News from the Kore

Holidays 2003 Issue

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !

Everyone is looking sharp in front of our new booth first featured at Perspectives 2003. From Left to right, we have: (standing) Paul Trebbien, Mark Dobransky, John Bosley, Eric Yarbrough, Rob Morrison, Ken Dickinson, (kneeling) Paul Bressler, Chuck Verran, Andy Blanchard. Frank Busalacchi and Frank Kertai said they were too busy solving customer problems to be there!

We at Kore Technologies hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season as well as a safe and Happy New year!

Tech Tip: Export Feature of Report Manager (wIntegrate under the covers!)

With the IBM Amnesty program for wIntegrate Maintenance ending December 31, 2003, it seems appropriate that something wIntegrate related should be this newsletter’s tech tip. Most DataFlo reports have now been converted from PROC to Report Manager, including a large number in releases as early as 5.5.x. While these procedures are still using essentially the native Retrieve language of Universe and Unidata, most of these reports now have an Export capability. This EXPORT feature actually uses the wIntegrate Import/Export facility under the covers. This feature of Report Manager provides the ability to export the data from the DataFlo application data files directly to a variety of PC file formats, including EXCEL. To use the EXPORT feature, simply fill in the report options as you normally would. Then, at the command prompt of the report screen, simply type the word EXPORT.  This option brings up another screen that allows you to specify the following:

1) Output Format (e.g. XLS)
    The type of file you would like to create, e.g. XLS for an Excel worksheet,

2) Export File Name (including the file network path)

3) Overwrite data file option (Y/N)

    Overwrite existing file on PC/network.

4) Include Field Descriptors (Y/N)

    Include column headers

5) Explode Values option (Y/N)

6) Repeat Data option (Y/N)

    Repeat single value fields when related to multi-valued fields.

In addition, you can specify which data fields to include or exclude in the EXPORT. Note that the EXPORT feature is not enabled for all reports -- those DataFlo Report Manager reports that use a basic program to display calculated data fields do not have this feature.

Do you have a favorite report that is that is missing this EXPORT feature?  Possibly your technical staff may be able to enable this feature (see TWF discussions from our previous newsletters). If not, simply give us a call at 858-678-0030 or email us at sales@koretech.com and we will be happy to EXPORT enable those reports for you!

Holiday Bonus – A Second Tech Tip: How to format Edit-Textbox-type data by removing the line feeds.

Paul Trebbien (pault@koretech.com)

Have you ever had difficulty listing data that has been entered in Edit-Text fields? The problem is that the Edit-Text data is stored with a char(251) in the attribute to separate the lines of text on the screen.  This tech tip describes how to remove those characters that are causing the line feeds and allow the data to be formatted by the dictionary item when listing this data on reports.

Note that the data was entered as 3 lines in an Edit-Text field as follows:

Here is some text that we can review for

our test from the WO-BOO record

Can you see me now!!!

Here’s the data with no formatting using a dictionary item with maximum width set at 30 characters:

WO-BOO.... Notes....................

1032       Here is some text that we

           can review for

            our test from the WO-BOO

           record

            Can you see me now!!!

Here is the same data using our dictionary item described below, with the width set at 30 characters:

WO-BOO.... NOTES.........................

1032       Here is some text that we can

           review for our test from the

           WO-BOO record Can you see me

           now!!!

This dictionary does a great job of that.  It took me a while to discover that when the data is listed, the char(251) had been changed to a char(250).

Note, we’re reporting on the WO-BOO file and grabbing the notes from the WO file.

------------------- DICTIONARY EDITOR -------------------

 1. File Name......: WO-BOO

 2. Item Name......: WO_NOTES

 3. Copy From......:

 4. Code Type......: I    (Read from CUSTOM)

 5. Attribute/Vcode: TRIM(CONVERT(CHAR(250)," ",TRANS("WO",F0,28,"X")))

 6. Conversion.....:

  ....+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5

 7. Column Heading.: NOTES

 8. Display Format.: 30T

 9. Structure......: S              10. Association...:

Try it, you'll like it!

Kore Returns to Las Vegas for Perspectives and...

