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Getting help....


Skyforum

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I pay $149 a month to be a member here and to make use of this product. So far, in the last 2 months I have gotten no where. I've deleted my entire project twice and started over.

The support here is terrible. Well, I guess I can't really say that because I've never actually been able to work with anyone from Caspio on my project.

During the day, my time is completely consumed. The only time I can make to work on my project is in the evenings, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning and the weekends. I would venture to say there are a lot of people like me with the same exact problem. Sitting down at my desk and wrapping my head around what I am trying to accomplish so I can get the help I need is just impossible during the business day.

I've even tried using the community forums to get some of my easier questions answered. That doesn't work as the forums are not staffed at all and it's like standing in a train station all by yourself. I have posted and waited days for a response before. Hell, I'm waiting right now.

I'm also now finding that some of the problems I am having are due to restrictions built into the project that force you into buying more datapages. Things like being able to edit more than 1 table in a view or create multiple choice checkboxes or even make multiple choices in a list box without creating a bunch of unnecessary javascript workarounds.

Might as well be pissing into the wind.....

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Amen Skyforum. It is frustrating. I've posted a question about multi-select listboxes and I haven't gotten a workable answer. I suspect the code fix is pretty easy since all the components are there (code how to multi-select is on the forum and datapages have capability to use OR operator vs AND operator). However as a non-programmer I can't figure it out. I inquired with my Caspio poc and it costs $600 to make this minor change. What's real obnoxious is that when he thought I wanted Caspio to build the entire search and result forms it was going to be $900. So basically its only $300 less even though I built everything else. I'm already thousands of dollars into this project with Caspio so its not like I'm going to switch solutions now. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since this was one of the issues with Caspio I read about before I went with them. Perhaps one solution is to use 3rd party help (ie Odesk, elance, etc.).

Good luck with your project. I agree though...it's probably like pissing in the wind.

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A few suggestions about various support channels you can use other than phone and live chat, and clarifications about which channel is recommended for different type of questions, and the response time you should expect:

1. Recommended support channel for technical questions within standard features of Caspio Bridge is the ticketing system. You can open a ticket anytime at https://support.caspio.com and receive a response in one business day. Usually you hear back from support within the same day of posting your question unless the question is posted in the afternoon which makes it possible to get an answer the day after.

2. Recommended channel for code-related questions such as Java Script and API calls is the community forum, and if you are not sure you can always start with a ticket and Caspio support may refer you to the forum to seek help from the community and developers if the solution falls outside of standard features and requires coding knowledge. Response time in the forum is not guaranteed, which is why ticket support channel is recommended first.

3. Self-help resources are available including video tutorials, how-to articles, and technical FAQs at http://howto.caspio.com/

Regarding the concern about adding DataPages, I'd like to inform you about new pricing which offers unlimited DataPages, see more information at http://www.caspio.com/pricing/usage-plans.aspx and contact your account manager if you have questions.

Last comment about multi-select on search form, use checkboxes instead of multi-select listbox. Multi-select listbox concatenate the values with comma and a Java Script needs to be written to split and parse the values with OR in between each and send the parsed string to the Report page. The code is not easy so I recommend using multiple (as many options as you need) virtual checkboxes in search form and pass value of each as parameter to the next page. Next page is the predefined criteria report where in the configure filtering fields you can select your field and insert multiple Criteria using the "Insert" button at the bottom of the DataPage Elements. Choose "OR" for the criteria and set each criteria receive checkbox parameters. It may sound long instruction but you can implement it in less than 5 minutes depending on how many options you have:)

I hope you find this information helpful.

Best,

Barbara

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Ok great. Except for one thing or actually several.

Chat never works unless it's during the 4 hours you work. Tech support takes days, especially over the weekend and your sites help section does a great job of telling us how to use the specific features in your ap and how to create a relationship with a drag and drop menu or create a view for filtering or joining tables or any number of other different things but does NOTHING to help us actually use them!

