In order for TIMS3 to display TIMS buttons in Word and Excel, it uses Microsoft macros to integrate TIMS3 functionality into MS Office. It is important to understand that any integration with Microsoft products is totally dependent on Microsoft. Many of Microsoft's product formats are not published and are frequently changed without notice. While many third-party vendors continue to provide desired integration with MS Office, the functionality of that integration is continually in "harm's way" as Microsoft refines and upgrades its product offerings.
The changes that Microsoft has implemented in their support of Office 2K templates and macros have dramatically affected many third-party integration products, including TIMS3. Despite the Office 2000 changes, however, there are steps that you can take to retain a large degree of the TIMS integration enjoyed with Office 97. The following memo outlines modifications to the TIMS Client installation process that will maximize the TIMS3 / MSOffice integration functionality. A simple overview of the steps are stated first, followed by concept explanations, detailed installation instructions and installation alternatives.
It should be noted that TIMS3 is currently implementing a strategic direction that moves its Office integration out of the confines of Microsoft's whims.
Use the MS Office Startup folders, rather than the User-profile Startup folders, to store the TIMS Word and Excel Global templates
Install the MS Office user templates in a central network location
Modify the MS Office 2K User Template folder locations in each user workstation
In contrast to MS Office 97, template and macro functionality in MS Office 2000 relies heavily on user- profile-specific settings. This affects Global Macros (toolbars, etc.) as well as User and Workgroup Templates.
If TIMS adhered to this change in Office 2000, it would have displayed the user-profile directories as a default on the installation screen. This is the screen where you enter the directory location of Office Templates when installing the TIMS Client on end-user workstations. Because the Administrator is typically the user who installs the TIMS Client, the Word and Excel templates would have been placed in the Administrator's user profile directory. When the actual end-user logged in, Word and Excel would not find these templates in their user-profile directories. Since it is typical, in fact, often mandatory, to have the Administrator, rather than the end-user, install software, using the Office 2000 design would render Office / TIMS integration useless.
Therefore, TIMS altered the installation process to attempt to work-around this MS Office design change.
To understand how this change affects third-party integration, we will divide our discussion into two parts: the location of the Global Template (in the case of TIMS, InitTIMS.dot); and the location of the Individual Templates, such as Letters, Memos, Faxes and Watermarks.
If third-party integrators followed the Office 2K design, they would use the Microsoft-sanctioned Startup Folder, which is located in each user's profile directory. There are many problems with this scheme. First, there are a number of potential locations for user profiles. These vary with the Operating System version, the MS Office version, the OS / Office service-pack level, and many other user-specific options. This presents a serious obstacle for vendors who are in a continuous enhancement / update release cycle. With no way to know where crucial components of their software are installed, it is impossible for those vendors to deliver transparent "plug & play" type upgrade options to their customers.
Therefore, TIMS recommends that you circumvent the user-profile-phobic Office 2000 and install the TIMS Global template (Inittims.dot) in the 'Startup' directory that is found below the Word and Excel 2K application folder in the Program Files directory. The Excel Global Template Add-in (TIMS_XL.xla) must go in the 'XLStart' directory that is found below the Word and Excel 2K application folder in the Program Files directory. This directory structure is determined by your Office 2000 installation and although it may vary from installation to installation, the actual directory hierarchy is not important. What is important is that the macro resides in the "Startup" and/or the "XLStart" directory below the application. This will load the macro upon StartUp of the Office application. Depending on how MS Office was installed, typical locations for the StartUp and XLStart folders are as follows:
C:\ProgramFiles\MicrosoftOffice\Office\Startup\
AND
C:\ProgramFiles\MicrosoftOffice\Office\XLStart\
Or
C:\ProgramFiles\Office2K\Office\Startup\
AND
C:\ProgramFiles\Office2K\Office\XLStart\
The downside of this approach is that this Office Application "StartUp" and "XLStart" folders are not documented or supported by Microsoft and indeed can occasionally suffer from MS Office failures. Office failures may change the attributes of the StartUp and XLStart folder files to "Read-only" or "Hidden". Word or Excel will not recognize these Macros and you will need to change their attributes. As Microsoft does not document this folder, there is no way to determine for certain that there are no other potential problems.
Alternatively, you could make use of the Microsoft-sanctioned startup folder located in each user's profile. Unfortunately, there are many possible locations of user's profiles available. They are dependent on OS version, Office version, and many other factors. (RSA will be happy to send you a Microsoft article that expands on the issues related to user profiles.) Of course, the main disadvantage to this approach is that the template is user-specific and only available to "the user" who installed the TIMS client. It would also burden the Network Administrator when disseminating software patches and updates.
Individual template files present a different challenge. By default, they will be installed in the directory that is designated as the MS Office User Templates directory. By default, this will be located in the user's profile
folder, rather than in the default central location, as with Office 97. Again, this means that the templates will be located in the user profiles of the person (usually the Administrator) who installed TIMS.
Because of all these issues, the TIMS3 installation program allows you to place Individual templates in whatever location you chose. We recommend choosing a central location on the network that can be accessed by everyone. That does, of course, necessitate modifying the User Templates locations in Word and Excel to match the location you selected during the installation. Open Word and Excel. Select the menu option TOOLSàOPTIONS from the toolbar. Select the FILE LOCATIONS tab and modify the USER TEMPLATES file type to reflect the central location you selected on the TIMS Client installation screen.
This can be done individually for each workstation, or you could set these values via the Users' Login Scripts.