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Next Event Application Compatibility |
Contract Updater |
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Originally developed, and tested for my own in house use Contract Updater is an application that I have been using with my service based organization for years. Individuals/Organizations purchase support contracts from me, and I update their records by completing a Next Action using the Code of C8N with the Result of COM. The Reference can be anything meaningful like Contract Payment Received. I usually, have this activity completion as a macro on my Taskbar, and then, with a click of the button, the completion activity is filled in, and the Duration is highlighted on the hours increment. As my contracts are sold in whole hour increments, I need do nothing more then type in the number of hours purchased, and then click on the OK button. Now the beautiful part, because I have my Lookup.ini set up to launch this application when a new history activity of type T is created, the application is launched, the calculations are performed, and displayed for your review. If you agree that the calculation is correct, you simply click on the Update Contact button, otherwise you click on the Cancel button. In this case the contract time will be incremented to include the new hours that were purchased. As well, anytime I work with my client, I complete a Next Action using a different type of Code ( see my F2 Lookup List below ), and the Contract Updater application will reduced the amount of available time remaining on their contract.
Setup Procedures: Create GoldMine Fields: udRun, D, 8 Create F2 Lookups: These Activity Codes have meaning in this application. On the Code F2 Lookup list for any activity that could fall under contract use a C as the first character, with the meaning of the second character shown below, and the Activity RecType as the 3 character ( the 3rd character can be anything as this application does not even look at that character ). I use mostly Next Actions for Contract work. Here is an example of the Code values and their meaning for the Next Action F2 Lookup list: C1N = Contract Support at full rate ( 1.0 ) Regardless of the Activity Code the Result Code for a contract activity must be COM if you are expecting the application to include this activity in its calculations. Install Application: Use the C1Setup.exe to install the application on each workstation that will be running the application. Modify Lookup.ini: To have the application start when a Next Action History is Created, insert the following into your Lookup.ini: [OnNewRun] Make certain that the path to the executable is the path where you previously installed the application. The fields udRun, and ucRunTime must have a value in them for this application to run properly. For new records created in-house the Lookup.ini is the ideal place to do this. If the record is created via WebImport, then it is your responsibility to populate these two fields in your WebImport. For your Lookup.ini: [AutoUpdate] [udRun] [ucRunTime] If this is the first time that you have set this up, and you have existing records, you will need to Globally Replace these values for those records. Taskbar: I always add an icon for this executable on my Taskbar for those activities that do not automatically fire the application via the Lookup.ini. For instance Calls, Appointments, and Other Actions. Expression Field: I always add an expression field to the top portion of my screen to display the contracted decimal value in hours and minutes remaining, and color code the value based on the value. My expressions look like this: Field Data: ltrim(str(int(Contact2->unCntTime)))+[ hr ]+ltrim(str((Contact2->unCntTime-int(Contact2->unCntTime))*60))+[ min] Data Color: iif(Contact2->unCntTime < 0, 255, iif(.not. empty(Contact2->ucContract), 12615680, -1)) CUS.ini: Along with the executable, you are supplied an ini file to establish your parameters. Here is my CUS.ini:
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