How to Manage Accounts

All access to your PedigreePoint web site's reports need to be via login with an account and password.
This section describes how the whole account registration system works beginning from when a
user fills in a form on your web site up to the point were you upload updated account information
to your web server. Note this only applies to PedPointPro not PedPointLite.

(1) Create account table Before you begin entering account information you need to have an Account table set up in PedigreeExplorer. Its generally best to put this in a separate database than your pedigree data

To do this you will need at least V5.4.1.FD which was released 9 June 2005. Start PedX and create a blank database using the File-New command. A dialog appears as shown below, pick Dog or Cat it doesn't matter which because we are only going to use the Account table.

After its created switch to the Account table by clicking on the drop button on the Database button as shown below:
(2) Entering Account information Now that the table is created (remember this is on your PC, not on the server) you can create account for people by simply typing the information into the PedX table as shown below.

The QueriesPerDay field is literally the maximum number of queries a user can issue within any given 24 hour period. A query is defined as any search or a click on any link leading to a pedigree, breeding or other report. A typical figure would be 100 queries per day. On e of the intentions of this "throttle" is to prevent data harvesting.

(3) Users requesting an account To get account requests, the PedigreePoint package contains a web page which appears as below:

A user enters their details and clicks on the Register button and the details are emailed to you. Note that you would have modified the pp_config.pl file so that the $szMailRecipient string is set to your email address.

 

(4) Processing the user's request The email as you receive it will be a plain text message as shown below:

You can either retype the information from this form into your PedX Account table OR you can use this quick method: first wipe across the message text after "All Fields: " as shown above, then use Ctrl+C, then switch over the PedX and use Ctrl+R to insert that record. This avoids having to do any retyping. Note that if the account name already exists then PedX will not allow that record to be added. You should then change the account name or email the user to ask them for a different name.

Note you must still manually enter the QueriesPerDay field -recommended value is 100.

(5) Transferring local Account data to the web server The account information in your PedX file is important and should be backed up, e.g. by saving the BMX file to a CD. You can also easily change web sites because the source data is in your PedX file and all you need to do is upload it to the new web site. To upload follow these steps. First make sure that you are currently viewing the Account table, then use the Tools-Export PedigreePoint command. A dialog appears as shown below:

Note the "Expression" string is set automatically for the account table rather than a pedigree table. Select a file name to export to and click OK. Now switch to your phpMyAdmin console's SQL screen (How do I get to this page?).

Click on the Browse button and upload the export file you just created. That's it - you have now updated the account information on the web server and the person who requested their account can now use it. You can now reply to that person advising them of their success.

(6) Monitoring account activity You can find out what users are doing on your web site by using the pp_admin.htm report.