User Manual - Vanguard Software
Contents
1. tablet landscape mode Swiping Some screens that display individual records can be swiped right to left to move to the next or previous 10 record in a sequence Because of this swiping left to right does not open the navigation drawer as it does on other systems 11 Web Views History Order Date Total 776 11 12 13 1 923 83 700 10 11 13 267 26 696 08 11 13 855 37 Some of the screens that you see in the Sales app are not generated by Android at all but are actually the output of queries run on the web server A typical example is the History screen for customers shown above This screen does not look like an Android screen because it is not It is actually an HTML document which has been created on the server downloaded to the Android device and rendered in a web view Note that the dialog also takes place on the server In the above example if you click on one of the View buttons the server will respond by displaying the invoice All that the app does is to show the output 12 Printing would be nice to be able to print out an invoice on site and present it to the user But in practice printing from an Android device to a local printer presents considerable technical difficulties The Android Bluetooth stack is primitive and does not support the BPP protocol for printers Peer to peer Wi Fi connections are not well supported and infra red is not supported at all Printing2. 263 50 1 5 Net Tax Freight Total Thank you for your order 18 00 250 32 268 32 53 66 0 00 321 99 71 Schema Special Prices Employees Customers E Tax 5 e Rates y SAS The diagram above shows the logical relationship between the tables in the database The arrows show one many relationships Categories 72 Record Layouts These are complete layouts for all the tables in the web server The layouts for the mobile database are similar except that there is no Employees table and no employeeld field in the Customers and Orders tables Categories name of category uses a breadcrumb format Custom Role section number O order 8 header 1 detail line order in which control seq Integer Gr appears within section 73 control type O header type Integer 1 spinner 2 checkbox 3 text the name of the control as name Text shown to the user any additional values For walk Text spinners this is a list of options separated by commas Customers employee who sells to customer if zero any Ge employee can sell to customer 74 sets price list for orders integer between 0 and 4 tax code for orders if blank customer uses taxCode Text tax codes on product records sy ml COR com fe o in degrees multiplied latitude Long by 10 6 zero if location is not known in degrees multiplied 75 by 106 zer
3. having to enter any data yourself No Yes much better impression of what the app will look like when it is being used for real Trying to use it with no data at all is tedious and confusing After the sample data has been installed the app displays the Orders screen This is the home screen for the app and it displays a list all the orders stored on the mobile device Orders screen The Orders screen Q 5 9 26 13 108 00 lists all the orders in Eastern Connection the database The 1 4 9 26 13 28 45 icons on the left Seven Seas Importe Ser 3 9 26 13 64 47 indicate the type of Consolidated Holdings transaction C for a 2 9 25 13 321 99 credit note for an B s Beverages invoice and Q fora 1 9 22 13 181 67 Around The Horn quote Once an order has been sent to any destination Send Order the customer head office a printer or the to Customer Es web server it can no longer be changed in any way Such orders to Printer are shown in a lighter to Head Office Y Y font on the Orders to Web Server SE Cancel ok The tabs at the top of the screen allow the ALL FRESH SS user to list all the orders only the fresh ones that have not been sent anywhere or only the ones that have been sent The action bar at the top of the Orders LAR screen contains three icons as follows 1 Add allows the user to select a customer and create a new order for him 2 Totals di
4. is really only feasible on scenarios such as showrooms and trade shows where there is a Wi Fi router connected to the internet A truly portable solution is not available The Sales app only supports printing using HP ePrinting and Google Cloud Printing In both cases an HTML document is sent to a remote server where it is rendered and sent back as a print job The Sales app only supports printing on A4 and US Letter sized stationery Due to the scenarios in which it is likely to be used there is really no point in supporting other formats 13 Barcode scanning The Sales app can scan barcodes either using an external Bluetooth or USB scanner or using the built in camera on a mobile device Camera scanning uses the built in camera on a phone or tablet to scan barcodes It works surprisingly well on Android devices For ergonomic reasons it is probably more suited to phones than to tablets If you want to check how camera scanning will work on your particular device you can download a free app called Barcode Scanner from Google Play This is the app that Sales app actually uses to scan barcodes and if it is not installed the Sales app will ask you to do so The main problem with camera scanning from a Ul design perspective is that it takes over the display and so interrupts the dialog with the user This is something that we are still working on External scanners have to support the HID protocol The scanner works
