This topic presents a simple guide illustrating how GX-Ware Resource Control can be used. At various points in the example there will be sections coloured in blue and labelled 'For you' which you might like to try yourself to learn how to use the software.

To illustrate the software this topic will take the example of a launderette.

Jim has decided to use GX-Ware to record details of his current laundry orders.

When someone comes in he wants to note down what needs to be laundered together with the customer's name and address.

In the supermarket when you buy an item the cashier scans the barcode on the packet and the till rings in the amount. Jim wants to give each customer a receipt that has a barcode so that the customer can present it when they return for their laundry. Jim can then scan the barcode to quickly find information about the customer's order.

At the end of the week Jim also needs to now how many laundry orders he has completed during the week.

To make this work Jim has purchased a receipt printer and a barcode scanner which are hooked up to the computer.

Help File

• Run the help file from the Windows Start menu.

• Select the Contents tab and explore the various categories available.
• Features has an overview of the main features in the software.
• Desktop Help Topics contains help on the desktop application and in particular the main window. This section also has a How To for tasks specific to the main window.
• Template Editor Help Topics contains topics related to the Template Editor which will be introducted later in this document.
• Tools contains information about the various Tools supplied with GX-Ware Resource Control. Some Tools will be used later on in this guide.
• Select the Index tab and notice you can enter keywords to find what you want.
• Do a complete search on the help file using the Search tab.
  

Starting The Software

First lets start GX-Ware Resource Control Client from the Windows start menu:



When the software starts up the 3 window panes are all empty, this is because no items have been added in. Lets add an item in now by pressing the  button on the toolbar. An item represents a person and we will have to supply some details to continue.

A window will be displayed, fill it in as follows and then press OK.



As you can see the new person has been added in, the window pane at the top right shows the different Pages of information that we can store about them. They are:

Item Addresses

Item Details - name title etc,

Security Details - this includes the Reference Id which is a unique Id within the database.

 

If you click on a Page, you will see the various Lines of data appear in the bottom right window pane. You can double click on each one in turn to change the value.



For You:

Fill in the Address Details for the person you have just added to the database.



The first 2 Pages can store the information Jim needs about the customer, however he still needs to record details of their laundry order. To do that we will move onto the next section and add in a new information page.



Customizing Your Database

To add a new page in, launch the Page and Line Manager from the start menu:



The manager shows the various pages that already exist, these of course correspond to what is displayed in the top right window pane of GX-Ware Client.

    

Jim's Launderette can deal with shirts, trousers, and suits. He needs to make a note of how many of each item the customer has left to be cleaned.

First the Laundry page is added by pressing the Add Page button  on the toolbar:



Once the Page has been added we will can add a new Line by pressing the Add Line button in each case we have to provide the name of the Line as well as the type of information it is going to hold. These Lines will all be of the "Numeric" type as they will hold a number.

If you make a mistake while adding these lines then you can press the Edit Line button to change the line name. However if you add a Line of the wrong type, you must first delete the Line using the Delete Line button and then add it back in. At any stage press the Help button in the Page and Line Manager for more information.







We'll also add a date line to record when the laundry will be ready and a text line so Jim can note down which cupboard the finished laundry will be stored in while waiting for collection.



You can now see that the new Page and Lines have appeared in GX-Ware Resource Control Client. If we select the Laundry Page and then double click each Line in turn we can update the information for the person that’s already been added into the system.

For You:

Add another page called "My Page" and then add a Line of each type.

Once you have done this try to change the values of each Line in GX-Ware Resource Control Client for the person you have added.



Jim now has all the information he needs about the customer, however he still needs to print out a receipt for them to take away, in the next section we'll learn how Jim can customize the receipt to print the information he wants.


Changing The Item Template

In GX-Ware Resource Control each person added to the system is referred to as an 'Item' and the receipt that will be printed out for each person is called the Item Report. Whenever a report is printed out the system takes the information for that person and creates a document using the Letter Template. Letter Templates are available for all the different kinds of Letters and Reports supported by GX-Ware Resource Control.



First select the Edit Letter Templates from the Letters menu, this will display a window showing all of the available Letter Templates. The one we want is the Item Template. Select this and press the OK button to display the template itself. This window is called the Template Editor window.

If you have used a word processor such as Microsoft Word or even Word Pad then this window should look familiar. First of all it contains the text that will be inserted into the Item Report every time a receipt is printed. Some of the phrases in the template are surrounded by angle brackets: < and >.

