Qasper
Qasper Offline provides the following to enable road warriors to work offline, then later reconnect and update Qasper's central database.
"Offline" means that you are not connected to the Internet and are running Qasper on your desktop or notebook computer in a completely self-contained manner.
Qasper Offline works identically to Qasper online, except that your desktop or notebook computer houses both Qasper Office (the web-based application) and Qasper's web server and database.
Instead of working with web pages delivered over the Internet from a centrally-located Qasper web server and database, you work with web pages delivered from a web server and database installed on your desktop computer.
In this manner, you can use Qasper without an Internet connection.
When you wish to go back "online" and work with Qasper's central database, you can move data back and forth between the desktop database and Qasper's central database through Qasper's Desktop Offline application. See below for more information.
Offline processing with Qasper Organize has strong similarities to Qasper Personal processing. The Qasper Office system is installed on your desktop computer, and works with the same Access database and Cassini Web Server as does Qasper Personal.
There are differences between Qasper Office online and Qasper Offline
1. Qasper Offline is a temporary detachment from the central database. All record additions, changes and deletions are marked in such a way as to ensure they can be synchronized to the central database when you go back online.
2. Qasper Offline uses a special range of numbers assigned by the central database that ensure no record identification conflict will occur when records created offline are synchronized to the central database.
3. Qasper Offline uses a desktop program, Qasper Offline (Desktop), to coordinate online and offline actions and synchronization (see below for more details).
4. Your user file on the central database is flagged that you are offline, so warnings can be issued if you start using Qasper Office online without first going online through the Qasper Offline Desktop application.
5. Qasper offline
Installing Qasper Offline
Click here for full installation instructions.
Qasper Offline Desktop Manager (Desktop)
Installing Qasper Offline:
Qasper Offline installation files are usually available from your Home page (look for the link Get Qasper Desktop applications on your Home page), or your system administrator will provide you with access to the Qasper Offline installation files. You will need, at minimum:
1. Qasper Office Offline and its Microsoft Access database, Qasper_LocalAccess.mdb.
2. Qasper Offline Desktop
3. Qasper Cassini Web Server (also available at www.Qasper.com, through your account at http://www.qasper.com/qasper_custsetup.aspx).
BEFORE YOU START USING OFFLINE/ONLINE DESKTOP:
ENSURE DESKTOP OFFLINE KNOWS THE URL OF QASPER ONLINE
The desktop offline/online program needs to know the URL of your Qasper Office online installation so that it can send and receive records to and from the database.
Provide the information to Qasper Desktop Offline:
If you have a current version of Qasper Desktop Offline, it will have a Set up page similar to this (yours may vary slightly):
You can manually complete the information on this page and click [Save setup info]
Qasper Offline functions:
The Qasper Offline Desktop application provides these functions:
1. Go online and offline
2. Select filtered groups of records from the central server
3. Update new, changed and deleted records from the offline database to the central database.
4. Fetch a new set of reserved numbers from the central database
5. Compact the client-side Access database.
Qasper Offline Desktop synchronization:
Qasper Offline Desktop coordinates the Qasper Offline database with the central database.
To go offline, review the "on or after" date and click [Fetch/Go offline]. If you want to filter the records retrieved from the central database (for example, to get all contact records for a certain territory), click the tab [ (Optional) Fetch from Qasper central - detailed. See below for more information.
To go back online, click [Send/Go online]. Qasper Offline Desktop will read the offline database, extract all applicable records and transmit them to the central server for processing. You have to be connected to the network transport (for example, the Internet) to perform this task.
If you are offlne and run out of reserved numbers, click [Get more #s] to cause the central database to reserve another set of 1,000 numbers for you, and to advise the offline database.
(Optional) Fetch from Qasper Central - detailed
Qasper Offline Desktop uses an internal definition that cannot be modified to fetch records from Qasper central. That definition gets all contacts assigned to you, along with all records linked to those contacts (Actions, Help Desk, Projects and Connections).
However, you can create unlimited additional definitions to augment and supplement that internal definition. These will run automatically along with the internal definition.
Steps 1 to 3:
Create filter expressions as required. You can load and save definitions.
Steps 4 to 6:
Review the various parameters and selections.
Click [6. Click to fetch records] when you are ready to fetch the records from the central server.
Note: Step 6 does NOT perform the import. It lets you first review the records.
Step 7:
The records are displayed for review and approval. Click the various [View ...] buttons to view the records.
