Product FAQs

For online purchases of AWhere licenses, one license will have been automatically generated for each copy of AWhere that you purchased. You will have access to your license via an e-mail as well as via your AWhere.com account profile. In cases where an organization has purchased multiple individual licenses, or a site license for use by multiple end-users, the license(s) will be provided to the organization’s license administrator who will distribute the license(s) to end-users.

Thus, you might access your AWhere license information in one of several ways:

• Via E-Mail – If you made the purchase online under your AWhere.com account, you will receive an e-mail immediately following completion of the license purchase, and that e-mail will include your license details.
• Via your Organization’s License (IT) Administrator – If your organization purchased multiple licenses/seats of AWhere to be used throughout your organization, you will likely be receiving your license from a designated license administrator in your organization. They will most likely also serve as the support contact between your organization and AWhere Inc.
• Via your AWhere.com Account Profile - You may also find your license under your AWhere.com account profile. To access your license(s) any time, follow these steps:
  • Go to AWhere.com and sign in to your AWhere.com user account
  • Click on "My Account" at the upper-right of the AWhere.com window
  • On the page that appears, click on the "Your Licenses" tab
  • When applying a license to an AWhere installation, you can simply highlight and copy the 'User Name' and 'Serial Number' information from there, and paste them into their respective text boxes in the 'AWhere License Validation' window when prompted by AWhere (see next section). Note that if you have made purchases of both AWhere Express and AWhere Professional, your licenses for both of those versions will be listed together under your AWhere.com account. Be sure to use the correct license for the version of AWhere that is installed on a given computer. Note that an AWhere Express license will not work with AWhere Professional, nor vice versa.

One of the following three options will apply to you.

• A - You downloaded and installed the trial installation* from the AWhere website but have not yet activated the trial license – The first time you try to start AWhere, you will be prompted by the 'AWhere License Validation' window to either "Run a Trial License" or to enter a purchased license. Do not run the trial; rather, enter the 'User Name' (Licensed To) and 'Serial Number' information exactly as shown on the 'Your Licenses' tab under your AWhere.com user account (see previous section), or as provided by your license administrator.
• B - You are currently in your trial period - Each time you start AWhere, you will see a "countdown" window alerting you to the amount of time left in your trial period. Click on the "Enter License" button in this small window, and you will be prompted to enter a license. Enter the 'User Name' (Licensed To) and 'Serial Number' information exactly as shown on the 'Your Licenses' tab under your AWhere.com user account (see previous section), or as provided by your license administrator.
• C - Your trial period has expired – When you try to start AWhere after your trial period expires, you will automatically be prompted to enter a license. Enter the 'User Name' (Licensed To) and 'Serial Number' information exactly as shown on the 'Your Licenses' tab under your AWhere.com user account (see previous section), or as provided by your license administrator.

*If you have previously downloaded and installed the free trial installation of AWhere (either the Express or Professional version; whichever is applicable to your license purchase), then you already have what you need. The downloadable "trial" installations of both Express and Pro are fully functional installations in both cases. If several months have elapsed since you downloaded the trial installation, you may want to check to make sure you have the latest release of your version of AWhere (see next section).

If you do not yet have AWhere installed, refer to either A or B below for more on how to obtain the installation file that you need. Then, after installation, refer to (A) under the 'How to Apply a License to AWhere' section above.

• A - Install from a CD – When you purchased your license, if you opted to have an installation CD mailed to you, use that CD to install AWhere.
• B - Download from the AWhere Inc website - Follow the instructions below to download the most current AWhere installation file.
• Visit AWhere.com, and from the 'Downloads' menu, go to 'Trial Downloads'
• Sign in to your AWhere.com account. If you have been provided an AWhere license from a license administrator in your organization (that is, you are not the person who actually purchased your license), you may need to create a new AWhere.com account (if you do not already have one) in order to be able to download the software. (Note: if you are creating a new account, you will receive a verification e-mail afterward; please be sure to wait for that verification e-mail and click on the account activation link in it before proceeding to step 3. You will not be able to log in to your new account until you do this.)
• After you have successfully signed in, download the appropriate AWhere installation file (either 'AWhere Express' or 'AWhere Professional', depending on the license that you have purchased or have been provided). The installation file will be an .exe file; depending on your security settings, you may be prompted to approve the download.
• Once downloaded, run the .exe file and follow the instructions that appear (If you happen to have an earlier release of AWhere 3.8 installed, this installation file will over-write that earlier installation. Your data will not be lost.)

