USER INSTRUCTION

For this database you need to know basics of MS Access operations, which are not described in current instruction. Especially, you need to know Sorting and Filtering operations.

TO WHOM IT MAY BE INTENDED

The “Technical Service Data Organizer” (TSDO) – is a MS Access database file, developed for keeping records of staff, equipment and expenses of one or more enterprises. The TSDO is not pro-grade database for Planned Maintenance and keeping Spare Parts transactions. This database can be considered as technicians' personal tool for their everyday activities' records and for simplifying to search of required information, which can be done by recorded date, placement of equipment and assigned contacts and equipment. Tracking of regular maintenance, spare parts and expenses can also be carried out in a simplified form.

This database is not recommended for non-technical personnel, because the ability of the "Structural" logical thinking of the user is important for obtaining the correct data in reports and statistics.

TERMINOLOGY

TSDO – abbreviation of “Technical Service Data Organizer”.

CONTACT – record of person or company, that includes name and contact information.

EQUIPMENT - the record of any man-made object. It can be equipment, material or product of the enterprise. The Equipment contains parameters common to the model such as technical data. Spare Parts are considered as Equipment as well. Equipment record can be created for equipment that is not necessarily present on the site.

SPECIFICATION – is equipment/material/product that presents on the site. Specification contains such unique data as serial number, date of installation/production and planned maintenance data. Any amount of Specifications can be created from the same Equipment record.

AT START UP

The TSDO file in its initial state contains the following entries:

- One virtual Specification and corresponding Equipment, which is called “Z-equipment”. Its Factory set as “Home”. This Specification contains statistical data such as operating hours, for twelve Month period. The aim is to make specially queried cross-table of statistical data, applicable for graphical output. After your own statistics are entered for each month within one year, the "Z-equipment" can be deleted (simply delete the Equipment record "Z-equipment" and the corresponding Specifications, and the statistics will be deleted automatically).

- TSDO contains default Equipment Types.

- TSDO contains default Expenses and Transactions Accounts and Accounts Types.

- TSDO contains default Subject Types, Schedule Types and Details record Types. You can add/change any Type, but do not delete Types which contain words “Maintenance” and “Service”, as they are involved in some formulas – particular in “Factory Emergency Coefficient” calculations.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

1^st consideration – FACTORY field.

Factory is a core field of a database. Most reports are grouped or filtered according to Factories – as a place of Specifications. Expenses and Transaction records are also grouped by Factory field.

The TSDO database considers 3 scenarios:

1^st scenario - you need to follow activities and expenses of equipment which are placed in one company only. In this case, enter your company name to Factory field of all Specification records. In the SWITCHBOARD and EXPENSES forms you are selecting your Factory and can pay attention to this field no longer. All new Subjects and Expenses automatically will be assigned to this factory. All Reports will contain data for all Specifications and all Expenses.

2^nd scenario – you serve equipment in different companies, but record only your expenses. In this case, each specification must be assigned to the Factory where it is placed. It is recommended (but not mandatory) to select appropriate Factory in SWITCHBOARD form before creating new Subject. In this case Subject automatically will be assigned to this factory. In addition, you get the ability to assign a specification from a list that contains specifications only from this factory. For most reports, you must select a Factory in the SWITCHBOARD form to get data for the selected factory. For your expenses, you set your company as Factory in the "EXPENSES" form only once

3^rd scenario – you are working for several companies and you record expenses for each company. In this case you need to select Factory field in SWITCHBOARD and EXPENSES forms for each new subject or expenses record and for each Report.

2^nd consideration – How to follow your activities.

Activity records are structured by Projects, Subjects, Schedules and Details. To create activity record, only Subject and Schedule records are mandatory to be created. Consider Subject as dedicated case, problem or any issue, which can be assigned to its own type – “administrative”, “technical”, “training” and others. You can add any Subject Type, but try to keep it at minimum amount (my advice no more than 7 types).

Under Subject, at least one Schedule record must be created, which contains description and start/end data.

Commonly, Subject record of any type contains different types of Schedule records. Thus “Administrative” type of Subject, for example: "Service Agreement" with your customer can contain several Schedule records of type: “meeting”, “travel”, “task”, “problem” and any other. Here's an important thing you should keep in mind, that TSDO keeps statistics of Schedule records. It’s calculates amount of records of appropriate Schedule Types in relation to time period. Statistics of your activities will be as precise as your Schedule records.

