Default Preferences for New Users

A set of preferences can be applied by default to a user account that is added to the workgroup. Each user can modify his or her own preferences in the Preferences section. There are different preferences available depending on the user's license type (Static / Floating or Restricted).

To modify the default preferences for new users:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin
2. Click on the Admin icon
3. Click on the User Preferences link
4. Select the User License Type, then click on the Continue button
5. Set the preferences (each option is described in detail below)
6. Click Update to save your selections or click Update & Push to Selected User Groups to push some or all of the user preference settings to some or all user groups. The Push User Preferences section has more information about this operation.

Report Settings

• Maximum Records per Page
  This option restricts the maximum number of records to be displayed in the results of Home and Query reports. The default is 20 records per page. The maximum value for this setting is 100 records per page.

• First, Second, and Third Home Page Reports
  These options specify the saved queries or charts which will be displayed on the Home Page by default. In most cases, the saved query Assigned To Me [Users] is selected for the First Home Page Report by default, which will display all records assigned to the login user and the saved query Reported By Me [Users] is selected for the Second Home Page Report, which will display all records created by the login user. <No Report> is selected for the Third Home Page Report by default. If you do not want a report displayed for the First, Second or Third reports, select the option <No Report>. If this option is selected for all 3 Home Page reports, the following message will be displayed on the Home Page: "No Home Page Reports are configured. If you would like a report to appear here, click the Preferences link above, select one or more Home Page Reports, and click OK."

  When setting the preferences for Static / Floating users, all saved queries and charts for the [Users] group within your database will appear in the pulldowns for the Home Page reports. When setting the preferences for Restricted users, saved queries and charts for the [RestrictedUsers] group will be available. Saved charts cannot be selected for the Home Page reports for Restricted users. To modify saved queries, please see the section Using Saved Queries & Reports. To modify saved charts, please review the section Metrics section.

• Chart Width x Height
  Enter the width and height that should be used to display a saved chart on the Home Page. 700 x 300 is entered by default. This option is available for Static / Floating users only.

• Display Report User Groups in Home Page
  Checking the box for this option will display the user name in brackets after the report name for group saved reports in the pulldown for each Home Page report. For example, the "Assigned to Me" report will be displayed as "Assigned to Me [Users]" in the pulldown for each Home Page report when this option is enabled. For Restricted users or users that only belong to one or two groups, it is recommended that this option be disabled (unchecked).

Help Settings

• Display Field Help
  Check the box to display the Field Help. Depending on what is configured by your Tracker Administrator, the field help can appear as small text above the field, below the field, or as a yellow question mark next to the name of the fields on the Add, Task, and Edit pages. When the Field Help icon is displayed, you can move your cursor over this icon to get an explanation about the field.

Date Settings

The following settings govern the way date and time fields are displayed for users by default.

• Date Format
  Select a format for the Date from the pulldown menu. The format that you choose will be used to display fields that contain date information within Tracker.

• Time Format
  Select a format for the time from the pulldown menu. The format that you choose will be used to display all fields that contain time information within Tracker. Choosing 12 hour for the time format will display times followed by AM or PM to denote the appropriate 12 hour period, such as 02:05:38 PM. Choosing 24 hour as the time format will display times without the AM or PM designation, such as 14:05:38.

• Time Zone
  The time zone selected will be used for all data in the workgroup. The time zone you select for this option will also be used as the default for new users. To see a complete list of time zones available, please refer to the following section:
  Windows 2003 / 2000 Time Zones

• Adjust to Daylight Saving Time (DST)
  Checking the box here will enable the system to adjust the workgroup data to account for daylight saving time. If you selected a time zone for the workgroup where daylight saving time is observed, it is recommended that you enable this option.

• Exclude Time From Reports
  Check this box if you wish to have Tracker display date information in the reports on the History, Home and Query pages without the time information included. Enabling this preference will also exclude the time information from History, Home and Query reports when they are exported or printed. Enabling this preference does not change how report results are sorted when a date field is selected as one of the "Sort By" fields. When a date field is selected as one of the Sort By fields, the time information is still used for sorting the results even though the time information is not displayed in the report results.

• First Day of the Week
  Select the day of the week that you want to be displayed in the first column when using the calendar feature for date fields.

• Business Days
  Check the boxes to the left of the days of the week that should be considered business days by Tracker.

Export Settings

The following preferences are used when report data is exported from the Tracker Home, Query, and Metrics pages. Data is exported as a CSV (comma separated values) file. However, because there is no firm definition of a CSV standard, you may need to modify some export parameters to allow use of the exported data by other applications (spreadsheet, database, etc.). Tracker and your Tracker Administrator have set these values to defaults that should work in most environments. So in most cases, you should not need to change these settings. If you have an application that is not importing the data correctly, review the information below.

• Field Separator
  Choose one of the options to be used as the separator between the fields (values) of a report that is being exported. The available options are Comma, Semicolon, and Tab. If you are exporting English language (or Latin1) data in the United States, you should use Comma. If you are exporting English language (or Latin1) data in a country that uses a Comma in floating point numbers to separate the whole number from the fractional part (e.g. 45,125 for 45 and one eighth), you may need to set this to Semicolon. If workgroup has been configured to use the Unicode (UTF-8) character set for multi-language support, Tab will generally work best in most applications.