5. like an external keyboard This can cause problems with the focus and with Android thinking that it actually is a keyboard 14 Getting help Help is available through several channels 1 Download the latest version of this manual from our web site Visit our company blog for news articles and FAQs about the Sales Manager Tweet us on VangSoft This is the fastest way to contact us Email us on support vanware co uk We try to answer all messages within 24 hours The last two of these options are available on the navigation drawer 15 Managing your data Tasks involved Your first task as a user is to manage your data This involves Downloading your data from a web server Installing your product images Checking the status of your data Backing up your database ONS Downloading product images and backing up the database both require a Dropbox account Dropbox accounts with a storage limit of 2GB are free and these are perfectly adequate for use with the Sales app Backing up the database also requires an in app purchase 16 Store screen There are five individual options and you can save money by purchasing a bundle Prices are displayed in your local currency based on the prices in GBP shown here The options only have to be purchased once and they can be restored onto any Android device using the same Google Play account This is done E Backup Data 6
6. shown on the following page The ND 27 current location of the user is shown with a blue pin The other pins are for customers and can be green red or purple The overflow indicator is the icon consisting of three vertical dots on the right hand side of the action bar When tapped it displays a menu of actions whose icons would not fit on the action bar If you are using a tablet or you are holding your phone in landscape Map mode the map icon will probably Add appear on the action bar anyway By default the app uses GPS as the location provider This is slow but accurate The other location provider that Android uses is network location which is faster but less accurate Location providers are discussed in a later chapter Having got our customer map we can now tap on the pins until we find the customer we are looking for The map should now look like the screenshot on the next page Unless you are in London yourself you will not actually find B s Beverages and you will have to choose some other customer instead 28 O v4 a 14 40 N BSBEV Bret Park Ss B s a SHEP aren AN BUSH e E een ez HSWICK pw w Leen Thornton ELMERS END Heath e i A a Croydon t e tl A Sutton Wallington 29 Now if we tap on the snippet for our selected customer the app will take us to the detail view for that customer But let us backtrack and see how we wo
7. te de Blaye to the order Then return to the Order screen and select the View option The screen should now look like the one in the appendix The order is ready to send except that we have not set up any destinations yet so that will be one of our tasks in the next chapter To sum up the order taking process the next page has a diagram showing the relationships between all the main screens involved 43 Customer Customers Navigation drawer Illustration 43 Taking an order 44 Settings The Sales app has five pages of settings SETTINGS 1 e 2 Profile Profile This allows you to take orders Server for more than one company by f Hardware swapping the databases Since the settings are also stored in E Invoices the database all you have to S Gmail do is swap them and you are good to go Server This is for setting up the web server It has already been discussed in the chapter on managing your data Hardware This is for setting up your printer barcode scanner and location service The settings are all straightforward The one you may want to play around with is the location provider GPS is slow and you may want to go with network location even though you have a GPS receiver 45 4 Invoices This contains various options for printing invoices Again most of the settings are straightforward HTML headers and footers are tricky and you may prefer to stic
8. the Sales Manager allows subscriber to export orders from his company database into Sage Instant or Sage 50 Accounts using the WebXel Order Importer for Sage This is a third party product which currently costs 100 per annum Once you have installed the Order Importer you have to configure it to use the hosting service as a data source In particular you have to give it two URLs 1 The import URL is http www vanware co uk admin sage1 php comp anyld nnn amp password xxxxxxxx 2 The notification URL is http www vanware co uk admin sage2 php comp anyld nnn amp password xxxxxxxx Here nnnis the id of your company and xxxxxxxx is the password The first script returns an XML file according to specifications made by WebXeL and the second one resets the corresponding change flags 51 Admin database Introduction The Admin Database is a Microsoft Access application that can sync with a company database on the hosting service This is a great option if you are familiar with Microsoft Access and you want to use it to build your own back end services This chapter assumes that you are familiar with Microsoft Access and uses some of its key concepts without explanation Installation To install the Admin database just download the admin zip file from our web site and unzip it into your documents folder The admin folder contains 1 Admin mdbis the application It contains all the Microsoft Access objects bu
9. 99 Allows the user to save and restore the database and settings used by the app S Email Invoices 6 99 Allows the user to send invoices to both customers and to a back office account E Print Invoices 4 99 Allows the user to print invoices on a range of printers All Scan Barcodes 4 99 Allows the user to scan barcodes using the camera or an external scanner Use Profiles 4 99 Allows the user to work for more than one company by tapping the Restore button in the action bar The purchases are managed by Google Play and payments are made by credit card Users often find that their cards are declined for no apparent reason but that is something over which we have no control 17 Server settings The server settings allow the app to Type Hosting Service 4 identify the web server being used This will either be a virtual server on our hosting service or a real server hosted by your organisation If you are running the app without a web server should set the type to None Setting it to Demo Company will allow you to download the sample data but little else The login details are used to identify you to Pom 10 the server and to identify your company to the hosting service Password en Employee ld 1 Self hosted servers usually ignore the company id The last section is for self hosted servers in PA nee 0 uk server only lt allows the app to bu