So, consider the Subject Type as the "logical" criteria by which you group activity records for the highlighted issue. And consider Schedule Type as “logical” and “statistical” criteria for further analysis of your activity records.

Next, if your Schedule record contains big amount of information (for example “training” type of record) you can deduct important notes (like rules) to Details record and to assign them its own type. These Detail records are very useful for fast searching of important brief notes.

Finally, several Subjects can be combined under the Project. This gives possibility to get activity and expanses records of several Subjects in one Report.

3^rd consideration – How to follow your Entities’ activity records.

Any amount of Contacts, Specifications and Equipment can be assigned to every Schedule record.

In simple case, if your aim to follow activity records from history point of view, it’s enough to assign entity to only one Schedule record, nevertheless how many Schedules are under the Subject. This Subject will be listed in Activity list of the CONTACT, SPECIFICATION or EQUIPMENT forms. By double clicking on selected Subject field in this list you will open SUBJECTS form with all activity records of the selected Subject.

In more complicated case, if you need to have complete information in Reports and correct statistical data, you have to assign Contact, Specification and Equipment to every corresponding Schedule record.

CREATING ENTITIES AND ACTIVITIES – GENERAL INFORMATION

This instruction dose not describes each field of the forms. You can select any form’s field to see a brief description of the field on the task bar of the MS Access window. It shows full name of the field, type of data and maximum amount of symbols. For example, in CONTACTS form after selecting Name field, task bar will show: “First Name (text, 20)” – which means, that First Name is a “text” type field with maximum of 20 symbols.

All mandatory fields have “*” symbol.

All forms are open in Datasheet view by default. To change it to Form view, you need double click following fields:

• “File As” field of CONTACTS, EQUIPMENT and SPECIFICATIONS tables;
• "Subject" field of SUBJECTS table;
• "Specification" field of STATISTICS table.

It is possible to add/edit data in both – Datasheet and Form views.

Most useful keyboard shortcuts:

[Ctrl]+[+] – create new record

[Ctrl]+[;] – enter current (system) date.

[Ctrl]+[‘] – in datasheet view copy values from upper row of the same column.

[Ctrl]+[k] – insert link, email address or web address to field of “hyperlink” type.

Below are common description of creating new records.

CONTACTS

CONTACTS form contains standard fields, which are mostly identical to Contacts form of MS OUTLOOK.

To create new Contact at least one of the following fields must be filled: “Name”, “Second Name” or “Company”.

The “File As” field contains combined fields of “Name”, “Second Name”, “Job Title” and “Company”.

The field “Include in Assignments filter” must be marked in order to put this contact into drop-down list of ASSIGNMENTS FILTER form, which you can open from the SUBJECT form to assign Contact to your activity records. In case you do not expect any activity records for the contact, you can uncheck “Include in Filter” field. This contact will not be included in ASSIGNMENTS FILTER form, but still will be included in ASSIGNMENTS form. In practice, this is only relevant if you have many contacts and a large number of old contacts that are not expected to have any records of activities. In this case, ASSIGNMENTS FILTER reduces amount of Contacts in the assignment list to simplify selection of Contacts. It is not recommended to delete any Contacts, since this Contact will be deleted from the corresponding activity records. Instead, you can change the category of these Contacts to "Old Contacts" (or "ZZ / old contacts" category to have it at the bottom of the list).

In addition, TSDO gives you the ability to record the expenses of other Contacts, such as your employees. To include such Contact in the Contact List of EXPENSES form, you need to mark “Follow Expenses” field.

In <ASSIGNED SPECIFICATIONS> tab, you can add Specification from drop-down list, which has some relations to this Contact. In case, Specification was assigned to the contact in SPECIFICATIONS form, it also will be listed here.

EQUIPMENT

Before creating the Equipment, it is important to classify correctly the types of equipment. Despite the fact, that TSDO contains default types of equipment, you need to review carefully and edit it in accordance to your requirements. Each “Type” can be assigned to “Side” – the general category of equipment. The EQUIPMENT TYPES form can be opened by double clicking “Type” field of EQUIPMENT form.

