Overview

Installation of the Status application must be done on a computer with access to a Microsoft SQL server of version 2008 or better. The free version SQL Express is sufficient for the requirements of Status.

It is recommended that the executable files and DLL files are installed on the PC and not on a network. A shared directory must be defined on the intranet, as this is the space where all the report templates will be stored. A shared directory will simplify future updating of the report files. These files can however be stored on the local PC as it is does not contain any data that must synchronized between users.

Once the SQL server is available, it is recommended that each user is given a unique login user name on the server. In a proper server environment, Windows authentication should take care of this issue, but on a peer-to-peer network this will have to be defined for each user using the program and logging on to the SQL database. SQL users must be in the dbo (owner) group to have access to the data and use the Status program.

A SQL catalog must be created called adbStatus where all the required tables, and procedures will be created. This catalog can be manually created by users to adapt the system location to the specific requirements of each user. A conversion program is available for users migrating from the older dBase file structure to SQL. This program will do take care of all the steps to convert the data to the SQL format.

Updating, maintenance and backup steps are all done from within the Status program and users are not required to be familiar with SQL commands to use the program apart from the initial setup and configuration on a specific network.

The ReportPro reporting utility built into Status requires an ODBC connection to the SQl data. It is recommended that this connection is called adbStatus. The ODBC connection is normally automatically configured during installation. See Tutorial on getting started

Connection

The Status program has a connection window that will guide users through the connection steps with the SQL. The connection parameters are saved and only requires configuration once.

The connection window will require users to first connect to the server with the login user and password given for the specific user, The second step is to select the Status catalog, normally adbStatus. The third step is to connect to the ODBC connection as required for the report utility. Once these were done successfully, this information will be saved for future use.