I know that anyone who runs into a problem with Simon will be chomping at the bit to get the problem resolved. On occasion, it is beneficial for us to have your data so that we can see the issue first hand. Almost always, this does get the issue resolved within a few minutes of reviewing your data. Three things might occur once we find the problem:
1) We will email you with instructions on what to do to get the problem resolved;
2) We might find a problem with the program and will create a new revision and will instruct you to go to the web site to upgrade to the latest revision which will fix the problem; or
3) We might have to fix the problem with your data and return your data which you can extract from the zip file and then import back into your Simon program.
I will give instructions below on how to get your data to us, and how to handle the three possible scenarios on how to fix the issue as listed above.
Do you have WinZip on your Computer?
None of the instructions below will mean a thing if you do not have WinZip on the computer where Simon is located. You can check to see if WinZip is on your computer by opening the Windows Explore window (right click on your 'My Computer' icon on your desktop, choose 'Explore' from the shortcut menu that appears when you right click on the 'My Computer' icon. When the Windows Explore window appears navigate to where you can select any file that you see in the right window pane. Once you have a file selected, click on File on the menu. Do you see a WinZip item on the menu that appears? If not, WinZip is not on your computer. If it is, then you can skip down to 'How to Backup Your Data' below.
If WinZip is not on the computer where Simon is located, you will have to install Winzip. You can find WinZip on there web site at http://www.winzip.com. By the way, WinZip is available as a free trial version. You may have to look around for it. Personally, I would invest the few bucks for this program as it does come in very handy when you want to move large files and need to compress them down to a reasonable size. I was going to put a picture of their web site here, but I decided not to. A link to the site should suffice.
Once you have the WinZip program installed, you can test, as I showed you above, to see if it is installed.
Upgrade to the Latest Revision of Simon
Since we keep our machines at the latest revision of Simon, it is imperative that your machine be at the latest revision too. Otherwise, the data files that you send us may not be compatible with our Simon applications here. So, before you go any further, upgrade to the latest release of Simon. Instructions for doing this are available on the Simon Revisions page.
How to Backup Your Data
Simon has a wonderful backup and restore tool that will make a backup of text (TXT) files of all of your data. This data is consolidated down to what would be considered a very small set of files that can easily be sent as an email attachment to us when you have a problem with Simon.
Open Simon, click on Tools on the menu. A drop-down menu will appear. Choose Export/Import/Backup/Restore from this drop-down menu. The Simon Export/Import/Backup/Restore tool will appear in the Simon window as illustrated below. Everyone should be familiar with this tool and, if you are not, then you should get familiar with it. Why? If you are not backing up your data using this tool regularly, you are taking chances with all of your Simon data. What if your computer were to crash? Anyway, this is the backup and restore tool.
As shown above, the Where? box shows that your backup will be placed in the [c:\simon\backup\] folder on your hard drive. This is a good location to place your backup data. The illustration also shows that your backup will be added to a folder within this folder so as not to overwrite past data. This is also preferable.
The operation you will be doing is an Export and the form will be set this way when the form is opened as a default choice. Leave it this way. Click on the [Select All] button to select all data. Then, click on the [D
This will create TXT files that will be located in the [c:\simon\backup\] folder inside of a special folder. To illustrate how this works, I did a backup just now on December 31, 2008 at about 10:00 am. Inside of the backup folder there is a folder entitled:
12312008_0957
This is simply the date, followed by an underscore (_) symbol, with the time (military time) following, which is 9:57 am. The TXT backup data files are located within the [12312008_0957] folder.
To get to the window as shown above, you should right click on the [My Computer] icon shown on your computer desktop. A shortcut menu (one that appears next to the icon you just right clicked upon) will appear, you should click on the [Explore] option. The Windows Explore window will appear. In the left pane of the window click on the [+] next to the Local Disk (c:) title. This will drop down the list of folders that are located on the 'C:' local disk. Scroll down the list of folders until you see the [Simon] folder. Click on the [+] next to the [Simon] folder. This will drop down a list of the folders that are located in the [Simon] folder. Click on the [+] sign next to the [backup] folder. This will display a list of the folders within the [backup] folder. Find the most current backup folder. Click on the actual folder icon as there will not be a [+] sign next to this one since there are no internal folders within the backup date folders.
The illustration above shows the contents of the [12312008_0957] folder. Your display of the files within this folder will appear as large icons. You can change this by clicking on the [View] item on the menu and then choosing [Details].
