Through the Editor:



ABM SURVEY KIT (ASK) – IN A NUTSHELL

ASK 6.1 is a .NET application written for ABM 6.1. It is used to gather ABM exclusive data that may not be readily available. The survey kit, ASK.exe, can be obtained through SAS Technical Support (certain restrictions may apply). It is meant to be installed on the same server as ABM 6.1 since the server should already have .NET framework installed. You can, however, install it to any other .NET server.

System Requirements

Apart from the .NET server requirement, there are no additional major requirements to deploy ASK. Specifically:

• ASK 6.1 is an Open Client solution for SAS ABM 6.1

There is no requirement for client machines to be Windows. Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris or any other OS that supports Netscape or Internet Explorer is all that is needed. No additional software, like Applets or ActiveX, is required on the client side.

• ASK 6.1 works with any OLE DB compliant Database

Although we will be using SAS/SHARE as the example throughout this section, ASK itself is not tied to any specific Staging repository. You can “point” ASK to talk to any OLE DB compliant Database the same way you originally generated the Staging Tables through ABM Export Wizard.

Installing ASK

• Simply double click on ASK.exe to launch the Setup wizard.

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• When asked for where you want to install, for simplicity, just point it to the server’s IIS root (typically it would be C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Model1)

• Once Setup is finished, you’ll be presented with the README file. Basically the README file would tell you to Configure Data Link and go to (if you installed ASK to IIS root). That’s all there is to it as far as the installation goes.

Tip:

Since every page in the IIS ASK directory already requires ASK Authentication, you can allow “Anonymous access” so IIS won’t prompt you for a separate login. This prevents the “double login” problem that would annoy the survey users. To allow anonymous IIS access to ASK: Goto IIS > ASK Properties > Directory Security > Edit

Configuring ASK

• When you goto ASK URL the first time, a configuration assistant will guide you step by step.

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• Configure Data Link (the shortcut can be found from the server’s start menu) will allow you to configure the Staging Datasets connection. It is basically the same UI as the one you used from ABM Export Wizard.

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• Once the configurations are set, click “Connect” from the Configuration Assistant page. ASK will do some test validations to make sure the configurations are correct. Once validated successfully, ASK will automatically transport you to the Login Page. Once you see the login page, you’re pretty much ready to use ASK.

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• The default login is admin (no password). The first time you login, ASK will require you to supply the admin password (for security purpose) and the admin email address (so your users can click ‘Help’ link to email you).

Administering ASK

• Once you’ve supplied the Admin password, ASK will take you to the Admin homepage.

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• A lot of things in ASK are “Assistant Driven” to make it easy even for users who haven’t seen it before. Tasks such as query-building and batch-emailing are all handled with step-by-step assistance, tips, as well as troubleshooting steps when a common Exception occurred.

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• The following screenshot shows how to assign users to the survey query “rows”.

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• Using Email Notifications feature, you’ll build the Email Batch.

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Using ASK

• Once your users get the Email Notification, they’ll login to their own Survey homepage.

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• At this point, they can fill out/update their survey directly to the Staging Datasets. All inputs throughout ASK are validated to make sure they are valid before they are submitted (i.e. Entering 20% will be advised to enter 20 instead).

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That’s all in a Nutshell regarding ASK 6.1

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