These phrases are called References and refer to information in the system about the person or item for whom the Report will be created. In the example above the reference:

<Book Details Page, First Name>

refers to the person's first name from the Item Details page in the main window.

This means that whenever you print out the report, the computer will look up the First Name for the person in question and use it to replace the phrase contained in the angle brackets.



Jim wants his receipt to show the name of the customer together with their laundry list, it must also give the date that the laundry will be ready for collection. Finally he wants to have a way to easily locate the customer's information when they come back with their receipt. We will do this by printing out a barcode.



First of all we will delete the existing text in the window by selecting all and pressing delete.

• Tip: you can select all the text at once by holding down the Control Key and pressing A.
  

The receipts will all be printed by Jim's receipt printer, we must make sure that the paper size is correctly set as the receipts are much smaller than the A4 paper in a normal paper.

First of all take a note of the blue bars at the top and bottom of the window. Then we can change the paper size by selecting Page Setup from the File menu.

The Printer Window will be displayed first, pick the receipt printer from the list. In the following picture the "Brother HL-1430 Series" printer has been chosen.

When you press OK the Page Setup window will be displayed, this window will show all the available paper sizes for the chosen printer. Select the correct paper size and orientations. In the picture below we have picked COM-10 paper, portrait orientation, and margins of 10mm on each side.

Please make sure that you choose the correct printer and paper sizes in the above steps. If you are unsure then please refer to the manual that came with your printer.


We can now press the OK button to return to the Template Editor window.

You will notice that the blue bars have shortened considerably. These bars indicate the amount of space you have to type in before the side of the page is reached. Don't worry, if you type to much then the text will be wrapped around onto the next line.



We'll start by typing the header text:



Now we need to insert the name of the customer, to do this position the cursor at the right place in the document then select Add from the References menu.



We want the customer's title so select Title from the Item Details page.



As you can see a new reference has been added to the document and is surrounded by the angle brackets mentioned earlier.



We will do this again to add a reference to the customer's surname.

In the picture above after the surname was added the text wrapped round to the next line. When the letter is generated the References we have just created will be replaced with the Title and Surname of a particular person. These will be much shorted that the names of the References that we can now see.

As we've got some work done be sure to save the template by pressing the Save toolbar button . This should be done frequently to make sure nothing is lost.

We can now type the rest of the Template:



If you remember back to the first section we said that the Security Page contained the Reference Number which is a unique Id for that item in the database. Whenever the customer comes in Jim wants to be able to scan the receipt and have the system look up the details. In order to do this we have to add in a reference to the 'Reference Number'.



To make the software display this as a barcode we select the reference and press the barcode button . Please note that the reference is now surrounded by square brackets:

[<Security, Reference Number>]

If you place the cursor inside the square brackets then you will also see that the barcode toolbar button is highlighted indicating that this text will be displayed as a barcode. The barcode itself won't actually be drawn until you print the receipt out.



We can get an idea of what the final receipt will look like by selecting Print Preview from the File menu, the preview will show the barcode as well.

Please note that once again the barcode produced in the print preview is much larger than the one that will be printed in each receipt. This is because the Reference Number that is being converted into the barcode is only 10 digits long whereas the Reference name is the Template Editor is much longer.

For You:

Jim would like to add the text "Thank you for calling" in italics at the bottom of the receipt. This text should be aligned to the centre of the page.

See if you can add this text in, you may need to use Help file to find out how to perform some of these tasks. The topics "How To Align Text" and "How to Format Text" should be useful.



Printing A Receipt

• The barcode has not been created and the Reference Number is shown surrounded by the square brackets:[0000000001], the barcode won't be drawn until the letter is printed.
• The correct page size might not be selected. The page size is saved within the information in the file though many word processors including WordPad and versions of Microsoft Word will ignore the size.
  

These will not cause a problem as the actual letter will be printed out using GX-Ware and not a specific word processor.

Please close the file without saving, the file must be closed before the Letter can be generated again as applications such as Microsoft Word will lock the file and the generation will not work correctly. If the file is modified in another word processor and saved then you may well loose the page size and paper type information. If you wish to modify the file in this way then it is recommended to make a backup copy first.

For You:

After closing the file, change the person's title and then regenerate the file. Once this has been done open the file and check that the title has changed.



Now we are satisfied that the content of the receipt is correct we can actually print one out. To do this press the Print Item Letter button on the main toolbar . When the receipt prints you will see the barcode at the bottom. If you look directly beneath the barcode you will also see the Reference Number in clear print.





