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Show Me How Ziata! Works

Ziata! uses the new OOD concept for data entry, that is, traditional records of data information are now broken down into data "objects" and are much more easily reused without duplicating information. Following are some examples of entries that will help you understand how Ziata! works, and why it's so powerful. We suggest that you use it like a tutorial.

Using Data Objects

1. At the Main Ziata! screen, choose QuickEntry.

2. Enter the following information into QuickEntry:

When the cursor enters the phone number field, you will see the combo drop-down box automatically enter "Relate to Location" for you. This is because the telephone number could related to the person, the company or the location. Ziata! will default to location, if a location is entered. See OOD for more information. The blank field for the telephone number is for a telephone extension, if applicable. You will also note that the e-mail address defaults to relate to the person, and the website will default to the company, if a company is entered. If there are more than two telephones, you can click the scroll bar on the right of the screen next to the telephone numbers for more available entry spaces.

Click Apply.

3. You will be prompted to add "Staff Accountant" to your Titles database. In other words, if you want "Staff Accountant" to available as a title in the combo drop-down box in the future when entering titles, select "yes"; alternatively, if the title is rather unique, such that you don't want it to be available in the future, select "no."

4. Following you will see the Quick Publications screen:

 

Ziata! has the ability to perform mass electronic mailings. Since, in Ziata!, you will be acquiring many e-mail addresses, Ziata! traps e-mail addresses to give Users the opportunity to add e-mail addresses to publication lists at the point of e-mail entry. Except for the "Sample Newsletter" publication shown above, all of the other publications are system publications used internally by certain Ziata! features. Of course, you can create an unlimited number of electronic publications. If you double click on "Sample Publications," you will be adding this person's e-mail address to the Sample Publications subscription list. You will be shown the properties box for the subscription object, but you can hit [ESC] to close the box (because you don't need to change the subscription address).

See Mass Mailings for information on Publications and the "Recent Entries" publication. In short, "Recent Entries" is an administrative publication that traps all e-mail addresses entered into the database by every User. The Administrator can clear or act upon this subscription list in a variety of ways.

The information is now entered in the databases.

5. View the new information from QuickFinder. Ziata! automatically broke-down the information into component data objects and connected them for you.

For more information on how to use QuickFinder, see QuickFinder in Help or the Manual. In short, there are two windows in QuickFinder: the top Search Window and the bottom Relations Window. The Relations Window shows all entity relationships to the entity in the Search Window. Double click in the Relations Window and the search switched to all relationships of the entity previously in the Relations Window. This allows extremely fast "drilling-down" around the entity data objects.

6. Now, enter John Doe's wife in QuickEntry, as follows:

 

Click Apply.

7. Since "Jane Doe" sounds a lot like "John Doe," Ziata! will prompt you to confirm that Jane Doe is, in fact, a different entity, not just "John Doe" spelled incorrectly.

Jane Doe is a new entry, not a misspelling, just hit the [Enter] key to use the new entity entry.

8. When prompted by Quick Publications, just click "Ok" or hit the [Escape] key.

9. View Jane Doe's entry in QuickFinder as follows:

You will note that Jane Doe does not yet have any relationships.

10. Now, click once on Jane Doe to select her. Hit [Ctrl-D] for the Dialup window, which shows all telecommunication addresses for Jane Doe. Then do the same for John Doe, that is, click once on his name to select him and hit [Ctrl-D] for his Dialup window. You can move the windows by clicking and holding the title bar and dragging to a new location. You will note that John Doe does not have any address information yet (because, when he was entered, the address information was for the company). Below is a sample of what you should see:

 

 

11. Now that both Dialup windows are showing, click once on the location information for Jane Doe in her Dialup and drag and drop it onto John Doe. You will be prompted to confirm that you want to relate 1234 Jane Doe Drive to John Doe. Since he lives there, too, confirm. You will then be shown a properties box for the name of the relationship between John Doe and the location. You can hit the "Ok" button because the default information is accurate; that is, John Doe lives at that address. You will note that John Doe will "inherit" all telephone numbers already related to that location.

John Doe's Dialup now looks like this:

 

12. Now, whenever you lookup either Jane Doe or John Doe, they are both individually related to the location. If you update the location, or you add telecommunication addresses (e.g. telephone numbers) to the address, Jane and John will automatically inherit those numbers. It's always live and dynamic. So as Users need to update address information because of working with Jane's information, John's address information is updated at the same time, automatically and with no duplication of effort!

13. In Dialup, you can right-click over the location. There are two "properties" menu items: one for properties of the address itself, and one for the properties for the relation. Properties for the address allow you to edit the address; properties for the relation allows you to edit the relationship between the entity and the address. If you select "Properties" (for the entity), click on the "Relations" tab, then on the "Entities" subtab, you will see all entities related to that particular address. You can also right-click to modify the data as appropriate.

 

14. Even though John and Jane are both related to the location, John and Jane are not related to each other. To relate them, there are many menu items available to do so. You can also easily relate them by dragging and dropping one name onto the other. Specifically, you could have two QuickFinders showing. Using the Dialup windows, click on the name "Jane Doe" in her Dialup window, hold, drag and drop onto John's name in his Dialup window. You will be asked to confirm the relationship. After confirmation, you will be given the opportunity to define the relationship between the two parties. Remember that there are two relationships for each general relation. See below:

If the names of the relationships (the "titles") are not already in the relations databases, you will be asked whether you want Ziata! to remember the names and the relationships.

15. After entering the information, you will see the relation in QuickFinder, as follows:

Now, double-click on John and you will easily see all of his relations, as shown below:

After relating John to Jane, now John's entry shows both relations. This is the power of Ziata! As your database builds, the ability to move through the web of relations, from one entity to another, is superb! Right-click over a name to see what you can do with the data object. Double-click on Doe Company to see its relations. This is how you can quickly get from Jane Doe to Doe Company, or from Doe Company to Jane Doe with a few clicks.

 

 

This is your first lesson in Ziata! Enjoy.


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