The Epicor Perspectives conference in November was a great success for Epicor, the customer base and for us. Those of you that attended had the opportunity to see our new booth (see picture above) first hand. We thank those of you that stopped by our booth to talk with us. We especially thank those of you that took the time to check out our products -- Web demonstrations work pretty well, but nothing beats being there in person.

This was the most up-beat conference we have attended in years. Almost everyone we encountered was very positive about the future and Epicor’s product direction. We attended the Epicor Sonoma presentation for Value Added Resellers (VAR) as part of the conference program. We must tell you that we were truly impressed! The Sonoma product is really starting to take shape. We will be happy to talk with you about Sonoma and how you might start planning the transition to this next generation product.

Bachelor no longer...

San Diego, CA - Well folks, the news is true: the young, talented Eric Yarborough (see picture above) is eligible no more. Eric wed his beautiful, young bride Allyson in a wonderful ceremony, well attended by family and friends – including most of Kore! The young couple spent their honeymoon cruising off the cost of Australia – not a bad way to start a new life, eh? Join us in offering the newlyweds best wishes for the future! (We will try to get a wedding picture in our next newsletter!)

EDI and Forms: Marinco improves customer service AND saves money!

Napa, CA – December 12, 2003 – Marinco knows technology well, as they are a leader in designing and supplying electrical and specialty products for marine, RV and industrial applications. Although Cliff Bennett, Marinco's IT Manager, has a small staff, he does not hesitate to move forward with technology when the benefits are tangible and the ROI is quick. Marinco was the first customer to implement Kore Technologies' XML EDI module. They recently upgraded to Kourier 3.6.1 verifying all existing EDI transactions worked flawlessly with the new release. (It was imperative that these transactions be correct: Marinco does a significant amount of business via EDI.)

Marinco recently decided to implement Kore's electronic forms and publisher packages before year-end. Kore Technologies was able to install the products the week following Marinco's purchase decision. "After evaluating the alternatives available to us, implementing Kore's Forms Manager and Publisher made business and economic sense." said Cliff Bennett. "I wanted high-quality laser forms that can be printed, faxed, emailed and/or archived with dispositions driven by flexible criteria. I now have that. The portrait version of the electronic PO form is a real hit with Purchasing because they can print many more PO lines per form, which saves on paper and handling costs. The high-resolution PDF can now be emailed to vendors preferring such. I created several Publisher PDF reports my first day with the Publisher product for our CFO - he was really pleased!" Laser Pick Lists are being tested and planning is underway to archive Invoices as PDF files that can easily be displayed from within DataFlo. "Less manual processing and paper coupled with more document distribution methods is progress"

“Kore Technologies' people know our ERP system as well as their own products. We are now two-for-two on rapid successful implementations with Kore, a rare pleasure in IT today. The Kourier products extend our capabilities, not force-fit them"
-- Cliff Bennett, IT Manager at Marinco, Inc.

About Marinco, Inc: Headquartered in Napa, California (that's right - wine country!) Marinco is known for highly reliable electrical and specialty products designed specifically for use in marine, RV and industrial applications. For more information about Marinco's products, visit the Marinco website, www.marinco.com.

Is Your ERP System Security an Issue?

Security is one of the housekeeping chores that companies must (and should!) deal with periodically. With the end of year fast approaching, now is a good time to evaluate who has access to what in your ERP system.

If you are like most organizations, you have had personnel turnover, as well as changes in people's area of responsibility. When was the last time you evaluated who has access to what? Do you know? Are you sure? Have you made sure most people do not have access to the Terminal Control Level (TCL) where they could potentially (even inadvertently) wreck havoc with, and even clear or delete your data files?

In the DataFlo environment, access to menu selection (Process or Menu), the Terminal Control Level (TCL) and even to verbs is controlled by use of the Group Code field in the SECURITY and PROCESS files. Whenever a SECURITY record and a PROCESS record both have just one group code in common, the person represented by the SECURITY record has access to that Process or Menu. If the PROCESS record Group Code field is empty, then ANY logged on user can access that PROCESS by simply typing the PROCESS id at any Menu Command Prompt.

If the SECURITY record is flagged as a System Administrator (Y), than the owner of that SECURITY record effectively has access to ALL Processes and Menus, irrespective of what group codes that person has in his SECURITY record. This includes Financial (GL, AR and AP) and Pricing data. Is that what you want or intend?

