MainBoss Newswire

March 2004

Topics:

1. Did you know: Emailing MainBoss Purchase Orders and Work Orders
2. Important: Reaching the MainBoss Tech Support Center per Email
3. Upcoming Tradeshows

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1. Did you know: Emailing MainBoss Purchase Orders and Work Orders

Recently, the MainBoss Customer Service Centre was asked whether purchase orders or work orders could be emailed. While emailing is not currently a MainBoss function, there are still a couple of easy ways that you can successfully email a MainBoss PO or WO.

1. You can use Acrobat to turn the PO or WO into a .pdf file which can then be emailed as an attachment and which can be opened by the recipient using the free Acrobat Reader software. As long as your company owns a licensed copy of Adobe Acrobat, here is how you convert a MainBoss PO or WO into a .pdf file:

· Create your purchase order or work order like you normally would. When ready, click on Save & Print.

· Instead of choosing one of your actual printers to print a paper copy of the PO or WO, choose the Acrobat printer driver (which would have been installed when you installed Adobe Acrobat).

· Acrobat will create a .pdf file of the PO or WO, which you can then save to your computer and later attach to an email.

2. You can also create a text file of the PO or WO by printing to a generic text printer rather than an actual printer. A .txt file will be created which you email out as an attachment. There is no need to purchase third party software and the receiver can open the file using Notepad or WordPad. But since you are creating a text file, some of the formatting of the PO or WO will be lost. Here is how you create a text file of your PO or WO:

• First you need to install a generic text printer driver. Go to your computers Printers menu and click on Add Printer (if you don’t have an icon for this, click on File -> Add Printer). Follow the Printer Installation Wizard until you get to a window which asks you to choose a port. From the pull-down menu, choose FILE: (print to file). Click next to proceed. The following window will ask you to choose the manufacturer and model of the printer you wish to install. From the Manufacturer’s drop-down list, choose Generic. Then, from the Printers drop-down list, choose Generic/Text Only. Click Next to continue with the installation and complete the remaining steps as you normally would for installing a printer. Note: The above steps may vary slightly depending on which version of Windows you are using.
• In MainBoss, create your purchase order or work order like you normally would. When ready, click on Save & Print, then Print.
• In the Print window, rather than choosing your actual printer, choose the Generic/Text Only printer and click OK to print, as you normally would.
• A window will pop up asking you to give name the output file. You need to specify the location where you would like to save the file and you need to give the file a name. For example, if you type:

C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\WO123.txt

You will create a text file called WO123.txt under the My Documents folder that is linked to your username. Be sure to include the file extension .txt when creating the file name.

• You can now open the text file you just created or attach it to an email to send out.

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2. Important: Reaching the MainBoss Tech Support Center per Email

As you know, MainBoss tech support can be reached by emailing support@mainboss.com. While many customers take advantage of our fast and friendly email tech support services, we also get hundreds and hundreds of spam messages every day. These spam emails clutter up the tech support inbox and can sometimes make it hard to detect the “real” emails. To help us respond to your tech support requests faster and to avoid having your email accidentally filter out as spam, here are some guidelines you can follow:

1. Don’t send us any MainBoss database backups or other files without contacting a tech support representative first, so that we will know to look for an email containing an attachment from you.
2. Use ‘MainBoss’ or ‘tech support request’ in the subject line of your email. If we see an incoming email with the subject ‘Request for MainBoss tech support’ or ‘Need help with my MainBoss’, we will know right away that this email is probably a valid message.
3. You can also use our website to submit a request for tech support. Simply click on the following link and bookmark it for future reference:

http://www.mainboss.com/english/support/login/online-support.shtml

Note: You will be prompted to login to the MainBoss Support Center. All current subscribers to the MainBoss Support Plan have access to this page.

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3. Upcoming Tradeshows

Thinkage will be attending the following tradeshows to demonstrate MainBoss:

· BOMA International: North American Commercial Real Estate Congress and Office Building Show in Toronto, ON from June 27^th to 29^th, 2004. Visit us at booth 1730!

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