Please read this file before proceeding with installation.

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bridge15.zip - Bridge 97 Help Desk COMMERCIAL DEMO Version 1.5.  

This readme.txt file last modified: 971015.

1. What the program does, and how to use it.

Bridge 97 Help Desk is designed for:

 - Help Desks 
 - Call Centers
 - Customer Service Centers 
 - User Support Centers (corporate, college, university, government)
 - Information Technology Centers
 - Internet Service Provider Technical Support
 - Information Systems Departments
 - Software Product Customer Support
 - Management Information Systems Departments
 - Network Systems Management
 - Configuration Management Device, Bug, Issue Tracking
 - Software Development, Bug, Enhancement Tracking 
 - Contracted Technical Services Technical Support

and can be used to support both your internal users and external customers.

Bridge is a ODBC compliant client/server application for Windows 95 and Windows NT, that allows you to track problems and issues within your technical department. Its features include dynamic definition of fields to track, hot lists, graphs, automatic paging, an e-mail interface (incoming & outgoing), reports, and an easy-to-use query for searching within your issue history. 

Bridge's ODBC compliant database (Access 97, Sybase SQL Anywhere, Oracle or MS SQL Server) can reside on the server (Microsoft NT, Unix, Novell or a mainframe) or the desktop.

2. This is a Freely Distributed COMMERCIAL DEMO.

This demo version is limited to input of 100 issues and  packaged with an Access 97 database, and the Access 97 runtime.  You do not need Access 97 (or any other version of Access) installed on a PC in order to run Bridge. Even if you have a previous version of Access installed on your PC(s), Bridge will not interfere with that version of Access.

3. Software/Hardware Requirements:

To use Bridge 97, you will need the following:

 - Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT (3.51 or 4.0).
 - At least 8MB of memory (16MB or more is preferable).
 - 35MB of disk space.

4. Installation:

The self-extracting setupex.exe file within the bridge15.zip file will prompt you if you wish to install Bridge in a directory other than what the installation program recommends. The self-extracting file will ensure that all files are placed in the proper directories. 32-Bit ODBC will be installed and is accessable from within 'Control Panel'. There are several odbc related help files that will give you additional information about ODBC that is not included in the Bridge 'Help' file. 

Immediately after installation, we suggest that you review the Bridge help file before proceeding. You can access the help file directly via Bridge or via Explorer by pointing to the help subdirectory where you have installed Bridge.  You can page ahead thru the help file by clicking the ">" button.). 

5. What the DEMO version does not include:

Due to licensing restrictions, the e-mail and paging interfaces are not available in this DEMO version.

Bridge 97 Help Desk (full commercial version): Mail can be sent and received through all major e-mail systems, including Microsoft Mail / Exchange, Lotus cc: Mail / Notes, Novell GroupWise, and Internet (SMTP) mail.  A combination of mail systems can be used together. For instance, you can send an issue to a user of your corporate mail system (such as cc: Mail) and Internet addresses,  all in the same "send". 

6. Improvements in this version 1.5

Reports - Various new reports as well as a new reporting infrastructure. You can now create reports that can be exported to Word, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, HTML and a variety of other formats.  Reports you create with Crystal reports can be integrated into Bridge (run directly from within Bridge).

Graphs - Several new predefined graphs.

Status Bar -  A status bar will appear at the bottom of the application frame window (present at all times) and show up to four separate counts of issues that are important to you (ie: My Issues, Open Issues, High Priority Issues, etc...).  This status bar will be fully customizable, and a list of the issues that make up this count can be opened with a right click of the mouse.

Improved International Date Support - Bridge will now function with any date format (dd-MMM-yy, etc...).

Delete User Fields if DBMS allows (not available with Oracle or MS SQL Server) - You can now delete a user field when using Access or Sybase SQL Anywhere.  Previously, this was only possible through direct intervention with the database.

As for what's in 2.0, this is the tentative plan in 1998:

Web Interface
Answer Book/Knowledge Base
Customization of User Interface
Intelligence (ie: If x = y then default a to b)

7. bridge15.zip was uploaded on behalf of the author (Jeff Muschar, jeffm@kemma.com) by: 
  
   Gregory E. Sutton
   Director of Marketing
   Kemma Software
   gregs@kemma.com

8. Contacting Kemma Software:

Please reference in your contact, technical questions, feedback, and suggestions to Kemma Software that you have version is:

Bridge Help Desk Version 1.5 Commercial Demo dated 14 October 1997.

E-Mail can be sent to:

bridge@kemma.com 

We can also be reached at:

Kemma Software
114 Orchard Avenue
Glenshaw, PA 15116
Phone: (412) 492-1141
Fax: (412) 492-1142

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