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Tuesday,
October 5, 2004
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Welcome
to the OnRequest™ Client e-Update... the Support,
Development and Production teams at Advanced Planning Technologies,
Inc. will be bringing you timely and critical user information
to expand your knowledge of OnRequest™ and facility
managment-related issues.
In
this issue...
- Project
Backups,
- Information
Sharing
- OnRequest™
Project Administration
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The
subject of OnRequest administration comes up often this time of
year so we thought a few timely reminders are in order to help
you start the new school year smoothly.
- Backups:
The first priority for OnRequest administration should always
be routine backups of your master project. Sooner or later,
something may occur to corrupt your OnRequest project. Although
networks never crash or have glitches and computers are 100%
reliable, routine backups are still essential. Backup frequency
is always predicated by use, so if you use OnRequest daily,
backup daily.
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Information sharing: Sharing data and drawings is a very
important element of facility management. Our last customer
conference provided excellent examples of the use of Adobe Acrobat
PDF files to accomplish this task. If you have the full version
of Acrobat, it provides a file creation utility called Acrobat
Distiller. Once installed, PDF files can be created from within
OnRequest simply by selecting the print function. The distiller
utility appears as another printer selection and once selected
as the printer device, outputs a PDF file instead of performing
a print function.
- Project
administration: In order to share an OnRequest project among
several users, the project folder must reside on a server accessible
by all users. Working on an OnRequest project directly on a
server without checking out a drawing to your local hard drive
can cause drawing corruption problems. For this reason, APT,
Inc. strongly recommends the check-out / check-in procedures
be used for work sessions. The following is an excerpt from
our training manual to help you review these procedures.
| Checking
Out and Checking In Drawings |
 Check
Out/Check In, found under the Drawings
menu, is designed to allow users to share and make changes
to both drawings and data in an orderly manner. It prevents
the duplication and confusion that can result when more than
one user tries to makes a change to the same drawing and/or
its data.
Master
Project vs. Checked-Out Project - When drawings are
checked out, a new Project is created and given a new name.
Only copies of the drawings specified are placed in the
new project. The copied drawings are marked as Checked Out
drawings in the Master Project. The drawings remain in the
master project, but are available as read only until Check-In
of the copies.
Process
- OnRequest automatically keeps track of both the drawings
that have been checked out and the names of the users who
have checked the drawings out from the Master Project. A
drawing can be checked out to a local hard drive. A checked
out drawing and its data can be updated and will then be
checked back into the Master Project.
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The
Check Out Process
Step One (windows depicted): |
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Step Two: |
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- Be
careful when you specify the destination of the
checked out project.
- Checkouts
that are Read-only do not have to be checked back
into the project. They can be used for running reports
and exporting data but cannot be used for any changes.
- When
checking in a "For update" drawing, you
will be prompted to save or delete the checked out
project. It is recommended you specify delete for
the checked-out project after check-in of the drawings.
If this procedure is not used, you will find it
difficult to control project administration because
you have multiple copies of checked-out drawings.
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The
Check In Process:
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After
selecting "Check In…" from the drawings
pull down menu, a dialogue window appears prompting
for the location of the checked out drawing/project.
In this example, the "hintgencheckout" project
was checked out to the folder "Checkouts".
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Select
the "hintgencheckout" folder and click the
Open button. The dialogue window will open the folder
and display the check out name, "Hintgencheckout.APP"
within the folder. Select "Hintgencheckout.APP"
and click on the Open button.
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The
following pop-up will appear:
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You
MUST select the drawing name(s) you wish to check
in. If no drawing names are selected and the check
in button is selected, the check in process will end
without the desired check in process accomplished.
Once
the drawing(s) are selected, click on the "check
in" button.
The
dialogue window below appears. If there are multiple
drawings selected to check in, selecting the "check-in
All" button will proceed with the complete check
in. If you select the "Check-In" button,
you will be prompted to approve the check-in of each
drawing selected in the previous screen until all
are checked in.
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After
check in is completed for all drawings in the check
out project, you will be prompted to delete or save
the checked out project. It is highly recommended
that you delete the checked out project. If this procedure
is not followed, you will eventually have a collection
of old checked out drawings that could interfere with
future check in operations.
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Icon
drawings needed for the work to be done should also
be checked out in the same check-out project you will
be working on. These icon drawings should be checked
out as "read only" drawings. This ensures
the integrity of the icon drawings in your master
project. Remember, the check out process creates a
new project containing only the drawings you will
be working with. Your master project still retains
copies of the checked out drawings in read only status.
(If the checked out project is accidentally destroyed,
these copies can be restored to full read/write status.)
The icon drawings that are checked out as read only
drawings will not need to be checked back into your
master project.
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| Getting
around on the OnRequest™ website:
If
you are new to OnRequest™
or an old "pro" ready to add some tools to your skill
set, our website
is a good place to start.
We're
building a database of your support questions, facility management
issues, and FAQ which are at your fingertips, 24/7.
Already
available on the OnRequest.info
website:
....and
more is on the way!
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OnRequest™
Support information:
You
can receive OnRequest™ Support in a variety of ways:
- Via
e-mail: support@apt-cafm.com
- Via
phone: 608.785.7077
- Via
mail: Advanced Planning Technologies, Inc. 319 Main Street,
Suite 400, La Crosse, WI 54601
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content copyright 2004 Advanced Planning Technologies, Inc.
(sales@apt-cafm.com) |
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