's name, and it'll be copied verbatim into the new Plan you've chosen to set up. If an appropriate Template does NOT yet exist, you'll have to press ESC and go to EDITX (by pressing ^E at the 2 -- USING TICKLEX 22 Main Menu) to create a new Template (or the actual plan you want to set up) "from scratch". Now, let's quickly cover how to edit an es- tablished Plan. Once a Plan has been created, filling in the dates is a simple matter. First, specify which Plan you wish to edit. Then, select a task for editing by using the arrow keys to highlight that task (or optionally, just entering the task's abbreviation). Each time you select a task, you'll be taken through a series of prompts (date, time, etc.). Anytime you don't need to fill in a par- ticular item, just press RET to move on to the next. After TickleX has accepted all the information for a task, it will search the plan for subsequent tasks whose intervals are related to the date of the task just entered. As it encounters a subsequent related task, its date will be automatically assigned, and you'll be given the opportunity to enter any other information you wish. When you're finished making changes to the Plan, press the ESC key to return to the Main Menu. NOTE: Note that TickleX moves through the Plan from beginning to end; it cannot be forced to go backward. But if you ever need to calculate earlier dates from later ones, TickleX will still accommodate you. When you're asked to enter a date for the earlier task, simply highlight the date of the LATER task on the little pop-up calendar; then type "-XX" (where XX is the number of days you wish to subtract from the later date). FREQUENTLY SCHEDULED OR RECURRING EVENTS In addition to scheduling events item by item, TickleX has the ability to automatically log events that take place on a regular basis. For instance, if you have a staff meeting every Tuesday at 12:00, you need not go to the trouble of setting each and every such event. To tell TickleX the events of which you would like to be reminded regularly, press ^E (Ctrl-E) at the Main Menu. You'll be transferred to EDITX, where you can set up a file containing your regular events. When EDITX's menu appears, select "(F)requently Scheduled or Recurring Events". This will take you into the RECUR.DAT file, where you may enter up to 200 lines, each containing one event. Note that you may use the tab key to align the cursor at the correct spot on each line to make an entry. The first item on each line is the Event's description. Enter up to 37 characters. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 23 The next item is the Month in which the event regularly occurs. Enter the month as a number (1=JAN, 2=FEB, etc.). If the event occurs EVERY month or if this item is not applicable, leave it blank. Then comes the day of the month. If this item is not applicable, leave it blank. "32" designates the LAST day of the month, regardless of how long the month is. The last WORK day will be discussed below. The time of day items are next. If not applicable, leave these items blank. Time should be entered without colons. If the time you're entering is not within the standard working day (7AM-7PM), ap- pend an "A" or a "P" to the time ("930" and "930A" both mean 9:30AM, whereas "930P" means 9:30PM). You can avoid possible AM-PM confusion if you use 24-hour time (9:30PM = 2130), as in the example below. The time of day is followed by the type of event. Enter "M" for Miscellaneous, "D" for Deadline, "A" for Appointment, etc. Center your entry below the "Y" of "TYP". The employee, if any, to whom this event applies should be en- tered next. Start the entry under the "E" in "EMP". The next several items correspond to the days of the week, Sunday through Saturday. These items are used if the regular event you are entering occurs on a specific day of the week, rather than on a speci- fic date in the month. If the event always occurs on a Wednesday, for example, you would make an entry directly below the "W". The entry you make should be a number between 0 and 6. If the event always falls on the first Monday of the month, enter a "1" beneath the "M". If it falls on the third Friday, enter a "3" below "F". If it occurs EVERY Wednesday, enter a "0" under the "W". If an event occurs on the second and fourth Mondays, you should enter two separate lines identi- cal in every way, except that one should list a "2" below the "M", while the second should list a "4" below the "M". Remember, a "0" indicates an occurrence on the SAME day EVERY week. A "6" indicates an occurrence on the LAST specified weekday of the month. A "7" under any of the specified days indicates the month's very last WORK day. Take a look at the following example: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Julie's Birthday 1 17 M Staff Meeting 0900 1000 M 0 Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 M 1 1 Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 M 1 3 @1900 Rotary Club Meeting 15 1930 2100 M 2 !! MEMORIAL DAY !! 5 M 6 month-end meeting 0730 0800 7 The first line reminds you of Julie's birthday on 17 January. The second indicates a staff meeting that takes place every Tuesday from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. The third and fourth lines remind employee 1 2 -- USING TICKLEX 24 that the Bowling Club meets at 7:00PM every first Thursday and third Tuesday of the month (don't combine these entries, trying to have one line handle both a Tuesday and a Thursday). The fifth line is a Re- minder for the Rotary Club meeting scheduled for the 15th of each month from 7:30 to 9:00 PM, with an alarm set for 7:00 ("@xxxx" at the beginning of an event description tells TickleX that you want an alarm at time xxxx). The next-to-last line notes that Memorial Day falls on the last Monday in the fifth month (May). That line also demonstrates that the LAST specified weekday in a month -- which may be either the fourth or fifth such weekday -- is denoted by a "6" under the appro- priate day, not by a "4" or a "5". The last line specifies the very last WORK day (Monday to Friday) of the month. The "7" placed under the "F" indicates, not the last FRIDAY, but the last WORK day ("6" would mean the last Friday, but "7" means the last work day). To in- dicate the first WORK day of the month, place an "8" under the "M". Scheduling a month's first Wednesday or fourth Friday is a snap, as described above. But what if you want to schedule something on the first Tuesday FOLLOWING the third Thursday of the month? Here, you need to do something tricky. Fill in the line as if you were sched- uling the third Thursday: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S First Tues after third Thurs M 3 Now, you need a way to tell TickleX to find the fifth day after that third Thurdsay (Tuesday follows Thursday by five days). To do so, put the 5 beneath the DA item: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S First Tues after third Thurs 5 M 3 -- Earliest and latest dates of occurrence If you wish the recurring event to appear no earlier than a certain date and no later than another, you should begin the event description with a parenthetical sequence containing those dates. The dates MUST be in this format: "MMDDYY-MMDDYY" (unless you've custom- ized the program to accept the military/european DDMMYY-DDMMYY for- mat). Each date must be exactly SIX digits, there must be a dash bet- ween the two dates, and all this must be placed between an open and a close parenthesis. For example, to schedule a 2:30-3:30 class every Monday between 1 Sep 92 and 25 Nov 92, the line would read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S (090192-112592)Class 230 330 M 0 -- Events separated by a certain number of days 2 -- USING TICKLEX 25 What if you have an event that happens every 14 or 21 days, not necessarily every second or third week of the month? The answer is simple, though not obvious. To enter an event that happens only once every __ days, place the number of days under the first S (Sunday). Then, you'll have to give TickleX a beginning date from which it can figure each subsequent event's date. Enter the beginning date's month and day under the MO and DAY items, and enter the last single digit of its year JUST BEFORE the MO item. For example, to schedule something every 14 days, including January 15, 1993, the line should read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S meeting every other week 31 15 0730 0800 14 If such a regularly scheduled event is to span two or more days during each occurrence, you would have aligned the "14" under M, T, W, T, F, or S (for a 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, or 7-day duration). For example, to schedule a three-day event every 28 days, including February 1, 1991, the line should read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S 3-day meeting (each 28 days) 12 1 0730 0800 28 Note that TickleX will accept recurring items of this nature only if the beginning date you enter is within 5 years of the CURRENT date. -- Events that occur every second or third month What if you want to skip months? To make a recurring event hap- pen every second, third, fourth or sixth month, you must make sure that the month column is filled in with a month of the year during which the event will take place. Then, you'll need to fill in column 64 (which has no heading) with the number of months to be skipped be- tween recurrences of the event. -- Holidays Holidays are special types of recurring events. When you enter one into the file, you should begin its description with an explan- ation point. Doing so will allow the program to recognize the event as a holiday. Hence, when you attempt to schedule an Appointment or Reminder for that day, you will be reminded that it is a holiday and asked whether you really wish to proceed with the entry. You are sim- ilarly reminded of Saturdays and Sundays. If you wish to also be re- minded of some other special event (such as your anniversary) whenever you try scheduling an Appointment for that date, you should enter it into this Frequent Events file (RECUR.DAT) with a leading explanation point. See the final two lines of the example in the preceding sec- tion. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 26 -- Attaching a Note to a Recurring Event If you wish to attach a note to a recurring event, enter it on the line just following the event to which it refers. The note should have all the same parameters as the event, except that the type will be "N" (for "note"). In the following example, the second line will be considered a note for the first line: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 A 1 1 Meet at the Alley at 1815 1900 2000 N 1 1 -- Associating Recurring Events with Projects If you wish to associate a recurring event with a project, place the project name or number between two pound signs in the event des- cription. For example, to a associate a bowling club meeting with the project "FUN", the recurring event might be entered as follows: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Bowling Club Meeting #FUN# 1900 2000 A 1 1 -- Wrapping it All Up Once you've entered all the frequent and recurring events you wish, press F6 to save the file. TickleX will take over from there, referring to this file each day to check for items that should be in- cluded in your schedule. Whenever you prepare a schedule printout in the Hunt routine, these items will appear at the appropriate places (assuming that you don't do a "Quick Hunt", discussed below in the "Hunting for Entries and Preparing Reports" section). Remember that Frequent and Recurring Events can be changed or omitted only in EDITX (by selecting ^E at the Main Menu). Any events set up in this manner will appear on your schedule until the year 2065, unless you subsequently change them with EDITX. TO-DO LIST TickleX doesn't keep a "to-do" file, per se. Instead, it moves all past-due Deadlines, Gotchas and Reminders to today's schedule. After all, a to-do list is merely an itemization of things that need to be done -- in other words, Deadlines (or Gotchas or Reminders). You want to continue being reminded of these Deadlines until you "check them off". In moving past-due Deadlines to the current date, TickleX keeps reminding you to take care of them. Whenever you look at today's list of events, you'll see EVERYTHING