Getting Started with Motive Power

This document will tell you what you need to know to perform a basic installation of Motive Power. More details are available in the Motive Power Help system. The Help system is available from any screen in the Motive Power program. You can also click on the file MotivePower.chm in the root folder of this CD to run the Help system. Any questions that we receive that are not already documented in the Help system get added to the FAQ at www.motivepower.com

Click here to download this document.

What’s on the CD or available for download?

There are at least four folders on the Motive Power CD. They are MotivePower, MotivePowerManager, MotivePowerTech, and InitialImport.

If you downloaded from the Internet you may have any or all of these folders that you downloaded in .zip format. There is an additional folder, Motive Power Root, which contains this getting started document and also a copy of the Help system. You can download this and run the Help system separately to evaluate the feature list of the program. Click on these files to extract the Motive Power setup programs or Help system. It is best if you choose an empty folder when asked where you would like the files extracted. From here on the procedure is the same whether you received a CD or downloaded the program.

Running Setup.exe from the Motive Power folder on the CD or from your download folder installs both the database engine and the Manager software. This is the most common installation. If you plan to use Motive Power on a single PC, this is the installation you should run. If you are going to use the built-in database engine, you should run this install on the main machine. Because Motive Power is a client-server program, you should use your fastest machine to run the database. This installation creates an instance of the Microsoft Data Engine named CAI and 2 desktop shortcuts, Motive Power and Motive Power Learn, in addition to the program group.

Running Setup.exe from the MotivePowerManager folder on the CD or from your download folder, installs the Motive Power Manager software only. It does not install the SQL engine required to use Motive Power. Run this to make use of an existing Microsoft SQL Server 2000 installation. To do this you must create an instance named CAI with a default system administrator name of sa and no password. Motive Power will change the password of this instance the first time you run Motive Power. You can also run the Motive Power Manager setup if you want to put the Manager software on more than one machine. Motive Power 1 is limited to one active Manager at a time. This installation creates Motive Power and Motive Power Learn shortcuts and a Motive Power program group.

Running Setup.exe from the MotivePowerTech folder on the CD or from your download folder, installs the software made specifically for use by technicians. You should run this on each machine used by your techs. This installation makes desktop shortcuts Motive Power Tech and Motive Power Tech Learn.

The Initial Import folder contains files and instructions for importing customer and vehicle information into Motive Power. Specific instructions are given for customers converting from our GarageKeeper software and file formats are provided for other users.

Installation Procedure

Run the proper MotivePower or MotivePowerManager Setup.exe program either from a folder on the CD or from the hard drive folder where you extracted Motive Power. When the installation is completed there will be two desktop shortcuts and a Motive Power program group on your machine.

Run each shortcut. This initializes things and connects Motive Power to the SQL engine. Use SW with no password as the user for the main Motive Power and PS with no password as the user for MotivePower Learn. Note the requirement for an existing SQL instance, CAI, before you can run the MotivePowerManager Setup.exe successfully.

If you plan to install MotivePowerTech or run Manager or Tech remotely, share the folder Program Files | MotivePower with full permission before doing those installs.

You can now run the MotivePowerTech Setup.exe at any station. Near the end of the installation you will be asked to point to the main data file folder. It will be the same Motive Power folder that you shared in the last step. You will also be asked to point to the SQL data engine. It will be the one that shows as machine\CAI where machine is the name of the machine that is hosting the SQL data engine.

The plain Motive Power shortcut will not do anything unless you have an engraving file. The engraving file, RunMe.cai, unlocks a copy of Motive Power for a particular company name. If you have an engraving file, copy it to the Program Files | Motive Power folder. This folder will be on your local C drive if you took the defaults during the installation of Motive Power. If you chose a different location for Motive Power, copy the engraving file to the location you chose at installation.

Engraving files are made for your company when you place your order. You can order engraved files on the Internet when you download Motive Power or after your evaluation. You can also order engraved files through your local computer specialist or the support specialists listed at www.motivepower.com

Your Motive Power installation contains several items:

A Motive Power Learn icon that starts a live copy of the program with sample data files

including the following sample data:.

Customers
Vehicles
Open and Finalized estimates and work orders
Configuration files for an automotive or light truck repair shop
The ability to add your own customers and vehicles
The ability to change settings to match the way you do business
The ability to view, print and save reports
The ability to create 18 new work orders from scratch

and the following help system features:

Introductory chapters explaining the basic concepts and approaches used
Technical details including install and uninstall instructions
Users guide with very detailed breakdowns, including:
- Work orders
- Customers
- Settings
- Reports
- Daily tasks
Context sensitive help available using the F1 key
Index and Search capabilities

A plain Motive Power icon that starts a live copy of the program with empty data files:

Configured for an automotive or light truck repair shop
Ready for your engraved files
- We can e-mail your engraved files so you can start right away

A Motive Power program group with the following entries

Entry to run the Learn program
Entry to run the main engraved files
Entry to Restore a backup
Entry to run the TechLearn program, if installed
Entry to run the main Tech program, if installed
Entry to LogOut All Users.
Entries for maintaining the Motive Power Parts Catalogs.

Running Motive Power for the First Time

The first time you run the program it will establish links to the SQL database and make entries in the registry. If you have any RunMe.CAI or RunMe.SQL files in the Motive Power folder, those will be handled automatically by the Motive Power startup procedure. You will be in a small window labeled Motive Power Login. The fields are for your user code and password. The code for the engraved files is SW. The code for the Learn files is PS. There is no password set for either.

When the main Motive Power window appears, click on the Help button. On the Contents tab, click on Introduction. Read each of the short items in the Introduction. This will help you to understand the Motive Power point of view.

Now you are on ready to go. Book learners should just keep on clicking into the User’s Guide and read all about it. All the details are cross-linked so you can follow different paths through the documentation. The more cautious among you should start MotivePower Learn and look through the open work orders and customer histories to see how things go together. Press F1 when you get stuck and Help will appear. Video gamers will want to see what works how by trying everything.

Getting Fresh Learn Files

When you have gotten to the point that you want to start over with new Learn files, here is what to do. Close Motive Power. Go to Start | Programs | Motive Power | Learn and pick Start Over Learn Data Files.

Getting Help

First and best thing to do is to search in the on-line Help system. If you don’t find an answer there, next try the FAQ at the web site. There is a hotlink to the web site (www.MotivePower.com) on the title page of the on-line Help system. Click on Motive Power and then FAQ and see if your question has been answered there. Any Motive Power questions that we receive are posted on the FAQ list. If you can’t find an answer there you have more options. You can send an e-mail to support@ComputerAssistance.com for free support. You can contact your local computer specialist or one of the independent support specialists listed at the web site for paid support.

Hardware and software recommendations

Motive Power software uses the latest Microsoft Windows operating systems, and the MS SQL Server data engine. Motive Power and Microsoft Word 2002 or later can link to create custom documents. Motive Power uses MS Excel 2000 or later pivot tables to analyze 30 variables of sales data. Motive Power integrates with Quick Books Pro 2002 or greater. In addition to the built-in reminder capabilities, Motive Power sends files to CustomerLink, if you prefer to use a third party reminder service. We recommend installing Motive Power on a state of the art computer running Windows XP with at least 512MB of RAM. The minimum system that can run Motive Power is a Windows 98SE machine with 256MB of RAM.