What are the details of PC & Tester?
The information about PC & Tester is basically there to enrich the information on issued test and deletion protocols and certificates with your own information that cannot be read by machines. This could be the technician responsible for the device, your company logo or even internal key figures such as ticket numbers or customer numbers. However, the information within the PC & tester info can also be used to automatically generate file names or email subjects. In the following sections you will learn more about how to activate and use the PC & tester information and special usage scenarios in which this information can be helpful to you.
In which programs are this informations available?
The PC & tester information is available in toolstar®testLX , toolstar®testWIN, toolstar®shredderLX and toolstar®shredderWIN available. Within these programs you can activate the dialog for entering PC & tester information directly before a long-term test and set default values in the general settings.
Activation of the dialog within the endurance tests/automation scripts:
If you create a new endurance test or adapt one of the sample scripts provided by toolhouse, you will find a checkbox under “At start” to activate the dialog for to display the information about PC & testerbefore each start. As soon as you have activated this setting and start a continuous test/automation script, you will see this dialog after the start. Here you can enter individual information for each long-term test run. The default values from the general settings are taken into account and can be overwritten if necessary.
Setting default values in the settings:
On the quick start page (first page after the start) you will find a button for the settings. In the menu that follows there is an extra button for the information about the PC & tester. Default values can be set there, which are then also used in the information about PC & tester information within the endurance tests/automation scripts.
Position of PC & Tester information in the reports
The PC & tester information is always at the top of the documents and represents the header of the documents (reports, protocols and certificates). After the PC & tester information there is usually the System information (if selected) and then the test and delete information.
Predefined fields
The PC & Tester Info has several non-changeable predefined fields and an additional up to 20 individual fields (see section below). The predefined fields are:
- PC name (Read automatically from the mainboard or entered manually. Depends on the setting.)
- PC serial number (Read automatically from the mainboard or entered manually. Depends on the setting.)
- Company name (name of the company that tests the device or, if applicable, the company name of the client)
- Tester-Name (name of the technician who executed the diagnostic operation)
- Logo (specifying the path to the logo file)
Define individual fields
Up to 20 fields with individual descriptions and values can be defined in the PC & Tester information´s. Possible options would be, for example:
- Customer number
- Ticket number
- Department
- Serial numbers of peripherals such as recording devices, label printers, etc.
- Customer name (if the predefined Company Name field is used elsewhere)
- Optical condition of the device
You can specify a heading and a value for each of the 20 fields. The value and the heading can, if necessary, be adjusted individually each time the endurance test starts. The checkbox in front of the individual fields saves the input as a default setting. As soon as the endurance test has started, this value will be displayed. This could, for example, be the prefix of a ticket number, which always begins with the character “#”. For example:
Selection lists can also be defined for standardization within the individual fields. You can find out how this works in this Knowledgebase article.
Use of the inputs as information fields
Basically, the PC & tester information serves purely as information fields for information that cannot be read out by machine. As you will see in the following section, this information can be combined with other functions of the toolstar® software products to standardize and optimize the processes in your own company.
Use of the input data for process optimization
Use of the information in the file name
In the toolstar® software products, variables can be specified within file names. These variables are replaced with the respective values immediately before saving. The variables can be either part of the file name or folder path. In addition to the current time and hard drive serial numbers, the individual fields of the PC & tester information can also be used. This allows you to automatically create folder structures including appropriate file names.
Creation of automatic folder and file structures in the network
Imagine that you would like to create a folder on the server for each customer and within this customer folder all protocols and certificates should be assigned to a ticket number. To implement this case, you can define field 1 as the customer number and field 2 as the ticket number within the individual fields. Each time you start a long-term test, you can enter two individual numbers and save them in the log. A sample path to save on a server and create this structure at the same time could be:
//Username:Password@Server-IP/Share/%M1/%M2/Report-_%DM_%DY_%DH-%DI-%DS.pdf
This path would resolve as follows based on the above assumption:
//YourName:YourPassword@192.168.253.99/Tests/CN3485/Ticket57362/YourProtocolName-21_09_2021_12-44-59.pdf
Die Software prüft automatisch, ob ein angegebenes Verzeichnis bereits existiert und speichert dort. Sollte das Verzeichnis nicht existieren, dann wird dieses automatisch angelegt. So würden bei einem komplett neuen Kunden 2 Verzeichnisse (Kundennummer und Ticket) und 1 PDF-Dokument angelegt werden. Bei einem bestehenden Kunden, würde nur noch das Verzeichnis für das neue Ticket und das PDF-Dokument erstellt werden.
Automatic assignment in ticket systems via emails
As described above, individual fields and fixed fields of the PC & tester information can be specified in file and folder names. It is also possible to use this information in email subjects and tests. If you have a ticket system with an email connection, protocols can be easily attached to existing tickets. All you have to do is enter the appropriate ticket or process number before starting the long-term test and the email will then be sent with the text appropriate for your ticket system and assigned by your usual system. This saves time and is significantly less error-prone than manually assigning protocols to internal processes.
Process customer inquiries faster and complete them efficiently
The protocols and certificates you print out and hand over or send by email contain the fields and values you defined. If a customer calls you based on one of the documents, they will immediately find the ticket number and the customer number at a glance. This allows customer inquiries to be answered quickly and effectively. The technician in the store can use this information to easily search for the ticket or customer number in the network drive, for example using Windows Explorer, and immediately has the same log as the customer. And all without the purchase and costs of additional management software solutions.
Integration of the company logo into the PC- & Tester information
You can find out how you can integrate your company logo into protocols and certificates in this knowledge base article: Inclusion of company logos in toolstar® protocols and certificates.
