Customer Testimonial
"With Qualtrax’s help, we had zero findings in our last major audit!"
Sandy Simpson
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions
Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 7/3/2007 @ 1:15 PM
in New Features |
0 comments
Just a quick photo to share. Qualtrax 4.0 on an iPhone!
Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 4/11/2007 @ 2:07 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
Did you know that you could do wildcard searches in Qualtrax? The trick is to us a % instead of a *.
Wildcard searches allow you to find items that match letters, words or phrases that are not necessarily next to each other. For all Qualtrax text searches (except the Document Content search), using a % sign tells the search not to care what is between two items. For example, if I went to Search->Documents, checked Title, typed in "quality%policy" and hit Search, Qualtrax could return the following documents:
Quality Policy Statement
Quality Control Policy
Quality Assurance and Inspection Policy
This technique works for documents, multimedia objects and workflows.
Happy Searching!
Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 3/1/2007 @ 5:15 PM
in Uncategorized |
0 comments
Each year as daylight savings approaches, it is not uncommon for local fire departments to remind people to check the batteries in their smoke detectors. This year, I suggest an additional check to coincide with the time change:
Check to make sure your Qualtrax database and documents are getting backed up regularly.
Just like a smoke detector, one hopes that the backup's services will not be necessary. However in the event either item is needed, they are really needed! So go ahead and take a few moments, check with your IT department, and make sure your data is protected.
P.S. Speaking of Daylight Savings Time, we have been getting some queries about how the DST change will effect Qualtrax. As long as your Qualtrax Server is patched with the Microsoft DST update, you will be fine. No additional update to Qualtrax is
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 1/24/2007 @ 7:50 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
So you've mastered the concepts of subforms and you've complimented a couple of your online workflows with a few of those grid fields.
 A sample subformNow that those forms are live and users are diligently entering data, you may wonder, "How do I search and report on that data?"
You go to the Search screen for your workflow or even the Custom Reporting Screen and you notice your subforms aren't listed.
 The fields from the subform, Material, Material Type and Specifications are not listed.
But, that doesn't mean the information you are seeking is not available! To the contrary, all you have to do is some quick
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Posted by Derek Pinkerton
on 12/12/2006 @ 11:51 AM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
You may find at some point you need to print an entire group of documents together. This can be somewhat tedious with a large number of documents. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could open and print one document and have it automatically print all documents associated with that one document? Well now you can do this relatively easily by utilizing some of Word's built in features.
Here's what you will need to do:
The main document will need to be a Microsoft Word document. Other documents can be in other
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Excel Auto Open macro
Posted by Derek Pinkerton
on 12/4/2006 @ 5:08 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
When Qualtrax enters the ## variables into Excel documents (see
QualTrax document properties in EXCEL documents!) the information is stored "behind the scenes" in what are called Document Properties. It has come to my attention that Excel behaves similarly to Word when it comes to these document properties. Both Word and Excel do not automatically refresh the fields/cells within the document/spreadsheet with the new data when the document is opened. We have had an "AutoOpen" macro for Word documents that will automatically run whenever you open the document and update these fields accordingly. Since Excel behaves similarly you will need to add the following macro into your Excel documents to ensure the information displayed is up to date.
Be alerted when your report is ready!
Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 12/4/2006 @ 1:25 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
As you may know, when you run a report in Qualtrax, you can keep track of its progress in your Inbox by watching the Reports in Progress and the Completed Reports sections. You can further enhance your awareness of the report by taking advantage of the built-in Qualtrax Email Actions. In other words, you can configure Qualtrax to send out an email notification when the report is done and ready for viewing. Instructions are below:
- Log into Qualtrax as an Administrator
- Go to Admin->Emails
- Go to Actions
- In the dropdown at the bottom of the list, select Reports and click on Add Email Action.