that needs to be done, including things originally scheduled for today, as well as 2 -- USING TICKLEX 27 Deadlines, Gotchas and Reminders from the past that haven't been checked off yet. ALL DEADLINES/GOTCHAS/REMINDERS THAT APPEAR ON TODAY'S SCHEDULE ARE, IN EFFECT, YOUR TO-DO LIST. A single report, therefore, contains both your schedule and the equivalent of a to-do list. At the beginning of a new day, the program will search for each past-due Deadline/Gotcha/Reminder, display it for you, and ask whether you want it to be tagged for omission. If your answer is negative, that event will be added to today's schedule and will pop up the next day, too. If, however, you want the event to be tagged for omission, TickleX won't bother you with it in the future (in other words, it'll be dropped from the "to-do" list). Anytime you want to add something immediately to your "to-do" list, simply enter a Deadline for TODAY. That Deadline will pop up tomorrow and the next day, and the next ... until you tell TickleX to tag it for omission. It couldn't be easier. ALARMS If you can afford to devote 35K of memory to a memory-resident alarm program, then you might want to try PC-Beep, which accompanies TickleX. PC-Beep automatically picks up alarms entered into TickleX, whether set for today or for any date in the future. Up to 20 alarms may be held in PC-Beep's daily cue. When the time for each alarm is reached, the computer's speaker will sound, "beep-beep", and the event set for that time will appear in window. The window will stay on the screen until you press the ap- propriate key, at which point you will be returned to whatever you were doing before the alarm sounded. Pressing any of keys 1 to 9 will cause the alarm to sound again in 1 to 9 minutes. The A, B, C & D keys will tell PC-Beep to snooze for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. E, F, G, or H are for 2, 3, 4, or 5 hours. If you press the space bar, you'll be asked to enter a new alarm time manually, while the ESC key will cause the alarm not to sound again at all. If PC-Beep is already in memory when you load TickleX at the be- ginning of each day, up to twenty alarms for that day will be passed automatically from TickleX to PC-Beep. These alarms will correspond to the new day's entries that were scheduled days or weeks (even months or years) ago. To find out how to schedule an alarm for a Recurring Event, please see the "Frequently Scheduled or Recurring Events" section above. Basically, all that's involved is beginning the event's des- cription with "@xxxx", where xxxx is the alarm time, expressed in 24- hr fashion (example: "@0930 Office Meeting") . 2 -- USING TICKLEX 28 -- Loading PC-Beep To use PC-Beep, make sure that it is located in the same direc- tory as TickleX (the MANAGEX directory). To load the program, go to the MANAGEX directory and enter "pc-beep" at the DOS prompt (make sure that PC-Beep is loaded BEFORE TickleX). When you do so, the program will be placed into memory, and you'll be returned to the DOS prompt. After that, the only time you'll know it's there is when it sounds an alarm for you. It may not be accessed with a hotkey, but you can be assured that whatever alarms you've already set in TickleX for today will be in PC-Beep's cue. And whatever alarms you subsequently set in either TickleX or RAMdesk (described at the end of this documentation) will also be picked up by PC-Beep. If you'd like PC-Beep to be loaded automatically when you load TickleX, you'll need to modify the TX.BAT file. Find the line that begins with "TICKLEX" and insert a line just above it that says "pc- beep", followed by exactly the same sequence of parameters as are found on the "TICKLEX" line. Then save the file. Thereafter, when- ever you enter "TX xxx" (where xxx are your initials) at the DOS prompt, PC-Beep will be loaded just before TickleX. You need to load PC-Beep and TickleX only once each time you turn on the computer, since PC-Beep will remain in memory as long as the machine has power. PC-Beep takes up about 35K of memory, but if you can afford an- other 7K, you can also place TickleX, itself into memory. Please see the POP-UP TICKLEX chapter for details. Remember, PC-Beep is memory-resident, and, as is the case with other such programs, it may sometimes cause your computer to lock up. PC-Beep cannot be loaded after certain other memory-resident software, such as Sidekick. Therefore, you may have to modify your autoexec.bat file, so that it will cause PC-Beep to be executed before some other programs (if you do so, take the PC-Beep instructions out of TX.BAT). -- Customizing PC-Beep Accompanying TickleX is a file called RAMDESK.CFG. This file contains several lines, each of which may be used to customize PC- Beep. If a line is enclosed within curly brackets, it will have no effect. As shipped, all lines begin with curly brackets, so the file as a whole will not affect PC-Beep until you alter it. To designate the primary colors used by PC-Beep, just find the "FOREGROUND" and "BACKGROUND" lines and add the color codes you desire: 0 Black 1 Blue 2 Green 3 Cyan 4 Red 5 Magenta 6 Brown 7 Light Gray Be sure that the curly brackets are removed if you want these lines to 2 -- USING TICKLEX 29 be effective. The pitch of the alarm may be set by the "BEEP-FREQ" line. Fill in the desired frequency (in hertz) after the equals sign on this line. Note that some computer's can't reproduce very high or very low pitches. Therefore, you might want to keep within the 100-5000 range. The number of beeps emitted by your computer's speaker whenever an alarm sounds is determined by the "RINGS" line. If you enter "0" after the equals sign, the alarm won't sound at all; "1" to "8" will result in a corresponding number of beeps; if enter "9", the alarm will continue to sound until you press a key. If you'd like the alarm to go off on the hour, just remove the brackets from the "CHIME-HOUR" line. No equals sign is needed. To remind you, instead, of each passing half hour, remove the brackets from the "CHIME-HOUR-HALF" line. If you want PC-Beep to display time in 24-hour fashion, remove the brackets on the "24-HOUR" line. DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE RAMDESK.CFG LINES, EXCEPT THOSE DISCUSSED ABOVE. SIX-MONTH VIEW (and calendar calculator to find any day) This option will allow you to see calendars for any six-month period up to the year 2060. Simply press "S" at the Main Menu. The current month will appear at the top-center of the screen. The pre- ceding month will appear to its left, and the next four succeeding months will appear to its right and below it. If you wish another month to be centered at the top, enter at the prompt any date during that month. This option is particularly useful if you would like to see the day of the week on which a particular date falls or if you need to know the number of days between two dates. Assume, for instance, that you want to know the day of the week for the date 55 days from now. Press `S' to select this option. Then enter today's date, followed by "+55" (eg: "12 DEC 88 +55"). The desired date will be displayed high- lighted in the small calendar at the top center of the screen. To find the number of days between two dates, enter the first date, then a dash, then the second date (eg: "1 Jan 89 - 12 Mar 89"). To return to the Main Menu, press either ESC or RET. If you press ESC, you will return to the exact point at which you left the Main Menu. If, however, you press RET, the date highlighted on the Main Menu will be the last date you used while you were in this Six- Month view routine. Another possible use of this routine, therefore, is to quickly skip several years forward or backward and press the RET key. Whatever date you last use in this routine will be the date you 2 -- USING TICKLEX 30 will find when you return to the Main Menu (unless you use the ESC key). WEEKLY VIEW Press "W" at the Main Menu to reach this module. The week that appears will be the one containing the date that was highlighted at the Main Menu (or the one whose daily detail you had been viewing). You may change the week being shown by pressing the up or down arrows, and you may move among individual days by pressing the left and right arrows. Unless you press the ESC key, whatever date is highlighted when you leave this module will be the one that is highlighted when you return to the Main Menu (or the one to whose daily detail you re- turn at the daily view). There are actually three weekly views, between which you may tog- gle by pressing the TAB key. The first view vertically breaks down each day into half hour segments for the employee whose monthly or daily calendar you had just been viewing. If there's time blocked off during any given half-hour, the first ten characters in the event's description will appear in that half-hour's block under the approp- riate date. The second view gives you a rough idea what time is scheduled for each employee in the firm for each day of the week. This view might be useful for quickly seeing how busy your firm's employees are during a given week or for finding a date on which certain employees are all free for an hour or two. The third view will list the events for each day from Monday to Friday, in priority order. This view will give you a quick idea of what's coming up during that week. To change the displayed employee, use the F3 key, just as you would at the monthly or daily view. If you wish to return to today's date, use the HOME key. OMITTING EVENTS Removing an event from TickleX's data base generally involves two steps: tagging the event for omission, and then actually removing it and all other events so tagged. The reason for requiring a prelimi- nary tagging step to make it less likely that you'll accidentally re- move an event by inadvertently hitting the wrong key. You see, you'll always have the option of "untagging" an event previously tagged be- fore the actual Omission (event-removing) routine is run. -- Tagging Events for Omission 2 -- USING TICKLEX 31 An event is most easily tagged (or "untagged") for omission by pressing "T" at the Main Menu. It may also be tagged/untagged by pressing ^T (Ctrl-T) while examining it in the Edit routine. When "T" is pressed at the Main Menu, you'll be shown a list of all events scheduled for the day you've specified. Just use the arrow keys to highlight the event to be tagged and press RET. As you press RET, "tag" (the omission tag indicator) will appear on that line at the left margin. If you were to press RET again, "tag" would disappear and be replaced by a letter representing the type of event shown on that line. Hence, RET is the switch that tags and "untags" an event for omission. If an event is tagged for omission, it will not be shown in any report. It'll still be in the database, taking up space -- just in case you ever want to "untag" it, but you won't actually see it unless you enter this Tag/Untag routine or the Edit routine. If you ever wish to "untag" an event already tagged, you'll need to go to the date for which it was set and press "T" to enter the Tag/Untag routine or "E" to enter the Edit routine. When you do so, all events for that day, including those tagged for omission (but not actually omitted -- see next section), will be shown to you. -- Actually Omitting Events, Plans, and Projects In order to keep the main TickleX data file from growing too large, you should periodically Omit old entries. Each month, for in- stance, you should select the Omit option. This mode allows you to omit scheduled/logged events, Plans, or Projects that are no longer of any use. After pressing "O" at the Main Menu, you'll be asked whether you want to omit Scheduled/logged events, Plans or Listed projects. Simply press "S", "P" or "L", de- pending upon which you wish to eliminate. Logged events are discussed in CHAPTER 4 (LOG MODE). If you press "S", you'll receive more instruction on the screen before you proceed. You will be asked the date before which you wish all entries to be omitted. All events (other than Deadlines not yet met) falling before that date will be omitted, WHETHER OR NOT they have been tagged for omission. Also omitted will be those events which fall after that date and which are tagged for omission. Deadlines are a special matter. Because you may occasionally miss Deadlines whose subjects you do not want to forget, TickleX will continue to hold all Deadlines not specifically tagged for omission in the Edit routine. Hence, Deadlines will always be preserved (to continue to remind you to do things) until you make a conscious ef- fort to omit them. You'll have to be diligent in tagging Deadlines that have been met; otherwise, they'll just keep piling up. