In this chapter you will read:
The title of this chapter could perhaps be a bit misleading due to how we think about files and papers as in physical objects. Mekashron Business has a different view over files and papers in a business environment. Entities constitute the core body of an enterprise or a corporation and therefore, need maintenance. Each entity could have its own unique properties or some and many of the entities could share the same entity. For example, each of your company's employees could sign a contract upon their joining your team. Our software can hold all this information per entity in the database. Therefore, you will not need to maintain all the contracts separately in various folders in your computer. You can simply attach the contract to each entity's Files and Papers. Another example is when your company requires employees to have their signature digitally stored in the central database. Using the Files and Papers section of our program per entity, you could keep track of these signatures and use them according to your company's needs afterwards. In this section of our users manual, we will get to know these techniques in details. Please note that we are assuming you have already set up Mekashron Business and you now have the Main Screen of our software right in front of you.
1 - Where to find the Files and Papers tab
In computer science and Graphical User Interface basics, a tab is defined as a visually separate section of a component. For example, each page in your notebook could be considered as a separate tab since it is distinctive and could contain a different content than its adjacent or other papers in the same notebook. To be able to find the Files and Papers tab in Mekashron Business, you can follow the below steps:
- In the main screen of Mekashron Business, double click on an entity in the Entities List group-box. If you are comfortable with your keyboard device, simply press the Enter key on the entity whose Files and Papers you would like to adjust.
- At this time, you will be presented with the Entity Form window. Now at top of the Entity Form window, spot the Files and Papers tab and click on it.
- The contents of the Files and Papers tab will then be shown, as depicted below:
Figure 1.1 - The Files and Paper tab in the Entity Form window
The visual aspect of the Files and Paper tab is very easy to grasp. There are only a couple of buttons available in this tab namely Open, From Camera, From Scanner and so forth. Below we will go read about these buttons and functionalities in brief:
- Open: this button will allow you to open a file to be attached to the entity's profile. You are allowed to upload any file type including documens, pictures and whatnot.
- From Camera: allows you to import pictures directly from a camera that is attached to your computer externally. Sometimes when employees join your group of enterprise, you might need to take real-time pictures of their faces and have them as their profile picture. This option comes handy in such event since you won't need to transfer the files manually fromt he camera to your computer. Our software will take care of the matters.
- From Scanner: this button will allow you to transfer the scanned pictures and documents directly to Mekashron Business' main database. You need not worry about having to use any additional scanning software. Mekashron Business will take care of everything.
- Delete: as its name implies, will delete an attached document/file/picture/etc from the entitiy's profile.
- Search: the search button will allow you to search in the title of files/pictures/etc that are attached to an entity. The seach will be carried out without case-sensitivity. For example, searching for CV will also return results with the string "cv" in them.
- OK: confirms the changes and closes the window.
- Cancel: simply closes the window.
In the next section of this chapter of our manual, we will walk you through simple steps that will allow you to attach documents and other files to an entity. Then we will move on to more advanced subjects such as scanning pictures from a scanner or using a camera to attach photos to an entity.
2 - Attaching files and papers to entities' profile
The Open button, as highlighted below in a red rectangular region, is probably the most important part of the Files and Papers tab in the Entity Form window:
Figure 1.2 - The Open Button in the Files and Paper tab of the Entity Form
By clicking on this button, you will see the default shell file browser in the Windows Operating System, as shown below:
Figure 1.3 - The default Shell Browser opening a random folder in the host computer
Now you can select any file to be imported to the database and attached to an entity. Please bear in mind that for a file to be imported to a data-base, an entity must have already been created or should be about to be created. Also note the by-design-constraints of this dialog box:
- You can not import a folder.
- You can not import multiple files at the same time.
Now let us assume that the "Vandad's CV (Full).doc" file should be imported into the database and attached to the current entity (we do not really care about what entity this file is going to be attached to at the moment). You can either double click (depends on your default mice settings in Control Panel) on the file or select the file and click on the Open button to the rightmost bottom side of the shell browser as shown in Figure 1.3. After doing this, Mekashron Business will import the file into the database as expected:
Figure 1.4 - A file imported in the Files and Paper tab of the Entity Form window
This procedure can also be followed for importing other files. For example, you could follow the above steps again and instead of the "Vandad's CV (Full).doc" file, import the "Vandad's CV (Brief).doc" file (shown in Figure 1.3). The result is shown below. Once again please note that the files being imported here are there as examples. These files do not necessarily have to exist on your computer hosting the database.
