Using AvectraWiki

From AvectraWiki, the wiki of Avectra netFORUM

Contents 1 How do I log in? 2 What this Wiki is For 3 What this Wiki is NOT For 4 How Can I Contribute? 5 Posting Guidelines 6 Using Templates 7 Embedding Code

How do I log in?

You only need to Log In to add or edit content. If you just want to browse or search, you do not need to log in. See AvectraWiki FAQ how how to log in.

What this Wiki is For

This wiki grew out of a desire to have deeper documentation and analysis of netFORUM that is:

• easily accessible
• searchable
• cross-referenced
• improvable by anyone
• centralized, and therefore instantaneously distributed

The best way to achieve this, we believe, is through a wiki that is available and open to all, and editable by Avectra clients, staff, and PartnerNET partners.

Like just about every company, Avectra staff, partners and clients have amassed a tremendous amount of knowlege about a product, but unfortunately a lot of it winds up in irretrievable emails, unrecorded conversations, or in documents that are hard to locate and difficult to update and distribute.

If that knowlege could be entered into a wiki, imagine the benefits. Not only would this knowlege be easily searched and retrieved, but the ease of using a wiki will encourage this knowledge to grow and evolve because anyone can cross-link, expand and improve articles.

What this Wiki is NOT For

This wiki is not intended as the place to log punchlist items or bugs. Please go to http://www.avectra.com for this to ensure that your need is properly addressed.

How Can I Contribute?

First, log in as described in AvectraWiki FAQ.

Next, when you see a page you would like to improve, or if you see a topic that is not addressed at all, please log in to add or edit a page!

Posting Guidelines

Here are a few guidelines:

• Before adding a new page, search to see if there is already an existing page for your topic. Use the search feature to look.
• Quality and Clarity - although we don't want you to think every contribution must be perfect, at the same time we encourage you to take a few moments to edit your contribution. For example, please don't just post an entire email to a page. The community will be grateful if you would succintly distill the topic down to its most important parts.
• If you want to contribute a few lines, consider putting those few lines on an existing page instead of making a new page. It is probably better to have one unified page on a topic instead of 5 fragment pages. That being said, we don't want a single page to turn into a long scroll. If you can forsee that your topic might grow into a larger page over time, then consider putting it on its own dedicated page. For example, we have an Integrations page that briefly summarizes each of netFORUM's many integrations, but each integration has its own dedicated page. Try to strike a balance between having one super-long page and having too many short/fragmented pages.
• Page Titles: try not to make your page title be an entire sentence. Keep it pointed and short. If you feel like you have a very long page title, then that might suggest maybe your contribution should actually be a smaller section within a shorter page?
• When naming a page for a programming class, please use entire namespace, for example, Avectra.netForum.Data.DynamicFacade and not just DynamicFacade.
• Don't be shy and don't be intimidated. You might want to add just a few sentences about Installing netFORUM, for example. But you don't have the time to write a full article. Don't worry about it. Just get the article started, and you or someone else can fill the blanks in later. It's better to add a little than to do nothing. Also, don't feel that you have to be perfect, or write perfect grammar, or that you have to spend an extra hour editing your entry. People will care more about the information than how you write.
• When appropriate, add one or more Category codes to tag your page. Generally, every page should have at least one category. Categories appear on the bottom of any page. It's a way to apply a taxonomy to the many articles that appear in a wiki. See this list of all Categories currently in this wiki. When appropriate, feel free to add a new category after you have made sure there is not already an existing category that might be named differently. To add a category, simply type this on a new line at the end of your article, for example to put the article in the Toolkit category: [[Category:Toolkit]].
• When you add a topic, take a moment to hyperlink to existing pages to make it accessible; if you want to know all the pages that link to a page, click the What links here link on the left. Also, if your new topic is an extension of an existing topic, consider going to other pages to link to your new topic. For example, if you add a page on Solomon batch exports, then you might want to go to the existing Batch page and add a link. If you are not sure where to put the link, then put it in a See Also section on the bottom of the page.
• Although links between pages are valuable, do not over-link. If you have a page that has the word "Invoice" many times, do not link EVERY instance of the word. Just link the first instance, or if the article is very long, the first instance in each section. It is distracting to see the same word linked repeatedly in an article.
• We have added Templates for many common page topics that bring a consistent standard. These templates include Content Group, Group Item, Web Method, .NET Class, and others. Please use them. We usually have instructions for how to use them on those pages that encourage them.
• Module - We will have a page for each of the 12+ netFORUM Modules or Content Groups. From this page we will have a link to each Group Item in that Module as described in the next bullet:
• Group Items. We envision having a page for every Group Item in netFORUM. For example, Accounting-->Batch, CRM-->Organization, etc. If you want to post something about a Batch, see if you can place it on the Batch page. If you think it belongs on its own page, then at least add a link to your new page from the Batch page.
• A picture is worth a thousand words. Consider uploading a screenshot or picture. It's easy. See Uploading Photos for instructions. The Build Event page uses pictures nicely. See also Help:Screenshot standards for suggestions on how to capture screenshots and to format them in a consistent way throughout the entire site.

MOST IMPORTANT:

• Please use this wiki! The next time you write up "here is how you do X" in an email, please put it in this wiki instead. Then, still go ahead and send your email, but put in a link to your Wiki page. Or, after an email thread finishes up, take a few moments and summarize the findings/learnings in a Wiki page. Then write back to the group with a link to your page. If anything new needs to be added, then hopefully that person will update the wiki. Remember that emails get forgotten, archived, deleted lost. And new employees will never see the wonderful information in an email that was sent 3 days before they started. Unlike emails, what you put in this wiki will live on.

• If you have a wonderful document that explains who to do X, Y, and Z, consider migrating this document into the wiki. Many more people will read and learn from your document when it's in the wiki. Put your name on the bottom and then you'll be famous and beloved by the whole Avectra community.

Using Templates

Templates are a way of bringing order and consistency to common pages. We have added Templates for the following types of pages. Please use them when possible. If you go to these template pages, there will be a section that you can easily highlight with your mouse, then Copy (Ctrl-C) and then Paste (Ctrl-V) onto a new page. If this is too confusing, don't let it stop you, just add the content and someone will tidy things up later.

• Template:Module -- use for any Module (aka Content Group), such as Accounting, CRM, etc.
• Template:GroupItem -- use for Group Item such as Batch within the Accounting module.
• Template:Integration -- use for integrations, such as CDYNE, etc.
• Template:WebMethod -- use for web methods such as xWeb:Authenticate web method of xWeb.
• Template:Class -- use for .NET classes such as Avectra.netForum.Data.DataUtils.
• Template:Method -- use for .NET methods such as Avectra.netForum.Data.FacadeClass.Insert.
• Template:StaticFacade -- use for Static Facade Objects such as Avectra.netForum.Components.AC.Invoice.
• Template:Option for system options such as AddressCorrectionEnabled.
• Template:User Option for user options. All User Option pages have been created.
• Template:Build for netFORUM builds or release such as 2006.02.
• Template:Training for any training offerings such as Toolkit Training.
• Template:DatabaseTable - for any Tables. Name the page the actual table name (e.g. co_customer). Create a page for a database table only when necessary. In most cases, anything you want to say about a Table or Column can be done on the page for the Group Item most closely associated with that database table.

Embedding Code

Sometimes it is helpful to include c#, SQL, XML or other code on a wiki page. AvectraWiki uses GeSHi to highlight code wrapped in a <code> block.

Example Wiki Markup:

<code csharp> int i = 0; </code>

Example Output:

int i = 0;

For more, see the Code Formatting page and try things out on the Sandbox.