eLink UK - Recently Updated Pages

RSS Feeds from eLink

petejenkins — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:34:49 CST

In eLink 2008, and after, we now have a facility to generate RSS feeds from any data held in eLink. For example you can monitor your Link Notifications by RSS rather than by email, or you could have a feed publishing relevant entries from your Agenda (i.e. list all diary entries where the action mode = publish) such as seminars and exhibitions. These feeds can either be subscribed to in your feed reader of choice (e.g. google reader, feed demon, etc) or pushed out to a service such as google's feedburner and made publicly subscribable, and you can then add a widget to your website to display the feed results.

The key stages to set up an eLink RSS feed are:
1) Create an eLink query to report the data you want.
2a) Subscribe to the feed in your feed reader;
2b) Add the feed to a feed burner and use it in other places.

I'm going to walk through an example for you now. I'm going to set up a feed that lists new eLink clients when they are added to my eLink database. I'm going to test it by subscribing to it in my feed reader (I use feeddemon). I'm then going to add it as a feed to my feedburner account. This gives me a more userfriendly (without giving away my username and password to all and sundry) way to let other people subscribe to my feed, and the ability to add a widget to a website (or even an email signature) easily.

Creating an eLink query:

Importantly, these 4 fields are required in this order to be used for RSS.

Date (needs to be a date field)
Title or subject (could be any limited length string)
Resume (the memo field or text to be displayed)
A key (recommend you use the built in eLink key fields)

And all other fields you need, to do your request or querying, after those required fields.

Here I'm using the Company area of eLink and selecting the Created On date (when the record was added to the database), the company's name, their website address as the Resume (as I'm pretty sure most of these have this data in) and the company ID Key to identify the record. I then select two custom fields that have been added to my database in order to limit the list to just the records I want:

Then I select only those companies where they are a customer and they are a customer for eLink:

Then give the query a name and TICK 'View this query in RSS' and save the query.

Subscribing to the RSS feed:

Now, in the query list, we can see the orange RSS icon next to our query.

Click on the RSS icon to open the RSS feed. This shows the neat data that gets produced. The key bit we need here is to copy the highlighted url ready to paste it as our feed url.

Now open your feed reader, in this case FeedDemon and click the Subscribe button:

and paste the url into the box and click Next:

Then enter your eLink username/login code and password, and click OK.

Give your feed a title and click Next and then Finish:

Then your new RSS Feed should show up in your reader (give it a few seconds to go and get the feed results), like thus:

Adding your feed to FeedBurner:

Search for FeedBurner on google and add an account for yourself. Then from the My Feeds page, paste the RSS feed url (we took earlier from the icon next to the query in the query list) into the 'Burn a feed right this instant' box. We then need to edit this feed url (as it is password protected by eLink).

The url you've pasted will look something like this:

http://82.69.135.150/elink.dll/queryexecute?PAGE=rss_query.xml&QUERY=6017&COUNT=-1&NOCHECKMSG=T&rootdir=elinktrinity/&language=GB&region=&DBPATH=EAS&THEME=Link&WINAUTH=T&CONSULTID=55

and we need to add your username and password to the beginning of the url, like this:

http://Username:password@82.69.135.150/elink.dll/queryexecute?PAGE=rss_query.xml&QUERY=6017&COUNT=-1&NOCHECKMSG=T&rootdir=elinktrinity/&language=GB&region=&DBPATH=EAS&THEME=Link&WINAUTH=T&CONSULTID=55

so we've inserted this 'username:password@' to enable the feed to be read by feedburner.

Then edit the feed title and address to something customer/user friendly and click Next:

Now Feedburner gives you your feed url, and this you can share with anyone you want, internally, externally, in your own feedreader, on your website:

Feeddemon then gives you some easy tools for adding your feed results to various popular blogging and social media sites:

Many sites even have built in RSS widgets available to use. This Wiki has a simple one:

and below is the widget actually in use & displaying the first 5 results from the RSS feed:

eLink Lite Module Management

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:06:29 CST

This facility is new to eLink Lite, and is also specific to eLink Lite Modules. Other modules that are supported by eLink directly are not managed through this module.

