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 BCD and IBM Sign Software Distribution Agreement.
BCD announces the signing of a global software distribution agreement with IBM, effective immediately. IBM will now distribute WebSmart, BCD's iSeries - Web application development tool and Catapult, the automated iSeries report distribution and document management tool. These tools will now be distributed globally with all i5/OS V5R3 upgrades and iSeries hardware shipments through IBM's Try & Buy program.
Click for Full Details.
Experience the Art of WebSmart | Go Paperless with Catapult!
Clover Beta Now Available for Download.
Over the last few months you've read about Clover many times in this tech update, and you have probably been wondering what all the hype is about. Well, now you can check it out for yourself. You can request the Clover Beta here.
Drop us a note, and you'll be using the new templates families a few minutes later!
What is Clover?
For those who haven't yet read about it, Clover is an optional component of the WebSmart suite. Clover allows developers and users to design reports and queries and deploy them in browsers. Clover is seamlessly integrated into WebSmart, so there is no special or separate install procedure. If you install the latest WebSmart components (WAS on the server, IDE on the client - versions 5.24 and higher) then you can use all the features of Clover.
Clover is designed to make it easy to write reports with subtotals, breaks, summaries or details, produce online bar graphs and more. It works with your existing iSeries or i5 database files, and provides SQL wizards to make constructing simple or complex relations between files intuitive.
For additional information, visit our web site where you'll find several screen shots of both the product and the reports it can generate, and a detailed list of features.
BCD @ Fall IBM Tech Conference, iSeries DevCon
IBM iSeries Technical Conference
The next IBM iSeries Technical Conference EXPO will be October 17-19 in Miami Beach, FL at the Hilton Fontainebleau. You'll find BCD there at booth #15. As always, we'd be happy to have a chat and spend a few minutes giving you a run-through of all the projects that we're currently working on, or discussing any of your own projects that you'd like some direction with.
iSeries DevCon 2005
BCD will also be at iSeries DevCon (Developers Conference) 2005 in Las Vegas, November 7-9, meeting with people and demoing our software at the BCD booth. If you're going to make it to Vegas for that, you'll find us at booth 530, where you'll be able to enter to win a prize in the Expo drawing. We will also be sponsoring 3 sessions there, two by George Farr (IBM) and one led by Craig Pelkie (web400.com, MC Press Online).
So we'll be on the road a fair bit during the next few months, and we hope to catch up with you at some point!
Creating Flash Graphs with Clover
Among the numerous new templates shipped with Clover is a set that allow you to create Flash graphs. The design process is simple, and not much different from what you do to design any WebSmart program. When you choose a Flash graph template, the Clover wizard prompts you for the following values:
After defining the graph attributes, you just need to select your file, then pick your break and data fields, and you're done!
Here is an illustration of a simple Clover graph program:
Would you like to try this out yourself? Just fill out a Clover Beta Request form.
uniPHARM Whole Sale Drugs Consulting Profile
Overview
uniPHARM Wholesale Drugs is a cooperative organization, wholly owned by its shareholder customers. It is committed to satisfying the merchandizing, marketing and professional requirements of independent pharmacies by providing one-stop shopping for high quality pharmaceuticals and consumer products at the best possible prices.
About the Project
uniPHARM recently implemented a major internal ERP package with the objective of improving the organizations ability to service shareholders and customers.  Most of these customers are pharmacies that order pharmaceuticals and consumer products directly from uniPHARM. Previously, these orders were processed via an Electronic Order Book (EOB) package. This required each pharmacy to install and configure this software on a local PC. Orders were transmitted via e-mail resulting in a variety of problems associated with such an old, unreliable system. This system did not provide uniPHARM's clients with real time data, validation, pricing or order confirmation. It was also unable to provide alternative products if requested brands were unavailable.
uniPHARM recognized that the best solution would be a browser based application. This solution would remove dependence on third party proprietary client software running on each PC. It would also facilitate access to real time data, validation, pricing and order entry. After investigating several solutions, uniPHARM selected WebSmart as their tool of choice to build the application. They also contracted the services of the BCD consulting group to build the application.
