BillQuick Web i Time and Expense User Guide

BillQuick Web i Time and Expense User Guide BQE Software Inc. 1852 Lomita Boulevard Lomita, California 90717 USA http://www.bqe.com

Table of Contents INTRODUCTION TO BILLQUICK... 3 INTRODUCTION TO BILLQUICK WEB I... 5 TECHNOLOGY INVOLVED... 6 WEB I PRODUCTS... 6 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS... 7 SERVER REQUIREMENTS:... 7 CLIENT REQUIREMENTS:... 7 BILLQUICK WEB I TIME AND EXPENSE MODULE... 8 COMPONENTS... 8 Server component files:... 8 Client component files:... 8 INSTALLATION... 9 Assigning Data file, Users and Licenses... 9 Assigning other program variables:... 10 SETTING THE WEB SITE... 12 Copying the Client Files... 12 Setting read/write access to your data file... 12 Verifying RDS settings... 12 SETTING THE REMOTE USER MACHINE... 13 CONTACTING SUPPORT... 15 2

Introduction to BillQuick If you are already a BillQuick user, you can skip this section. However, if you are not a BillQuick user, we recommend that you read this section and also install BillQuick prior to installing BillQuick Web i module for your business. BillQuick is a full-featured Time Billing software designed specifically to accommodate the complex billing and management needs of today s consultants. BillQuick is a featurerich and flexible time billing software, capable of handling your time recording, billing and many other company management needs. BillQuick is one of the most powerful timecard and project management tools on the market. It is designed with a complete open architecture that makes add-ons and custom modules possible to greatly enhance and customize BillQuick s features to the unique needs of your office. Implementing BillQuick in your office will result in reduced overhead, more accurate time tracking, and increased revenue. Architects, Engineers, Computer consultants, Attorneys, System Integrators, Management consultants, Programmers, Designers, Accountants, Contractors, Marketing consultants and Financial consultants require billing based upon criteria such as fixed fee, time and expense, hourly billing, hourly billing with a "not to exceed" amount and contractual billing based upon percentage and/or progress payments of a fixed fee. BillQuick meets these requirements! It also accommodates project phasing and billing against retainers. With it you will track time and expenses and create in-depth analysis reports to track project and office profitability. BillQuick makes time billing as simple as possible. It fills the requirements from a one-person office to a large network based organization - all at a fraction of the cost of what is currently available. BillQuick will allow users to enter time in as little as two keystrokes. The program will review the client data and bill intelligently at the appropriate time. The Time Card module gives employees full access to enter their time directly into the system, while limiting their access to confidential information. Fee Schedules within BillQuick allow variable billing rates to be assigned to any combination of employee, activity and project. All invoices, statements and reports are completely customizable with Seagate's Crystal Reports 7.0. Invoices and Statements can be specified for individual projects, enabling you to meet the demands of any client. You do not need to change the way you run your business. BillQuick will adjust to fit your business the way you run it! Key features of BillQuick: Windows 95, 98, 2000 & NT Compatible Network compatible with multiple users. Allows off-site time entry and data merging Dozens of standard reports available at the click of your mouse. Customizable reports, invoices and statements. (Crystal Reports 7.0 available) Excellent Project Management Reports. 3

Microsoft Access compatible database. Excellent Technical Support, 90 days Free Unlimited Projects Unlimited Employees Users Level Access control for Network Security. User defined query system for easy answers. Intelligent Billing automates the invoicing process. Create budgets and then link budgets to confirmed projects. Intelligent agent turns time entry red, if the project goes over budget. Exchange data with popular databases and spread sheet. Capable of sending invoices via Email. Timer functions allows you to track time automatically Can export data to virtually every known software 4

Introduction to BillQuick Web i Many professional consultants spend most of their time out of their office. Some work at home and quite often submit their Time and Expense records by mail or fax. With the introduction of email, many consultants nowadays send their Time and Expense records via email or via software such as our etools for BillQuick. This definitely helps in reducing the time it takes you to submit your time and expense records. However, at the receiving end, the records must be imported or manually entered into your time billing software. To make this process quick and easy, the BillQuick Web i allows you to log your time, expense, project and client data via the Internet Explorer browser by simply connecting to your server via the web. BillQuick Web i is a three-tier application: The BillQuick Web i Server is the web server component of the application and will run on your web server. The BillQuick Web i Setup application is a stand-alone application that will also run on your server. This component is responsible for telling the server component where the data file is and which users have access to the data via the web. The BillQuick Web i remote application allows remote users to use an intelligent ActiveX utility that gives them access to log their time and expense directly to their BillQuick data file. The remote component runs on the remote user s machine and is available to them via a web page. BillQuick Web i has been designed to be safe and secure. It is possible to run this application on servers behind firewalls and as well in an Intranet environment. 5

