April 2004 Edition
Feature Spotlight: Job Profitability Report
Q&A with Technical Support: Adding Activities to Workflow Scheduling
Smart Tip of the Month: Selecting Multiple Items from a Popup Menu
Third Party Software: Microsoft Query
Support Bookshelf: Crystal Report Forum
Feature Spotlight
Job Profitability Report
A new job profitability report is now available for Job Manager 3.5 users. The job profitability report contains information about job cost totals and provides a comparison of the invoiced amounts of the job to display the percentage of job profit. Simply import the report and assign access privileges in the Custom Query Setup window.
The Job Profitability report can be downloaded from:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16156
For more information on importing Job Manager library files, refer to the Job Manager Setup Guide located at:
http://www.meta-comm.com/customers/docs
Q&A with Technical Support
Can more activities be added to the Advanced Workflow and Scheduling forms?
Yes. Additional lines can be added to the Schedule Template form in the SetupWS folder and to the Job Schedule form in the Jobs folder to accommodate workflows larger than what is provided. To increase the number of activities on the forms requires just a few minutes and a minimal amount of steps.
- Log in to Virtual Ticket Administrator.
- Open the Schedule Template from the SetupWS folder in the forms editor.
- Locate the kMaxActivites field outside the right border of the form. Double-click the field and change the value in the “calculate as” field from 16 to the desired amount.
- Select and copy an entire row of activity fields. Paste a desired number of additional rows below the existing rows.
- In the newly created rows, modify the all of the variable field names to indicate the appropriate row. For example, change ActivityCode16 toActivityCode17. Also change any MetaScript in the field that indicate the row.
NOTE: If any errors appear, review your additional rows to make sure that all field names are correct.
Smart Tip of the Month
Selecting Multiple Items from a Popup Menu
There is a way to select multiple items from a popup list on a Virtual Ticket form. This method may be used in situations where a list of options in a Virtual Ticket popup is provided dynamically. For example, your Virtual Ticket form contains a popup menu listing colors which are commonly used on jobs. You need the ability to choose multiple colors. This example allows you to select the multiple items from the popup list and display them in a memo field. Knowledge Base article 16158 contains an example for adding a memo field to your Virtual Ticket form to hold multiple selections from a popup menu.
For complete example details, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16158
Third Party Software
Microsoft Query
The Microsoft Query add-in for Microsoft Excel provides a tool to retrieve data from a selected database and then format and display the returned information into an Excel spreadsheet. Microsoft Query is available for Excel on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. The Macintosh version requires a special ODBC driver. To build a Microsoft Query report, open Microsoft Excel and choose Import External Data from the Data menu. After establishing an ODBC connection to your Virtual Ticket/Job Manager database, a report wizard will assist you by displaying the database columns which can be selected and giving the user data sorting and grouping options.
For more information on creating a report using Microsoft Query, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16002
For more information on the Macintosh ODBC Driver, visit:
http://www.openlinksw.com
Support Bookshelf
Crystal Report Forum
Business Objects provides online forums for a wide variety of Crystal Reports topics including data connectivity, exporting of information, creating graphs and maps, building reports, plus forums for Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Analysis and older Seagate versions of the software.
This forum can be found at:
http://support.businessobjects.com/
New MetaCommunications Knowledge Base Articles this month:
16156 – Job Profitability Report for Job Cost Plus
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16156
16158 – Selecting multiple popup menu items
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16158
16159 – Job Billing by Invoice
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16159
16161 - Determining Windows Script Host version
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16161
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