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A Message from Duncan Kenzie, President and CTO of ESDI.
Greetings, and a Happy New Year!
On behalf of our entire team at BCD, I'd like to extend my thanks for your loyal support and for reading our newsletters. After reading this, you will be among the first to know about some of the exciting initiatives we have planned for 2006.
While we at BCD pride ourselves on our technological strengths, there are two key factors that contribute to the ongoing success of our organization: relationships with customers and the quality of our employees. We strive to build lasting professional relationships with our customers, demonstrated by the fact that we have one of the highest levels of annual customer retention in the industry–well over 95%. I believe this is because we focus on providing both exceptional value in our products and world-class technical support. We can accomplish both of these goals because of the strength of our technical team. We have a group of smart, dedicated, loyal and hard-working professionals working on new innovations in product design and on providing the best possible customer service, support and education. The initiatives for 2006 build on this great tradition: a loyal team committed to building lasting customer relationships.
1. New Customer Support Web Site
Slated to go live in 2Q 2006, this site will give customers the ability to research all their support and product-related interactions with BCD. You will be able to request new features, report potential problems, research the status of any incidents you've reported, and get access to an online inventory and status of product licenses and security codes your company has acquired from us. The functionality of this site is the result of feedback from some of our long-term customers, demonstrating our commitment to respond to your needs.
2. Completely Redesigned Public Web Site Combining Sales and Support
This new site will have a more modern look and feel, better navigation between sales and support pages, improved organization for finding what you need, and improved content. This is a major project that has been under way for many months. We hope to go live with the new site early 3Q 2006, and I look forward to personally hearing your feedback.
3. Major New Products and Product Releases
Our product development team has been especially busy. By the end of 1Q 2006 we will have released WebSmart Clover, a web reporting solution powered by a user-friendly enhanced WebSmart IDE, a beta of the next release of WebSmart, our Web Application Development solution, a beta of the next release of Catapult, our report distribution solution, and Nexus, our Web Portal and ECM (Electronic Content Management) solution. We have many more exciting product features and releases planned for the rest of 2006 which, for competitive reasons, you'll have to wait to hear about!
4. Growth in Web Development Consulting Activity
Last year we experienced a phenomenal 60% growth over 2004 in the amount of iSeries Web Development consulting we provided for our customers. This is primarily using WebSmart, our Web Development solution. I believe this growth is due to 2 competitive advantages: 1 - WebSmart is an incredibly productive environment in which to write web applications and 2.- our Consulting team understands business needs and produces accurate, professional results efficiently and affordably.
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Commercial Break: If you are thinking of bringing iSeries or AS/400 applications to the web, contact the head of our consulting team, Kevin Cronin, for information on how we can help. |
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5. Product Integration
We have development work in progress to provide better integration between our core products, so you can leverage the value of enterprise information by making it more secure, more accessible and more meaningful. Look for new announcements later in the year that describe in more detail how our bundled software solutions will provide even more benefits to you.
Once again, thank you for being our customer and entrusting us with your business. Feel free to contact me directly any time at duncan@excelsystems.com. My team and I look forward to serving you throughout 2006 and beyond.
 Upcoming WebSmart Training Classes.
We have two WebSmart training classes scheduled for the coming weeks. If you are interested in attending either of these classes, or would like additional information, please fill out our Training Request form.
The first class is in historic
Cartersville, GA from January 30 to February 2. Cartersville is a approximately 1 hour from the Atlanta airport (ATL). Cartersville offers many affordable hotels and interesting historic sites and museums. The actual training will be held at the Hampton Inn, where you'll get a corporate discount if you let them know you're with Academic Books. The buzz from the hosts is that while you're in the area you won't want to miss the Georgia Aquarium, which opened just a couple of months ago as the biggest in the world.
A second public training course will be held in
Frostburg, MD February 13 to 16. Frostburg, MD is approximately equidistant from Pittsburgh and Washington/Baltimore, so you can fly to either city and drive from there. The nearest town for lodging and dining is Cumberland. There are several hotels available in Cumberland and the Frostburg area; the Rocky Gap Lodge has been particularly recommended. There are also several ski areas within an hour of Frostburg.
