Technical Bulletin 10807

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Working with Tour de Force Desktop

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to provide instructions for Navigating Tour de Force Desktop as well as working with the Grid layouts.  This Technical Bulletin will help you understand how to customize grid layouts, learn how to access and use Grid Manager, learn the difference between Global and Personal Views, learn how to navigate Tour de Force, and become familiar with the different settings and preferences that are available to customize your Tour de Force environment.

 

 

1. Record Types versus Item Types in Tour de Force

 

The main difference between record types and item types in Tour de Force is that records and items can be linked to other records, whereas records and items cannot be linked to another item.  For example, an Activity item can be linked to an Account record, but an Account record can never be created or linked to an Activity item.

 

When a new record or item is created, a Parent and a Child Relationship is automatically established between the new item or record and the record used to create the new item.  For example, when a new Contact record is created in Tour de Force, a Parent and Child Relationship is created between the new Contact record and the Account record.

 

 

 

Any item type can be created from and linked to any of the record types found in Tour de Force.  

 

For example, an Appointment, a Task, and an Activity item can be created from and linked to an Account, a Contact record, or an Opportunity record.

 

 

There are also Grandparent and Grandchild relationships in Tour de Force.  This trail or path is indicated in the breadcrumbs bar at the top of all record and item forms.  For example, when an item is created from a Contact record the parent Account record becomes the Grandparent of that item created from the Contact record.

 

 

Understanding the Grandparent, Parent, Child, and Grandchild Relationships in Tour de Force is critical when viewing and analyzing data in Tour de Force.  Grandparents can see everything, while Parents can only see Child and Grandchild relationships.

 

For example, an Activity created from a Contact record can be seen from both the Account record form and the Contact form.  However, an Activity item created from an Account record can only be viewed while on the Account record form and not the Contact record form.  The easiest way to tell how an item or record is linked is to look at the breadcrumb bar at the top of a record or item form.

 

See Technical Bulletin 6601 – The Breadcrumbs Bar for further information related to the breadcrumbs bar.

2. Overview of the Tour de Force Record/Item Icons

 

There are several Records, Items, and Features in Tour de Force.  Below are most of the popular icons that you will see throughout Tour de Force and the Records, Items, or Features that they represent.

 

Records

 

Accounts	Events	Opportunities
Contacts	Leads	Quotes
Contracts	Literature	Support

 

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Items

 

Activities	Documents	Forecasts	Products
Appointments	Emails	Knowledgebase	Tasks
Assets	Expenses	Notes	Tickets

 

Other Icons to be Familiar With

 

Analysis	Daily Summary	Mailings	Recent Items
BI Data	Favorites	My Action List	Reminders
BYOR	Incentives	Phone Logs	Worklist Items

 

3. Overview of the Grids

 

Tour de Force grids are a powerful way to display information to users.  One of the most beneficial features of Tour de Force is the ability to customize how this information appears in the grids on the fly, making the data that is presented to you more useful.

 

 

Grid customization should be the result of careful up-front analysis and evaluation.  It is important to remember your target audience and include the information pertinent to their role within your organization.  “Dirty Grids” (or grids that are full of too much information) can be a hurdle in getting people to use Tour de Force to its full potential.

 

4. Types of Grid Views in Tour de Force

 

There are two types of Grid views in Tour de Force:

 

• Global
• Personal

 

By default, the first time you load Tour de Force, Global grid views will be loaded.  Global grid views are either defined/created when Tour de Force is first implemented within your organization, or as you use Tour de Force, your Tour de Force Administrator will create additional Global views that you can access.

 

You also can use the Global views as a baseline to create your own Personal views.  Once the Personal views are created, you can choose whether you want to load Global or Personal views each time you load an Item or Record in Tour de Force.  Personal views are only accessible by the person that creates them, except for those who may have administrative permissions to copy the Personal views out for other users to use as well.

 

5. The Info Center Ribbon

 

The Info Center Ribbon is home to several actionable Items as well as shortcut to different modules and features within Tour de Force.  There are three different layouts that you can use for the Tour de Force Ribbon.

 

1. Office 2013

This layout emulates the Ribbon that was introduced to Microsoft Office in version 2007.

2. TabletOffice

This layout uses smaller icons and is centered on within the width of the Desktop application.

3. OfficeUniversal

This layout uses smaller icons similar to TabletOffice, but is left justified.

 

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Tour de Force also allows users to expand or collapse the ribbon.  To do this, locate the two little arrows on the right-hand side and click them to expand or collapse the ribbon.  

 

 

If you would like to permanently expand the Office2013 ribbon, you can click the pushpin to “lock” the ribbon in an expanded state.

 

 

The Home Tab

 

The Home tab contains several icons that can help you with Navigating and creating Records/Items in Tour de Force.  

 

 

Select Home Account Package

The first icon you see, the green circle with the white house (Select Home Account Packages), allows you to filter out the CRM data from within the data you have permission to see, as well as set your default Home Settings and Tabs.

 

Each Account in Tour de Force belongs to an Account Package.  Account Packages could potentially represent a Sales Rep.  Account Packages could potentially belong with a group of other Account Packages to an Account Root, which could represent a Territory or even your entire company.  These items (Account Packages/Roots) represent what we refer to as a Folder Structure.  Your Administrator grants you permissions, according to your company’s structure, to maybe one, some, or all the Account Packages.  Your Home Settings are where you can determine which ones you want displayed in Tour de Force as you are browsing through your data. If you select certain Account Packages or Roots from within this menu, it will affect what Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc. are displayed in the grids.  The settings in this menu are temporary, unless saved.  Once you restart Tour de Force, your settings will revert to what is defined in “Manage Info Center Preferences”.

 

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        Manage Info Center Preferences

Here is where you can set the default “Summary Type” that affects what data is displayed in Tour de Force.  There are two different tabs at the top that allow you to select the Summary Type for both CRM and BI data separately.

• Home Settings – This affects your CRM data such as Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc.
• BI Summary Settings – This affects your BI data.

 

To modify the Home or BI Summary Settings, click the “Modify” hyperlink in the top right-hand corner.

    

    

 

Here (pictured on the right), you can choose what level you want to choose from.  The higher level you select, the more data that it will encompass.  You can choose from:

• Level 4
• Level 3
• Account Root
• Account Package
• BillTo/Master Account
• Salesperson ID
• Account

 

On the next screen, you can select from any of the levels that you picked on the previous screen.  So, if you picked “Level 3” or “Account Root”, you can pick from any of the options that match your selection.

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Back on the main Preferences screen, the next thing you can configure are your Default tabs.  This is in the lower section of the screen.

First, click the “Modify” hyperlink next to “Default Tabs”.

 

Here, you can select what tabs you would like to load by default when you open Tour de Force first thing in the morning.  Locate the module that you would like to open the tab for on the left-hand side, and then use the navigational arrows in the middle to move the item over to the right to open it on start-up.  If you would like to remove it, select it on the right-hand side, and use the arrows to move it back to the left.  

On the far-right side, there are up and down arrows that allow you to re-order the tabs however you would like.

The last thing to make note of is the check box next to the items on the left.  This identifies which tab you would like to make your primary tab that will open first.

Once you have made your selections here, click “Save”.

 

 

The last thing to make note of here is the Default View.  For each of your tabs that you open upon load, you can select the default view that you would like to display when you open that tab.  This does not have any impact on tabs that you open manually after Tour de Force loads, but only the ones that you have selected to open automatically.  You can choose from all the available Global and Personal views.

 

Once you have made your selections here, you can close out of this window.  The settings will take effect the next time you open Tour de Force.

 

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The next 4 sections, (The Global Search, Recent Items, Favorites, and Info Center tabs), are a vital part of Tour de Force.  They can be used when trying to locate a Record or Item quickly, when searching for a Parent for a new Record or Item, or when you are attempting to link an Item in Tour de Force.

 

The Global Search

When you launch either the Global Search, Recent Items, or Favorites, it will open a window with each of those items as a separate tab and will default to the one you selected.

 

The Global Search allows you to search anywhere in Tour de Force through a specified Record or Item.  You can either search through one specific field, or you can search through all fields on a Record or Item.

 

 

• For: - The “For” box is used to type what you are looking for.  For example, if you are looking for the word “Technical”, you could type that into the “For” box.  If you aren’t sure how the value you are looking for starts (or ends), you can use a wild card in your search.  For example, if you want to see everything that starts with “The”, you can type “the%”.  If you wanted to see everything that ends with “the”, you could type “%the”.  Alternatively, if you want to search for everything that contains the word “the”, you could type “%the%”.
• Item Type: - the Item Type is where you select what Record or Item you want to search.  Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc.
• In: - the “In” field is where you select what you want to search on the specified Record or Item.  You can either search through “All” which will search every field for that Record or Item in the database, or you can select the UDF (User Defined Field) that you would like to search through.

 

Once you have selected/typed your criteria, click the binoculars icon to perform your search.  The results will be displayed in a grid below the toolbar.  That grid will operate like all the other grids in Tour de Force.

 

Recent Items

The Recent Items tab shows you, in a grid layout, the last 100 Records or Items you have accessed in Tour de Force.

 

 

You can quickly filter out a specific Record or Item by dropping down the menu that defaults to “All Items”.

You can also Clear out your list of Favorites by clicking the Clear List button.  If you do that, it will prompt you to select the Items you want to clear out.  If there are certain Records or Items you do not want to clear out, simply leave those boxes selected and then click “OK”.

 

 

Favorites

 

The Favorites tab is a quick place to access Records or Items that you have either manually favorited, or that have been favorited by rules that you have created.

 

 

To manually add an item to your favorites, from any grid in Tour de Force, you can right click on an item (or multiple items), select “Action”, “Other”, “Add to Favorites”.  The next time you load your Favorites window, these items will appear.

 

The other way to add an Item to your favorites, is to use the “Manage” utility to create automatic rules to Favorite items in Tour de Force.  This allows you to create filters, that when met, will automatically add those items to your Favorites.  For more details on creating rules to automatically manage your favorites, please refer to the section on “Managing Your Favorites”.

 

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The Info Center Tab

 

In 2019, an Info Center tab is available among the Global Search, Recent Items, and Favorites.  This will be available for you any time you access Global Search, Recent Items, and Favorites, or any time you are prompted to search for an Item when linking within Tour de Force.  