Scanning The Receipt

Jim needs to be able to scan the barcode on a receipt, this section will present how this is done. Note that a scanner must be connected to the computer, if a scanner isn't available you can still type the Reference Number in directly.

The scanning window can be displayed in GX-Ware Resource Control by pressing the Scanning button.



When the window appears please notice that you can switch back to the main window at any time. This means the scanning window can stay open and will not interfere with operation of the system. If we click on the scanning window a green tick appears at the top - this means it is ready for use, if we then click back to the main window the tick turns into a red X - this means that scans will no longer be accepted. To activate it again simply click on the scanning window with the mouse.

At the right of the window is a red indicator, this means that an item hasn't been scanned in.

We can now scan the receipt printed earlier with the mouse. The method of scanning will depend on the kind of scanner being used. If it is a hand held model then press the button so that the red light comes on. Then hold the scanner up to the barcode. Whenever the scan is successful you should hear a bleeping sound and the red indicator should change to green. The name of the person associated with the barcode you have just scanned should also be displayed.



The item has now been "Scanned In".

Go ahead and scan the barcode again, this time the green indicator` will turn red indicating that the item has been "Scanned Out".



If we press the Show Details button the window will show some more information about the item including when it was scanned in and out and the amount of time it was scanned in for. You can press the Hide Details button again if you don't need to see this information.



For You

There is an input box at the bottom of the scanning window when Show Details is pressed. You can use this to manually type in the Reference Number that is printed at the bottom of the barcode. Try this now and once you have typed the number press the Return key to scan it.



Displaying Reports

After a busy week Jim wants to know how many orders have been processed, this can easily be done using GX-Ware's Security Reports feature. In this section we'll walk through displaying a report and show how it can be saved off for future reference.

Select the Security Reports option from the Security menu:



This will display a window showing the different reports available.



If we click on the "Complete History" report a description will appear in the Description box below the list.

We now need to enter the dates for which we need to retrieve the information. Jim wants to see all the laundry orders for the last week, so lets go ahead and enter the 2 dates. This can be done by pressing the button next to the appropriate Start or End Date box and selecting the exact date from the calendar.



We can now press the OK button to produce the security report. So far we have only scanned in one barcode a few times so there won't be too many results returned in the report.



You can see where the item has been scanned in and out and how long it was scanned in for.



Although the report can be recreated Jim will need to keep a paper copy for his records so we'll first have to save this to the disk. This can be done by pressing the Save button which will allow us to select a location for the file.



The save window and the 'Save As Type' box allows us to save either as an HTML file or as a CSV file. The CSV file is supported by Microsoft Excel.

If we set the type of file to be Results Files, (*.htm), and select a valid location on the disk we can save the report by pressing the OK button. This will also display the report in the browser:



From here the report can be printed out, just make sure not to print it off on the receipt printer!!



Example Of Daily Operation


Jim now has the software configured and its ready for in the Laundrette. We will now step through what happens whenever a customer visits.



1. A new customer comes into the launderette

• Jim adds a new item for the customer, he fills in their name and title.
• Jim also records their contact telephone number as well as the details of their laundry.
• Based on the number of items needing to be cleaned he estimates that it everything will be ready in 2 days and records this in the Ready line.
• Jim then prints off the receipt and immediately scans the barcode.
• Scanning the barcode indicates that the laundry is now ready for cleaning.
• The customer leaves

Note that if an existing customer returns you can re-use their item in the software.

2. Laundry

• Once the laundry for this customer has been done Jim stores the clothes in one of his cupboards.
• He locates the entry for that customer in the database and records the name of the cupboard in the Laundry page.
  

3. The customer returns 2 days later to collect their laundry

• Jim scans their receipt.
•  
  Scanning the receipt also records that the laundry has been completed for that customer.
• GX-Ware displays the customer's details, the name of the cupboard containing the clothes is recorded on the Laundry page.
• Jim returns the clothes and takes payment

For You

Jim has upgraded his facilities to handle the cleaning of silk ties. He wants to have this record on a receipt. Try the following:

1. Use the Page and Line Manager to add a new Silk Ties numeric line to the Laundry Page.

2. Use the Template Editor to modify the Item Template to include Silk Ties on the laundry list.

3. Test the system by first generating and then printing the Item Report.


See Also

• How To Backup And Restore A Database
• How To Count Scanned In Items
• How To Create A Security Report
• How To Edit Letter Templates
• How To Find Items
• How To Generate Letters
• How To Install A Database
• How To Save A Security Report In Excel Format
• How To Scan Items