WebSmart Presto, and the BCD ClearPATH Modernization Suite
As the latest horse in the BCD stables, Presto opens up exciting new opportunities to modernize your graying 5250 applications with a minimum of effort. With Presto you can use your existing development staff to instantly web enable your applications and further enhance the appearance and functionality of your screens. Add pop-up calendars, item images, Google Maps, graphs, drop down boxes, links to allow mouse navigation and more. Presto gives you full access and control to the client side code to integrate new UI elements, AJAX, and SOA/web services functionality and even add data from other sources.
Here are some of the key features in this exciting new product:
- There is no need for you to change your RPG, Cobol or DDS source code.
- Zero 5250 OLTP - Presto uses 100% batch processes.
- Global options give all your applications an instant, modern Web look.
- Presto’s IDE provides full control to customize screens, so you can add your own elements as you need them.
- With Presto, your applications run in a browser, and no other PC software is required.
- Innovative licensing options. Choose base, concurrent or unlimited user licensing options to fit your budget needs.
- With Presto you can see instant results - install and configure Presto in less than an hour.
- Enterprise Ready: Environments and Multi-Language Support
- Use the Windows IDE for 100% control of client-side code customization.
- On-the-fly screen identification means minimal rule creation requirements.
- Retains System i-specific emulator characteristics.
- Optional Free* Nexus Portal for application frameworks, dashboards, Web menus, controlled access to Apps (* with paid maintenance).
Working with the Presto IDE
Look for in-depth feature profiles over the next few months, but here is an illustration of the Presto IDE as you navigate through an application in the design tool, verifying how your screens are rendering, and looking for elements to improve:
 The Presto IDE, editing a subfile list program.
This illustration shows a list style program, with standard position-to fields and function keys.
There are many screen features you can improve by just tweaking your selected 'skin' (or CSS). And to further add enhancements such as dropdown lists or links, you can quickly drop into Customization Mode.
When you decide to customize your programs, you can work with the HTML alongside the original screen, and take advantage of the software's tools for easily adding features to enhance the functionality of the original programs.
If you are interested in Presto, and would like to participate in the beta, as well as in upcoming Presto webinars, please email or call Scott Honeyman in Technical Support.
Catapult 7 Feature Profile: New Spool File Preview Window
When Catapult first began to incorporate features that allowed you to identify and extract components from your spool files, there was no easy way to specify the content and location of the extracted sections - you had to count out spaces on your iSeries reports. However, we very quickly added spool file preview features to the grab rule editor that allowed you to pull up the first few pages of a sample spool file, and in there highlight the sections you wanted. In Catapult 7 we have made several further improvements to this process, making it even easier to work with extracted values, split key anchors, bookmarks, etc.
Here is an illustration of the new Preview window:
 The Catapult Preview window while defining bookmarks.
The Catapult 7 preview window loads very quickly, in a separate window from the grab rule editor. It also knows where you launched it from and enables only the options that are relevant to the feature you are currently working on. When you highlight the sections of text that you need to use, you can use the toolbar icons or right-click options to select them. And once selected, they remain highlighted in different colors.
The improved Preview window is just one of the many, many features that has been greatly improved in Catapult 7. If you currently own Catapult 6 and would like to participate in the Catapult 7 beta, please get in touch with us. Also, if you are currently evaluating Catapult 6 and haven't yet created dozens of critical distribution rules, you are ideally suited to participate in the beta - you can enjoy all the benefits of the new release without any of the risks! If you have any questions, please drop a note to Technical Support.
Customer Profile: Hornady Manufacturing
Open orders by Item and Date.
Open orders by Item and Date spreadsheet.
Salesperson welcome screen.
Sales report by product and class (using SmartCharts).
Shipments by date report.
Hornady Manufacturing was founded in 1949 by Joyce Hornady. Like many successful companies, Hornady was born out of one man's vision of a better product for his own use. Joyce Hornady was an ardent shooter and needed a steady supply of good, accurate bullets. For almost 60 years Hornady Manufacturing has been manufacturing quality bullets and ammunition and has grown into the world's largest independent producer of bullets. Their slogan, "Accurate. Deadly. Dependable", is evidenced by their quality products.
