README File for Alan Simpson's mail order management database

Welcome to "MOM", the sample mail order manager from Alan Simpson's
book, Understanding Microsoft Access 2.0 (which I'll refer to as "the book"
from here on out.) Please note the mail order management database 
described here is in no way affiliated with the Mail Order Manager (also
abbreviated MOM) sold by DydaComp in New Jersey. That one is a 
commercial DOS product. Mine is shareware, and requires Microsoft 
Access 2.0 to run. 

Who MOM Is For
MOM is a sample Microsoft Access application designed to help aspiring 
applications developers learn some tricks of the trade. That is, MOM's
primary purpose is to serve as an example that you can explore in
conjunction with the book.

MOM isn't intended to be a fully-developed product for end- users. It
doesn't have all the custom help, menus and error-handling that an
end-user product should really have. But MOM is darn close to being a
final product, and is certainly a solid foundation from which to learn,
and to build your own custom Microsoft Access applications.

Starting MOM
You've already decompressed the file that contains the mom.mdb database.
I know because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this file. So now to
start MOM you need to start Microsoft Access (Version 2.0), and then
open the mom.mdb database. Hopefully, you already know how to do that.
But just in case you don't, here are the steps to follow:

1.   Start Microsoft Access as you normally would.
2.   Choose File > Open Database from Access's menu bar
3.   Type (or browse to) c:\access\mom\mom.mdb (or whatever directory you 
     put mom.mdb on.) Then choose OK.

After a few seconds the MOM Orders Switchboard will appear on your screen. 
Before you try entering or printing orders, take a few minutes to personalize 
MOM to your business, as described in the next sections.

Personalizing MOM
The first step to using MOM is to tailor it to your business. Complete
instructions are in Understanding Microsoft Access 2.0. But here's the
basic procedure in a nutshell:

1. Choose Preferences from any switchboard, and alter the company
   information and lookup lists to your liking (see pages 858-860 in
   the book). Choose Done when you've finished.

2. Go to the Products switchboard, and set up your Category,
   Supplier, and Product lists, as described on pages 860-868.
    
3. If you have many repeat customers, you can add their names to the
   customer list, as described on pages 868-871. Optionally, you can
   skip this step an enter customer names and addresses on a per-order
   basis.

Entering Orders
After you've defined your preferences, some suppliers, categories,
and products, you can start entering orders. Be sure to read pages
871-878 in the book for details.

It's especially important to understand that the "Bill To" drop-down list
on the Order Form assigns the order that's currently on your screen to a 
particular customer. Changing the "Bill To" name on an order does not take 
you to a different order. Instead, it just changes the "Bill To" name on
the order that's currently on your screen.  The Order Number (Ord #) field
on the form is what uniquely identifies each order.

Printing
Each main switchboard: Orders, Customers, and Products, has its own
selection of reports to print. As discussed in the book, reports such
as welcome letters, invoices, and receipts are normally only printed once.
You may notice that the Customers and Orders switchboards now include a
button named Reprint. I added those after the book was published, to let
you reprint current information in case the printer fails during a
print run, or you just need another copy. See "New In Version 1.5" below
for more information.

Quitting MOM
When you've finished using MOM, choose Quit from any MOM switchboard 
menu. Unlike a normal application, which would take you to Windows, MOM 
will take you to the Access database window for mom.mdb. It does this
so you can explore, and optionally change, any of the objects that make
up the MOM application. But of course, do that only after you know how
to properly create and design Access objects.

WARNING
If you use my mail order management database for "real" data, YOU SHOULD
DELETE MOMSETUP.EXE FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE. Otherwise, you might re-run 
MOMSETUP.EXE in the future, and overwrite your existing mom.mdb database.
If you do that, YOU'LL LOSE ALL THE DATA YOU'VE ENTERED, because you'll
essentially be overwriting your copy of mom.mdb with the original, empty
copy of mom.mdb that's compressed in momsetup.exe.

New in Version 1.5
I've dubbed this particular version of MOM 1.5. It's basically the
same as the MOM described in the book, with a few enhancements in
response to readers' (like yourself) suggestions. These features,
which are not discussed in Understanding Microsoft Access 2.0 include:


- A Reprint button on the Orders and Customers switchboards, to
  allow re-printing of most recently printed batch (in case of a
  printer error.)
    
- A custom error message that appears if you try to print invoices
  and receipts when there are no current ones to print.

The latter is handled by an event procedure that's attached to the
On Error property of the report named Invoices/Receipts. To learn more
about error handling, search Access's help for topics under the headings 
"error" and "error codes".

Registration 
MOM and Understanding Microsoft Access 2.0 were created by Alan 
Simpson. I will soon be releasing a more powerful, user-friendly version 
of this application. And probably other similar applications as well. There 
is no "formal" registration for this product. However, If you want me to 
keep you posted on what's cooking here in my garage-turned-office/electronic
studio, please drop me your mailing address. And mention Alan's mail order
application. You can contact me at any of these addresses:

Alan Simpson
P.O. Box 630
Rancho Santa Fe, CA  92067

Fax:                (619)756-0159
Internet:           SimpsonAC@aol.com
America Online:     SimpsonAC
CompuServe:         72420,2236





