Hi,
Take a look at the video at http://www.stardraw.com/products/stardrawav/movies.asp - this describes cable labelling functionality beginning at about 4minutes 50seconds into the video.
We will publish a new movie dealing with cable labelling in detail and will post to this thread when it is available.
In answer to your specific questions:
2) Where to start is entirely up to you and depends on the type of results you want to achieve. For a live project, we normally see people starting with a Block Schematic drawing since this is where you can show your system interconnections in detail. For a sales pitch, people often start in Pictorial Schematics to get a quick and professional-looking client-facing overview. The database, or External Datasource as we call it, can be done at any time since this applies to ALL projects and has been designed to allow asynchronous updates. To apply changes from the External Datasource to an existing drawing simply select Edit | Update Attribute Values - this synchronizes the values in the drawing to those in the External Datasource.
3) The Installation Summary report collates the values of the Installation Time attribute values that are stored in symbols. I attach a zip file of a sample drawing that can be used to generate all sorts of reports since all attribute values in symbols and cables have been populated.
If you have not done so already, I recommend attending one of our free online webinars. These occur every other week and are a great way to get up and running, learn some key productivity tips, and ask any questions you might have. You can register at http://www.stardraw.com/company/events
I hope this is helpful.
Kind regards,
Rob Robinson
Stardraw.com