10. Products Shippers Special Prices Tax Rates R M Database Product Images Total 180 224 2 060 362 2 240 586 25 3 Customer Locations 7 Known 91 This shows how Percentage 100 many customer records have values for latitude and longitude This may be of concern if you sometimes use the customer map to locate customers 4 Images and Thumbnails This information ol Product Images 77 tells you whether O 9 your product Percentage did images and O Thumbnails 0 thumbnails are up e 7 Percentage 0 to date ES 26 Taking an Order Introduction This chapter will take the form of a walkthrough Using the sample data that we have just installed we will create a new order for an existing customer and add a few products Then we will send the order to complete the process The customer that we will visit is called B s Beverages and she will order some items from the Beverages category Since the fictitious address of this customer happens to be near to where we live we will be able to demonstrate the use of maps to locate a customer Customer map We will start by displaying the customer map Tap the home icon In the navigation drawer select the Customers option 3 In the action bar tap the overflow indicator 4 From the drop down menu choose Map This will display a map of all customers within a range of 20km or so as
11. Sales manager Guidebook For Android phones and tablets Copyright 2015 Vanguard Software Ltd All rights reserved Edition 1 0 Sales Manager is a trademark and property of Vanguard Software All other marks and trademarks are properties of their respective owners The content of this guidebook may differ in some details from the software For best results make sure you re running the latest version of the app To check go to the About page This guidebook refers only to the Android app The OS app has many similar features but it is not dealt with here All information in this guidebook is subject to change without notice For online help and support visit www vanware co uk For the latest news follow VangSoft on Twitter Table of contents Getting started usina siria 6 Installing the PD 6 Orders SCTEEN esis id 7 Navigation drawer ccooocccnoncccnoncnononcnnnnnan nns 9 Orientation sin A teed eei 10 A EE 10 Web VIEWS uns pen Nea a 12 Printi ene ii 13 Barcode Cami ti 14 Getting helpi rene ea 15 Managing your data 16 Tasks MYOLVed ils 16 e A re 17 A ne nn 18 Downloads screen 20 Dropbox screen sitos ci 21 Installing the product images 23 EE 25 Taking an Order AAA niet 23 Introduction sessions 27 CUSTOMER map da 27 O ei dre 30 Customer screen 31 Order screen cccecsecececececesssssneeeeeeeens 34 Header screen 35 Line
12. are at different levels and are not interchangeable The hosting service uses a MySQL database though this is transparent to the user Self hosted databases can use either MySQL or SQL Server The admin database is a Microsoft Access application which can store its data in any database with an OSBC driver Usually this is either a Microsoft Access or an SQL Server database 61 Self Hosting Introduction For companies that wish to host their own web servers we supply basic scripts to set up a server in both the PHP MySQL and ASP Net SQL Server platforms Classic ASP is no longer supported Companies running their own web servers should have some familiarity with the platform they are using This is especially true when it comes to ASP Net where our own experience is limited Self hosting companies pay a fixed fee per mobile device Details can be found on our web site Installation Download the scripts from our web site Unzip the archive Open the folder for your platform php or aspx Run the script called sol Get Open the server folder Change the parameters in the dbparams script Upload the server folder to the tour HTML folder NO O1 PB D 62 Testing You can test your server by entering a transaction in the address bar of your browser e g http server products2 php employeeld 1 amp password password Replace the ellipses with the address of your web ser
13. d 039 Name Chartreuse Verte Unit Price 18 00 Quantity 1 Notes Quantity 1 Units 750 cc bottle Cancel OK 41 Gallery The third screenshot is of the Gallery screen Here you can choose products visually Products that have been added to the order are shown with a red border Tapping on the image of a product has the same effect as selecting it on the Lines screen The category is the one in effect when the Gallery option is selected on the Lines screen Barcodes The fourth screenshot shows the panel used for scanning barcodes It is activated when the Scan option is selected on the Lines screen The screenshot shows the panel just after a product has been scanned The sample data does not have any barcodes so we had to cheat and edit our data manually The Sales app supports external barcode scanners using the HID protocol They must be configured with no prefix and a suffix of either CR carriage return or LF line feed This is the default for most scanners 42 Adding Lines J Chartreuse Verte 039 18 00 1 Q There are two ways to add products to the order from the Lines screen 1 Tapping on the plus sign increases the quantity by one 2 Tapping anywhere else displays a screen which allows the user to change the quantity price discount and tax rate and to view the product notes To finish off the walkthrough add one bottle of Chartreuse Verte and one bottle of C
