Time and Place Calendar Publishing Utility
The Range Tab
The calendar publishing utility is a one-screen utility containing a tabbed dialog with three tabs.
- From
- This combo-box has choices ranging from "Beginning of Last Year" through "Beginning of Next Year". All of the definitions are relative to the current date so the user does not have to adjust the date range each day.
- Through
- This combo-box has choices ranging from "End of Last Year" through "End of Next Year". All of the definitions are relative to the current system date so the user does not have to adjust the date range each day.
- Frequency
- This combo-box has choices for "On Demand" (only when the Publish Now button is clicked), "Hourly", "Every 3 Hours", "Every 6 Hours", "Every 12 Hours", and "Every 24 Hours". Note that the form displays the number of minutes to the next automatic execution, if applicable.
- File Format
- Four choices are available: Version 1 comma separated; User-defined comma separated, HTML Table Format, and HTML Calendar Format. The last two formats are used for web publishing. The first two formats are useful for exporting information to other programs.
The Contents Tab
- File Organization
- This combo-box has choices for: One File; One per Asset; One per Event Type; One per Organization; and One per Area
- Check Boxes
- These define which fields should appear in the table or calendar
- Sort By
- This combo-box has choices for: Start Time; Event Name; Event Type; Organization; and Contact Person
The Destination Tab
The Destination Tab contains typical drive, directory, and file name definition controls. The file name definition is enabled only if the "One File" option is selected in the Contents Tab. If any of the "One File per..." options are chosen file names are automatically generated in the target directory.
There is also an option to automatically send the files via ftp to another computer. This will occur after all of the files have been created and the local copies of these files will not be deleted.
Typical Questions
- Must the Calendar Publishing Utility be running on the same computer as Time and Place?
- No. The computer running the Calendar Export Utility must be able to see the database directory and will need to have the setup program run so the necessary runtime libraries are installed.
- Can more than one session of the Calendar Publishing Utility be running at once? Are there any issues with doing so?
- Yes. Moreover each session of the Calendar Publishing Utility does not count as a user in per-user licenses. The only issue involved with doing so is one of persistence. The main reason to have more than one copy of Calendar Publishing running is to have more than one set of exports such as a one page per room export to one directory and a one page per event type to another. Like most good programs the Calendar Publishing Utility remembers its settings when it exits. Whichever of the two sessions exited last will be the one whose settings are recalled the next time the program is run, not both. The solution is to have each of the exports running on a separate computer on the network so that their own settings will be remembered.
- If the Calendar Publishing Utility was not running when a scheduled publishing should have occurred will it run immediately when the program is started again?
- No. The Calendar Publishing Utility must be running (it can, however, be minimized) at the correct time. Skipped executions are not caught up automatically since there may have been a reason for not wanting the scheduled execution to occur. It is, of course, possible to select the "Publish Now" button directly to make up for the lost execution.
- Why is the Calendar Publishing Utility only available for the 32 bit version of Time and Place?
- First, the automatically generated file names for each organization, event type, etc. would easily exceed 8 characters and therefore require long file name support. Second, we utilize a 32 bit ftp program that is included in Windows 95 and NT.