- Suggested values are below:
Action: Complete
Recipients: Requestor
Subject: ##TASK_TYPE## Report Completed
Body:
Your report is now complete. A link to the
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 11/21/2006 @ 5:56 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
There is a Counting Crows song, "Round Here" which includes the lyrics:
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 11/16/2006 @ 5:15 PM
in New Features |
0 comments
Just like Email Actions, Email Reminders have been modified for the 4.0 version. The enhancements include the introduction of a Proactive Reminder, the ability to define your late thresholds based on a Custom Date Field and the ability to send a separate email for each task.
Proactive Reminder
In QualTrax 3.8 and below, you could set up two reminder types:
- Late - where the user is reminded that the task is past due.
- Expedited (a.k.a. Really Late) - where the user and his/her manager(s) are alerted.
Qualtrax 4.0 introduces a third type of reminder, the Proactive Reminder. The Proactive Reminder will distribute before the item is past due. In essence, it is telling the user, "Hey, this item is due in the coming week, don't forget about it." Since the other two reminders trigger
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Posted by Mark Duncan
on 11/15/2006 @ 4:46 PM
in New Features |
0 comments
One of the things I hated most about school were the days that I had to take a test. I never seemed to be ready for them and spent a good amount of time second guessing answers that I knew were correct. I guess it is just normal to be overly cautious when your entire future is riding on whether or not you pass your Second Grade Spelling test (at least my mother made it seem that way).
As most of you are aware, QualTrax allows you to define a Test that is associated with a Document and this is a great way to see if your employees are reading the material and most importantly are understanding it. But there are some limitiations to what you can do with Testing in QualTrax and we want to expand the possibilities for Testing as a true learning tool.
In 4.0, QualTrax will allow you to develop a Test without it having to be associated with a Document. This gives you the ability to expand what you test your employees on and
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 9/27/2006 @ 8:35 PM
in Qualtrax Features |
0 comments
In QualTrax 4.0, we are introducing a new Navigation Tree Structure. Taking advantage of the newest technologies, it is going to allow you to expand as many folders as you like, it keeps all previously exploded folders open and it remembers where you last were in the tree structure.
There is also another item that may be of interest-- drag and drop. Below is a short little video demonstrating the capabilities. In the demonstration, I have a "Updated Title" folder in my "Trash" folder. I decided that I want to move that folder up under my "ISO 9000" folder. All I have to do is click on the folder I wish to move and drag it to the appropriate parent folder. Even when my tree structure refreshes, the folder is now in its new locale. That's not it for this demo! I've also decided that I want to rename the folder. So I click on it and I am able to edit the title.
And that's not it for the new Tree Structure! We're currently working on
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Why, yes it is!
Posted by Mark Duncan
on 9/22/2006 @ 11:19 AM
in New Features |
0 comments
Let's imagine you are sitting at a monitor for an assembly line that is manufacturing widgets. Suddenly, a widget hops the line and lands in a bucket marked Hazardous Waste. Quick, what do you do?
Yes, running from the building is an option. But you notice an "Error" button on your monitor and decide to push it. Up pops an SOP from QualTrax which you quickly scan and discover a section describing how to handle the situation that just occurred.
You pop up from the seat and do as the instructions state and save the day. Exhausted, you sit back in front of your monitor and notice you have an email. You quickly open it up and discover that it is not a shipment notice from Amazon.com for your Magic Bullet but a notice that you are expected to complete a QualTrax workflow and it's sitting in your Inbox!
Good giggly wiggly, what in the world just happened? You pushed a button on
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 9/13/2006 @ 10:31 AM
in New Features |
0 comments
In this post, I want to brag about the new error/exception recording we have included in QualTrax 4.0. It was the brain child of our talented Application Architect (a.k.a. Mark Duncan) and I feel it is going to be very beneficial to you, the QualTrax Customer, as well as the QualTrax Support Team.
With QualTrax 4.0, we've classified all our errors/exceptions in three different categories- High, Medium and Low. For each category level, you get to decide how you want that information to be reported to you!
