Concession FTP User Guide May 2011 Version 1.2

Concession FTP User Guide

May 2011

Version 1.2

Contents

Objective ... 3

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows XP ... 5

Anatomy of the Files... 9

Working on your Files. ... 10

A Special note for those Concessions with two usernames ... 18

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows Vista... 19

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows 7 ... 22

Using Filezilla to access the FTP site ... 24

Linux and Open Office ... 34

Document Control

Date Version Who Changes Notes November 2010 1.0 NB Initial Draft

November 2010 1.1 NB Added Linux

May 2011 1.2 NB Added Vista

Objective

The Objective of this Guide is to aid the usage of the Boundary Mill FTP site.

All concessions will have received their login detail via a separate email.

The login credentials are yours and yours alone and as such should not be shared with any unauthorized personnel.

We are always happy to provide support to all of our users- in the first instance please email [email protected]

We aim to provide details for Microsoft XP, Microsoft Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux.

Examples will be shown using Windows Inbuilt explorer and Filezilla FTP

client.

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows XP

Right Click on the Start button on the task bar – usually bottom left of your desktop

You will be presented with a pop up menu (note: yours will look different to mine)

From the above menu please select Explore

This will open the default windows Explorer screen; as seen below.

In the Address Bar type the Ftp site address

ftp://ftp.boundarymill.co.uk as seen below

Press enter – you will be presented with a login request dialogue screen.

Please refer to the emailed document Boundary Mill Stores FTP site logon

Instructions for your credentials.

Enter your details – please note the password is case sensitive.

Once you have entered your details - click on the log on button.

Once you have successfully logged on to the ftp server you should see something similar to the image below

Like any windows folder you can amend the view to suit

Anatomy of the Files

The first 3 digits are the concession number – in this case it is concession 13.

The next 6 digits refer to the date - in this case 1

September 2010.

These files can be opened in Excel.

Working on your Files.

Double click on any of the above file and the following dialogue box opens

Click on open and the csv worksheet will open in Microsoft’s Excel, as it is a text file most versions will have no issues recognizing the file type.

If you select Save it will take you directly to the save as feature – please refer to below for

instructions on the save as

feature

Notice that this is not the full version of Excel – it has opened within the FTP window.

The file is still a csv format – to save the file to your computer select File

The select Save as;-

The following screen opens

The initial save as location is on the FTP server – select your preferred

location from the menu bar on the left – in my case I will save to My

Documents

You can change the file type by clicking on the down arrow in the Save as Type dialogue I will save it as an Excel 97-2003 .xls

The saved Document in My Documents

Notice that the file we have just saved is now a .xls file format – double click the save file to launch Microsoft Excel

The sales file open in Excel

What does it all mean?

I have inserted a row and manually entered the column headers

Formatting the Data

You may have noticed the barcode does not look correct.

Click on the Column header, this will select the entire column

Right click the column header – this will produce the following pop up menu

From the pop up menu select Format Cells

The format cell dialogue screen opens

From the above screen select number

Set Decimal places to zero and click ok

The end result.

You can format the unit price and total in to currency – the process is the

same as above – this time you will select currency –

This time set decimal

places to 2 to reflect £

and Pence

A Special note for those Concessions with two usernames

Care must be taken – not to check the save password on the FTP login screen – see below

This may cause confusion when trying to log onto different FTP folders.

If you are experiencing issues please check that this is unchecked.

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows Vista

In this section I will review the differences from Microsoft Windows XP to that of connecting to the FTP under Windows Vista.

Right Click on the start button

The above pop up menu will be activated - from the above menu select explore.

The explorer window will open. In the address bar input the ftp address, as below.

You will bw presented with the login screen

Input your login details – if they are validated – remember passwords are case SenSiTive

you will be presented with your concessions FTP folder

To download to your PC – right click on the file to be downloaded – from the pop up menu select copy to folder

The folder browsing screen opens

Navigate to your selected folder and click ok – open in Excel as normal

FTP User Guide – Microsoft Windows 7

As with the previous versions of Windows – right click the start button

Select Open Windows Explorer – the following screen will now load

In the address bar type in the FTP address - ftp://ftp.boundarymill.co.uk and press Enter

You will be presented with the login screen – as seen below

Enter your login credentials – if correct, the following screen will be

presented

Using Filezilla to access the FTP site

This might seem involved to get up and running, it will take about 5 minutes, but the setup needs doing once only and for those users with multiple concessions switching between connections is simple and time saving.

Filezilla is a free to use, open source FTP client. Other free open source FTP clients are available.

To download Filezilla navigate to:

http://filezilla-project.org/download.php

Start filezilla by double clicking on the icon

You are presented with the standard screen

Anatomy of the above screen

This is your

computer – it shows

all drives that are

connected to your

PC

This pane will

only show

details when you

are connected to

a valid FTP

server

To setup the connection to the server

Click on File on the main menu and select site manager

This new screen will load

This pane indicates downloads

queued and in progress

Select New Site

The New Site screen will open

Step 1: name the connection – in my case I have called it Boundary Mill

Step 2: Enter the FTP connection details – ftp://ftp.boundarymill.co.uk

Step 3: enter your login details

When you have entered your login details click Connect.

This will start the connection process.

Note if you have several concessions you can create a connection for each

FTP account.

To save the files to your local computer – I recommend creating a folder – I have created one in my documents called FTP in the example below

This pane lists all of your .csv files

Highlight the files you which to

transfer. Holding down the Mouse

button drag the files to the folder you

have created – release the button and

the transfer should start

The file transfer in progress

The files saved in my Documents

Once this has been set up, it is valid each time you connect.

Click on the down arrow.

Then click on the name of the connection you have created

If you have more than one connection, each connection will be listed for selection

You can create a quick connection

When you reload Filezilla click on the down arrow and the connection you

have made

Linux and Open Office

There are many versions of Linux each with its own features and benefits – In my example I have used the popular Ubuntu version – the principle is sound or other versions of Linux.

Linux version Ubuntu 10.10 Open Office Version 3.30

Ubuntu is an open sourced operating system that is free to use and free to download – see http://www.ubuntu.com/ for more details.

Open Office is a free to use Office suite developed by Oracle – more details

can be found at http://www.openoffice.org/.

A Standard Ubuntu desktop with Open Office Writer Open

To access the FTP click on the Ubuntu Icon in the Top left corner

Then select Internet and finally Firefox Web Browser

This will open Firefox ,

In the address bar type in the FTP site address ; ftp://ftp.boundarymill.co.uk

This will take you to a login in screen

Enter your login details – if successful the FTP site will load within the

Firefox web browser.

To access the sales files – double click on the .csv files this will start the import process, as shown below.

Click OK

The above screen is a standard import tool. This will convert the CSV file into a format that Calc can understand.

We need to specify the separator type – as the file format is CSV = comma separated variable. In our example we need to select comma

The data in the preview pane will reflect the change made

Click Ok to complete the import

To format the Sales columns to reflect currency – highlight the columns – click on I and J

Click on the format menu

The following screen opens

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