As Hornady grew so did their sales force, and along with it, increasing demands for accurate and dependable sales analysis information for management, territory representatives and sales reps. Sales reports were previously sent out via mail on a monthly basis. Then, Hornady implemented Catapult in 2004, using it to distribute reports via email at month end. Their next step was to move up to distributing weekly sales summaries. This helped address their need for more current information, but still didn't provide real time reporting and graphing accessible via the web.
James Messing, Special Projects Manager for Hornady, was tasked with finding the right tools to build an application that would provide real time access to sales information via the browser. As James told us, "We were looking for a more robust query tool to replace Query 400. Being able to use conditional statements was a big thing, and graphs to make nice-looking reports. We had seen Clover before and really liked it, so our hearts were set on it." After evaluating Clover, James also installed the Nexus Portal to provide a single, secure point of entry for Hornady personnel to access the Clover programs.
After evaluating the products, James decided to contract the services of the BCD Professional Services group to assist him with the project. He sketched out the application, consisting of numerous graphs and drill-down reports and provided the specs along with file layouts to Kevin Cronin, Director of the Professional Services team. Kevin observed that "Jim did a nice job sketching out the programs they needed. We received this initial spec as a spread sheet along with a description and flow of the application and specs for summary files they intended to use."
After reviewing the specs and discussing the project with Jim, the BCD Professional Services group was able to provide an accurate estimate for the development.
Development proceeded on-time and on budget, with the actual time for project work coming in within 5 hours of the total estimated hours and well below the high end of the development estimate. In an unsolicited email, James Messing added "Just a note, as our initial project draws to a close, that I am more than pleased with the work Colin (Dams) has done for us. He did one heck of a job and the output looks great. We are closing things up and I have put this out to the salesmen. They are very pleased and excited."
After the new system had been implemented, James highlighted the following advantages of the new system:
- The first advantage is current data in the hands of our salesmen.
- Secondly, because the information is now available on the web there has been a reduction in phone calls requesting the latest data .
- And finally, when Hornady's sales people walk into the customer's store, their current grasp of the particular customer's situation improves customer confidence in them.
After we completed the project, we asked James to comment on his experience dealing with the BCD Technical Support and Professional Services teams. He observed that "working with the gentlemen at BCD is a treat. The support personnel bend over backwards to help with a question or solve a problem. All support staff are knowledge and courteous.... Colin took the design I laid out and made it real. The level of cooperation and working together was never a problem. He completed the work in a shorter time then expected and the documentation of the work done is detailed and understandable. The billing on the project was also top notch. I like, when involved in a project like this, to see where the money is going. The detailed billing left no questions, making them easy to approve and forward on for paying. There was never a question or concern."
Upcoming BCD Events
BCD will have groups attending these upcoming conferences. Let us know if you plan to be at either of these and would like to discuss any of your software needs.
RPG World Conference and Showcase (Las Vegas, NV)
The RPG World Conference and Showcase is an intensive 3-day training event designed for the needs of independent RPG programmers. If you attend this year, make sure you drop by BCD's booth!
OCEAN Technical Conference (Irvine, CA)
The OCEAN User Group in Southern California will be holding their annual Technical Conference on June 30th at the Irvine Hyatt Regency. This is the biggest one-day i5 education day in the US, and BCD will have a booth at the Vendor Solutions Expo along with many others.
BCD at the IT Leaders Forum (Denver, CO)
BCD will have a booth at the upcoming IT Leaders Forum at Inverness Hotel & Conference Center in Denver, July 20-23. Visit the website for further information on the agenda and speakers, as well as hotel and registration details. Sign up before April 18 to get a $300 discount!
If you have any questions about these events, please drop us a note.
|
Upcoming WebSmart ILE Training
The next WebSmart ILE Fundamentals training course will be held June 2-5 in Greensboro, NC. There are only 5 seats available, so if you would like to attend, please fill out our online training request form as soon as possible.
Our local contact vouches for Greensboro's great downtown nightlife and restaurants, and there are a couple of great micro breweries you can visit in the evenings. Also recommended is the Greensboro Grasshoppers, a minor-league baseball team with a new stadium. And history buffs will want to visit the Guildford Courthouse Military Park, site of the "largest, most hotly-contested battle of the Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign". The hotels that are most convenient to the training location are the Homewood Suites and Embassy Suites, though there are many other choices in the area as well.