Usually, the equipment model indicates its uniqueness. However, often the manufacturer delivers several versions of the same model. These versions called “Drawing Specification” in TSDO database. The combination of “Model” and “Drawing Specification” must be unique for each Equipment record. In case, that the manufacturer does not specify any indication of the version, you can enter the unique parameter yourself in the "Drawing Specification" field. For example, if the same model of equipment differs by power consumption, you can enter value of power (kW) to the “Drawing Specification” field for each model. If you do not consider such parameter important enough to create separate record of Equipment, you still have option to enter this parameter to the “Volume” field for each Specification record.

In case, no different versions considered for the model, enter space to the “Drawing Specification” field, as this field does not accept empty (NUL) values.

Thus, the Equipment records support a four-stage classification: Side, Equipment Type, Model and Drawing Specification. It is up to you, how to classify your equipment.

The “File As” field contains combined fields of “Brand”, “Model” and “Drawing Specification”.

Please note that you can create a record for equipment that does not exist in your enterprise. To distinguish from such equipment, you can assign it as “model” in “Category” field. In general, you can start creating a database of equipment that is under your interest, and then as soon as you buy any of them, you add a Specification that is created from the Equipment record and change “model” category to “online” category.

Further, TSDO considers Spare Parts as Equipment as well. You can assign any quantity of equipment to other equipment and, thus, make a list of equipment that belongs to the "master" equipment. Thus, in TSDO, there is no special distinction between Equipment and Spare Parts, as often the same unit can be considered as Equipment in one case and as a Spare Part in another case. If you want to monitor your store, you need to include the Equipment in the "Transactions" table. Total balance of Equipment/Spare Parts can be calculated by entering the amount of Equipment Income/Outcome (SPARE PARTS and TRANSACTIONS will be described later on this document).

Another way to distinguish spare parts from equipment is to assign Equipment record as “part” in the “Category” field of EQUIPMENT form. Additional spare part information can be entered in “Store/Order Information” area of the form.

The “Planned Maintenance Info” area shows such information as: whether technical documentations exist for equipment; whether planned maintenance must be provided to equipment; whether maintenance task list is ready and scheduled in TSDO; should a responsible person (technician/operator) be assigned to equipment; whether responsibilities of assigned person are documented for internal use.

To include all Specifications, which were created from Equipment, to STATISTICS table “Statistics” check box must be marked. In the same area, you can enter required Planned Maintenance periods as free text. This information will be shown in some reports.

Other important fields are:

1) “Include in Filter” field must be marked in order to put the Equipment in ASSIGNMENTS FILTER form, which you can open from the SUBJECT form;

2)”Show in Balance” field must be marked if you need to follow quantity of specifications in TRANSACTIONS form.

In <SPECIFICATIONS> tab, you can see all Specifications, which were created from the Equipment, or you can create new one directly in the table. Mandatory fields are: “Serial No”, “Factory” and “Label”. “Label” is an alphanumeric symbol, which often is used in factories for shirt designation of equipment. If such does not exist, you need to create your own one.

SPECIFICATIONS

The specification is the equipment that in fact exists on your site. A Specification record can be created in two ways a) by entering Specification’s data to “Specifications” sub-table of EQUIPMENT form; b) by entering Specification’s data and selecting appropriate Equipment from drop-list in SPECIFICATIONS form.

The Specification inherits many parameters entered in its "parent" Equipment.

Mandatory fields for Specification are: “Equipment Name”, “Serial No”, “Factory” and “Specification Label”.

The “File As” field contains combined fields of “Equipment Name”, “Serial No” and “Specification Label”.

The field “Include in Filter” must be marked in order to put the Specification in ASSIGNMENTS FILTER form, which you can open from the SUBJECT form.

Specifications can be grouped to Lines by entering line name to “Line Name” field. Line type, line number and Specification sequence also can be specified. All lines can be viewed in LINES form, which can be opened from SWITCHBOARD form.

A Specification can be assigned to Contacts that will be listed in some reports.

SPECIFICATIONS form contains STATUS sub-table. You can enter short notes in this table and the status of the periodic check of selected Specification. This notes you can view in some reports. By clicking STATUS button from SWITCHBOARD form you will open STATUS table with records for all Specifications.

Special “Calculation Field” is used for simple calculations of any parameter in Datasheet view.