 

 

1. The Info Center tab has a drop down that allows you to quickly select any Record or Item in Tour de Force.  Each Record or Item will use whatever your default view is set to within the Info Center container.  
2. Within this Info Center tab, there is a column that contains a blue icon with an ellipsis (three dots).  If you click this icon, it will launch a separate grid that allows you to view the child items of that Record.  You can switch between the different types of children by using the drop-down menu indicated below.  You can also select “All Linked Items and Records”.
   

 

Database Sync

 

This option is used for the Offline Sync.  If you would like more information about using the Offline Sync, please refer to "Technical Bulletin 6104 – The Offline Sync".

 

The Online icon shows you a visualization of whether you are working from the Online or Offline database.

 

This icon shows you the database you are connected to.  In most circumstances, there will only be one database that you have access to, however some companies may have a second (or Test) database, and clicking on this icon allows you to switch the database that Tour de Force is pointed to.

 

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Create New

 

The Create New icon allows you to quickly create a new Record or Item in Tour de Force.  When you select the Create New Icon, you can choose what type of Record or Item you would like to create.  Once you select your Record or Item, you will be prompted with a screen where you can enter a subject for the new Record or Item.

 

There is a gear icon in the bottom left hand corner that allows you to change the way searching works when you are looking for the Parent for the new item.  You can either

• Apply what you are searching for when you Press Enter
• Start searching automatically after a short delay while you are typing
• Start searching automatically after a long delay while you are typing

 

 

Depending on the type of Record or Item you select, your actions may vary slightly.

 

• Creating an Account
  When you create an Account from the Create New icon, you will be prompted for the subject (or Company Name) of the Account.  You can fill out the subject and click “Create New”.
  Next, you will need to select the Account Package that the Account will belong to.  Place a checkmark next to the appropriate Account Package and click “OK”.  
  At this point, fill out the information according to your company’s procedures for creating an Account.
  
• Creating a Lead
  When you create a Lead, like the Account, fill out the Subject (Lead Name).  The Lead can either have no Parent like the Account, which will require you to tie the Lead to an Account Package.  
  Alternatively, you can select a different parent for the Lead.  Your choices are any of the Records in Tour de Force (Accounts, Contacts, Contracts, Event, Lead, Literature, Opportunity, Quote, Support).
  If you select anything other than Account Package, you will be required to search for that Record.  Use the second drop down to search for the Record you would like to link the Lead to.  (This is where the settings in the gear come in to play that we mentioned above).
  

 

• Creating any other Record or Item (other than an Account or Lead)
  If you are creating any other Record or Item other than an Account or Lead, you can enter in the subject and then select the Record that will be the Parent of that item.  Use the secondary search box (as displayed in the section above on creating Leads) to locate the Record that will be linked to the new item.

 

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Reminders

 

Reminders can be used in Tour de Force to remind yourself or others about important items that need to be completed or followed up on.  Keep in mind that unlike Alerts/Notifications that can be sent via email, Reminders are only visible within the Tour de Force Desktop application.

 

If you select the first option “Reminders”, it will open a window with all your Reminders displayed in a grid view.

1. You can click on the box in the Reminder column to open the Reminder.  

2. You can click the yellow folder to open the item the Reminder is linked to.

3. You can select the Reminder, and delete it using the red X.

 

When you open an existing reminder, or create a new reminder, you can do the following:

 

• Save and Close, Close, or Delete the Reminder
• Directly access, view children, or perform actions on the Parent Items of the Reminder located in the breadcrumb at the top
• Modify the Subject
• Add or remove users that are set to receive the reminder
• Change the Reminder Date
• Mark the reminder as “Read”
• Pin the notification so that it does not go away
• Modify the reminder’s text
• Link an Item (if one is not linked already) using the ellipses icon at

 

“Check Reminders” allows you to manually refresh your reminders.

 

User Preferences

 

The User Preferences section is home to an abundance of preferences and settings that you can modify.  In this section we will review the different areas of User Preferences and how they will impact your experience with the Tour de Force Desktop application.

 

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General Options

 

General Options

Use Global Search Auto Complete allows the search box to fill in search values using prior searches.

Addin Start Delay (Seconds) allows you to delay the start-up of the Tour de Force add-in in the case that you have other add-ins running that need to load first.

Enable Tour de Force Email Toolbar allows you to enable or disable the Tour de Force add-in on the email form when creating a new email.

 

TdF Skins – Here you can select from the different skins we have available that change the color scheme of Tour de Force.  Most users will only use the “Online Skin”, however, Admins or people who use the Offline mode, can change that skin as well.

 

 

Use of Outlook Items – Here you can choose if you do not want to use Outlook Appointments with Tour de Force.

 

Presence – if Chat is enabled, this preference controls whether chat is started automatically when TdF is launched.

 

Connection Type – Here you can enable TdF for Offline Use (additional configuration required) and you can also choose between two prompts.  
Either TdF is always online, or when you launch it, that it should prompt you for on/offline.

 

SQL Timeout Preferences (Minimum Time: 60 seconds) – here you can choose the amount of time it takes before a grid times out.  You can set the timeout BI Summary separate from the other grids in Tour de Force.

 

SQL Connection – here you can set the VPN Connection Timeout setting.

 

Grid Preferences – Here you can launch the “Grid Preferences”.

 

TdF Web Links –  This allows you to disable the ability to launch TDF links from external applications such as Outlook.  The links would be in the form of “tdf://”.

 

Reminder Options – Here you can choose if you would like to display your reminder pop up notifications.  These will pop up in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.  You can also choose the Reminder popup interval.  Reminders will continue to pop up every ‘x’ minutes until they are marked as read or deleted.

 

Time Tracking Options – The Time Tracking Options work the same as the filters within the section on “Managing Your Favorites“.  Within these options, you can configure rules that will automatically add items to your Agenda within Time Tracker according to the rules you set up.

 

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Dialog Options

 

Within the Dialog Options, there are several options here that allow you to control how dialogs are displayed within Tour de Force.  

There are several areas where you can control these dialogs:

• Completing and Converting Appointments/Task
• Follow-up Tasks
• Deleting Private Appointments
• How to handle TDF Active flags for child items
• Sending Confirmations

 

Within each section, you can do one of 3 things:

 

1. Remove the Dialog or Prompt (if unchecked, you will be prompted with the following options each time the situation occurs
2. Set the preference to automatically Create/Delete when the situation occurs
3. Set the preference to NOT automatically create/delete when the situation occurs.  

 

Miscellaneous

 

There are a lot of miscellaneous options that can help improve your Tour de Force Experience.  The preferences that we will review in this section can also be accessed through Grid Preferences, Manage Grid Options.

 

Several of these may require closing and re-opening Tour de Force.  It is good practice to just restart Tour de Force after making changes here.

 

After saving an item opened from a linked items grid, automatically refresh the linked items grid.

Within an Item or Record, if you open, modify, and then Save an Item from the Linked Item grid, it will automatically refresh the grid when you Save and Close the Item.

 

Always send me a copy of my own Support Note on Support records where I have a role or am subscribed.

If you are utilizing the Support Record in Tour de Force along with Support Notes, this will send you automatically (either via Email, TdF Reminder, or both depending on your settings configured in “Receive auto-sent Quick Notes as…”) a copy of a note if you are the author.

 

Auto-load the default Grid View when switching between Global and Personal views.

When toggling between Global or Personal, if you have a default set for both via Grid View Manager, this option will load your default view automatically.  If disabled, it will not load the default view.

 

Automatically un-favorite Support items I've "subscribed" to after the item closes.

If you are subscribed to a Support Request so that you automatically receive Support Notes when they are added, once the Support Request is marked as Closed, you will automatically be unsubscribed to that request.  Keep in mind that you will not receive notes if the request is re-opened.

 

Display an error message whenever a data load error occurs in the Grid.        

With this option enabled, an error message will be displayed if a data load error occurs in the Grid view.         If the option is disabled, the error will be recorded in the background to the TdF Log files.

 

Display non-editable fields with a gray background.

  With this option enabled, “read-only or non-editable” fields will be displayed with a gray background.

 

Expand group summary drilldown info to a new window.

  With this option enabled, the drilldown windows will pop out into a new window when clicked on.

 

In Appointments grids, display the Start and End time adjusted to my local time zone.

  If selected, the Start and End times will display according to the time zone set in your local computer.

 

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In search results, highlight cells that contain the text that I searched for.

With this option enabled, when using Global Search, all instances of the string you searched for will be highlighted in the grid.

 

 

In the Info Center and TDF Items, show tabs on multiple lines.

With this option enabled, if you have more tabs open than what can fit on your screen, your tabs will wrap down to a second or even third line so that you do not have to scroll to locate your tabs.

 

In the Info Center, show my 'Favorites' in a menu.

With this option selected, instead of opening a new window when you click on favorites, it displays all your Favorites in a sub menu, categorized by Item/Record.  Below you’ll see that I have Favorited Accounts and Tickets.  I can select either to then display another menu of all the items and can launch them directly from there.

 

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In the Info Center, show my 'Recent Items' in a menu.

Same as “show my ‘Favorites’ in a menu (right above this item), this allows you to display your Recent Items in a menu format categorized by Item/Record, instead of popping it out into a new window.

 

In the Info Center, show the name of the current Grid View in the Tab name.

  This allows you to display the name of the active Grid view in the Item or Record’s tab in Info Center.

You’ll notice below, that I have the view “Nathan’s Requests” active on the Support Tab, and “Active Tour de Force Customers” on the Account tab. In the screen shot below, Tickets for Dev and Literature do not have a Grid view name displayed, because those tabs have not been clicked on yet to load data.  Once that happens, the name of the active Grid view will be populated.

  

 

Notify me when someone else adds me as an assistant on a note.

If you are using the Support Module with Support notes, and someone adds you as an assistant on a Support Note, it will send you a notification either via Email, Reminder, or both, depending on your settings configured in “Receive auto-sent Quick Notes as…”

 

On TdF Items, show an icon indicating the presence of a tool-tip.

With this option enabled, a blue circle with an ‘i’ will be present next to any field that has a tool-tip.  If this option is disabled, you will need to hover over each field to determine if a tool-tip is present or not.

