Gladstone Services

Gladstone provides custom programming services for solutions tailored specifically for your fair.

• Onsite Training (consulting)
• Custom Report Building
• Data Migration (converting your data from another program into ShoWorks)
• Customizing ShoWorks for your fair
• Enhancing ShoWorks based on your recommendations

On-site Training

Gladstone provides onsite training for ShoWorks and other consulting services.  More information about onsite training and consulting can be found at here

Custom Report Building

ShoWorks includes many preset reports as well as a custom report writer that provides reporting needs for normal operation of most fairs.  Should your fair require special reporting or modification of existing reports, you may choose to create or modify these reports on your own using Microsoft Access.  Instructions on how to open and modify these reports using Microsoft Access is located at http://fairsoftware.com/articledetail.aspx?AID=113020 .  Gladstone does not provide technical assistance on how to use Microsoft Access.

If using Microsoft Access is not an option for your fair, Gladstone will be glad to build custom or modify preset reports for you at a charge of $100 per hour.  Most report work can usually be completed within an hour but clarification on exactly what is needed helps prevent miscommunications or guesswork on what your reporting requirements are; for example, specifying exactly what field(s) needs to go at a particular location (please the ShoWorks field name as opposed to a value that we may not understand).  Revisions or corrections except those made by Gladstone, will incur a minimum of $25 per correction.  Please allow two business days after you have delivered specifications for the report by delivery via email or Web site access.

Data Migration (converting your data from another program into ShoWorks)

ShoWorks stores data in a simple Microsoft Access database.  This means that you can freely access your data with other programs, however please be aware that doing so voids any support as we cannot be responsible for the integrity of your data from importing and modifying the data structure  This includes importing data from a 3rd party or custom on-line entry system other than the official ShoWorks Web.  A common scenario is when fairs have data such as exhibitors and their addresses in another format and would like to import this data into ShoWorks.  This can usually be done with modest effort by having that data in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format and then importing this into your ShoWorks data file (a Microsoft Access database).  Instructions on how to do this is located at http://fairsoftware.com/articledetail.aspx?AID=116002 . Gladstone does not provide technical assistance on how to use Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel.

If using Microsoft Excel and Access is not an option for your fair, Gladstone will be glad to import your data for you at a charge of $100 per hour.  Most conversion work can usually be completed within a few hours depending on the volume and how 'clean' the data is.  For example, ShoWorks requires that all exhibitor names be unique.  If they are not, then we (or you) must sort through these and determine which are duplicates and which need to be renamed.  We must also have phone numbers, birth dates, and postal codes in the proper format (example, if some area codes are missing, we must determine what that area code is).  We can only import exhibitors, clubs, schools, divisions and their classes and do not import premiums, fairbooks or entries.  During this process, we rely heavily on clarifications of your data and the 'cleaner' data you provide us, the less time for a conversion and therefore the least cost for this work.  Please allow two business days after you have delivered the file(s) for the conversion by delivery via email or Web site access.

Customizing ShoWorks for your fair

Though we do perform custom programming on ShoWorks for your fair, we strongly recommend against detailed programming that might entail more than a few hours of work.  This is because you will no longer be able to install future ShoWorks updates (such as improvements, bug-fixes, etc.) without them overwriting the changes we made to your "customized" version of ShoWorks.  Your customization work would need to be redone on any future updates, this posing a potential reoccurring cost.

Custom programming is provided at a charge of $100 per hour and also includes the time spent deciphering the specifications of work needed.

Enhancing ShoWorks based on your recommendations

We always welcome your suggestions on how we can improve ShoWorks for your fairs and others.  Should we determine that your suggestions will reasonably benefit other fairs, we will (at our discretion) add your suggested features into future updates of ShoWorks. There is no charge for adding features (or bug fixes) that will be included in regular updates, however please understand that we do not build and release updates to ShoWorks for minor enhancements or fixes on a frequent or immediate basis.  Instead, these changes will be implemented into the regular update process in order to allow for proper testing and prevent instability and maintenance issues for other fairs.  Should you require immediate action, we ask that you consider the custom programming option as stated above.