Administration Module

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Administration Module - Technical

System:

The Administration Module is LAN software. It is written in VB and uses an Access/Jet database. It is much faster and less resource intensive than products written in MS Access. In general, if your system can run Office products, you can run the Administration Module. Office is not a requirement. The Administration Module comes with all necessary drivers.

Client OS:

We recommend Windows 98 or newer.

Client Browser:

To display reports created with the Administration Module, the browser must be capable of displaying html forms, html tables and standard html. Client scripting is not used. The reports display equally well in Netscape and Internet Explorer versions 4 and newer. A PDF reader is required to view/print the documentation. Employees and supervisors need cookies and java script to utilize the Web Module.

Disk Space:

Normally, 50 megabytes of disk space should take care of the install program, the software, the sample database, your training database and a *.bak copy of each. Estimate about half this amount for a trial installation with the sample database.

Server:

A server is not required for initial testing or for installation on a single workstation. Database backup is often motivation to place shared files on a server.

The server can be NT, 2000, Novell or even a shared folder on a workstation. The file server functions only to provide a shared folder for the program and database with read and write capabilities.

There is no need to run the install program on the server (unless it is also used as a workstation). You must run the install program on each workstation using the Administration Module. Usually, this will only be the Training Administrators who are responsible for managing training. All others will use the Web Module. Running the install program will properly install the needed drivers in the Windows folders. Installation details are in the documentation.

If the Web Module and/or the Self-Registration Module are purchased, then the database in the shared LAN folder must be accessible to the web application running on the web server. The data connection can be either a DSN or a DSNless connection. The easiest solution is to put the shared LAN folder on the same box that is running the web application. For additional information, see the Technical page and the documentation for these two modules.

Reports:

All reports created with TrainingRegister are displayed in the default browser. These reports display equally well in Netscape and Internet Explorer versions 4 and newer. Internet Explorer has a "Mail Send-Page" feature that makes it very easy to email these reports to managers, instructors and employee/students. When TrainingRegister is shared among multiple training administrators, we like to create a folder on the C: drive of each workstation to hold reports and exported files. Details are in the documentation.

Custom reports can be user created with Access or Crystal Reports. Neither of these programs are required, or included with TrainingRegister®. A selection on the TrainingRegister® File menu, [Convert to Access], lets the user save a compacted copy of the training database. We recommend this "copy" be used to create custom reports rather than using the master copy of the training database. Custom reports can also be created using ASP code and added to the Intranet website.

Lotus Notes:

This section is applicable only to Lotus Notes users.

If you are the training administrator and Lotus Notes is your Internet Browser you will, of course, want to continue using Lotus Notes according to your company policy. The following describes how you can continue using Lotus Notes and make displaying and emailing reports created with TrainingRegister an easier task.

To determine what browser is your default browser, just double-click on an *.htm file and see what browser the page is displayed in. To determine what email program is the default email program, display a web page in Internet Explorer and click the [Mail], [Send Page] function. Observe which email program is launched.

If you are a Lotus Notes user, it is possible that you have no default browser or email program defined. Setting Internet Explorer and Outlook Express or Outlook to be the default browser and default email program will make it easier to display and email reports created with the Administration Module. This will have no effect on your use of Lotus Notes for all other email and Internet browsing tasks. Simply start Lotus Notes from the Start Menu or a shortcut on your desktop and continue using it for all normal correspondence.

Other employees will receive the reports that you send via email. It would be very inconvenient for your IT staff to implement a special configuration on all their machines so it is important to test how the reports will look when they are received. Not all versions and configurations of Lotus Notes will display the same results.

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