 

Open items with a single click within the TdF Breadcrumbs.

  This feature is not needed, as all Breadcrumb hyperlinks open with a single click.

 

Receive auto-sent Quick Notes as...

If you are using Support Notes, and you are subscribed to the Notes, this setting affects how you receive the alerts when a note is added.  Either via Email, via TdF Reminder, or both.

 

Respect conditional grid formatting.

This setting, if enabled, respects conditional grid formatting if it is used within your organization.  Grid formatting allows your company’s Tour de Force administrator to create rules to shade items within the grid certain colors depending on the criteria established.  
If you would like to override this formatting, you can uncheck this box so that Grid formatting is not used.

 

 

Show a notification when loading a grid view that requires clean-up.

This setting, if enabled, allows you to be prompted if a grid view needs cleaned up.  If fields were added to an Item or Record that didn’t get pushed out to all grid views since the last time views were saved, this will cause you to get prompted with this item enabled.  You will need to have Global Grid Manager rights to be able to clean up Global views.

 

You can either Clean the View automatically or you can manually select or deselect the fields you would like to add or remove to/from your grid view.

 

Show Grouped Columns in the Grid as a single row.

When you have this option disabled, if you are grouping by more than one column, it shifts the Group By bar down taking up a lot of extra vertical real-estate.

 

With this option enabled, it does not shift the columns down and keeps everything on one line.

 

Show Item Type Name in Item Type Column.

  With this option enabled, the Item Type column will display the name of the Item or Record in the grid.

  With this option disabled, only the icon for the Item or Record will display.

  

 

Show the "Chat" button in the Info Center toolbar.

  With this option enabled, the TdF Chat icon will display in the Ribbon.  If disabled, the icon will not display.

  

 

Show the "Quick Access Toolbar" in the Info Center.

With this option enabled, the configurable Quick Access Toolbar is displayed at the top of Tour de Force. This can be beneficial if you have the Ribbon minimized, giving you quick access to common Items.  You can enable or disable the items shown by clicking on the drop-down arrow.

  

 

Show the "Web Access Log" tab on relevant TDF items.

  N/A – Tour de Force only

 

Show Toolbar Button Captions on TdF Forms toolbars.

With this option enabled, on any Item or Record form, text will be displayed by each icon explaining what each icon does.

 

  With this option disabled, all you will see on each form is the icon.

  

 

When copying contacts from a grid to my personal contacts, use the TDF Mobile Service.        

When you highlight contacts in the Contact grid and go to Action, Copy to Personal Contacts, with this option enabled, it will use the Mobile Service to copy these items to your Personal Outlook Contacts, in a sense, processing the data behind the scenes so you can continue working.  For this to work, the Data Process Service needs to be enabled/running.

If this option is disabled, the job will run in the foreground, and you will need to allow the job to finish before moving on to another task in Tour de Force.

 

When filtering data in the Grid's Auto-filter row, wait till I press Enter to start filtering.

With this option enabled, data will not start to filter out until you press the Enter key while typing in the Auto Filter.

With this option disabled, data will filter “on the fly” as you type, which can add potentially several seconds to your load time.  Notice the differences below.  If I search for AB in the Account Name (without pressing enter) on the left-hand side image I have eight results, but as soon as I add a “C” to the Account Name, now I have seven.

 

When I hover over a tab header in the Info Center, show that tab's AcctPkg selection information as a tooltip.

With this option enabled, when you hover over a tab in the Info Center, it will display (as a Tool-Tip) the home settings that are being used to display your data.

 

When including Parent Account data in a non-Account grid, include BI data.

With this option enabled, if you are on a grid other than an Account grid, if you enable Parent Account data, BI Data will also be included.

 

Info Center Tab Position

The Info Center Tab position setting allows you to determine where the tabs are docked (located) in Info Center.  You can dock the tabs either at the Top (which is the default), Right, Bottom, or Left of the grid.

Below is an example of what it looks like when the tabs are docked on the Left.

 

 

When no grid View is selected…

As we explained in the Section on Grid View Manager, each Grid in Tour de Force should have a default Grid view defined.  There may be times that a default is not defined.  This preference allows you to set what happens if that were to occur.  There are 3 options.

1. Ask me if I really want to load “all data” – This option will prompt you every time you encounter a grid view without a default, if you want to automatically load all the data (all records and all columns), or load nothing at all until you manually select a Grid view.
2. Never load “all data” – This option will not load any data if you encounter a grid that does not have a default.  You will have to manually select a view to load data in the Grid.
3. Always load “all data” – This option will load all the data (all records and all columns) if you encounter a grid that does not have a default.

  

Current Default Company ID

  N/A

 

Import Personal Views

This option allows someone upgrading from version 5 to import their Personal views.  TdF version 5 and prior, stored Personal views on the local computer.  Personal views are no longer stored on the local PC “post-Version 5”.

 

Default BI Summary Tab

This drop down allows you to select which BI Summary tab opens by default when you load the BI Summary.

 

Default Group Summary Type

This drop down allows you to select which Group Summary Type is displayed when you open the Group Summary.  By default, nothing is selected here, so you will have to manually select a Group Summary type each time you load it.  

 

Web Options  

The web options allow you to determine the mode that is used when the Tour de Force Outlook toolbar is accessed.  There are 2 modes: “Desktop Mode” and “Web Mode”.  You can select which mode you would like to load by default when you open Outlook.  There is also a preference to allow you to save the last mode used if you change it from the Toolbar, which will over-ride your default that is set here.

 

  

 

Default Profile Tabs

Within the Default Profile tabs screen, you can choose what tab defaults each time you open a Record or Item in Tour de Force.  You can set the default for any of the tabs that show up within the second section of a form labelled “Profile Tabs”.

 

 

 

Default Form Types

  This section is used for anyone using the “Item Form Types” feature in Tour de Force.  Here, you can choose which        Form Type defaults for each of the areas you are using the Form Types feature.

  

 

New Item Body

The New Item Body preferences allow you to determine what, if anything is defaulted into the body of the child Item.  The body is populated in the Notes control that is normally located on the main profile tab of a form.  

 

 

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You can either choose from a pre-existing template that your company’s Tour de Force Administrator may have created, or you can build your own “template” to use.

  

  

 

  First, you can select the type of Item you would like to choose your default body for:

 

Once you have selected the child type, the parents below will become enabled.  You have the flexibility to create a different default Body according to the type of parent the Item is created from.  For example, the Notes field in an Activity could default one way if the Activity is created from an Account and could default a separate way if the Activity is created from a Contact.

 

In our example on the next page, we dropped down the menu for when an Activity’s parent is a Contact.  This shows me all of the UDF’s (User Defined Fields) on the Contact Record.  I can type a paragraph in the box below, and where necessary, locate the field I want to pull in from the Contact and click the Plus sign to add it.  As you can see below, we are using a simple body that pulls in the contacts name that we met with and gives us a short list as well as a place for follow up items.  You can create a unique body for each Item in Tour de Force, as well for each Record that can be a parent of that Item in Tour de Force.

 

 

The other option that we have, is instead of creating our own unique body, we could use one of the Templates that were created by your company’s Tour de Force Administrator.  To do this, check the “Template” box.  Now instead of seeing a list of the available fields, when you drop the menu down, you will see a list of the available templates that have been configured for your use.

 

 

 

User Info

The User Info section displays all the information that is tied to the user that is currently logged into Tour de Force.  Although a lot of this information isn’t required, the more information we have in here, the more helpful Reporting and Alerts can be.  We can not only use this information in Reporting and Alerts, but we can also use this information within Templates and certain filters within the grids.

 

Within the “User Images” tab, you can also store a photo of your signature and personal photo.  

These images can be used in Templates such as a “Quote” or “Proposal” that allow you to add an extra personal touch to your customers.

 

Google Info

The Google Info is used if your company is using Gmail instead of Microsoft email.  If this is the case, your google account ID will be displayed in the “Account Id” field, and then you can enable or disable Appointment Sync or Contact Sync according to your company’s preferences for sync’ing that data into Tour de Force.

  

 

Web User Info

  The Web User Info screen displays the current user’s TdF Web User name.

 

  

 

About

The “About” screen contains many helpful resources when it comes to troubleshooting issues with Tour de Force.  These items can be helpful to both your company’s Tour de Force Administrator as well as any Tour de Force employee that may be assisting you.

 

Available Updates

The first section of the About screen will notify you if there are any updates available.  If your company utilizes the auto deployment utility for upgrades, any available upgrades will be listed here.

 

Schema and Version

The next section displays your Database Schema as well as the Version of the client that you are running.  There is also an email icon in this section.  The email icon will create an email and automatically attach all the information from the about screen as well as any existing log files that you can use to send to your company’s Tour de Force administrator or a Tour de Force employee.

 

Components

The Components section shows you the version of all the components that make up Tour de Force.  The first icon above the Components section allows you to copy all the displayed information to the clipboard for pasting in another application such as email, Word, etc.  The second icon (envelope) creates an email and pastes all the component information into the body.  The third icon (yellow folder) takes you directly to the Tour de Force application directory on your computer.

  

 

Event Logs

The event logs section shows a list of all the logs files that have been created on your system.  Log files are produced to keep track of any errors that may occur throughout the different areas of Tour de Force and can be a vital piece to troubleshooting application and performance issues.

The first icon (disk) zips up all logs files on your system and prompts you for a location to save the zip file (this file can be sent to your company’s Tour de Force administrator or Tour de Force employee).  The second icon (envelope) creates an email and automatically attaches a zip file with all your log files.  The third icon (yellow folder) takes you directly to the folder where the log files are stored.  The fourth icon (red x) purges your log files from your system.  It is only recommended to purge your log files if instructed to by your company’s Tour de Force administrator or Tour de Force employee.

  

 

Profile Folder

  The Profile folder icon takes you directly to the Profile folder for the currently logged in Windows user.

  

 

Problem Step Recorder

The Problem Step Recorder is a Windows (not Tour de Force specific) application that we have created a link to.  This can be used as an advanced way to record errors, as well as the steps that were taken to produce the error.  Once the app is launched, you can select “Start Record” and then walk through the steps to produce the error.  Once the error has been produced, select “Stop Record”.  It will then prompt you to save a file that you can provide to your administrator or Tour de Force employee.  The file will contain a text description of every step taken as well as a screen shot every time the mouse is clicked.