14. e Sales Manager application folder in the Dropbox account The Dropbox screen has a shortcut for getting hold of the images for the sample data which copies the file from one of our own Dropbox accounts Alternatively you can 1 Download the images from our web site 2 Create your own images zip file 3 Upload the file to the Sales Manager folder in your Dropbox account That takes longer but it gives you a better idea of how to create your own product images Once you have the images zip file in the Sales Manager folder of your Dropbox account you are 23 ready to install them on your mobile device Go to the Dropbox screen and Tap on Delete Images optional Tap on Download Images Tap on Delete Images optional Tap on Create Thumbnails RS D To make the process easier these options are arranges sequentially on the Dropbox screen 24 Database screen The Database screen displays four blocks of information to help the user manage his data 1 Rows in Tables This gives the Categories 14 number of rows in ES each of the main D Customers l tables in the B Orders 5 database Except B Order Details 10 for the customers table these should match the counts on the web server some customer records are only downloaded by one user Bytes of Data This gives the amount of storage used by the SQLite database and by the product images LI eng
15. e Trust Center form click on Macro Settings gt Enable all macros Close the database 58 SQLite databases SQLite Studio Users often ask us how they can edit an SQLite database on the desktop Our recommendation is SQLite Studio which is by far the best tool available It ticks all the right boxes Tables can be imported and exported Tables can be edited directly It can handle notes and other blob fields It is well documented Itis still being updated The web site is still active Itis free OO P GO A What more could you want 59 Structure Every SQLite table has a primary key called _id This is integer typed and it is autoincremental In other words its value is assigned when a row is inserted in the table and it can never be changed We adopted the Android convention of using Camel case for both table names and column names e g taxRates and taxCode IOS has similar conventions As mentioned earlier we use a restricted range of data types All the strings have a maximum length of 255 bytes and none of the fields are nullable The Android and SQLite databases use the same schema and are designed to be interchangeable However iOS is currently using an older version of SQLite than Android and it seems that the SQLite databases can no longer be swapped 60 Types of database To summarise 1 The Android and iPhone databases both use an SQLite database Currently they
16. ecially if you are using a tablet instead of a sms SMS mobile phone Route Map The route map sende the current location and the customer address Call Log to Google Maps and asks it to show the route 31 wits O 9 4 G 14 47 x di S SNE a O My location E 5 Finsbury Square London EC2 eae More options RAA G Be Ger e EN gt d res S og S ae gt WE GE Finsbui Y E A 1 30 min every 3 min Sy E EAST DULY 7 Wandsworth Common 32 The overflow menu contains the options one would expect to edit or delete the customer record The History option displays a list of past orders for the customer and once again this is a server side query orders that have been uploaded to the web server The Customer Edit screen is as one would expect but the action bar History Edit Delete It only shows Q ZE S contains some interesting icons that are worth discussing 1 Locate This uses geocoding rather than GPS In other words it sends the customer address to Google Maps and asks it where that is 2 Upload This uploads the customer record to the web server which adds it to the customer table or replaces the existing record 3 Import This allows the user to import a contact from the Contacts app Save your prospects as contacts until they are ready to place an ord
17. egion Text shipPostalCode Text shipCountry Text notes Memo timestamp set by stamp Text server when order was uploaded data for custom custom fields on Edt Header screen O invoice Integer 1 credit note 2 quote new ditty Boolean set when record is 80 Description uploaded by a mobile device Products productId unique id of product name name of product category product category barcode price shown on price Products screen pricel price2 price3 price4 81 tax code can be taxCode Text overridden by tax code on order if true product is not discontinued Byte shoen on Pick Lines screen price banding e g 1 10 100 Shippers name of shipping method 82 Special Prices customerld unique id of customer productId unique id of product Geer lex reason for awarding P special price Tax Rates code code printed on invoices description description of tax rate rate rate as percentage sequence in which rate appears seq Long 83
18. er You will find a detailed description of all the fields in the customer record in the appendix Now we are 33 ready to create our first order so tap on the Order icon on the Customer screen Order screen The app stores each record as one header record and a number of detail records one for each line in the order The order screen displays all the header information plus some totals for the detail lines Detailed layouts for both record types can be found in the appendix The order is processed to produce an HTML document called an invoice This can be viewed locally on your mobile device emailed to people or sent to a printer Most printers can handle HTML jobs and the invoice is specially designed for printing on A4 or US Letter stationery No other sizes are supported A sample invoice can be found in the appendix The icons in the action bar reflect the structure of the data The first one is for E editing the header data and the second one is for adding changing and removing detail lines If the order has been sent these icons will both be hidden 34 The overflow menu contains more important options 1 View Displays the invoice locally in a web browser 2 Send View Send Copy Delete Sends the order or invoice to various destinations 3 Copy Copies the order 4 Delete Deletes the order Both the header record and the detail records are removed f
