- Use optimistic record locking: Prevents two users from editing
the same record at the same time. If you choose not to use this, database
saves will be slightly faster, but a ``who saves last wins'' situation
will occur if two people are editing the same record.
- Case sensitive searching: Tells ASM that you want case to
matter when searching for animals and owners. If case sensitive is
on, then searching for ``steve'' won't find owners called ``Steve''.
This option has another use - some locales can break the insensitive
comparison, causing nothing to be found when searching for special
characters, enabling this option allows the use of special characters
in searches for non-English locales.
- Use Automatic Litter Identification: Setting this option
will cause ASM to automatically assign an ID to newly created litters,
and allow a litter ID on animal records (replacing the acceptance
number field, which was only useful to UK RSPCA shelters). A button
appears on the edit animal screen, allowing users to assign an animal
to an active litter.
- Foster animals are shelter inventory: Setting this option
will make ASM treat fostered animals as if they are on the shelter
(with appropriate visual output to show they are fostered). Note that
this option will not take effect until you restart ASM.
- Cache active animals: Setting this option will cause ASM
to cache all on shelter animals on startup. This speeds up opening
of the animal edit screen considerably if your database is on a slower
internet link. Stale cache data is updated every 10 minutes.
- Lazily load animal data: Setting this option will make ASM
only load information on animal tabs when the tab is clicked instead
of in the background once the screen opens.
- Don't auto archive animal records on exit: By default, when
you close ASM, it will scan all the animal files on record and update
various records to make sure that various copies of internal records
are correct. This is only really necessary if another process has
modified the database that ASM doesn't know about, or you book out
adoptions more than a day in advance. If you don't do either of these
things, you can turn this feature off and save some time when closing
the program. You can manually force auto archiving by selecting it
from the menu under System->Database Tools->Auto Archive Animal
Records
- Disable retailer functionality: If ticked, ASM will hide
all of the functionality related to retailers (a system where pet
shops adopt animals on behalf of the shelter). This will not take
effect until you restart ASM.
- Disable accounts functionality: If ticked, ASM will hide
all of the functionality related to the accounting package (ASM contains
a full, double entry book keeping system to track shelter accounts).
- Use a single breed field for animals: Setting this option
will make ASM only display a single breed field on the animal details
screen. This is the norm for UK shelters, where animals are either
pedigree or a crossbreed (a ``Crossbreed'' breed can be added to
the lookup). Without this option set, ASM allows for two breed fields
and a crossbreed indicator so that mixed breed type animals can be
recorded (this is typical for US shelters).
- Don't show the startup page: By default, ASM shows a startup
page with today's diary notes and the latest news from the ASM website.
This option disables it.
- Keep a full audit trail: Ordinarily, ASM keeps a note of
the person who created a record and who last changed it. If you set
this option, ASM will also keep a full history of who created and
changed records in the system, but most importantly, who deleted records
and when. This audit trail can be analysed with the audit trail reports,
available from Reports->Get more reports from sheltermanager.com
http://sheltermanager.sf.net