  

 

Help

 

The help button launches the Support Site.  You will be required to log in if your username and password have not been saved in your browser.

 

The Other Tab

 

The Other Tab allows you to access several modules such as the Quote Manager, Event Manager, Expense Wizard, Activity Wizard and Time Tracker.  The Draft Editor, Mailer, Client Utilities and Admin Utilities are all additional administrative permissions that will likely not display or be accessible according to your permissions.

The section on the right-hand side (which is available for everyone) allows you to quickly change the skin (color theme) of Tour de Force.

 

 

6. The Info Center Toolbar

 

The Info Center toolbar contains a lot of helpful icons that provide navigational shortcuts.   This toolbar will vary from Record to Record and Company to Company, as some of these icons are driven by Permissions, and others are able to be enabled or disabled via "Grid Manager".

 

 

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Below we will review all the icons and their function.

Split-Grid

1. This option is available on any of the Records in Tour de Force. If enabled, this splits your grid in half horizontally and enables a “Linked Items” grid.  If you select a Record in the top grid, the bottom grid will display linked items for the selected record.

Within the Company Preferences (which requires Administrative permissions), you can determine what child items display by default in the Split Grid.  In our example on the right-hand side, it is defaulting to child “Contacts”.  If you would like, with Administrator privileges you can change the child item that is displayed by going to the “Other” tab, "Admin Utilities", "Screen and Grid Design".  

 

2. You can also manually change the drop down in the top left corner of the bottom section to view any other child items that may exist for the selected Record.

 

Refresh  

The refresh icon allows you to re-load the active grid view to either view changes that have been made to your grid, or potentially refresh the grid to display items that may have been created since the last time the grid loads.  

Remember to save any changes to your grid view prior to refreshing or they will be lost.  

There is also a setting covered in the section on “Grid Manager” that allows you to configure an “auto-refresh” interval.

 

Save  

The Save icon allows you to save changes to your Grid view.  When you Save, you will be prompted to either create a new view, overwrite the existing view, or save a Global/Personal view.  Saving Global views requires Global Grid Manager rights within Permissions.  

 

Previous/Next Page  

These are used in older versions to navigate forwards or backwards through “pages” of data if paging was enabled for a grid view.  You could enable “paging” so that instead of showing 15,000 records all at once, you could display 1,000 at a time and “page” through the data.

 

 

Find  

The Find icon (also accessed by pressing CTRL+F) allows you to search through all the fields/columns within a grid view to look for specific values.  If enabled, it will display directly below the toolbar:

 

 

Type your criteria in the search box and click “Find”.  Every instance of the string you searched for will be highlighted in the grid.

 

 

Show/Hide Group Panel  

If enabled, the Show/Hide Group Panel will display the “Group By” panel which can be used to group data in the grid by any of the fields.  More information can be found on this feature in the section on “Grouping”.

 

 

Split Grid  

Although labelled the same as the previous “Split-Grid” feature, this icon splits the grid in two horizontally, allowing you to work in two identical grids simultaneously.

 

Create New  

This icon will vary from Record to Record but will be in the same spot for each one.  The icon will be replaced with the image that represents the module you are currently looking at.  You can verify what each icon represents in the “Overview of the Tour de Force Record/Item Icons”.  

 

This icon will function two different ways.

• With an Item selected in the Grid, if you click the “Create New” button, it will create a new “like” item using the same parent as the item that you have selected in the grid.  (“Like” being the same time of Item or Record.  If you are in the Activity Grid, it will create another Activity using the same parent as the selected Activity.)

• With no Items selected in the Grid, if you click the “Create New” button, it will create a new “like” item, but will prompt you to select the parent of the item you are creating.

 

Forward  

This icon will allow you to forward the selected item to a recipient using 1 of 4 methods:

1. Include TdF Item data in message

This will create an email with all the details of every field that are enabled by your Company’s Tour de Force administrator.  The details in this email are a “company-wide” preference, but can be configured in "Company Preferences", under "Item Preferences" in the “Email/Print Details”.  Here you can determine what fields are included when forwarding a Record or Item.

2. Include link to TdF Item only

This will create an email but will only provide a hyperlink to the Record or Item.  This will only work for Tour de Force users.

3. Send to a TdF Contact using a TdF Draft

This option will allow you to forward the Record or Item to a Tour de Force contact using a pre-defined Draft.  There is a wizard that you can walk through to select what attachments you would like to include as well as what Contacts you would like to send it to.

4. Send to a TdF User using Detail Draft

This option allows you to forward the Record or Item to any user via email, using any of the pre-defined Drafts.

 

Delete  

This will delete the selected item(s) in the grid.  You will need to have “Delete” permissions to delete items for this to work.

 

Print  

 

The Print icon allows you to Print the details of any Record or Item in Tour de Force.  Users will need to have “Export” rights to be able to print.

Once you click the Print icon, you will have several options:

1. Landscape – if unchecked, will print Portrait
2. Customer Header – Allows you to type a custom header that will be printed at the top of each page.
3. Custom Footer – Allows you to type a custom footer that will be printed at the bottom of each page.
4. Alter column widths to fit the width of the page – This will adjust the width of each column to ensure all data is printed on the page.
5. Expand all groups – This will expand any groupings prior to printing the data.
6. Print Drilldown Details (where applicable) – This will print any drilldown data that is visible when clicking the plus sign to the left of an item in the Grid.
7. Print horizontal lines – This will print horizontal lines between each record.
8. Print vertical lines – This will print vertical lines between each field.

 

Export  

This icon will allow you to export the visible information within the grid.  If you have selected multiple records (or highlighted them), it will disregard the items highlighted and will include everything visible in the grid view.

Permissions are required for exporting.

 

Action/View/Template on Selected Item  

This icon allows you to either perform an Action (ex: Create an Activity, Contact, etc.) on a selected item in the grid, View Items (ex: Child Contacts, Activities, etc.) on selected items in the grid, or launch a template for the selected item in the grid.  This same function can be accessed by selecting 1 or more items in the grid and right-clicking on them with your mouse.

 

Manage Grid Views  

This icon launches the Grid View Manager.  More details on this can be found in the section on “Grid View Manager”.

 

Manage Grids  

This icon launches the Grid Manager.  More details on this can be found in the section on “Grid Manager”.

 

New Activity  

This icon allows you to create a new Activity as a child of the selected item in the Grid.  If nothing is selected, no Activity will be created when you click it.

 

New Appointment  

This icon allows you to create a new Appointment as a child of the selected item in the Grid.  If nothing is selected, no Appointment will be created when you click it.

 

New Task  

This icon allows you to create a new Task as a child of the selected item in the Grid.  If nothing is selected, no Task will be created when you click it.

 

Launch Mailer  

This icon will launch the mailer.  This will only work if you have selected Contacts, or if the Items you have selected have a Contact as the parent.

 

Calendar View  

The calendar view icon allows you to switch from a grid-style layout to a customizable calendar view like Outlook on all Records and Items.  

 

 

There are a couple of settings that you can modify to change how the calendar displays items.  You can access these settings by clicking on the Date/Subject hyperlink just above the calendar.  (The date fields used will vary from Record to Record.)

 

 

Within the “Display Field”, you can determine what the calendar will display as the Subject.  Then, within the Date fields section, you can choose the date fields that are used to determine where items show up in your calendar.  

For example, Appointments would have a “Start” and “End” date, but on the Opportunity calendar, you may just have one date that you could configure as “Projected Close”.  Once you have made your changes, you can close out of this screen.  You will need to refresh your calendar with the refresh icon in the toolbar to apply the changes.

 

 

7. The Tour de Force Outlook Toolbar

 

For information on the Tour de Force Outlook Toolbar, please refer to Technical Bulletin 9809 – Tour de Force Outlook Toolbar.

8. Filtering Data

 

Within the Tour de Force Grids, there are many ways to apply filters to your data so that you can get to exactly the data you want to see.  In this section, we will go over several of the ways that you can apply filters to your Grid views.

 

1. The Auto-Filter

The Auto-Filter is a powerful way to quickly filter information in the grids that you are trying to locate.  There are a couple of things to note about the Auto-Filter.

First, as you type in the Auto-Filter, data is filtered on the fly with each letter you type (unless you have the preference enabled that requires you to press enter first).

Second, by default, most of the columns in Tour de Force utilize the “Contains” operator.  This means, it is searching all the Records and Items for anything that contains the string that you type.  So, for example, if I search for “hat” in the Account name field, it would bring back “Hat Company” as well as “Thatcher’s Supply Co” because they both contain the string “Hat” in their name.  The operator that is being used (such as contains), can be identified by the icon in the auto filter field.

 

You can click on the icon to either see what the operator means, or you can select a different operator.  The following operators are available.

 

• Equals – everything "exactly" equal to what you type in the auto-filter.
• Does not Equal - everything that doesn’t equal "exactly" what you type in                                      the auto-filter.
• Contains – everything that includes the string you type regardless if it’s at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.
• Does not contain – everything that does not include the string you type anywhere within the value at all.
• Is like – requires the use of a % sign.  Depending on where you put the % sign (beginning, end, or both), it is equivalent to “Begins with”, “Ends with”, or “contains”
• Is not like – like “Is Like”, but shows everything that doesn’t match the string that you type
• Begins with – returns anything that starts with exactly what you have typed
• Ends with – returns anything that ends with exactly what you have typed
• Is greater than – returns anything that is greater than the value you typed
• Is greater than or equal to – returns anything that is either equal to or larger than the value you typed
• Is less than – returns anything that is smaller than the value you typed
• Is less than or equal to – returns anything that is either equal to or smaller than the value you typed

2. The Funnel

 

If we click on the funnel icon in the column header for a field, it will display a menu for us with every value that exists within that field.  To quickly filter out one (or multiple) values, you can select the check box next to all the values you want to see, and then click Close.  The grid will now be filtered to only show the values you have selected.  

You can re-open the funnel and either modify your selection or scroll to the top and select “Select All” to return all values to your Grid view.

 

3. Grid Manager

Grid Manager can be used to apply advanced filters to your Grid view.  For more details on how Grid Manager works, please review the section on “Grid Manager”.