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 32 If you choose to omit Plans, instead of Events, you'll be shown a list of all the Plans available on your machine. Enter the name of the one that you want to omit, or press RET to eliminate a general Template, instead. If you choose to omit Listed projects, you'll be shown a list of your projects. After you select one for omission, you'll be asked whether you want to tag for omission all events linked to that pro- ject. After all, do you really need to keep those events in your data base if the project to which they refer is no longer there? If you choose to tag them for omission, remember, they'll only be TAGGED, not actually omitted. To actually eliminate them, you'll need to visit this Omit routine again. NOTE: Don't forget that you can "untag" any of them before go- ing through the Omit routine. The easiest way would be to conduct a "Full-Screen" Hunt for everything in the database pertaining to a specific project. As each event pops up onto the screen, press ^T (Ctrl-T) to tag/untag it. HUNTING FOR ENTRIES and PREPARING REPORTS If you press "H" while in the Main Menu, you will be taken to a Hunt Gates display. Here, you are to select the gates you want to apply to the search through the calendar file. The Hunt Gates allow passage of only those records which contain information consistent with the Hunt Gate parameters you select. For example, if you wanted to find all the events that involve a certain employee, you would place the appropriate ID at gate C. To find all events between cer- tain dates, place the beginning date at gate D and the ending date at gate E. You may search for specific events by filling in gate B, while filling in gate A will result in a report listing only those events that apply to a specific Project (or Case, if you're also using BillPower or ManageX). The more gates you fill in, the more discriminating the hunt through the records will be. If you leave the gates in their default conditions, ALL of today's events involving ALL employees and ALL projects will be reported. Hunts for projects (or cases) and events may be made on the basis of partial entries. For instance, if you wished to find all events involving the "Smith-1" and "Smith-2" project, you would need to enter only "Smith" at gate A. All events tied to projects containing the character string, "Smith", would be shown to you. Included among the events reported might also those involving the "J. Smith" and "Black- smith" projects. Following the above example, you could also have chosen to search for projects (or cases) containing "ith". If you had done so, 2 -- USING TICKLEX 33 in addition to all the projects mentioned above, you might also have come across the "Ithica" and "Lithe Forms" projects. NOTE: Suppose you elect to enter "SMITH" at the Project (or Case Number) gate. If there were more than one project con- tain that sequence of characters, they would all pass through that gate. Hence, SMITH, SMITH-J, BLACKSMITHJ, etc., would all be selected by TickleX for the hunt report. If, however, you wanted only SMITH to pass through the gates (to the exclusion of SMITH-J and BLACKSMITH), you would have to tell TickleX. You would do this by ending your "SMITH" entry with ^E (for "Exact match"), instead of the usual RET. If a Project/Case gate is set up for an exact match, a note will appear to the right, saying, "* exact *". If no such note is displayed, then ALL projects whose designations contain matches for the entered character sequence will pass through the gate. If the "* exact *" note is shown, then only the project that exactly matches that character sequence will be reported. Remember, any gate that is left blank will be considered to be open, allowing ANY record to pass through. In other words, each record will be deemed to meet that gate's criterion, and, assuming that all the other gates' criteria are also met, will be displayed during the hunt. To you don't want Deadlines reported to you, make gate F "NO" by pressing the F key. If you press the F key again, you'll change it back to "YES". The same principle applies to Appointments, Reminders, etc. (gates G to L). To change the report destination from screen to printer or disk file, press P. Pressing ^P (Ctrl-P) will allow you to change the des- tination disk file name. To send the report to an alternate printer port, press the number corresponding to that port. To send it out COM port 1, press ^A (Ctrl-A); ^B (Ctrl-B) will send the report to COM port 2. The METHOD by which TickleX conducts its hunt depends upon how you have set Gate M, which toggles among "Quick Hunt" and "Chronolog- ical Hunt". Normally, you will want a chronological hunt, so that the reported events appear in the correct order. However, if you're look- ing through a large range of dates, you may find that a chronological hunt is too slow for you. If you want to speed things up, press the M key to select a Quick Hunt. If Quick Hunt is in operation, TickleX will NOT put things into chronological order, but it will find what you're looking for quickly. This feature is particularly valuable if you're looking for a Deadline sometime in the distant future, but you aren't sure of even the year that it was scheduled. To do so, simply select a Quick Hunt, and be sure to fill in the other Hunt Gates op- tions as well as you can (to narrow the search, keeping too many un- 2 -- USING TICKLEX 34 wanted events from appearing on the screen). But remember that Fre- quent or Recurring dates will not appear during Quick Hunts. The TYPE OF HUNT produced depends upon how you have set Gate N, which toggles among several choices. A "Continuous Hunt" quickly goes through the data base and reports what it finds. It may go so fast that you can't follow it (unless you press the space bar to pause). An alternative is the "Day-By-Day" hunt which steps through the data base on day at a time, automatically pausing after each day's activi- ties are reported. Pressing the down arrow will cause the next day's events to print. The up arrow causes the prior day's activities to print again. The "Day-By-Day and Employee-By-Employee" hunt is like the "Day-By-Day" hunt, except that it breaks the hunt down even fur- ther, reporting a single employee's events for a day, and then paus- ing until you press the up or down arrow. A "Priority Order" report will place each day's events into priority order, lowest number first (the priority number will be listed on a Standard report at the left margin, right after the event type). The "Project-by-Project" report (not available if you also have BillPower) will report one project's events, then the next's, and so on. A final type of hunt is "Event- by-Event", and it will be selected automatically by TickleX if you have chosen either a "Full-Screen Edit" (discussed below) report or a "Quick Hunt". The TYPE OF REPORT produced depends upon how you have set Gate O, which allows you to toggle among "Standard", "Full Screen Edit", "Time Scheduled", "Event Chart", "Printed Daily Schedule", and "Printed Calendar", each of which is described below. Once the Hunting process begins, you will be shown the data for each record conforming to the Hunt gates you have established. If you have chosen to display a "Standard" report (gate O), data for each conforming record will appear on a single line. The program will then automatically search for the next conforming record, display it, then look for the next one, and so on. You may make the program pause in its searching by pressing the space bar. Pressing ESC will abort the hunting process. If you have chosen the "Full-Screen" report (gate O), the data shown for each conforming record will appear on a screen identical to that used in the Edit mode. Only one conforming file's data will be displayed on the screen at one time. Unlike the Standard report rou- tine, this one will not search for the next conforming file unless you press F6 to indicate that you wish to move on. If you want to abort the Hunt routine, press ESC instead of F6. If, while in the Hunt mode's Full-Screen summaries display, you see some information that should be changed, you may edit it as if you were in the Edit mode. There will be a few limitations on your ability to edit directly from the Hunt mode, but don't worry about them; TickleX will call your attention to them only if you attempt to violate them. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 35 If you have chosen a "Time Scheduled" report (gate O), each line will contain a date and a series of D's, A's, etc. Each letter cor- responds to a 15-minute block of time during which an event is sched- uled. Here's an example: Date 7...8...9...10..11..12..1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8 FRI 3 FEB 89 ....AA....AA........EEEE..AAAAAAA.................... TUE 7 FEB 89 ........AAAA........AAAA..........EE................. WED 8 FEB 89 ..................................................... THU 9 FEB 89 ....................AAAA............................. Here, you can see that there are things scheduled on 3 February in the 8:00-8:14 and the 8:15-8:29 blocks. 9:30 to 9:59 also has something scheduled, as do 12:00-12:59 and 1:30-3:14. Note that the dates be- tween 4-6 Feb are not listed. Skipping dates occurs when those dates contain no scheduled events that meet the parameters specified by Hunt Gates A-G (filled in before the hunt began). Note also that, though 8 February is listed, nothing appears on its line. A date's line will be blank if there is SOMETHING scheduled for that date, but nothing that requires blocking off time. A Deadline that has no beginning or end- ing times is an example of an event that would not cause a D to appear on the line. NOTE: TickleX assumes that an event with no ending time is not intended to be "blocked off". Hence, you might have sev- eral Deadlines scheduled for 11:00 (no ending time), without TickleX's recognizing that those events should be blocked off. Only if an ending time is different from a beginning time will TickleX block off time for that event, and only in that case will the "Time Scheduled" report display an A, D, etc., for that event. The last thing printed on a "Time Scheduled" report will be an employee-by-employee breakdown of the total hours hours scheduled. The only time blocks included in this breakdown will be those that were included in the preceding report. If you have set your Hunt Gates to be extremely selective, the breakdown totals will probably be small. This breakdown may be useful to find how many hours you've scheduled someone to work over a given span of days or weeks. If you consistently schedule work (and ONLY work) as an Exercise and you set the Hunt Gates to include only Exercises, the breakdown summary will tell you how many hours have been scheduled for only Exercises (which, in this case, substitute for "work scheduled"). -- Event chart This report consists of a chart showing each event on a separate line. Each line contains a brief event description, followed by a graphic representation (in the form of a dotted line) of the period 2 -- USING TICKLEX 36 during which that event is to take place. The events included on the chart depend upon how you've set up your Hunt Gates. -- Printed calendars (weekly, monthly, yearly) Each of these reports consists of a calendar printed on a sheet of paper. In order for the calendars to be properly prepared, you must make sure that lines 1 to 6 of the PRNTINIT file have been cus- tomized for your specific printer. If PRNTINIT hasn't been custom- ized, these "Printed Calendar" options may not even appear. To edit the PRNTINIT file, use EDITX (press ^E at the Main Menu). That file, itself, contains instructions on how it is to be filled in. The calendar prepared with this option will look like a standard paper calendar. The minimum period for which a weekly or monthly cal- endar will be printed is one week. Each day's block will be filled in with whatever events are stored in the data base for that date. Just