Where Do I Begin?

The following are suggestions. There is by no means one place to begin.

The CD-Rom which this program is on contains a screen capture tutorial to help learn this program. It shows me walking through different parts of the program while I am making comments. A good place to start would be to watch the tutorial. This would also be good to review on a periodical basis and to use for training new employees, as the program contains so much, you will likely learn something every time you watch the tutorial.

Get familiar with the Diamond All Form which will help you in locating items in current and past Previews Catalogs. Practice using the different sort buttons at the top of the form and locating items. Use button 1 to sort by Previews Date and Item Code. This will place the most recent Previews Catalog at the top of the listing. Scroll to the top, then find the BatchNo field to determine the most recent Previews Catalog available in the database. The BatchNo is formatted as a 4-digit year and a 2-digit month, thus 200507 would be July 2005. This field corresponds to the Previews catalog month listed on the spine of the catalog. If there are more recent catalog(s) available than what is in your database, you need to acquire data for all catalogs which are missing. If this is just a few, then download them using the Previews on Windows program and import them into the database using the New Previews File Program available on the program section of the switchboard. This should be done from oldest to newest. If there are more than a few catalogs missing, acquire and install a new version of the program. This will completely wipe out any data entered into your old version. So don't do this unless you don't have any needed data in your old version of the program.

Familiarize yourself with the Customer Form. Input names and Personal Information on the 'Personal Information' tab of the Customer Form for your current and new customers.

• Input items to be which customers are ordering from the current Previews catalog on the Items Ordered tab of the Customer Form. Make sure all items are entered for all customers. Items can be entered by typing the 'Item Code' as listed in the Previews Order Form into an empty 'Item Code' field on the 'Customer Form'-'Items Ordered' tab-'Item Code' field and pressing enter. Then move down to the next empty record to enter another item. If the customer wants this item to be pulled every month use the hotkey Ctrl-M (Make Item a Monthly Auto Pull) from the 'Item Code' field to place the item in the Monthly Auto Pulls tab
• Make sure you give yourself a couple of days extra the first month or two which you use CBPF to place an order with Diamond.

Once you have placed all items to be ordered into the Customer Form - Items Ordered tab, then within a few days prior to the 'Diamond Online Orders Due' date, use the Order Monthly Items Program - Export. This will take all items for each customer and send it to the Previews on Windows program. Then use the Previews on Windows program to add additional items which are to be ordered for shelf stock, and place your order. Any items ordered by customers for this Previews prior to when the order is uploaded to Diamond, but after the export has occurred will be added to the 'Customer Form' and must be manually added to the Previews on Windows program. The alternative is to use the Order Monthly Items Program - Export program again to export all items again and any changes (shelf stock) made in the Previews on Windows program will be lost and must be redone. This should probably only be done if you have done the export but haven't started adding shelf stock to the Previews on Windows program.

It is preferable at this point to enter outstanding ordered Item Codes from past Previews catalogs into the appropriate customers record. This will expedite the process of using the Weekly Download Report to pull items for the customers folders. If this is not simple to do, you will be faced with a combination of using your old system in conjunction with the new system for a few months. Your current procedure of pulling for customers files will be used until items from the current catalog begin to come in. Then you will need to use your previous pull procedure for items which are from previous Previews Catalogs, and the Weekly Pull File Program for items from current catalog. This process will be chaotic until all items are in the CBPF program. When there are only a few items still in your previous pull procedure, enter them into the CBPF for the appropriate customer, and use the new procedure exclusively.

When a new Previews Catalog arrives and you have customers entered into the system who have Monthly Auto Pulls set up, then learn the Order Monthly Items Program - Find Monthly Auto Pulls.

Enter your sales tax rate into the 'Programs' - 'Setup' tab - 'Tax Rate'. Press enter. Close the 'Programs'.

At this point you will know most of the basics of the database program. Read the help system at your own pace to learn new things to make you more efficient in using the CBPF program.