User Tips

Created On2020-06-30

Last Updated On2020-06-30

byPaul Robertson

These tips have been written for you, our clients who already are using Lodge-ical. These tips provide you with the knowledge to maximize the way you use our software. If you would like to submit a user tip, please send us an email and we will consider posting your tip on our website.

Client Module

Sub-Clients:

A Sub-Client is a new feature whereby you can track members of a reservation who are important enough to have their own personal data and photograph, but who do not receive any e-mails or mailings generated from Lodge-ical. You can relate a sub-client to a primary client and enter the relationship type. There is some confusion as to using the “Relationship Type” dropdown on the sub-client entry form (ourselves included!). The relationship type dropdown should describe the relationship of the sub-client to the client. For example, the primary client is John Smith. The sub-client is Judy Smith and the relationship type should equal “Wife”.

We recently received an excellent suggestion from a client. If you set up a sub-client and their relationship to the primary client, when you save the sub-client, a record should automatically be written to the relationship table of the primary client. Using the above example, once you save the sub-client, Judy Smith, open up John Smith’s client record and you will see a button called Relationships. At this time, you would have to select Judy Smith and select Wife as the relationship type. We have just enhanced Lodge-ical to perform this link automatically. If you are interested in receiving this enhancement, please contact us.

Proper care and maintenance of e-mail addresses

By now, most of you are probably asking your clients and guests for e-mail addresses. But once they are stored in Lodge-ical, then what? At any time, you can view all of the e-mail addresses stored in Lodge-ical. Go to the Clients menu, select Client Queries, then Clients Sorted by EMails. At the bottom of the window, you will see a record count of how many addresses you have. This grid view allows you to quickly review e-mail addresses, check for accuracy, AND make any necessary changes. For example, you can easily spot an address that is definitely NOT an e-mail address. Simply backspace out the address to remove it.

You may have a client who requests to be removed from your mailing list. To do this, simply find the client and uncheck the EMail/Mail OK button on the Client Entry form. Go to the Clients menu, select Client Queries, then Clients Who Do Not Want Mail to quickly view those clients who are not receiving any type of mail.

It is important to do routine housekeeping on your e-mail addresses so that your blast e-mails will not returned to you as undeliverable.

Using the Lodge-ical Correspondence Log

We hope most of you are using the correspondence log in Lodge-ical. In addition to having Lodge-ical record entries into this log when confirmations, inquiries, and final bills are printed, it is YOUR module to record all contacts made with clients. Entering the data is one thing, but using it is another. Print the Client Listing Report (from the Clients Reports menu) and select either all correspondence for a given date range, all correspondence for a particular client, or all records with a specific correspondence type. Plan your follow-up contacts based on your previous correspondence.

Automatic correspondence follow-up:

Remove the many post-it notes from your desk and use this feature instead! For each type of correspondence in Lodge-ical you can assign a specified number of follow-up days. When correspondence is entered into Lodge-ical the follow-up date will be determined and saved. Each day you can run a report that shows all upcoming follow-ups for the next 7 days, 15 days, or 30 days (for those of you who are feeling ambitious).

Here are some ways to use this feature:

Inquiry Follow-Ups: Discipline yourself to make a follow-up phone call or e-mail to all of your “hot” inquiries 7 days after you send out your brochure.
Deposit Follow-Ups: 30 days after you send out a preconfirmation asking for a deposit, create a follow-up record to make sure you have received the deposit, and if not, make a follow-up phone call.
Thank You Letters: 5 days after you issue a final bill, send a thank you letter to your guest and inquire about booking for next year.
Early Arrivals – Do you ever have guests who arrive a day early and stay in a nearby hotel one night prior to their arrival to your lodge? If so, you can set up a correspondence record to flag the details of the airport/hotel shuttle on the day of the pickup.
Miscellaneous Notes: How about keeping your own miscellaneous reminders in Lodge-ical? Set up a client record for yourself and set up correspondence follow-ups as needed.

