Happy Easter!
It's our favourite holiday of the year. It's a time of renewal. And it is often (though not always) the harbinger of Spring... and... a new version of SAFE. Every year we try to focus on a particular area of the program. This year, we put a lot of effort into improving the purchasing functions, which we describe a bit below. We also have added quite a bit to the Contact Management functions including some neat integration with Outlook and more and more abilities to message users at each stage of job production which we'll discuss next time.

Til Next Time!
 

SAFE XI: New Vendor Purchase Order Features
More and more of you are placing orders for stock items; items that are not a part of a traditionally brokered order or including items that you inventory or add value to in some way before shipping. So SAFE now makes it easier to order and track such products directly from the Vendor P.O.s Browse.

When you receive in products on a Vendor P.O., you can receive these items into separate Sites rather than having to receive them all into one place and then transferring them. For example, if you ordered, say '10,000 Checks' you can receive them into several lots--either at a single Site or at several several Sites. If there are separate shipping costs for each lot, you can apply these all at the same time.

There is also a new feature we call 'Pass Through'. When you receive a Product you can receive it into another Site (say, a finishing Vendor), which completes that portion of the original P.O. but creates a new P.O. Transaction for the next vendor in the chain. This is similar in concept to the back order function on Sales Orders. In effect, we're creating a new transaction with only the item that has not been completed so you can easily track those items that require multiple phases of production (eg. base stock, then printing, then covers). As you receive acknowledgment that the product has been sent from one vendor to the next, you receive in the item and move it along to the next stage of production. Each Pass Through transaction references the same original P.O. number. Even better, when you clone a P.O., SAFE 'remembers' this sequence of job steps so you can easily repeat the entire series when re-ordering.

Speaking of cloning, the Cloning function of Vendor P.O.s is now as easy and flexible as that for Sales Orders. You now have options to clone the ship to and ship from sites or to have these be use the the Product's defaults. If it is a numbered item, you can also specify the new numbering sequence. As we just mentioned, you can clone the steps of a multi-phase order; even if you choose a new vendor for any phase.

For serialized inventory, you can also specify a range of sequential serial numbers and these will be automatically created for you in one go whejn you receive in the product. For example, if you order in ten scanning devices, you can specify the starting serial number and the remainder will be automatically assigned the next sequential numbers.

 Also for serialized inventory there is the ability to print bar codes for all received items during the receiving process.

We also are making the RFQ process much easier for those of you who frequently order stock items. You can now enter an RFQ for items that are not linked to any customer or prospect (Contact). Stock RFQs are now automatically converted into Vendor P.O.s when they are accepted and if you have multiple RFQs to the same Vendor, you can specify that the newly ordered product will be combined onto an existing P.O.

And along with that, you can drag any previous P.O. onto the RFQ Browse and create a new Request For Quote from the P.O.!

SUMMARY
The new Vendor P.O. features make it easier to create and receive 'stock' products; especially products that require multiple phases. Receiving items to multiple sites now requires only a few keystrokes and managing items which have multiple phases of production can be monitored automatically. You can now process large numbers of serialized products with far less work. Finally, RFQs using stock products are now as easy as drag and drop. In short, we think we've finally made ordering and managing your inventory of 'stock' items as flexible and easy as the traditional 'custom' orders. There's more to talk about in upcoming issues, but this gives you an overview of what to look forward to.

Til Next Time!

Reminder: Windows XP Support Changing!
On April 14, the most-widely used operating system on the planet enters what Microsoft calls "extended support." This means the company will release security patches for XP through April 14, 2014. The company's extended-support policies are described on Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ. After April 14, XP updates that are not security-related will no longer be available for free. Performance enhancements and compatibility patches will be offered only to customers who pay for extended support. This is yet another sign that Windows 7 is on the way and that Microsoft is nudging users more and more to be ready to move when it ships. They aren't going to wait forever to get the next wave of OS upgrades! That said, as we've reported here, Windows 7 is a step forward so there shouldn't be any trepidation. Get ready!

Til Next Time!
 

Ciaran's Corner: Inevitabilities: Death, Taxes... Upgrades
It's the best of times. And the worst of times. OK, maybe it's more the worst of times, than the best of times. But we're having more and more discussions with customers who have put off various upgrades over the years and now, when it would really help, are feeling squeezed.

When we decided to use an external database system rather than our own we were concerned that we were tying ourselves to end-users (that would you) willingness to upgrade not just our application, but also the host database. In effect, we were marrying our fortunes to those of Microsoft. We tried not to appear to be 'squeezing' users by developing SAFE along two tracks... that is, having various features only 'work' if you were on the latest version of SQL Server. Unfortunately, despite our large brains, we haven't done enough to 'sell' you on the value.

First off, we pushed a lot of higher-end functions that a lot of you didn't see an immediate need for. Many of you are not exactly on the bleeding edge of technology. Fair enough. However, features like 'point in time' snapshots and automatic rollback to those snapshots should've been mouth-watering to anyone who ever wanted to either:
a) Get any report 'as of' a particular date
b) Instantly recover their system to any date in case of catastrophic failure.

Obviously, we need to do a better job of explaining why these features you just can't live without.

More worrying however, we had a tough time selling certain very basic functional improvements that are quite beneficial but take many words to explain. Here's one... in SAFE/SQL2k it is very difficult to answer the question 'Who in my customer list has never bought from me. Who have I never bought from? It turns out that 'never' is a rough one because the database didn't support it. In SQL2008? Easy as falling off a log. And speed? For many of you, SAFE was already 'fast enough'. Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

OK we can't make you see what you can't see. We can't demonstrate the value of these new features without you actually having SQL Server 2008. The problem, of course, is that many of you are still using SQL Server 2000 and that is now nine years ancient. Something has to give... we simply have too many good things we want to do with SAFE to keep being held back by SQL 2k.

So starting this year, we will be adding some carrots and sticks. The carrot is that we will allow you to use your upcoming Annual Loyalty Discount towards your upgrade to SQL Server 2008. Just e-mail back 'Apply To SQL Server 2008' and purchase your upgrade from your helpful Microsoft dealer. At your next RSS renewal, we'll credit you the amount of your discount.

Ah, but there is the stick. Which is that, starting this year, we will be dropping support for SQL Server 2000 in May of 2010. That gives you a year to upgrade.

And doubly fortunately, this isn't an 'upgrade' to SAFE, ie. it isn't a radical change to SAFE that you have to be concerned about. In actuality, if you're using SQL Server 2000, you are using the 'riskier' version of SAFE; the cleaner version is the one SQL2005 and SQL2008 users have been running for several years! When you upgrade to SQL2008, you'll be getting an even more reliable system. Immediately.

SUMMARY
We know you'll have questions. We know you'll have concerns. And that's what we're here for. Fortunately, we have a year to iron them all out. Hopefully, we're combining a generous carrot with a not too horrible stick. But the main thing is that the benefits of SQL Server 2008 will be instantly apparent to you, the SAFE user.
1. More speed
2. Easier queries
3. More sophisticated functionality
4. Increased peace of mind

Cheers!

Ciarān Marron
Technical Support Manager
cm@suntowersystems.com

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End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume XI #8