19. ild a precise URL Platform PHP P for each transaction Each mobile device z ey 105615FE 45CD2B1 D and it also contains the registration key Each mobile device has a unique key which must be purchased from Vanguard 18 Software 19 Downloads screen The first set of options downloads data for one of the main tables Downloading a table will remove any changes that you might have made The process is extremely fast The last two options are slightly different and are covered in depth below in the 07 wa m ce A Products Categories Customers Shippers Tax Rates Special Prices A Custom Check section on system administration If you have product images will find that the thumbnails disappear whenever the products table is downloaded To restore them they should go to the Dropbox screen and run the Create Thumbnails option 20 Dropbox screen The options on the Dropbox screen are divided into four pairs as follows 1 Backing up the database Delete Images These options require an in app aa Download Images purchase which is recommended for all users 2 Managing product images E Delete Images Downloading images does not laz Download Images remove the images for products that are no longer being sold 3 Managing thumbnails X Remove Thumnbails Creating thumbnail
20. ings default to empty strings and all numeric fields default to zero Binary values are encoded as integers following the usual convention that zero is false and any other value is true Dates are encoded as strings in ISO format e g 2015 01 21 All decimal numbers are stored in floating point format Decimal format is not used Percentages are stored as ratios e g 15 is 0 15 Tables are related but referential integrity is never enforced The Sales app handles situations in which data is missing and takes the best available course of action 67 Proprietary format 00 31 01 36 01 42 53 42 45 56 01 32 30 31 35 2d 30 1 6 BSBEV 2015 0 19 31 2d 32 31 01 01 01 30 01 42 27 73 20 42 65 76 1 21 0 B s Bev 20 65 72 61 67 65 73 01 46 69 6e 73 62 75 72 79 20 erages Finsbury 30 53 71 75 61 72 65 01 4c 6f 6e 64 6f Ge 01 01 45 Square London E 40 43 32 41 20 31 41 47 01 55 4b 01 01 01 30 01 02 C2A 1AG UK 50 36 01 30 33 39 01 31 38 01 31 01 30 01 53 01 30 6 039 18 1 0 60 2e 32 01 01 02 36 01 30 33 38 01 32 36 33 2e 35 2 70 01 31 01 30 01 53 01 30 2e 32 01 01 02 The Sales app uses a proprietary format to send data to and from the web server This is a variant of TSV Tan Separated Variables which itself is a variant of the ubiquitous CSV TSV improves on CSV by using tabs as field separators instead of commas which avoids all the hassle generally associated with CSV Parsing a TSV file i
21. k with plain text 5 Gmail For security reasons you should create a Gmail account specifically for use with this app The most common mistake that people make is to enter the email address instead of just the name of the account 46 Introduction The Sales Manager is designed as a multi user cloud based system with a client that runs on both the Android and iOS platforms and on both phones and tablets The Sales app can be used to take orders without being connected to the internet It only needs an internet connection in order to download customer and product data and to upload sales orders Companies can choose whether to host their own web server or to use our hosting service In either case the total cost is about the same and this should not be a determining factor in choosing between the two Individual users can also choose to use the Sales app without a web server at all Such users should bear in mind that some of the options in the app are server side queries which require a web server 47 Hosting service The hosting service provides each subscriber with a virtual web server As far as the mobile user is concerned this functions in just the same way as a real web server Subscribers pay a monthly or annual fee and the cost depends on the number of users Details can be found on our web site Web app Subscribers manage their virtual web servers using a web app which can be run on any PC with a
22. n a multi user environment You can pit the database on a server and have more than one user work with it at the same time Once you have set up your database you will be able to use the forms provided to upload and download data in the same way as you can with the web app for the hosting service But you will also be able to add additional features to suit your particular business needs 56 Macro security No discussion of Microsoft Access would be complete without mentioning its nemesis which was macro security When the first malware arrived in the year 2000 Microsoft was caught out by the sudden need to tighten up the security of its Office suite of applications Its reaction was to effectively ban Office documents that contained VBA code For Word documents and Excel spreadsheets that was a reasonable response but for Access databases it was catastrophic means that when you open the admin database for the first time you will probably encounter an error message saying that there has been a macro security violation This has nothing to do with Access macros lt is actually referring to the VBA project For other Office documents this typically contains macros In the long run the only way to get any work done is to turn off Macro Security for Microsoft Access databases 57 To do this Open any Microsoft Access database Click on File gt Options gt Trust Center gt Trust Center Settings On th