When a new module is added to eLink Lite, it becomes available to all customers, and is charged according to usage - number of users, number of licences etc. All usage charges are handled in exactly the same manner as before - refer to the user module management, the user management and licence management tabs for details.

However, before an eLink Lite module can be used, it may be necessary to install the module in the customer's database to allow the module to function. This process involves adding custom tables, fields, data types and the like to the database. This installation process has been automated, so that it can occur at the press of the button. Once the installation process has been performed, it is not possible to reverse the process except by restoring the entire database to an earlier backup of the data. For this reason, the elink Lite Module Management system includes a simple, manual backup and restore facility, which can be used as a first-level backup in case of difficulties arising during the installation process itself.

Once a module has been installed in a database, it may need some additional configuration. The nature of this configuration is module-specific. For instance, in the kashflow module, it is necessary to stipulate the account details for the kashflow account to be used. It is also necessary to stipulate the elink account details to be used for synchronisation purposes.

The elink Lite Module management tab provides a list of all elink lite modules, with status lights to show which modules are currently installed, and also to indicate their configuration status. Only modules that have been installed and configured are available for licensed use. The table also gives a set of buttons, two for each module, that allow each module to be installed (or upgraded), and configured.

The system incorporates module version control, allowing modules to be upgraded from one version to another. If a newer version of a module becomes available, the newer module may require installation in the user's database before it can be used.

eLink Lite User-Module Management

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:49:52 CST

Each user has the potential to utilise one or more of the set of available eLink Lite modules, in any combination desired. These are represented in the user management by a set of lights, one light for each module for each user. Each light may have a number of possible colours. Each light may be coloured as follows:

Along with the lights, some brief explanatory text should appear when the cursor rests over a light. The following table explains the meaning of the various colour lights and the explanatory text:

Light	Explanatory Text	Meaning	Notes
Grey	Name of Module	This module has not been activated for this user
Blue	Name of Module.	No trial is available for this module.	The module is ineligible for trials,
Red	Name of Module.	This module is turned off, and cannot be trialed. It is possible to turn the module on fully.	W trial has already been run.
Yellow/Amber	Name of Module and length of trial remaining	This module is about to start a trial, or is running a trial
Light Green	Name of Module and length of trial remaining	This module was running a trial that is about to be converted to a full licence
Green	Name of Module	This module is running under a full licence
Pink	Name of Module and length of trial remaining	This module is running a trial that is about to be ended early.
Clear	Name of Module	This user is not yet active in the database, so trials cannot be configured for this user.	Determine the set of users to be supported, and the set of full licences required. Apply this setup and activate it by making appropriate payment arrangements. Once this has been done, any new users will then be eligible to run trials.
Black	Name of Module	This module is available for use, but before it can be used, it has to be installed and configured in the user's database	Please switch to the modules tab in the elink account management system to install and configure this module ready for operation.

It is important to remember that a trial can only be run once. If a trial is terminated for any reason, it cannot be restarted. This is the reason why changes in trial status are especially important. Light Green or Pink lights indicate that a change of trial status will occur to this particular module for the user if these changes are saved. As a secondary check, attempts to update the database that would cause a change of trial status are flagged with warning messages before the changes are committed to the database. If you receive such a warning, you can determine which module(s) and user(s) are affected by looking for the pink or light green lights.

Ancillary Data

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:47:19 CST

For kashflow invoice and payment data to be modelled sensibly within eLink, it is necessary to incorporate a variety of ancillary data. This data currently comprises:

Kashflow Products,
Kashflow Nominalcodes,
Kashflow Nominalcode Classification Data
Kashflow Nominalcode Type Data
Sales Invoice and Purchase Invoice Payment Method Data
Bank Account Data

Items one and two are represented as eLink Products (note the terminology conflict between Kashflow products and eLink Products!). The remaining items are stored in custom lookup tables within eLink. The purpose of these remaining items is primarily to allow users to inspect and modify kashflow data using logical names rather than identifiers. For instance, the bank account data provides a translation between the bank account names and the identifiers used in payment data. So, by having this translation on hand, the kashflow integration module can present the data in human readable form. It also makes it possible to for users to create data for submission to kashflow in human readable form.

eLink Products

Synchronisation

Given the nature of this ancillary data, it was decided that a full synchronisation of this data is unnecessary, because:

The data does not change very often.
The data is generally of a fairly simple nature.
Kashflow does not provide full information about what has changed.