SUBJECTS

To open new activity record, you need first to create Subject record. Subject describes name of dedicated issue, its category, current status and duration statistics. The “Subj. Type” field only is a mandatory field. The Factory will be assigned automatically according to selected one in SWITCHBOARD form, but it is possible to change Factory manually directly in Subject form. Until the “Completed %” field is set to “100%”, Subject record will be listed in Active Subjects table of the SWITCHBOARD form. Depending on your needs, you can set or not, other fields of SUBJECTS form.

In “Form” view, SUBJECTS form contains SCHEDULE, EXPENSES and ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS sub forms. In addition it contains “DETAILS” and “ASSIGNMENTS” summary tables.

In “Datasheet” view, SUBJECT form contains SCHEDULE sub form only, which view can be set to “Form” or “Datasheet” in SWITCHBOARD form by “Show Schedule records in Form view” check box.

You can open following reports from SUBJECTS form:

- ”Subject Report” - lists all Schedule, Expenses and Transactions records. It also includes records of DETAILS sub table and assigned entities;

- “Business Report” – the same as ”Subject Report”, but lists only selected Schedule records with marked “Report” check box.

In case Subject is assigned to Project, you can open:

- “Project Report 1” – combination of all “Subject Reports” assigned to this project with Schedule records sorted by date;

- “Project Report 2” – the same as “Project Report 1”, but Schedule records are grouped by Subject.

Project report lists all Schedule records despite of check box “Report” is marked or unmarked. It includes Expenses and Transactions records of all Subjects assigned to the Project.

From SWITCHBOARD form you can open list of Subjects with preset filter by date period, which is selected in SWITCHBOARD form.

SCHEDULES

Under the Subject record you need enter at least one Schedule record to describe issue and fix it by time interval. By default, TSDO sets “End date” equal to “Start date”. So, if you want to change only the "start date" of the schedule record with different “start” and “end” dates, pay attention to the "end date", since it will be automatically changed to the same date as the start date. Until “Completed” check box is marked, Schedule records will be listed in Active Schedules table of SWITCHBOARD form. In addition you can set Reminder date and time to get Pop Up window for appropriate Schedule records. TSDO checks reminder time each minute.

Schedules are the hub to which you can link your Contacts, Specifications and Equipment. To get correct statistic data you need to assign them to every Schedule record in which they are mentioned.

Assignments table of Specifications has additional field, named “Problem Reason” were you can select suitable reason from the list (which you can edit). Setting of Problem reason can be done once only, nevertheless how many Schedule records you have with the same assigned Specification. If your Subject describes problem of more than one Specification, the problem reason can be entered for each Specification. This problem reasons are summarized in “Problem Sources” table and in “Statistics” Reports, which can be opened in SWITCHBOARD form. If “Problem Reason” will be assigned more than once to the same Specification within the same Subject, it still will be considered as a single case.

Besides, Specifications’ assignment table contains STATISTICS sub table. This gives you possibility to enter such data as “operation hours” or “cycles” directly from Schedule records (there are some other ways to enter statistic data).

Schedule record has recurrence option. You can enter recurrence period and copy the Schedule record for next coming recurring date by checking “One recurrence complete” check box (the “Completed” check box of the current Schedule will be marked automatically). If Schedule record contains many assignments, only two of each Contact, Specification and Equipment will be copied to new Schedule records. This technique can be used for scheduling of Planned Maintenance, for example.

SCHEDULE form contains DETAILS and DRIVING sub tables (which will be described below).

SCHEDULE form contains following reports:

- “Schedules List Report” – shows all schedule records of “Notes” field;

- “Current Schedule Detail(ed) Report” – shows only currently selected Schedule record with assigned entities and records from DETAILS sub table and pictures as well;

- “Document Blank” – shows currently selected Schedule record of “Notes” field only, which can be printed on your company blank paper;

- “Orders/Transactions” – the same as “Current Schedule Detail Report”, but adds records of TRANSACTIONS sub table of SUBJECTS form. This report can be used as “Spare Parts Order” form (Orders will be described below in this instruction).

Lists of Schedule records can be opened in datasheet view with different preset filters (by period; by factory; by type) from SWITCHBOARD form.

There is special SCHEDULE GLOBAL datasheet which contains all schedule records for all assigned Contacts, Specifications and Equipment in one table. That gives possibility for custom filter by any existing parameter.

