Welcome to the Web+Center Programmers Guide. To help advanced Web+Center user to expand, customize or integrate the Web+Center web-based support suite into their own support and business processes, we determine that a Web+Center Programmers Guide was necessary for advanced users who wished to exploit the customization features of the product.

Web+Center does not have to be customized by programmers to be operational, and this guide should only be referenced by very technically capable Web+Center administrators and configurators who wish to expand the functionality of the product or perform some customizations required for their support or business processes.

This guide is designed for Web+Center users who are capable of customizations to the product using the ASP (Active Server Pages) programming language. User must also have some knowledge of databases, tables and the SQL query language.

Customizations, enhancements, and any changes made to the software will not be supported by Internet Software Sciences for licensed or un-licensed customers. If necessary, the ISS Consulting Group can provide fee based consulting services to help develop and or debug your changes if necessary.

Any changes you make to the system must be integrated by you if new versions are released. Included in this document are suggestions on how to minimize the changes that would be required when integrating a new Web+Center version with your system if you have made changes.

Included in the Appendix is a list of related on-line and book based programming guides we recommend for learning the ASP programming language.

Chapter 2 Database Tables, relationships and tools

The Web+Center product is a web-enabled database application. Web based scripts written in ASP (MS Active Server Pages) form the code base to the Web+Center application. The application scripts performs database lookups, inserts, deletes and updates against the database and then outputs the necessary HTML based pages back to the individual users browser.

The database consists of tables which contain columns which hold the Web+Center data. The database is the central repository for all of the web+center information and system configurations. Changing any of the tables, columns or even the data itself may cause database problems including referential integrity and user application errors.

Since the application is designed around the existing database tables and column, the database design (tables or column design definitions or even data) should NOT be modified by the user. If additional information is required, it should be stored in new database tables that you add to the Web+Center database. If you need to relate the new data to the existing customer, case or tech data, it should be linked to existing Web+Center data by using appropriate key indexes. This will also help when upgrading to new Web+Center versions in the future. New columns can be added to existing tables, but do not rename or delete any existing webcenter database tables or columns.

Table 2-1 lists all of the Web+Center 5.0 tables and their description

Table Name	Description
AssetAssigment	Asset assignment for customers, techs, other assets
Assets	Individual Asset information
Bconfiguration	Business+Center configuration information
Cases	Case Information
Case_Text_Field_Labels	Optional case text box labels
Categories	Categories for cases
Configuration	Web+Center system configurations
CustomerNotes	Additional customer information and customer note logs
CustomerTechAssignment	Business+Center Contact Rep customer assignments
DeleteList	Customers that have requested not to be sent emails
Email_Text	Text for automatic email notifications to customers/techs
EmailCategory	Customer user categories
EmailCategoryLinks	Normalized table showing customers and user categories
EmailText	Email Messages that can be sent from Business+Center
Email_text	Notification messages text and TechCenter User Screen
Escalation	Escalation configuration options
Event_Attending	Normalized table showing attendees for scheduled events
Event_Type	Types of events
Group_List	Staff Member Group Assignments
Groups	Group Definitions
KBConfiguration	Knowledge Base Configuration options
KBMap	Knowledge Base Word Mapping
KBWords	Knowledge Base Words defined
Priority	Priority Definitions
Result_Detail	Customer Surveys Detail Results Table
Schedule	Calendar events scheduled
Survey	Master customer survey table
Survey_Results	Results of customer surveys
Tech_Staff	Staff Member table
Top_Cases	Stores the Customer FAQ list of cases
Invoice	Stores Invoice Information
InvoiceType	Defines Invoice types (like invoice, quote, renewal)
InvoiceStatus	Define Invoice Status types (paid, due, late)
PaymentMethod	Defines Payment Methods (Cash, Purchase order, etc)
TimeSpent	Stored Extended Time Spent entries for cases
	Version 6.0 tables
TextAgentAvailable	Text Messaging table to record available techs for msging
TextChat	Stores Txt chat Messages
Companies	Separate companies table to sync company/customer info
Pnotes	Private notes field (viewable by techs only)for support cases
Media_type	Reservation+Center catalog types
Media_Schedule	Reservation+Center scheduling of equipment
Media_Inventory	Reservation+Center equipment inventory

Table 2-1 Web+Center Table Definitions

The 40 Web+Center database tables are constructed within a Relational Database Management System (RDMS) such as Access, or SQL*Server, that allows for relationships and efficient querying access to the data. The database has been constructed for 3^rd normal form optimization for query efficiency and data storage optimization.