If you would like help in auditing your implementation, getting additional training in applying appropriate security fundamentals to your system, or just investigating what might make sense, call us at 858-678-0030, or e-mail us info@koretech.com!

Product and Service News

Our electronic forms and publishing capabilities just keeps getting better and better! This month we are pleased to announce two great new features. Our Forms Manager solution provides the ability to print, FAX or email PDF forms to customers all in the same processing pass. Our latest enhancement provides an ad-hoc Faxing capability for any form. You can default to the FAX number on file for a contact or enter a new FAX number on the fly.

In our last newsletter we announced the ability in our Publisher product to archive PDF documents to a user specified historical electronic directory. This month we are please to announce Publisher has been enhanced with the ability to publish and deliver ANY DataFlo report as a PDF document to specified contacts as well as to electronic archives. This is a great feature for those organizations working diligently to comply with the reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

We are pleased to announce Kourier Integrator support for the BarTender Label printing software product produced by Seagull Scientific. The BarTender application is an award winning product that will produce virtually any kind of bar-code output you require on virtually any kind of bar-code label you need. Check out the product features and you too will be impressed. Do you have any bar-coding or labeling requirements? Talk with us. We will show how easy this is to accomplish with Kourier Integrator.

Kourier EDI now works with the Inovis (our EDI partner) BizConnect product. This Java-based product reduces VAN charges between partners by allowing you to use the Internet safely and securely for your EDI or EDI-like transactions. Our Kourier-based EDI provides the strongest set of data interchange capabilities available to the U2 market.

KommerceServer News

webServiceCenter

Our newest KommerceServer application webServiceCenter is ready for General Customer Availability (GCA).  Whether your customer service department is managed exclusively in-house or you have a fleet of technicians helping your customers on-site, webServiceCenter handles just about any support scenario. Now more than ever it is important to retain customer loyalty and satisfaction to keep them coming back to you. webServiceCenter can improve and streamline your service operations.  With this product, we have improved the contact/customer management and streamlined Sales Order/RMA entry. 

webSalesForce

Regional-level sales queries with graphical display have been added to webSalesForce. The graphs support a hierarchical structure of territories and regions with built-in drill-down by product, customer, region and sales person. Because we add structure, the data shown is automatically filtered based on the connected user’s role and relationship within the hierarchy. In other words, you only see what you are authorized to see. We have also added a comprehensive customer profile so that you can better understand what and when your customer buys. We think the insights provided by a graphical presentation of your data will truly amaze you.

KommerceServer Framework News

We are in the process of adding workflow capabilities inside of our KommerceServer Framework that will make our webTeam product an even better collaborative tool. Do you need to manage new product introductions with parties inside and outside your organization? Need role-based security that only allows visibility of specified information? Need the ability to create easily reproducible workflow project templates? You have a requirement to specify, track and report custom database fields for each type of project? Do you need a central repository to manage your projects with browser technology? We have the answer – webTeam!

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Paul's Corner

Happy Holidays everyone! I've got my Christmas lights up and all of our decorations and Christmas displayed throughout my home.

Boy has this been a year - firestorms in the West, severe snowstorms in the East, and the economy is improving. I can see the later as this year we've been selling a lot of products and doing a lot of upgrades (new machines, O/S, DBMS, and DataFlo).

Kore was very lucky to have survived the California Firestorm with the fire coming within 2 blocks on 2 sides of our office. Our group also was very lucky that no one had their home burned. It was such a tragedy, many of my friends had to evacuate and one had his home burn -- actually most of his town and his entire neighborhood was burned to the ground.

Perspectives 2003 was a good show. Congratulations to our Volkey Wedge winners! -- You have golf club that's popular on the pro golf tours. It was very fun to meet a lot of those I've been working with over the last 18 years. I talked to a lot of folks about what's new at Kore and had a lot of interest in our webServiceCenter. A lot of you are considering DataFlo upgrades, the IBM amnesty program, and in integrating data between software packages. With respect to integrating, I say it's only data -- the trick is how you share that data!

