Understanding Hosting

With the hosted version of Prime, nearly everything is taken care of for you relating to running Prime. All you have to do is use it! A brief list of some of the features of hosting:

High service levels -- redundant power, connections, and equipment help guarantee your Prime system is up and running
Dedicated 24/7 staff -- call Venture at any time, day or night, weekday or weekend, and get a support technician
System maintenance and upgrades -- don't worry about having to replace hardware or software; all that is done for you
Backups -- daily backups ensure data will not be lost in the event of deletion by a user
Security -- both physical and electronic security are taken very seriously; the data center is guarded and has internal safeguards; electronic access by users requires multiple stages of identification, including username and password verification, and staff number and password verification
Virus protection -- monitored and updated regularly
Secure access -- data is encrypted before it travels over the Internet

Keep in mind that Venture is providing the servers, operating systems, and software necessary to run Prime. Generally, that means that your local systems are doing very little, other than displaying what is happening on those remote servers. The Venture systems run Prime and send the visual information back to your local computer for display there. Your local computer then sends mouse and keyboard input to Venture. The Venture systems take that information and interact with the programs, displaying the new information to you.

Necessary System Requirements

The system requirements to use the hosted version of Prime are minimal, both in terms of the software and hardware required.

Access-based Version

For the Access-based version, you need Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client. This program comes in all current versions of Windows Operating Systems. It is also available for several other operating systems including MacOS, iOS, and Android. Just about any device running one of these operating systems can access the hosted, Access-based version.

Web-based Version

The web-based version is only available within the hosted environment. Because it is purely web-based, almost any standard web browser on any operating system will suffice.

Access-based Operation

Web Portal

The web portal (https://portal.kempscaseworks.com) is the standard interface for logging in to the Venture system, as well as running the various programs available to users. Only those programs that have been approved for a user are displayed. [For users of non-Microsoft operating systems, your portal may appear in the Microsoft Remote Desktop application.] That portal, and the programs that may be available, looks like this:

Kemp's Prime

Opening the Kemp's Prime program will run the normal, user copy of Prime. The user copy of Prime is run using the runtime version of Access. This limits a user to the standard interface within Prime. Running the user copy will prevent the modification or addition of forms, reports, and queries. It also limits the user's ability to interact with the database tables directly. This helps secure your system.

Kemp's Prime Admin

Opening the "Kemp's Prime Admin" program will run the master copy of Prime. The master (main) copy of the front end (user interface) is also called the 'Admin' (administrative) copy. The admin copy can only be opened by an administrative users within Venture. An administrative user has special rights above regular users. The admin copy is run with the full version of Access, allowing an administrator to run and modify the admin copy, including adding new forms, reports, queries, or code.

Push Admin Changes

The admin copy holds additions or modifications and can be used to test those changes. Once an administrator is assured the changes are good, they can "Push Out" the admin copy for users by running the "Push Admin Changes" program. This function takes a snapshot of the current admin copy and makes it available for users. Some new items (such as forms and reports) may not be available to users until they start using the latest version of the admin copy.

Active Users

When the admin copy is pushed out, users already operating in Prime (active users) will not immediately see a change--they continue to use the version of Prime that they are running. To get the newest version, they must close Prime and restart it. Make sure users are actually exiting the system: they must use the menu and select Exit. Clicking the "X" in the top-right corner may only put Prime in disconnect status, and not actually close it. When users restart Prime, the new admin copy is used and they will see the changes.

Inactive Users

If a user is not active (not logged on to Venture and not running Prime), the new admin copy is used the next time they start Prime, and they will see the changes then.

Web-based operation

The web-based system does not require a direct logon through the portal. Rather, you will direct your Internet browser to your organization-specific URL. User credentials are verified, staff #, password, and email is used to provide two-factor authentication. Once verified and authenticated, the web-based Prime starts.

Getting help with Venture-hosted issues

Understanding Document Tracking from within Venture

For safety purposes, programs on Venture run in a “sandboxed” environment—-meaning they are cut off from and separate from your own systems. You are limited, in a default setup, to merely viewing Prime as it runs on Venture. You can allow access to your local hard drives by having Venture enable “drive mapping.” With drive mapping, you will be able to see your local drives (such as the C: drive) from within Venture. Typically, it would be shown in Venture as something like “C: on <your computer’s name>”. You can then select local files from that drive to be copied to Venture and put in Document Tracking.

Opening Documents in Document Tracking

Unless you subscribe to the full Office suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) within Venture, when you open a document in standard Prime, it will be opened within the Venture system. For cost and compatibility purposes, we use a free office suite called OpenOffice. It has programs that can open most of the Microsoft office types of files for viewing, as well as other file types such as WordPerfect.