Copy/Paste Documents into the Lodge-ical Correspondence Log:

This tip is based on my experience as a lodge manager. In an effort to rely on Lodge-ical as our primary database, I once again looked to the value of the Correspondence Log. There were two times when it was necessary to send a letter to a guest after their departure addressing a particular issue. Although I wrote the letter using Microsoft Word, I did not want to lose track of the letter by saving it to my hard drive, perhaps using an obscure naming convention that would have no meaning to anyone else but me. Instead, I copied the entire letter (click and drag your mouse over the appropriate text and press Ctrl-C), and pasted the contents into the Correspondence Log for the particular client (position your mouse in the correspondence notes field and press Ctrl-V). After the letter was printed, I simply closed Microsoft Word without saving the letter. When I received a reply, I simply added another entry into the Correspondence Log marking the date, correspondence type, and applicable notes.

Reservation Module

Reservation Entry form: Select Client Last Name dropdown box:

If you go to the Reservation Entry form, you will see a dropdown field titled “Select Client Last Name”. This serves two functions: 1) If you have to add a new reservation and come into the form via the Reservation menu, you will select a name from this dropdown representing the name on the reservation. 2) If you have to change the contact name on a reservation, you can select a name from this dropdown.

It is scenario 2 that needs further discussion. Let’s consider this example: A reservation is made for a family of four. The dad calls and makes the reservation. The son calls later to say that he will be picking up the bill. You must change this reservation from the dad to the son by using the “Select Client Last Name” dropdown.

You should NOT use “Select Client Last Name” if you want to display an existing reservation. Use the Find by Last Name dropdown box at the top of the Reservation Entry form. Press the FIND button (Version 6 or earlier).

What happens if you accidentally select a client last name from the “Select Client Last Name” dropdown?

The message reads this way: “CHANGING a last name here will change the name on the reservation. Are your Sure? Press YES to change the name. Press NO to retain the original name.

In version 6 and earlier, the message reads this way: “CHANGING a last name here will change the name on the reservation. Press UNDO to retain original name. To enter a new reservation, press NEW”. This message first requires you to press the OK button. Next, in the left hand margin you will see a pencil. This pencil indicates you are in data entry mode. If you press either the UNDO button or the ESC key on your keyboard, the pencil will turn into a right pointed arrowhead AND the original name will be restored.

Using Lodge-ical to reconcile your credit card statement:

If your credit card machine issues a credit card tape at the end of each day, please continue reading. This example assumes you accept Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. As long as you are diligent about entering payment details into Lodge-ical, simply print a “Money Received Sorted by Payment Method” report to reconcile. Run the report using “summary” mode which will simply give a total by each payment method. If there is a discrepancy, run the report in “detail” mode which shows the individual transactions.

As a reminder, to record a payment in Lodge-ical, press the PAYMENTS button on the Reservation Entry form to enter all income received (deposits, final payments, money received for store purchases, etc…). Enter the payment method (VISA, Mastercard, etc…). If you are reconciling these transactions using another method, please consider changing your daily routine to incorporate this quick method of reconciliation.

Monthly Reconciliations:

At the end of each month, you should use Lodge-ical to ensure you have a zero balance on your reservations. The “Income Breakdown – All Reservations” report is the best report to use. Use the Departure Date as the sorting indicator to make sure you are not picking up any reservations for guests who are still at the lodge. Any reservation with a balance due other than zero deserves your attention. The two most common reasons for this are 1) the final payment was never entered into Lodge-ical and 2) the gratuity was never entered into Lodge-ical. Preparing a monthly reconciliation and staying on top of your unpaid balances is much more effective than being faced with this task at the end of your season.

What is a Guest Link?