9. Adding Columns to your Grid view

 

There are several ways in Tour de Force to add columns to your grid view.   You will want to make sure you refer to the section on “Saving Your Grid Views” to ensure your changes are saved when you add columns to your views.

1. The Insert Key

When you are viewing a Grid, if you press the INSERT key on your keyboard, this will display a menu in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen with all the available fields to choose from.  

 

 

Simply select the field you want to add, click OK, and then you can drag and drop the field anywhere within the column headings to “re-order” your grid view.

 

 

 

2. Right Click, Column Chooser

Another way to add columns to your grid view is with the Column Chooser.  If you right click on any of the column headings within a Grid view and select Column Chooser, you can use this to add columns to your view.  Column Chooser will pop up in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, but you can move it or re-size it based off your preference.  To re-size it, simply hover over the sides or corners and “click and drag” to resize.  If you’d like to move it, you can click the “Customization” header and drag it to the location of your choosing.

 

 

Column Chooser gives you the flexibility to either add the field to the right side of the Grid view or drag and drop it directly where you want it to go.

 

1. Double Click

To add a column to the right side of your Grid view, simply double-click on the field you wish to add.  You can repeat this step as many times as necessary to add multiple fields to your view.

 

2. Drag-and-drop

You can also add a column to your grid view by clicking and dragging the field directly into the column headers and placing it where you want it to be.  Notice the two white arrows that appear, showing you where the field will reside within the Grid view.

 

3. The “F8” Key

By pressing the F8 key, you can launch the Hide/Reveal Columns utility.  On the left-hand side, you can see all the columns that are not a part of your grid view and on the right-hand side, you can see all the columns that are a part of your view.

 

To add columns to your Grid view from this utility, on the left-hand side, select as many columns as you want to add to your grid view.  You can also use the auto-filter at the top of the screen to search for the fields you want to add.

 

If you hold down the CTRL button, you can click on and select several fields at once.  Once you have the fields highlighted that you want to add, click on the “Reveal Selected” button to move them into your Grid view.

 

You can also use this utility to re-order your columns.  To re-order your columns, click on the field on the right-hand side of the screen and then select the “hamburger” icon and drag it to the field you want to place it after.  

(The field will be placed after the field that is highlighted in yellow)

 

If you would like to sort your columns Ascending or Descending by name, you can use the Quick Sort located in the top right corner to do that.

 

4. Grid Manager

This is covered here <Click for the section on Grid Manager.

10. Removing Columns from your Grid view

 

There are several ways in Tour de Force to remove columns from your Grid view.  Again, as with adding columns, you will want to make sure you refer to the section on “Saving Your Grid Views” to ensure your changes are saved.

1. Drag and Drop

The quickest way to remove a column is to drag it off the row of column headers and drop it.  As you can see in the screen shot below, we drug the “Primary CSR” column header out of the column header row until my cursor turned into a black “X”.  At that point, you can let go, and the column will be removed from your grid view.

 

2. Right Click, Hide Column

You can also easily remove a column by right clicking on it and selecting “Hide This Column”.

 

3. The F8 Key

Within the Hide/Reveal Columns utility, on the right-hand side, if you select a single (or multiple by holding down “CTRL”) field(s), you can remove them by selecting “Hide Selected”.

 

4. Grid Manager

This is covered here <Click for the section on Grid Manager.

11. Grouping

 

Within the Grids in Tour de Force, you can Group by any field that you’d like, allowing you to see your data grouped by fields such as Salesman, Account Classification, Sales Stage etc.  

 

The Group by bar can be found directly above the Auto-Filter row in the Grid.  

 

 

If you do not see the “Group by” bar, simply right click on any of the column headers, and select “Show Group By Box”.

 

 

Once the Group by bar is enabled, you can Group by a field in your grid one of two ways.

 

1. Right click on the field you want to Group by and select “Group By This Column”.
   
   

 

2. You can drag a field up to the Group bar.  To do this left-click, hold, and drag the field up to the Group by bar.  Let go of the mouse button to apply the grouping.
   
   

 

Grouping has several benefits, especially when used in conjunction with footers.  Within your Grid Preferences, you can enable footers to show when you are grouping by 1 or more fields.

 

 

Once the footers are enabled, you can group by the field of your choice, at which point the footers will appear in the grid beneath each distinct value.

 

 

From here, you can right-click within the footer underneath one of the groupings (or at the bottom of the Grid in the main footer) and perform some basic functions depending on the format of the field:

• Sum – Adds all the amounts within that distinct value (numbers or currency only)
• Min – Displays the lowest value (number, currency, or text value).  If text value, it will show the lowest value in the alphabet starting with ‘A’.
• Max – Displays the highest value (number, currency, or text value).  If text value, it will show the highest value in the alphabet starting with ‘Z’.
• Count – Will display a count of all the items within that distinct value.
• Average – Will display an average of all items within the that distinct value.
• None – Will not show any value.

 

Once you have performed all your operations, your grid view may look something like the screen shot below.  Grouping by data in your grid views is a great way to create mini-reports within the grids.  You can then drill into any of the “groups” by clicking the “+” sign to the left of the distinct value.

 

 

You can change the sort order of your grouped data a couple of different ways.

 

1. The first way is by clicking on the grouped field.  This changes the sort order on the fly between “Ascending” and “Descending”.  This will only impact the order of the distinct values.  As you can see below when I sort ascending, the “Area of Product” is sorted Ascending, then when I click again, it is sorted Descending.

 

 

 

2. If you would like to actually sort the grouped data by the totals you have added, you can do that by right clicking on the grouped field in the Group by bar, selecting “Sort by Summary”, and then selecting what operation you want to sort by and whether you want it to be Ascending or Descending.
   
   
   
3. Now, you’ll notice that instead of sorting by the grouped field, your data is now sorted by the Count of our Status field in Descending order.
   
   

 

2. Grid Manager

 

The Grid Manager utility is used to format your grid views.  Within here, we can do several things such as choose the data that is displayed, create date/data filters, applying formatting, and much more.

 

The Grid Manager utility can be accessed by clicking on the white piece of paper located in the toolbar above the grid.

 

 

1. General Tab

The General tab is home to a lot of the basic details you need to get started on customizing your grid views.  Within this tab, you have several options that control how data is displayed, what options are displayed in the toolbar for a specific view, date filters, and other miscellaneous options that we’ll go over in the following pages.

   

  Quick Grid Mode

With Quick Grid Mode turned off for a specific grid view, all data will be loaded for all columns, regardless of which ones are in the Grid view.  With Quick Grid Mode enabled, Tour de Force will only download data for the columns you have in your Grid view.  This can significantly help improve the load time of your grid view.  

 

Keep in mind that with Quick Grid Mode turned on, each time you add a column to your grid view, you will need to reload the Grid view to see the data since that data hasn’t been downloaded from the server.  This process is different than pressing the green “Refresh” icon.

 

When Quick Grid is enabled and you add a column, a yellow bar containing a hyperlink that says, “Click here” will appear.  You will want to click that hyperlink to re-load the grid to see the view with your new column.

 

 

Clicking this hyperlink does not save your Grid view, so you will want to remember to save your view prior to closing out of it.

2. Default Date Range
   
   The Default Date Range allows you to filter your data using Date fields in TdF.  
   
   

 

There are 5 options:

1. And – allows you to filter multiple dates or ranges where all criteria is met
2. Or – allows you to filter multiple dates or ranges where at least one criteria is met
3. NotAnd – allows you to filter multiple dates or ranges where all criteria is not met
4. NotOr – allows you to filter multiple dates or ranges where at least one criteria is not met
5. Custom – allows you to create your own custom groupings
   

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Once you determine your operator (And, Or, etc.), the next step is to determine what type of date filter you would like to use.  There are 4 options: "Fixed Date Range", "Relative Date Range", "Open Ended Relative Date Range", and "Pre-defined Date Range". If you select the wrong option by accident, there is a “Options” hyperlink in the top right-hand corner that allows you to go back and choose a different type.  Once you create your filter, it is important to make sure you click the “Save” icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

1.  - The fixed date range allows you to “hard code” a date range that you would like to use to filter your data.  This date range will always remain the same whenever you load this grid view.  For example, if you want to look at Activities that were created from 1/1/2019 – 1/31/2019, you would choose “Creation” in the date field, enter 1/1/2019 as the Start Date, and 1/31/2019 as the End Date.  This filter would remain the same until you go back in and manually changed the dates.
   
2.  - A relative date range allows you to create a dynamic filter that changes by the day.  First, select the date field you want to use.  When creating a relative date filter, use a numeric value to determine the start and end date for the range you want to see.  For example, if you would like to view Opportunities that are projected to close within the next 30 days, the Start date would be “0” (today), and your end date would be “30” (30 days into the future).  This view would be dynamic, and it would always show you everything 30 days into the future.  You can also use a relative date filter to view items in the past.  For example, Appointments from the last 30 days.  To do this, the start date would be “0” (today), and the end date would be “-30” (30 days in the past).  
   Once you have determined your start and end date, you can choose whether your values are measured in “Days”, "Weeks", or "Months".  Week and month Units can be helpful for larger date ranges, so you do not have to calculate the number of days.
   
3.  - An open ended relative date range allows you to display all future or past items from a certain Start Date.  Once you select a date field, you can then choose your “Open End” which would be “All Future dates” or “All Past Dates”.  Once you select the Open-End option, you can choose your “Start Date” by entering a numeric value.  The number “0” would represent “Today”, a negative number would represent a Start Date “x” days in the past, and a positive number would represent a Start Date “x” days in the future.  As with the Relative Date Ranges, you can change the Unit to be “Days”, “Weeks”, or “Months” to make larger ranges easier to calculate.

 

4.  - A pre-defined date range is probably the easiest one to use, since all the date ranges have been pre-configured for you.  Once you select the date field, you can choose from a list of pre-defined ranges such as “Today”, “Tomorrow”, “This Week”, “Last Period”, etc.  You can also choose “is Blank or Null” to show you all items where the date is missing.

 

 

3. Column Settings

There are two options in the Column settings that allow you to adjust columns each time a grid view is loaded.

 

 

First is the “Auto size columns” option.  This option looks through all the data each time a Grid view loads and determines the width of each column based off the largest value in each column.  It will automatically adjust the widths to make sure all data is displayed.  This can add several seconds (or more depending on the number of columns in your view) to the load time of a Grid view.  