The decision to purchase WebSmart and subsequently use the service of BCD was based in part on an initial prototype application. The group at uniPHARM were very excited to see just how much was developed in a mere 1½ days by Stephanie Rabbani, one of the WebSmart developers. uniPHARM's Information Technology Department were also very keen to work with the tool themselves.
Making the Decision
After the initial discussions and prototype, the decision on how to proceed was put to uniPHARM's board of directors which unanimously agreed that using WebSmart was the best approach. "The Project Team felt WebSmart provided more flexibility to meet the existing and potentially changing Internet needs of our shareholders. In addition, BCD's ExcelSystems are a customer service oriented organization that is totally committed to developing web solutions specifically for iSeries users." (Stephen Mavety, Director, Finance & Administration and Project Executive Sponsor)
Before development began, uniPHARM surveyed the majority of its shareholders to determine business requirements and provided BCD with detailed business and technical specifications. "The uniPHARM IT Team and Project Office group did an excellent job of providing us with project specifications", says Kevin Cronin, development manager with BCD. "They created a story board of the general flow using PowerPoint. They also provided a spreadsheet that listed the corresponding data files and business rules that were to be applied for each page of the story board. We were able to run with it and start coding immediately!" The application includes integration with Catapult for sending price and shelving tickets to the shareholders. They receive these as a PDF file and are able to print them on their local printers. The application also shows product images, and automatically suggests alternative products when the requested item is not in stock.
Current Status
Development of the project began in mid-May, 2005 and went live July 4, 2005. The overall acceptance of the project is evident by the number of orders that are put through daily. Concerns regarding change, as initially expressed by the shareholder customers were soon set aside, now virtually all of the customers now embrace the new system. "Web Orders extends uniPHARM's internal business processes by providing shareholder members with the real time capabilities they defined. The Web Orders system was designed, built and implemented within three months due to the project management expertise provided by Steelnet Solutions, a leading provider of Business Process Management and Systems Implementation. The system has been well received and the overall response has been very positive as the vast majority of users find the site very intuitive. The immediate acceptance of Web Orders by our customers will shorten the time frame for the continuance of our current Electronic Order Book. This project has met the requirements of a successful implementation with the appropriate knowledge transfer such that future enhancements can be handled internally". (Stephen Mavety).
For further information about how this application was developed or for details on our consulting services, please contact Kevin Cronin.
WebSmart and AJAX
Perhaps you've been hearing the buzz about something called "AJAX", and wondering if WebSmart supports it. Well, of course!
What is AJAX? It's an acronym for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML". It's not a new technology (and doesn't necessarily require XML), but rather a recently coined name for a set of already well known technologies (JavaScript, CSS, etc). Essentially, it is a way of dynamically updating a web page's content without refreshing the entire page. So instead of a "text with hyperlinks" web page, it makes a browser application look and behave a lot more like a desktop application. Our portal product Nexus makes extensive use of these techniques, and we've been using them in our consulting business for years.
A well-known example of AJAX in action is Google's GMail. Consider this GMail example: As you type the "To:" email address, a list of addresses from your address book that match the characters you've typed appears below the recipient input box (click on the image to see a larger image):
As you type, this list is dynamically updated via calls to the web server. These calls to the web server are made "behind the scenes", so the page isn't being refreshed with each key stroke. This kind of behavior was formerly the domain of desktop applications, but no longer. Using the AJAX approach, your WebSmart programs can provide a richly interactive user experience.
Our sample application includes a WebSmart program which implements this example using a customer list.
For a quick overview of AJAX, read the Wiki article. For those with a more than passing interest in AJAX, you can just do a Google search on the term, and you'll find a multitude of discussions on the topic.
WebSmart Case Study: Draper Tools
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Our most recently completed WebSmart case study takes a close look at how Draper Tools (UK) used WebSmart to revolutionize their online sales approach.
Take a few minutes to read this fascinating account of how Draper Tools used WebSmart to put the 15,000 items in their 400,000 square foot tool warehouse online. Before switching to WebSmart, Draper Tools had been using an NT-based Business to Customer site characterized by its cumbersome nature, slow response times, and lack of support from its defunct creators. Take a couple minutes to read the write-up and browse their site, and you'll be sure to come away with numerous ideas of how you could better use WebSmart yourself.