You will see a button at the bottom of the Reservation Entry form called “Guest Link” . This button provides the following features:

Select all clients, sub-clients, and/or reservations that are part of the reservation. In other words, you can link the Smith reservation to the Jones reservation to show they are traveling together. You can link sub-clients to the reservation (i.e., family members who have their own personal data record). You can link clients to the reservation representing group members of the reservation.
Lodge-ical allows you to print mailing labels for guests who do not have a reservation but who are linked to a reservation. So, in the example above, if you link clients to a reservation, go to the Find-A-Client form, enter a Visit From/To Date range and you will see that both main reservation clients and linked clients appear in the query.
When entering Personal Data into Lodge-ical for a particular reservation, you will only be able to select from a list of clients and sub-clients that have been linked to the reservation.

The Value of the Personal Data Module:

The Personal Data module works this way: You set up to six levels of Personal Data categories (such as winter/spring/summer/fall, kitchen/rooms/activities/family history, horseback/fishing/hunting/snowmobiling, etc…). Below each of the levels of Personal Data, you can add an unlimited number of individual items. Personal Data is initiated at the Reservation level. You can record one or more client’s personal data to a reservation (for those reservations comprising of a group of people). Once the Personal Data is entered at the Reservation, it becomes a part of the Client record too. In other words, go to the Client Entry form and find a client. If the Personal Data button is “colored” it signifies that information has already been entered.

Reporting

Reservation Entry form: Select Client Last Name dropdown box:

What happens if you accidentally select a client last name from the “Select Client Last Name” dropdown?

The message reads this way: “CHANGING a last name here will change the name on the reservation. Are your Sure? Press YES to change the name. Press NO to retain the original name.

In early, the message reads this way: “CHANGING a last name here will change the name on the reservation. Press UNDO to retain original name. To enter a new reservation, press NEW”. This message first requires you to press the OK button. Next, in the left hand margin you will see a pencil. This pencil indicates you are in data entry mode. If you press either the UNDO button or the ESC key on your keyboard, the pencil will turn into a right pointed arrowhead AND the original name will be restored.

Using Lodge-ical to reconcile your credit card statement:

Monthly Reconciliations:

What is a Guest Link?

You will see a button at the bottom of the Reservation Entry form called “Guest Link” . This button provides the following features:

Select all clients, sub-clients, and/or reservations that are part of the reservation. In other words, you can link the Smith reservation to the Jones reservation to show they are traveling together. You can link sub-clients to the reservation (i.e., family members who have their own personal data record). You can link clients to the reservation representing group members of the reservation.
Lodge-ical allows you to print mailing labels for guests who do not have a reservation but who are linked to a reservation. So, in the example above, if you link clients to a reservation, go to the Find-A-Client form, enter a Visit From/To Date range and you will see that both main reservation clients and linked clients appear in the query.
When entering Personal Data into Lodge-ical for a particular reservation, you will only be able to select from a list of clients and sub-clients that have been linked to the reservation.

The Value of the Personal Data Module:

Employee Module

Scheduling Employees

Every version of Lodge-ical has the ability to assign one or more employees to a guest activity. Clients are using this to schedule fishing guides, wranglers, and dog handlers. If you are not using this feature, you should consider doing so.

If you do use this feature, you can plan your upcoming weeks knowing what employees are needed. If you work with contract employees, this is especially important as your contract employees call you asking for their work schedule. At the end of the season (or any time during) you can run an employee statistic report to see how many employees you have booked over a period of time. The report will show you the number of people participating in an activity and the number of employees required.

Employee Request and Priority:

If you are using the Lodge-ical activity planner to schedule employees, you want to make sure you are using the following:

Employee Request checkbox: If an employee has been requested, you can indicate this so that you make sure you do not reassign him/her to another activity.
Scheduled Employee Calendar: We include a graphical calendar showing employees who are booked to particular activities. This calendar, sorted by employee last name, is easy to read and if the employee is requested by a guest, the calendar will display that particular guest activity in the color red to differentiate it from a “non-requested” activity.
Employee Priority: On the initial employee setup form, you can assign a numeric priority code to each employee. When displaying the calendar you can choose to sort the calendar by priority code (vs. employee last name).
Employee Statistic report: Select Reporting | Managerial Reports | Employee Statistics to show you how many times an employee worked and the number of personal requests.

