BUSINESS STARTMANAGER 4.0 FOREWARD Business StartManager is a Personal Information Manager (PIM). It contains a phonebook, calendar, infobase, todo list, reminder, journal, daily planner and more. This manual is geared to help you get the most from the program. The following will give you valuable hints and tips to make using the program even easier. The program was designed to be easy to setup and use. Each feature uses a common set of commands and using most functions is very straightforward. The design is clean and simple. This allows you to get more work done, instead of wasting time setting things up. Business StartManager is similar to the regular StartManager. The main differences are that Business StartManager is designed more for the small business person or salesperson. Business StartManager has a Daily Planner and a PhoneBook geared more for business use. The original StartManager was designed more for Personal use. Business StartManager is the result of a number of suggestions that I have received from various sources. On this version I added another feature, InfoBase, which is like the journal. Infobase is a text database. Another feature is an EXPORT feature which allows you to convert some of the datafiles to an ASCII format. This allows you to use data from Business StartManager on other programs. One big change is that I moved the Setup menu to another program called UTIL.EXE. Util.exe also contains the Export feature. I have also enhanced and improved almost everything in the program. I hope you enjoy this newest program. About Registering Business StartManager. The price to register Business StartManager 4.0 is now only $24.95. I can no longer afford to develop shareware. It takes a lot of time and money to develop a product of this quality. So if you send a registration fee of $24.95, I will send you the Registration Code which turns OFF the DELAY and LOGO screens. The regist- ration Code also TURNS ON some very important Features.If you use Business StartManager, please register it. PLEASE NOTE - OLDER VERSIONS OF UTIL.EXE IS NOT COMPATABLE WITH THIS VERSION AND YOU NEED THE REGISTRATION CODE TO ACCESS IT... UPGRADING TO BUSINESS STARTMANAGER 4.0 from VERSION 1.0 TO VERSION 3.0. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Create a new subdirectory for this version. Copy the files to that new subdirectory. Copy the *.DAT and *.CFG files from the subdirectory of the old version. Such as: COPY *.DAT C:\NEWDIR COPY *.CFG C:\NEWDIR This will allow you to use the data in your old phonebook, calendar, etc. in your new version of Business StartManager. The structure of the data files is identical, only the way they are used has changed. TO START --------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to install and setup StartManger. To Start: To install on a Harddrive: 1. Make a subdirectory on your hardrive 2. Copy the contents of the floppy to that sub-directory or UNZIP your downloaded copy. 3. Run the program BPIM.EXE. That's it. Your ready to go. Using with a floppy: You can use StartManager on a floppy, though it will be slow, Copy the original to another floppy and run BPIM.EXE from that floppy. The next step is to Setup a few things, if you have a mouse and a modem. With the program in the Main Screen, press S to select the SETUP. Move the highlight box down to the modem setup. Press Enter to goto the modem setup. Select the proper com port for your modem (if you have one). If you do not have a modem, ignore this part. This setup is to prevent a conflict if you have a mouse and a modem. Usually a serial mouse will use com 1 and a modem will use com 2. So be sure to use setup to prevent problems. That's it for the mandatory setup. You can change the colors or change how the reminder or calendar is displayed from the Setup Menu. Using the program. You will notice that at the top of the screen are some buttons. Such as Note, Calendar, Todo, Phone, Etc. Press the first letter to use one of these functions. Press C and the calendar pops up. Press Esc and your back at the Main Screen. If you have a mouse, move the mouse arrow to that button and click a button. Easy right ? Remember those two things and the rest is easy. Press H and a help screen pops up. Press Esc and your back to the main screen. To get out of the program, you guessed it, press Esc. INFOBASE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infobase is a freeform text database. It can be used to keep notes and information on clients, business associates, etc. The FIND function allows you to get at information in infobase fast. To organize information about people, put their names in the Infobase and info about them. To find this information, use FIND, type the name or some fact that would be in that record. Infobase can be called up directly from the phonebook, this allows you get client info while talking to that client. NOTE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This feature allows you to leave a note to yourself. Imagine that it is like a note taped to your computer screen. When Business StartManager detects the presence of a note it displays it when you start the program. To add to or update the note, Press U or point to it with the mouse and click the button. To Delete the program Press D. CALENDAR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Calendar is one of the two central areas of the program. You use the calendar to create and access both the Notes and Daily Planners that are created for associated dates. Regular Notes are created by first moving the RED HIGHLIGHT BOX to a date that you what to create a Note or Daily Planner for. To create a Note, Press A, this allows you to add a Note. To create a Daily Planner, Press ALT A, this allows you to create a Daily Planner. Once you create a Daily Planner, you use the up/down arrows to access one of the hours, Press Enter to Add/Update information for your planner. To delete a Note, Press D. To delete a Daily Planner press, ALT D. The calendar displays an N or P in a calendar date to indicate if it has a Note or Daily Planner. To View a Note, move the RED HIGHLIGHT BOX to a day that has a NOTE and Press ENTER. To View a Daily Planner, move the RED HIGHLIGHT BOX to a day that has a Daily Planner and Press the SPACE BAR. It is a good idea to DELETE already used Notes and Daily Planners. The program does not erase NOTES and DAILY PLANNERS, it reuses deleted spaces (if available) to create new NOTES or DAILY PLANNERS. Even though you can create thousands of notes and planners, it can slow things down on slower systems (AKA 286 or less). So be aware. PHONEBOOK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Phone book is the second central area of the program. From the Phone- Book you can call up all of the other features of Business StartManager. This can be very handy when talking to a customer. If you have a Hayes compatible Modem you can dial a phone number directly from the Phonebook. If you have a modem, it first must be setup, this is done from the Setup function. See above. PhoneBook entries are created by Pressing A for ADD. Enter