These classes are being hosted by clients who have offered to make a few seats available for guests. Both classes are targeted primarily at beginners, and will be using new training material developed for WebSmart 5, incorporating many new features in the software. For further details about either class please contact Tech Support.
BCD Tech Support Annual Summary and Report.
2005 was an important year for the support team, with the most additions to the team ever (4 new support reps) as well as a change in the group's leadership. Through these transitions, the continuing involvement of other team members who have been with us for several years has helped maintain the group's stability, and we are heading into 2006 with the best technical support team we've ever had.
We have a number of ambitious new support initiatives planned for 2006. One of these is the creation of product specialists. While all of our support reps have a solid knowledge of our most-used products (particularly WebSmart, Nexus, ProGen Plus and Catapult), we sometimes get rusty on the products for which we receive fewer calls. Kris Waugh, our Technical Support Supervisor, will be working with the team during 2006 to designate and train a team member who will take particular ownership of each of our products to ensure that no matter what the nature of your call there is someone with ready knowledge available to assist you.
2005 Tech Support Evaluations
During 2005 we sent several hundred evaluations out to our callers, to which we had some 200 responses submitted.
Our key ratings for 2005 were as follows:
- Support Rep's Product Knowledge: 91%
- Efficiency/Effectiveness in Providing a Solution: 90%
- Satisfaction with the Quality of Solution Offered: 91%
- Support Rep's Courtesy and Patience: 95%
- Time to Get an Initial Response: 92%
- Time to Entirely Resolve the Issue: 87%
We appreciate all your feedback and comments and we'll be working to improve everything just a little bit more again this year to get those scores even higher.
We have enjoyed working with everyone who has contacted us during 2005. Remember that while you may be scarred by your run-ins with other support lines, and as a result somewhat reticent to contact us when you get into a bind, please do call! We will welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to you a quality of support you have never before experienced from a help desk.
If you have any questions or comments about Technical Support, please give Kris Waugh a call at (250) 655-1766, or drop him a note.
Clover Template Overview: Exporting to Excel
As we prepare to release the first version of Clover one of the areas we are continuing to work on is the creation of new templates. Our latest addition to the Clover templates is a version of the Whiz Bang template that creates Excel spreadsheets to display in a web browser, and optionally download and save.
There are no extra design steps required to create the spreadsheet. As with other report styles, all you need to do is choose your files, fields and sort order, and add any extra fields or filters.
Catapult 6 Beta Available Soon.
We know that you've been eagerly anticipating the next release of Catapult, and we wanted to let you know that we've reached another important milestone for Catapult 6. Here at ESDI we are now using Catapult 6 internally, and the development team is preparing the software for its initial beta release. If you would be interested in participating in the Catapult 6 Beta, please fill out the form at our web site.
Catapult 6 is a major new release which includes many new features, including the following:
- Support for polling PC directories.
- Grab-rule security, to specify who is authorized to view and edit specific grab rules.
- CC and BCC emailing support.
- A completely updated look and feel for the Console and Poller Configuration.
The Poll-a-Dir feature (ability to poll PC directories) has been in particularly high demand, and we're very pleased with how it's coming. Depending on the formats of the files you select, not only will you be able to distribute them with Catapult, but also split and extract other data from them, just as you do with your iSeries reports.
We plan to make the Catapult 6 beta available soon, and are now accepting applications to participate in the beta. If you have any questions about the upcoming release, or any of the features it includes, please contact Technical Support.
Catapult 6 New Feature Profile: Polling PC Network Directories
One of the most requested new features to be included in the upcoming Catapult 6 is the ability to poll PC network directories for files to distribute.
This feature, which we affectionately call 'poll-a-dir', will allow you to use Catapult's powerful distribution capabilities over reports that don't necessarily originate on your iSeries. As you can see in the illustration below, a new dropdown has been added to the Selection options of your grab rule, from which you can select either iSeries Spool File Poll or Network File Poll. When you select the second, you can then choose a network folder to check, and the file name.
When you specify the file name, the file format is important. With text files, Catapult can also parse data out of them, grabbing distribution parameters, email addresses and other information out of the report directly.
This feature will be available in the next release of Catapult, version 6. The Catapult 6 beta will be available soon. If you have any questions about this feature, or the upcoming release of Catapult, contact Tech Support.
