Best Practices
Best Practices This document covers some key practices and procedures that will help ensure a productive and stable GoldMine®/Breaking Away system.
Close GoldMine® by using FILEEXIT Most applications give you a couple different methods to exit out of them. There is the red “X” in the top right-hand corner of the program window and there is the Main Menu where you can select FILEEXIT. These two methods are not equal. It is actually more effective to close GoldMine® from the Main Menu than by clicking the red "X". Using this best practice will:
Close GoldMine® cleanly. Allow your personal user settings to be retained more reliably.
Utilize Lookup lists whenever possible Lookup lists are essential for data integrity and speed of entry. Every character field in GoldMine® has a lookup list that can store common entries relative to it. Lookup lists are quite versatile because they can hold dBASE expressions for dynamic data entry as well as comments for each entry to further describe the entry and/or its purpose. Using this best practice will:
Decrease the time it takes to enter data into fields. Help ensure consistent data entry. Aid in the systemization process.
TIP: To include a dBASE expression in a lookup list entry, it must begin with a tilde (~). TIP: To include a comment after a lookup list entry, use two forward-slashes (//) followed by an explanatory phrase (e.g., “LAM // Love Affair Marketing”). TIP: To prevent a lookup list selection from overwriting data that may already exist in a field (i.e., to cause the selection to be appended to the field’s existing data), place a semi-colon (;) at the end of the lookup list’s entry (e.g., “WMC;”).
______________________________________________________________________ © 2009 PEAK™, All rights reserved. 1
Best Practices
Complete your pending activities as you go It is important to keep your Calendar in tip-top shape by completing the pending activities right after they’ve happened, instead of waiting until you “get more time.” If you complete the activity right away, the events/topics of the activity are top-of-mind, making it easier for you to populate the “Notes:” field with pertinent information that could be useful later. Using this best practice will:
Keep your calendar up-to-date. Help maintain a comprehensive audit trail of correspondence and activity. Help keep GoldMine® running efficiently.
Use recurring activities sparingly and for shorter periods Recurring activities that have no foreseeable end-date should be given an end date of one year into the future or less. Then, edit the last activity (or one that is almost the last) to include a reminder to schedule it out for the next year. A note should also explain the settings that were used. How often the activity takes place should determine how far out it gets scheduled. Weekly meetings could go every quarter or half-a-year. Using this best practice will:
Keep your calendar from clogging up. Give you a natural reassessment period for certain activities. Help keep GoldMine® running efficiently.
Process Monitor options The Process Monitor logs activities that usually happen in the background, such as checking e-mail or creating history records for mail and e-mail merges. If the Process Monitor is closed at the time, GoldMine® will open it to display the logged information. This will take the focus away from what you were doing and put it on the Process Monitor. So, after it is open you will want to keep it open. You can either keep it as a separate window/tab by clicking on the right-most button in the local toolbar or “dock” it by dragging the window to an edge of the Work Area. Once docked, it can be set to automatically minimize by clicking on the push-pin button. ______________________________________________________________________ © 2009 PEAK™, All rights reserved. 2
Best Practices
Clone Breaking Away templates, reports, automated processes, etc., before customizing them PEAK wants to keep you up-to-date with the best ideas and practices out there. That’s why we offer periodic updates to the Breaking Away system. These updates will add, modify, or delete certain parts of the overlay as appropriate. This includes new or edited Word document templates in the Document Management Center, system checklists in the Knowledge Base, reports, automated processes, fields, filters, detail types, and more. Therefore, whenever you want to modify/customize any of these as part of your practice, it is necessary to make and edit a copy by cloning them first. Place your company’s initials at the end of the new title (e.g., “Original Title – CWMG”) so as to make it easier to find the ones that are specifically yours. This way, a periodic update cannot make any changes to the features you are using. Using this best practice will:
Prevent you from having to recreate and customize certain features at inopportune times. Keep your Breaking Away system compatible with updates offered by PEAK. Help you to better understand the feature you are cloning because you are truly “making it your own.”
Test automated processes on a “dummy” contact record Automated Processes (AP) perform actions for each contact record they are attached to. When creating or editing them, you want to make sure they will perform exactly as intended. Therefore, testing them on a single contact record before attaching them to hundreds is a more prudent choice. In order to make sure the AP will perform exactly as intended, you need to test multiple scenarios by changing the necessary information on the contact record that is being tested. Therefore, you don’t want it to be a real contact record. Use a “dummy” record instead so that it is okay to add, change, and delete its data as necessary. WARNING: Sometimes it is necessary to change the date in the Windows system clock in order to properly test an AP. Extreme caution should be exercised if/when doing so. One reason is that if you have certain calendar activities set up to automatically rollover, if you change the system date to a future date you could erroneously and irreversibly cause those activities to roll-over to that future date. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is to never change your system clock to a date that is in the future. Also, don’t forget to change the clock back to the correct date when finished testing. ______________________________________________________________________ © 2009 PEAK™, All rights reserved. 3
Best Practices
Using this best practice will help you:
Create more effective APs. Better understand how the AP you are creating works. Greatly reduce the chance of having to perform clean-up on hundreds of contact records because something didn’t go quite as planned.
What files should be backed-up daily? There are several methods and approaches to creating a backup system and it is a best practice to find one that best suits your business needs. Getting a fair assessment from a reputable local I.T. firm is a good place to start. When it comes to backing up GoldMine®, there are two parts to focus on: The program files/documents SQL database tables The directory for backing up the program files, document templates, etc., is in a shared folder called "GMPE" on your server. The only subfolder you need to be concerned about backing up in there is the "GoldMine" subfolder (and everything contained within it). The location of this directory varies by office. Therefore, you may need to perform a search for the GMPE folder on your server, or you can submit a support request through our website and we will assist you. When it comes to backing up SQL tables, which are protected by the SQL Server service, you have three options: Obtain a "SQL Agent" for your backup program so it can gain access to the GoldMine SQL tables. Use the SQL Management Studio to create a backup plan that will copy the "GoldMine" database to a different location so your backup program can grab that copy (since it won't have access to the live data). Manually backup the SQL database files (GoldMine.MDF and GoldMine_log.LDF) located on your server. Again, for assistance in locating these files, please submit a support request through our website or view the vignette script entitled "XV. Backing Up GoldMine" located on our website. Please Note: This involves the stopping of the SQL services, which means access to GoldMine will not be possible until the SQL services are restarted. To round off your backup system, be sure to confirm its ability to successfully restore the data (while not overwriting any of your current files). Using this best practice will:
Help ensure that you have data to fall-back on in the event of a data catastrophe or other disaster. ______________________________________________________________________ © 2009 PEAK™, All rights reserved. 4