Database View, Design and Access Tools

The tables can directly be viewed and edited using tools provided with Access or SQL*Server. We do not recommend you use these tool for editing any table information, since there may be application specific filtering and database creation algorithms that are done by the application that will not be done if you directly add, edit or delete data from the database. The DESIGN of the tables and columns can also be viewed and modified with tools provided by the Database vendor. We highly recommend you DO NOT modify the design or structure of any of the database tables.

The Web+Center application also provides a low level, web-based, direct table view tool in the Business+Center application under Business+Center Administration. This option, called the Web+Center Table Builder, is only available for System Configurator level users that have logged into the Business+Center.

To access the Web+Center table builder, log into the Business+Center with your System Configurator account and press the Administration button. Then click on the Web+Center Table Builder Menu option to view or edit the Web+Center tables.

This Web+Center Table Builder is only meant to display and perform table edits for special situations. Editing, adding or deleting a table column without understanding all of the implications can cause some database referential integrity and potential application errors. Use this tool with extreme caution.

Another tool for viewing data exists under the Tech+Center administration called the database snooper. This is a read only query tool that can be used to directly view the contents of the database.

Chapter 3 Directories, files and files types

Directories:

The Web+Center application is installed into 9 directories consisting of:

Techcenter – The directory for all of the Tech+Center application code and graphics

Customercenter – The directory for all of the Customer+Center application code.

BusinessCenter – The directory for all of the Business+Center application code.

Pocketcenter – The directory for all of the Pocket+Center application code.

Database – Contains the Access seed database (webcenter50.mdb) and the SQL scripts to create the SQL*Server seed database and the Linux mySQL database.

Language – The directory for all of the Web+Center labels and buttons graphics. All of the definitions have been placed into this directory for easy language text substitutions and internationalization of the Web+Center product for languages other than english. Labels and graphics are all located in this directory so they can be easily shared between all of the Web+Center applications.

ASP Mailer – Contains the Licensed ASP mailer from Email Architect. This aosmtp.dll is installed and registered when the Web+Center application is installed. This ASP mailer is not an SMTP program that will compete with exchange or any other SMTP mail server on that machine. Sometimes this aosmtp.dll ASP mailer must be system registered into the system by running the “regsvr32 aosmtp.dll” command inside of the ASP mailer directory.

Reservation –This directory contains the ASP code for the Reservation+Center. The Reservation+Center is a fifth component in the Web+Center suite of web-based applications. This component allows techs and customers to reserve equipment, media devices and facilities from a catalog of resources in a true reservation system approach of scheduling and reserving based on availability of that resource.

ProgramFolder –This directory contains the HTML files and images for the Program.. Applications start page for the Web+Center application. If you want to launch Web+Center from the program application, the files for that method are defined in this folder.

When the Web+Center is installed, it is installed by default into the Program Files folder like:

C:\program files\Internet Software Sciences\web+center 6.0\

Wctempfiles – This folder is a special folder to hold temporary files that are created for web+center calendar functions. Calendar files are placed into this directory and a link is created to retried that file out of this directory. This allows the application to create the exact file type (such as vCalendar file type) and lets the user click on that link and it will automatically be processed by the browser based on the application file name extension and rules setup for handling different types of files.

The four Web+Center application directories (Techcenter, customercenter, pocket and businesscenter) contain a combination of the following types of files:

*.asp Active Server Pages Scripts

*.gif GIF web graphics

*.inc Activer Server Pages INClude files included by ASP module

*.jpg JPEG web graphics

*.dll ISAPI (Compiled C++) DLL

*.htm HTML files

Each of the applications require a virtual directory to be establish and will have a default “home page” with a file called default.asp or default.htm which the webserver configured as the default page for a particular virtual directory. Most of the web+center applications default home page uses an default.asp page as the primary page, but a backup default.htm page exists that does a quick redirect to default.asp if the default.htm page is picked up first. The default.asp allows more programming options for the first login page so with version 6.0, the default pages have been to default.asp.

