Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I get the APT on a CD, or
download the complete contents from the Web?
- I work for the Government of
Canada. Why should I use US standards in my
procurement?
- Why are there no
products/categories listed?
- I bookmarked a particular product or requirement page, but when I come back to it I can't easily navigate the Web site. What is wrong?
- After using a search form or product or code list I can no longer easily navigate the Web site. What is wrong?
Questions and Answers
- 1. Can I get the APT on a
CD, or download the complete contents from the Web?
- Unfortunately, no.
We do not provide the Toolkit on a CD-ROM for off-line
demonstrations. The APT is a Web-based application that
dynamically generates content from a database. To be run locally
it requires a Microsoft NT/Windows Web server to be installed and
active in order for the code and database to work. Very few
government PCs are configured in this way. The APT is only
available on the Web.
You cannot download the entire contents of the site in one
operation because most of the pages are generated "on-the-fly"
from a database only when a query is received.
- 2. I work for the
Government of Canada. Why should I use US standards in my
procurement?
- Please see the
discussion of "Standards" in our Glossary.
- 3. Why are there no
products/categories listed?
- First, a quick explanation of how the Accessible Procurement
Tool kit works:
The tool kit generates the content of most of its pages
dynamically. The application only works (reliably) if you start
at the highest level page and sequentially choose links to refine
your search. Each link generates special identification (ID)
codes that the application uses to find and display the next
level of detail. These codes can sometimes be seen following the
URI of the page in the "location" or "address" window of some Web
browsers.
There are two possible reasons that a page may contain no
products, definitions, requirements or prerequisites:
If you randomly enter an address with a ID code that has no data
associated with it the resulting page will display no content
(except for the basic page layout).
Another reason you might encounter an empty page is if you launch
the tool kit from a "bookmark" or "favourite" you have associated
with a specific product: because our database is constantly being
revised sometimes ID codes change or disappear entirely. An old
bookmark may contain an invalid ID code.
Thus, to ensure that you get the full benefit of the application
it is usually necessary to start searches from the main page. You
should only ever bookmark the main page (www.apt.gc.ca)
- 4. I bookmarked a particular product or requirement page, but when I come back to it I can't easily navigate the Web site. What is wrong?
- The Toolkit was originally designed to be solely a menu-driven "drill-down" database application. This meant choosing a high-level product category would expand to include sub-categories that would then offer further, more specific, choices. At the most detailed level, the choices include a product definition, and a list of associated procurement requirements or prerequisites. If you follow that method, then the "breadcrumb" links that follow the main navigation bar allow you to retrace your path through the database. However, if you go directly to a product definition or requirement list from a bookmark or search result, the "breadcrumb" trail would not exist and you could not easily move back up the product's chain of "parent" products. The development team is looking at ways to solve this problem.
- 5. After using a search form or product or code list I can no longer easily navigate the Web site. What is wrong?
- Please read the answer to Question 4.