To determine the latest available release of your version of AWhere 3.8, go to the AWhere download webpage. On that page, find the "File name" for your version of AWhere (either Express or Pro); the file name will include "...3_8_xx_setup.exe". The "xx" represents the latest release number.

Now, in order to verify whether or not you have the latest release of AWhere 3.8 installed on your computer, start AWhere and select "About AWhere" from the Help menu at the top of the AWhere interface. The release number that you have will be shown in the window that appears. If your release number is earlier than the one available on our website, you will need to download and install the currently available installation file. To do that, refer to the steps above in part B.

To help you quickly get started using AWhere, we suggest that you begin by working through the training modules that are installed with AWhere. You can access and start these by selecting the "Training Modules" option from the 'Welcome' window, or by selecting "Training Modules" from the Help menu. They are listed in the order in which you should work through them. Additional training modules will periodically be made available from the Downloads section of our website.

This is applicable only to 'AWhere Professional' licensees. A one-year subscription to our "Standard" support plan comes with your purchase of an AWhere Professional license. You do have the option, at the time of purchase, to upgrade your support plan to the "Elite" option. To read more information about these two support plan options, visit the Support Plan page of our website. As your support plan subscription nears its expiration date, you will be notified and prompted to renew your subscription in order to continue your eligibility for all of the benefits that are available under your particular support plan. If you choose not to renew your subscription, you will no longer be eligible for support benefits after your support plan's expiration date.

The installation files for the latest releases of both AWhere Professional 3.8 and AWhere Express 3.8 include several Add-Ins. The add-ins that are installed with your version of AWhere 3.8 will be listed under AWhere's 'Add-Ins' menu. You are not limited to only the included add-ins; you may download and install any of the other available add-ins from our website (instructions below). Please check to see what add-ins came installed with your version of AWhere before proceeding to download and install any others. AWhere should not be running when you install Add-Ins, please close AWhere before proceeding.

• Visit AWhere.com and from the 'Downloads' menu, go to 'Add-ins'
• You must Sign In to your AWhere account (or create a new account if you do not have one) in order to download Add-Ins (refer to B under the 'Do you need to install AWhere' section above if you need to create a new account).
• On the "Download Add-Ins" page, you can read a description of each available Add-In; you may download any of the Add-Ins. (Note that there are some add-ins available for AWhere SIS 3.7, do not attempt to install any 3.7 Add-Ins with AWhere 3.8.)
• Once you have downloaded the desired Add-In's installation file, run the .exe file and follow the installation instructions that appear.
• Once installed, most (but not all) Add-Ins will be available from the "Add-Ins" menu at the top of the AWhere interface, as well as via toolbar buttons above the map window. If a given Add-In will be accessible somewhere in the AWhere interface other than the Add-Ins menu or toolbar, that will be noted in the description text for the Add-In on the "Download Add-Ins" webpage.

Each license of AWhere Express costs US $249.00.
At this time, there are no discounts on volume licensing for AWhere Express.

It should not take more than a few seconds to download AWhere Express on a high speed Internet connection.

The trial period will expire after 10 hours of use of the software. The 10 hours can be used over any period of time.

Your copy of AWhere Express includes our Training Modules. You can work through these Training Modules, which can be accessed via AWhere's help menu or the 'Welcome' dialog window.

Primarily, AWhere Express works with Shapefiles and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and other flat file formats (e.g. .CSV and .DBF).

Click here to learn about geo-coding.

The AWhere Virtual Earth Add-In is installed with AWhere Express, you can turn on the Virtual Earth view via the AWhere toolbar.

