I had a client purchase Hightower Timekeeper plus their remote timekeeping solution. The client intends to use the Timekeeper software to track time for 40 members of their staff as they work on different client matters throughout the day. At the end of the reporting period they’ll generate reports from the system that provide an accurate breakout of where the employee’s have spent their time. This makes allocations (and billing back expenses) much easier and more accurate than their old method which was basically to estimate.
One of the best things about Hightower Timekeeper is the remote solution. The setup is a snap and within 30 minutes we were able to log in on the client’s network and run a Timekeeper data entry screen via the web. All data entered is updated in real time to the Timekeeper module.
The licenses for Remote Timekeeper are cheaper ($40 ea) than regular Sage MAS 90 licenses so this is a much more economical way to gather time via the web.
The one piece of the puzzle that we had to give some thought to was how to setup the Web Server so that it ran as a service. We wanted to run the server software as a service so that a user would not have to remain logged in and so that in the event of a server reboot we could be assured that the server would startup unattended.
There are two components to this. The first is the PxPlus interpreter which by default configures itself to run as a service.
Setting up the ProvideX Web Server to run as a service
Here’s the information about running ProvideX web server as a service:
Open the PVX PLUS command prompt and paste in the code from here:
http://manual.pvxplus.com/appendix/webserver_service.htm
Had to remove the “CONTROL” from the last line to get it to work on windows 2000. That installs the service, worked perfectly.
Just as an FYI – here’s the pricing on Timekeeper:
HighTower Library Master – $395
TimeKeeper – $2995
35 Device Licenses – $1400 (obviously you only purchase what you need here)
Client Care – $850 (software upgrades)
I was pretty impressed at how (relatively) pain free the setup was to run this via an Internet Browser. We didn't access it from outside the client's internal network so I can't vouch for how simple the firewall type issues will be to configure.
I was pretty impressed at how (relatively) pain free the setup was to run this via an Internet Browser. We didn't access it from outside the client's internal network so I can't vouch for how simple the firewall type issues will be to configure.