Portal Setup

What is the Systems2win Portal?

a search-friendly user interface
One of the ways to find and open your Systems2win templates, the portal gives you a picture and description of each template - making it the easiest way to find a template you have not used before.
where you will find ALL of your licensed templates
In addition to Word and Excel templates, there are also PowerPoint, Project, PDF, and HTML templates that are found only in your portal.
the central master location for your company's (perhaps personalized) master templates
If and when you personalize a master template, you will overwrite the master in your portal - and then you will either manually or automatically sync your personalized template to each user's default User Templates folder.

Tip: Even if you are a single user, you will still use your portal in all of the above ways

How to install the Systems2win Portal

The first step is always to save your master installation files where you can find them - and keep a backup for disaster recovery.

If your IT Dept loses your master exe files, there is a $25 replacement cost within the first year, and after 1 year you would need to upgrade.

Then look at your Systems2winInstall file...

If the Systems2winInstall exe filename ends with "_S"

the portal will install automatically on each user's PC when you follow the instructions to install on each user's PC.

If the Systems2winInstall exe filename does not end with "_S"

then you should have downloaded a second exe file named S2winPortalInstall.exe,
which is installed only once by your IT Department on a shared server.

For an upgrade.. follow the additional instructions for Portal Setup for an Upgrade

For any portal installation... your Information Technology Department does the following....

Decide how your team wants to distribute personalized templates
choosing the Sync Setup option that best fits your company's technology environment
If you will be setting up your portal on a shared server...
1. Run the S2winPortal exe - installing your S2winPortal folder on a shared drive that:
  1. is accessible only to users in your Licensed Company, Division, or Location (as per your License Agreement)
  2. all sync users can browse to find (in My Computer, and in the last step of user installation)
    Prior to April 2, 2009, you needed to map the shared drive - ideally using the same mapped drive letter for all users.
    The new version now supports the UNC Universal Naming Convention - so you no longer need to map the drive.
2. Set user access to your S2winPortal folder (and its sub-folders and files) to be read-only for most users
  so they don't accidentally overwrite your master templates with their working documents.
  (User access should be read-only. File permissions need to allow read-write in order for sync to work.)
3. Optional personalization:
  * You can optionally choose to personalize some templates and/or your portal
  * You can optionally choose to remove some templates that you don't want to distribute to your users
  * You can optionally choose to add some of your own templates that you want to sync to your users
Personalize your Systems2winInstallReadMe file
Your IT Department should personalize your Systems2winInstallReadMe file to provide the information needed for user installation:
1) your License Activation Code
2) your company's sync setup decision for how your company will distribute personalized templates
3) the full path to your S2winPortal home page (if your users will be syncing from a shared portal)
4) your preferred PDF writing software
5) any other installation instructions that are unique to your company
(such as proxy settings)
Personalize StorageNaming.pdf
Use the Storage Naming Policies template (/S2winPortal/tCI/StorageNaming.doc) as the starting point to overwrite /S2winPortal/S2winSync/StorageNaming.pdf with your personalized document
to document your company's policies for:
- where users should store their working documents, and what they should name them
- where to find your company's policies for process improvement
Encourage your company's leaders to create (or reconsider) your company's policies for process improvement.
In your portal - use Ctrl+F to search for "policy template".
And then use that template to create a PDF of your company's policies.
(or reconsider improvements and clarifications to your company's existing policies)
Either install on behalf of users, (preferred),
or distribute the installation files to authorized users for self-installation.

If installing many users...
see tips for faster installation of many users

Note: In order to use synchronization in versions of the Systems2win application prior to January 15, 2009, every user required permanent permissions to write to the zSystems2win folder where their Systems2win application is installed. As of January 15, 2009, these write permissions are no longer required. Tip: You can download and install a free update to the latest version at any time.

FAQ's & Extra Credit Tech Tips

How do users open their templates?

To use templates version 5 or higher:

Can we install our Portal on multiple computers?

FAQ: Can the portal be installed on more than one server, or even on several local PC's or laptops?

Yes. It is not a license violation as long as each server or computer is accessible only to users included within your License Agreement.

Personalized templates will need to be manually synced between multiple computers and/or servers.

If we have multiple users, can we simply install each of them as a single user?

Yes. If you have installed your S2winPortal on a shared server that all of your licensed users can easily access, then you can set up each user for No Sync (which is the default way that your Systems2win application is delivered)

The other (much less popular) option is to set up each of your users to have their own S2winPortal installed on their own c: drive (following the sync setup instructions for a single user)

Also see instructions for installing a large number of users

Can we move or rename our portal?

You can move the S2winPortal folder in its entirety - but never move or rename files or folders within the S2winPortal folder (or links will be broken).

If you do move or rename your portal, then you will need to change the portal path on every user's PC.

How to change the portal path on any user's PC

Logged in as the user with administrative privileges...
Excel > Systems2win menu > Setup & Upgrade > Change Path to Systems2win Portal > browse to select the home.htm file within your S2winPortal folder

Close then restart Excel - so that all menu items to become active.

Final test: Logged in with the user's usual permissions - do first sync...
Systems2win menu > Setup and Upgrade > Sync Local Templates with Masters in our S2winPortal

Personalize your portal and/or templates

Learn the correct ways to personalize your templates.
Learn how to sync your company's personalized templates
Use your Customization Log - to make future upgrades easy.

Internet Explorer setup - if the File Download dialog box does not appear

When left-clicking a link to a file in Internet Explorer - the following dialog box will (usually) appear.

Unless someone messed with your Internet Explorer, it should already be set up this way... but if you ever run into the problem where IE does not provide the option to immediately open your file after downloading it. (Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab > check the checkbox for "Notify when downloads complete")

If a user (unadvisedly) unchecks the box to "Always ask before opening this type of file", then this dialog box will no longer appear when left-clicking a link to a file in Internet Explorer (which makes it difficult to open your Systems2win templates from your portal, because after saving a file, you need then manually find and open the file using My Computer).

The only way we have found to restore the File Download dialog box is Tools > Internet Options > Security tab > Reset all Zones to default level. But before you do this, you might want to save some screen shots of your settings - so that you can restore your personalized security settings.

Or just use Mozilla Firefox.

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