Boundary templates, U.S. state, county, and global; more available for download from our website. See the Download section.

AWhere Professional allows you to connect to many more data sources; AWhere Express connects primarily only to Excel. AWhere Professional has support plans available; AWhere Express does not.

For a more comprehensive comparison, click here.

Several Beginner level Training Modules are installed with AWhere Express, online training is available via our website, as well as access to User Discussion Forums. Standard and Elite support plans are available for AWhere Professional only, see our website for details.

You can copy and paste (or export as image files) maps from AWhere Express into Microsoft Office applications, also, the AWhere PowerPoint Add-In creates Power Point slides directly from AWhere Express.

AWhere Map Exchange allows you to export any selection of map layers from your AWhere database to a small, easily transferable and secure file (.amap) that can be imported by any other AWhere Express user. All data and display settings (value added work) are retained and carried over.

The 'My Maps' capability in AWhere Express allows you to save any number of maps that you create while working with AWhereExpress…your own digital atlas.

Via the File menu's 'Export' option, you can choose to 'Export a Custom Map Image' which will allow you to specify the resolution properties for any map image that you plan to export from AWhere Express and insert into a desktop publishing application.

The primary difference between AWhere Express and AWhere Professional is that with AWhere Express, you can connect to only MS Excel files, or other 'flat file' formats (for example, when using the 'Connect to My Data' tool), while with AWhere Professional, you have the option of connecting to a larger variety of data source types (in addition to MS Excel), including MS Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and other OLE databases. This provides for more flexibility in terms of how you can view your data mapped in AWhere, due to the ability to query a database in various ways. Also, AWhere Express does not come with any support plan subscription, while AWhere Professional does.

Both AWhere Express and AWhere Professional now have a 10-hour trial period. Only the time that you actually have AWhere running is counted against your trial period count-down. Each time you start AWhere during your trial period, you are notified how much time is remaining during your trial period. And, yes, the 'trial' installations of both AWhere Express and AWhere Professional (that you can download from our website) are both fully functional installations of that application; no features or tools are excluded.

While you are running a trial license of AWhere, you can download up to three free data sets from our website. Once you purchase a license of either AWhere Express or Professional, you are allowed unlimited data set downloads.

Work through the four 'Training Modules' that are installed with AWhere (both Express and Professional). You can access and start the Training Modules from either the Welcome window that appears when you start AWhere, or via the Help menu. Also, when you start a given training module, if you are notified that there is an associated .amap file, be sure to select 'Yes' to load that file...that will load the sample data that is necessary to work through the training module. Also, check the Downloads section of our website, as we have various other 'targeted' training modules available for download from there.

Template data sets are generally small 'starter' data sets that contain a few boundary layers, and/or other base layers for a given geography. They are provided so that you can quickly get started linking your data to a map...and generally all you need to get started connecting your data to a map is to have the geographical entities available for you to connect to...i.e. counties, states, countries, census tracts, provinces, etc. We include several templates with AWhere, including several U.S. templates, and one Global template. You can download additional templates from our website, they come in the form of AWhere Map Exchange (.amap) files.

Are you logged into the computer with Administrator privileges? You must have Administrator privileges in order to install AWhere.

When entering your license information into the License Checker dialog window, be sure to enter both pieces of information ("Licensed To" and "License Serial Number") exactly as they appear in the documentation sent to you by AWhere Inc.; the license key-codes are case-sensitive (the expiration date will be entered automatically by the license manager). Also, all of the "0"s that appear in a license key-code are the number zero/naught, not the letter "O".

If you have re-entered your license code taking into consideration the tips above, and it still does not work, contact AWhere Inc. by e-mail (awheresupport@awhere.com), include your license information.

If you have AWhere Express installed first, and then upgrade to AWhere Professional, the installation for AWhere Professional will remove AWhere Express.