For example, the Tech+Center home page that is accessed when you enter the URL of

http://<hostname>/tech60/ will display the default.htm page in the techcenter directory.

The database directory contains files:

*.mdb Web+Center Database in Access 2000 Format

*.sql SQLServer or mySQL scripts to create Web+Center Database

*.asp Some database upgrade scripts.

The language directory contains *.inc files and graphics that are referenced by all of the 3 Web+Center applications.

The Program Folder Directory

This folder is created to allow the users to run the program from the Program.. start menu.

Determining which script is called

To determine which ASP or DLL script is being called, review either the link in the Browser URL window, or the URL link as you move over the link. For HTML form based pages, one will have to perform a View Frame Source File option or a View Source option on the preceding HTML page and search for the <form action=….> HTML tag. This will tell you what page the form is calling.

The basic file naming convention is that first form page for a particular function like registration is called “registration.asp”. The following HTML submit processing page for that form is called “DoRegistration.asp”, where the word “Do” has been added in front of the preceeding ASP file name. Many of the ASP File names can be found by “mousing over” the button panel and viewing the URL listed at the bottom of the browser.

All of the ASP scripts (*.asp and *.inc) are ASCII based files that can be edited with a plain ASCII editor such as NotePad or Textpad. Do not edit these ASP scripts with an HTML editor such as DreamWeaver or a word processor like Microsoft Word. We recommend the TextPad editor which can be downloaded from the web at their website: http://www.textpad.com.

Chapter 4 ASP Programming and customizations and Upgrades

One of the advantages of the Web+Center Customer Support/Help Desk Product over other web-based support products is that it is customizable to a very large degree since we provide you all of ASP scripting source code for the application and document the complete database architecture and software designs.

The Web+Center application is written in ASP (Active Server Pages) (Visual Basic) scripting language. The only part of the Web+Center application that is not written and modifiable by the user is the Web+Center License key technology. This tiny piece is written and compiled in C++ and can not be modified by the end user. This compiled component is only accessed when adding technicians to your system or during periodic checks on the techs and license keys for compliance.

Active Server Pages (ASP) scripting technology that comes installed with the MS Internet Information Server (IIS) is almost equivalent to Visual Basic.

The ASP web scripting language is very easy to learn, easy to debug, and very fast for development and deployment of customizations to the Web+Center product.

What makes this language easy for development is its error reporting and error parsing that instantly tells what module is at fault, the line number where the run time or parsing error occurred, and it will even point out where in the line the error is found.

To make changes to the code, simply edit the ASP file (registration.asp for example) with your ASCII editor, edit and save the change. The next time that ASP script is reference by the web, the modified script will be called and executed. No compiler or compilations are required.

ASP modules are combinations of HTML code and embedded script code. The script and logic code is separated from the HTML code with the special code delimiters tags like “<% and %> tags.

For example, a simple ASP file that writes 15 numbers to the page might be:

<html>

<head>

</head>

<body>

Here are 10 numbers created by an ASP script:

<% ‘ Here is the code

For I = 1 to 15

Response.write (I) & “,”

Next

That’s it !

</body>

</html>

This would display an HTML page that looks like

Here are 15 numbers created by an ASP script: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 That’s It!

The VB language is a fairly functionality complete programming language that is sufficient to customize your Web+Center application for your particular business requirements.

There are numerous resources on the ASP programming language available on-line or in book format. Here is a very short list to get your started.

On-Line Websites about ASP programming:

http://www.w3scripts.com/asp/

http://www.learnASP.com

http://www.asplists.com

http://www.aspwire.com

http://www.coveryourasp.com

http://www.aspguild.org

Lists of many ASP site

http://www.learnasp.com/links/

Books:

Active Server Pages 2.0 or 3.0 by Wrox Press

ASP in a Nutshell by O’Reilly Press

VB Script in a Nutshell by O’Reilly Press

VBA for Dummies Quick Reference (VBA guide but close to VB Script)

The book Active Server Pages Professional by Wrox Press is really overly complex unless you are already very proficient at ASP programming and the Beginning Active Server Books are more than sufficient to learn and implement custom ASP solutions for Web+Center.