the appropriate information and press Esc to finish. To find a Name quick, Press L to List. A list of Companies and Names will be displayed. Use the up/down arrow to select the entry you want, then Press Enter to goto that entry. To dial a phonenumber, move the Hightlight box to the PhoneNumber and press Enter. If you have a modem it will dial the number for you. From the PhoneBook you can access the Daily Planner from the Calendar or by Pressing F2 (if a Daily Planner exists). You can also select another display format for the phonebook from the Setup Menu. Move the bar to the bottom entry and press Enter, this toggles the phonebook screen to the other display format. TODO -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TODO is a handy little function to plan things which need to be done. Things can be moved up and down on the list in order of importance. REMINDER -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Events can be programmed in advance to display a note on a given date. Useful for reoccurring events. JOURNAL -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Journal is a freeform text database. It can be used to keep notes on daily events or used to keep notes and information on customers. The FIND function allows you to get the information you need, fast. Very handy if used from the PhoneBook. Used daily it can be invaluable for recalling past events and/or important customer data. DAILY -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Daily Planner is displayed from MAIN SCREEN if one exists for the current date. If you press D from the MAIN SCREEN and no planner is displayed, then the current date doesn't have a Daily Planner. Go to the Calendar and Create one for that day. SETUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Setup allows you to customize how you use Business StartManager. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The functions are as follows: Modem allows to select the com port that your modem (if any) is attached to. You can also select Tone or Pulse. Color allows you to select a color scheme more to your liking. You must type in the color you want every time you change the colors. You can also change the background by using F5 and F6 from the MAIN SCREEN. NOTE: Some color schemes (such as ALL black will mess up your screen, in this case you will probably need to ERASE HPIM.CFG and start over. Doing the above will load in the default color values, all other setup values will need to be re-established. How Reminders and Calendar Notes are displayed on startup are determined by this setup function. The mouse can be toggled on or off by using this feature. Becomes active when you use the program the next time. The two PhoneBook display types can be toggled on or off from here. The Starting Hour for the Daily Planner can be setup from here. If your day begins a 7:00 AM, type in 7, this will cause your Daily Planners to begin at 7:00 AM in the morning. If your day starts at 11:00 AM, type in 11, etc. The default is 6:00 AM. Password - Add a password to prevent others from using Business StartManager. To get rid of a Password, simply Press ENTER when the program asks for a New Password, this turns off the Password. Great for use on Notebook Computers. NOTE: Password protecting only offers some protection against prying eyes. I suggest that you use a good third party encryption program if data security is important to you. CALCULATOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Business StartManager also has a simple calculator. Press F1 from the MAIN SCREEN or PHONEBOOK to use this handy little calculator. Useful when talking to a client for doing quick calculations... HINTS & TIPS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ESC key will get you out of most features, when in doubt press Esc. Sometimes you have to hit Esc a couple of times !!! Press the H key for HELP. Works in most but not all places in the program. Run Business StartManager from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. When you first turn on your computer, the reminders and such will be displayed, pressing Esc allows quick exit back to dos. This is why I named it Business Start- Manager !!! Using Business StartManager in the Autoexec.bat assures that you'll get the most from this powerful pim. When Adding records and notes, Press Esc to finish. Business StartManager automatically saves all information when you press Esc. To prevent a note from being displayed on startup, be sure to use the DELETE option in the NOTE feature. If the calendar or reminder is not displaying the calender or a reminder on startup, then check your setup. Hint: A quick way to find a name in the phonebook is to use the LIST function. You can press Esc to get out of the FIND function in the Journal. NOTE: Some conditions may call for this. The editor for note, journal, phone, etc has been vastly improved upon from previous versions. But in this version, when typing, words that go beyond the right boundary will be lost. This version does not have wordwrap. I may add that to a future version... HINT: To speed things up in the EDITOR mode, use the down arrow to move down in your text. It is faster than using ENTER. Turning off the INS mode also speeds things up. When the calendar finds a note on startup, it displays the calendar. The date will have an N to indicate that it has a note attached. Press Enter to display the note. Always backup your files. Business StartManager produces a number of data files. The following dos commands will backup the data and configuration file to a floppy: Copy *.dat a: Copy Hpim.cfg a: Removivng or renaming data files. Data files are created by Business StartManager when it is first started. If a data file already exists, it uses it. If the Journal file gets to big, you can rename it, say to HJOURNAL.001. When Business StartManager is started again it will create a new Journal Database. The same is true with all the data files. You can use this to archive files. This will sometimes speed things up, also. The bigger the file, the longer it takes to access it. If you no longer need any of the Calendar Notes or Daily Planners, erasing HAPPOINT.DAT and/or HDAILY.DAT will speed up the Calendar. All data files are denoted by the .DAT extension. When you first start Business StartManager, the 1st journal record is blank, use Update to add your first record. After that all records are "added" by using the ADD function. Turning off the "Icons". Use F9 or F10 to turn off the "ICONS" or start the program as follows: BPIM off Be sure to take the time to learn the features of Business StartManager. It has some powerful features. I find the journal, even though its small, is very useful for jotting down daily events. The auto dialing (if you have a modem) feature of the phone book is a real timesaver. The todo list is handy for planning and prioritizing things which need doing. Don't be afraid to play around with Business StartManager. It was designed to be easy to use and it is hard to get in trouble by exploring. So enjoy. Again, please register if you can afford to...