MainBoss Newswire
Summer 2008
Topics:
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In MainBoss Basic, most records have a field for a brief Identification Code and another for a longer Description. In MainBoss Advanced, records also have fields for an ID Code and Description...but the ID Code field is so long, it allows more characters than in MainBoss Basic’s Description field. This raises a question: since you can put a lot more information into the ID Code, what do you do with the Description field?
Different organizations will have different answers. One possibility is simply to leave the Description field blank. Another is to duplicate the ID code (although there's not much reason to do this).
A more interesting alternative is to use the Description field to hold useful additional information. For example, consider an Employee record. In this case, the ID Code displays the employee's name as given in the Contacts table. You might then fill in the Description field with any identification number the employee might have; this will help you tell the difference if you happen to have two employees with the same name.
As another example, consider a Units record describing a company car. While the ID Code might be the car's license plate, the Description could be something like Ford Taurus 2008, Black. Alternatively, you could reverse these two values: the type of car in the ID Code field and the license plate in the Description.
The important point is that ID Code and Description are the first two fields in almost every record, and they're often both displayed in table viewer lists. It makes sense to use these two fields to hold the information that your organization will find most useful.
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Many organizations have outside contractors who make regular inspections and perform whatever maintenance is found necessary. For example, you might have an outside company inspect your elevators every few months and do whatever work is required. Similarly, you might have an outside contractor look after your fire safety equipment, checking it on a regular basis and providing any needed maintenance.
In this kind of situation, you don't give the contractor a specific work order—the contractor decides what ought to be done. Still, it's important to keep track of what the contractor does on each visit, so that your records are complete. (Your insurance company may require you to preserve this information; it's also important to have a complete maintenance history if you switch to a different contractor.)
The best way to track what gets done is to create work orders after the fact. (These are sometimes called "pro forma" work orders—done for the sake of form.) In other words, every time the contractor does work, you create a work order describing what work was done. In this way, you maintain a clear history of what work has been done on your units; you never have to ask, "When was the last time this fire extinguisher got recharged?"
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Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South
Building, Toronto, ON
December 3-5, 2008
We will be in Booth 1643
Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore MD
March 10-12, 2009
We will be in Booth 438
BOMA, The
Office Building Show
Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia
PA
June 28-30, 2009
We will be in Booth 1109
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