It's almost year-end time. I'd be happy to lend a hand for those who need assistance, just give me a call or send an email. Here are a couple of things I always run into at year-end time:

1. How to roll that period in the DataFlo Inventory Controls to 1 in the New Year.
   Temporarily change the Fiscal Year Structure so that the year will be 2004 and the Date Range for period 1 to 1/1 to 1/31/04, next change the period in the Inventory Module Controls screen, and then change the Fiscal Year Structure back to the way it was.
2. How to have the year end physical results post into period 12 when the adjustments are actually posted after the ending date. A couple of thoughts here, if no other Inventory Movements have occurred then simply add a couple of days to period 12 in the Fiscal Year Structure, Generate Inventory Journals and change the Fiscal Year Structure back. Another option is to have your programmer change the date on those stock records that were generated by the Post Cycle Count Adjustments process, but be sure to use the internal date format. Note: later versions of DataFlo will allow you to enter the Date when you post the adjustments.

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday season!

Please remember, “Great Service to your Customer is always rewarded”.

Paul’s Questions and Answers

I always enjoy answering your questions!  So everyone, if there’s a question you have on how something works, email it to me – pault@koretech.com.  I hope you find these useful:

Question:  I have wIntegrate 3.0.08 and, from the shortcut on my desktop, how can I fix it so I can open multiple sessions from the same shortcut?

Answer: Right-Click the shortcut and change the 'Target' box to add an 'n' option and be sure to let it know the 'wIntegrate session' you wish to run. Here is an example, you may need to change 'session1':

 C:\WINTEG\WINTEG.EXE -n session1

You may have multiple wIntegrate shortcuts for the purpose of logging onto multiple machines, for example say session1 goes to system A and session2 goes to system B.

Question:  We enabled the EXPORT option on the Approved Part Sources report (DataFlo), added the dict items from the report and also included the Part# to the list of fields, when we EXPORT we get 2 lines for each manufacturer, why is this?

Answer:  The Manufacturer data in the file is multi-valued which is the source of the problem as the list for the report is an 'exploded' list (SSELECT…BY-EXP). I rewrote this report for a customer sending the data to a work file and reporting from that work file. I added the Part# and a couple of other necessary fields. Programmers note, I sent the data to the users TWF file, one record for each print-line combining the sub-valued Notes for each line.

Question:  We printed accounts payable checks but lost power to my PC before entering the first check#. Now how do we number the checks?

Answer:  I’ll try to cover several issues here:

• If you skipped/missed the first Check# prompt, you can assign check numbers using the Assign Check Numbers process.  Answer “N” to the ‘Rerun’ prompt.
• If you’ve incorrectly entered the wrong Check# when printing checks, you can use the Assign Check Numbers process to correct this run.  Prior to correcting be sure to note the ‘bad’ check numbers via the Check Register report as you may have to correct the Check Numbers on prior check runs also – this can be confusing to correct.  Answer “Y” to the ‘Rerun’ prompt.
• If the System or Printer ‘dies’ during printing of the checks.  Print the Check Register to see what checks were processed, you will need to ‘reprint’ those that did not actually get printed (note the Control# of the last check to print and answer Y to Rerun), run the Assign Check Numbers process if necessary, print the Pre-Check Print Listing to see what checks were not processed and then Print Checks.

Upcoming Events

IBM’s Amnesty programs for wIntegrate, UniData and UniVerse expire December 31, 2003. In October 2003, IBM announced a change in wIntegrate product. IBM now charges for annual maintenance for wIntegrate support. Going on wIntegrate support gives you access to the most recent release of wIntegrate. For those of you that are still on the old 16-bit 3.x version of wIntegrate, this is a great opportunity for you to upgrade to the most recent 32-bit 5.1 release at a fraction of what IBM was charging to upgrade major releases. IBM was charging $99 per user to upgrade major releases. The annual maintenance for wIntegrate is a small percent of the $199 current purchase price of the product. The 3.x version of wIntegrate is most likely one of the last 16-bit pieces of code still on local PC’s. Current users of wIntegrate can elect to go on maintenance before the end of the year. After year-end, organizations will be required to pay the full purchase price of wIntegrate to get the latest release. We highly recommend you go on wIntegrate maintenance.

If you have any questions or comments on our newsletter please contact Frank Kertai. We're here to help!

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