before a monthly calendar begins printing, you'll have to specify how wide and how long each day's block is to be. It's recom- mended that you stick with the defaults that appear, but you may change them if you wish. In order to conserve space for as many events as possible on a monthly calendar, you may wish to limit the space devoted to each event to one line. To do so, you'll be able to tell the program to truncate each event at the end of one line. If you wish to print the entire event, even if it takes more than one line to do so, you'll need to specify either word wrap or character wrap. Character wrap will split a word falling at the end of a line, while word wrap will move that entire word down to the next line (and, in the process, waste a little space). -- Other Reports There are also several "Combo Reports", which are split into two halves (or into thirds, if you're using the landscape mode of a prin- ter comptatible with the Hewlett Packard Laser Jet -- see the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1). Give them a try to see if they will fit your needs. Also available is a "Blank Time/Expense Log", which is intended to be filled in by the user as he does work or spends money during the day. -- Custom reports There is a report option not discussed above: Custom Reports. If you select gate O several times, you'll cycle through the Standard, Full-Screen, etc., choices. If, however, you want a Custom Report, press ^O (Ctrl-O), instead of just "O". Pressing ^O tells TickleX that you want a Custom Report prepared. The screen will clear, you'll be shown a list of all the Custom Reports presently on the disk, and you'll be expected to enter the name of the particular Custom Report 2 -- USING TICKLEX 37 you want to prepare. If you don't want a Custom Report, just press RET to return to the Hunt Gate screen. Custom Reports are useful for such things as preparing training schedules and work plans. They are available on the in TickleX's "Schedule" mode, but not its "Log" mode. When you just start using the program, the only Custom Report present will be one called "SAMPLE1". Though this report's primary purpose is to act as an example for others you may develop, it may also actually be used. To set up other report templates, use EDITX (by pressing ^E at the Main Menu). In EDITX, you'll be afforded the opportunity to create as many Custom Report templates as you like. Each time you create a new one, the contents of SAMPLE1 will be initially copied into it, so that you'll have some guidance. You'll note that a report template con- sists of many lines, some beginning with "{", and some not. Those that begin with "{" are comment lines and MUST NOT BE ALTERED. If you change a comment line in any way, the resulting report may not print as you expect. The only lines you may alter are the data lines, those that do NOT begin with "{". A data line consists of spaces, characters, words, and/or tilde codes. Pressing the F1 key will give you a listing of what each av- ailable tilde code means. There's one for an event's beginning time, one for it's ending time, one for the event description, and so, on. There are also a few that represent the hunt gates you've selected. For instance, wherever ~s appears in the report template, TickleX will substitute the beginning date of the hunt in the actual printed report. ~u will cause TickleX to print the employee ALL of whose events are being sought in the hunt, while ~o will tell the program to print an INDIVIDUAL event's responsible employee. Let's now look at your data line options. First, you should note that SAMPLE1 is only an example. You need not stick blindly to it's format (except for those lines that begin with "{"). You may even erase entire data lines if you don't want their contents to appear on the report. The data line for PRINTER INITIALIZATION allows you to enter an escape character sequence for your printer. This might be useful to move the margin over, to alter the printer's type style, or to turn on graphics. If you want to use this line, get the appropriate code from your printer's manual and enter it as a CHARACTER sequence, not as a numerical code. If, for instance, the code you want to enter is "ESCAPE o", you should enter the escape CHARACTER, followed immediate- ly by an "o". Don't type in "ESC o". To enter any control character (ESCAPE is a control character), press ^P (Ctrl-P) and then press the control character you want to enter. For instance, to enter the es- cape character, you actually press ^P, and then press the escape key. After you do so, a funny character (such as a left arrow) will appear 2 -- USING TICKLEX 38 on the screen. Just pressing the escape key won't work. Don't des- pair -- this sounds more complicated than it is. NOTE: If you utilize the PRINTER INITIALIZATION data line, your printer will maintain that setting until it's reset or turned off. If you want TickleX to reset your printer to some state other than that established with the PRINTER IN- ITIALIZATION line, you should enter the reset escape charac- ter sequence into line 1 of the PRNTINIT file supplied with TickleX. To edit the PRNTINIT file, use EDITX (^E at the Main Menu). The data line for LENGTH OF PAGE allows you to print your reports on paper of a length different from the standard 66 lines. For ins- tance, you might want to print a report with the paper turned side- ways. Just measure in inches of the paper you'll use and multiply by 6. 8-inch paper, for instance, would be entered as 48. 11-inch paper is 66 lines long. WIDTH OF PAGE tells TickleX how many characters it can expect to print on each line. The default is a page width of 80 characters, but you may modify this if you're using an appropriate printer. If the PRINTER INITIALIZATION you entered, for instance, turns on your printer's 132-column capability, you should enter 132 here. NOTE: EDITX cannot handle lines wider than 79 columns. If you want to create a report with more columns than that, you'll have to "double up". Use two lines in EDITX for each single report line that will be more than 79 columns wide. In order to tell TickleX that these two lines are to be com- bined, make the last character on the first line a "+". For example, two lines entered as Mary had a little lamb, it+ s fleece was white as snow. would be printed by TickleX as a single line, "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow." Note that Tick- leX allows combining only two lines at a time into one. Three consecutive lines can't be combined into one, but three consecutive two-line sets can can be combined into three lines. The HEADER data lines are used to prepare the beginning of the report. You might, for instance, want to include your name and the title of the report in the HEADER. Up to 10 lines may be included. The 2D HEADER data lines (up to 5) are those that will print at the top of each page following the first (which contains the HEADER). The FORMAT data line tells TickleX what specific schedule infor- 2 -- USING TICKLEX 39 mation you want printed on each line, as well as the spacing between each item. Note that each item requires a minimum amount of space. The spacing information is obtained by pressing F1 if you're using EDITX. If you're using your word processor, you'll want to refer to the tilde code table below: Event items: ~j=event type (1) (eg: appnt,deadline) ~k=beginning date (9) ~l=ending date (9) ~m=beginning time (5) ~n=ending time (5) ~o=employee/department (3) ~p=project or case number (12) ~q=event description (37) ~r=notes (56) ~R=carriage return Hunt items: ~s=beginning date of hunt (9) ~t=ending date of hunt (9) ~u=specific employee being hunted (3) ~v=specific date being hunted (9) ~w=day of week for hunted date (3) The FOOTER data lines (up to 5) consist of any footnotes, etc., that you want to be printed at the bottom of the report. The DATE CHANGE data lines (up to 3) are, of course, optional. If present, they will be printed whenever TickleX reaches a point in the report when a date change occurs. The EMPLOYEE/DEPARTMENT CHANGE data lines (up to 2), if present, will be printed whenever the employee being hunted changes. If you have anything filled in here, the report will be organized by both date and employee. As TickleX comes to each date, it will break it's hunt into a sub-hunt for the first employee's events, then a sub-hunt for the second employee's, and so on. If you're unable to design a template for the exact report you want, do as well as you can with either EDITX or your word processor. Just before you begin a hunt using this template, press ALT-F (to tog- gle the report to a disk file, instead of to the printer). After the report has been written to disk (into a file called TEXT.MX), exit TickleX. Edit TEXT.MX with your word processor, so that the report looks EXACTLY as you want it to. Then print it with your word proces- sor. FINDING FREE TIME If you need to schedule something that requires a certain amount of time, but you don't know when your busy schedule will allow it, press "F" at the Main Menu. You'll be asked to specify how many con- tiguous hours (eg: 2, .5, 5.25) you need to accomplish the task. Then, tell TickleX who's schedule you want it to search, and give the program the earliest and latest dates you want to consider for the accomplishment of the task. TickleX will then search through those 2 -- USING TICKLEX 40 dates for the amount of free time you've specified. When it finds it, you'll be shown that day's schedule and told which time frame meets your needs. If that time block isn't satisfactory, press RETurn to find the next available period. When you find a period that you want to use, press the "M" key to Make a new event record. If you wish to find the time that several people/facilities are free at once, specify them all when asked to enter an employee. Be sure to separate each by a comma (eg: "ABC,DEF,GHI,JKL" will tell TickleX that you wish to the time blocks that ABC, DEF, GHI, and JKL are all available at once. By default, this routine will search each day between 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM. If your working hours are significantly different, you can customize the program to use them instead. See the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1 for a discussion of Workday Begin and End Times. By the way, the Weekly Views offer another, more visual means of quickly finding free time. See the "Weekly View" section above. RE-SCHEDULING SEVERAL EVENTS QUICKLY If you want to move several events currently scheduled for a par- ticular date to a new date, you should press "R" at the TickleX Schedule Main Menu to enter the "re-scheduling". When you do, you'll be asked to select the date FROM which you wish to move the events and the date TO which they're to be moved. Then, a listing of all the events currently scheduled for the "FROM" date will be shown, and you'll be expected to identify the first event to be moved. Simply use the cursor control keys to move to that event and press RET. The selected event will be quickly rescheduled for the "TO" date. Then, you'll be expected to identify the next event to be moved. Repeat this identification process until you've moved all the desired events. To abort the process and return to the Schedule Main Menu, press ESC. STOPWATCH If you would like to user TickleX's stopwatch to time an activity, press the "\" key at the Main Menu. When you do, the stopwatch will begin displaying elapsed time near the top right corner of the screen. Pressing "\" again will cause the timer to stop. At this point, you may press: 1) ESC to cease timing the activity; 2) "C" to cause the timing to continue as if it had never been interrupted; or 3) "S" to temporarily suspend the timing until you press the "\" key again to resume the timing. When you invoke it by pressing "\", the stopwatch will continue timing, no matter what you do within TickleX, until you press "\" a second time at the Main Menu. In fact, if you have TickleX loaded as a memory-resident program, the timing will continue while you're 2 -- USING TICKLEX 41 working within other software. MORNING STARTUP When you first start up the program each day, TickleX will search for old events to bring forward. All Deadlines/Gotchas/Reminders from past dates which have not already been tagged for omission will be brought forward so that they will not be lost during an Omission rou- tine. Then, you will be asked whether you want TickleX to give you a report of the day's events. Therefore, a day will not go by without your having been prompted at least once to prepare a printout of up- coming events. Answering `Y' to this prompt will bring you into this Hunt routine, where you can select the exact parameters (gates) for the listing to be prepared. 