We recommend that you install AWhere on computers using Windows 2000, XP or Vista. There are known issues with running AWhere on a Windows 98 machine; this seems to relate to the way Windows 98 manages memory. Therefore, we do not recommend AWhere be run on computers using the Windows 98 operating system; though if it is unavoidable, make sure that you have all of the available Windows 98 OS updates from Microsoft (especially the Y2K update), and make sure that your Internet Explorer is updated to at least version is 6.0.

At this time, there are no plans to port AWhere Professional or AWhere Express to the Apple Macintosh platform, however; users have had success running AWhere Professional or AWhere Express on a Mac under the following conditions:

• On an Intel Mac, you can install XP using the Apple provided Boot Camp software and then install AWhere Professional or AWhere Express like any Windows application.
• A second option would be to use virtual machine software to install XP OS inside of his Mac OS, then install AWhere Professional or AWhere Express into that. You might try SWsoft's "Parallels Desktop for the Mac” or Microsoft's "Virtual PC for Mac". While not as fast as using Boot Camp, virtual machine software would allow you to run AWhere Professional or AWhere Express side by side with your Mac applications.
• Finally, you could try some sort of emulator that does not require XP to be installed. This method would be the slowest. Codeweaver has a product called Crossover, however this has not been tested with AWhere Professional or AWhere Express.

Add-Ins are additional tools that extend the functionality of AWhere; once installed, they are accessed from within the AWhere interface. Some add-ins are installed with AWhere (both Express and Professional); while all other available add-ins can be downloaded from the AWhere Inc website. A given add-in will work with both AWhere Express and AWhere Professional. However, if a given add-in needs to access external data, it will be limited to only accessing MS Excel files if the add-in is installed with AWhere Express (see the question above regarding the difference between Express and Professional). Add-Ins are primarily going to be accessed via the 'Add-Ins' menu at the top of the AWhere interface (for exceptions, read the second question below).

Two add-ins are included with the AWhere Express installation, those are the Import Coordinates Add-In, and the Virtual Earth Add-In. Six add-ins are included with the AWhere Professional installation, those are (in addition to the previous two) the Intersect Add-In, Point Editor Add-In, MS PowerPoint Add-In, and Spatial Join Add-In. All of these are accessed via the 'Add-Ins' menu in the AWhere interface. You can visit the Add-Ins download page on the AWhere Inc website for a description of each of these add-ins, and others.

Typically, once installed, an add-in will be made available for you to select from the "Add-Ins" menu at the top of the AWhere interface. However, it should not be assumed that all Add-Ins will be listed in the Add-Ins menu. An Add-In, by definition, can appear anywhere in the AWhere interface. Examples include the Grid Utilities Add-In and the Spatial Sampling Add-In. When these Add-Ins are installed, they do not appear in the Add-Ins drop-down menu; rather, they appear in the 'Spatial Tools' menu (on the far left side of the horizontal bar just below the main AWhere toolbar). When either of these add-ins are selected in that menu, the individual tools available via that add-ins are accessed via the menu directly to the right of that (still in that horizontal bar). If a given Add-In will appear somewhere in the AWhere interface other than the Add-In menu, it will be noted in the Add-In's installation notes and in the description of the Add-In on the Add-Ins download page on the AWhere website.

Add-In's are installed with their own, separate help information. If you do not see a "Help" button available from the Add-In's interface, you should be able to access the add-in's help-file via the 'Add-Ins' menu at the top of the AWhere interface. From that menu, select the desired add-in, and then click on the 'About' link for that add-in.

A default data set containing a few select "Lower 48 U.S." map layers will load upon starting AWhere. If you would prefer to have a different default data set, see the next question.

Yes, if you have an .amap (AWhere Map Exchange) file that you would prefer to be the default data set that is loaded upon AWhere start up, simply copy that .amap file into the 'Default' folder at this location: [C:\Program Files\AWhere\AWhere SIS 3.8\Templates\Default\], and remove the current default .amap that is there (don't delete that existing default .amap, just maybe move it up one folder to the 'Templates' folder in case you want to use it in the future). That path is AWhere's default installation location, if you chose to install AWhere elsewhere on your computer, be sure to go to the \Templates\Default\ folder relative to the AWhere installation location. If you would like to have one of the other Template .amaps (from the 'Templates' folder) be the default, just swap one of them out for the .amap that is in the 'Default' folder now. Whatever .amap is in that 'Default' folder is the data set that will be auto-loaded upon AWhere start-up.