Technology Involved The BillQuick Web i application for BillQuick uses the Microsoft ActiveX and Microsoft Data Access Component (MDAC) technology. The BillQuick Web i ActiveX control is displayed in the user s browser. Behind the scene it uses the MDAC technology. ADO, RDS and ODBC are the three layers that coordinate with each other to present and manipulate the data to the remote user via the HTTP protocol. While the technology used is the latest and most sophisticated, the interface is almost exactly the same as the one used in BillQuick. This eliminates the need to for any additional training. Since BillQuick Web i communicates with the server via secured data packets, it is not necessary to run the server component on a secured SSL server. The server assigns a unique ID to each client component and uses that unique ID to authenticate the data packets. The best part of BillQuick Web i is that it does NOT run as a service on your server. It simply uses the built-in MDAC and RDS services to allow the remote user to communicate with your data file. The intelligent design saves memory and processor time. Web i Products BillQuick Web i products currently available: Web i Time and Expense module Web i Project module Web i Client module 6

System Requirements Server requirements: 300 Mhz or faster Processor (600 Mhz recommended) 32 MB RAM or more (128 MB recommended) Microsoft Windows 2000 or NT 4 (with the latest service pack installed) Internet Information Server 4.0 (or better) and a Web site with static routable IP address for access through Internet, or a non-routable address for access via Intranet. At least 30 MB of free disk space Client requirements: 200 Mhz or faster Processor (400 Mhz recommended) 32 MB RAM or more (64 MB recommended) 32-bit operating system such as Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP or NT4 (with the latest service pack installed) Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.1(or better) Minimum connection speed of 28.8 Kbps. At least 2 MB of free disk space. 7

BillQuick Web i Time and Expense Module Components This application has two main components. Both the components are installed by the setup application on your Windows NT 4.0 Server. Server component files: The BQWebiServer.exe application and system files. Using this component, you can authorize which employees will use the web-based time and expense logging. In addition, you can setup the value of several variables (such as server IP address, Minimum Time Increment and First day of the week), which are then copied to the web client file and passed on to the remote users via a special web page. The files are typically located in C:\Program files\billquick2000\bqwebi. You will be able to run the Webi setup application by going to: START > PROGRAMS > BQWEBISERVER > BQWEBISERVER. Client component files: The Client component files are the files that will become a part of your web site. These files are updated and created to match your environment settings by the server component mentioned above. These files include an ActiveX control file (.cab file), the control license file (LPK file), the main hyper text file (BQWebi.html) and HTML based help files. These files are typically located in: C:\Program files\billquick2000\bqwebi\client_files folder You must copy this folder and its contents to your web site folder. Every time you make changes to these files via the Webi server component, you must copy the updated files to your web site. The file that remote user must point to is the BQWebi.html file. This is the most important file since it contains the valuable information that gets passed on to the remote user with the file whenever the file is accessed via the HTTP protocol. You can rename this file if you desire to do so. However, you must remember to do so every time the server component generates a new BQWebi.html file. 8

Installation Important: You must be logged as an administrator on the NT Server to setup BillQuick Server component of the program. Run the installation file BQWebiSetup.exe and follow the on screen instructions to install the software on the server. After installation, run the BQWebiServer.exe application by navigating to its icon via the Start menu. Assigning Data file, Users and Licenses. Once in the program, select the BillQuick data file and click on Verify button. This creates a System DSN (BQWEBi) on the server and assigns it to a BillQuick data file. After verification, a temporary 5-users license key will be displayed in the license field. This temporary license will allow you to run the application for 60 days beyond the date of installation. If you have purchased a license from your software vendor, enter it in the License key field. For License and Registration purchase information, please call 888-245-5669 or 310-530-0214 or visit www.bqe.com. Once you enter a valid license key, click on the Update button and the number of authorized users will be displayed. It is recommended that you keep your data file outside the public folder but on the same computer running the IIS 4.0 application. 9

Next, click on the Users and Settings tab. The complete employee list from your BillQuick data file is displayed. Select the employees that will be authorized users of the BillQuick Web i. Move them to the Web Interface Users list by clicking on the >> arrow buttons. Click the Update button when done. Verify the user count displayed at the top of the window is correct. The passwords and permissions of the user IDs are determined by the security assigned to the user in the BillQuick Security screen. Assigning other program variables: IP Address of the machine. This is the IP address assigned to the web site (routable address for Internet usage and a non routable for Intranet usage) that will host the client files for this application. Usually the IP address of the machine and web site is the same if only one IP address is assigned to the machine. This IP address is set using the IIS Management console application. If you are not sure what the IP address of your web site is, you can easily find out by pinging your domain name. To do so, at the command prompt type Ping www.mywebsite.com, where mywebsite is the domain name of your web site. If you assign a nonroutable IP address such as 10.0.0.1, please make sure that the Intranet users are using the same class and subnet as the one assigned to your Intranet server. Minimum time increment value. This is the smallest time increment that you want the time entries to be rounded to (i.e. 15 minute increment will be represented by 0.25 hours). For more information on minimum time increments, please see the BillQuick help file. First day of the week. This setting assigns a day of the week as the first day of your business week. Please see the BillQuick help file for more details. 10