Customizations:

Making Small customizations: If you need to make small customizations to the ASP code, we recommend you make the change and then a very searchable, unique string in a comment line above that customization like:

‘*** COMPANY XYZCHANGE***

‘ response.write “Display message’

response.write “New Message”

Finding Differences you have made:

Then when upgrading when new versions are required, you can use some entire directory search text utility (like the search mechanism in the free ASCII editor called Textpad available from www.textpad.com) to find all changes you have made in a particular directory so they can be copied and pasted into the new application code for upgrades.

Using a Source Code Difference Tool:

It might be necessary to compare your existing ASP file(s) and the new versions of file and to easily highlight the differences. Some special tools are available that make this difficult task fairly easy. One tool that is available for free from the Internet is called WinMerge. It is available for download from http://www.winmerge.org.

Another utility called WinDiff can be found with the MS Visual studio set of utilities and can be used to compare files and directories and identify differences.

Making Larger customizations:

The easiest approach to creating new Web+Center ASP code is to copy and paste existing Web+Center modules into new modules (rename) that you create and then modify. Existing Web+Center modules have the necessary overall ASP/HTML structure, and database connection code, security and permission code, and include some required basic configuration files.

Once you create, test and debug a new module, you can link it to the existing site in several ways. In the Tech+Center application, there exists a hidden “Custom” button that you can enable by replacing that clear hidden Custom button with a regular button. A blank button called (blank_button.gif) is available in the Tech+Center directory. Using a graphic tool of your choice, one can put the lettering on the blank button graphic and then rename your newly created button ts_custom_button.gif to make it appear in the button panel. With version 6.0, there is now an customer button builder available in the Tech+Center administration to create your own buttons that have the look and field of the Web+Center 6.0 application.

If you edit and modify the ASP modules, the next time you upgrade to another version you will need to merge in your changes into new version.

Checking for Software Updates:

To determine if your installed Web+Center ASP modules are the most current or not with the most currently released software, ISS has developed a special Version server and each version of Web+Center comes with companion software to check your installed versions against the currently released version. To run this file version check utility, run the script call CheckVersions.asp which is located in the each of the Techcenter, customercenter, pocketcenter, businesscenter and language directories.

For example, to check if you Tech+Center application is current, with your browser run the URL:

http://<your host name>/tech60/checkversions.asp

The other applications versions can be checked by running:

Customer+Center:

http://<your host name>/customer60/checkversions.asp

Business+Center:

http://<your host name>/business60/checkversions.asp

Pocket+Center:

http://<your host name>/pocket60/checkversions.asp

Language Directory:

http://<your host name>/language60/checkversions.asp

Reservation+Center Directory:

http://<your host name>/reservation60/checkversions.asp

This will provide a report showing what files are newer, older or modified by you. You can individually download and install versions that are out of date by clicking on the appropriate file name link.

Once you have downloaded the file, you will need to compare it to your existing version and if necessary integrate your custom changes into the new module. There is a tool called “WinDiff.exe” that comes with the MS developers tools that provides a good line by line file comparison utility to help merge in any changes. Also the tool WinMerge from www.WinMerge.org can be used to compare differences.

If you plan on doing extensive changes to a module, we recommend that you copy and paste the whole module into newly renamed module, maybe a module name that has your company or organization name it like RegistrationMyCompany.asp. Then make all of your changes to that module.

Then search the ASP files in that directory that are called the original module (registration.asp for example) and modify the pages that call Registration.asp to now call RegistrationMyCompany.asp. The TextPad editor available from www.textpad.com has “Find In File” feature to make this search across the entire directory easy to find.

Another option if you plan on doing extensive modification or even new ASP code to perform functions not already provided by Web+Center code base is to create and test the new code and then add a link or button to that module from somewhere in the application where it is appropriate.

Additional Tech+Center reports can also be added to the Report.asp or the custom reports page module by simply adding another link to the reports.asp or customreports.asp file.

Chapter 5 ASP Page Security systems and monitoring options

All five of the applications (Tech+Center, Business+Center and Customer+Center, Reservation+Center, and Pocket+Center) use a cookie based method of login security.