An alternative to this feature is to right-click on the column headings and select “Best Fit (all columns)”.  This goes through one time and determines the best width of all columns.  Once you save, it will use those widths each time the view loads.  If longer data is added, you would need to do this again and then save your view.

The other option in here is “Expand All Groupings”.  By default, when you group by a column, all the groups are “collapsed” and you must go through and open them one at a time.  If you would like to automatically expand all the groupings each time a grid view loads, you can select this option.

 

4. Show in Toolbar
   
   This section contains 6 options that you can enable or disable in the toolbar for each individual Grid view.  To include these options within the toolbar, simply check the box next to the option you would like to include.
   
   
   
   The toolbar is located directly above the grid.  The options are as follows:
   Print, Export, Forward, New Activity, New Appointment, New Task
   
   
   
   One thing to keep in mind (and you’ll notice the ‘*’ located next to Print and Export) is that even if you enable the Print and Export buttons, that does not give users that rights to do so.  Your Tour de Force Administrator will still need to enable “Export Data” permissions in the User Permissions for the buttons to work.

        

5. Item Specific Preferences
   
   Within Item Specific Preferences, you can enable or disable BI Data from being included within the available columns in your Grid view.
   
   
   
6. Show Active/Inactive Items
   
   In this section, you can select whether you want to include Active or Inactive (or both) items within your grid view.   
   
   

 

7. Each Item or Record in Tour de Force has an Active Flag that can be found on its corresponding form in the top right corner.  By default, Inactive Items are not shown, so you will need to enable that if you want to include Inactive Items.
   
   
   
8. Paging Options (optional)
   
   This feature is not currently working in Desktop
   
   
   
9. Auto Refresh Interval
   
   The Auto Refresh Interval allows you to automatically refresh the Grid view every “x” seconds.  This is helpful for Records like “Support” where new records are being created regularly.  If a user is working regularly in the Support grid, the Auto Refresh Interval can be set so that the grid refreshes every few minutes to update the view with the new records that are being created.
   
   
   
   Once the interval is set and the Grid view is saved, the Grid view will automatically refresh according to your time setting.  A yellow bar will appear above the grid with a hyperlink allowing you to cancel the refresh if necessary.
   
   

 

2. Columns

 

The columns tab is like the “F8 (Hide/Reveal Columns)” utility that we covered in the sections on “Adding and Removing Columns to your Grid view”.  On the left-hand side you see all the available columns that are not part of your Grid view, and on the right-hand side, you see the columns that are part of your view.  The only difference between this and the “F8” utility is that here, you select your field on the left-hand side, and then use the arrows in the middle of the screen to move the columns into or out of the Grid view.

Also, the “hamburger icon” does not exist here.  Instead of using that to drag the columns into order, you can select a field on the right-hand side, and use the “Up” and “Down” buttons located at the bottom of that section.

 

 

3. Formatting

 

The formatting tab allows you to change several properties of the columns within your Grid view.  

 

 

There are 3 sections within the Formatting tab

 

4. Formatting Options
   

1. Format

The format field allows you to change the format of the data in a column.  For example, you can format by decimals, currency, percentage, etc.

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2. Caption
   The caption allows you to “alias” a field (or rename it). So, if you’d like to change how a field is labelled in a Grid view, you can do that here.  Just keep in mind that this is done per grid view, so if you change a field for a view, it won’t update all the other views.
   

3. Tooltip

The tooltip allows you to create a helpful tip that is displayed when a user hovers over the header for a column.

 

 

4. Alignment
   Allows you to control if the data within the column is left, center, or right aligned.
   
   

5. Sizing

1. Width
   The Width setting is disabled and is not configurable.
2. Allow Sizing
   The Allow Sizing option allows you to determine if you can resize the selected column.  If checked, the user can re-size the column.  If unchecked, they cannot.
   
   

6. Preview Row

1. Show Preview Row
   If checked, it will include a preview row underneath each record in the grid, and display the information from that column in the Preview Row.  Keep in mind that this takes up a significant amount of real-estate.
   
   
   
   

 

4. Server-side, Parent, and Client-side Filters

 

Filters can be used to remove unwanted data from your grid view.  These in conjunction with making sure the columns in your view are appropriate for the intended audience can not only influence effectiveness but help drive User Adoption in Tour de Force.

 

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There are 3 different types of filters.  Server-side, Parent, and Client-side.  

 

1. Server-side Filters
   

With Server-side filters, all your filters are applied to the data before it is downloaded to your device.  For example, you may want to see all the Opportunities for a certain Sales Stage.  If you apply that filter to the Server-side Filters tab, it will filter through all the Opportunities, and only download the ones to your device that meet your filter criteria.

2. Parent Filters

 

Parent filters work the same as Server-side filters, with one exception.  With Parent filters, you are applying the filters to the Parent Account of the Item or Record.  For example, maybe we want to create a grid view and show all Opportunities where the Parent Account has a “Classification” of “Distributor”.  We can use the Parent Filter tab to create this filter.  The information will be filtered at the server level, and then downloaded to your device.

3. Client-side Filters
   

Client-side Filters work a little differently.  They allow you to filter your data, but still delivers all the available data to your device, allowing you to quickly turn off or re-apply the filters.

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You’ll notice at the bottom of Info Center, with a client-side filter applied, you will see the filter with a checkbox and an X.

 

 

1. The checkbox allows you to instantly turn off or re-apply your filter.
2. The ‘X’ allows you to delete the filter.
3. As shown below, you can see how many records are being displayed VS how many have been loaded in the grid.  In the example below, 6 records are being displayed, but 12 have been loaded.
   

 

Keep in mind that the Client-side filter gives you more flexibility, but:

• Client-side filters increase your load time
• Client-side filters do not work in the Web client.  
  Currently, Client-side filters only work in the Desktop client.
  

Building Filters

 

Filters allow you the flexibility of looking at only the data that is relevant to the task you are completing.   You can filter on any of the UDF’s (User Defined Fields) by clicking the + sign.  Within the filter builder there are three components to each filter.

 

1. “And” – if you left click on the red “And” hyperlink, you can change the and to be one of the following:

•  And
• Or
• Not And
• Not Or

You can also use this method to Add a Grouping, add a Condition (same as clicking the + sign), or clear all filters.

2. The Field – in the screen shot above, the field is the blue hyperlink.  You can click on this to select any field from the Record you are creating the record for.  This typically excludes date fields, as those are configured in the bottom section.
3. The Operator – in the screen shot above, this is the green hyperlink.  This allows you to determine how we are filtering.  Examples would be “equals”, “less than”, “greater than”, etc.
4. The Value – in the screen shot above this is the grey hyperlink where it says, “enter a value”.  Enter in the value you are looking to include, exclude, etc.

For information on more advanced filtering techniques, please refer to “Technical Bulletin 9815 – Creating Advanced Filters in the Filter Builder”.

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5. Account Types

 

On the Account Types tab, you can select whether you want to include Standard, Sales Only, Master, or Vendor Accounts in your grid view.

 

 

6. Summaries

 

On the Summaries tab, you can add, edit, or delete summaries that are displayed if you are grouping fields in your grids and showing footers.

For example, you can see below that we are showing a count of the field “Ticket Number”.

 

 

In the grid, you can see that we are grouping by “Allocated By” and doing a “Count” of the Ticket number field.  This gives us a count by employee of how many tickets that person has opened.

 

13.  Applying vs Saving Your Grid Views

 

When you are in Grid Manager, there are 2 things you can do to see your changes that have been made throughout the tabs.  

 

• Apply
• Save
  
  

 

When you “Apply” your changes, this is the equivalent of a “Preview”.  After the changes load when you hit apply, if you were to refresh the grid, or close and re-open the grid, you will have lost all your changes.  However, if you “Save” your changes, this will allow you to permanently apply your changes.  

 

When you “Save” your changes, you will be prompted with a couple of options.

 

• Over-write

• Replaces the existing grid view with your new changes/filters.

• Create New

• Allows you to create a new Grid view of the same type.  If you are currently on a Global view, you will create a new Global view.  If you are currently on a Personal view, it will create a Personal view.

• Create as Personal

• Allows you to create a view opposite of the view you currently have selected.  If you are currently on a Global view, the button will say “Create as Personal”.  If you are on a Personal view, the button will say “Create as Global”.   If the button says, “Create as Personal”, there is a drop-down arrow that allows you to save the Personal view for more than 1 user so long as you have Global Grid Manager rights to do so.

• Cancel

• Cancel all changes made to the Grid view.

 

 

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The other place where you can save the changes to your grid view is from the toolbar.  Above each grid is a toolbar that contains a Save icon that you can use.  The prompts when using this icon will be the same as above.

 

 

Keep in mind that you will only be able to save a Global Grid view or push a Personal view out to other people if you have the Global Grid Manager permissions enabled for your user.

14. Right-Click “Context Menu” on Column Headers

 

When you right click on any of the column headers in a Tour de Force Grid, there are several options available:

Sort Ascending / Descending / Clear All Sorting

 

This allows you to sort a column either Ascending or Descending.  The same can be accomplished even quicker by simply left-clicking on the column header itself.  The first time you click on it, it will sort “Ascending”, the second time “Descending”, and the third time it will clear all sorting.

 

The presence of sorting will be represented by a little black arrow pointing either up for “Ascending” or down for “Descending”.  No arrow means there is no sorting applied.

 

Group by This Column

 

You can group your grid views by certain columns one of two ways.  The first way is to right click on the column

header and select “Group by This Column”.  This same thing can be accomplished even quicker by dragging the column up to the “Group by” bar.  Simply left-click, hold, and drag the field to the group by bar.  Once you let go, the grid view will be grouped by that field.

 

Hide (Show) Group by Box

 

If you right click on any of the column headers, you can Hide the Group by box to gain a small amount of additional real-estate.  Once the Group by Box is hidden, this menu item will change to “Show the Group by Box”.

 

Hide This Column

 

One of many ways you can hide a column in Tour de Force is by right clicking on the column and selecting “Remove This Column”.  An easier way to do the same thing is to left-click, hold, and drag the field down to the Grid area until your cursor changes to an ‘X’.  At that point, you can let go of the mouse and your column will be removed from your Grid view.  Remember to save your Grid view if you want to permanently remove the field, otherwise, the field will be added back once the grid view is re-loaded.