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Several other case studies are available for your perusal at the WebSmart page on BCD's site; look for them down the left margin of the page.
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WebSmart 5.24 With Clover Now Available for Download
You can now visit the WebSmart Home Page to download the latest version of WebSmart, release 5.24. Obviously, the most significant feature in this release is the inclusion of Clover and the report templates. This release also includes several other enhancements and requested fixes. The PC side is release 5.24, Build 8572 and the server version is W524001P.
Version 5.24 includes the following changes:
- Automatically download the compile listing and job log when there is a generation error.
- Improvements to the HTML insertion interfaces.
- Improvements to 'Find' option in WCM which finds a definition by searching program names and descriptions.
- Fix for occasional 'This definition has changed message' when it hadn't.
- New expanded look for most wizard and program attributes screens.
- Several JSE enhancements and fixes.
- Fixes for alert and countrybx functions
- Fixes for IsNumeric (fixed format)
- Fix for getprvrcd *NO lock fix (free format)
- Fix for numtodate (free format)
For further information on this update please contact Technical Support.
New WebSmart Example Programs: Using AJAX to Perform an Email Lookup, Limiting Text Area Input.
A few new WebSmart example programs have been added recently:
- Example 102 - This example displays a record list based on a parameter passed from the drop down box below. By creating a full or partial DEFAULT key-list for the primary file, the record list will automatically limit based on the key field that is passed as a parameter. This is a new feature added in version 5 of WebSmart.
- Example 101 - This example demonstrates how to limit a text-area's input using JavaScript. It also displays the number of remaining characters that are allowed for the text-area.
- Example 100 - This example program illustrates how to use AJAX (remote scripting) to look up an email address.
For further details on any of the WebSmart examples, or if you have any questions on how to implement the techniques they demonstrate, please contact Technical Support.
ProGen Plus Tip: Overriding your *AUTOINC Value
"*AUTOINC is a key field function supported in ProGen Plus for your lowest order key. It allows you to automatically increment that key by a value of 1 every time the users add a new record. When you use *AUTOINC, all the processing is automatic, and it works like a charm!
However, there are occasions when you want to increment by a value other than 1. For example, if you want to leave space in a file to insert records later, or if you're updating an old program where for some reason lost in the mists of time, the original version was incrementing by 10s, and so on.
To support this need, we created the program field *INCVAL. To use this program field, just update it at *INIT with the required increment value.
If you have any questions about this technique, please email Technical Support.
New Tech Support Supervisor: Kris Waugh
We are pleased to announce that Kris Waugh is the new Technical Support Supervisor at ESDI (BCD Support). After three years in that role, Marcel Sarrasin has moved to Toronto with his young family.
Kris Waugh has now been with ESDI for over two years, mainly working in the support department, and brings to the supervisor's position the strongest technical skillset that we've yet had there. In addition to his programming and support experience, Kris has also worked on WebSmart consulting projects and is our resident Nexus expert. We look forward to his contributions in the months and years ahead.
BCD and ESDI greatly appreciate Marcel's dedication to continually improving the quality of our relationships with our customers during his tenure in support, both as a team member and supervisor, and we wish him the best of luck in whatever opportunities he chooses to pursue in the Toronto area.
We appreciate your continued support as we go through these changes, and if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact Kris Waugh or Kevin Cronin, ESDI's Development Manager.
Summary List of Recent Updates
Nexus 2.53
Nexus 2.53 includes the following fixes and enhancements:
- An important new security update, extending the Nexus Pro portlet availability until May 31, 2006.
- Fix to the Group Links authority patch
- Limits WOW search results to 500.
- Nexus Pro extension,
- iSeries 'everyone' group duplication patch.
Please visit the Nexus Updates page for further information on the available updates.
ProGen Plus 8.04
This is the latest ProGen Plus update:
PG8R050 - 2005/09/23 - Requires OS/400 V5R1 or later. Addresses issue with parameter mismatch on ZDLTPDF.
Please visit the ProGen Plus Updates page for further information on the available updates.
© 2005 ExcelSystems Software Development, Inc.
ProGen WebSmart and ProGen Plus are Registered Trademarks in the US and Canada, and Trademarks in all other countries.
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