2 -- USING TICKLEX 42 UTILITIES (BACKUP, RESTORE, PRINTER DRIVERS, ETC) Pressing "U" at the Main Menu will take you to the UTILITIES mod- ule. Here, you may backup your data to disks placed into drive A, restore such backed-up data, or visit the PRNTDRVR program to tell TickleX what type of printer you have. If you press "B", TickleX will automatically execute DOS's BACKUP program that came with your computer, assuming that a copy of it is in the MANAGEX directory. If you prefer to use another program to per- form your backups, you may create a file called "BACKUP.DAT" with EDITX (^E from the Main Menu). Into this file you may place only a single line, which will contain the command to execute your alternate backup program. If a BACKUP.DAT file exists, TickleX will execute whatever program the file specifies, instead of DOS's BACKUP. If you press "R", TickleX will automatically execute DOS's RESTORE program that came with your computer, assuming that a copy of it is in the MANAGEX directory. If you prefer to use another program to restore your data, you may create a file called "RESTORE.DAT" with EDITX. Into this file you may place only a single line, which will contain the command to execute your alternate restoration program. If a RESTORE.DAT file exists, TickleX will execute whatever program the file specifies, instead of DOS's RESTORE. If you press "P", TickleX's PRNTDRVR (print driver) program will be executed. With it, you may specify the particular printer you use, so that TickleX will be able to do the "Printed Calendar" report that involves the use of IBM-graphics characters. Or you may specify a special printer initialization sequence (to change margins, fonts, etc.) that should be sent to your printer before any reports are pre- pared. If you press "C", you'll be taken to the customization routine, where you may specify employee initials, screen colors, lines to print per page, laser printer, 24-hour time, etc. "E" will take you to the EDITX.EXE program, so that you may edit various text files, such as the ones containing Frequent & Recurring Events, Income-Expense Categories, Groups, etc. "O" will take you through the program's routine to omit items from the data base. Scheduled and logged items, projects, and plans may be omitted here. "I" will cause the Schedule and Log databases to be re-indexed. This is a drastic measure that should be used ONLY as a last resort if your database becomes corrupted. Because this routine may drastically alter the database if there are many problems, you should attempt res- toring from backup diskettes before you try re-indexing. 3 -- UTILITIES 43 LOG MODE All the preceding discussions have basically concerned using TickleX as a scheduler. But it's also capable logging things that have actually taken place, as opposed to things that have been merely scheduled. It can be used to log services performed, income, and ex- penses. Remember, TickleX is primarily a scheduler. The logging func- tions are designed for the user who simply wants a convenient place to register his income, expenses, and the hours he's worked on various projects. Thought its reporting ability is quite flexible, it's not designed to produce client reports or bills. If you need those re- ports, you should use a program specifically designed for billing and/or bookkeeping, such as BillPower. You may move to TickleX's LOG mode by pressing ^L (Ctrl-L) when the Schedule Main Menu is displayed (^S will take you back to the SCHEDULE mode). If you're in the LOG mode, you won't be dealing with Appointments, Deadlines, etc. Instead, your choices will be Services, Disbursements, and Receipts. Most everything else, though, is the same in both the SCHEDULE and LOG modes. A Service is work performed, a Disbursement is an expense (money you've spent), and a Receipt is income you've received. If you wish to keep accurate records of the hours worked on each of your projects, you should be conscientious in entering a Service whenever you spend time on one of them. The same goes for tracking income and expenses attributable to each project. When you enter a Receipt or Disbursement, one of the items you can fill in is the category into which the income or expense falls. If you enter a category whenever you input a Receipt or Disbursement, TickleX will be able to produce an accurate report, by category, of all your income and expenses over any period of time. By the way, pressing F1 here will result in a display of the income/expense categories. TickleX keeps a list of your income-expense categories in a file called INCEXPNS.DAT, which can be accessed with EDITX by pressing ^E at the Main Menu. This file is provided in sample form with the TickleX program, and you'll have to modify it to suit your own needs. The file may hold up to 200 lines, each line containing a 1-to 3- dig- it category number and a 1-to 25-character category description. As you modify the file, make sure that the numbers and descriptions you enter line up exactly with the headings at the top of the screen. Note that there may be no blank lines in the file, and every that line must contain both a number and a description. Failure to follow these simple rules will have undesirable effects. When you're in TickleX's LOG mode, entering a Receipt or Dis- bursement, the program won't let you enter a category number that is 4 -- LOG MODE 44 not described in the INCEXPNS.DAT file. If you can't remember the number of the category you need to fill in, just place the cursor be- neath the "Cat" item and press the F1 key. You'll be shown the con- tents of the INCEXPNS.DAT file. Remember, F1 gives you help anywhere within the TickleX program. When you want a report on the total disbursements, receipts, and hours worked on any or all of your projects, just conduct a Hunt. At the end of each chronological "Standard" report, these totals will appear. If, for instance, you want a year-to-date listing, by cate- gory, of all your income and expenses, set Hunt gates D and E appro- priately and begin the hunt. TickleX is capable of holding 12000 disbursement, receipt, and service entries (in addition to the 12000 appointments, deadlines, etc., that it can hold). When this capacity is reached, you'll have to go through the Omit routine to eliminate old entries (as well as current ones that you may have tagged for omission), thus freeing space for new entries. Before TickleX eliminates entries, it will of- fer you the chance to obtain a printout of the old items that will be omitted. You are urged to take this opportunity to produce a perman- ent record. -- Using the Service Stopwatch If, while entering a new service, you want TickleX to automatic- ally keep time for you, press the "\" key to begin the Service Stop- watch. When the stopwatch is first invoked, the Begin Time will automatically be entered for you. Pressing "\" again will stop the timer and cause the End Time to be entered for you. If you wish, you may leave the Service record before pressing "\" a second time. To do so, just press F6. When you want to complete the record, simply press "M" to make a new record and then "S" (for "Service"). Instead of creating a new Service record, TickleX will cause the incomplete one to reappear. When it does, press "\" to cause the End Time to be filled in. Then, make any other changes you wish, and press F6 to save it in its completed form. Note that this feature is useful only if TickleX has been loaded as a memory-resident program. -- Zipping Completed Events to the Log Many people like to use their calendars not only as schedulers of future events, but also as permanent records of things that they've done. When these people want to know what they did on a particular past date, they might go to their calendar and look up the events they had scheduled for that date. These will tend to assume that what they had scheduled for that date is what they actually did. In many cases, though, that's an erroneous assumption. That's one reason that Tick- 4 -- LOG MODE 45 leX maintains separate data bases for its SCHEDULE and LOG. However, if you're one who generally does what he is scheduled to do, you may find it useful to quickly zip scheduled items to TickleX's LOG. That will save you the time that would otherwise be spent enter- ing a LOG item that is essentially identical to a SCHEDULE item. If you press "Z" at the Main Menu, the screen will clear, and you'll be given the opportunity to select the date whose scheduled events you wish to zip to the LOG. The only dates that TickleX will accept are: today and earlier. Then you will review each item scheduled for the selected date and tell TickleX whether it has been completed. If you tell TickleX that the item has been completed, the item will be copied to the LOG (and then tagged for omission here in the SCHEDULE). Items previously tagged for omission will not be displayed for you during this proce- dure. Nor will either "Frequent and Recurring Events" or multi-day events. 4 -- LOG MODE 46 POP-UP TICKLEX You may find it convenient to have TickleX available at all times. Let's say that you're using your word processor and suddenly need to look at your calendar or schedule an appointment. Normally, you'd have to save your document, exit the word processor, and then load TickleX. Then, when you're done with TickleX, you have to exit it, load your word processor, find your document and continue with what you were doing before accessing TickleX. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could just press a couple of keys to call up TickleX, even when you're in the middle of using your word processor? Well, you can, as long as you follow the instructions contained in this chapter. TickleX must first be loaded into memory, where it will linger in the background until you press a "hot-key" combination to call it to the screen. When you do so, whatever the computer was just doing will be suspended and placed into the background, while TickleX is brought to the screen. When you've taken care of your TickleX business, press the ESC key. Doing so will force TickleX back into the background (where it will lurk until you press the hot-key again), while your prior work will pop back into the foreground (onto the screen). To prime TickleX for pop-up (memory-resident) service, simply enter "TX xxx MR" (where xxx are your initials), instead of just "TX xxx", at the DOS prompt. If that doesn't work, you'll need to copy the TX.BAT to a file called TXMR.BAT and modify the new file. TX.BAT should be used for standard use, while TXMR.BAT will be used for in- voking TickleX as a pop-up. Now, find the line in TXMR.BAT that starts with "TICKLEX". The tenth parameter following "TICKLEX" should be "MR". If you need to "pad" the line with any other parameters, make each of them an "x". Examples: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x MR 1 TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x MR Each example shows the use of dummy "x" parameters. If TickleX is loaded in this fashion, it will automatically abort and display a message that informs you of the hot-key combination needed to call it to the foreground. By default, the hot-key is ALT- T. But you may change the hot-key by adding to the 10th parameter a different combination, using the "MR-X-$YYZZ" format. The "X" in this format is the key you wish to use in combination with the ALT or CTRL key. "YY" should be "08" if you plan to use the ALT-key, or "04" if you prefer a CTRL-key combination. "ZZ" is the scan code for the let- ter you've designated with "X". Selected scan codes follow: KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN Q 10 W 11 E 12 R 13 T 14 Y 15 U 16 I 17 O 18 P 19 5 -- POP-UP TICKLEX 47 A 1E S 1F D 20 F 21 G 22 H 23 J 24 K 25 L 26 Z 2C X 2D C 2E V 2F B 30 N 31 For example, to designate ALT-S as the hot-key combination, the tenth parameter would be "MR-S-$081F", while CTRL-V would be selected by using "MR-V-$042F". If you'd like TickleX's pop-up