So, a single-directional synchronisation is all that is currently implemented. In this scheme, whenever data is synchronised, all the ancillary data held by Kashflow is copied to elink - overriding any changes made in elink.

Ancillary Data Modification

Due to the fact that the synchronisation process is one-directional - from kashflow to elink, it follows that the only way of modifying this data is to modify it in Kashflow and then allow the synchronisation to replicate the changes in elink. This is hardly a major restriction because it is likely that this data would not need to be changed very frequently.

Sales and Purchase Invoice Payments

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:44:56 CST

The eLink kashflow integration module has the capability to model payments made against sales and purchase invoices. These payments are modelled as projects with the type invoicepay@KF or purchasepay@KF, according to the type of payment. Note that the correct type must be used for each payment type.

Purchase Invoices

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:42:53 CST

Purchase Invoices are handled in much the same manner as the Sales Invoices. The main differences are in the data types used. All the other aspects of Sales Invoices are mirrored in Purchase Invoices.

Quotes

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:34:47 CST

Each Quote record in kashflow is matched to a document is eLink. The kashflow integration module in elink recognises quotes from other types of document (kashflow or otherwise) by the fact that kashflow documents include the custom types General@KF and Quote@KF.

There are quite a few custom fields within a quote that are held in elink. Actually, most of these fields are common to quotes, sales invoices and purchase invoices. This is the reason why they are held under the 'General@KF' tab. The Quote@KF tab holds the data that is specific to quotes.

Tab	Subtab	Field Name	Notes
General@KF	Totals	Net Amount	Automatically Calculated
		VAT Amount	Automatically Calculated
		Amount Paid	Automatically Calculated
		Paid
	Summary	Invoice ID	Obtained from Kashflow - blan for new records.
		Invoice Number
		Date Raised
		Due Date
	Detail	Suppress Total
		Project ID
		Exchange Rate
Quote@KF	-	Customer Ref
		Estimate Cat
		Currency Code

Quote Totals

The Kashflow integration module adds some data to the normal document-product data given in eLink, such as the VAT Rate for each line, the VAT content, and the totals with and without VAT. In addition to this information, the overall totals for the entire quote are given at the end of the quote lines. These totals are reflected in the data to be shared with kashflow.

Creating a Quote using eLink

Create a new document, giving it a sensible name. Then select the General@KF and Quote@KF custom types. Once this has been done, the kashflow Integration module will recognise that the document is a kashflow quote and will expose additional data to allow the quote to be completed.

Linking Quote Lines to a Quote

In Kashflow, lines within a quote are associated with a product or a nominalcode. This relationship is mirrored by linking the quote document to appropriate products in the elink product list. For the relationship to work correctly for Kashflow, the products must be products that are recognised by Kashflow. Currently, elink will allow a Kashflow quote to be linked to any product in its product list - which may or may not be Kashflow-related entries. Refer to the page on Ancillary data for more details of the appropriate products.

Converting an existing elink document into a Quote

Currently, there is no automated support for converting an existing elink document into a Kashflow Quote. It may be possible to perform such conversion manually, but the following issues should be noted:
1. The quote must be associated with a Kashflow Customer, by linking the quote document to a company record that represents a Kashflow Customer.
2. The quote must be associated with Kashflow-related products only.
3. The quote must be of types General@KF and Quote@KF.

It may be that the process of converting an existing document into a quote may cause difficulties. A better alternative may be to create a new document with the appropriate linkages to customer and nominalcode data and to link that document to the existing document so that the original and the new one coexist.

Converting a Quote to a Sales Invoice

Kashflow includes facilities to convert a quote to a sales invoice. This facility has not been mirrored in the Kashflow integration module of eLink. The best way to perform this task may be to use Kashflow to do it. If it is to be applied to a quote generated in elink, the process could be accomplished by synchronising the two systems, causing the quote to be replicated in Kashflow, then to use kashflow to perform the conversion, generating the sales invoice. Finally, a further synchronisation can be used to copy the newly created sales invoice to elink. Note that Kashflow has facilities to delete the original quote on conversion. Such facilities may cause issues with elink as it is generally recommended that all records be retained as a audit trail.