For example, if there is a High/Critical exception, you may opt to have that information emailed to you immediately. That way, you'll have an instant alert that your system needs attention (or that you need to contact QualTrax Support). Medium errors, you may want to continue to have logged in the Application Event log on the server. Finally, you may choose to ignore Low exceptions
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Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 9/12/2006 @ 10:23 PM
in New Features |
0 comments
As you may know, the QualTrax Team has been busy working on the QualTrax 4.0 version. In this version, we've concentrated a lot of effort on the backend architecture to ensure it is scaleable, robust and well-equipped for the Enterprise-wide installations out there.
Well, we are also keeping the growth of all QualTrax installations in mind in regards our feature-set as well! One feature that is being updated is the Folder Specific Settings.
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Posted by Derek Pinkerton
on 8/24/2006 @ 10:26 AM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
Up until now inserting QualTrax variables into your documents has been limited to HTML and Word documents. Well now there is a way to accomplish this same task within your Microsoft Excel documents! The best part is you will not have to upgrade QualTrax to take advantage of this cool new feature! There are two steps to getting this up and running. The first thing you will need to do is make one small change in your QualTrax database to tell QualTrax that Excel documents support this feature. The second thing you will need to do is add some Visual Basic code to your Excel document to allow you to retrieve this information.
For your convenience I created a small ASP script that will perform the database update for you. Download Update Script. To install the script simply unzip it into the ASP
Posted by Vicky Herrala
on 8/18/2006 @ 2:11 PM
in New Features |
0 comments
Recently I've been working with the Email Actions for QualTrax 4.0. My testing has resulting in a lot of different emails spread over a variety of email accounts (giving me a good excuse to check personal mail at work!).
For the most part, the features are the same. Customers ultimately are given the power to customize who the emails are distributed to and what the notifications say. Our friends the Environment Variables (##ID##, ##TITLE##, etc) are still the same, so you will still be able to tap into that power of plugging information specific to the document or workflow into your notification.
There are, however, a couple of new changes to Email Actions, I thought I would highlight today:
- Of interest to IT Departments-- if you would like to distribute your QualTrax Emails through a SMTP Server that requires authentication, you will be able to do that.
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Posted by Derek Pinkerton
on 7/28/2006 @ 1:18 PM
in Qualtrax Tips & Tricks |
0 comments
When QualTrax inserts dates fields into Word documents the entire date and time is displayed, such as "Monday, July 17, 2006 2:59:44 PM". In some cases you may want to show the short date format instead, such as "7/17/06". Here are some simple instructions on how to format your QualTrax dates in Word documents.
1) First go to Insert->Field like you normally would to add a QualTrax field to the document. 2) Select DocProperty and then select the field name that you would like to add such as ##DATE_PUBLISHED##. 3) Now before clicking OK to close this window, click the "Field Codes" button in the lower left corner of the window. 4) You should now see a box titled "Field codes:" that should look like "DOCPROPERTY ##DATE_PUBLISHED##" we will need to add the formatting code to the end of this field. First add " \@ " (without the quotes) which tells word that the rest of the text we add is formatting text. If your formatting text will include any spaces
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Posted by Mark Duncan
on 7/28/2006 @ 12:05 PM
in Qualtrax Features |
0 comments
Workflows are a practical and useful tool in QualTrax. They provide a way for an organization to map out a process and the data associated with that process, thus ensuring the process is completed the same way every time which is a critical part of having a solid quality system.
Currently workflows are confined to collecting data about a process. A user creates the states and custom fields for the workflow and defines the transitions to move the workflow from one state to the next. When an instance of the workflow is created, human intervention is required to input data into the workflow (Yes, I know you can use the Gateway module to not only create but also provide data for a workflow but that isn't the point
We've recognized that the data in these processes is extremely valuable to the organization from a decision making standpoint. The data not only tells you about your quality system but it can also be a determining factor in where to allocate resources to make the organization more
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