DETAILS / PICTURES

Details are brief notes under the Schedule records. They can be considered as simple Task Manager. Uncompleted Details records are listed in Active Details table of SWITCHBOARD form.

DETAILS table contains fields of Detail Type, Description, Link, Calculation field and Picture. Picture can be attached and viewed in form view only, which is included in <Picture> tab of SCHEDULE form.

List of all Detail records can be opened from SWITHBOARD form, as well as from CONTACTS, SPECIFICATIONS and EQUIPMENT forms.

DRIVING

DRIVING table is an additional tool which helps to record your spent distance during the driving.

In simple case, if you need to get the sum of spent kilometers/miles only, you can enter these records to DETAILS table instead. Enter the date of the driving in to “Created” field; in “Description” field point driving route; in “Calculation” field enter amount of spent kilometers/miles and assign “km” or “mile” as record type. Then, you can open “Details by Type” report in SWITCHBOARD form (report N18) by selecting detail type as “km” or “mile” from drop list box and selecting appropriate Date Range. You will get list of driving routes, kilometers/miles and total spent kilometers/miles in result.

In more complicated case, when you need to calculate cost as well, or monitor several cars and drivers you have to use DRIVING table.

Follow these steps:

1. First, you need to set one or more cars and its parameters. For this open CAR TYPE table by clicking on context menu which appears at the bottom of drop down list of the “Car” field of DRIVING table. In CAR TYPE table enter car Name. The name can contain car model, engine volume and fuel type. If you need to follow different drivers on the same car, create separate record for each driver and add driver’s name or initials to car name. In general, car name can be any free text, convenient for you to separate cars from each other. Next, in “Urban (L)” and “Extra Urban (L)” fields enter fuel consumption in liters per 100 km/miles. In “Notes” field enter any comments, for example drivers full name, this field is included in “Driving” report. “WF” field is a Wear Factor coefficient, which takes part in Cost calculations. If WF=1 it will not effect on formula (more details will be described below). If you are using fixed tariff, which does not depend on fuel cost, enter driving cost value per kilometer/mile to “Tariff” field.

2. After all cars’ parameters were set, you can start filling DRIVING table. Select Car from drop down list of “Car” field. Enter Date of driving, Direction, Counter’s Start and End values in kilometers/miles. The spent kilometers/miles will be calculated in “Distance (calc.)” field. Or, you can enter only spent kilometers/miles in to “Range” field without entering Start and End values. Next, enter fuel cost in to “Cost” field or skip it, if you are using fixed tariff system. In last case, driving charges will be calculated in “Ttl. Cost 2” field according to Tariff value (which is set for selected car in CAR TYPE table) by formula: Ttl. Cost 2 = Range x Tariff. Otherwise driving charges will be calculated by formula: Ttl. Cost 1 = Fuel Spent x Fuel Cost x Wear Factor. Where Fuel Spent = Consumption x Range – the Consumption depends if “Urban” check box is marked or unmarked and calculated according “Urban (L)” and “Extra Urban (L)” parameters.

3. To open report, set date range in SWITCHBOARD form and select “Driving Report” (N10). Driving directions and spent distance, groped by Car Type, will be listed in report with sum results.

PROJECTS

In case you want to combine many different Subjects related to common issue, you need to create Project record first and then assign related Subjects records to this Project. For this, you need to open PROJECTS table from SWITCHBOARD form and enter Project name and Comments if you wish. In case you expect to have many Projects you can categorize your Projects by Project Type.

PROJECTS table contains SUBJECTS sub table which shows list of Subjects assigned to the Project. Here you can enter new Subject record (but not Schedule record), which will be listed in Active Projects sub table of SWITHBOARD form. This technique is convenient to use when you have standard combination of Subjects for your Projects. For example, for new production line installation project, you can create standard set of Subjects: “Preparation”, “Installation”, “Tests”, “Claims/Orders”, “Commissioning” and others. Later, step by step, you can enter Schedule records to appropriate Subject from Active Projects table (by double clicking on “Subject” field to open SUBJECT form).

After, all Subjects of the Project are completed, you need to open PROJECTS table and mark “Completed” check box of appropriate Project. After that, this Project will not be listed in Projects drop list of SUBJECT form. If you need to add new Subject to completed Project, you can do this in PROJECTS table.

