Documents

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This screen displays the documents for the current customer - or if there is no current customer, a Select button allowing you to select a customer.

This screen shows the details of the customer's documents. As you can see below, there are three different types: Attachments, Letters  and Forms. The first two support 'versions', ie previous revisions of the document. See Concepts|Documents for background.

The top half of this screen functions like a standard select screen. As well as by date, you can select by:
Type - this can be set to All (ie all document types), or Attachment, Form or Letter
Status - this can be set to All, In Progress, Completed, or Finalised

The table shows the documents that match the selection criteria. The column headings are self explanatory. Clicking on the entry in the Document column will cause the document to be downloaded and displayed.  Note that for Letters the Document column shows two icons like . If you click on the right-hand one, the pdf file containing the letter will be downloaded and displayed. If you click on the left-hand one (or the name of the document) then the word processing document will be downloaded and you can open it in your word processor and save it and then edit it. (You need to save it as it is opened read-only.) After editing the file, you can then use the Edit button to edit the letter and upload the revised file.

The bottom part of the screen shows the details of the selected document.

The buttons are:
New - create a new document - a window will open allowing you to select the type
Edit - edit the selected document record (not the document itself - though see above). If the document has status Finalised you will not be able to edit the record.
Delete - delete the selected document - a confirmation window will be displayed. If the document has status Finalised you will not be able to delete it.
Print - print or preview the selected document
Mail - email the selected document
Refresh - this button only appears when you have a non-finalised letter selected. Pressing it will (if the letter was generated from a template) refresh the letter by regenerating it from the template. This is useful if you have modified the template. A confirm window will be displayed.
External Edit - this button appears if the selected document can be edited in OpenOffice. Clicking this will launch the OpenOffice editor to edit the document directly, avoiding the need to download, edit and re-upload the document. See External Edit for details.

Create/Edit Attachment

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This is the screen used to create or edit an attachment document in the customer's Documents list. See Concepts|Documents for background.

The fields are as follows:
Start Time - the date on which the entry was created - defaults to today
Description - any pertinent description
Status - this can be In Progress, Completed, or Finalised.  In Progress implies that you are still working on this; Completed implies that you have finished - but the entry can still be editied; and Finalised means that it is really complete and can no longer be edited.
Printed - this box will be checked when the form has been printed
Attachment - press the Select button to attach the file - after the file is attached its name (notes.txt in this case) is shown here.

The Versions tab shows the previous versions. Note that you can use the Add button to add another, but you can also use the Select button.  If you use the Select button to attach another file, then the previous 'top' version will just be pushed onto the version list.

Create/Edit Form

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This is the screen used to create or edit a form document in the customer's Documents list. See Concepts|Documents for background.

The fields are as follows:
Start Time - the date on which the entry was created - defaults to today
Description - any pertinent description
Status - this can be In Progress, Completed, or Finalised.  In Progress implies that you are still working on this; Completed implies that you have finished - but the entry can still be editied; and Finalised means that it is really complete and can no longer be edited.
Printed - this box will be checked when the form has been printed
Form - select the form to print - these are the document templates that are of Type 'Customer Form'
 

Create/Edit Letter

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This is the screen used to create or edit a letter document in the customer's Documents records. See Concepts|Documents for background. As discussed there, you can either generate a letter from a template, or upload any file.

First let's look at the screen shot for a new letter:

The fields are as follows:
Start Time - the date on which the entry was created - defaults to today
Description - any pertinent description
Status - this can be In Progress, Completed, or Finalised.  In Progress implies that you are still working on this; Completed implies that you have finished - but the entry can still be editied; and Finalised means that it is really complete and can no longer be edited.
Printed - this box will be checked when the letter has been printed
Template - if you want to generate the letter from a template, enter the template here - these are the document templates that are of Type 'Customer Letter' - the generated document will be an editable word processing file
Document - if you want to simply upload a file as a letter, press the Select button. A document select window will open allowing you to select the required file.  If you upload a word processing file (rather than say a pdf or scanned image of a letter) then you will be able to edit it if needed.

 

Now the edit screen. The senario is as follows: you created an editable letter as above.  Then you decided that you needed to modify it, so on the Customers|Documents screen, you selected the letter and then clicked on the actual letter to download it and open it in your word processor. You then saved a copy (as say Survey Letter-2), edited in the required changes and then saved it.

On the Customers|Documents screen you now press the Edit button to get the Edit Letter screen. You then press the Document Select button - this will open a browse window to allow you to select your 'Survey Letter-2' and upload it. The screen will then appear as below. The initial version has been saved as the previous version, and your new one as the new current version.

As intimated above, the Versions tab shows the previous versions. Note that you can use the Add button to add another, but you can also use the Select button.  If you use the Select button to attach another file, then the previous 'top' version will just be pushed onto the version list.

Parameters

If a template containing parameters is selected (i.e. Fill-In fields in Microsoft Word, or Input Fields in OpenOffice Writer), a window will be displayed prompting for the values of those parameters. On OK, these will be merged with the document.

Confirm Delete

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When you press the Delete button on the Customers|Documents screen, a confirmation window will appear. Press OK to confirm or Cancel to abort.

Confirm New

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This window allows you to select the type of customer document to be created. Select the required one and press OK, else Cancel to abort.

Confirm Refresh

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If you press the Refresh button on the Customer|Documents screen, then the window below will be displayed. Clicking OK will regenerate the letter from the template.  If you leave the 'Version current document' box checked, then the previous version of the letter will be saved as the previous version, otherwise it will not be.
Pressing the Cancel button will abort the operation.