Marketing Features

Newsletters, Annual Mailings, Christmas Cards:

We hope all of you are using Lodge-ical to prepare mailing labels for some of your client correspondence. This feature has been renamed to “Find-A-Client” and can be found in the Clients menu. We have talked about this feature many times. The button titled “3×10” refers to a sheet of labels 3 across and 10 down. The button titled “2×3” refers to a sheet of labels, 2 across and 3 down. If you use a specialized mailing label, you can extract names out of Lodge-ical to use within the Microsoft Word Mail Merge feature.

How to perform a mail merge using Lodge-ical and Microsoft Word 2003:

Choose “Find-a-client” from the Clients menu (for older versions, choose “Mailing Labels” from the Clients Menu).
Select the appropriate criteria and press the Extract button.
You will receive the message “Client information has been written to a text file (names.txt) in your Lodge-ical folder.
The following instructions are for Microsoft Word 2003:
Choose Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge.
Select the appropriate document (letters, envelopes, etc…) .
Select “Next” .
Then “Starting Document”.
Then “Select recipients”.
“Use an existing list”
Press the browse link and browse to the names.txt file.
Select what you want from the “Mail Merge Recipients” window.
Follow the instructions under the “Write your letter” heading.
Preview your document!

Track your Advertising Expenses in Lodge-ical:

You have the ability to keep track of all of your advertising expenses (i.e., web site design fees, trade show travel costs, magazine advertising, etc…). Go to Maintenance | Referral Sources and for each referral source, press the COSTS button. Enter the date, amount, and a brief description of the expense. Now go to the Reporting | Managerial Reports | Referral Source Analysis. This report will show you the cost per inquiry as well as the cost per reservation. If you haven’t used this feature, start using it today!

The Difference Between AND and OR:

The Find-A-Client form (Clients menu | Mailing Labels in Version 6 and earlier) allows you to “slice and dice” you client database to create custom queries for specialized mailings and e-mails. You can select as many selections to make your query as specific as possible.

Example 1: Select State = WA, Referral Source = INTERNET, and Inquiry Type = COUPLE. This query will generate “All clients who live in the state of Washington, heard about you from the Internet, AND who are a couple”. All three criteria MUST be true in order to satisfy the criteria (using AND).

Example 2: Press the INTEREST button and select two interests (i.e., Fishing and Hunting). This query will generate “All clients who have an interest in either Fishing OR Hunting”.

Managerial Tools

Rewarding your Guests:

Are you taking the time to reward your repeat business? Lodge-ical has a very simple report to help you remember who your frequent guests are. Go to the Reporting menu | Managerial Reports | Visit Report. This report should be viewed in Preview mode only as the number of pages to print could be substantial. This report is sorted by the guest who has been to your lodge the most. It tells you the number of times they have stayed with you and the date of their last visit. To print only the first page of this report, press Alt+P on your keyboard to display the standard Window print form. You should be able to send only page 1 to your printer. With this list of names, go to Reporting | Income Reports. Select Income by One Guest. Change the date range and print the report to see the actual amount of money he/she has spent with you.

Analyzing your rates:

Each year you review and make changes to your rates. Print the Income by Rate Type report to show you a summary of all of your rates and the amount of income generated. You might have offered a new rate this year and this report will clearly show you the outcome.

Where do your clients live?

Before you sign up for the same trade/sports show that you’ve been attending for the past 10 years, perhaps you should use your Lodge-ical data to help you with the decision. Lodge-ical features a report based upon the regions of the country. The state code for each client is assigned to a region. Current versionsare delivered to you with a region template already set up. But you can go to the Maintenance menu and adjust the regions if necessary. The Region Analysis report will show you the following for each region: The number of new inquiries entered between the user-entered from date and to date, the number of reservations that have an arrival date between the user-entered from date and to date, and the total reservation income you are expected to earn for those reservations. You can look at this report two different ways. 1) For those regions where you have the highest percent of return, you can continue to attend trade shows in this region to assure a good turnout, or 2) For those regions where you have the lowest return, you can attend trade shows in this region to solicit new business.

