MRSware Documentation - MRSware Sales and Commissions

File Storage Limits in File Share

6/20/2008

Question

Is there any limit or maximum to the amount of files we upload to MRSware?

Answer

There is no limit to the number of files, or the size of those files.

Your files in File Storage do count against your total storage usage. As such we recommend using File Share to store files that users need to access when outside the office, on the road, or that are worked on collaboratively (using the revision control system). What we don't generally recommend is uploading all of your files from your computer, or from a in-office network file storage device, as this will generally be lots of files that are infrequently (if ever) accessed.

Uploading a new version of a file that already exists in File Share

6/20/2008

Sometimes you want to update a file currently in File Share with a version that came from somewhere else -- perhaps it was e-mailed to you, perhaps it was generated from a different file or program (like a PDF version of another file). The previous version of the file with the same name is already in File Share, so you can't just upload the same name again. Changing the name of the file and uploading the new file is a possibility, but then you are left with different versions of the same file, which can lead to confusion (and get pretty cluttered pretty quickly). What you really want to do is update the existing file with your new version, using File Share's revision history to keep the separate versions intact.

Creating one company-wide, "master" database of contact and companies

6/16/2008

One of the typical challenges/projects we see when a new customer comes on board with MRSware is the creation of one company-wide company and contact list that everyone can use. The challenge part is that the source of this new "master list" is found in multiple, previously individually kept contact lists from various programs that the inside staff, outside field, accounting department, etc. kept. This makes many sources of the information, all of which will have different information, whether it is just names of contacts and companies spelled differently, or entirely different (or missing) address, phone numbers, e-mails, et. al.

So what do we do about all these sources and differing information? We work at it. It is going to be an iterative process of working through the lists to bring them together. Some of the tools you will use along the way include those built into your existing contact program (the source of the list), Excel, and tools we have built into MRSware.

Following is a short list of a couple of the tools and features to use, and when to use them:

Printing Journal entries

6/12/2008

Users can print Journals in Excel, PDF, and a couple of other formats through the standard reporting engine. Use the "Run Journal Printout Report" button on the button bar of the Journal entry to print it.

Fixing Incorrectly Assigned Account Numbers

6/11/2008

Sometimes you will find that an account number on a customer is incorrect. Perhaps it was caused by importing incorrect account numbers from a manufacturer. It could also be a case of wanting to change over from a previously used internal account number, or "short name", to the manufacturers' actual account number for the customer.

As part of the precautions from deleting information that is still in use, the system will not let anyone delete an Account Number that is currently in use on an invoice. The following steps will guide you through the process of reassigning invoices to a different account number -- one that you intend to keep -- so that the no longer desired account number can be removed from the system.

Generate a list of customers with contacts for a particular manufacturer

6/11/2008

Question

How do I get a list of customers for one of my manufacturers that also includes the contacts at those various customers?

Answer

You can use the Contact Export Wizard to do this:

1. Click on "File" → "Export" → "Contact Export Wizard".
2. Check the box that says "Customers" on the Search Options (first) page. Press Next.
3. Fill in the Principals name. Press Next.
4. On the Export Criteria page, make sure "Both Companies and Contacts" is selected at the top. Check the box that says "Include contacts for matching companies" near the bottom. Press Next.
5. Continue through the wizard until you get to the Export Destinations page. Enter the file name you want to create and press Finish.

This creates and opens a spreadsheet file that contains all of the companies and contacts for the selected manufacturer. You can play around with the various options in the wizard to further filter down your results as needed. For example, you might run this for a particular sales rep, or geography.

Fixing Incorrectly Assigned Sales Reps on Customers and Invoices

6/11/2008

Updating sales rep assignments in bulk is a handy thing to do, whether you are doing it because of a change in staffing, change in territory assignments, or to fix some incorrect invoices.

The steps below apply to Sales Reps incorrectly assigned to either a set of customers or a set of invoices, and can be done in either the Customer listing or Invoice Entry screens respectively.

One thing you don't want to use this for is to change all the Invoices in the system from a previous sales rep to the new sales rep for a set of accounts. While it certainly has the power to do this, what you lose is the historical accurateness of who actually was responsible for a sales, or paid a commission at a given time in history. This type of information is very important from a financial accounting perspective. Beside, the apparent gain in reporting is non-existent since Data Analysis gives the User the ability to see the sales from both the Sales Rep on Customer as well as the Sales Rep on Invoice perspectives; and Report Explorer reports allow the newly assigned sales rep to see all of the sales history.

E-mail Address Auto-complete

6/11/2008

The auto-complete feature works by typing part of the name or e-mail address into the field and then pressing the Tab key (or clicking in another field). The name will match up to contacts in your system and fill in.