alarm (PC-Beep) to be loaded into memory also, you should add a line to the TX.BAT (or TXMR.BAT) file just before the "TICKLEX" line. This new line should say simply, "pc- beep". If PC-Beep is loaded, whatever alarms you've set with TickleX will beep at you at the appointed times. Without PC-Beep, alarms aren't possible. Normally, TickleX requires about 400 Kilobytes of RAM. When it's just waiting in the background, however, all it consumes is about 45 Kilobytes, leaving most of your computer's memory for use by other programs. And if you don't need TickleX's alarm feature, you can re- duce the RAM requirements to 7 Kilobytes by eliminating all references to PC-Beep in the TX.BAT (or TXMR.BAT) file and ensuring that it isn't loaded at any time while you use the computer. -- Tuning up Performance As mentioned above, TickleX is a large program that would consume about 400K of memory if the entire software were kept in memory wait- ing for you to press the hotkey. But that would leave you with 400K less memory to run your other applications. Therefore, efforts have been made to reduce the memory required by the program when it's lur- king in the background. On the assumption that memory is more pre- cious to most users than is time, TickleX has been optimized to use as little memory as possible, even though that means that it might take a little longer for it to respond when you press its hotkey. Rather than keep TickleX's entire code in memory when you're using another program, only a small "kernel" is maintained in RAM. When you press the hotkey, your current application is saved to disk or EMS (LIM-specification expanded memory), and then TickleX is loaded from disk or EMS. When you temporarily exit TickleX, it is then saved, while your former application is re-loaded. The memory-swap- ping that takes place whenever you enter or exit TickleX will take time. How much swapping time is required depends upon whether the swapping is to your hard disk or to memory. If TickleX recognizes that you have sufficient EMS memory avail- able (400K), such memory will automatically be used, minimizing swap time significantly. If no EMS is recognized, the program will assume that you want it to swap to the disk directory from which TickleX was loaded. If you have EMS and TickleX does not recognize it, please don't call to report it; there are several incompatible EMS schemes 5 -- POP-UP TICKLEX 48 floating around, and TickleX can't recognize them all. If you don't have EMS, but do have extended memory, you might want to set up a large RAM disk and tell TickleX to use it for swap- ping. That'll speed things up quite a bit. Make sure that the RAM disk you use will be used for NOTHING other than TickleX, BillPower and/or RAMdesk. How big a RAM disk do you need? If you're using it just for Tic- kleX, it should be at least 1M. Add another 825K if you also want to install BillPower as a pop-up, and yet another 320K if you use RAM- desk. To tell TickleX which RAM disk to use, you'll need to alter the TX (or TXMR.BAT) file. Place the RAM disk designation at the third parameter on the "TICKLEX" line. Example: TICKLEX x x e: x x x x x x MR tells TickleX to use drive E as the swap drive. Remember that you use the designated RAM disk for NOTHING other than RAMdesk, BillPower and TickleX program swapping. And, if you're using the program on a LAN, make sure than no two workstations access the same RAM disk. -- Loading Pop-Up TickleX Automatically The exception to the rule that the program must be entered through TX.BAT (or TXMR.BAT) comes into play if you want pop-up Tick- leX to be loaded automatically whenever you turn on your computer. If you'd like pop-up TickleX to be loaded during your computer's start-up routine, simply add the following lines at a convenient place near the end of your root directory's AUTOEXEC.BAT file: cd\managex PC-BEEP x x x x x x x x x TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x MR These lines should be placed before any instructions involved in calling up a menu or disk management program. Of course, the "x" parameters following TICKLEX and PC-BEEP in the above example may, if desired, be altered as described elsewhere in this documentation. And, if you don't need a TickleX's alarm, get rid of the PC-BEEP line. VERY IMPORTANT !!! When used as a pop-up, TickleX will not automatically remind you to back up your data files each day, as it does when you use it on a stand-alone basis. It is EXTREMELY important that you back up your data files EVERY DAY to floppy disks. Rotate among several sets of 5 -- POP-UP TICKLEX 49 backup disks; don't back up to the same disks every day. Use even- and odd-day, as well as week-end and month-end, disk sets. For your convenience, you might want to use the BACK.BAT (or REST.BAT) files to back up to (or restore from) diskettes. To back up your data, just go to the MANAGEX directory and enter "BACK C: A:" at the DOS prompt. To restore, enter "REST A: C:" instead. As mentioned above, if you don't have sufficient EMS memory and haven't designated a RAM disk, TickleX will swap to the hard disk. When swapping to the hard disk, the program creates and uses two hid- den files, "TXxxx.SWP" and "TXAPPxxx.SWP", for each user accessing the program ("xxx" are the user's initials). Normally, you won't have any problems with disk swapping. But if, after having loaded TickleX, you use other programs that cause your available hard disk space to drop below 825 kilobytes, you may get a "FATAL SWAP ERROR" when you try to pop into TickleX. If that happens, you'll have to re-boot your machine, probably losing whatever you'd been working on when you pres- sed the hot key. The lesson here is that you should not try using the program as a pop-up unless you're sure that you'll never come close to running out of space on whatever drive the program will be using for swapping. 5 -- POP-UP TICKLEX 50 TICKLEX ON A LOCAL AREA NETWORK When invoked for use on a LAN, TickleX utilizes file locking to prevent two or more users from simultaneously altering the same record in the data base. -- Some Preliminaries... If your LAN defaults to the assumption that you want it to auto- matically lock files for you, you may have problems with TickleX. TickleX, not your LAN, must decide when to lock which files. Make sure that your LAN is configured to give ALL users complete access to ALL files in the server's MANAGEX directory. Make sure that ALL prog- ram and data files are "sharable" (eg: immediately after installing the program onto a Novell workstation, enter "FLAG *.* S" at the DOS prompt in the directory containing TickleX, and do the same in the server directory that will contain TickleX's data). Also make sure that each workstation's CONFIG.SYS file contains a line that says, "FILES=40". The fact that your server may have such a line in it's CONFIG.SYS file may do your workstations no good whatso- ever. IMPORTANT: If you're a REGISTERED user (keep reading if you're not), you must have a copy of TickleX that's been prepared for the maximum number of users you intend to have on the LAN. If you use a non-LAN version (or a LAN version that's not prepared for as many users as you actually have on the net), the program may appear to work properly in most ins- tances, but you'll be running the risk of losing data. If the number of users on your net ever increases beyond the number for which you're registered, you must be sure to up- date your registration and install a copy of the program de- signed for more users. If you forget to do so, you may lose data. Therefore, it's a good idea to register, not necessar- ily for the number of users you presently have, but for the maximum number you anticipate may eventually be on the net. -- Using Only a Single Copy of TickleX on the Network To load a single copy of the program onto the net, run the normal install routine (eg: "INSTALL A: X:", where X is your server's drive designation). This routine will automatically load the program into a MANAGEX directory on the server. Unless you want to use only one copy of the TX.BAT file on the network (see the "Use of a Single Batch File on the Server" section below), each workstation must have a dedicated directory, either on 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 51 its own hard disk or on the server, from which it will run TickleX. This dedicated directory must be located directly off the disk's root directory and must contain a TX.BAT file, customized especially for that workstation. Start with the TX.BAT file provided with TickleX. Insert a couple of extra lines near the top of the TX.BAT file, just below the line that reads, "cls". These extra lines should cause the workstation to log into the server directory where TickleX's prog- ram and data files will be maintained. Assume, for instance, that the server's hard disk is referred to as drive "F" and that TickleX is installed into the "MANAGEX" directory on that drive. In this case, the lines to insert into the workstation's TX.BAT file would be: F: CD\MANAGEX NOTE: No directory/path name used with TickleX may exceed fourteen characters in length. Also, add a few lines at the very bottom of the TX.BAT file that will cause the computer to log back into the workstation's "home" directory when you exit TickleX. Examples: Example 1 Example 2 --------- --------- F: C: CD\AWB CD\MANAGEX CLS CLS -- TX.BAT's `TICKLEX' line Now, each workstation's TX.BAT file must also reflect its OWN user's ID and that of the program's MAIN user (that is, the person chiefly responsible for maintaining the data base). Additionally, it must reflect both its OWN drive/directory and the SERVER drive/direc- tory where TickleX is maintained. Read on. Find the line in the TX.BAT file that begins with "TICKLEX". After the word "TICKLEX", you need to add several parameters, each separated by a space. The first four may already have been set (see the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1), but if they're not, just sub- stitute an "x" for each one. Example: TICKLEX x x x x The fifth parameter should be a 1- to 3-letter ID of the MAIN user (the one chiefly responsible for TickleX). The sixth parameter should be a 1- to 3-letter ID for this SPECIFIC workstation's user. For ex- ample, if Jane Jones is the program's main user, the fifth parameter following "TICKLEX" in each workstation's TX.BAT file might be "JJ". 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 52 If the user of a specific workstation is Allen W. Bosley, that work- station's TX.BAT file might specify "AB" at the sixth parameter. IMPORTANT: Make absolutely sure that each workstation's TX.BAT file contains the SAME fifth parameter (since the MAIN user is the same for all workstations). Also ensure that no two stations have the same sixth parameter (since each individual station is DIFFERENT). If you violate either rule, you run the risk of losing data, despite the fact the program may appear to be operating properly. Once you set up each work- station's TX.BAT file, you might want to write-protect it, to prevent it's being changed by a user. The seventh parameter tells TickleX which of the server dir- ectories will hold its common data base, accessible by all users. If, for instance, a given workstation refers to that directory as F:\MANAGEX, the seventh parameter should be "F:\MANAGEX". The eighth parameter following "TICKLEX" should be the drive and directory from which the workstation will be running TickleX. This is that workstation's "home" directory. Parameters nine and ten may be x's if need be, but the eleventh parameter must be "1". This tells TickleX that there's just one copy of the program on the network (see the next section if you decide to run a separate copy of the program on each workstation). Here are two examples that tie it all together: PARAMETERS --> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Example 1: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX C:\MANAGEX x x 1 Example 2: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX C:\MANAGEX x MR 1 Each of these examples tells TickleX that this workstation's "home" directory is C:\MANAGEX. It also specifies F:\MANAGEX as the server directory containing TickleX and its data. JJ is the main user, and AWB is the local workstation's user. The second example's tenth para- meter is "MR", informing TickleX to load itself as a