Synchronisation

The synchronisation process between elink and Kashflow can only work correctly if any data within elink is structured correctly. So, care must be taken to ensure that quote records are linked to the appropriate customer and product records as follows:

1. The quote must be associated with a Kashflow Customer, by linking the quote document to a company record that represents a Kashflow Customer.
2. The quote must be associated with Kashflow-related products only.
3. The quote must be of types General@KF and Quote@KF.

The kashflow integration module may generate synchronisation errors or warnings if the above considerations are overlooked. In particular, if a quote is not associated with a Kashflow customer (with a valid customer ID), that quote cannot be synchronised with Kashflow - causing an error to occur. If a quote is associated with non-Kashflow products, those quote lines cannot be synchronised with kashflow because kashflow will not hold the necessary product data. Again, errors or warnings may occur in this situation. Another danger is that a quote may be partially copied to Kashflow, giving the impression of synchronisation, but with flaws in the results.

Another issue that should be noted is that updating a quote already stored in Kashflow causes the original quote lines to be deleted and replaced with those given in elink. If any errors occur during synchronisation, it is possible that the kashflow data could become corrupted. For this reason, it is recommended that only new data should be synchronised to kashflow - care should be taken updating existing kashflow data.

Sales Invoices

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:31:49 CST

Each Sales Invoice record in kashflow is matched to a document is eLink. The kashflow integration module in elink recognises quotes from other types of document (kashflow or otherwise) by the fact that kashflow documents include the custom types General@KF and Invoice@KF.

There are quite a few custom fields within a quote that are held in elink. Actually, most of these fields are common to quotes, sales invoices and purchase invoices. This is the reason why they are held under the 'General@KF' tab. The Invoice@KF tab holds the data that is specific to quotes.

Tab	Subtab	Field Name	Notes
General@KF	Totals	Net Amount	Automatically Calculated
		VAT Amount	Automatically Calculated
		Amount Paid	Automatically Calculated
		Paid
	Summary	Invoice ID	Obtained from Kashflow - blan for new records.
		Invoice Number
		Date Raised
		Due Date
	Detail	Suppress Total
		Project ID
		Exchange Rate
Invoice@KF	-	Customer Ref
		Currency Code

Invoice Totals

The Kashflow integration module adds some data to the normal document-product data given in eLink, such as the VAT Rate for each line, the VAT content, and the totals with and without VAT. In addition to this information, the overall totals for the entire invoice are given at the end of the invoice lines. These totals are reflected in the data to be shared with kashflow.

Invoice Payments

Invoice payments are modelled in eLink as projects of type invoicepay@KF linked to the sales invoice with with they are associated. The invoice document view in elink has been configured to recognise these payments and display them as part of the sales invoice, in a similar manner to the Invoice lines that total the value of the invoice. Normally, these documents would also appear in the list of projects linked to the document, since that is what they are as far as eLink is concerned. However, the kashflow module has been designed to hide those linkages, so that the project links focus on links to non-payment projects, separating payments from other, project-related connections. As well as displaying the list of payments, the date and value of each payment is shown, and a total given at the bottom of the list. This total is reflected in the totals that are synchronised with Kashflow.

Creating a Sales Invoice using eLink

Create a new document, giving it a sensible name. Then select the General@KF and Invoice@KF custom types. Once this has been done, the kashflow Integration module will recognise that the document is a kashflow sales invoice and will expose additional data to allow the sales invoice to be completed.

Linking Invoice Lines to a Sales Invoice

In Kashflow, lines within a sales invoice are associated with a product or a nominalcode. This relationship is mirrored by linking the invoice document to appropriate products in the elink product list. For the relationship to work correctly for Kashflow, the products must be products that are recognised by Kashflow. Currently, elink will allow a Kashflow quote to be linked to any product in its product list - which may or may not be Kashflow-related entries. Refer to the page on Ancillary data for more details of the appropriate products.