Green Underline

If there are more than one possible matches, you will see a green underline on the contact name. Right-click on the green line to select the correct match.

Red Underline

If you see a red underline, it means that there was no match. This could indicate that the contact or e-mail address is not in your system, or that the name is spelled incorrectly. You can enter the contact into your system, or just type the e-mail address directly into the To field.

Contacts with Multiple E-mail Addresses

It is typical that people have more than one e-mail address. Once your contact's name auto-complete, you can right-click on his name to select the alternate e-mail address from the list of his e-mail addresses in the system.

Examples

If I type jeff gia into the To field, the name completes with Jeff Giasson and fills in his e-mail address. Jeff has both a personal and business address, his business address is set as default in his contact card, so that is what fills in first. If I want to send to his personal address instead (send those chain letters to him at his non-business address), I right-click on his name and select the other e-mail address from the list.

If I had typed jeff g instead, I would have gotten the green underline. There is both a Jeff Giasson and a Jeff Green. I right-click on the name to select the correct Jeff and his name and e-mail address fill in.

If I had typed jeff gii (darn sticky i key), I would have gotten the red underline indicating that there were no matches. In this case, I look again and see my typo, correct it, press Tab and see the auto-complete match up the name successfully.

Observation: I can see that typing a little bit more of Jeff's last name causes it to auto-complete without me having to right-click on it. This is going to be the same for other contacts too -- the more you type of the name, the less number of matches returned.

If I type j gia instead, I get Jeff's name and address to fill in on the first try. Any part of the first and last name, or just first name, or just last name will work for auto-complete.

The same also applies for company names if they have an e-mail address... Typing abc co gives me the e-mail address associated with ABC Company (or ABC Corporation, or just ABC Co.).

Files in File Share are downloaded as needed; download all files

6/10/2008

Question:

I am trying to move 2006 and 2007 files from File Share over to DVD. Some of the folders and files are missing when I view the "My MRSware Files" folder on my hard drive in Windows Explorer. I looked under the File Share folder's properties and I should be able to view it. Why is it not on my hard drive?

Answer:

File Share only downloads files to your computer as you need them. In this case you want them all downloaded so that you can copy them somewhere else. To download all the files in a folder, right-click on the File Share folder and select "Get Latest" → "From this folder" or "From this folder and all sub folders". The "all sub folders" option downloads all the files and folder structure of everything under the folder you clicked on.

When you do this you will first want to make sure you have lots of free disk space, as it may be a lot of files you are downloading. It may also take a while to download all the files, depending on how large and how many you are downloading, so make sure you leave the computer enough time to complete this operation.

Assigning Categories

6/10/2008

Categories are attributes created and assigned by you to aid in searches. In CRM you will find categories in Appointments, Companies, Contacts, Journals and Tasks. Categories may be assigned individually or in bulk. Below are the instructions to assign categories in bulk.

1. Click on Companies or Contacts in the Shortcut Bar.
You can also use the Search → Companies feature to search for a specific group of companies to assign a category to.

2. Once the list opens multi select (CTRL + left click) the Companies/Contacts for the new Category.

3. Right click on one of the selected Companies/Contacts → Bulk → Update Categories

The Bulk Edit Categories window will open.

*** If the categories are already listed in the Categories table:

4. Check all of the categories that apply to the companies you selected.

5. When finished, click "Save".

*** If the categories are not shown in the Categories table, you will have to Create your categories before you assign them.

Creating Categories

6/9/2008

Categories are attributes created and assigned by you to aid in searches (think of them as keywords for your searches and grouping). In the CRM you will find categories on Appointments, Companies, Contacts, Journals and Tasks. Each of these types of items has their own Categories list, so that you can have just entries that apply to that type of item.

Follow the instructions below to create a new Category:

Click on Companies or Contacts in the Shortcut panel. (The instructions are the same for Calendar, Task or Journal). The Companies/Contact list will open.
Double-click on a Company to open the Company card
Click on the Categories tab.
Right-click in the open space and select Edit Categories. The Input dialog box will open.

Click "New"
Type in the name of your new category (in the example "T::Contractor") and then click Ok.
Click "Ok"
Click "Close"

Your new category will appear in all future Companies/Contacts Categories tabs.

Next step is to Assigning the Category

Resize Panels & Collapse Panels in Sidebar

6/9/2008

In some cases it is possible to make the panels in the Sidebar area of MRSware larger than the viewable area of the screen. This is typically seen on a screen resolution change as might happen when the computer is used with an external monitor, when the computer's desktop resolution is reduced, or when an application changes the screen resolution. The effect of this would make it look like the panels in the Sidebar had disappeared or become blank.