 

 

Column Chooser

 

If you right-click on a column header and select “Column Chooser”, it will pull up a utility that allows you to either click and drag fields into place within your grid view, or double click a field to add it to the end of your Grid view.  There is an auto-filter located at the top of column chooser for easy filtering.  Remember to save your Grid view once you have added your fields.

 

 

Best Fit / Best Fit (all columns)

 

The Best Fit option is a great alternative to the “Auto-Resize All Columns” feature within Grid Manager.  This is a “one-time” best fit to change the width of a column to fit the longest value in that field for any of the records.  If future data is added that exceeds the width of the column, it will not automatically adjust the width.  It only gets adjusted when you click this option.  You have the choice between applying the “Best Fit” for one column within a grid view, or all columns within a grid view.

 

Client-side Filter Editor

 

Selecting this will pull up an editor that will allow you to build a Client-side filter for your grid view.  Keep in mind that Client-side filters are not currently utilized in TdF Web.

 

To create a filter, simply click the plus sign to add a row.  Select the field you want to filter on, change your operator (Begins with, Equals, Contains, etc.) and then type in (or select) the value.  You can also click on the “And” to change it to “Or”, “Not And”, “Not Or”, or add a new Group of conditions.

 

 

An example of where you would use “Not And” could be:

Show me everything where the Account Name is NOT “xyz” AND the Account Package is NOT “abc”.

The same thing goes for “Not Or” with the only difference being NOT this OR NOT that instead of “And”.

 

Show Find Panel

 

With the “Find Panel” enabled, this allows you to search for text within a grid view.  If you type a value and click “Find”, it will highlight any instance of your search criteria within the Grid view.

 

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Hide Auto Filter Row

 

If you are not utilizing the Auto-Filter, you can turn it off by right clicking on a column header and selecting “Hide Auto Filter Row”.  This is the row at the top of your grid that lets you filter data on the fly.

 

 

Manage Grid

 

You can launch the Grid Manager through this option, or by selecting the icon that resembles a piece of paper within the toolbar.

 

 

 

Format This Column

 

Within the “Format This Column” option, you will have several options available according to the type of field you have selected.  For example, if I were to right click on a “Date” field and select “Format This Column”, I would see several formatting options as it relates to dates.

 

 

Some other examples would be for numbers or currency, such as how many decimals are displayed.

 

Advanced

 

Fix Columns

 

• Fix Columns Left

Fixing Columns Left allows you to “Fix Columns” like Freezing Panes in Excel, so that when you scroll to the right, the columns you have frozen don’t move.  

• Unfix All Columns

Allows you to “Unfix” all columns that have been Fixed.

 

 

Show/Hide Columns

• Restore All Columns
  Allows you to restore all columns (fields) to a grid view.  This will restore every column that is available in that Item or Record to the Grid view.
• Hide Columns to the Right
  This option will Hide all columns to the right of where you Right-clicked to access this option.  Helpful for renovating a grid view or removing a mass quantity of fields.
• Hide All Columns
  This option will remove all columns from your grid view.

 

Show Column Properties

This will show properties of the UDF such as the Source of the field as well as the name of the TDF Field if it is a TDF Field.

 

Set Width

This option allows you to manually set the width (in pixels) of the field you selected.

15.  Right-Click “Context Menu” on an Item within the Grid

 

Tour de Force offers several ways to Perform Actions, View Child Items, and several other miscellaneous items.  One of the ways you can do that is by using the “Right-Click” method from within any grid in Tour de Force as well as breadcrumbs that exist on each form.

There are several things you can do from the right click menu.

 

Open

With an Item highlighted in the Grid, if you right-click, then select “Open”, this will open the selected Item.

 

Open Profile

With an Item highlighted in the Grid, if you right-click, then select “Open Profile”, this will directly open the specified Profile Tab that you selected.  This allows you to quickly open a profile tab in case you would like to open a Profile Tab other than the one that the system defaults to.

 

Action

From within the Action menu, you can quickly create any child item for the selected Record or Item.  This ranges from New Activities, to Appointments, Contacts, Support Requests, etc.  This will automatically link the new item you have created to the selected Item in the grid.

 

The Other Menu

Also, from within the Action menu, is an “Other” sub-menu.  Within the “Other” menu are several other useful tools.

 

Add to Favorites

This allows you to manually add the selected Item(s) to your Favorites for quick access.

 

Change Parent

This allows you to change the parent of the selected item.  

 

Create a Copy of this Item

This creates a copy of the selected Item(s).

 

Go to Account Website

Using the “Website” UDF from the Parent account of the selected Item, this will launch your default browser and take you to the URL stored in that field.

 

Open in Web

  This opens the selected Item in Tour de Force Web.

 

Open Parent

  This opens the parent Record of the selected item.

 

Remove from Favorites

  If the Item is in your Favorites, this will remove the Item from your Favorites.

 

Send Attachment(s) in Email

This will grab all the attachments on the selected Item and embed them in an email using your default email client to send to your specified recipient.

 

Send Reminder

  Allows you to create a reminder linked to the selected Item.

 

Send to Agenda

  Sends the selected Item(s) to your agenda within Time Tracker.

 

The Send To menu

  

  The Send To menu gives you access to both the Analysis and BI Summary utilities.

 

 

Analysis

 

This gives you a high-level overview of several pieces of information as it relates to the selected Accounts.  You can view items such as a Summary of Activities, Contacts, Expenses, etc. for the selected Accounts.  You can click on the Options menu to change the fields that are displayed in the Summary.

 

BI Summary

 

This allows you to send the selected group of Accounts to the BI Summary so you can drill into the Sales data for the group of Accounts you have selected.

 

Add Link

The Add Link option allows you to link the selected Item to the Record or Item of your choice.

 

View

The View menu allows you to quickly view several different things:

• All Linked Records and Items
• All Linked Accounts
• All Parent Accounts
• Any other child items of the selected Item(s)
• BI Data (at the very bottom of the menu)

 

When the grid with the Linked or Child Items opens, there is a drop down in the top left-hand corner that allows you to quickly change between Records/Items so that you do not have to close the window and repeat these steps to view another type of Linked or Child Items.

 

Template

The Template menu allows you to directly open and attach a Template for any Record in Tour de Force that has Templates enabled.  This option is disabled for any of the Items in Tour de Force.

 

Other

 

Within the Other menu, you can access some additional Utilities.  These Utilities require special admin permissions that need to be granted by your company’s Tour de Force administrator.

 

 

Perform mass update

  Mass Update allows you to update one or more fields for all the selected Records or Items.  

Perform mass task

  Mass Task allows you to create a Task that will be copied out to all selected Records or Items.

Perform mass activity

  Mass Activity allows you to create an Activity that will be copied out to all selected Records or Items.

Perform mass Opportunity

  Mass Opportunity allows you to create an Opportunity that will be copied out to all selected Records or Items.

 

Dial

The Dial feature allows you to dial the phone number (if present) that is located on the Selected Record.  This will only work if your phone is integrated with your computer.

 

View Map

View Map allows you to take a group of selected Records, and according to the Address information in the selected Items, it will place those items on a map so you can see their locations.

 

If you select “Edit Views”, it will allow you to create new views (with maps, the views are “groupings”).  You can create different groupings so that you can see Account Locations according to the fields you choose to group by.

 

Open in Navigator

The Open in Navigator option will only appear in the context menu when you have multiple items in the Grid selected.  This utility allows you to open multiple Records or Items in one window instead of multiple windows.

 

 

Within the “Navigator Window”, you have 4 options.

1. The “Up” arrow allows you to Pop that current record out into a new window.
2. The “Down” arrow allows you to remove the current record from the navigator window.
3. The “Left” arrow navigates to the previous record
4. The “Right” arrow navigates to the next record

 

16. Grid View Manager

Grid View Manager is a utility that can be used for several purposes including:

1. Setting default Global views
2. Setting default Personal views
3. Adding a Grid View Category
4. Renaming views
5. Setting the “Owner” Filter
6. Enabling Parent Account Data
7. Viewing the number of times, a Grid view has been accessed
8. Changing View Categories
9. Deleting Views

You can access Grid View Manager by clicking on the red ball icon in the toolbar directly above the grid.

 

All users will have access to Grid View Manager for their own personal Grid views, however, the ability to modify Global Views is a permission that will need to be granted by your Company’s Tour de Force Administrator.

 

Setting Default Global Views

Within the Grid View Manager, you can select the default views for both TdF Desktop and TdF Web.  You can select a different view for each, using a more robust view for your Desktop, while selecting a slimmer view for TdF Web since usually TdF Web is accessed from a Tablet or Mobile Device (where Slimmer/Robust relates to how many columns are displayed in the view “how wide it is”).  The tab will default to either Global or Personal depending on the type of view you have active when you open Grid View Manager.

 

 

Setting Default Personal Views

  Personal views work the same as Global Views.  You can select a separate Desktop or Web View.  

 

Adding a Grid View Category

To Add a Grid View Category, click the “+ Category” button.

 

 

Here, you can create a new Grid view category that can be used for any of your Grid Views, to help organize your views and make them more manageable.  Once you have entered the name of the view, click “OK”.

 

 

You have the ability from here as well to “manage or delete” Personal grid view categories, however, you cannot manage or delete Global Grid view categories.  To manage or delete Global Grid view categories you will need to utilize the Global Grid Manager.  Please refer to “Technical Bulletin 9516 - Global Grid Manager” for more details on that utility.

 

Renaming Views

To re-name a view, all you need to do is click on the “Name” of the view and it will allow you to change the name.  This will reflect the next time you re-open the particular Item/Record you are editing a Grid view for.

 

  

 

Setting the “Owner” Filter

If you check the “Use Owner” checkbox, this will apply the Owner filter to the selected grid view.  This will only show the items that the Logged In user is the owner for.

 

 

Enabling Parent Account Data

If you select the “Include Parent” checkbox, this will make Parent Account data available for the selected grid view.        It will not add any fields to the view but will make them available to add to the selected Grid view.        

 

 

Times Accessed

You can view the number of times a Grid view has been accessed.