Linking Payments to Sales Invoices

Converting an existing elink document into a Sales Invoice

Currently, there is no automated support for converting an existing elink document into a Kashflow Sales Invoice. It may be possible to perform such conversion manually, but the following issues should be noted:
1. The invoice must be associated with a Kashflow Customer, by linking the invoice document to a company record that represents a Kashflow Customer.
2. The invoice must be associated with Kashflow-related products only.
3. The invoice must be of types General@KF and Invoice@KF.

It may be that the process of converting an existing document into an invoice may cause difficulties. A better alternative may be to create a new document with the appropriate linkages to customer and nominalcode data and to link that document to the existing document so that the original and the new one coexist.

Converting a Quote to a Sales Invoice

Synchronisation

Customers and Suppliers

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:14:29 CST

Each customer listed in the kashflow database will have a corresponding company records, linked to a customer record. Similarly, for kashflow suppliers. The kashflow integration module in elink recognises customers from other types of company record (kashflow or otherwise) by the fact that kashflow customer records include the custom type Customer@KF. Similarly, Supplier records are recognised by the custom type Supplier@KF.

The following table lists the custom fields created as part of the Kashflow integration module to model a kashflow customer in elink:

Field Name	Notes
Customer ID	Holds the Kashflow Unique Identifier. Cannot be edited by users. If empty, it indicates a record in elink that has yet to be copied to Kashflow.
Customer Code
Customer in EC
Source
Discount
Show Discount
Payment Term
Extra Text 1
Extra Text 2
Checkbox 1
Checkbox 2

Essentially, these fields are used to hold data that may be stored in kashflow against each customer.

The next table lists the custom fields used to model a kashflow supplier in elink:

Field Name	Notes
Supplier ID	Holds the Kashflow Unique Identifier. Cannot be edited by users. If empty, it indicates a record in elink that has yet to be copied to Kashflow.
Supplier Code
Supplier in EC

The customer and supplier IDs are the most important data items. They are used to match records between Kashflow and elink during the synchronisation process. The remaining fields are present to allow elink users access to the corresponding Kashflow data. Note that it is recommended that changes to these fields should be made in Kashflow, where the significance of those fields is fully understand. The reason for making this data available in eLink is for inspection of that data.

Creating Customer and Supplier Records in elink

Create a company record in elink, fill in the details as normal. Select the custom data options, and add the customer and/or supplier custom fields to the record. Then fill in any of the custom data fields as required. Note that the Customer/Supplier ID fields cannot be modified, but should be left blank. These will be filled in when the data is synchronised with Kashflow.

If you want a contact name and email address to be associated with the customer/supplier, create an elink contact record containing the necessary data. Then link that contact record to the company record.

Converting Existing Company/Contact Records to Kashflow-compatible Records

This can be done by adding the customer/supplier custom data type to the desired company records. Note that if an elink contact only has a contact record without a matching company record, it will be necessary to create a company record containing the address information and linking that company record to the contact record.

Notes

If a customer is also a supplier, that would have to be represented as two separate records in Kashflow. However, it is possible to use a single record in eLink, as a company record can be both a kashflow supplier and customer. This is easy to do if the original record in created in elink and then synchronised to kashflow. But if the data originates in kashflow, it will result in two elink records, one for the supplier and another for the customer. It would be necessary to merge these two records in eLink to achieve the desired effect. At present, no tools are provided to support this merge process. In particular, there is no mechanism for users to copy a customer or supplier ID from one record to another.

Kashflow Data Under eLink

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:33:48 CST

This section describes how the data held is kashflow is represented in eLink. It is important for users to understand this relationship as it allows them to find and manage their data quickly and efficiently. Every system has a different approach to representing data, with different facilities and constraints. There are no rights or wrongs here, just differences. So, when attempting to share data between two systems, it is important to work out a system of equivalence. Kashflow and elink are no exceptions to this rule. Take, for instance, customers, suppliers which eLink represents as companies and contacts. Kashflow needs (for its purposes), to distinguish between customers and suppliers. In contrast, eLink deals only with companies and contacts. Finding a method of mapping between these two distinct system is as simple as first appears! Yet, it is important to achieve a suitable scheme so that both systems work sensibly.