If you using older version, you can do some of this analysis using the Mailing Labels feature of Lodge-ical (found in the clients menu).

Hands-On Management

Our experience in the lodge management business has allowed us to effectively communicate with you as you describe issues that you are trying to tackle. The tips in this section represent hands-on experience that we would like to pass along.

KRISTIN BACK AT HUBBARD’S YELLOWSTONE LODGE 2006

Getting into a routine:

The office that I worked in, also served as the store (fly fishing tackle, gifts, and clothing). I like this design because the high traffic allowed me to interact with our guests and fishing guides each day. However, that meant that it was very easy to get distracted. I felt very unorganized the first few days. I was in and out of Lodge-ical, in and out of Outlook, running back and forth to the lodge, and keeping up with the phones. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was not making good use of my time. I needed to establish a routine.

I arrived early each morning and headed straight to our bar (now, don’t get the wrong idea :-). I picked up the bar tab which accumulates the beer and wine our guests purchased the night before. Once in the office I opened up Lodge-ical, printed the Housekeeping report and the Assumed Mealcount report. I then entered all guest bar purchases from the night before. The Housekeeping report shows the guests who are checking out so I prepared a Lodge-ical Final Bill for each departing guest.

I gave our housekeeper the Housekeeping report and kept the Assumed Mealcount report. On my desk (in most cases) were trip tickets that our guides had dropped off the night before. The trip ticket outlines the guide’s name, guest’s name, activity, and what lunch they required. I use the trip ticket to determine how many guests would be in our lodge for lunch. I manually adjusted the assumed Mealcount report to accurately reflect the lunch count. The dinner count on this report was helpful to the dining room staff as they were able to set tables appropriately based on the number of guests in each party.

The trip tickets were also helpful for other recordkeeping purposes. For each trip ticket, I opened up the appropriate Lodge-ical reservation. I verified the activity was appropriately charged within the reservation. I then made sure the actual activity was entered into the Lodge-ical activity planner. Finally, I assigned the guide to the activity. The more data I entered into Lodge-ical, the more confident I became with the integrity of the reports.

After working with the trip tickets, I moved to the Store Purchase tickets. Each time a guest or employee purchases something from the store, a ticket is prepared. Keeping up to date with the daily store purchases makes the preparation of the final bill super easy.

Once this daily data was completed, I was now ready to pay attention to our e-mails.

Coping with E-Mails:

What impact do e-mails have on your day to day office management? Each morning I opened up Outlook and cringed as I saw e-mail after e-mail piling up in my Inbox. The first rule of thumb was to delete all “junk” e-mails based upon who the sender was and what the subject line contained. I was never tempted to open up any of these e-mails up but simply deleted them.

Sure enough, we had plenty of guests send e-mails with questions, special requests, and other pertinent information regarding their upcoming stay. My inbox started to accumulate e-mails quickly and once again I was feeling as though I was losing control. Being a firm believer in keeping data in one place, I once again looked to Lodge-ical to store important notes. It was common to receive airline itineraries via e-mail. Using the Lodge-ical Activity Planner, I entered all airport pickup and dropoff information. This also forced me to open up the reservation to ensure the proper airport transportation charge was applied to the reservation. General notes were copied and pasted into either the Lodge-ical Correspondence Log or the Other Notes field on the Reservation Entry form. I admit that I did not delete any e-mails. Instead I created a folder in Outlook named “Guests 2006”. However, I will say by updating Lodge-ical, I did not have to sort through the Guests 2006 Outlook folder containing hundreds of e-mails to look up something. Additionally, I feel confident that at the end of the season this Guests 2006 Outlook folder can be permanently purged.

The other type of e-mail frequently received was a general inquiry. I became an expert at copying and pasting information from an e-mail into the Lodge-ical Client Entry record and generating an Inquiry letter. I spent time pre-stuffing envelopes with our brochure so I could simply take the Inquiry letter off the printer, stuff the letter into the brochure envelope, apply the postage and mail the brochure within 24 hours of receiving the inquiry.