When a Tech Staff member, Business+Center user or customer logs into the Web+Center application, the application sends an browser based “Cookie” back to user web browser from the server that authenticates the user if the correct Login ID and password were passed in the Login form. This cookie is unique for each of the applications and does not allow a user to run mutiple Tech+Center or Business+Center logins at the same time. with the same browser.

As each Customer+Center, Business+Center or Tech+Center page is executed, it first checks that the user has previously successfully logged into the application by checking for the correct “Cookie”. For some Tech+Center applications, it not only checks for the Login cookie, but it also check the security level for that user by checking with the database to get the current security settings. For example, when the Tech Staff member runs the reports page (reports.asp), it check for the cookie and then performs a database security level lookup on the logged in user and verify that the user is at least Administrative level. For certain Tech+Center pages including reports, administration and configuration pages, the user must have “Administrator” or “Configurator” level accounts. If the program detect that this page is attempted to be called by either an un-authenticated user (no cookie detected) or if the user does not have the right security level, a special INVALID USER page will be displayed to the user.

The invalid user page will display large red text to the user about the access violation. If you wish to edit the text that is displayed when this error occurs, edit the invaliduser.inc file with your own security access message.

The toptions.asp page in the techcenter directory is the ASP module that displays the button panel in the left hand side of the Tech+Center application. Inside of that module are the definitions to control which buttons appears for which security level (configuration, administrator, tech,etc) of the logged in user. The boptions.asp is the similar module in the businesscenter directory to control which buttons appears in the business+center application.

Another option if users attempt to access pages they are not provided links to is to enable some email logging options in the invaliduser.inc page. Simply add some code to create an email message that specifies the page that is being attempted to be accessed, the user ID (obtained from the cookie) and time and date of the access violation. Once that message is created, send off an email to Web+Center administrator using the SendEmail() function that is provided for you in the invaliduser.inc page.

You could provide additional information by grabbing the IP address of the user if the user does not have their cookie set properly and they are still attempting to access pages they do not have permission to access.

When a user logs in, they should only be shown buttons and links that they have permission to use and users should not get this page without hacking attempts. If a user book marks a page within the application, and closes the browser and comes back they will also get this error page. Users should be told not to Browser book mark pages within the application since the call on server may change without notice to the end user.

Cookies will automatically be lost when the browser is closed or if they press the Logout option. Web+Center Cookies are not saved in the disk based cookie files (like cookies.txt) since we tell the browser to save them only as long as the browser session is active. This provides a fairly good level of security from persons attempting to duplicate a logged in cookie setting.

Browsers must have their “cookies” enabled for any of the applications to work. A Tech+Center user will experience three frames with errors if cookies are not enabled on the browser.

There are no other cookies that are set by the Web+Center application besides these Login ID cookies.

To monitor and log web pages hit by users, enable the Web Server logs or the Extented server logs. Every HTTP request for ASP pages, or graphics will be defined in the web server logs. Enabling web server logs is available in the Default WebSite Properties window near the botton. Check the Enable Logging option and select anActive Log Format from the choice of logging options available.

Chapter 6 Importing data into the Web+Center Database

One of the benefits of the Web+Center Help Desk product is the open architecture and straight forward design of the database and the application. The table names, columns and database relationships are meant to be self documenting for those that wish to integrate custom applications into the Web+Center suite of products.

Although the tables, columns and relationships are easy to understand, certain rules and data requirements must be followed to ensure database consistency and maintain database referential integrity. Referential integrity is lost, for example, when a customer record is deleted, but other records who have customer_ID keys pointing to that customer record still exist.

We DO NOT recommend you import data into your Web+Center database table using import filters provided by Microsoft or other vendors. Instead of using tools provided by the database vendor, we recommend you use or create new ASP “scripts” that directly connect to the database tables and then modify and insert the data into the database as needed on a record by record basis. This allows for far better control of the data being inserted and you can add additional logic to set default fields to certain values when special conditions exists. Special Import scripts have already been developed for importing Customer Records and Asset Records. Additional information about these scripts is listed below.

Importing Customer Records

The best way to import external customer records into the Web+Center database is to use the web-based Import Customers Wizard which can be launched by clicking on Administration… System Configuration Menu and Import Customers Wizard link.