Make sure the database file (.awh file) that you are trying to open is not set to "Read Only". You can do this by looking at the file's "Properties" (use secondary mouse button to click on the .awh file's name at the location where it is saved on your computer), and checking to see that the "Read Only" property is not checked "on".

Make sure that there is not another instance of AWhere running on your computer with this database opened in it. Only one instance of a given database file can be opened at any one time. Therefore, for example, if a database file is being shared across a network by multiple users, only one of those users can have the database file open at any one time. Note that for this reason it is not suggested that AWhere databases be shared across a network. Another reason we suggest this is because any changes that one user makes and saves to the database file will be reflected the next time another user opens the database. A more effective way of sharing data among users is available in AWhere's Map Exchange (.amap) capability. See the AWhere Help file for more on that.

This message notifies you that one or more of the shapefiles or images, in the database which you are trying to load, has been either removed or renamed. In a database file (.awh file), the location and name of all data files that are part of that database are stored in the "Shapefiles" table. If a shapefile or image is moved from its designated location or renamed and then you try to display it in AWhere, the software will not know where to find the shapefile or image and will notify you accordingly. A dialog box will prompt you to locate the "missing" data file and will then, if you instruct it to do so, remember that new location or name for that data file throughout your session. For more on the proper structure and organization of AWhere databases, refer to the AWhere help file.

AWhere did not previously close properly due to an error or computer problem, and upon starting once again, AWhere located a database for recovery (one that has not been saved). AWhere will (in the background) automatically save changes while a user works on their database. If a user was working on a new database at the time of a crash, then these changes that AWhere has automatically saved can be recovered. Not all changes that the user made will be recovered. After recovering the database, click Save As to save the new database in a permanent location.

Yes. If you have previously opened the database file in AWhere, the software automatically created a backup database file with the file extension ".awb". This is simply an exact replica of the .awh file as it was the last time you successfully opened it in AWhere (not as of the last time you saved!). You can simply rename the ".awb" extension to ".awh", and you have restored your original database file. However, you will have lost any changes you have made to the database file (.awh) since the last time it was successfully opened.

It is likely that you have a firewall that is not allowing Virtual Earth through. If you know how to edit your firewall settings, set it so that it allows the .dll file located at: [C:\Program Files\AWhere\AWhere SIS 3.8\Add Ins\Virtual Earth 3.8\]. If you did not install AWhere at the default installation location, be sure to look for that "Virtual Earth 3.8" folder at the location relative to where ever you have AWhere installed. For more about Virtual Earth and AWhere, refer to the main AWhere help file.

There are a couple of possible solutions to this problem. First, check "on" and "off" the attribute check box one or more times and wait a few seconds for the layer to draw (if it is a large layer, depending on the speed of your computer, it may take a few seconds to render). Also, check the order and display properties of other map layers in the treeview. Other map layers may be drawn on top and, therefore, are obscuring your view of the desired map layer even though it is actually being displayed in the map view ('behind' the others). You may need to switch off other map layers, change the order in which map layers are displayed, or change the display properties (i.e. make other map layers, on top of your desired layer, fully or partially transparent).

A Treeview-type interface is used for both the Map Query control and for the Map Layers control; and though these treeviews appear similar, their functionality is very different. Make sure that you always return to the Map Layers function after you have finished your Map Query exercises, in order to once again have access to the data display tools only available via the Map Layer function. To go between the Map Query function and Map Layers function, select the desired function from the right-most menu in the horizontal bar, just above the Treeview area. To change display settings for any map layer you must use the Display Properties tab available from the Map Layers function interface.