23. nshot on the next page shows It operates in split screen mode with categories on the left and the corresponding products on the right The Lines screen on a phone or on a tablet in portrait mode is no slouch either as the next screenshot shows This time the category is selected from a list that pops up when the category in the action bar is tapped Note that categories can be nested and this is described in more detail in the section on system administration There are also three special categories 1 All Products contains the products in every category and those in none 2 Order Lines contains the products in the order 3 Special Prices contains the products for this customer has a special price 37 All Products 4 Feeeee e ecw All Products Order Lines Special Prices Beverages Condiments Confections Dairy Products Grains Cereals Meat Poultry Produce Alice Mutton 017 39 00 Aniseed Syrup J 003 10 00 Boston Crab Meat ES 040 18 40 Le Camembert Pierrot 060 34 00 Carnarvon Tigers 018 62 50 lt Chai 001 18 00 L Chartreuse Verte 039 18 00 O Chef Anton s Cajun Seasoning 004 22 00 90000000 38 3 All Products E3 Order Lines E3 Special Prices Beverages Beers E gt Bitters Lagers E3 Soft Drinks E3 Spirits E Wines E condiments E Confections Dairy Products 39 Scanner Barcode 01039153 Product I
24. o if location is not known contact Text name of contact contactTitle Text job title of contact phone Text phone number email Text email address notes Memo notes about the order i fault value f discount Double eS ue for new orders new O red 1 yellow colour Integer 2 orange 3 green new set when record is dirty Boolean uploaded by a mobile device 76 Employees employeeld unique id of employee name of employee for name Text use by system administrator assword for web server 1f set user cannot restricted Boolean change any company data Order Details unique id employee employeeld Long who created order part of primary key 77 orderld Long unique 1d of order part of primary key productId Text unique id of product part of primary key unitPrice unit price copied in case price changes discount taxCode tax code As Double tax rate copied in case rate changes data for custom fields custom Text eee on Edit Line screen 78 Orders unique id employee who created order part of primary key employeeld Long unique id of order orderld Long part of primary key ni id of customerld Text unique 1d o customer orderDate date of order date when order is requiredDate Text required shipper delivery method freight delivery charge shipName name of recipient 79 shipAddress delivery address shipCity Text shipR
25. order is created if the customer has a tax code it is copied into the order header When a product is added to an order a If the order header has a tax code it is copied into the order detail record and the tax code on the product record is ignored b If the order header does not have a tax code but the product does it is copied into the order detail record c If neither the order header nor the product has a tax code the default one is used 65 Categories Categories can be arranged in a hierarchy using a simple breadcrumb structure The example on the right shows the categories in the sample data being edited by the app The rules are simple 1 The names of categories and their subcategories are separated by gt signs Categories can either Beverages gt Beverages gt Beers gt Beverages gt Beers gt Bitters Beverages gt Beers gt Lagers Beverages gt Soft Drinks Beverages gt Spirits Beverages gt Wines Condiments Confections Dairy Products Grains Cereals Meat Poultry Produce Seafood have subcategories or products but not both that end with a gt sign Categories that have subcategories have names In this example Beverages gt is a category and Beverages gt Wines is a subcategory 66 Database rules The Sales Manager database has a number of simple rules designed to make it more portable across platforms 1 Nulls are never used All str
26. rom the device The web server is not affected The first thing that you will want to do when you have created a new invoice is to check the header information to see whether anything needs changing So on the order screen tap the first icon in the action bar That is the one that one that looks like a pencil Header screen The Header screen contains much of the dame information as you see on the Order screen except this time you can edit it The first information that you will probably want to 35 change is the delivery details The Required Date is to satisfy legal requirements in the US Freight charges are also for US users In the EU VAT is charged on shipping costs so they have to be included as an item in the invoice Notes The notes fields have a number of special properties 1 They can go over any number of lines Just tap enter to add a new one 2 They use a monospace font so that characters can be lined up in columns 3 They can contain links Web pages and email addresses will usually work Phone numbers might work and street addresses will probably not 4 There is a setting to determine whether order notes are printed on invoices or are private Having changed he header information return to the Orders screen and tap the Lines icon This is the second icon in the action bar 36 Lines screen Categories The Lines screen looks spectacular on a tablet in landscape mode as the scree
