Welcome to AFAS!

Is that YOUR desk?

Filing is one of the most undesirable activities at home as well as the office. Even though our intentions are good, we tend to gather and hoard all the things on our desk which we don’t want to forget, including those things which we haven’t got a clue where to put. The famous folder "various" insufficiently solves the problem. We may have a cleared desk, but we can only find the filed items after a nerve-racking search - IF we ever do find them. Long search-times are expensive and frustrating.

AFAS - Freedom for your Desk

AFAS is an application which makes filing more pleasurable. You put your diverse files and items, which would otherwise lie around in stacks on your desk, into regular suspension folders. These folders are simply numbered. A detailed tutorial can be found here.

Now AFAS takes over. With this software from Cogimedia you can file your diverse items and papers quickly and easily. By 'diverse items and papers' we think of all those documents and bits and pieces which do not have a regular filing place, have no specified folder and defy your usual filing structure. All those odds and ends, which else you would just stack somewhere only to find them never again, can now be filed securely and be found quickly. And moreover, at last you stop just hiding your clutter - instead you can be sure to find the objects you filed with AFAS in no time at all.

Who needs AFAS?

You need AFAS if:

• You see numerous documents on your desk, and you don't know where to put them, since you haven't got a storing procedure or folder for them
• You often have to search for a long time and you get in a bad mood or have minor fits in the process
• You have a boss who always needs some kind of document, which you KNOW you have seen before
• You have a retrieving-rate of below 99.546 %
• You have better things to do at home or the office than searching for things
• You get high blood pressure whenever you hear questions starting with "Now, where is..."
• You want to file private or work-related information and find it again just when you need it
• You are invisible for someone entering your office, because there is a stack of paper on your desk, which surpasses your height while sitting by 10 inches

How it works

First step: Numbering your folders

Get yourself some suspension folders and number them, e.g. 1 to 5

Second step: Installing AFAS, creating folders and objects

Install AFAS by executing the file „AfaS_1.2_setup.exe“. The installer will guide you through the installation process. Now you can start creating folders and objects in AFAS, which will be described in detail in the following.

Creating Folders: Click on the folder icon with the left mouse button, keep the button pressed and drag the folder icon into the folder list (the upper left column) to create a new folder. Alternatively you can also perform a double click on the folder icon. The Trial version allows you to create a maximum of 5 folders.

Creating a new Item is equally simple: Click on the paper stack icon with the left mouse button, keep the button pressed and drag the paper icon into the desired folder. If you drag it into the item list (the upper right column), or if you perform a double click on the paper stack, the new item will be inserted in the selected folder. Or you can drag it directly into one of the other folders in the folder list.

Third step: Define some keywords for your item

1.	The menu of the Red Ox (there you can eat the best spare ribs in town)
2.	An article from a biology journal about gold fish (you are sure you'll need it some day)
3.	The manual for your new phone (you intended to read it some day)
4.	The map of Munic (you know you'll go there again)
5.	Replacement pens for your boss' Palm (he keeps loosing them...)

These are only some examples... If you'd like to know what items you could file using AFAS, you only have to have a look around on your desk or some of your drawers. It's quite likely that there are some items lying around, because you don't know where to put them: After all, you want to know where to find them in case you need them.

Now you define some keywords for every item or document.

	Keywords Red Ox, menu, Ernest´s favourite bar, best spare ribs in town
	Keywords Article Professor Sheepman, University Cambridge, love life of goldfish on Sumatra, colleague Waterman (he told you about the article)
	Keywords Palm pens, boss, Staple´s(that´s where you buy them)

In the picture below you can see how easy it is to enter your keywords in AFAS:

Now your items are entered in AFAS - quickly, comfortable, and easy to find!

Fourth step: Sort your items in the respective suspendig folders

Actually, you are already finished. All you have to do now is overcome the urge to file everything separately (bills with bills, letters with letters etc.). You just have to put ALL the different items (that’s what we call a general filing system) into ONE suspension folder, into one, where there is still space left. Since we are just starting out with this new arrangement, we put everything into folder number 1.

Don't search - find!

What can you remember?

Let’s assume, you are looking for an article about some kind of animal which was written by some professor three years ago. Tough case to crack. You wouldn’t stand a chance without AFAS, believe us!

At least you know, that you got a copy of the article from your colleague [Waterman]. This copy will not be found “somewhere”, but is safely stored within AFAS.

So it’s no problem: Open up AFAS (you can set it up so that it will always be lurking in your system tray, without eating up too much memory)

You enter 'Water' (or, if you like, 'Waterman') and click on the magnifying glass (or hit enter):

Thanks to high performance search algorithms, AFAS will quickly discover that the article you were looking for,is stored in folder 1.

Let's assume you remember that the animals the article was writte about were fish. Then you could have entered 'fish' Additionally you knwo who gave you the article. So you enter 'Water' (for your associate Waterman) and 'fish' (upper or lower case doesn't matter) and you will get a search result quickly and reliabley. (For professionals: The words you entered will be combined by an AND-relation.)

• That’s it! No punching, stapling, folding!
• Documents of any kind and size are left inside one single storing system!
• Fast, easy to learn and creative!
• And the best thing is: Fantastic retrieving rates!

Appendix

1. Meaning of the icons in the AFAS window

1 - Perform Search
2 - Clear Search
3 - About AFAS (displays version and registration information)
4 - AFAS Help
5 - New folder (drag and drop or double click)
6 - New item (drag and drop or double click)
7 - Waste basket (drag and drop item or folder there to delete it, or hit the [Del]-key)
8 - Settings

2. Search from the system tray

If AFAS is in the system tray (in the lower right corner of your desktop next to the clock), then you can perfomr a search directly without opening the AFAS window. With the icon in the system tray you can also create a new folder immediately.

3. Reminder

If you want to be reminded of a certain item, you can use AFAS to create an appropriate iCalendar file (*.ics) which you can then import in your usual calendar application, like for example Sunbird or Outlook. To do this, open the desired item and click on [Reminder]. You will see a dialog window where you can enter a reminder message and choose the appropriate date. Finally click on [Export].
By default, AFAS will try to open the exported iCalendar file with your default calendar application. If you do not want AFAS to do this, please go to the settings window (tool icon) and uncheck the option "Execute exportetd iCalendar files automatically". After that, when clicking on the [Export] button you can save the *.ics file manually.

Items with a reminder are designated with a "[R]" in the item list. You can remove the reminder by opening the item again and clicking again on [Reminder]. Now click on the button [Remove]. Note that this removes only the reminder in AFAS and not in any external calendar application.

4. Using AFAS in a network (LAN)

If you use AFAS on a network drive then multiple users will be able to access your repository file simultaneously. Move your repository file to a network drive (tool icon --> manage repository databases --> move your current repository database) and then select the file also from other computers (tool icon --> manage repository databases --> browse for an existing datagase and open it).

WARNING! If several users edit one item simultaneously their edits can cause conflicts. If the repository file is located on a Windows network with an appropriate file system (e.g. NTFS) then AFAS is able to detect such conflicts and warn the users when necessary. Note that this is not possible with all oiperating systems and file systems. In order to prevent any loss of data, please test beforehand what happens when two users are trying to edit the same item at simultaneously.