February 2006 Edition
Feature Spotlight: Mass Form Import/Export
Q&A with Technical Support: Production Portal Cost Group
Smart Tip of the Month: Search Via MetaScript
Additional Resources: Regular Expression Tutorial
Knowledge Builder: New Articles
Newsletter Changes
To better serve our support customers and newsletter readers, the support news is undergoing some changes to enhance the content and user experience. Existing sections have been revised and a special quarterly User Profile section will be added to the newsletter featuring a real Virtual Ticket and/or Job Manager user and how they use the system. If you are interested in sharing the story of how you use Virtual Ticket and Job Manager or the details of your implementation with other users, contact Justin Bierman at 319-337-8599, extension 189 or via email at jbierman@meta-comm.com.
Feature Spotlight
Mass Form Import Export
One of the feature enhancements in the new Virtual Ticket Administrator for OS X is the ability to perform mass imports and exports of forms with just the click of a button. The new double arrow [ >> ] button in the Library Import and Export windows allows you to designate all forms for import or export. Another helpful feature improvement in the Import window is the ability to overwrite forms that are already in the system with new versions. This helps users who want to import a form from a development system over the existing form in the database. To do this, simply attempt to import a form that already exists in the database. You will be prompted with a dialog that asks if you would like to replace the existing form with the form you are attempting to import.
Q&A with Technical Support
Can users view cost information with Production Portal?
Yes. Users that need to view costs can be made members of the access:Costs group in the Employees, Groups, & Privileges administration window in Job Manager.
This will allow users to:
- See cost information in reports such as the Job Charges report.
- Create jobs with an Ordered Item billing type, which will allow the user to modifyprice information for ordered items.
Smart Tip of the Month
Search Via MetaScript
The need may arise to locate a single word in a string. This need can be met with the MetaScript Search function. Search uses a regular expression to locate the desired word contained in a string. If the word is found in the string, a value of True is returned by MetaScript which could then be used to trigger your script. The example in Knowledge Base article 17224 provides instructions for implementing Search into a Virtual Ticket form.
For more information visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16224
Additional Resources
Regular Expression Tutorial
Earlier in this edition we featured a MetaScript function named Search that uses a regular expression to locate a word in a text string. Regular expressions can be tricky to create if you do not know all of the different character flags and the capabilities of those flags. A helpful tutorial located at http://www.Regular-Expressions.info contains steps for building your own regular expressions in many different programming languages. The page also contains examples and different reference materials for learning more about Regular Expressions.
For more information visit:
http://www.regular-expressions.info/
Knowledge Builder
New articles this month
16178 - Using jump links in Virtual Ticket Custom Queries
This article describes how to set up the jump link functionality in Virtual Ticket Custom Queries to jump to a record selected in the Custom Query results. For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16178
16223 - MetaScript Example - Using tabs and returns
This article provides an example for using tabs and returns in text displayed via MetaScript. The article contains an example which displays text formatted with tabs and returns through an alert function. For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16223
16224 - MetaScript Example - Using Search (Featured this month!)
This article provides an example for using the MetaScript function Search to locate specific words in a string. The article contains a Virtual Ticket form where the example is looking for the word Open to execute a separate MetaScript. For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16224
16225 - Improving web server performance with HTTP compression
This article provides links to Microsoft articles on improving Internet Information Server performance via HTTP compression. Virtual Ticket Web Server and MetaCommunications' Production Portal run on IIS and their performance may be enhanced by the suggestions located in the Microsoft articles. For more information, visit:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/knowledge_base/article.asp?id=16225
Miss an issue of the MetaCommunications Support News? All back issues are available at:
http://www.meta-comm.com/support/support_news.htm.
Have an idea or topic you would like covered in the MetaCommunications Support News? Send your ideas, topics and comments to:
support@meta-comm.com
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