27. s O Create Thumbnails does not remove the thumbnails for products that no longer have images 21 4 Additional 3 Copy Demo Images options Copy Demo e Reset Account Images copies the images for the demo data Reset Account allows you to use a different Dropbox account The first time that this screen is loaded the app has to obtain permission from Dropbox to use an account and to use an app folder This process sometimes takes more than one attempt to complete successfully All the Dropbox files that the Sales app uses are contained in a folder I images zip called Sales Manager in the Apps directory Usually it will contain be vanguard db just two files 1 A backup copy of the database called vanguard db 2 Afile containing all the product images called images zip On the Android device the product images are contained in a dedicated folder in the file storage area and the thumbnails are stored in the products table 22 Installing the product images Product images are pictures of your products in JPEG format They should not be too large around 50KB is ideal Camera shots are far too large Each product image has a file name which is the same as the id of the corresponding product and an extension of jpg For instance the image for product 004 would be 004 jpg The product images should be stored in a zip file called images zip and placed in th
28. s SCLEOM S55 anuni tisse tit 37 DELLE SUR e QU 45 Mtroduction ssssssndshnnninlsinueimndi ss 47 Hosting service sg nat ANEN 48 WED PD 48 Uploading CSV file 49 Sage SU A sus 51 Admin database 52 Introduction 52 Installation 52 VBA moduleren e a e 53 SWitchboard seinen 54 Linked database 55 Macro security ic 57 SQLite databases 59 SQLite SO une nn 59 SHUCTUTE Eet Ai ets 60 Types of database rod 61 Sell HO ia da 62 Introduction 62 A rs 63 Business model seat 64 Sales TAK id 65 Categories concisa inian 66 Database less saintes Que ss 67 Proprietary format 68 FAO sidra 69 Sample e EE 70 RARE an ice Matane 70 E DE 72 Record Layos 13 A iaiiaeeeai 13 CUSTOM EE 73 Customers hee 74 Employee sine 71 Order Details Pr s Rien Y A ON 79 Pr O aka 81 SEPSIS antoine 82 Special Prices aia 83 ER A sc a EER 83 Getting started Installing the app The app can be installed directly from Google Play Users who do not have access to Google Play can download the apk file from Vanguard Software The first time that the app is launched it asks you whether you wants to install some sample data If you are trying out the app for the first time you should do so as this will give you a Use Sample Data The sample data allows you to try out the app in a realistic setting without
29. s trivial Just split on linefeed characters to break the data down into individual records and then split each record on tabs to obtain the individual fields Our format is similar to TSV except that we use hex 01 and hex 02 instead of tabs and linefeeds which allows us to include these characters in text 68 FAQS Below is a copy of the FAQ index in the company blog Each entry is a link to the corresponding article on the support site e Adding a logo to the invoice header e What Ume zone is used in CSV files e What decimal separators are used in CSV files e How do get my Google Play App Store purchases back How can add a new order How does banding work What are special prices Negative prices in US dollars Can share my purchases with another user Why is not my customer map not working How do change the currency Can a customer record be downloaded by more than one user e How can download my data to my mobile device e My purchases have disappeared e Can purchases be transferred 69 Sample Invoice Northwind Trading Tooting High Street London SW17 8LN Tel 2 555 3563 Order Id 2 Order Date 25 09 2013 Customer Id BSBEV Required Date Shipper Bill To Ship To B s Beverages B s Beverages Finsbury Square Finsbury Square London London EC2A 1AG EC2A 1AG UK UK Ref Description Price Qty Disc Total 70 039 Chartreuse Verte 18 00 1 0 038 C te de Blaye
30. splays the total sales for various periods This is a server side query and only orders that have been sent to the web server are included in the totals 3 Remove removes all the orders that have been sent The Orders screen cannot be used to create orders for new customers or to select an existing customer from a map If the user wants to do this he should go to the Customers screen instead Navigation drawer A navigation drawer is a drop down menu which is displayed by tapping the home icon in the action bar Eg The horizontal bars to the left of the home icon indicate that a navigation drawer is present Navigation drawers make it much easier to get from one screen to another and is a radical improvement on a traditional hierarchical menu Navigation drawers scroll vertically The one in the Sales app is longer than the screen on a Nexus 4 and only the top part is shown on the right MAIN E ores di Products ce Customers DATA Downloads Dropbox Database SETTINGS 2 Profile Aa Server ES Hardware B Invoices Users of the Sales app should familiarise themselves with the options on the navigation drawer Orientation d a Se 7 PEN 3 Kies cl m DA a Tar E Mia a LR A So La Q A DA Se ne E mon a x Every screen in the Sales app can be viewed in either landscape or portrait orientation Some screens operate in split screen mode on a
31. t installed by default 54 Linked database The admin database follows the standard design practice of storing the Microsoft Access objects and the tables in separate databases This makes it easier to manage the data and to upgrade the application The Parameters form specifies where the Profile Vanguard y app should look for its linked tables EE gt Password The profiles are contained in the LEE Profiles table To add e Microsoft Access or remove profiles edit SQLServer the table directly Other ODBC The profile points to Save Cancel the database that contains the tables that the application links to and this depends on the type of database being used For Microsoft Access databases the profile is the name of the mdb file which must be contained in the same folder as admin mdb If it does not exist it will be created For other types of database the profile is the name of 55 a user DSN DSNs Data Source Names are pointers to ODBC databases and are created by the ODBC Data Source Administrator This is an applet in the Administration Tools section of the Control Panel For ODBC databases the database must be created manually For SQL Server databases the easiest way to do this is to open the blank mdb database and use the SQL Server migration tool in the toolbar The main advantage of using an SQL Server database instead of a Microsoft Access one is that it works better i