Don’t take your guests for granted!:

Don’t lose sight of the simple things: Do your employees know your guests by name? Do they greet the guests upon their arrival and offer to take luggage to their rooms?

Database Management

How to Back Up Your Lodge-ical data when you turn on your computer

This example assumes:
Your Lodge-ical data file (lodgedata.mdb) is located in your c:\Program Files\Lodge-ical folder
You are backing up your data to a folder named Lodge-ical on your D: drive

Part 1: Create an executable file instructing the computer to copy files from one location to another

Press Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt
Type cd\windows\system32 and press Enter
Type edit backup.cmd and press Enter
Type xcopy c:\progra~1\lodge-~1\*.* /s d:\lodgei~1\ /y
With your mouse, select File then Save
With your mouse, select File then Exit
Type exit and press Enter

*for more information on the command you typed in Step 3, please see further information below

Part 2: Place the executable file into the computer’s startup routine

From anywhere on your desktop, right click, left click New and left click Create Shortcut
Using the Create Shortcut wizard type c:\windows\system32\backup.cmd in the file location and press Next
Type Back-Up Lodge-ical Data and press Finish
Right click on the new shortcut and left click on Cut
Press Start/All Programs
Right click Open
Right click Paste anywhere in the white space
You will now see your shortcut pasted into the Startup folder

An explanation of the command: xcopy c:\progra~1\lodge-~1\*.* /s d:\lodgei~1\ /y

xcopy is the MS-DOS command to copy a file
c:\progra~1\lodge-~1\ is the reference to the folder named c:\program files\lodge-ical
\*.* instructs the computer to copy ALL of the files in the folder
/s instructs the computer to include all subfolders
d:\lodge~1\ is the reference to the destination folder of the copy
/y instructs the computer to overwrite the files already located in the folder

Any of these elements can be changed or omitted depending upon your specific preferences

Respect your database (V7):

We have tightened up the control on our version 7 release. We do not allow you to delete an item from the Maintenance menu if it exists elsewhere. This forces you to use the “Inactive” indicator (you will not be able to use this inactive item anywhere in the system until you make it active again). We do not allow you to enter freeform text into a dropdown field. This forces you to record consistent data in each dropdown field. If you change an item in the Maintenance menu (i.e., a rate name), Lodge-ical will cascade the changes throughout the entire database.

Respect your database (Version 6 and earlier):

One thing we want to bring attention to is the ability to enter a value into a field that is not part of a dropdown window. For example, consider the Client Entry form with it’s dropdowns (i.e., Client Type, Inquiry Type, Referral Source, Level of Interest, Staff Contact, etc…). We allow you to enter a value that does not match a pick in the dropdown (turns out this was not a good decision on our part). The advantage of selecting from a dropdown window is that these fields start to contain data that is similar to other records in the database. This similarity makes it easy for you to query your database looking for people with the same characteristics. Each time someone enters a value that does not match a value set up in a corresponding Maintenance table, it allows you to simply type in the first few characters and the desired entry will appear in the dropdown box.
What happens when you delete an item from a maintenance table (i.e., Inquiry type, Referral source, etc…)? If you run a historical report that looks at a maintenance item, you might see a row on your report without a title. This is because the relationship between the client table and the maintenance table has been broken (sometimes referred to as an “orphaned record”). The report loses it’s value. Please do not delete items in the Maintenance section of Lodge-ical. We recommend you inactivate the item instead.

Learn the components of Lodge-ical:

All the following files are located in your C:\Program Files\Lodge-ical folder:

lodgedata.mdb: This file contains all of your Lodge-ical data (i.e., clients, reservations, incidental purchases, payments, etc….).

lodgecode.mde: This file contains all of your Lodge-ical application (i.e., reports, forms, confirmations, etc…).

lodgesecurity.mdw: This file contains user security information that is used when you log in and out of Lodge-ical.

Version 6 and earlier:

All the following files are located in your C:\Lodge97 directory.

