[Odb-help] Weekly ODB Tips, and a Question for you...

[odb-help@lists.democracygroups.org]

Good Afternoon...

Three updates today... and just to let you all know, a fix
for that printing issue reported is now getting tested for
the next ODB release.  Thanks for all your feedback!

Table of contents:
1. WANTED
2. An ODB Tip
3. A tip from an ODB user


1.  WANTED: ODB BUGS
   First, the question:  Generally, ODB users have been pretty
good about reporting problems with the software.  It is our goal to
try to eliminate all "bugs" from the currently released version that
is on our web site.  Since November 15 we have very few bug reports:
only two in the 0.9.4 version.  This could be good news (there aren't
many bugs) or it could mean you found something but have not told us.

This is an appeal to ask you all to please email us at
odb-help@democracygroups.org if you have found any other bugs!  Or
email odb2004@organizenow.net  (our new ODB email address.)

If you email us, we can probably have the bug in question fixed
in the next week.  Thanks!

(Please see http://organizersdb.org/relnotes.html for recent changes
 and fixes to the ODB software.)


2.  AN ODB TIP:  When one Cable company buys another...

If you maintain a large email list in ODB, you might notice that
people who had warner cable had their service bought out by ATT,
and more recently ATT was bought out by Comcast.

So you have to go through the process of changing people's
email addresses from jane@attbi.com to jane@comcast.net.

To identify the addresses you need to change, all you have to do
is type:

attbi.com

In the main search box and press <enter>.  This will bring all the
people with ATTBI emails up.  Then you can click on "copy emails"
in case you want to send everyone an email message letting them
know of the change.  Just go into your email program, write a short
email, and in the "bcc" line past the email addresses.  The message
might say:  "We understand that your email address, ending in attbi.com,
is changing to comcast.net.  If we do not hear from you, we will
automatically update the email address in our records.

Currently there is no "replace" function to automatically update
the emails, but it is usually not a very big deal to do this manually.

(If your organization is big enough to have more than
10 or 15 of these emails that need to be changed, you are likely to
have someone who is able to assist you in making the change using
Access.  Eventually we will add some of this functionality to ODB.)


3.  A tip from an ODB consultant

Gregory Heller has sent us a list of names of "controls" (text
boxes, menus, labels, etc.) that your organization can easily
hide in ODB if you want to disable the functionality related to
donations.  Thanks Gregory for sharing this info.  Just as a
reminder, the "wrench" in ODB opens up a window where you
can click on "Modify Settings" and within that you can see
100 configuration settings that are customizable.

>To: "Organizers' Database General Help" <odb-help@lists.democracygroups.org>
>Subject: Hiding Donation features
>From: Hellertech <hellertech --at-- rcn.com>
>Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:43:38 -0500
>
>I realize that this might not be the most relevant use of control hides for most people using ODB, but i have clients who are politicians and using ODB to track their contacts or constituent issues and for these clients mention of donations is verboten
>
>so i have compiled the hide controls that you need to put into settings in order to hide almost all references to money or donations
>
>hidePeopleControls
>lblAskAmount lblLastGift lblMemExpire txtAskAmount txtLastGift txtmemExpire txtJoined lblJoined cmdLedger cmdPayment
>
>hideMainControls
>cmdAddGift cmdLedger
>
>hidegroupcontrols
>cmdPrintGift txtSponsorAmt txtSponsorDate lblSponsorAmt lblSponsorDate
>
>hidesearchcontrols
>optDonations
> 
>~~~~~
>Gregory P. Heller
>Corlears Hook Consultants
>Strategic Technology and Data Solutions