32. t no data 2 Blank mdb and Sample mdb are databases that Admin mdb can link to They contain 52 data but no Microsoft Access objects 8 logo ico is just the icon file for Admin mdb Allthe files have to remain in the same folder There is no formal installation procedure but it is easy enough to add a link to the admin mdb file to your Start menu VBA module The VBA code for the admin database was specifically designed with portability in mind and it should run on any version of Windows and Microsoft Access There are no library references and all objects are weakly typed You may want to change this if you are writing your own VBA procedures The code uses DAO whenever it can However it uses ADO to update the linked tables as this is the only way to get an updatable recordset Every procedure begins with the lines Option Compare Database Option Explicit 53 This ensures that all variables are declared and makes string comparisons case insensitive These are fairly standard VBA conventions Switchboard The admin database uses a minimal switchboard with just five options The last two are convenience functions to open the navigation pane and the login screen for the web app respectively The switchboard uses a Upload Table Download Table Management Console custom form and only has one page To edit the switchboard you will have to install the switchboard manager which is no
33. uld locate a customer on the customer list instead Searching lists The customer list shares number of features with other the other main lists in the Sales app In particular it uses the same method to search for records The first two icons in the action bar are always the same The first one opens a a gt z search bar and the second one changes the sort order The list can be sorted and searched either by name or by id E sat be B s Beverages London EC2A 1AG BSBEV Berglunds Snabbk p Lule S 958 22 BERG Princesa Isabel Vinhos Lisboa 1756 PRINI Split Rail Beer amp Ale Lander 82520 SPLIR To demonstrate this tap on the search icon and type the letters be The list now only shows the four customers whose names contain our target Note that 30 the target can appear anywhere in the list and the search is not case sensitive Select our target customer B s Beverages and we will look at the Customer Screen Customer screen The customer screen displays the details of the customer and gives the user various ways to communicate with him The action bar contains three icons The first one creates a new order for the B 2 customer and we will be using that shortly The other two show drop down menus The contact menu gives various ways in which the customer can be We Phone contacted Some of the options may Email not be available esp
34. ver and change the php suffix to ask if you are using the ASP platform If everything is correct the browser will display the number O followed by the data for the transaction If you do not have any data to hand you can populate your database with the sample data on our web site That contains data in CSV format that you can use to fill your tables 63 Business model The Sales Manager has a flexible business model that should suit most users in the US and the EU and will work for many users in other countries as well 1 All sales are in a single currency which is the one for the current locale 2 There are multiple rates of sales tax which can be specified per customer or per product 3 Each customer is charged according to one of five price lists 4 Aseparate discount can be applied to each order line 5 Some customers are charged special prices for certain products 6 Prices and tax rates can vary over time and products cab become obsolete 7 Once an order has been placed it cannot be changed 64 Sales tax The Sales app uses a complex set of rules to determine the sales tax for a given detail line 1 The customer product order header and order detail records each has a field for the tax code Each of these fields in optional There is also a separate table for tax rates These are arranged in a sequence and the first one in the sequence determines the default rate When an
35. web browser Files to be uploaded by the hosting service must be in CSV format have a header row and include the fields in the primary key All other fields are optional Sample files can be downloaded from our web site Orders are downloaded in denormalised form with each detail record joined to the corresponding header record 48 Uploading CSV file Table choose a table y File Choose File No file chosen Encoding ANSI UTF 8 Y Convert case Y Trim spaces Y Delete existing rows Upload The only complex form that the hosting service has is the one used to upload CSV files 1 At the top of the form is a drop down list to select the table to be uploaded 2 Then comes a control to select the file to be uploaded 3 The encoding can depend on the operating system you are using and the country you live in On a Windows PC the simplest way to find out is to open the file with notepad and the save it 49 4 There are three options at the bottom of the form a Convent case will convert each field according to its type b Trim spaces will remove leading and trailing spaces from all fields c Delete existing rows clears down the table before populating it All three options are on by default The last one allows tables to be uploaded in stages This is important because there is the usual 2MB limit on the size of files that can be uploaded 50 Sage support The hosting service for
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