Records - Setting Up

Record Locations

This area is accessed from File > Administration > Records. To ensure data remains accurate, you will need the Business Fitness Support Code when making changes in this area. For assistance with changes, please get in touch with Business Fitness support on 1300 333 424.

The Record Location Editor in HowNow allows you to specify the standard file locations where HowNow stores records. There are already various record locations specified, and these can be modified.

HowNow allows you to specify record locations as archives. New records cannot be stored in archived locations, but you can still search within archives. For more details, please refer to the Archiving section.

To display this dialog select File > Administration > Records > Record Locations

• By default, the first level items in the tree view (such as Contacts and Team) are sub-folders that HowNow creates at the end of the path you specified in the Database Settings field called "Network Path to the Record documents on the Server". For example, if the path specified for Record locations is X:\DATA\Records\, then the Contacts folder will be located at X:\DATA\Records\Contacts\ and the Team folder will be at X:\DATA\Records\Team\. However, HowNow allows you to override this default and specify your own folder names.

For example, to save records to X:\DATA\Client Documents\Documents, first set the "Network Path to the Record documents on the Server" field to X:\DATA\. Then edit the Contacts item and enter "Client Documents\Documents\" as the Folder Name. This will cause HowNow to save Contact records to X:\DATA\Client Documents\Documents\ and the Team records to X:\DATA\Team\.

• Together with your organisation’s HowNow Leader and your Business Fitness Implementation Team, decide on your organisation’s folder structure for your records. For an accounting firm, for example, a common way of structuring Record folders in the Contacts area is: (1) Contact > Year > (e.g. SMITH0001 > 2019). In addition, a folder called "Permanent" is often used for each contact’s permanent files.

Note: The "Contact ID" folder can be any database field but it usually is the ClientCode (recommended as this rarely changes) or EntityName. This is specified in the External Database Connection Setup Wizard.

• To define a new Record location, click on the appropriate item in the tree view (e.g. Contacts), click on either Same Level or Sub-level, and then click New. The Record Location Details dialog will appear.
• To edit an item, select it, and then click Edit. The Record Location Details dialog will appear. Note that if an item’s description or its path is changed, HowNow will rename the folder location.
• Location Hints - Hints can be added to a Record Location. For example - "Projects" - Could have a hint of "External projects only, Internal projects to be stored under 'Administration'."
• The Default Profile Location is the location most used when this area is selected when filing Records. Typically it would be the current year that the firm is working on with client work.
• The Default Client Portal Location is applicable if you have the Connected Portal - this is the year that items will be added in the portal from HowNow.
• Visibility - allows a team to be set for having access to this location
• You can also drag and drop items in the tree view. When an item is being dragged over an existing item, the cursor changes to a vertical arrow to indicate that the item will be moved to the Same Level or a horizontal arrow to indicate that the item will be moved to a Sub-level compared to the location where you are dropping the item. When dragging move a little to the left to see the angled arrow which depicts up or down.
• To delete an item, select it, and then click Delete. HowNow will only allow deletion if there are no records stored at that location (including records existing in the Recycle Bin).
• To combine locations, click the Combine Locations checkbox (combining record locations can cause issues if not done with care and it requires guidance from the Business Fitness Support team who, after discussion with you, will issue a support code to enable locations to be combined). Drag an item and drop it on to the location you wish to combine it with and any records at the original location will be moved to the new location. The original location can then be deleted.
• Click OK to save the changes when complete.

Record Status

This area is accessed from File > Administration > Records. By default, records are labelled as Draft, Review, Approved or Final depending on their status. These status descriptions can be changed (with a few provisos), deleted or new ones created.

The last status description (Final) can be changed but it cannot be deleted or moved from the last position. The Final status (and those flagged as Final) have a special meaning in HowNow. Final records are not editable.

New Button and Edit Button: Displays the Record Status Details dialog and allows new status descriptions to be created or existing ones to be edited.

• Description: Enter a unique description for the status.
• Status Type: Specifies the type of status. The options are:
  • Standard: Any status other than the next two types.
  • Review: Identifies this entry as a review status. This allows HowNow to trigger an alert if a status is changed to Review.
  • Final: Identifies this entry as a 'Final' type status. This makes statuses other than those described as Final behave in exactly the same way as the 'Final' status and effectively allows more than one Final status. 
• Status Colour: Select the colour used to display the record status in the search results.
• Default File Extensions: This is a list of file extensions to automatically select the default status of a record. You can add or remove the file extensions that are attached to this status.
• Status Options
  • Read Only Status: This makes the record Read-Only and the status is shown in grey on the search results screen
  • Default Mail In Status: This is the default status that is used when importing documents. 
• Portal Options
  
  • Ready for Upload Status: The is the status that will signify that files are ready to be exported to the HowNow Portal.
  • Uploaded Status: This is the status that will be applied to documents that have been exported to the HowNow Portal.
  • New Client File Status: This is the status that will be applied to files coming into HowNow that a client has uploaded to the portal or files that have been signed in the portal.

Delete Button: Delete the selected status if it is not currently in use.

The Order of Status Descriptions can be changed by using drag and drop. Note: The position of Final cannot be changed.

Standard Record Titles

This feature allows a list of standard record titles to be created by the firm and stored in the HowNow database. These titles can then be selected from a drop-down list when creating new records. 

Various fields and functions can be embedded in standard titles to automatically customise them. For example, inserting [YYYY] in a title will result in the current year being embedded when the record is created. This means that a new title doesn't have to be created each year. See below for a full list of fields that can be embedded in any record title. Note: this feature is also available when entering titles manually.

To create a new standard title or edit an existing one, go to File > Administration > Records > Standard Record Titles.

The Standard Record Titles Select dialog appears.

Click the New button to add a new standard title or select an existing title and click Edit or Delete to edit or remove the title.

Embedded Functions and Fields

If HowNow encounters text enclosed in square brackets in a title, it replaces the text with its translated value. For example, [YYYY] is translated into the current year. Note: if the text between the square brackets cannot be translated, HowNow removes the text and the square brackets. 

This is the full list of possible functions and fields:

• [RECORDID] - the record ID number.
• [YYYY] - the current year.
• [FY] - the current financial year in the form YYYY-YYYY. For example, 2019-2020.
• [LFY] - the previous financial year in the form YYYY-YYYY. For example, 2018-2019.
• [MM] - the current month.
• [DD] - the current day.
• [DD-MMM-YYYY] - today's date in the form Day-Month Name-Year.
• [DD-MM-YYYY] - today's date.
• Note: the use of the slash character is not allowed as it is illegal in a title of a record.
• Note: any date variation is possible. For example, [YYYYMMDD] would embed the date in reverse order.
• [CONTACT FIELD NAMES] - any field from the contact details. For example, [ENTITYNAME] inserts the contact's entity name. See HowNow Bookmarks for details of contact field names.
• [EMAILTYPE] - adds either "to" or "from" depending on whether the email being added was sent or received.
• [EMAILSUBJECT] - adds the subject from the email to the title of the new record.
• [EMAILCONTACT] - HowNow attempts to extract the contact from the Email, if it cannot extract the Contact Name HowNow will use the email address.

Check Default Email Title if this standard record title is to be the default used for filing emails.

When saving an email using the email manager you will see the Default Email Title take effect on the second profiling window, after the contact details are filled out in the first profiling window.

For assistance with changes in this area, please get in touch with Business Fitness support