Archive PDF / HTML Reports

Computerize Your Assets provides the ability to generate all reports into standard PDF files as an additional reporting method, or alternative to actually printing on paper. This has distinct advantages to you. Considering you will be modifying your asset catalog as necessary when things change, generating your reports as PDF files will not demand the need for considerable amounts of time and paper.

Using this technique provides a perfect opportunity and situation where you may want to consider collecting these reports, compressing them into a single, smaller file and storing them in an online repository. Consider this scenario:

•	You create all reports as PDF files saving them all in a special folder

•	Using the PDF Archive process you capture all these reports and compress them into a single, self extracting executable file.

•	You supply a complex password that must entered to execute this file

•	You create an account with an online data warehousing and file storage FTP site and upload this exe file to your storage folder.

•	Months later a hurricane rips through your area and completely destroys your house and everything in it. Including your computer.

•	You have completed your backups and have a copy of your home inventory in your safety deposit box at your bank. This is good.

•	Unfortunately, your bank suffered damages as well and it will be days before they will be open

•	There is no power and probably won't be for several days. And even if you did have power you have no phone service or internet service. Much less a computer to run the backups on the CD you can't get to.

•	Suddenly you remember you have your entire home inventory reports in PDF format saved on a computer somewhere in the world that has not been affected by the storm

•	Could you obtain the phone number of the "Home Office" of your insurance company and call them using your cell phone, or another personas cell for that matter and contact an adjuster to explain your situation.

•	Ask them to log into your online data warehousing account ( certainly you will need to give them the login code and password ) and download your self extracting file containing your PDF reports. Of course they will need the password to extract the files.

•	They now, possibly within minutes, have a listing of everything in your home and just might be able to initiate the claim process.

We can't speak for the Insurance Companies or how they would react to a situation like this but it does add a new dimension to expedite a claim given dire circumstances. Katrina was a classic example.

The process is simple and will only take several minutes. However, you most likely want to complete your inventory prior to creating the PDF files. This just makes good sense. To make the task as simple as possible we suggest you place the PDF file you generate from each report into the same folder and give each a name that explains the contents. When you create your compressed file you simply select the folder containing them.

PASSWORD:
Your password is actually a key used to encrypt the contents of the file. The longer the key and mixture of characters used enhances the encryption and provides the maximum security. The password field can accept up to 65 characters and we recommend your password/encryption key consist of both upper and lower case characters, numbers and keyboard special characters such as #,*,&,% etc..

An example of a poor password would be something like "christmas".
An example of a much better password might be "I%like&Christmas#12@25*". Even this can be greatly improved on if you take the time to do it.

The password you create here must be entered exactly (case sensitive) to extract the contents of the contents of the file.

Using the "Dialog Button" to the right of the report folder field, select the folder containing all your PDF reports and click begin when you are ready. It is important to note that everything in the folder you have selected, including all sub folders will be compressed into the file. For this reason you may want to consider placing nothing but your PDF reports into this folder.

First a standard ZIP file is created using the password you supplied and it is placed into the folder you selected in the above screen. Next, a self extracting ( exe ) file is created from the ZIP file. It too is placed into the same folder as the ZIP file.

Depending on your plan and use of this process it has the potential to pay you huge dividends. So consider carefully how you can use this feature to your best advantage.