Welcome to the Easy Template Software (ET), a companion product for the book, Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More, by Sam Carpenter: http://www.workthesystem.com . This software was developed to provide an easy way to document your Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective. Sam’s book describes the importance of each of these and the goal with this software is to provide a single repository where you can create and manage them.

The ET software runs in a hosted web environment so you do not need to manage a server or database in order to use it. All you need is a computer with web browser access to the internet.

Your data is private and secure. You must login with your own “Easy Template email” and password to create and view your content. None of your content is ever publicly visible. Your data is backed up daily, and you can save copies of it to your computer.

The two most popular browsers for Easy Template Software (ET) are Internet Explorer and Firefox. Other browser types such as Safari will also work.

There are three types of users in the ET software system: Admin, Editor, and Viewer.

In simple terms the user types have the capabilities listed below. This is described in more detail later.

The Admin user can create, modify, and delete all content. The Admin can also create and manage users.

The Editor user can create and modify Working Procedures, but not other content.

The Viewer user can view and print content.

2) How to login/logout

The login url for Easy Template Software is:

http://www.easytemplatesoftware.com/

Use your admin email and password to login the first time.

If a user types in the wrong email or password an error message will display, and a forgotten password can be retrieved as show in the screen shots below.

This message is displayed if a user enters the wrong email or password. Click on the “Recover password for this email” link to have the password emailed to you.

If the wrong email is entered, then this message shows.

After login, the logout button is shown below, circled in red. There is also a logout button in the lower right of each screen.

When logged in, the user will see a home page that has a section for general introductory type information. The Admin user can easily edit the contents of the home page from the Management menu.

3) Admin Functions

a) Managing the Company page

The Admin user can edit the contents of the home page from the “Management” menu. The Editor and Viewer users will not see the Management menu.

Click on the Management menu.
Next, click on the Company Manager as shown circled in red above.
Once edits are completed, click the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.

If you decide not to select any of the choices under the Management menu, then click “Management” at the top of the menu again to close the dropdown menu list.

You are able to edit all three sections: Name, Welcome title, and Welcome content. If you do decide to edit the name, please send us an email ( admin@easytemplatesoftware.com ) with the new name since this is a significant change.

View a VIDEO of the login and how to add a company graphic to your home page.

b) Managing ET users

1) List of User privileges/functions

Admin users can perform these functions:

Edit Company Home page from the Management menu
Create/Edit/Delete users from the Management menu
Modify user viewing privileges for Departments from the Management menu
Run management reports from the management menu
Create/View/Edit/Delete Operating Principles from the Operating Principles menu
Create/View/Edit/Delete Strategic Objectives from the Strategic Objective menu
Create/View/Edit/Delete Departments from the Working Procedures menu, department icon
Create/View/Edit/Delete Working Procedures (both approved and unapproved)
Print Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective
Save/View WP, OP, and SO as PDF documents
Approve Procedures from the Working Procedures menu
Set timezone (specific to the logged in user) with icon in lower left of screen
Search from upper right of screen
View Help document

Editor users can perform these functions:

Create/View/Edit/ Working Procedures (both approved and unapproved)
View Operating Principles and Strategic Objective
Print Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective
Save/View WP, OP, and SO as PDF documents
Set timezone (specific to the logged in user)
Search from upper right of screen
View Help document

Viewer users can perform these functions:

Login/Logout
Change screen text size with AAA buttons
View approved Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective
Print approved Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective
Set timezone (specific to the logged in user)
Search from upper right of screen
View Help document

2) Adding and Editing Users

Click on the “User Manager” from the Management menu.

At the bottom of the user management screen is a list of existing users.

The Name fields: First, Middle, Last are optional, as is the Title. At a minimum, it is recommended that you include a title for the user. Click SAVE to create the user. If you try to create another user with the same email as an existing user, the system will not create this additional user. Each user must have a unique email.

The email does not have to be real, but if a real email is used then the user can get their password emailed to them if they forget it.

View a Video of how to create and edit users.

c) Manage user privileges for department access

d) Create a Strategic Objective

The strategic objective is created by the Admin user. First, click on the “Strategic Objective” Menu item shown circled in red. The blue “?” icon will open a document with a simple set of guidelines for creating a strategic objective. The green “New” button will launch the screen for creating a Strategic Objective.

Your Company name is pre-populated into the title field. It can be changed if desired. In the example above it was changed from “Work the System” to “Centratel”. The Body field is used to create the Strategic Objective.

Click SAVE when you are done with the initial edit.

Click the red circled edit icon shown above to make changes or to set the Ready for Approval checkbox.

Click on the green check to approve it. This will make it visible to all Viewer users in the system. Editors can view the Strategic Objective and Operating Principles before they are approved, but only an Admin user can edit them. It is expected that these two sections will not be edited often.

After clicking the green check, the Strategic Objective is approved. The text color in the left column turns from blue to orange. For Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and the Strategic Objective, a blue color in the left column indicates an unapproved item and an orange color indicates an approved item.

View a Video of how to create the Strategic Objective.

e) Create the Operating Principles

The Operating Principles are created by the Admin user.

Click on the Operating Principles menu. The green “New” button will start a new set of Operating Principles. The blue question mark icon will open a document with some guidance. Many of the icons and buttons in the software will have hover text when you hold your mouse over them to indicate what the function of the button is.

The company name will default into the Title field. Click SAVE to continue creating the OP.

