1. Tutorial on Basic Usage
How to Use BkAssist®
Tutorial on Basic Usage

2. Scope of Tutorial
This tutorial covers the basics of starting, using, and closing BkAssist, including:
StartingBkAssist
Answering startup questions re keyboard shortcuts and checking for updates
Logging in
Getting help
Windows sizes and positions
Closing BkAssist
Who should view this tutorial : anyone who will use BkAssist

3. Starting BkAssist
Locate the BkAssist icon on your desktop, and double-click it:
If nothing seems to happen, look in the task bar: if BkAssist is already running minimized, click it to make it visible
If you’re running Windows 8, check out the next slide.

4. Starting BkAssist on Windows 8
This is a picture of part of the standard Windows 8 Start screen. You can launch BkAssist by clicking on the Bankruptcy Assistant tile.

5. Keyboard Shortcuts
A Windows option controls whether keyboard shortcuts are underlined in “dialog boxes”. The default is not to underline them, and it’s very hard to find the option to turn them on in Vista and later systems.
BkAssist will ask you during product startup if you want to enable shortcuts. We recommend checking the box to “always answer this question the same way without prompting” and then clicking on the Yes button.

6. More About Keyboard Shortcuts
Windows screen forms are called “dialogs.” The buttons and blank fields with a dialog are called “controls.”
You can always click the mouse within a control, but there’s a quicker way for power users.
The quicker way is to hold the Alt key down while typing the letter that’s underlined in the caption of the control you want.
E.g., you can click a button labelled Yes with the mouse, or you can type Alt + Y.
Also e.g., you can click the mouse in a blank labelled Name, or you can type Alt + N.

7. “Asked and Answered” Questions
BkAssist will ask you many questions, and it will pop-up many informational messages, at various times.
When you always want BkAssist to act in a particular way, you can check a box to bypass the question from then on.
When you understand an informational message, you can check a box so that BkAssist won’t tell you the same thing again.
The “asked and answered” history applies to each workstation separately.

8. More About “Asked and Answered” questions
The “Asked and Answered” tab of the General Settings sheet (from the main window, click on Settings in the menu bar, then select General Settings) allows you to undo your canned answer to selected questions or informational messages.
Click on the ones you want removed from the “asked and answered” set, and then click on the Apply button.

9. Updates
BkAssist will ask you if it should check for updates before starting.
We recommend checking the box to “always answer this question the same way without prompting” and then clicking on the Yes button.

10. More About Updates
We publish updates frequently to add new features, to correct bugs, to deal with changes in exemption and other laws, to update means test numbers, and to incorporate new and revised forms.
Each workstation has its own copy of the BkAssist software, so each workstation needs to apply updates when we issue them.
Updates are cumulative. That is, any updates you missed will be installed automatically.
Updates are “upward compatible.” That is, your case files will continue to work even after you apply an update.

11. Login Dialog BkAssist requires you to login.
The User or Firm Name is whatever you specified when you initially installed BkAssist (or whatever you later changed it to on the General Settings Sheet.
Use either the attorney password or the staff password for daily work. To register or renew your license, or to change the user name or either of the attorney or staff passwords, use the master password you setup when you initially installed BkAssist.
Client data is encrypted on your hard drive. Without the password, all the information about your clients will be gibberish.
We can’t recover your client data or your master password if you forget it. Write it down!
You cannot change the master password. (All your client files are encrypted using the master password, and BkAssist doesn’t provide an easy way to open and re-encrypt them with a different password.)

12. Changing Passwords
To change the user name BkAssist displays on the login screen, or to change either of the attorney and staff passwords:
Login using the master password.
Select the General Settings choice from the Settings menu on the main window.
Visit the Passwords tab
Make your desired changes
Click on OK or Apply
Note that password changes do not affect users who are currently logged in on other workstations. They can continue using BkAssist based on the password they used when they started their current session. They will need to use the new password to commence any new session after exiting from BkAssist.
We strongly recommend that you change the attorney and staff passwords
Regularly
Whenever someone who had BkAssist access leaves the firm

13. Main Window
This is the main BkAssist window, showing one client (Sarah Sample) whose chapter 13 bankruptcy case is in preparation. We’ll talk about preparing cases in other tutorials. For now, just notice the menu bar at the top of the window (the line that reads File, Settings, Help) and the “?” button at the bottom right.

14. Getting Help (1) BkAssist provides extensive on-screen help.
Tool tips–let the mouse hover over any field of any BkAssist screen to pop up a “Tool Tip” (that’s what Windows calls them) balloon that explains the field. For example, hover the mouse over the Add button on the main window to see what it does:

15. Getting Help (2)
BkAssist also comes with a very complete help file that you can launch in either of two ways:
From the main menu, click on Help and select General Help.
On any BkAssist screen, press the F1 key to get help about that screen. Alternatively, press the help button at the bottom-right or top-right of the screen.

16. Getting Help (3)
If you can’t figure something out, us at

17. Getting Help (4)
We can take over your computer (if you wish) to trouble shoot problems.
Use the Remote Support command on the Help menu to launch the TeamViewer application to let us connect to your computer, but only if we’ve asked you to.

18. Window Sizes and Positions
BkAssist remembers the size and position of every window and the width of every column in a columnar display.
Many BkAssist windows can be resized by dragging the window frame.
The widths of every column in a columnar display (such as the columns shown on the Clients tab of the main window we just showed you) can be adjusted by grabbing and sliding a boundary line in the column header with the mouse.

19. Large Windows
We recommend using the highest resolution monitor you can afford—1920 by 1200 or larger.
Some BkAssist windows may be too large to fit on your screen. You can use scroll bars on the right and bottom edges to bring the hidden parts into view. Alternatively, you can simply hit the Tab or Shift + Tab key to automatically scroll the window to make a field visible.

20. Closing BkAssist
If you want to close BkAssist, click on the “X” at the top-right of the window, or choose Close from the File menu, or type Alt + F4 (that is, hold down the Alt key and press the F4 function key)
If you’ve made changes to any client cases that you haven’t saved to disk yet, BkAssist will prompt you before closing—you won’t lose any work.