Signing in, messages and files

Some things in Businessflo are not part of any one business process; every user meets them on every screen. This page says how they behave, so a consultant can tell a setting from a fault.

Signing in

A user signs in with their username, or with their email address typed in the same Username box. The email works only when no user has that exact text as a username and exactly one user carries that email. If two users share an email, they must sign in with their usernames.

The password rule

The password rule is set on the System Administration Setting screen, on the Security tab.

Field	What it decides
Password Minimum Length	The fewest characters a password may have
Require Upper Case Letter, Require Lower Case Letter, Require Number, Require Symbol	Which kinds of character a password must contain
Password Expires After (Days)	How long a password lasts before the user must change it
Earlier Passwords Not Reused	How many of the user's earlier passwords cannot be used again
Block After Wrong Passwords	How many wrong passwords in a row block the login

With nothing set, a password needs at least 8 characters with an upper case letter, a lower case letter and a number. Where companies in one system set different rules, the strictest one applies.

The rule is checked only when a password is set: when a user changes it, when it is reset, when a new password is asked for, and on the user screen. It is never checked at sign-in, so a password made before a stricter rule still works until it expires. Expiry and blocking after wrong passwords act at sign-in.

Error messages

When something cannot be done, Businessflo says so in a plain sentence in the language the user signed in with. If that language has no wording for the message yet, the English one is shown. A consultant can change the wording of any message, language by language, on the Error Messages screen.

When the fault is on the server rather than in what the user entered, the user is never shown the technical text. They see:

Something went wrong on the server. Please try again; if it continues, give this reference to support: …

followed by a short support reference in small print under the message. That reference is all support needs to find what happened. Being offline, a request that took too long, a session that has expired and a missing permission are each worded the same way, in the signed-in language.

Help lists

A help list is the popup you pick a value from: a customer, an item, a warehouse.

• A long help list is split into pages. Choose the page size and move between pages at the foot of the list; the list does not keep loading as you scroll.
• Column criteria on a help list search the whole list on the server, not only the page in front of you.
• A screen that fills a grid from a help directly, such as a Copy From list, still gets the whole list at once.
• A help list can be saved as a view like any other list. See Lists, boards and reports.

Files and folders

Every file and folder has an Access: who may open it.

Access	Who may open it
Public	Anyone whose role allows Files
Private	Only its owner
Restricted	Its owner and the people and roles listed on it, each with View or Edit

Private is an access choice, not a place: every folder sits in the one company tree, and its access decides who sees it.

• A new folder takes the access of the nearest folder above it that has its own list of people and roles.
• A file can be closed further than its folder, but a listed person never gets more on a file than the folder gives them. The person who uploaded the file and the folder's owner always keep access.
• A file with no list of its own shows its folder's access.

To change it, right-click the file or folder, or use the command bar, and choose Access. Pick Public, Private or Restricted; Restricted needs at least one person or role under Add people or roles. Press Save access. Access can be changed by whoever manages the folder, or by whoever can edit the file.

The explorer shows an Access column next to Name, Owner, Date modified and Size, so you can see at a glance what is shared.

Quick access

Quick access holds only the folders you put there. Right-click a folder, or open its … menu, and choose Add to Quick access; Remove from Quick access takes it off. The list is kept in this browser only, and the heading is hidden while it is empty.

Chat

If the network drops or the server restarts, chat reconnects on its own. It tries again at growing intervals, up to every five minutes, and at once when the network comes back or you return to the tab. A tab you are not looking at does not keep trying. Once reconnected, the open chats reload, so messages sent while you were away appear. When you read a chat somewhere else, it is marked read here too.

When a page cannot be shown

If a screen fails to draw, it says This screen could not be shown with Try again and Go to Home. Moving to any other page clears it; the error no longer follows you until you reload. An address that does not exist shows a page saying it was not found.

If something looks wrong

• "He cannot sign in with his email" - another user has the same email, or a username that is exactly that text. He signs in with his username.
• "The new password is refused" - it breaks the rule on the Security tab of System Administration Setting.
• "She was blocked" - too many wrong passwords in a row, as set in Block After Wrong Passwords.
• "The error has a code in small print" - that is the support reference. Send it to support with the time it happened.
• "The message is in English for an Arabic user" - that message has no Arabic wording yet. Add it on the Error Messages screen.
• "He cannot see a folder she shared" - it is Private, or Restricted without him or his role on it.
• "My Quick access is empty on the other computer" - Quick access is kept per browser.