These handy tips and shortcuts will ensure you get the most out of Accede.
Handheld
1. Quickly create new snag list items with the Copy and New buttons.
The Copy button will duplicate the current punchlist item.
The New button will create a new punchlist item with the same Headings as the current item.
Sometimes photos may appear a little blurry or not quite as you expect. There’s a slight time delay between when you click the capture button and when the camera actually takes the image. After clicking the capture button, ensure you hold the device still for a short period – one or two seconds should be enough.
If security is not a high priority, make your field user passwords a little shorter than a traditional password. A two or three-character password entered via Graffiti on the device is usually secure enough and allows quick entry into Accede.
There are two standard ways of entering text on your rugged tablet device – via the pop-up keyboard or using Graffiti. Both have advantages and disadvantages: The pop-up keyboard may be a little slow to use, but requires no training – anyone can use it quickly. Graffiti allows you to enter text, but requires a little familiarization.
If you find yourself frequently entering common phrases, like “marks on wall” or “chipped tiles”, we recommend a third-party utility called Pop! This application is available from www.digitalglyph.com and is relatively inexpensive. Give it a try.
If you want to capture time of day as well as date detail (for example, you may want to indicate that a snag list item is due for completion at 5:30pm on a certain day), go to Setup/Options/Other in the desktop application and ensure Record Times is turned on.
Say you’re on site, you quiz your contractor about an open snag list item and he indicates, for whatever reason, that he did not receive notification. Accede makes it easy to resend a notification.
On your handheld, find the open punchlist item. Tap the More button and turn on “Resend notification on next sync”. The next time you sync with the desktop, Accede will mark this item for resend.
Desktop
1. Use toolbar control shortcuts to speed up data entry.
Each button on the form toolbar has an associated keyboard shortcut. Use keyboard shortcuts to speed up data entry operations. The shortcuts can be seen on the View and Edit menus. For example, the shortcut to create a new record is Ctrl+N.
2. Limit size of notification reports.
Accede usually sends (via email or fax) detailed notification reports to responsible parties. Detailed reports show one item per page and include associated photos. If a particular recipient has a large number of pending notifications, you may not want Accede to send, for example, a one hundred page fax. Fortunately, you are able to control such behaviour.
Go to Setup/Address Book and find the particular party. Note the options on the bottom of the form regarding format of notification report. Here you may specify whether this recipient always receives summary or detailed notifications. In fact, you may specify a maximum number of items that Accede will use to determine whether summary or detail format is more appropriate.
3. Review your Heading1/2/3 structure.
After you have created your Heading1/2/3 (say, Building, Level, Space) structure, print it out via Reports/Building Level to ensure all is OK.