To select all of these files so that you can zip them down using WinZip, you can choose [Edit] from the menu and choosing [Select All] from the drop-down menu. Or, what I prefer is to simple click on CTRL+A on the keyboard. All of the files should inverse to dark blue with white lettering. This means that all of the files are selected and can now, as a group, be zipped down using WinZip as illustrated below.
Choose the WinZip option and click on the [Add to Zip file...] option. Please note that when a menu item is followed by ellipses [...], this means that a form (what the experts call a dialog box) will appear where choices will have to be made. There is also another option in WinZip to create the ZIP file and then drop it into a blank email. This might be a better option. I have never used this option, but it sounds made to order for this process. If you look at the illustration above, you will see two email options. The second one, 'Zip and E-mail Plus...', will open a dialog box where you can name the file and then do the ZIP process. It should then add the file to a blank email. All you will need to do is add 'gary@bnl.com' to send the email to, and write an explanation of what you want us to do with your data, or what the issue is.
A window like the one illustrated will appear on your screen. Of course, WinZip is not our program so I can not guarantee that this window will always be exactly like the one shown here, and I am not going to visit the WinZip ( http://www.winzip.com) web site to make sure I keep abreast of changes made to the program. So, it should look somewhat like what I show here. What you will need to do is set your cursor to the position at the end of the line in the [Add to archive:] area. You need to give this backup file a name and it should be your store name in some fashion so we know who is sending this data to us. Once you have named this archive file, click on the Add button to create the file. Close the WinZip window, go back to your Windows Explore window where you should see the ZIP file you just created.
Now, if everything has been successful to this point, you will need to email this ZIP file to us so we can take a look at your data.
Emailing Your Data to Us
If we have been discussing your issue by email already, you can do a response email with this file as an attachment. If we have not been discussing your issue by email as of yet, you will have to create a new email which should be sent to gary@bnl.com. You should set the subject line as something like 'Simon Data' so I will know that there is a file attached that needs to be reviewed.
I will illustrate this by creating a new file.
Once you have opened the email program that you use, you should create an email, or a response to one that I sent you, write up the issue in a way that I will easily be able to find where you are having the issue. Once you have done this, go to the menu at the top of the email program window and look for something like 'attach a file' or 'send file'. Once you find the right option, you should get a dialog box where you can navigate to the file that you want to send as an attachment. Choose the file and then attach this file to the email. As shown in the illustration above, the email should show in the red area the file that you will be sending as an attachment. By the way, I added the red to show you where to look for the attached file language.
Once you have sent the data, you should not use Simon until I get back with you with a response. The reason for this is if I have to return your data back to you, you will need to import this data back into Simon. This will replace any work in Simon you might have done since you sent your data to me. I will get back to you quickly with a response if I know that your data is coming. So, it might be a good idea to let me know that your data is coming and that I acknowledge to you that I am ready for it.
How I might Respond to Your Data
As shown above, the easiest thing for me, and probably for you too, is if the problem can be resolved by my instructing you how to go into your existing Simon application to cure the issue. I will try to handle the problem in this manner unless the problem's solution would be hard to explain, or possibly impossible to fix at your end.
The next scenario would be if the problem is with the actual program and needs to be handled with a revision to the program. In this case, I will create a new revision for Simon and make it available for everyone in the Simon Revisions area. If I need to do this, go get the revision and upgrade your Simon program. Also, it is important that you write me back to let me know if this new revision resolves your issue.
The last, and most complicated scenario, would be that I have to repack your data after fixing the problem into a ZIP file and return the file back to you. Now, this is not that complicated, but it is a bit more complicated than simply fixing the issue as instructed by me, or doing a revision.
If I have to resort to this option, you will receive an email from me with an attachment. Now that you have WinZip, it is an easy matter to unzip/unpack this file, put it into a new folder (do not replace your last backup with the contents of this file, just in case). Once you have extracted the contents of this ZIP file, you should go into Simon, open the backup tool that we discussed earlier.
You will want to click on the 'Browse for Folder' button and use the tool that appears to navigate to the folder where you placed the extracted data. Once you have the [Where?] box set to the path where you extracted the data I sent you back, you should set the [Operation] buttons the 'Import (bring data from text files)', click on the Select All button, click on the [Do It] button to import the data. Now, you will get a warning message that the data that presently exists within Simon will be deleted and replaced by the data you are bringing back in, so do be careful that you have done everything correctly and that you understand what you have done. So go ahead and do it.
Your problem should be resolved and you should let me know that all is well. Otherwise, I will assume that it is.
Hope this helps!