Use the green Plus icon to add as many operating principles as needed. Note that the editor box in Easy Template Sofware will allow you to paste in a large amount of content that was created in another document such as Microsoft Word. If you do not want to use the separate boxes for creating each Operating Principle, you could paste them all into the first box.

View a Video of how to create the Operating Principles.

f) Set your time zone

The clock time is only used in the system to show when a procedure was last edited. If that is not important to you, then you do not need to worry about setting this.

This shows the location in Easy Template where the clock time is used.

g) User Statistics Report

The Admin user can run a simple report to see how many users have been created. Easy Template Software buyers are allowed to create up to 10 users.

The report output is shown below.

4) Creating Working Procedures

Note: We currently have the Easy Template Software set so that if a user is logged in for

a) Create Departments/Change Department Names

All Working Procedures will exist in Departments. You can create just one single department, or many departments to organize your procedures.

Click on the Working Procedures menu, circled in red here.

Enter a department name and click SAVE. If you want any of the other users in the system not to be able to see the department, click the checkbox by their name. If you later want to exclude a user from a department you can do this on the user’s profile under the Management menu.

You will now see the department in the dropdown list on the left. As more departments are created they will be added to the dropdown list.

This screenshot explains the components of the Department screen. If you want to delete a department, you should first move any Working Procedures in that department to another department, otherwise they will be lost.

This screenshot shows three departments have now been created. We can now create Working Procedures in the Departments.

View a Video of how to create Departments and Working Procedures.

b) Create Working Procedures in Departments

After creating a department, select that department in the dropdown list and then click the green new icon to create a Working Procedure.

Now you can select your department from the pulldown list on the left and start creating procedures in that department.

An empty department list shows in the left column. By default the homescreen information still shows in the right side because there are no Working Procedures created yet.

Click on the green “+” icon to start creating a working procedure.

Enter a title and summary. You must enter a title in order to see the procedure in the department list. You can leave the summary blank if desired and it is not needed.

Click Save to create the initial working procedure.

Click the green “+” NewStep icon to start creating steps in your procedure.

By continuing to click on the green “+” icon you can create as many steps and substeps as needed.

Then click “Save”.

Your procedure will now show in the department list.

c) Add/Upload graphics into Working Procedures

The dialog box below opens when you click on the graphic button in the editor toolbar.

This screenshot shows a folder being created called, “HowToGraphics”.

Note that the folder name can only have letters with no spaces or special characters.

5) Approving Working Procedures

Once the initial creation or subsequent editing of a procedure is done, the user must check the “Ready for approval” checkbox to alert the Admin user that it is ready for review and approval.

The Admin user can now review the procedure and approve it if all looks correct. The Admin user can also make additional edits to the procedure if needed.

Since the “Ready for approval” box had already been checked, this change will be tracked with color coding so that another Admin or Editor user will know what part has been changed.

After the “Ready to approve” box is checked on a procedure, the system provides a simple change tracking to show what items have been added, modified, or deleted. You can see the Step 5 above is in a blue font color which indicates that it has been added.

The screen above is an example of an approved procedure and the color of the procedure text in the department list on the left is now orange to indicate that it is approve. Viewer type users will now be able to see this procedure.

View a Video of how to edit and approve Working Procedures.

6) Checking Status of Working Procedures

There are two reports that the Admin user can run to get information on the status of Working Procedures.

a) Completed Pending Approval Report

This is the “Completed Pending Approval” report. It lets the Admin user know of any items that have been checked as “Ready for approval” and the can click on the result to go directly to the item to review it.

b) Documents in Progress Report

This report shows all of the items that are in progress which have not been checked as “Ready for approval”. Clicking on any item in the list will open the item.

7) Editing Working Procedures

Once a procedure has been checked as “Ready for approval”, any subsequent changes will be tracked until the procedure is approved by the Admin user. This checkbox is available when an Admin or Editor user is in Edit mode.

When the Admin user clicks the green check again, the updated procedure becomes visible to Viewer type users again.

8) Deleting Working Procedures

Only the Admin type user can delete Procedures, Operating Principles, or the Strategic Objective.

9) Printing Working Procedures

The PDF icon is used to both save a procedure as a PDF file, and then to print the document from the PDF.

10) Viewing and Saving Working Procedures in PDF format

The PDF output is good for viewing a large procedure. It is also the way that a user can save a Procedure on their computer as a file.

Choose “Open” if you just want to view the procedure as a PDF, and you can then print it also from the PDF. Choose “Save” if you want to keep a PDF copy of the procedure on your computer.

11) Using the Search

Enter and term into the Search field, circled in red above, and the results will be returned for all three sections: Working Procedures, Operating Principles, and Strategic Objective. You can then click on a result to go to the specific item that contains the term. For items with large amounts of text you may need to use the browser’s “Find on Page” function to locate the search term.

In this example we are searching for the term subsequent. Click on the binocular icon or use the “Enter” key to execute the search.

12) Viewing Help Menu

The help menu icon is located in the upper right portion of the screen. Clicking it will open a PDF Document with a clickable table of contents. You can click the “Save” icon in the PDF to save a copy to your PC if you want. Also on the same page as the PDF is a list of 7 videos that cover the most common functionality of Easy Template Software.

13) Viewing Terms of Use

The terms of use explains a users rights and restrictions for the Easy Template Software product.

The link in the lower left corner of the screen will open this document in a separate browser window.

14) Change font viewing size of Web pages

Clicking on the AAA icons circled in red above will enlarge the text for cases where a user prefers larger letters.

View a Video of Home page functions: search, timezone setting, “A A A” sizing, etc.