File-Flash Plus Tip: Exporting Data to Excel
If you have owned BCD products for some time, chances are that at some point along the line you purchased File-Flash Plus (Not sure if you have it? Try adding FFPLUS to your library list). FFPlus is a very useful utility for viewing and modifying file data — it tends to make itself indispensable in short order.
Among the features available in File-Flash is the ability to directly publish data in your files to Excel spreadsheets (CSV's) - as easily as pressing a button! To access this feature, just work with the tool as usual, selecting any fields or records you want, then press F22=Delimited to present the options shown here:
Start/End Key Values
In the first line at right you can see the characters PPPPPP, which is FFPlus's way of telling you that your key is a 6-digit number. On the next line you can put your ending key value.
Maximum Records to Write
Or instead of typing an ending key value, you can just specify the maximum number of records you want to write.
File Delimiter
The default file delimiter is a comma, but you can choose a different character if you need to.
Create Field Names in First Record
You can type a Y in this option if you want the first row of your table to include the field names.
IFS Directory
And finally, specify the IFS directory in which to create the file.
Also, as we mentioned above, this function is exporting the subset of data you've already set up in your work in File-Flash so far, so previous to exporting you can use OPNQRYF to select your record set, as well as choose specific fields from the file (with other FFPlus features).
When you press Enter on the panel at right, File-Flash Plus creates the Excel file directly on the IFS, so you can open it instantly with Excel if your IFS is mapped as a network drive.
File-Flash Plus also comes with a separate command that you can embed within your applications that lets you generate Excel spreadsheets with your choice of fields and/or records.
If you have any questions about File-Flash Plus, or would like to try it out, please contact Technical Support.
New WebSmart Example Program: Using IFrames.
We continue to publish WebSmart example programs to our library, and we've just added Example 107 to the list of WebSmart example programs:
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.
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Using AJAX to Improve your Web Site
A few months ago we ran an article profiling the use of AJAX in WebSmart applications. If you read that article, you already have an idea of how AJAX can improve your user's experience at your site.
In the January issue of MC Press Online, Duncan Kenzie has published an article entitled Use AJAX for Bright and Shiny Web Apps. In this article Duncan helps you tap into the power of AJAX by providing you with the code necessary to create the essential communications link between client (browser) and server (iSeries, etc.) that is the heart of any AJAX application.
There is also a Webcast about how to create more powerful, real-time web applications using Ajax, hosted by Duncan, that you can access here.
If you have any questions about AJAX, or Duncan's article, please drop us a line.
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WebSmart Site Wins UK Laurels.
In October of last year we ran a blurb on one of our recent customer profiles, for Draper Tools in the UK. We were then pleasantly surprised by a news article in the November issues of iSeries News UK, where writer Frank Booty chose Draper's new site among 6 top UK B2C iSeries E-commerce sites.
The print article is reproduced at the BCD web site 
. Take a few minutes to read an outsider's view of how WebSmart transformed Draper Tools' online presence!
Summary List of Recent Updates
ProGen Plus 8.04
These are the latest ProGen Plus updates:
- PG8R053 - 2006/01/09 - Requires OS/400 V5R1 or later.
This update includes the following enhancements and fixes:
- Added option to ZDLTPDF to delete CALLSBR and USRCOD members.
- Additional options to change management to copy the validation module definitions, objects and source.
- Duplicate Parameter List when copying program.
- Duplicate Parameter List when adding from KB.
- Free Condition option disappears after renaming definition.
- Various problems when renaming definitions (all references are not changed).
- Canceling out of creating a validation module attaches the module despite the cancel.
- Deleting a logical file will delete the primary file.
- Long free format conditions may cause problems if split in the wrong place.
- Condition is missing a trailing apostrophe after changing field name.
- Resizing a *PANEL work-field does not resize the field on the subfile
- Compiling RPG/400 programs with *LIKE work-fields causes errors.
- PG8R052 - 2006/01/09 - Requires OS/400 V5R1 or later. Added missing parameter to a program call for GN#RPI.
Please visit the ProGen Plus Updates page for further information on the available updates.
© 2006 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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