Two options have been added to reset the size of the panels in the Sidebar:

1. "View" → "Side Bar" → "Resize Panels"

The Resize Panels option adjusts your panels in the side bar area down to equal sizes within the viewable area of the Side Bar.

2. "View" → "Side Bar" → "Collapse Panels"

The Collapse Panels option minimizes all of the panels in the side bar area to their collapsed state.

Once either of these options are used, the user can then resize the panels to any desirable size. Panels are resized by clicking on the upper edge of the blue panel header and dragging it up or down to make the panel large or smaller.

Set up an E-mail Signature

6/9/2008

To set up a signature, click on the "Tools" → "Preferences" menu option. In the Preferences window, click on E-mail. On the right, down towards the bottom, you will see the "Add" button; click Add to add one or more signatures.

Insert Image into E-mail

6/8/2008

To embed an image, you need to be in HTML format. You can set the default format for all your e-mails to HTML in the Preferences dialog (same place as above), or you can switch to HTML format for an individual e-mail by going to "Format" -> "HTML" in the e-mail's menu.
Once in HTML format, click the "Insert Image" button on the button bar. Press the "..." button to select the image from your hard drive to insert into the e-mail message.

CRM is the cornerstone of any company

6/8/2008

Contact Relationship Management (CRM) is the foundation upon which any company builds their business. The foundation should include and support the entire company. All the basic functions of a company - a master database of Companies, Contacts, Calendars, Journals, Tasks, E-mail communications - should all be captured within your CRM application. All of this information should be accessible in one, single, central location for all employees anytime and anywhere they need it.

Outlook Funambol plug-in installation for MRSware Sync

6/5/2008

The Funambol Outlook plug-in can be downloaded from Funambol's Souceforge web site. This download is an executable file that installs the "Windows Sync Client". After setup is complete, the Funambol tool will run and connect to Outlook for the User to enter the settings to connect to MRSware's Sync server.

This plug-in is free to use. Registration is optional.

The Outlook plugin has a Quick Start Guide, which goes through the setup and use of the plugin with Outlook.

This guide provides step-by-step installation instructions for the plug-in. Version 6.5 of the guide is attached here for convenience. The MRSware Sync specific settings you will need are entered in...

Account settings: Location, Username, and Password as described in step 5 of page 5. You will get these settings from your System Administrator when they enable your MRSware Sync account. See the related section in the System Administrator Setup Note.

Advanced options: Remote name as described in step 5 of page 8. You will need to set this value for your company's specific MRSware Sync settings. The settings are defined by your company's domain as described in the System Administrator Setup Note.

funamboloutlookpluginuserguidev6.5communityed.pdf
File Size:	477 kb
File Type:	pdf

How to add a custom calculation and reorder columns in Data Analysis cubes

6/5/2008

Users have the ability to add custom calculations and reorder columns in all data analysis cubes.

Open your analysis cube and click on the Summary settings button in the upper left of the screen.

Save All Attachments/Delete All Attachments

6/5/2008

Two features were added to help users handle mail attachments, both multiple attachments in a single e-mail and multiple e-mails with 1 or more attachments. Save All Attachments will save copies of the e-mail attachments to the user's local hard drive in the user selected location. Delete All Attachments will remove the e-mail attachments from the selected message(s). Both of these options are available from theMessages menu in the E-mail screen.

A common use of these two functions is for removing attachments from multiple e-mails to free disk space, reduce redundancy in files stored in the system, and increase loading speed of e-mails. The easiest way to make use of this feature is to search for e-mails over a certain size: Search à E-mail, type a value in the Messages Larger Than field (for example, 10MB to find files over this size). In the resulting e-mail list, users can select multiple files (by using the shift, ctrl, or ctrl-A keys) and then use the Message à Save AllAttachments or Delete All Attachments option. Saving allows the user to specify where they would like the attachments copied to on the local file system. Deleting removes the attachments completely from the system.

When saving all the attachments from multiple e-mails, it is possible that some attachments will have the same names. MRSware will change the name of files slightly to guarantee they are not overwritten by another attachment.

How to remove duplicate contacts

6/5/2008

Duplication of contacts is a normal occurrence in a contact management system. Duplicates can come from many sources including contact import, invoice import, and mistakenly entering someone that already exists in the system. In this section we will refer to contacts for convenience, however the information here is equally applicable to either contacts or companies.
When duplicate contacts or companies are merged together, all of the associated information from the merged entries is moved to the entry that is kept. For example, all of the contacts associated to either entry of a duplicated company will be moved over to the remaining company through the merge process. This also applies for appointments, journals, invoices, and all other associated items. In this way no information is lost when the remove duplicates feature is used.