The following table lists the main types of data held in Kashflow that need to be mirrored in elink. This table also shows how that data is modelled in eLink. Each kashflow data type has one or more elink custom data types associated with it. Where more than one custom data type is specified, the elink records must be of all specified types.

Kashflow Data Type	eLink Record Type	eLink Custom Data Type(s)	Notes
Customer	Company and Contact records	Customer@KF	Each kashflow customer is represented by an elink company record, linked to an elink contact record. The kashflow data is shared between these two records. Only the company record has to be of type Customer@KF. It is not possible or desirable to represent a kashflow customer through a single elink record. Instead, we use a combination of a company record and a contact record.
Supplier	Company and Contact records	Supplier@KF	Each kashflow supplier is represented by an elink company record, linked to an elink contact record. The kashflow data is shared between these two records. Only the company record has to be of type Supplier@KF. It is not possible or desirable to represent a kashflow supplier through a single elink record. Instead, we use a combination of a company record and a contact record.
Quote	Document	General@KF Quote@KF	A single quote in kashflow is represented by a document in elink.
Sales Invoice	Document	General@KF Invoice@KF	A single sales invoice in kashflow is represented by a document in elink
Purchase Invoice	Document	General@KF Purchase@KF	A single purchase invoice in kashflow is represented by a document in elink
Quotes and Invoice Lines	Document to Product Links	Kashflow	Each line in a quote is mirrored by a link between the document representing that quote and an elink product (see ancillary data below). The same approach is used for sales invoices and purchase invoices.
Sales Invoice Payments	Project	Payment@KF InvoicePay@KF	Each Kashflow payment is represented as a project in eLink.
Purchase Invoice Payments	Project	Payment@KF PurchasePay@KF	Each Kashflow payment is represented as a project in eLink.
Ancillary Data	Various	various	See below

More details on each of the topics listed in the above table can be found in pages devoted to those specific topics.

In addition to the primary data as listed above, there are a variety of other, ancillary data items that have to be represented, including nominal codes, kashflow products, bank accounts and the like. Details of this ancillary data can be found in a page devoted to the subject.

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mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:14:48 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Synchronisation

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:12:34 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

eLink Lite Kashflow Module

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:02:52 CST

Kashflow is an online accounting package (www.kashflow.co.uk). As such, it is a natural partner the for eLink Lite system. The eLink Lite Kashflow Module is an elink lite-specific module. It can be installed and configured through the eLink Lite account management system. Its purpose is to synchronise data between an eLink Lite database and a customer's Kashflow account.

The basic elements of the Kashflow module are:

1. An enhanced elink Database with custom fields that store Kashflow-specific data.
2. Customised elink lite templates to allow users to inspect copies of Kashflow data held in elink.
3. A synchronisation facility to allow data transfer between eLink Lite and Kashflow.
4. Kashflow Module configuration facilities (available via the elink Lite account management system).

eLink Lite Module Types

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:55:30 CST

The purpose of this page is to describe the various types of modules that are available in eLink Lite, with a view to explaining why they have different installation and configuration needs. While end-users will be unaware of the different module types, account managers need to understand how to install and configure them.

eLink Lite modules can be categorised according to the following types:

Built-in modules
eLink user add-on modules
eLink database add-on modules
eLink Lite user add-on modules
eLink Lite database add-on modules.

Each module type has a corresponding licence.

These are explained below:

eLink Built-in Modules and Licences

These are the core modules supported by eLink. Essentially, these comprise the various user licences that can be purchased. Other licences available for use with eLink include the full user licences and concurrent user licences.

In eLink Lite, there are some additional built in modules and licence types: Firstly, elink Lite supports free user licences, that allow the first user of the system to be added at no cost. Secondly, eLink Lite supports Lite User Manager Licences, the first of which is also free. The Lite User Manager Licences allow users to access the eLink Account Management system.

eLink user add-on modules

These are modules that are supported by the main eLink system itself - they are not eLink Lite specific. All that is necessary to activate these modules is to purchase the appropriate licence. This can be done very simply through elink Lite by turning on that licence for each user that needs that licence. Once appropriate payment has been received, the module will become active for the selected users.

