Auto-Saving to Network Drive Location

Update:  Please note that with the enhancements made to the Dashboard, there’s an easier way to set up Auto-Saving rather than in the BaseInfo Tab.  See File Auto-Saving in the Admin Guide for SDA Dashboard.

Architect Managers (Admins) can define quote and output file naming and folder saving schemes so that files are auto-saved to a company-specific folder structure using a consistent file naming scheme.  The auto-saving functionality saves time, ensures consistency and makes it easy to find files in auto-created, centralized project folders.  Using Excel formulas, this functionality enables you to “calculate” – using data pulled from the quote file – the filenames and network/local folders to which files should be saved.

Also, see Auto Saving Files Tips

Other Features:

• Attempt to save the quote or output file to a network folder and then, if the network folder is not available, save the file to the user’s local hard drive.
• Better yet, save quote/output files on the user’s local drive then push the files to a shared location when the user is “online” with the company network or cloud-based WebDAV folder structure (requires user installation of the SDA Cloud Services application).
• Auto-prompt the user to enter a quote version number via a pop-up dialog.
• Use workflow rules to prevent file save operations if certain conditions are not met.

Implementing Auto-Saving File/Folder Schemes

File and folder saving schemes are implemented by:

• Defining specific named ranges on the Base Info tab that SalesDoc Architect can reference.
• Using Excel’s extensive formula functions to “calculate” filenames and folders, and to set up workflow rules.

Auto-Saving Named Ranges

Auto-saving is implemented by defining named Excel ranges on the (raw) Base Info Module (baseinfo.xls in the c:\CorsPro\PQuote\Data folder).

For Quote Files, the following named ranges can be defined:

• FileSaveName (REQUIRED) – Enter a formula that calculates the filename excluding the file extension (XLS or XLSX), which SDA will add on its own.

If the value in this field is blank, then all the auto-save functionality is turned off.

Optional Named Ranges:

NetworkSaveFolder – Enter a formula that calculates the network folder to which the quote file should be saved.

LocalSaveFolder – Enter a formula that calculates the local folder to which the quote file should be saved.

QuoteVersionNumber – Add this named range to the Base Info Module to tell SDA to pop up a version number input dialog box when users attempt to save quote files. This cell should be unprotected so that SDA can update it with the value entered into the input dialog box by the user.

FileSaveStatus – Enter a formula to define conditions that must be true, otherwise the calculation will insert a non-blank value into the cell. When the user tries to save the quote file, if the value in FileSaveStatus cell is non-blank, SDA will prevent the file from being saved and pop up a message containing the text value from within that cell.

LastSavePath – Add this named range to provide a means of showing the user the filename and folder path of the just-saved quote file. When setting up, leave this cell blank and unprotected in the (raw) Base Info Module so that SDA can update this cell when a user saves a quote file.

The Administrator might put this named range in the hidden section so that users can’t change it themselves, and reference it in the unhidden section of the tab.

For Output Files (such as proposals, forms, contracts), the following named ranges can be defined:

OutputFileSaveName (REQUIRED) – Enter a formula that calculates the filename excluding the file extension (DOC, XLS, etc.), which SDA will add on its own.

If the value in this field is blank, then an output will NOT be auto-saved.

Optional Named Ranges:

OutputNetworkSaveFolder – Enter a formula that calculates the network folder to which the output file should be saved.

OutputLocalSaveFolder – Enter a formula that calculates the local folder to which the output file should be saved.

Named ranges can be defined by clicking a cell on the (raw) Base Info Module and entering one or more of the names listed above into Excel’s Name Box, which is located just to the left of the formula bar.

When new folders are needed, such as when a user enters a new customer name, and customer name is one of the elements within the folder name structure, SDA will auto-create the new folder(s).

If the network save folder and local save folder both exist as named ranges on the Base Info Module, SDA will first try to save the file to the network, then try to save the file to the local folder. However, if the offline/online capability is installed via the SDA Cloud Services application, all files will be saved to the local drive and later pushed to the network location when the user is next “online” with the network location.

For the offline/online capability to be enabled for a particular quote or output, all three of the named ranges (for the file name, local save folder and network save folder) must be non-blank.

Sample Calculated Filename

For example, a company might want quote files to be named using the first 5 characters of the customer name, followed by a dash and then the first 5 characters of the site description, followed by a dash, a “V” and then the version number of the quote.

In addition, the filename might be defined to have no spaces and be uppercase.  So, if the customer name is “Acme Corp”, the site description is “Houston”, and the version number is 1, then the filename would be calculated as ACMEC-HOUST-V1.

To calculate the filename using this scheme, the following Excel formula would be added to the FileSaveName named range to pull in the values from the quote file’s CustomerName, SiteDescription and QuoteVersionNumber named ranges:

=UPPER(LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(CustomerName,” “,””),5))&”-“&UPPER(LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(SiteDescription,” “,””),5))&”-V”&QuoteVersionNumber

To calculate the filename, the above formula uses the following Excel formula functions…

• UPPER – to make all of the characters uppercase.
• LEFT – to grab the 5 left-most characters from CustomerName and SiteDescription.
• SUBSTITUTE – to substitute all instances of the space character (” “) with nothing (“”).  We highly recommend that you use the SUBSTITUTE function to remove all space characters from the calculated filenames and folder paths.

Sample Calculated Folder Path

Similarly, save folders can be calculated using Excel formulas, as the following example formula – entered into any of the NetworkSaveFolder, OutputNetworkSaveFolder, LocalSaveFolder or OutputLocalSaveFolder named ranges – shows:

=SUBSTITUTE(“X:\Quotes\”&PreparedBy&”\”&YEAR(NOW())&”\”&CustomerName&”\”,” “,””)

Sample Calculated FileSaveStatus (Workflow)

As mentioned above, SalesDoc Architect will prevent the user from saving a quote file if the value in the FileSaveStatus named range (if it exists) is non-blank, and it will then pop up a message containing the text value of that named range cell.  This functionality works very similarly to the OutputStatus named range (described elsewhere in the help files), which prevents outputs from being generated and pops up a message containing the text value in the OutputStatus named range cell.

For example, you can prevent the file from being saved if the user does not enter a value into the CustomerName named range by entering the following formula into the FileSaveStatus named range:

=IF(CustomerName<>””,””,”Error: You must enter the customer name before you can save the file”)

This formula says that if CustomerName is not equal to blank, then the value in the cell is set to blank (“”), which will allow the file to be saved.  But if CustomerName is BLANK, then SalesDoc Architect will prevent the file from being saved and will pop up a message saying “Error: You must enter the customer name before you can save the file”.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

MORE ON AUTO-SAVING

• Calculated Filename, Folder Path and Workflow (Samples)
• Auto-Saving File Tips

WEBINARS/VIDEOS

• Creating Order from Chaos: Auto-Saving SDA Quote Files

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