memory-resident program (see the POP-UP TICKLEX chapter), while the first example's tenth parameter is "x", which is a null parameter that tells TickleX nothing. NOTE: Each morning, TickleX will automatically bring forward past Deadlines and Gotchas that haven't been tagged for omission. When installed for use on a network, however, a user's Deadlines/Gotchas will be brought forward only when THAT SPECIFIC USER (or the one who entered the Deadlines and Gotchas into the program) first loads TickleX at the beginning of the day. If you'd prefer that the FIRST user to load the program each morning be responsible for bringing forward 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 53 EVERYONE's Deadlines/Gotchas, add "#" to the fifth para- meter (eg: "TICKLEX x x x x JJ# AWB ..."). To have the MAIN user (who may not necessarily be the first user) bring forward everyone's Deadlines/Gotchas each morning, substitute "*" for "#" (eg: TICKLEX x x x x JJ* AWB ..."). The "generic" TX.BAT file that comes with TickleX has %1 at the sixth parameter. If you substitute the workstation user's initials at that parameter, you must also search the entire TX.BAT file for all places where %1 exits and substitute the same initials (eg: if AWB is substituted for %1 at the sixth parameter, the line that says "util%1" becomes "utilAWB"). Further, if you ever subsequently change the initials at the sixth parameter, you must search the file for the old initials and substitute the new initials in their places. -- Using a Separate Copy of TickleX on each Workstation Screen colors, printer, and other Customization items will be identical for all workstations that access a common copy of the prog- ram on the server. Those workstations that require different customi- zations should have separate copies of the program installed in their "home" directories. Another reason to load a separate copy of the program onto one or more workstations is that you may have a slow net- work that makes loading the program from the server seem to take forever. Of course, the data must still be located centrally on the server, but the program, itself, may be placed separately onto each workstation. To load a separate copy of the program onto each workstation, run the normal install routine (eg: "INSTALL A: X:", where X is that workstation's hard disk designation). This routine will automatically load the program into a MANAGEX directory on the workstation. Each workstation's MANAGEX directory must have a TX.BAT file, customized especially for that workstation. Start with the TX.BAT file provided with TickleX. Insert an extra line near the top of the TX.BAT file, just below the line that reads, "cls". This extra line should cause the work- station to look to the server directory where TickleX will maintain the common data files that all users will access. Assume, for ins- tance, that the server's hard disk is referred to as drive "F" and that TickleX's data files will be located in the "MANAGEX" directory on that drive. In this case, the line to insert into the worksta- tion's TX.BAT file would be: CD F:\MANAGEX Now, modify the TX.BAT file's "TICKLEX" line exactly as described in the above section entitled "TX.BAT's `TICKLEX' Line". But DO NOT include an eleventh parameter of "1". Instead, either eliminate the eleventh parameter or substitute an "x" for the "1". 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 54 NOTE: If you elect to use a separate copy of the program for each workstation, you must manually copy the BLANKCAL and BLANKCL files into the server's MANAGEX directory, where you should keep the data. Also copy RECUR.DAT, RECUR.DAF, and RECUR.DAI to the server's data-holding directory, since common copies of these files need to be accessed by everyone using the program. -- Other Customizations to the TX.BAT file The TX.BAT file may also contain references to some other prog- rams: INPUT, EXPORT, PC-BEEP. You need to make sure that each of these references is followed by parameters identical to those that follow "TICKLEX". Examples: if not exist util.bat input x x e: x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 pc-beep x x e: x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 TICKLEX x x e: x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 export x x e: x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 Also find every occurrence of "util%1" in the TX.BAT file and substitute the local user's initials for "%1" (eg: change "util%1" to "utilJJ" if JJ is the local user). After you've customized each workstation's TX.BAT file, you'll find that the program works much as it does as single-user software. The main differences are that: 1) TickleX will occasionally delay a user's entering something, as it waits for another user to finish some process that could potentially change the data base; 2) only the main (primary user's) workstation will be able to perform certain functions (such as Editing with EDITX and Omitting); and 3) changes to the data base made on one workstation may not be recognized by another workstation until its user goes through some major process (such as conducting a Hunt or Editing a record). -- Passwords If you want TickleX to demand a password whenever anyone tries to access it, the second parameter following "TICKLEX" (in the TX.BAT file) should contain the character sequence "PW". Example: TICKLEX x PWMRLA E: x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 If you want password checking every time TickleX's hotkey is pressed (assuming that it's been installed as a pop-up), the sequence should "PWMR". If you want to limit access to the Utilities Module and text Editor, add "LA" to the second parameter. If "LA" is included in that parameter, the only person who will be allowed to access the Utilities or the Editor will be the MAIN user. This will prevent 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 55 TickleX "rookies" from ruining some of the program's data. If LAN-based TickleX is set up for password protection, the first person ever to enter the program must be the main user identified by the fifth parameter. That user must go to the Utilities module, sel- ect the Customization option, and enter the initials of all the Tick- leX users on the network. A user whose initials have not been entered into the Customization routine's list won't be allowed in. -- Use of a Single Batch File on the Server If you're using a single copy of the program on the network, and you'd like to maintain only one TX.BAT file for the whole office (as opposed to a separate one for each workstation), place that TX.BAT file into the server's MANAGEX directory. Start with the basic TX.BAT file supplied with TickleX. Modify its "TICKLEX" line as described above in the section entitled, "TX.BAT's `TICKLEX' Line", but make sure that the sixth parameter is "%1". Also be sure to place disk/directory changing instructions near the top and bottom of the batch file, as discussed above in the "Using Only a Single Copy..." section above. NOTE: Some networks are configured in a manner that makes it difficult to use a single TX.BAT on the server. If you have difficulty, abandon trying to use a single TX.BAT file. 6 -- TICKLEX ON A NETWORK 56 USING TICKLEX WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS If you wish to use TickleX with Microsoft Windows, you will need to run Windows in its 386 mode ("WIN /3" at the DOS prompt). You will also need to customize a PIF file. Before you do ANYTHING in Windows, however, make sure that you have TickleX running successfully at the DOS level. Use the PIF editor within Windows to set up TX.PIF. Keep all the default settings, except as follows: Program Filename TX.BAT Window Title TickleX Optional Parameters (your initials, as recognized by TickleX) Start-up Directory (example: C:\MANAGEX) KB Required 450 (if you need the alarm, otherwise 410) KB Desired 450 (if you need the alarm, otherwise 410) Display Usage "Full Screen" item should be selected Execution "Background" item should be selected (but only if you need the alarm) Background Priority 1 Retain Video Memory select this item (if you need the alarm) Allow Fast Paste DE-select this item Application Shortcut Press ALT-T here if you wish to be able to Key access TickleX with this key combination Now, you need to edit your WIN.INI file. Find the line that be- gins with "load=" and add "TX.PIF" to that line (eg: "load=TX.PIF"). That will cause TickleX to be loaded automatically when you run Win- dows, so that all you need to do is to press ALT-T to access it. NOTE: If you're using TickleX to sound alarms, always make a habit of checking into TickleX IMMEDIATELY after you load Windows. Doing so will cause the alarms to be set for this session with Windows. Next, you need to alter your TX.BAT file. Look at the line that begins with "TICKLEX". Since you'll be accessing TickleX through Win- dows, not as a memory-resident program in its own right, the tenth parameter should be "x", not "mr". Now, you may wish to prevent an exit from TickleX by pressing the the ESC key. If so, the second parameter should contain the character string, "NX" (for "no exit"). And if you wish to use the alarm (PC-BEEP.EXE) you should make sure that the TX.BAT file contains a line that begins with "PC-BEEP" and contains the same listing of parameters found on the line that begins with "TICKLEX". The PC-BEEP line should be just above the TICKLEX line. Windows is a very complicated (even "squirrely") environment. So you may have to do a lot of "tweeking" to make everything work. 7 -- USING TICKLEX WITH WINDOWS 57 SHARING DATA AMONG SEVERAL COMPUTERS If you need to be able to share its data among several non-net- worked computers, you'll have to utilize TickleX's specialized input and output routines. NOTE: Please bear in mind that you're authorized to use each registered copy of TickleX on only one computer. If you plan to use the program on several computers, please be sure to register a separate copy for each one. Thanks. You'll have to decide which of your computers will be considered the "MAIN" computer. This will be the computer which will store TickleX's data base. All other computers will be considered "SATELLITE" compu- ters and should be using only copies of the main computer's data base. Here's how the satellite system works. TickleX will be installed on each satellite computer in a manner identical to that in which it was installed on the main computer, except for a slight difference in the TX.BAT file (covered later). At the main computer, you'll use TickleX's OUTPUT function to create a specialized copy of the data base on a diskette. The data on that diskette will then be trans- ferred to a satellite computer. Over time, each satellite's copy of the data base will have grown as each user adds events to the sched- ule. After several days (perhaps a week, or so), each satellite's modified data base will be transferred on diskette back to the main computer and run through TickleX's INPUT routine. The INPUT routine will add to the main computer's data base only those events which were not present when each satellite's copy of the data base was originally OUTPUT from the main computer. After all the satellites' new events have been INPUT into the main computer, you're ready once again to use the OUTPUT function to create new copies of the main computer's up-to- date data base. The process starts again as these new copies are then fed into each satellite computer. The main computer's OUTPUT function is accessed by pressing ALT-O at the Main Menu. Press ALT-I for the INPUT function. If your satellite computer has a hard drive, you'll probably want to transfer the data OUTPUT from the main computer to your satellite's hard disk. To do so, you need to go through a satellite INPUT routine comparable to that used at the main computer. Just place the diskette containing the newly-output data into your satellite's floppy drive and press ALT-I at the Main Menu. When it's time to output data from the satellite to the main computer, press ALT-O at the satellite's Main Menu to access the OUTPUT routine. As mentioned above, each satellite computer's TX.BAT file must differ slightly from that found on the main computer. Use EDITX.EXE (^E from the Main Menu) to edit this file on each computer. Find the line in the main computer's TX.BAT file that starts with "TICKLEX". After