97data.mdb serves the same purpose as Version 7’s lodgedata.mdb

97code.mde is the same as Version 7’s lodgecode.mde

Lodgecial.mdw is the same as Version 7’s lodgesecurity.mdw

Note: If you run Lodge-ical over a network, then your data will reside on the server. In this case, most likely, you will navigate to “My Network Places” to locate your data file. At least one person on your staff should be aware of the location and setup of Lodge-ical. That same person should be responsible for data backup. If that person leaves, he/she should be responsible to pass along the knowledge to their replacement. If you are the owner of the business, you should definitely be aware of the Lodge-ical backup procedures. If you have an automated back up process in place, please check the restore procedure every now and then to ensure it is truly working!

Back up your database!

Many of our clients can’t imagine “life without Lodge-ical “, yet many of those same people do not take time to back up their data on a daily basis! They get a virus on their computer, lose their hard drive, and they call us to ask how to get their data back. Without a regular backup process in place, there is nothing we can do. If your database is not on an automated backup schedule, please follow the instructions below:

We recommend you use Windows Explorer to back up Lodge-ical. This program allows you to navigate through your entire hard drive if you ever need to copy, move, paste and delete any file that resides on your computer. The easiest way to open up Windows Explorer is to right-click on your Start button and left-click on Explore.

Once you navigate to your data file then you can simply use the Copy/Paste feature or the Send To feature of Explorer. If you burn your data to a CD, purchase a CD-RW which allows you to reuse the CD by overwriting the data file day after day. You might want to invest in a removable memory source. They are commonly referred to as either a memory stick or a USB flash drive. The one I purchased years ago stores up to 128 megabytes of data. However, it is more common today to purchase flash drives with capacities of 256MB to 4 gigabytes of data (your Lodge-ical is probably between 3 megabytes and 30 megabytes). Huge external hard drives are now relatively cheap!

The only file you have to back up is the data file. Lodge-ical can always be reinstalled using your original installation CD and your most current update CD. If you do not have these, you can also call us for a replacement CD (however, we do charge for the replacement CD).

Lodge-ical Backup Procedures

Lodge-ical data should be backed up once a day.
Use Windows Explorer to copy the file “lodgedata.mdb” (“97data.mdb” for versions of Lodge-ical prior to version 7) to your backup device. The default folder for “lodgedata.mdb” is “C:\Program Files\Lodge-ical\” and “C:\lodge97\” for “97data.mdb”.
You may also backup your program file. They are correspondingly named “lodgecode.mde” and “97code.mde”.
If, for any reason, you completely lose Lodge-ical™ and you only backup 97data.mdb, reinstall Lodge-ical™ using your installation CD/diskettes that came with your initial delivery. Then install the latest fix/update diskette that has been sent to you and finally restore your most current backup version of the data file.

Avoid losing your data! Make a point to do daily back-ups!

Data Entry Tips and Tricks

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X

It is possible to copy, paste and cut text within Lodge-ical . Using your keyboard, press Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste, Ctrl+X to cut.

For example, if you want to store the contents of an e-mail into the Lodge-ical Correspondence log: a) Go to the e-mail and highlight the text by clicking and then dragging your mouse over it (or click, then use the shift key and arrow keys) b) Press Ctrl+C to copy it c) Open up the Lodge-ical Correspondence Log and put your cursor inot the notes field and d) Press Ctrl+V to paste the text.

Ctrl+P

Have you ever wanted to print a Lodge-ical report to a printer other than your default printer? Have you ever needed to print two copies of a Lodge-ical report?

All reports first go to preview mode. Using the top menu selections you have the ability to e-mail, print to a printer, or export to a file. But you also have other options. Press Ctrl+P and you will see the standard Windows print form. You can select an alternate printer (including a PDF print option), print only certain pages of a multi-page report, and/or print multiple copies of the report. You should be familiar with the print form that you see using Ctrl+P, as it is what you normally see when printing documents from either Microsoft Word or Excel.

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