Add Help Info to Forms Guidance notes can be created (and easily edited) to provide guidance to line staff using E-Com. They don't print out when the form is printed - but they are very helpful for new staff.
To do this, follow these steps:
Open the form to which you would like to add the notes
Enter Layout mode (select 'Layout' from the 'View' menu)
Create the notes where ever you would like on the form
Click on your new notes to select them and choose 'Set Sliding/Printing' from the 'Format' menu
Click the 'Do not print...' checkbox as shown below
Save Directly to Excel
On any screen in E-Com, the data on that screen can be saved directly to an Excel file by simple choosing 'Save/Send Records As...Excel' from the File menu as shown in the screen capture below.
This can be particularly useful on the student listing screen where you can easily generate an Excel file for any set of students in E-Com.
The next time a building administrator or program manager asks for a list of IEP students and their case manager names, a building list can be attached to an email (in either Excel or PDF format) and sent away in just a couple of easy steps!
Find & Replace
When entering data on the various forms in E-Com, the Find & Replace function can be very useful when correcting an error or updating data on a duplicated form.
For example, if you have an evaluation where you have used 'Bob' for the student's name, but find that you want to change it to 'Robert', you can use the Find & Replace function to do this quickly and easily.
Another common example would be when a psychologist (or SLP, OT, PT, etc...) has an Individual Evaluation they have set up for a particular testing situation and then duplicates that Eval to a new student. The Find & Replace function allows the specialist to quickly update the new form with the student's name.
To use Find & Replace, open the form that you'd like to work with and choose 'Find/Replace' from the Edit menu. This will display the dialog below. Simply enter your 'Find' and 'Replace' text and click the appropriate button on the right. Its as easy as that!
Spell Check and adding words to the user dictionary
E-Com users are probably familiar with E-Com's spell checking ability. Misspelled words are underlined with a squiggly red underline similar to the same functionality in Microsoft Word.
However, you may not be aware that you can also easily add words to the dictionary so that properly spelled words (like a student's name) don't get incorrectly flagged as misspelled.
Simply right-click on the misspelled word and select 'Learn' from the spelling submenu. If you're using a single button mouse on a Macintosh, control-click on the misspelled word rather than right-clicking.
If the 'Learn' option is 'greyed' out and unavailable, then that means you need to define a user dictionary for yourself. Select 'Spelling' from the 'Edit' menu and choose 'Select Dicitonaries...' and then click the 'New' button to create your user dictionary.
Form Locking
All forms in E-Com have a 'Locked' checkbox (as seen in the picture to the right).
This checkbox can only be modified by administrative personnel and once checked, the form is no longer editable unless the user has administrative access.
This can allow you to lock a form down once completed or signed off on, so that further changes are not allowed.
Special Characters in E-Com
Diacritical marks and accented characters can rather easily be typed in E-Com on either Macintosh or Windows systems. Click Macintosh or Windows to view simple instructions for typing special characters.
