ICommander Help Topics and File Manager allow making almost any resources that
may be needed by any staff member easily available via ICommander. The
integration of ICommander with an Intranet maintained by ICommander extends this
capability to staff members who do not have access to ICommander or who choose
not to use it.
Help Topic Menu choices may point to PDF Files, Word Documents, Spreadsheets, Web Pages and more and, when combined with ICommander File Manager, to virtually any type of file. ICommander Corporation in connection with Page, Olson & Company, P.C.,CPA's who share the primary ICommander Development Server use these facilities in several ways.
ICommander Corporation uses both the general Help Topics Menu and branches from it for complete Menu Trees for various purposes. We also have setup multiple separate Help Systems that are accessed from the System Selection Menu. This includes a Marketing System to track contact with potential customers, exhibits, and a centralized location for staff access to price lists and various marketing materials.
- Accounting and EDP Reference Materials in Electronic Form
- Frequently used references such as the Bulletin for Audits of Local Units of
Government, IRS Circular E, School Accounting Bulletins, and guides on many
other topics are setup under various Help Topic Menu choices. Most are
categorized into sub-menus with all materials on a particular topic together in
one place.
Access to these documents on the LAN to which the ICommander Linux Server is connected is extremely fast. We use a Linux facility that creates a pointer (symbolic link) in a special directory in each user's my_trfrs that gives immediate personal access to the documents stored in an ICommander directory. The Anziowin Terminal Emulator program (used on PC's which access ICommander) invokes the applicable Microsoft Windows program to open the applicable file via the pointer created.
Users accessing the ICommander Linux Server remotely need to have such documents downloaded to their PC so it takes a while longer depending on the size of the document involved. Many such downloads are automatic and we are working to make all such to be subject to automatic downloading.
All or selected documents may also be made available on the ICommander Intranet for users who do not access ICommander itself. Opening documents this way will be much slower for LAN users as the browser will first download the file to the user PC (just like when you open any document via your web browser).
- Company Policy Manuals and Procedures in Electronic Form
- ICommander Corporation also uses Help Topics Menus to provide centralized
access to the Employee Personnel Manual in PDF Form. We also use Help Topics
menu choices for guidance on various procedures. Any such documents may also be
made available from the Intranet.
- Customer Websites and Email Addresses
- Use of ICommander File Manager via the Help Topics Menu enables setting up
directories for each customer and files within that contain Customer Websites
under one choice and Customer Email Addresses under another. These may be used
directly from ICommander Help Topics Menus. However, the way in which they are
setup in File Manager also allows automatically generating a Web Page for the
Intranet that has links to the shared addresses. In the case of Email
Addresses, the Web Page is organized first by Customer Name and then by the
individual Email addresses for Customer Staff Members.
- Website Links Organized by Category
- Links to websites may be direct Help Topic Menu choices. The Standard Help
Topics Menu installed at all customer sites has an example with a menu choice
that will invoke your browser to visit the ICommander Corporation WWW Site at
www.icmdr.com when selected.
Use of ICommander File Manager via the Help Topic Menus provides an efficient and dynamic way to maintain an unlimited number of websites organized by category for shared access by ICommander users. The categories are subdirectories (each with a 4-digit prefix number to enable controlling the order in which they are listed) with the actual websites in a special type of File Manager file that it recognizes as containing a path to a website. The special file enables adding as many lines of content as desired to describe the website.
When new sites are frequently added or changed, this method is much more efficient that maintaining individual menu items. It has the added advantage of enabling automatic creation of a Web page for the Intranet where the Category subdirectories become clickable links to the applicable sections of the Links Page containing the links. The descriptions entered in the special File Manager files for this purpose are included in the tables of links generated and the date each link was added or modified are presented to make it easy to identify new links.
- Customer Lists as Intranet Web Pages
- The ICommander Corporation Intranet includes Home Page Links to Customer
Lists for both ICommander Corporation and Page, Olson, & Company, P.C., CPA's
customers. These web pages are created using the powerful ICommander Free-Form
Data Extraction program for the A/R Customer File. We originally converted
standard ICommander Customer File listings to PDF Files and transferred them to
the applicable location in the Intranet area. Use of the FFDE generation of Web
Pages is more efficient because the HTML Output may be pre-routed to its
standard location in the Intranet area and automatically transferred there
whenever the pages are recreated.
The web pages are self-documenting as to when they were last created/updated and from what ICommander menu choices.
- Audit and Accounting Administration Help System
- A separate Help System is used to provide centralized access to the various
standard forms, work programs, etc. used by Page, Olson & Company, P.C., CPA's.
Most of the Word Documents and Spreadsheets accessible here are actually stored
in the public shared directory but a combination of File Manager Menu Choices
provides quick access to each category. File Manager choices are also used here
to track engagements in process, RFP's for potential engagements and various
other accounting and audit administrative categories of information.
- Marketing System Menus
- Another separate Help System is used to provide a common area to track
contact with potential customers, exhibits, and to provide centralized staff
access to price lists and various marketing materials. This includes various
uses of ICommander File Manager menu choices to provide a dynamic way to
manage content with Vim editing tools that automatically insert a starting model
for standard information needed on each contact.
- Private and Restricted Access Help Systems
- Most of the use of Help Systems at ICommander Corporation involves shared
access to all users without needing to be specifically authorized and without
needing to select a particular Company-ID. There is also an option to setup one
or more Help Systems which may only be accessed by one user. This enables using
the combined power of the ICommander Menus and File Manager to organize almost
any type of information.
Help Systems may also be setup where only selected users may access them. This is useful or an administrative area where only owners and managers can get to the information made available. Such restricted areas may also be made available to restricted areas on the Intranet where a username and password must be entered into the browser to access.
- In-Out Board Logging of Changes
- The ICommander Intranet includes an In-Out Board that uses a Perl CGI Script
licensed under the GNU freeware licensing policies. ICommander has added some
extensions to the basic In-Out Board handling that result in all changes to it
being logged to a file that is automatically saved and restarted at the
beginning of each week.
The weekly log may be accessed from a special directory in the public shared directory either via ICommander File Manager or the Intranet. Staff members may use reports generated from these logs to review activity for help in completing weekly timesheets. Management may review by user and/or date to monitor and cross-check timesheets submitted. The logging is turned on by default but may also be disabled.
- Intranet Access to Private and Public Shares on the Linux Server
- The Explore Menu item on the ICommander Intranet Home Page includes a link
that will direct the user's browser to explore the my_trfrs private share for
the applicable user. This uses the Apache Web Server Directory Exploration
Utility to list directories and files and enables opening files via the browser.
It is provides another alternative for accessing the private shared area (in
addition to via Network Places and a Mapped Drive Letter and via File Manager in
the ICommander General Utilities).
It is especially useful for exploring standard reports, FFDE reports and other information viewed as Web pages and then retained for future reference.
The public shared directory that is available to all users (/udd/shared on the Linux Server and \\<servername>\shared via Network Places) may also be accessed from the Explore Menu on the Intranet Home Page. As with the private my_trfrs share, this provides another alternative for exploring the shared area. It is especially useful for various Web pages created with ICommander web page generation routines by simply routing them to a particular area within this public share. Opening image files via the browser using this route is also very useful when you just want to view the image instead of actually opening it for editing with some Windows program.