Skip Time entry evaluation. If you would like to switch off the automatic time entry evaluation feature of the time card module, you can do so by checking this option. Please see the BillQuick help file for more details Post time entries automatically. This setting causes time entries to automatically be posted when entered and is inherited from your BillQuick data file security settings. Please see the BillQuick help file for more details. Note: The above settings will only affect the Web Interface modules and work independent to the settings assigned in the BillQuick application. After setting the above-mentioned variables, remember to click the Update button to save your changes. This will update the files inside the Client_Files folder that later become a part of your web site. 11

Setting the Web Site Copying the Client Files Copy the Webi Client_Files folder to your Web site folder. To do so, you must copy the Client_Files folder typically located at: C:\Program Files\BillQuick2000\BQWebi\Client_files to the desired location (typically C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\MyWebSite\Client_Files). Once the Client_Files folder has been copied to your web site folder, you can update the Webi Server application to point to this new location in the Location of Web Folder field. This will allow you to skip the copying step in the future. Setting read/write access to your data file You must give the default web server user full control to the folder where your BillQuick data file is located. To do so, browse to the folder and then right click on it. Go to security and assign Full security to IUSR_MachineName user, where MachineName will be the name of your server (i.e. a server named BQESERVER, the user you need to give full access to will be IUSR_BQESERVER). This is typically required only if you have NTFS partition on your hard drive. Verifying RDS settings The BillQuick Web i application uses the Microsoft Remote Data Service (RDS) to connect to your BillQuick data file. Please make sure that the Virtual folder for RDS is referenced properly. To ensure that RDS is properly set, please follow these steps: 1. Using the Microsoft IIS Management Console Manager, check if there is a virtual folder named MSADC in your web site folder. 2. If the virtual folder is not present, create the virtual folder named MSADC in your web site where Webi Client files are located. 3. Map this virtual directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Msadc. 4. Right-click on the MSADC virtual folder. Select Properties and go to the Virtual Directory Tab. Enable Read and Execute (including Script) permissions. 5. On the Virtual Directory tab, select Application Settings, and then click the Remove button to delete any name in the Name box and point the application starting point to the Default web site. This will enable the Create button. 6. Stop and Start your Web Site. 12

Setting the Remote User Machine For the BillQuick Web i application to work properly on the remote user s computer, it is important that their Internet Explorer browser be set properly to allow access to your web site using the Remote Data Service. *To skip the Internet security options mentioned below, identify your web site as a trusted site: Open your Internet Explorer browser and Click on menu Tools Internet Options Security TrustedSites Sites. Type in the address of web interface page and click on ADD button. Save the changes and refresh the web page. Open your Internet Explorer browser and modify the settings of Internet Security Options for Internet and/or Intranet. Click on menu Tools Internet Options Security Internet Custom Level and/or Tools Internet Options Security Local Intranet Custom Level In the security settings list, please ensure that your settings match the ones shown in the table below: Active X Control and plug ins: Download signed Active X Controls Run Active X Controls and Plug ins Initialize and script ActiveX Controls not marked as safe Script Active X Controls marked safe for scripting Enabled Enabled Prompt Enabled Miscellaneous: Access data sources across domains User data persistence Enabled Enabled Scripting: Active Scripting Enabled Other default settings need not be changed. Remember that the security settings for Local Internet (Intranet) should also match the above listed settings if you plan to use Webi in a Intranet environment. To make your settings effective, close your browser and open it again. To Access BillQuick Web i, start your Internet Explorer browser and type in the URL that points to the BQWebi.html on your Web Server. Typically: 13

http://www.yoursitename.com /Client_Files/BQWebi.html For your Intranet environment, something like: http://10.0.0.1/client_files/bqwebi.html For your Intranet environment, do NOT use server name. If you do so, BillQuick Web i will try to translate it to an appropriate IP address via the DNS server. Since nonroutable addresses do not typically have a DNS entry, it will result in an error message. When you access the BQWebi.html file for the first time, the Webi control will download to your machine and a login screen will be displayed. The download time depends upon your line speed. Normally it will requires 5-6 minutes for 28.8 Kbps connection speed. The control will not be downloaded in future sessions unless there is a newer version of the control on your web site. At the login screen, login with a valid user name and password. A successful login will display the BillQuick Web Interface time card/expense log. 14

Contacting Support For technical support, please visit the BQE Software web site at: http://www.bqe.com For technical articles, please review our on-line knowledge base for updates and tips on how to install and set up the BillQuick Web i. To contact technical support via email, send email to support@bqe.com 15