Support News

August 2005 Edition

Feature Spotlight: Cost Permission
Q&A with Technical Support: Production Portal System Requirements
Smart Tip of the Month: Finding Deleted Items
Third Party Software: Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Support Bookshelf: SQL Pocket Guide

Feature Spotlight

Cost Permission

A new enhancement to the MetaCommunications Production Portal includes the seamless inclusion of costing information for users with permission to view cost information. This eliminates the need to change between the Job Manager and Job Cost Plus applications. If users have permission to view cost information in windows such as Job Entry and Edit or the Job Charges/Costs reports, cost information will be displayed for them in the corresponding Production Portal windows.


Q&A with Technical Support

What are the system requirements for MetaCommunications Production Portal?

The new MetaCommunications Production Portal is a web application that is built on Microsoft’s .NET technology. Before installing MPP, verify that the following requirements are met on the server where MPP will be installed:

  • Windows 2000 or 2003
  • Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0/6.0
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 SP1
  • Windows Script Host 5.6
  • Recommended Processor: Intel Pentium 4 or compatible; 2-gigahertz (GHz) or higher
  • Recommended Memory: 512 MB + 8 MB for each concurrent connection

.NET Framework 1.1 SP1 and Windows Script Host 5.6 can be downloaded from Microsoft. See the Knowledge Base article below for links to the respective downloads.

In addition, the client side supports the following web browsers:

  • Internet Explorer 6.0 (Windows)
  • Mozilla Firefox (Windows and Mac OS X)
  • Safari 1.3 (Mac OS X 10.3)
  • Safari 2.0 (Mac OS X 10.4)

For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16206


Smart Tip of the Month

Finding Deleted Items

At some point in time, it may be necessary to find out who deleted a particular record in a Virtual Ticket/Job Manager system. While it is not possible to view deleted records in the Browser window, the History or through Finds; it is possible to locate information about a deleted record through a Custom Query. All add, update, and delete actions are recorded in the database. By using the example custom query in Knowledge Base article 16207, information about when and by whom a record was deleted can be displayed.

For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16207


Third Party Software

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Reporting Services is a component of Microsoft SQL Server which provides the ability to set up a reporting server for generating ad hoc or scheduled reports. A Report Manager web interface allows reports to be uploaded and made available for users to access. Permissions can be applied to provide users with the appropriate access to necessary reports. Reports can be viewed through the web interface or emailed to the desired recipients in formats such as PDF, TIFF, CSV, XML and more. While there is no fee to install on a currently licensed SQL Server, the reports can only be generated by a report builder that requires Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

For more information, visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/default.mspx


Support Bookshelf

SQL Pocket Guide

A must have for any SQL DBA or Query writer, the SQL Pocket Guide by Jonathan Gennick is a great resource for looking up the right T-SQL statement, function or syntax for SQL Queries. The book includes help for the different variations of the SQL language including Oracle, DB2 and MySQL in addition to Microsoft SQL Server.

For more information, visit:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sqlpr/


New MetaCommunications Knowledge Base Articles this month:

16036 - Batch Update of Form Information
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16036

16082 - Creating additional stages on Workflow Scheduling Forms
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16082

16206 - Production Portal system requirements
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16206

16207 - Viewing a list of deleted items
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16207




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http://www.meta-comm.com/support/support_news.htm.

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support@meta-comm.com

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