iPassToGo
User Guide for Palm
Introduction
iPassToGo is a software module designed to provide school administrators and other personnel access to critical student information. A typical use would provide a school administrator with on the spot verification of student and/or teacher information, in and around school property such ball field, hallway, classroom, locker room, library, dining room, bus stop, field trip, etc. It offers, for a specific school term, student and teacher biographical and scheduling information.
iPassToGo users can easily synchronize pertinent student data from the iPASS system to their hand held device. iPassToGo supports devices that operate the Palm OS and/or MS-Windows CE operating systems.
The iPassToGo software module for Palm and/or Windows CE OS is a non real-time, read only access to the iPass database.
This document is intended for properly licensed users running iPassToGo on the Palm OS.
Operation Overview
The appropriate software features must be purchased, installed and and compiled within your existing iPass database server. This includes a report within the iPASS <Scheduling System> that is available to run against the data maintained on your iPass System. The results of running this procedure creates a single file containing all of the necessary data elements needed to populate the iPassToGo application. This file (data) must be transferred or saved into the appropriate directory of your local computer system. Upon completion, a HotSync process will transfer all of the file contents directly to the Palm unit for mobile access.
Data in the Palm will be updated only after a new report is run, database files are extracted, and the HotSync operation is performed.
Running the iPassToGo report in iPass to gather data for iPassToGo
- Logon to iPass as a user who has rights to use the <iPassToGo Export> report from the iPASS Scheduling System.
- Under <Scheduling System> <Scheduling Reports> and <iPassToGo Export>. Select your desired criteria from the filter screen, including report type of iPassToGo in the drop down list at the bottom of the screen.
- Be sure that you have selected the correct school term you are interested in.
- Click the <Submit Button>. This will begin the process of running the report and creating a file of the information used to synchronized with your iPassToGo software.
Please note: This report could take a while (minimum 20 –30 minutes we are finding Secondary's are taking approximately 2 hours) to run. The actual run-time depends upon the number of students in your school, available network bandwidth, and other processing demands on your iPASS database server. Telecom recommends that you run this report before you go home and then it will be avaliable to you in your my data folder.
- When complete, this process will generate a file called “ToGoDBs.txt” in your <My Data> folder.
- Locate the latest ToGoDBs.txt file in your iPASS <My Data> folder.
- Right Click on the ToGoDBs.txt file located under the text column in <My Data> and choose the “Save Target As” option.
- Navigate to your Palm User Directory, locate and select a the file named “ToGoDBs.txt” (please see figure below)
- Click <Save> to download your file. During download, please be sure to uncheck the box of “Close windows when download finishes”.
- When your download finishes, click the Open Folder button to get to your Palm User Directory.
- Double click the file called iPassToGo_make_DBs.bat
- Follow the prompt in the Command Prompt windows and visually verify that 13 new files are extracted from ToGoDBs.txt.
- These files should be in the iPassToGo directory under your <Palm User Directory>.
- HotSync your Palm device.
- You can monitor the progress of the HotSync file transfer by monitoring the iPassToGo folder under your Palm user directory. When the total file number reaches 26 (13 cdb files and 13 bak files), the iPassToGo hotsync transfer is complete.
Run your iPassToGo Software
- Power on the Palm Pilot.
- Hit the home icon until the iPass icon appears. You may have to use the scroll bar to see all of the icons in the same page.
- Hit the iPass icon and the program and the databases will be loaded.
- The iPassToGo main page will then appear.
- You can always come back to this page by repeatedly hitting the <Done Button> in other pages.
- Verify the dataset in the Summary page by hitting the Summary button at the top of the iPassToGo software.
- This step is recommended every time you update the iPassToGo databases.