Figure 1.5 - Two files that are imported into the Files and Papers tab of the Entity Form window
3 - Deleting Files and Papers from the Database
Once you have added files to an entity and to the database, you will be able to delete them off of the database and from that profile. To do this, you must first open the source entity's information and open the Files & Paper tab as shown in Figure 1.1. There you will see the Delete button as marked with a red rectangle below:
Figure 1.6 - The Delete button in the Files & Paper tab, inside the Entity Form window
After spotting the Delete button, simply click on the file that should be deleted form the entity's profile and click this button. The file will then be deleted from the database. Mekashron Business will not delete the files head first! You will be given a confirmation message and asked to confirm whether you are really sure you would like to delete a file. This confirmation message is shown below:
Figure 1.7 - Delete File Confirmation
After the Yes button is clicked, the selected file will be deleted from the database and off of the entity's profile. The No button will cancel the deletion process and will take you back to the Entity Form window. Now that you are comfortable with adding and deleting files into the database, let us move on to the next section which guides you on how you can search through the attached files for an entity.
4 - Search through Files and Papers
Entities can have many files and papers and other documents attached to their profile. Once the number of these files grow, seeking a single and specific document or file could easily become cumbersome without a decent search engine. Although Mekashron Business has been equipped with a powrful search engine, the search engine in the Files and Papers tab is very basic by design. All this search engine does is to, case-insensitively, go through the file names that are attached to an entity and list them for you. Suppose you have all the below files attached to an entitiy's profile:
Figure 1.8 - Various files added to an entity's profile int he Entity Form window
Now suppose you would like to search through the entity's profile for files with the word "CV" inside them. All you have to do is to put the string CV in the search box (the rectangular area shown in blue) and press the Search button surrounded with a red rectangular shape in the below figure:
Figure 1.9 - Saught Files - Blue box specifying the search box and the red one marking the search button
The search enging will then go through all the file names that are attached to this entity and list the ones that match your search string. Please note to get the list of all the files, in other words, to undo the result of your search, you can delete your search string in the blue marker in Figure 1.9 and click the Search button or press enter in the search box. At this time, you will get the list of all the files and papers that are attached to this entity, as shown in Figure 1.8.
5 - Importing Files and Papers from a Scanner
In previous screen shots shown in this chapter, various buttons and options available in the Files and Papers tab of the Entity Form window were demonstrated and described. In this section, we will learn how the From Scanner button works. This button allows you to, as its name implies, import documents and papers from a scanner directly into Mekashron Business. Please make sure your scanner is attached to the computer, turned on and you already have documents/papers inside the scanner which have to be imported into Mekashron Business and attached to an entity. Follow the below steps in order to scan a picture and import it into Mekashron Business:
- Assuming that you have already opened the Entity Form window and have the Files & Paper tab right in front of you: find the From Scanner button and click on it:
Figure 1.10 - The From Scanner button
- After clicking the From Scanner button, the default application associated with your scanner hardware in your Winows Operating System will be executed automatically. You will then be able to perform your requried tasks. Due to the variety of software available for scanners, it is impossible to cover them all in this section and post screen shots of each of the applications. What we can do though is to give you the idea about what will happen in the next step of scanning a document.
- After you have scanned your document, Mekashron Business, through a driver, will import the document into an intuitively designed view as shown below:
Figure 1.11 - Scanned document
There are a couple of options available to you in the Scanner window shown in Figure 1.11. The "Please enter the paper label" text box allows you to assign a name/label to the scanned document. This name will appear in the list of files and papers attached to an entity. The OK button will accept the scanned document, save it into the database and take you to the Files and Papers window. The Cancel button will of course cancel all the changes and will ignore the scanned document. Your document will not be imported into the database if you press the Cancel button.
- After you select a label for your scanned document (for example: "Paper 1"), and click on the OK button, your scanned document will get saved into the database and will be listed in the Files and Papers window as shown below:
Figure 1.12 - Scanned document labeled "Paper 1"
Good job! You have successfully scanned a document and attached it to an entity using Mekashron Business.
6 - Importing Files and Papers from a Camera
Importing picutres from a camera could involve various steps that could be performed explicitly or implicitly by the user. In Mekashron, we decided to make this process implicit for you. You need not worry about the complicated process that could involve many factors such as camera drivers and etc. As long as the Windows Operating System recognizes your camera device, you can be sure that Mekashron will be able to interact with it, also. Please make sure your camera is attached to your computer and turned on. Now follow the below steps to import a picture/file from your camera into Mekashron Business:
- Assuming that you have already opened the Entity Form window and have the Files & Paper tab right in front of you: find the From Camera button and click on it:
Figure 1.13 - The From Camera button
- After the From Camera button is clicked, Mekashron Business will try to initialize a connection to the camera internally which will then result in the displaying of the below screen:
Figure 1.14 - Initializing Camera
- Once the image is imported using your camera's default software, you will be able to preview it in the Camera window as shown below:
Fiugre 1.15 - Imported Picture
- Once the camera is initialized, you will see the previous of the pictures and you can import that picture into our software by clicking on the Ok button. Suppose you have decided to import the picture called "IMG_0208.jpg". After the importign is done, you will see the name of the file in the Files and Papers tab as shown below:
Figure 1.16 - An imported picture, through a camera device