• Row Separator
  Choose one of the options to be used as the separator between the rows (lines) of a report that is being exported. The options are Carriage Return & Line Feed (Windows), Carriage Return (Mac OS), and Line Feed (Unix). Choose the appropriate option for the operating system that most of your users will are using on their desktop (the one running the web browser they are using). Users that are running a different operating system than the one selected in these preferences will need to change this option in their personal Preferences section which can be reached by clicking on the Preferences link in the Home Page.

• File Extension
  Choose one of the options to be used as the file extension when saving the file containing the exported data. The options are csv, txt, and No Extension. For English language (or Latin1) data, this should be set to csv. For Unicode (UTF-8, multi-language) data this should be set to txt. However, you can also choose No Extension if you wish to create a file without a file extension (without .csv or .txt at the end).

Note: When exporting data from a UTF-8 workgroup using the recommended settings listed above, misalignment of the data can occur when viewing the exported data in Excel if the file is not first saved to disk and then opened in one of the two ways listed below. Unfortunately, the default file open in Excel does not properly store multiple line text (as there may be in Tracker TextArea fields) in a single cell. Instead, it puts each line in its own cell which results in misalignment of the fields in the spreadsheet.

For UTF-8 data exported with Field Separator set to Tab, Row Separator set to Carriage Return & Line Feed, and File Extension set to txt, you can get Excel to properly place multiple line data in a single cell using one of the two operations below.

1. From Windows Explorer, select the file to be opened.
2. Right-click on the file and select Open With->Microsoft Excel.

1. From Excel, select File->Open.
2. Locate and select the file that you want from the list (the file you created when you exported the data from Tracker).
3. Hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard, and then click the Open button (if you do not hold down the SHIFT key, the file may not be processed correctly).

Query Page Pulldown Settings

• Enforce Dependencies
  This option determines whether the dependent relationships between pulldown fields configured in this workgroup will be enforced when using the Query operations. Checking the box for this option will enforce the dependencies. This option cannot be enabled if you have the option Include Obsolete Items enabled. This preference can only be set for Static / Floating users.
• Include Obsolete Items
  This option determines whether the any option menu items that have been marked as obsolete are available in pulldowns so that they can be selected as search criteria on the Query Page. Checking the box for this option will include obsolete option menu items in the pulldowns on the Query Page. This option cannot be enabled if you have the option Enforce Dependencies enabled. This preference can only be set for Static / Floating users.

Multi-Line Field Settings

• Display Window
  Select the maximum number of lines that should be displayed when viewing the text within a TextArea field. By default, this will be set to 5 lines. If the contents of a TextArea field extend beyond the number of lines set in this preference, the user will have the ability to scroll to see the complete contents of the field. If the user is using Internet Explorer or Firefox as the browser, the option to expand the window to see the complete contents by clicking on the "+" will be available. The "-" icon is available for collapsing the contents to the original field size.

• Fully Expand on View Page
  Checking the box for this option will automatically expand the window for all TextArea fields on the View Page so that all contents of the field will be visible without having to click on "+" icon. The window will be fully expanded irrespective of the setting for the Display Window option.

Discussion Settings (Enterprise Edition Only)

These preferences apply to the Discussion feature, which is only available in Tracker Enterprise Edition. These preferences are only available for Static / Floating users.

• New Post Notification
  This option determines when a user will be notified about discussions via email. Selecting No Email indicates that a user should not receive any email notification messages related to discussions. Selecting Receive Email for each New Post indicates that a user will receive one email message for each new post in a discussion to which he / she is subscribed. Selecting Receive Email for the first New Post to each Thread indicates that the user will receive one email for the first new post made to a discussion thread to which he / she is subscribed. Once the user browses to the message list of the thread, the next new post made to the thread will trigger another email to be sent to the user.

• Invitation Notification by Email
  This option determines whether a user should receive an email message when he / she has been invited to participate in a discussion initiated for a particular record. Selecting Yes indicates that the user should receive an email invitation for each new discussion.

• Message Display Window
  Enter the number of lines of text you wish to see when displaying a message within a discussion. If the contents of a Discussion message extend beyond the number of lines set in this preference, the user will have the ability to scroll to see the complete contents of the message. If the user is using Internet Explorer or Firefox as the browser, the option to expand the window to see the complete contents by clicking on the "+" will be available. The "-" icon is available for collapsing the contents to the original field size. The default setting is 5 lines of text.

The default user preferences can be applied to some or all user groups using the Update & Push to Selected User Groups operation that is available after updating the default user preferences. NOTE: You may wish to make a backup of your database prior to performing this operation as this operation cannot be undone.

To push the default preferences to selected user groups:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin
2. Click on the Admin icon
3. Click on the User Preferences link
4. Select the User License Type, then click on the Continue button
5. Set the preferences as desired
6. Click the Update & Push to Selected User Groups button
7. Select the user groups In the Standard / Restricted User Groups field that should have the default preferences applied (Standard or Restricted user groups will be displayed based on the user license type you selected after clicking on the User Preferences link). To select multiple user groups, hold down the Ctrl button on your keyboard while clicking on the desired user groups. Click All if you wish to select all user groups. Click None if you wish to de-select all user groups.
8. By default all user preferences will be checked (selected) to be applied to the selected user groups. If you only wish to apply certain user preferences, UNcheck the boxes for the preferences that should not be applied.
9. Click OK to apply the selected user preferences to the selected user groups