Combining Subjects to Projects, gives you option to print Schedule, Details, Expenses and Transactions records of several Subjects in one Report with option of sorting Schedules by date or by Subjects.

EXPENSES

EXPENSES form allows to follow your or your staff's expenses records.

Expenses records can be entered from EXPENSES form or from <EXPENSES> tab of the SUBJECTS form.

Before starting to use Expenses records, Account Type and Accounts must be set in ACCOUNT TYPE / ACCOUNTS form.

Expenses records are Factory depended, so, you need to keep in mind following considerations:

1. If you follow the expenses of your company only, always state your company name as Factory for each expense record, regardless of whether the cost is related to another company (for example, your customer's) or not. If, in some cases, you need to follow expenses related to other company, use TRANSACTIONS instead of (described below) or create separate Subject.

2. If you need independent Expenses records and reports for different companies, set Factory accordingly. Note, to have appropriate Factory in drop-dawn list of "Factory" field you need to have Specification record assigned to this Factory.

In addition, you can follow other Contacts (staff) expenses. For this, you need to add appropriate contact in drop-dawn list of "Contacts" field. To do this, you need to mark "include to Expenses" check box of CONTACTS form.

TRANSACTIONS

TRANSACTIONS form allows to follow transactions of Equipment, Spare parts or Consumption Materials. As for Expenses records, first Account Types and Accounts must be arranged. Note, that Account Types are common to TRANSACTIONS and EXPENSES tables.

Opposite to EXPENSES, TRANSACTIONS table is based on one column design for quantity and expenses calculations. That means, you need to enter positive values for incomes and negative values for outcome in the same column.

Transactions records can be entered in to TRANSACTIONS form, which can be opened from SWITCHBOARD form, or in <TRANSACTIONS> tab of SUBJECT form.

The Factory must be assigned to each transaction record.

TRANSACTIONS table contains two fields where you can enter description of equipment/parts/materials. First field “Description”, is a field where you can enter any free text. Second field “SP/Materials” is a drop-down list, where you can select already existing record in your DB from EQUIPMENT table. All records with not empty “SP/Material” field, can be seen on TRANSACTIONS OF EQUIPMENT datasheet, which can be opened from SWITCHBOARD form by clicking on “Eq-nt Trans-ns” button. This datasheet shows records for all Factories.

For reports you need to select” Factory” and date period in TRANSACTION form (TRANSACTIONS and EXPENSES tables shear the same Start/End dates fields).

The most common case to use Transactions records is for ordering procedure, which is described in next topic.

ORDERS

Order records are parts of Transaction records. Orders must be filed in <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab of SUBJECT form, in <TRANSACTIONS> tab of EQUIPMENT form, or, directly in TRANSACTIONS form. In general, you can create transaction record for any existing records of equipment, materials, spare parts you have in EQUIPMENT form with marked “Include in Filter” check box. If you need to include order records in to Order reports and in to statistical tables of orders transactions, follow next steps:

- create record of equipment/material/spare part in EQUIPMENT form, which you want to order, if it does not already exists. You can assign “Part” as equipment category for spare part to simplify filtering in Equipment List;

- create new Subject. You can assign “Orders” as subject type to simplify filtering in Subjects List;

- fill all fields you need in <SCHEDULE> tab. In “Notes” field, you can wright order application text or any description;

- in <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab, fill TRANSACTIONS table. Mark “Order” check box and select item from “SP/Material” drop down list;

- you can select your company name in “Factory” field;

- mark “Balance” check box, if you want to include this item in “Equipment/Materials BALANCE” reports (these reports can be opened from SWITCHBOARD form or TRANSACTIONS form). Enter amount of items you need, and select unit in which this amount is measured;

- enter cost of one piece in local currency. If you want to show cost in foreign currency, enter “Rate” value, select “Operator” and “Currency name”. The amount in foreign currency will be calculated automatically. If you know cost in foreign currency only, you can use “Currency Calculator” in the same tab of SUBJECT form, to calculate cost in local currency and then to copy and paste the value to “Cost” field of TRANSACTIONS table;

- you can select name of responsible person from drop down list of the “Contact” field. To include Contact to this list, “Follow Expenses” check box must be marked in the CONTACT form for this person;

