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Articles in Quick Tips

Reporting an Error Message
12/03/2009 – 9:02 am | One Comment
Reporting an Error Message

The reality of using software is that you may encounter errors from time to time.  The proper reporting of an error can significantly increase the turnaround time for a resolution.  The intent of this article …

Error Saving Visio File with Inserted PDF
11/25/2009 – 7:43 am | No Comment
Error Saving Visio File with Inserted PDF

Although ideal, procuring AutoCAD floor plans is not always possible.  Architects are protective of their intellectual property, rightfully so, and it often takes some convincing that you really only need them to lay out the …

Automate Your Price Update Process with EZMatch, EZip and Quickbooks
10/27/2009 – 3:23 pm | 2 Comments
Automate Your Price Update Process with EZMatch, EZip and Quickbooks

We just finished putting the final touches on huge, highly competitive design build project that could make or break our quarter, when the purchasing manager rushed into the owner’s office and told him we just …

Component IDs
08/26/2009 – 10:34 am | No Comment
Component IDs

A Component ID is the unique identifier that is assigned to every product that you add to an SI5.5 project.  Component IDs display on most of the Visio shapes and AutoCAD blocks and are used …

Removing Grouping settings from the Project DataMatrix
07/06/2009 – 12:47 pm | No Comment
Removing Grouping settings from the Project DataMatrix

It is often handy to remove the Grouping settings within a project so that you can sort data.  The default Groupings in SI5.5 are first to group by Location then by Zone in addition to …

Invocation Error When Running Custom Reports
06/30/2009 – 10:37 am | No Comment
Invocation Error When Running Custom Reports

Issue: You create a custom report off of an existing report for a Work Order, Task, etc…  and when you attempt to run the report you get hit with the following error:
Exception has been thrown …

Changing Page Size in Visio
06/24/2009 – 1:39 pm | No Comment
Changing Page Size in Visio

Issue: you create a beautiful drawing within the SI5.5 Visio interface and then realize that the page size is too large and you wish to change to a smaller size for printing .  In the …

Items in Service Orders
06/19/2009 – 12:32 pm | No Comment
Items in Service Orders

A Service Order is intended for scheduling time for a technician to go to a jobsite for work that is outside the scope of normal project installation.   Service Orders are very different than most other …

Labor Products in Tasks
06/12/2009 – 6:48 am | No Comment
Labor Products in Tasks

Definitions:
Labor Product – also called Labor Items or Labor SKUs.  Any product in your database that is assigned to the Category of “Labor” or to a Category that has been assigned the Type “Labor”
Projected Work …

Changing the Graphics on a Proposal
06/10/2009 – 6:53 am | No Comment
Changing the Graphics on a Proposal

This post will show how to change the graphics on an SI5.5 Proposal.  Although the software ships with a stock report named “Proposal w/Graphics”, I will be modifying one of the additional reports that you …

Creating a Proposal Without Descriptions
05/29/2009 – 7:53 am | No Comment
Creating a Proposal Without Descriptions

Creating a proposal with no description fields for products is a very easy customization but it does require three custom reports: the main report and two sub-reports.  This is because of the three “levels” of …

Marking Products as Unapproved
05/28/2009 – 11:40 am | No Comment
Marking Products as Unapproved

When you initially download product data from D-Tools, you may wish to choose to mark the products as “Unapproved”.   When a product’s Status is designated as “Unapproved”, that product does not synchronize to your Server …