Advantos Newsletter - November 2005 Volume I

Welcome to Advantos Systems, Inc.'s first newsletter. This newsletter is designed to provide information to all current and potential Advantos System clients. In addition, we want to provide access to other interesting information. So, check out our links area.

Recently, Advantos Systems, Inc. has learned...

Encore Property Management is located in Corona, CA. Owned by Susan Butcher, Encore focuses on Association management in the Corona, Ca area.

Advantos help is accessible in three different ways

• within each field enter [?] or press the [F10] key
• at any Advantos menu enter [?] or press the [F10] key
• access administrator help by accessing the Advantos help web page

Field level help provides immediate help for data entry. The help provided pertains to the particular field only. If there is predetermined data available for the field, accessing help will display a pop-up window with the available data to select. Menu help, on the other hand, provides more generalized assistance for a Advantos function available by selecting a menu option. For instance, should a user be looking at the main Accounts Payable menu, accessing menu help will display a brief description of each option on the Accounts Payable menu. By entering [?1.1], at the main Accounts Payable menu, a user will view generalized help about the Vendor Maintenance function, including a brief description of each field within this function.

Finally, most clients have an administrator assigned to manage the IT functions within their business. These administrators are also normally in charge of the property management and accounting functions within the firm. To access typical administrator assistance, simply go to the administrator help web site. You can also find this help by accessing any Advantos Systems web page and look for the link in the lower right of the page. This help is "password" protected and you should contact Advantos Systems customer support to receive the user name and password to this help.

What is a TCL command? A TCL command is issued directly to the database from outside the Advantos menu system; only a few users have this privilege. From a TCL prompt you can issue a LIST, SORT, SELECT, or SSELECT command (there are a few other commands available).

What is the TCL command to sort through the database looking for a check; I need to look to see if a check was misposted? At a TCL prompt execute the following:

..->LIST ARTLEDGER WITH SOURCE = "CSEQ" AND WITH DESC = "CK 102]"

This searches the ARLEDGER file only looking at transactions with a source of "CSEQ", which is a cash receipt transaction. In addition, we're looking for a transaction with a description that "starts" with the string "CK 102". That's what the ']' does; it says anything starting with some value. All checks posted start with the string "CK" (actually it's the SOURCE you entered in the cash receipts screen).

Anyway, the brackets ']' and '[' control the search string. e.g.

[BILL] - any string with "BILL" in it, like "Wild Bill Cody"
BILL] - any string that starts with "BILL, like "Billy Crystal" but not the above string.
[BILL - any string that ends with "BILL", like "dollar bill", but none of the above strings.

How do I get from one menu to another without going all the way back to the main Advantos menu? This is often asked. If you go to the main Advantos menu then either enter [?] or press [F10] you will be presented with some basic Advantos navigation help. Look for the information on "common conventions". This will describe how to do this. For instance, by entering [AP] as a response to any menus "Enter Option Number Desired=>" prompt you will go directly to the Accounts Payable menu. Try it; go to T/R option# 4.1 then enter [AP].

Jenev Boyd, of Encore Property Management in Corona, CA tells us she has a number of unique letters she sends out to her clients. The letters are built in Microsoft Word and Advantos data is extracted and made available to a standard Word "mail-merge". Says Jenev, "here's how I do it:"

• Create a Word document with the standard tags for data replacement (see the Walk through process on the Microsoft web site). The trick here is to first build a tab-delimited file using AccuTerm or wIntegrate. Then create the form letter and select the data fields to insert into the letter. Then save the letter and save the AccuTerm or wIntegrate query.
• Build a datasource from the Advantos application
  • From any Advantos menu press the [F9] key
  • Use either the wizard or the query designer to select the data you want and save it to a tab-delimited file on your Windows workstation (your client computer). This becomes the "datasource" for Word to use.
• Next open the form letter in Word. This will usually alert you the data list will be used; this is ok. When the letter appears, simply click on Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge. This will allow you to alter the letter directly.
  

One of our favorite links is to the astronomy picture of the day web site. If you click on the "Discover the cosmos!" link you have access to their archives. One of the great aspects of this site is you can end up at all kinds of sites that provide background information for the content you're reading.