- if you want to have statistic data of order transactions according to existing Equipment, you can select Specification from drop down list of “Specification” field. Orders will be summarized according to Specifications, and then grouped by Equipment to which these Specifications belong;

- you can select Customer name, if order is for your customer;

- in case, order for any item was canceled or postponed, you can delete transaction record of this item, or just mark “Canceled” check box. Transaction with marked “Cancelled” check box is excluded from all Orders and Balance reports, but gives you possibility to keep this record for historical purpose;

- after all required fields of TRANSACTION table are filled, enter “Order Date” in the bottom part of <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab. This field is mandatory to include this Subject record into the list of Orders, which you can open from SWITCHBOARD form by clicking on “ORDERS” bottom;

- now you can open “Order Request” card from <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab, or you can open “Orders/Transactions” report from <SCHEDULE> tab of SUBJECT form.

- after the ordered items are received, unmark “Order” check box in ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS table;

- you can select persons from Contacts list of “Issued by” and “Accepted by” drop down fields. These fields are mandatory if you need to use “Order Commissioning Card” for internal use;

- you can mark “Confirmed” check box, to be sure that itemes were passed to warehouse, or to other person;

- to follow cost of items, you can open “Transactions by Account Type” report from <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab of SUBJECT form.

In case, you have too many records in EQUIPMENT form, and, as a rsult, too many items in “SP/Material” drop down list of TRANSACTION table, than, it can be easier to follow another way to select items for order:

- open EQUIPMENT form (in datasheet view). You can make filtration to reduce list (for example by “Parts” in “Category” field);

- do not close EQUIPMENT form and go to SWITCHBOARD form, were you need to open or create Subject for this order;

- in SUBJECT form select and copy “Subject ID” number in top left corner of the form;

- go to EQUIPMENT form, select needed record and change datasheet view to form by double clicking on “File As” field;

- go to < TRANSACTION > tab and start fill TRANSACTION table. Paste Subject ID number in “Order/Subject” field of the table;

- fill rest fields in TRANSACTION table as described above;

- by clicking “Datasheet” bottom, change EQUIPMENT form back to datasheet view;

- to add item to the order, select another Equipment record and repeat above steps.

VERY IMPORTANT. To get correct calculations and statistical data in Transactions reports, you need not to mistake with “Balance”, “Order” and “Cancel” check boxes. The records with marked “Order” and/or “Cancel” check boxes are excluded from all kinds of calculations, even if “Balance” check box is marked as well. “Confirmed” check box does not play any role in any calculations.

Next, you need to choose correctly values in “Qty” and “Cost” fields as positive or negative.

Let’s consider 4 scenarios:

SCENARIO 1. You are ordering spare parts for company you are working for. The “Factory” and “Customer” fields can be left empty in TRANSACTION table or just can be hidden from the table. Correct way to fill transactions for selected item is:

- to mark “Balance” and “Order” check boxes;

- to enter quantity as positive value (you are getting parts to your balance);

- to enter cost as negative value (you are spending money from your balance);

- after receiving the spare parts, unmark “Order” check box.

SCENARIO 2. You are ordering spare parts from supplier for your customer. In this case, you need to create two transaction records for each spare part.

First transaction record is for spare part, which must be ordered from supplier:

- mark “Balance” and “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as positive value;

- enter cost as negative value. In this case, cost is what you are paying to supplier;

- after receiving the spare part, unmark “Order” check box.

Second transaction is for the same spare part, which must be latter sold to customer:

- unmark “Balance” and “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as negative value;

- enter cost as positive value. In this case, cost is what customer pays to you;

- after receiving the spare part and delivering to customer, mark “Balance” check box.

SCENARIO 3. You are selling spare parts from local store. These spare parts were previously ordered from supplier according to Scenario 1 and shown in balance. If you do not need to create Order reports, but want to show spare parts outcome:

- mark “Balance” and unmark “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as negative value;

- enter cost as positive value.

SCENARIO 4. You are selling spare parts from local store. These spare parts were previously ordered from supplier according to Scenario 1 and shown in balance. But, in this case, you need to create Order reports, which show transactions only with marked “Order” check box. In this case, three transaction records for the same spare part must be created.

