Projectmates Construction Software Blog

Portfolios - Get Automated Reports in Your Mailbox

Having automated reports sent directly from Projectmates to your mailbox is just a few simple steps away!  Imagine the convenience of scheduling a financial report delivery for the first of every month, or a report of all outstanding RFIs for every Tuesday.  Your reports could be waiting for you in your inbox the moment you need them.  Just follow these 3 simple steps to set up your deliveries today!

Step 1:  Open the report you would like to have delivered.  Be sure to have it filtered and sorted just the way you want to view it in your mail.  Projectmates will remember these settings, so the report is delivered exactly the way you need to view it. 

Step 2: Click on Schedule Delivery. Change the title and enter the number of occurrences OR a Finish Date. Fill in the information for Recurrence to determine the frequency of the delivery. For example, if you need the report delivered every third Monday, select Weekly -> Every 3rd -> Monday

Step 3: Choose the format you would like the report delivered in such as PDF, HTML, Excel, etc. and the delivery type (Web or Email Delivery).  Web delivery would require that the user login to Projectmates to view the report, while Email delivery would email the report directly to your Mailbox. Enter in the email addresses of the desired recipients, and click SAVE.

Now, just sit back and wait for your reports to be delivered directly to your mailbox!

Smart Quotes and Other Formatting Pitfalls

Have you ever tried to copy text from a Word Processor into Projectmates, only to see "???" or some other unexpected characters displayed on the screen?  This sometimes happens when copying text from another application, such as Microsoft Word, into Projectmates.  Many applications have formatting options, such as smart quotes (Smart quotes format the quotation marks to differentiate between the starting and ending quotes), which Projectmates does not recognize and cannot display properly. 

It is always best if text can be typed directly into Projectmates instead of copied from another application, but if this is not practical, here are a few other suggestions:

1. Turn of smart quotes:  If you are using Word, click on Tools -> AutoCorrect Options -> AutoFormat As You Type -> and uncheck the box next to "Straight quotes" with "Smart Quotes"

2. Do not use auto formatting for bullets or numbering.  You may type numbers into lists yourself, but do not use the AutoFormatting options that many Word Processors offer.  To turn this feature off in Word click on Tools -> AutoCorrect Options -> AutoFormat As You Type -> and uncheck the boxes next to Automatic bulleted lists and Automatic numbered lists.

3. If you have used other formatting in your text such as bold, underlines, font colors, etc. copy your text into Notepad before copying it into Projectmates.  This should remove most of the formatting for you.

Note: As of Version 8.1, smart quotes should display properly in most of Projectmates' modules; however, if you have used smart quotes in the past, this formatting issue may still rear its ugly head in the Portfolio module, so look out!