Kitchen Example - Introduction

Transcript

Thank you for taking the time to consider QuSheet as the tool you will use improve the way that you communicate with your clients.

In this series of presentations I shall be showing you how you can use QuSheet with the Kitchens project file, which you can find over here on the Examples page on the web site, in order to produce output looking like this. This output, as you can see, is in HTML, or browser format, which makes it perfect to send as an attachment to your customers, since any customer with a PC is guaranteed to have a browser that they can use to view this file.

In this particular presentation, I shall quickly run through the features of the output file itself and then show you how it was generated from the project file which has already been created for you. Later presentations will show you how to modify this project file by putting in your parts and price catalogue and how you configure QuSheet�s output and operation in various ways.

Just before we begin, though, let me briefly assure you of QuSheet�s flexibility by pointing out how the same tool which created this pricing quotation can also be used to make:

a conference schedule, particularly for small screens like mobile phones and PDAS,

a revenue report, such as this one here for a fictional haulage company,

or even a tenancy agreement like this one over here.

You are more than welcome, of course, to look at the other examples, but otherwise simple bear in mind as you watch these presentations that there is a lot more tailoring available should you wish to explore how the tool works in more detail.

Ok, returning to the Kitchen output here, I have tried to create something which I hope will satisfy most people�s needs. This document, as you can see, is separated into 5 regions � two greetings ones, two farewell ones and a middle area where all the calculated information is presented. The idea behind having two greeting and farewell areas is that the outside ones contain generic messages relating to your company and the inner ones contain specific messages ones relating to your customer.

In the middle, after the heading line, we have the four groups of sale items, and these can be expanded by clicking on the chevron over here.

Note how everything lines up, up and down the columns. This is a unique feature to the way that QuSheet constructs its output, which is basically by formatting the output as a whole rather than line by line. If you�re wondering why there is such a gap between the quantity and the unit price here, for example, it�s because further on down, under Flooring, there�s a quantity provided using a lengthy unit specifier (meters squared) forcing all the other columns to shift across.

Flooring and Delivery are part of a 5th group known as the Miscellaneous group. This group behaves slightly differently than the others in the sense that any items placed in this group are reported at the top level here rather than appearing under another group (i.e. a �Miscellaneous� one). These items also support different pricing units, like meters squared or, with delivery here, a fixed price for the whole item.

Following the miscellaneous entries you can see a Subtotal area, some tax and a final total. The tax rate is, of course, configurable.

You may wonder how this document looks on paper. Well, QuSheet generates a separate section within the output to accommodate this, as you can see if you do a Print Preview.

Let me now navigate over to QuSheet itself and show you how this file was generated.

QuSheet is a Windows program with a number of matrices and forms all packaged up in tabs and sub-tabs. Although this looks complicated, most of the complexity is down to how QuSheet�s project file is produced � and I�ve basically done that for you with this example. Later presentations will get into some of the details that let you tailor QuSheet, but for now all I want to show you is the final stage � the bit where you basically make your final selections for the document you want to send to your customer. That bit can be found under the Sheet tab at the top, and the �plus table values� underneath, here in the 14 entries in this matrix of values.

You notice I used the work MATRIX rather than TABLE to describe this very table looking thing here. The reason I do that is because QuSheet uses tables to mean something else and I don�t want to overuse the word. This matrix, in fact, specifies additional values for QuSheet�s tables, where the name table appears in this first column on the left. I have defined a number of tables for this project some of which you will want to make additions to and some not. In order to make life easier for you, Ihave deliberately named the ones you will want to change with an underscore in front, which makes them appear at the top of this drop-down list.

Make sure, incidentally, that you have Quote rather than Quote (forced small screen) selected up here. I�ve created a forced small screen sheet here just to be consistent with all the other examples on my web site but you can ignore it, or even delete it, if you�re not interested in PDA or mobile phone devices.

Ok, so here you can see the first two lines containing values for the inner farewell and greeting lines, followed by lots of settings of quantity, a couple for price and one here for unit. This matrix you will see has a large column for the value of the table itself and then a number of columns providing further information about that value � generally speaking, the actual item that the customer is getting some quantity of. These columns are actually called FIELDS, and I will be talking more about them in later presentations.

Anyway, in this example I have put in some dummy cataloguing data for worktops, accessories and appliances, which is why these areas are not coloured grey. It also means that I can select an item by right-clicking on the cell I want to change, selecting LIST and then navigating through the various sub-menus presented. Like this here ..... and this ..... It also means that I do not have to specify a price � that�s already within my project file somewhere (and I�ll show you where in the next presentation).

I�ve deliberately left the Cabinet area empty (as you can see if I right-click here � no LIST option appears) just for demonstration. Any of these groups will actually accept free-form text � QuSheet colour-codes just to show you it can�t find a match within your catalogue. For example I�ll put in a dishwasher in here now, which I haven�t defined in the catalogue, just to show you. First I control CLICK (i.e. left click with my mouse with the control key held down) on a down arrow to put in a copy of a line and I�ll change that to dishwasher. Then I�ll copy that line, in the same way, with control click, and change my table to _price and the value to some suitable price.

Incidentally, specifying a price for something here will over-ride whatever price is in the catalogue.

Ok � so that�s the main categories. Further down here we have the Miscellaneous area, where you can put anything you want to appear at the top-level of your output.

Items in the Miscellaneous area need two, possibly three things. They need a quantity, just like the other categories, and they need a unit, which should be either "m", "m2", "fixed" or "unit" (which is the default if you don�t provide one), all in lower case. If your unit is fixed, which is automatically the case for Delivery here, then you need nothing else, the quantity is effectively the fixed price, otherwise you also have to specify a price.

Well, when you have done all that, you can navigate up here and hit the Generate button, and QuSheet will chug away through your data and your catalogue and this template file and so on and produce, in the same directory that you stored your project file in, which is generally one called QuSheet under your MyDocuments area, an output file called kitchen (because that�s the name of the project file) DOT quote (because that�s the name of this sheet) DOT HTML. The VIEW button here then gives you a little shortcut way of invoking your browser to go and have a look at it.

If you�ve seen enough now to want to have a play with this yourself, navigate over to QuSheet�s main page (www.qusheet.com), go to Buy Now and follow the instructions there with an Evaluation Licence Key if you would like to evaluate this first. This will install a working version of QuSheet on your PC and create a directory called QuSheet in your Documents or MyDocuments area. Once you�ve done that, navigate over to the Examples area and save the source link underneath the Kitchen example. If you save that to the QuSheet directory you should then be able to open it from QuSheet and do a bit of generating.

The next presentation will explain how you import your parts and price catalogue.