How to send out bulk e-mails

6/5/2008

There are many reasons to get in touch with your customers – a price increase, new product, new line, etc. Whatever the reason MRSware can help you out with its Bulk E-mail option.

To use this feature:

1. In the main menu go to Search → Contacts

[If you want to send this to companies instead of individuals, go to Search → Companies]

Download Now button in e-mail preview window

6/5/2008

MRSware Users may have noticed that some of their messages are coming in with a new message at the top, "There are inline attachments that have not yet been downloaded."(1). There is also a corresponding "Download Now" button(2) that can be pressed as well.

The inline attachments will be downloaded once the button is pressed. Before they are downloaded, you will note a red x in a blank box(3) on screen -- this is the placeholder for the content that is going to be downloaded. Press the Download Now button to show the content.

Table Aggregates added, totals for File Share and Mailbox storage

6/5/2008

An additional row, highlighted in gray, now shows at the bottom of various tables throughout MRSware. This additional row show aggregates for the table. Aggregates are such measurements as Sum, Average, or Count. Showing aggregates allows users to quickly see totals and averages in various tables.

Totals in Mailboxes

Users can more easily see the total storage being used in all their folders in a Mailbox. Left-click on a Mailbox in the E-Mail panel to see the summary for that Mailbox.

The Mailbox Summary screen shows the total size of all e-mails, the number of e-mails, the number of unread e-mails, and the number of e-mails with open follow-ups (flags).

How do the File Share green arrows, red exclamation points work?

6/4/2008

Question:

I have read the File Share User Manual and have seen both the circular green arrows and the red exclamation point, but can't determine the difference.

For example, Pam made a change to a file after checking it out then checking it back in. The way I read the manual, when this happens, I should see the green circular arrows. However, I saw the red exclamation point.

Answer:

The green arrows indicate that you have an older version of the file than the current version in File Share. The red exclamation mark indicates that you have a different version than is (does not match any) in File Share, including any of the various revisions. Another way to think about the red exclamation is that you changed the file on your computer and never checked in those changes... Regardless of how many times someone else changes that file, your version is never going to match the one that is in File Share = red exclamation mark.

When you have the red exclamation you need to make a decision -- do I want to check in my new version, or do I want to download the version from File Share? This depends, of course, on the file and what changes you've made. If you want to upload your changes, right-click on the file and choose "Check Out", then right-click the file and choose "Check In". The Check Out function puts a lock next to the file to indicate to other that you have it checked out and no one should make changes until you check your changes back in; in fact, they won't be able to check in a new version of the file until you check in or unlock it. The Check In function is what actually uploads your version of the file to the server so that others can see it -- before you do Check In, none of your changes are available to other users. If you just want to get the latest version from the server, overwriting your version, you would right-click on the file and choose "Get Latest".

Sometimes you won't know what the proper course of action is since you don't know who changed what. To help you decide, right-click on the file and choose "Properties". Now click on the "Revision" tab to see a list of the various revisions that have been checked in. Here is where that note that you enter when you check in a file comes in -- the note should indicate what was changed so that you can decide what to do. In some cases, you may want to pull out a previous revision of the file, right-click on the revision you want and choose "Get Revision" to download that version of the file. Whenever you download a version it overwrites whatever version you have already, so you may want to check in any changes you have made before doing this.

There is only one exception to how the indicators work that I know of. When you open an Excel file, Excel changes the contents of the file whether of not you purposely save any changes. What this means is that your Excel files will always indicate a different version -- red exclamation mark -- after opening the file, whether or not you saved changes to the file. This makes Excel files a little confusing at times, but there isn't anything we can do about that, besides checking in the file to make sure that the most recent version is uploaded.

As a general practice when using File Share, what you want to do is Check Out a file any time you are updating, or think you might update it. When you are done, Check In the file to upload and unlock the file. Not Checking Out, or leaving un-Checked In revisions on your computer is when you have the possibility of someone else changing the file at the same time as you, creating two unrelated versions of the file.

File Share: check it in, check it out

6/4/2008

This discussion thread is being started for items related to File Share, including the Files tab found on various items throughout the CRM module.

Be sure to take a look at the File Share User Manual, which contains lots of good information for general use and success with File Share.

File Share in general functions a little differently from a shared network drive, which some of you may be familiar with. While File Share does have as its base a directory structure and file structure, the main way in which we interact with it is different -- we download files to our local hard drive from File Share, and upload new and changed files back up to File Share to be shared with the company.

The primary instruments for doing this downloading and uploading are the Check In and Check Out process, which every user should become familiar with. A good starting point is file-share-user-manual.html the File Share User Manual. To this base we will be adding common questions and answers in this forum thread, as well as inviting everyone to post their best practices and experiences.