the word "TICKLEX", you need to add four parameters, each separ- 7 -- SHARING DATA 58 ated by a space. The first three may already have been set (see the SETTING UP section of CHAPTER 1), but if they're not, just substitute an "x" for each one. The fourth parameter should be the word,"MAIN" (eg:" TICKLEX X X X MAIN"). On each satellite computer, the line fourth parameter should be "SAT" (eg: "TICKLEX X X X SAT"). Once you've designated the main and satellite computers, YOU MUST NEVER, NEVER change the fourth parameter. If you ever change the fourth par- ameter, you may RUIN YOUR DATA BASE! When you first install TickleX onto a satellite computer with a hard disk, the first thing you should do when the menu appears is to press ALT-I, so that you can input the main computer's database. Even though you may not have entered any events on the main computer, you must still transfer it's data to the satellite before you make any entries on the satellite. Every time you Output data from the satellite's hard disk to a floppy, you must not make any more entries on that satellite until you've: 1) transferred its data to the main computer; 2) Output the main computer's updated data to a floppy; and then 3) Input that up- dated data back into the satellite's database. ONLY AFTER THE SATEL- LITE HAS THE LATEST DATA FROM THE MAIN COMPUTER SHOULD YOU MAKE ANY NEW ENTRIES AT THE SATELLITE. There are a few limitations to what can be done on a satellite computer. First, you won't be able to Edit any events that were input from the main computer's data base. The only items you can edit will be those you've originally entered on the satellite computer since the last transfer of data took place. You also won't be able to go through the Omit routine (though you will be able to tag NEW items for omission). Please note that the data transferred to and from diskettes with the INPUT and OUTPUT does not include Plans, Templates, Frequent or Recurring Events, or Custom Reports. Only the main schedule's events are transferred. Each satellite user must ensure that his list of employees (in the Utilities module's Customize routine) is identi- cal to the main computer's. If a satellite user creates a new Plan or adds something to his Recurring Events file, he should be aware that these items won't be transferred automatically with the INPUT and OUT- PUT routines. Generally, the only items transferred will be those that are created with the Make function. 7 -- SHARING DATA 59 EMPLOYEE/DEPARTMENT GROUPS Employees may be grouped together for mass schedulings. As you know, TickleX will track up to 200 employees. It will also track 20 groups, each of which may consist of up to 15 employees. Whenever you schedule a group, you will effectively be scheduling each of it's con- stituent employees. Whenever you hunt through the data base for a group's activities, you will, in effect, be hunting for the activities of that group's members. Anywhere that TickleX requests an employee, you may substitute a group. One reason for having some of your employees included in a group is that you may wish to find a period when everyone in that group is free for a meeting. Doing a "Scheduled Time" hunt (discussed in the "Hunting for Entries and Preparing Reports" section of CHAPTER 2) for that group will reveal all the time already scheduled for all group members. Just fill in Hunt Gate C with the abbreviation for the group in which you're interested, set the beginning and ending dates, and begin the hunt. The gaps in the scheduled time shown on the report will be the periods during which everyone in the group is free. Groups should be listed in a file called GROUP.DAT, which TickleX scans whenever you enter the program. You may create this file in EDITX by pressing ^E at the Main Menu. Then press "G" at the EDITX menu. To set up a group, enter a unique 1- to 3-character abbreviation under the "ABB" heading. Then hit the tab key to align the cursor for the entry of that group's constituent employees. As you're entering the employees, separate each by a slash, "/". Note that a group may not contain another group. Example: ABB --- CONSTITUENT DEPARTMENTS/EMPLOYEES --- gp1 stb/gm/lta/prs gp2 stb/mkr gp3 tup/dst/prs gp4 dst/stb/gm gp5 gm/gp1 WRONG! -- gp1 is, itself, a group 9 -- GROUPS 60 AUTOMATED EXECUTION (MACROS) You may have certain regularly performed routines that you wish TickleX could perform automatically. That's what TickleX's AutoExe- cute function is designed to do. Whenever the function is invoked, TickleX will read a file that contains a series of keystrokes. It will then execute each file-based keystroke as if you had entered it at the keyboard. You may have as many AutoExecute files as you wish, each designed to do a different tedious chore. Before you set up an AutoExecute file, you should practice with TickleX, in order to determine exactly which keystroke sequence you want to place into the file. Then go to EDITX (^E from the Tick- leX's Main Menu) to open the file. Once in EDITX, press "O" (for "Other") and name the file you wish to create. Give it a name that corresponds in some way to its function (don't forget the name; if you do, you won't be able to access the new file later). Then, enter into the new file each character that you want TickleX to "type" for you when the AutoExecute function reads this file. The file may contain up to 160 characters. If you wish to place a date into the AutoExecute file, remember that TickleX accepts "-7" as exactly one week ago, and "+1" as tom- orrow. TickleX also considers an entry of "1" to mean the first day of whatever month is currently displayed, while "30" means the thir- tieth day. There are several special characters that you can place into the file to perform certain functions: ~ = RET (or Enter) ! = ESC > = F6 : = ALT-P ; = ALT-F | = ALT-I @ = ALT-O _ (underline) will cause the AutoExecute function to pause for a keyboard entry (one keystroke per underline). / will cause TickleX to skip its beginning-of-the-day routine during which it moves past deadlines to the current day's schedule if they haven't already been tagged for omission. This "/" may have no effect unless it's the first character in the AutoExecute sequence. Accessing the AutoExecute Function To access the AutoExecute function from TickleX's Main Menu, press ALT-A. To have TickleX go through an AutoExecute routine whenever it's loaded (without having to press ALT-A), find the line saying "TICKLEX" in the TX.BAT file, and place the name of the desired AutoExecute file as the first parameter following "TICKLEX". For ex- ample, "TICKLEX macro" will cause TickleX to execute the MACRO file whenever you enter "TX xxx" at the DOS prompt. 10 -- MACROS 61 APPENDIX A: MESSAGES "_____ is an unacceptable date ..." -- The format in which you entered a date is incorrect. Press the RET key and try again, this time using the `DA MON YR' format (eg: 12 OCT 89) or the MO/DA/YR format (eg: 10/12/89). "Aborting because [disk drive] is full" --- Your disk may not be full, but it does not have enough space on it to run TickleX. TickleX needs at least as many free bytes as are taken up by the file whose name is "M-JOURN.LBF". This message may also occur if the ManageX directory (or any of it's subdirectories) contains more files than DOS allows. "Corrupted data" -- Something has damaged the TickleX database since the last time a data integrity check was done (probably yesterday). You'd be wise to restore data from day-before-yesterday's backup (since yesterday afternoon's is probably just a copy of files that were somehow corrupted yesterday). If, after restoring that data, TickleX still finds corrupted records, you should fall back to the next-most-recent backup, and so on. As a last resort (if restoring fails), you may wish to select the Indexing option in the Utilities module. Anytime you want to check your data again, just go to Tick- leX's Main Menu and press ^Y (Ctrl-Y). "Disk Error" -- An error occurred while the program was accessing the disk. The nature of the problem will be found in the second-to-last set of parentheses. You may need to "pack" or "optimize" your hard disk's files with a program such as "Disk Optimizer", "Vopt", "PC Tools", or "Mace Utilities". Or you may have a serious hardware problem requiring the eventual replacement or re-formatting of your hard disk. This may be your first warning of an eventual hard disk "crash". "Do you want to overwrite the data already on this disk?" -- You're trying to OUTPUT data to a diskette already containing current data. If you proceed, you'll overwrite the data already on the diskette. "Do you wish to re-assign ____ to another .... " -- You have just erased an employee's identifier. If you want to assign that identif- ier to another employee number, press `Y'; if you want to eliminate that employee entirely, press `N'. "Mis-linked record: " -- TickleX has encountered a record that is in- correctly linked to another. This may not cause any problems, but YOU'D BE WISE to get rid of it NOW and re-enter the data. So write down the record number and date shown on the screen. You should know that it is POSSIBLE that your data base is too corrupted to be fixed by simply omitting and re-entering records. But you may wish to try that first, before falling back on the restoring option found in the Utilities module. As a last resort (if restoring fails), you may wish to select the Indexing option in the Utilities module. By the APPENDIX A 62 way, any time you want to re-check your data integrity, press ^Y (Ctrl-Y) at the TickleX Main Menu. "More than 200 events meeting your specifications ..." -- The maximum number of events that TickleX can display for one day is 200. TickleX can actually hold many more than that, but it can't display more than 200 meeting your specifications for the selected date at one time. Make your specifications more discriminating, by, for instance, speci- fying a particular employee. "Printer not ready" -- Either your printer is not "on line" and ready to receive data, or you're out of paper. "RECORD IS ASSOCIATED WITH A PLAN" -- The event you're editing was made automatically while you were creating or editing a Plan. Tick- leX, therefore, will not allow you to edit it, except while you're editing that Plan. The only exception to this rule is that you may edit the notes attached to the event. To do so, press ^N (Ctrl-N). "Serious Error" -- The nature of the problem will be found in the se- cond-to-last set of parentheses, while the location of the problem should be found in the last set. "That entry is, itself, a reminder" -- You are attempting to enter a reminder for a reminder. That isn't allowed. Reminders can be as- signed to only Gotchas, Deadlines, Appointments, Vacations, and Trips, not to other reminders. "The _____ case does not exist" -- You have entered a case number for a BillPower case that does not exist. If you've forgotten what cases you have, press the F1 key when TickleX asks you for a case number. "This diskette has no TickleX data" -- You're attempting to INPUT data from a disk that does not contain the needed files. "This item cannot be edited in the Hunt routine" -- If you want to edit this item, you must use the Edit routine. "Too many entries" -- You are attempting to add one more entry to a TickleX data base that is already full (with 12000 entries). Before you can add any more events to the data base, you need to Omit old events that are no longer needed. Go to the Main Menu and press "O" to go through the Omit routine. "Too Many Users" -- An attempt has been made to use TickleX with more users than are allowed by your registration. This message may also occur if one or more users have exited TickleX in an unusual manner (as would be the case, for instance, if power to a computer was lost). If this is the case, you must first make sure that no computer on the net is using TickleX. Then, load TickleX on the server computer and press ALT-1 at the Main Menu. After this is done, each station may then log into the program as usual. APPENDIX A 63 "Use (^E)dit option to set up that Template" -- You have attempted to copy a non-existent Template into a Plan file. If you made a mistake in designating the Template, try entering it again. If you need to set up that Template, you must do so in EDITX, accessed by pressing ^E (Ctrl-E) at the Main Menu. APPENDIX A 64