How to Backup Your Agency Calendar

Click here to download a PDF version of these instructions.

Unless you have linked your intranet calendar icon to Outlook, chances are good that you are using a free calendar on Calendars.net.

How can you tell? Move your mouse over the calendar icon or link and look at the status bar in the bottom left corner of your screen. If the link contains “calendars.net”, you are using this free site.

If this is the case and you are relying on this calendar to keep track of the goings-on in your office, it's very important to back it up frequently. The process takes less than five minutes and could save you headaches in the long run, particularly if something happens to the Calendars.net site. You'll still have your data, which can then be imported into an Outlook calendar or other online calendar program.

We recommend that every Friday, you follow these simple steps for backing up your Agency Calendar:

1. Go to your Agency Calendar home page
   
2. Click the Administer: this calendar link
   
3. On the Calendar Administration screen, click the Data Exporting link
   
4. Select the to and from dates that you want to include in your export
   
   TIP: By selecting the earliest possible start date and latest possible end date from the drop-down year and month lists, you will be sure to backup everything in your calendar.
   
5. Click on the Export button
   
6. When the export is complete, the Export Calendar Data Results page will display a confirmation message similar to this:
   
   Calendar Settings: YOURAGENCY
   Export Calendar Data Results
   The export file has successfully been written to the iCal server.You can download the file to your system with this link: youragency.csv.
   Note: Depending on your browser, you may need to click on the link with your right mouse button.
   
   
7. Your backup file has now been created and is ready for download
   
8. Right-click on the CSV link (shown as youragency.csv above)
   
9. Select Save Target As from the shortcut menu.
   
10. Select a location (such as your INTRANET folder) and click the Save button.
    
11. The file will be copied to the specified location.
    
12. You can open this CSV file in Excel or Notepad. You can also import it into an Outlook calendar.

For further details about the Agency Calendar, please visit the AgencyCentral Help Desk, accessible from your System tab or online at www.intranetconcepts.com/help. You can also click here to download a PDF version of these instructions.

Agency Calendars... a new choice to consider

For those agencies who don't have an Exchange Server running in their office, it used to be very difficult to share a single electronic calendar. Then, a few years ago, one of our clients discovered a site, www.Calendars.net, that offered a free web-based calendar to anyone who wanted one. We began including a link to one of these interactive calendars in every AgencyCentral Classic Intranet that we customized.

While this option has worked well for many agencies, the one drawback has been the lousy performance on this free calendar server. (You certainly do get what you pay for!) More often than not, the site runs slowly or crashes continually while you are trying to update the calendar. While you can sign up for their inexpensive premium service, there are other alternatives that are still free.

My new favorite is the Google calendar. By simply signing up for a new account at Google, you will automatically have access to their calendar. Under the Settings option, you can make this calendar public so that everyone in the agency can view it. Only those with the login and password, however, can change the calendar.

What other calendar options have you found? Why not post a comment to share them with everyone else?

Multiple Login Prompts

Here's an annoying problem that I just figured out how to solve... you go to your hosted intranet and are repeatedly prompted for the login, even though you typed the correct username and password the first time! Grrrr! Here's what I did to fix this on my computer:

1. From your Start menu or Desktop, open My Computer
2. Click on File > Add Network Location and click the Next button
3. Select Choose a custom network location and click Next
4. In the Internet or network address field, type the exact address of your intranet home page (ie: http://www.our-intranet.info/agencyname/index.htm).
   TIP: For best results, include the http: and index.htm portions of the address.
5. Click the Next button and log in when prompted. (You may still get multiple logins, but bear with me...)
6. In the Type a name for this network location field, type an easy-to-recognize name and click the Next button.
7. When the process is successful, click the Finish button to close the wizard.
8. You will again receive the login prompt as the computer tries to open the web folder. Log in to display all the files contained in your intranet.
9. Right-click on index.htm and select Open from the shortcut menu. Your intranet home page should display in Internet Explorer.
10. Close all windows then launch your intranet as usual. If all goes well, you will only receive a single login prompt from now on.

Hosting Your Intranet on the Web

Note: This posting only applies to the AgencyCentral Classic Intranet which is updated through FrontPage or Expression Web. For details on using the SharePoint Intranet, please visit http://www.intranetconcepts.com/acsphelp.

Although AgencyCentral can easily be used and maintained on a simple shared drive on your agency network, many of our clients have found that hosting it on a password-protected Web server provides added functionality as well as access from outside the office.

For as little as $100 a year, you can store AgencyCentral with our preferred hosting company, GreenGeeks, and enjoy the added features of mailing lists, search capabilities, HTML forms (which submit to an email address) and a variety of scripts that available only on this type of server.

If you would like some help in migrating your network-based intranet up to a Web server, please give me a call. If you are already an Agency Partner (support customer), this is an excellent use of your monthly time!

Updating the Expense Report

As you probably know, the IRS has updated the business mileage allowance for 2008 to 50.5¢ per mile. If you are using the Expense Report form that came with your AgencyCentral Intranet, you need to update the formula for this new amount. This can be done from any workstation with Microsoft Excel.

1. From Windows Explorer, open your INTRANET folder
2. Open the forms folder
3. Open the accounting folder
4. Right-click on the Expense Report file and select Open from the shortcut menu
5. This will open the file in Microsoft Excel
6. Update the message field (usually A29) to read:
   Mileage reimbursement for 2008: 50.5¢ per mileNOTE: Effective 7/01/08, the IRS increased the mileage allowance to 58.5¢ for the remainder of the year. For official details, click here.
7. Click on the TOTAL MILEAGE REIMBURSEMENT field (usually L30) and update the formula bar to read as follows:
   =D27*0.505
8. Save and exit Microsoft Excel
9. From now on, the total miles shown in the MILEAGE column (usually D27) will be multiplied by .505 (the decimal equivalent of 50.5¢) and the mileage allowance will be displayed in the TOTAL MILEAGE REIMBURSEMENT field (usually L30)

Frequently-Asked Questions

Here are some of the current questions about using the intranet... these links will open pages in the AgencyCentral Help Desk. Check back soon as we begin adding new and relevant content to this new interactive site.

• How do I password-protect a section or folder?
• Why don't links to my Excel files open?
• Why won't FrontPage save my changes?
• How do I add a new company to my intranet?
• How do I email a completed form?
• How do I set up AgencyCentral to open automatically?
• What if the entire intranet page doesn't fit on my screen?
• Why do I get "The page cannot be displayed" message when I click on a link?
• How do I add search capabilities to my intranet?