These modules include the sales opportunity module, the scanner module, and the timesheet module.

eLink database add-on modules

These are modules that are supported by the main eLink system itself - they are not eLink Lite specific. However, in contrast to the eLink user add-on modules they are licenced and activated per database rather than per user. So, these modules can be activated by adding one or more of these modules to the licencing. Once they have been paid for, they will automatically become operational.

eLink Lite Modules

eLink Lite modules can be activated and managed in exactly the same manner as other elink modules. Some elink Lite modules are licenced per-user, others are licenced per database.

However, elink Lite modules have additional installation and configuration facilities. The installation process generally upgrades the customer's elink database to include module-specific data. The configuration process allows users to specify additional module-specific parameters for use by that module.

eLink Lite module installation and configuration is performed through the module tab of the eLink Lite account management system. Only elink Lite modules will be listed in this tab.

eLink Lite Modules

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:48:08 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

eLink Lite

mbw — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:41:04 CST

Welcome to eLink Lite - the self managed eLink System.

eLink Lite offers a full range of eLink facilities, with the bonus of being able to choose modules and add users online. This wiki documents aspects of the eLink Lite experience that are specific to eLink Lite. In particular, it deals with eLink Lite registration, login, account management and trial management.

eLink Lite is Fully Operational - sign up for your free account today at www.elinkuk.co.uk

eLink Command Center

petejenkins — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:53:59 CDT

The eLink Command Center is supported upto version eLink 2008.2.0. It has been removed from eLink 2009 as the key benefits are now available within the eLink Trinity experience.

On Vista there is sometimes a problem with launching the eLink Command Center (butterfly). The problem is an issue with the correct user rights.

The cure is to launch the butterfly with a right click to use the option: execute as administrator. Now the next time you start your computer or you launch the elink butterfly, it will be launched automatically.

Sometimes there is an issue with installing the eLink AddIns on Windows Vista, where Vista does not allow you to download the midas.dll file to the Windows folder. In that case please right click and save as the midas.dll attached below and save it to your desktop. Once there just copy and paste it to your Windows folder, saying yes to any security warnings that come up.

Map address look up from contacts and companies

petejenkins — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:30:01 CDT

The Maporama map system doesn't work anymore. So you can update eLink to use Google Maps.

You have to change the following code in all your directories for each navigate.js file:

function ShowMap(Country, City, PostCode, Street) {
var maplang = "en"
if (Country == "F") Country = "FR"; maplang = "fr";
if (Country == "B") Country = "BE"; maplang = "be";
if (Country == "GB") Country = "UK"; maplang = "en";
if (Country == "E") Country = "ES"; maplang = "es";
if (Country == "D") Country = "DE"; maplang = "de";
if (Country == "") Country = DefaultCountry; maplang = DefaultCountry;
var s="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl="+maplang+"&q="+URLEncode(Street)+" "+PostCode+","+URLEncode(City)+","+Country+"&split=0"
var wnd = window.open(s, "_blank")
wnd.focus()
}

Word Template Merges

petejenkins — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:18:19 CDT

When you select an eLink date field and insert it into a Word Template within eLink, then the date displays in American format with the time showing. To change this we need to go in to the Tools (Spanner symbol) and select the Document Templates link. Then edit the Blank Letter Template, click through until you reach the page that says Modify and click Modify. This opens Word. Then highlight the merge field <Doc_Create> and rightclick and select 'toggle field codes'. This will give you something that looks like this:

{MERGEFIELD DOC_CREATE }

Then add the following code just before the end bracket:

\@ "dd MMMM yyyy"

This leaves you with a field that should look like this:

{MERGEFIELD DOC_CREATE \@ "dd MMMM yyyy"}

Then go to File and click 'Update' then go to File and click 'Back to Link' then click the tick at the bottom right corner of the Template Wizard to save our changes. Done!

Server

petejenkins — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:30:50 CDT

Server OS update:

eLink is not officially supported on Windows Server 2008 yet. However, NextApplication have managed to install eLink 2009 on a Windows 2008 32Bit Server without any problem (except for windows / IIS configuration which is a pain apparently).