Before you launch this customer import utility, you must first create an ODBC compliant database of your external customers with first name, and last name as the minimum. To run this script, you must have the name of the ODBC DSN and the name of the table where your external customer are stored.

Before running this script, one should back up the database incase the script does not properly import records and you need to start the import process from the beginning.

It is recommend you attempt to import a few records first before importing an external database.

The Import Customers Wizard is designed to used in both a new import of customers as well as an update of existing records and the software provides options to determine if a duplicate record should be created or a record updated.

This utility consists of three scripts named ImportCustomers.asp, DoImportCustomers.asp and DoImportCustomers2.asp and it is located in the Techcenter physical directory.

Other Customer Import Scripts:

Internet Software Sciences has also written 2 other customer import scripts that exist in the Tech+Center (techcenter) directory. Customize or review these scripts for information on how to create and perform proper customer record imports.

The two scripts (ImportFilter.asp) and (ImportLDAP.asp, DoImportLDAP) are a starting point to develop your own customer import code. Open up the scripts using an ASCII editor and review, edit and customize them to your requirements. They will not run properly without your customizations. Before running any imports, back up your database completely and be prepared to run the import process a few times before you get it working correctly.

The ImportLDAP.asp and DoImportLDAP.asp scripts were originally created to import a table of customers created by an LDAP export. This script will still work for other customer imports as well.

Customer records are stored in the “Customers” table. The only required field for this table is the customer_id field, which is a 20 character text primary key field. This field is created in the Web+Center application as the customer’s Last Name + “underscore” + First Name. For example, if Mary Smith were the customer’s name, the customer_ID field created for that customer would be: “Smith_Mary”. If there already exists a Mary Smith in the database, the application will add a 3 digit random number at the end of the string to create a unique Customer_ID index. This Customer_ID field is required and indexed and must be unique. Although the other fields are not required at the database level, we recommend, as a minimum, populating the contact_fname (first name), contact_lname (last name) and email fields with information when performing any imports.

Another way to import customer records is to use the LDAP integration method when your customers are all located in an LDAP or active directory. Please refer to the Active Directory integration and configuration guide in the documentation directory.

Importing Asset Records

A script called ImportAssets.asp exists in the \techcenter directory. If you plan to do any asset information, we recommend you use this script. It will be need to be customized to your individual asset column naming conventions.

The table that the asset information will be inserted into is the Assets table. This table is driven by an Auto-number Integer primary field key called Asset_Number. As soon as you attempt to insert a new record, a new asset_number will be created for that asset.

This table has one required integer field called “dummy” and it must be filled in with some integer value when inserting new records. This field exists to maintain compatibility with previous versions.

Although the other fields are optional at the database level, we recommend populating the equipment_type field as a minimum. If you put any information into either the property_tag, ip_address, serial_number, monitor_serial_number or the computer_id fields, they must be unique values or left as NULL. These fields are indexed and must be unique. You will get a database insert error if this unique condition is not met on any of these fields.

There are also 5 custom asset fields (custom_field1… custom_field5) where you can store information that does not match the current asset column definitions. To change the label in front of the field, simply edit the AssetInfo.asp ASP module with your field names.

Asset assignments are stored in a separate table called AssetAssignment. You must first add and obtain the index (asset_number) for the asset before you can assign the asset to a customer, tech or to another asset. To assign an asset to a customer, insert the original asset and obtain the asset_number created by the auto-number feature of this field. Then add a new record into the AssetAssignment table setting the Asset_number field to the newly created asset_number, and setting the customer_id field to the customer_id of that customer.

Importing Cases

We currently don’t provide any case import scripts but case imports can be created using the existing customer import scripts and editing the script to handle case imports rather than customer imports.

Importing cases is fairly complex since you can only add case records with a valid Customer_ID field and there are required fields, and special date/Time formats required.

The case table is driven by the case_number field which is an auto-number integer primary key field. There are 6 required fields that must be populated when inserting a case record. If one of these fields are blank, you will get an database error and the record will not be inserted. The required fields are:

Customer_id – key back to customers table for customer. If you are importing previous cases without association to a specific customer, set this to a generic customer_id that you create in the database first.

Open_date – this is