First transaction record is for spare part, which must be ordered by customer and listed in Order reports:

- mark “Balance” and “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as positive value;

- leave “Cost” field empty as it was already entered in transaction record of previously made order from supplier according to scenario 1;

- after receiving the spare part, unmark “Order” check box.

Second transaction, as in Scenario 2, is for the same spare part, which must be sold to customer:

- unmark “Balance” and “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as negative value;

- enter cost for your customer as positive value;

- after receiving the spare part, mark “Balance” check box.

The third transaction is necessary to keep correct values of quantities in Balance calculation. If this transaction is not created and you will need to proceed with another order request for the same spare part before it would be delivered, the calculations of the balance will not consider quantity of parts from first order request:

- mark “Balance” and unmark “Order” check boxes;

- enter quantity as negative value;

- leave “Cost” field empty;

- do not change check boxes after receiving the spare part.

If you work as service company, the combination of Scenarios 2 and 4 is most common case. So, within the same order (subject) you may need to make two transactions for some spare parts and three transactions for other.

After all spare parts you needed to order, are recorded in TRANSACTION table, you can check if some parts from order, you already have in local stock and you do not need to order them from supplier. For this, you can open “Balance Checker” form by clicking “Ordered spare parts balance checking” button in <ORDERS/TRANSACTIONS> tab of SUBJECT form. In case you have some spare parts in local store, you need to delete transactions with marked “Order” check box for these spare parts.

STATISTICS

Many industrial devices include counters to account various parameters. In most cases, they count the hours of operation of the equipment. TSDO the database makes it possible to record various statistical parameters to calculate the difference between the current and previous values for further analysis. You have four ways for entering this data.

WAY N1:

The most direct way is to open the STATISTICS table by pressing the VALUES button in the SWITCHBOARD form. You need to select "Specification" from the drop-down list, select the parameter type and enter the current and previous values in the corresponding fields.

Use this option every time you enter statistics for selected Specification for the first time. In order to include the specification in the drop-down list, you must be sure that the "Statistics" checkbox is marked in the "Planned service information" area on the <GENERAL> tab of EQUIPMENT form for the equipment, from which the specification is created (see description of the EQUIPMENT reference for more detailed information). In addition, you may need to create a new statistical parameter if it does not exist in the default list by clicking on the "Change item list" icon, which you can see after opening the drop-down list. For Current and Previous parameter, the same values must be entered to get difference, which is equal to zero as start point for further calculations.

As a result, in STATISTICS table you will have following data: Date of value record, Specification, Factory and Workshop to which specification belongs, Type of parameter, Difference between current and previous values, Month and Year of the record. By filtering the required records and then copying the data to an Excel sheet, further calculations can be performed according to your requirements.

WAY N2

If you have collected a large amount of statistics for Specifications whose statistics data already exist in the STATISTICS table, it will be easier to use the SPECIFICATIONS UNDER STATISTIC RECORDS form that you can open by pressing the LIST button in the SWITCHBOARD form. By default, SPECIFICATIONS UNDER STATISTIC RECORDS form will be opened in datasheet view and will show only list of Specifications for which statistic records already exist. The Specifications are grouped according to the Type of statistical parameter. In this view, you can expand the tree of the selected specification and enter only the current value of the statistical parameter. You do not need to enter the previous value, because it will be entered automatically. By this method, the input of a large amount of data will be faster than other ways.

If you change the Datasheet view to the Form view, by double-clicking the "Specification" field or clicking the "Form View" icon in the lower right corner, you will get all the statistical records for the selected Specification and statistical parameter. Here you can enter new values or correct existing. This view also contains charts of collected statistics (chart view is not available in MS Access 2013 version).

WAY N3

When you make service records in the form of SUBJECT, you can enter statistical values directly in the same form, by expanding the tree of the specifications, which is assigned to the subject. You must select the parameter type and enter the current and previous values.

WAY N4

Finally, STATISTICS table can be opened by pressing “Statistics Tables” button in <ADDITIONAL INFO> tab of the SPECIFICATIONS form. You have to enter both, current and last values here. On the same tab, you can enter correction values for two types of statistical parameters. Keep in mind that these correction values are not involved in any calculations, but are only reminders. You must adjust the statistical values, shown by the counters manually, for example, in the case, if the counters were reset or mechanically changed.