1.) Once I build a view, how the hell do I implement it? There are no examples that make any sense whatsoever unless I want to move into selling real estate!. All I can tell is I'm supposed to be able to view multiple tables information in one report but creating that report escapes me! Do we use a form? a report? How do we configure it to get to where we need to be? Creating a report that involves more than 1 table just doesn't work for me.

2.) What exactly does a table relationship accomplish? Does entering data in one table auto populate the other one? Or does it just refer to it when it needs to? If so, how do you get them to work? Every time I do it, I get weird errors. There are no examples nor is there ANY information on the theory behind how it all comes together.

3.) How do I create a datapage where I can select multiple checkboxes using a lookup table?

4.) How do I grab checkboxes from a table that have been checked while leaving the ones that have not for use in another table?

I asked for help, I got a quick synopsis of what I needed to do. GREAT! I need to create a key here to match an auto number there blah blah blah. I, in fact, created the tables just as outlined but STILL cannot actually use them. I have NO IDEA how to configure the datapages to display what I need. There is NO TALK about anything outside of very basic configurations and as soon as you step out of that, your screwed. I might as well be working with flat file databases. At least I could get those to work.

The point I am trying to make is this. We need help while we are working on it. We can't stop, wait 2 days for an answer, then pick back up where we left off. We're NOT coders, that's why we are here!

If Caspio can't find a way to provide some sort of after hours support, the only thing they will be doing is selling services to lazy coders. Nobody else will be able to use it.

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Question #1 seems a basic question about creating a report where you use a View for the datasrouce instead of a table. It is fairly simple, you will select Report for DataPage type and then in the second wizard screen where you select your data source you will use the View that you have created. These steps are also explained in this article http://howto.caspio.com/datapages/creat ... -datapage/

2. Tables relationship is a famous database concept and it is not Caspio specific. A database could be relational or flat. The most important part of an application implementation is the database design. If your database is relational it is very important to design the tables and constraints properly from the beginning. Caspio has an example of a relational app which is explained in this article http://howto.caspio.com/parameters/in-a ... pages.html.

3. Caspio has listboxes that you can link to a look up table and enable multi-selection. Similar feature for checkboxes is a great idea and is available in the feature request database but yet not scheduled for the next release. When this feature is planned in the roadmap we will update the forum posts.

4. I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. Let me guess what you may want to do and provide suggestions. You can use a report and search for a record, I assume that record has bunch of yes/no fields. The search results returns all the fields related to the record you have searched. Now you want to grab all the fields that are checked as Yes and pass them to another form to be inserted into a new table? If you notice I have created a workflow here to achieve the functionality of reading and writing specific data into another table. This is not a simple process though, you will need a Java Script to read the Yes values and ignore the No's and then construct a URL where the Yes values are passed as parameters into the URL. The URL is the link to a submission form where new record including the Yes values are passed. Another way which is a better solution is to perform the same task from the backend database using a task or trigger depending on more specifics that you can provide how often and when this task should be performed. Consulting with Caspio PS is recommended.

In my opinion there are different factors to consider when implementing an application.

1. Complexity and size of the project including the database deisng and application workflow

2. Technical knowledge required to build such database and application

3. Timeline

Factors which contribute to the difficulty level of a project:

• Relational Database

• Number of DataPages

• Parameters and Relations

• Customization if built-in features does not exist

• Advanced reporting and calculations

• Custom Layout

• Web services

While a simple application such as membership directory (see here, http://www.caspio.com/apps/specialized- ... ctory.aspx) takes a few hours to implement in Caspio, there are more complicated apps which takes weeks and months to create depending on the developer's timeline. The same membership directory could take you months to create using PHP, HTML and MYSQL database. You need to learn database programming, PHP or any other server side language programming and of course HTML to design the forms and report.

On another note, Caspio offers Professional Services to those who don't have time in learning the platform or the application is not easy to implement and requires medium to advance technical or database knowledge. I recommend if you request a price quote from Caspio Professional Services and a few other development companies. You can compare and make a decision. Professional services to take on this project is a guaranteed success and saves you a lot of time.

Cheers,

Barbara

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