 

 

Changing View Categories

You can select the Category that a Grid view belongs to.  If no category is selected, the view will be “Uncategorized” and will display in the root folder.

 

 

Deleting Views

To delete a view, single click on the red X in the far-right column.  

 

 

It will prompt you to make sure want to delete that view.  

 

 

Right-Click Options

If you right-click within the “Grid View Manager” grid, you also have 4 options.

 

1. Copy View – Make a copy of the selected view
2. Delete View – Delete the selected view
3. Clean View – This allows you to clean up the grid view.  More information can be found here.
4. Set as Company Default – If you have Global Grid Manager rights, this option allows you to set the selected Global Grid view as the default for the entire company.  

17. Grid Preferences

There are several Grid Preferences available to you that allow you to modify how your grid works or data is displayed.  You can access your Grid Preferences in the bottom left-hand corner of Tour de Force.

 

 

Manage Grid Options

There are several options within the “Manage Grid Options.

 

Export Options

The first option is “Export Options”.  Here we have 2 settings.  Keep in mind that Exporting is a permission that needs to be granted to you by your company’s Tour de Force Administrator.

• Export visible data exactly, maintaining cell formatting – This option, if enabled, allows you export data, maintaining the formatting of the data – such as numbers that are formatted as a date, currency, etc.
• Export the underlying data, losing any cell formatting – This option, if enabled, will export the data in plain text and will not preserve any of the existing formatting such as date, currency, etc.

     

 

Manage Default View Types

In Tour de Force, we give you the flexibility to create default Global and default Personal views.  TdF will use your default Global view automatically unless you have personal views created and have defined your preference within Manage Default View Types. In Manage Default View Types, you can choose both for Desktop and Web independently, whether you want to load your default Personal or default Global view.  You can also do this per Grid Container.

 

Think of a Grid container as the location that you are loading the grid.  For example, if you are in Info Center and you load the Activity Tab, the Grid Type would be Activities and the Grid Container is “Info Center”.  However, if you are viewing the activities off an Opportunity, the Grid Container would be “Opportunity”.  The same would be for the global search.  If you are doing a Global search for Activities, the grid container would be “Search”.

 

As you can see below, you have the flexibility to choose your defaults from virtually anywhere in Tour de Force depending on where you are accessing that Item.  You can change the defaults 2 ways.

 

1. You can single-click on the icon to toggle back and forth between the Personal (house) and Global (globe) view to set the default.  (Remember, you can do this both for Desktop and Web).

    

 

 

2. You can also select multiple grid containers by holding the CTRL button down and using your mouse.  Once you have them highlighted, use the menu at the bottom to set the default as either Global or Personal.  Keep in mind that this will set the default that you select for both Desktop AND Web when you use this method.

 

Miscellaneous

    This section can be accessed both in User Preferences as well here through Manage Grid Options.  For details on the preferences here, please refer to the Section on “Miscellaneous Preferences”.

 

Show Toolbar

 

This option within Grid Preferences, allows you to enable (if checked) or disable (if unchecked) the toolbar that is located directly above the Grid within Info Center.

 

 

 

Show Auto Filter

 

This option within Grid Preferences, allows you to enable (if checked) or disable (if unchecked) the Auto-Filter above the Grid within Info Center.

 

 

Show Footers

 

This option within Grid Preferences allows you to enable (if checked) or disable (if unchecked) the Footer that can be displayed at the bottom of the Grid (as seen below).

 

 

The Footers will also display at the bottom of each group if you are grouping by any columns in your Grid view.

 

Please refer to the section on “Grouping” for more information as it relates to displaying Summary information within the Footers.

 

Show Parent Account Data  

 

If this option is enabled, it allows you to display Parent Account Record information within any other Item/Record’s Grid in Tour de Force.  For example, with this option turned off, in an Opportunity Record, you can only display fields from the Opportunity Record itself.  However, if you enable Parent Account Data, within the Opportunity Grid you would be able to display information from the Parent Account Record of that Opportunity, including BI Sales data as well (as long as the option to Display BI data is enabled in your User Preferences).  This would allow you to pull fields into the Opportunity Grid from the Account Record that the Opportunity belongs to.

  

Change Default Timeout

 

This option allows you to change the amount of time a Grid view will try to load before timing out.  The default here may be 60 or 120 seconds.

 

 

Indicate Editable Columns

If this option is enabled, all “Read-Only” fields will be displayed your Grid view with a light gray background.

 

 

If the option is disabled, all fields will have a white background unless otherwise dictated by Grid Style Editor (an Admin Utility that is covered in Technical Bulletin #6550.

 

 

Show Grouped Columns

If this option is enabled, a column will still display in the grid if you are grouping by it.  With this option disabled, if you Group by a certain column, that column will be removed from the columns displayed in your Grid view.

 

Enabled:

 

Disabled:

 

Toggle Quick Grid Mode

 

As covered in the section on Grid Manager, this option allows you to turn on, or off, Quick Grid Mode.  If enabled within Grid Preferences, this will override the setting within each individual Grid view and will always use Quick Grid mode whether it is enabled or not in the individual Grid settings.

 

 

18. Miscellaneous

Within the Miscellaneous section, are several “Tips and Tricks” that may be useful to you.

Tour de Force Keyboard Shortcuts

 

There are several keyboard shortcuts in Tour de Force.  To access a list of these keyboards shortcuts, from anywhere in Tour de Force, you can press the F1 key.  

• F1 - Display this screen

Display the help screen

• F2 – Re-caption a field
  Allows you to provide an alias (a different name) for a field.
• F3 – Launch the Global Search

Launches the Global Search to allow you to search through Items and Records in TdF in a central place.

• F4 – Launch Favorites
  Launches a Favorites Grid
• F5 – Refresh the grid data
• Control + F5 – Refresh the focused row

Refreshes the currently selected row.  If you “Save and Close” a Record or Item, the grid is not updated until it is refreshed.  Refreshing the selected row can save time if you have a grid with a lot of data.

• F6 – Manage the current Grid View
  Launches Grid Manager
• F7 – Display an image viewer for any image files attached to this TdF item
  If there are any attached images, F7 launches an image viewer that allows you to view any of the image attachments quickly.
• F8 – Display a quick column visibility editor
  Launches a screen that shows you all “hidden” and all “visible” columns.  You can hide or reveal any of the columns and change the order they appear in from here.
• F9 – Displays the Grid Style Editor (Requires Global Grid Admin Rights)
  Display Grid Style Editor that allows you to create conditions in which certain cells or rows are highlighted or where the font is displayed differently.
• Control + Shift + F – Display the Find Panel
  With the Find Panel displayed, you can search the entire grid (any row or column) for the instance of a string of letters or a specific word.  
  
• Control + Shift + O – Launch the selected items in a Navigator
  With several items selected in a grid, this shortcut allows you to launch all the items in Navigator instead of having to “Right Click”, “Open in Navigator”.
• Insert – Quickly add a column before the currently focused column
  Allows you to search for and add a column before the focused (selected) column.

• Control + Alt + C – Copy linking information to the clipboard
  This shortcut allows you to copy either the link to the TDF Desktop Item/Record, the TDF Web Item/Record, or both.  This “link” is then paste-able in Word, Outlook Email, and some chat applications.  This allows you to quickly send a link to another user.
  
• Control + Shift + H – Hide all columns to the right of the currently focused column
• Alt + M – Launch the Mass Update dialog (If you have rights)
  Used to launch the Mass Update utility if you have rights to it.
• Control + Q – Close a TdF Item
• Control + S – Save a TdF Item
• Control + Shift + S – Save and Close a TdF Item
• Control + Shift + R – Re-open your most recently opened TdF Item
• Control + R – Launch the Recent Items Grid
• Control + Shift + V – Show a list of Grid Views in a new window
  A helpful utility if you have Items or Records that contain a lot of grid views.  This allows you to search through all the views that exist for a Record or Item.  You can then click the yellow folder to open (load) the desired grid view.

 

Managing Your Favorites

Favorites are a very beneficial feature in Tour de Force that allow you a central place to go for Records or Items that you access on a regular basis.  Not only can you manually favorite a Record or Item in Tour de Force, but you can also create rules to automatically favorite items according to rules/filters that you can configure.

 

To configure your rules, select the Favorites icon within the Toolbar.  

Next, click on the “Manage” icon to create your rules.   

  

Within this screen, you can select the Record or Item you would like to create a rule for.  Please refer to the section on “Building Filters” for the top section, and the section on “Date Filters” for details on how to configure these filters.

 

Once your Filters are built, all you need to do is select a different Record or Item on the left-hand side to apply the filter.  

 

The Advanced tab is for advanced users that understand the syntax necessary to manually code the filters.  This gives them an additional window where they can manually type out the filter they want to use.  This is not recommended for most users.

 

Quick-Access Grid Views

When you manually open a Record or Item in Tour de Force, the Grid view you have selected in Grid View Manager as your default will load.  Many times, you may want to use that default, but there may be times you want to load a different view.  Instead of having to wait for the default view to load just to change it, there is a shorter way to accomplish this!

 

If you right click on any of the Records or Items on the left-hand side of your screen (Accounts, Contacts, etc.) you will have access to three categories:

• Recent – A small list of your recently accessed views
• Global – All the Global views available to your company
• Personal – All the Personal views available to you

 

You can select from any of these views to load that Record or Item and use the view that you have selected.

 

Tour de Force Reminders

Tour de Force Reminders can be a helpful utility to remind you when important tasks need to be completed.  When Reminders come due, you will receive a small notification window that pops up in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

 

In this section we will walk through how to set up a new Reminder.  When you select “New Reminder” from the toolbar, you will be prompted with the following screen.

 

 

First, fill out the subject of the Reminder.  Once you have done that, you can select the users that will receive the Reminder.  Click on the User’s dropdown and then toggle on or off the users you would like to have the Reminder set for.

 

Next, select the date and time you would like the Reminder to pop up for.

 

Once you have filled out the top section, you can put any additional text you would like to have displayed in the “Reminder Text” field.

 

The last thing we can do is link the Reminder to any Record in TdF.  If you click the ellipses icon to the right of the bottom field, it will launch a Global Search.  This allows you to locate any Record in TdF either by using the Global Search, or navigating to the Recent Items, Favorites, or Info Center Tabs.