When placing labels, using the 'Display Properties' labeling tool, on line or point features that are displayed as a Single Symbol, the line or point feature will be covered up by the label (i.e. the mapped feature will disappear). In the "Labels" settings interface of the Display Properties tab (where you initially setup your label properties), make sure you have the "Display BackGround" box checked. This allows for both the label and its corresponding map feature to be displayed.

Make sure that the tool-tip that you are using to make your site selection on the map is the "Site Selection" tool , and not the "Feature Selection" tool.

This has occurred most likely because you have not yet selected a site on the map using the "Site Selection" tool. Your database must contain a long-term normal climate shapefile named "CLIltn" (from which it will obtain the information necessary to generate a climate graph), and you must select a site within the spatial extent of this CLIltn (Long-Term Normal Climate) map layer. Most of AWhere Inc's prepared AWhere databases contain this shapefile; if you are using a database that you have created, you may not have the necessary long-term normal shapefile necessary to generate a climate graph. Refer to the "CLIltn" shapefile in one of AWhere Inc's databases in order to see the proper structure of a "CLIltn" shapefile.

When errors occur during Map Query operations, it often has to do with errors that are made when setting up the Map Query query in the "Map Query Settings" window. One key tip when setting up your Map Query operation, always make sure that the Attributes, for which you are entering parameters, are checked in the Map Query Settings window. If you enter parameters for a given Attribute but fail to place a check mark in the box to the left of the Attribute name, those parameters will not be included as part of the Map Query query statement. To check that your Map Query query statement is correct, after you are finished setting up your map query parameters, click on the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the Map Query control interface to view the SQL syntax of your query. If the SQL syntax appears correct, then your map query operation should run correctly.

You can resize any of the interface screen components. If the Map Display Window is too large and obscuring the Table/Graph Panel (which is below the map window), move the cursor over the border separating the two, then click and drag the border to resize the windows. Alternatively, you can go to the View menu at the top of the AWhere interface, select "Panes", and choose one of the four options available, two of which display the "Bottom" pane, which is the Table/Graph area.

It is important that the table containing the raw point data to be imported does not contain any records (rows of data) that are missing latitude or longitude entries. In converting the table data to a shapefile, if the program comes to a row in the table where the longitude or latitude is missing, the process will stop at that point, with no resulting shapefile.

Also, if a date has been included as one of the fields in the raw point-data table, make sure to format that field (column) as "text", not as "date" format. The conversion process will not recognize field data if it is of "date" data type and it will stop the process.

Ensure that the current Map View Projection setting corresponds to the format of the Longitude (X) and Latitude (Y) values in the table. For example, if your lat and longs are in decimal degree format, your Map View Projection should be "Geographic"...if your lat and long values in the table are in UTM coordinates (meters), you must have the corresponding UTM Zone selected for the Map View Projection setting in AWhere. Refer to the AWhere help file for more about the Map View Projection setting.

Make sure that the Coordinate System information for all of your database's map layers are correct. To learn how to check and/or edit these settings, refer to the AWhere help file.

For most operations that result in the creation of a new output shapefile, the shapefiles are saved to a designated folder within the database's saved location on your computer, primarily in an "Outputs" folder. With few exceptions, new output map layers are automatically added to the currently opened database. When an output layer is automatically added to the database, you will see it added to the treeview in a given folder. For example, the results of a Buffer operation will go into a new treeview folder named "Buffered".

Make sure that the "Long Term Normal" map layer (CLILTN Shapefile) in the database is not set to "Read-Only". You can do this by navigating to the database's data folder, via Windows Explorer, and selecting (highlighting) the files called "cliltn.shp", "cliltn.shx", and "cliltn.dbf". Use your secondary mouse button to click on the highlighted files and then select "Properties" in the list of options that appears. In the Properties window that appears, the "Read-Only" box will be checked if any of these files are set to read-only. If this is the case, simply un-check that box, and click "OK".

AWhere is creating a unique identifier in your attribute table, giving you the ability to toggle selected features and synchronize feature selections. This dialog that pops up is merely displaying a message with a status of this procedure. This only happens once for each map layer that does not contain a unique identifier. The addition of this ID field will not compromise the integrity of your data.