Course Content
The WebSmart Fundamentals class is a comprehensive course that will give you a working knowledge of all the areas you need to be familiar with in order to begin developing applications with WebSmart. The course begins with an introduction to HTML (page structure elements, tables, images and links), then continues on to creating simple WebSmart programs. As you familiarize yourself with the tool, you'll add more features to your application: passing parameters between programs, customizing file access, and then prompting users for input and validating what they enter.
The class concludes with some exercises in securing applications, SQL, WebSmart’s Change Management interface and the new interactive debugger integrated into the WebSmart IDE.
Please visit our website for further information on the Course Content, or if you have any questions about any of these classes drop us a note or give us a call at (250) 655-1766.
BCD is pleased to announce that two more developers have joined our Professional Services team. Richard Tan is an experienced web developer, having worked for several years with LWS Media and WebFocus Solutions (in the Philippines). In his spare time, Richard is a gamer and anime enthusiast. And having grown up in the Philippines, Richard is also a strong contributor to the international flavor of our development teams!
Josh Lewis is a co-op student completing the Computer Systems Technology course at Camosun College. Josh brings to our team his many years of experience in design work, computer-generated graphics and animation, both for the web and other media. To those strengths he is now adding more depth on the programming end via the CST program. Given the opportunity, Josh is also inclined to rant about the relative merits of sans-serif fonts (probably stemming from a childhood trauma with Times New Roman).
We look forward to both Richard and Josh's contributions to our ongoing projects. And with our new interpretation of 'cubicle', we are ready to add many more people to our company in the coming months!
Since joining BCD in 1991 Rich has seen the company grow steadily. Over the years he has seen new products come into being, starting as a glimmer in someone’s eye and becoming a commercial product with thousands of users, and he has been responsible for selling many of those. Not only has he had the opportunity to sell the first copy of a new product in its beginning stages, but has also helped repeat customers purchase BCD’s tools at multiple companies as they have changed jobs over time. As he considered this, Rich recalled that our first Catapult customer was also our first Clover customer, years later, and in a different company. Rich still remembers many of his first customers at BCD, and enjoys seeing customer success and satisfaction, and the outright enthusiasm shown by some users.
Originally from a suburb of Cleveland, OH, Rich graduated from Miami University (Oxford, OH) with a degree in Business, majoring in Marketing Management. Prior to joining BCD Rich worked for two other IBM midrange software companies dealing with financial modeling and application development. Going back farther in time he has done recruiting and placement of IT personnel. Last week at a user group conference in the northeast he recognized someone he placed in a job as a programmer 25 years ago, which shows how fast time flies and that it is a small world.
Rich now lives in suburban Chicago with his wife doing fun things like teaching his daughter how to drive ("stay farther to the left... Nooo! the other left!) and helping to put his son through college. And ranging further afield, Rich has traveled through most of the US and parts of the Caribbean, Europe and the Mideast and has plans for more and doing things like exploring, hiking in mountains and relaxing by the sea.
Current
BCD Software Release Levels
These are the current release levels for all our products:
If you have any questions about how to get to the latest versions, please contact
Technical Support.
Summary
List of Recent Updates
WebSmart 6.70 - Revision 2526
There is a new PC-side update for WebSmart 6.70. This version includes all previous updates, and requires that you have version 6.7 installed on the server, with all server-side updates. Revision 2526 includes these fixes:
- Correctly build the fields list from the SQL field selection wizard.
- Resolves issues where incorrect SQL was generated for V5R4.
- Resolves issue with the 'RtnToList' button in Page at a Time Maintenance template not returning to the list.
- No longer inserts crtklist function when using the JDBC templates.
You can download the latest PC and server versions of WebSmart from our website, or go to the WebSmart Updates page to download just the client side, and read more about this update and previous ones.
Organizations
that Recently Purchased BCD Software
AAlfa Acciai • Army Recreation Machine • Arvin Sango • Columbia Machine • Compass Technologies, Inc. • Congoleum Corp. • Daniel Four Software • Data House • Food Services of America • Glaxo SmithKline Export • Hayleys Ltd • Inox Mare srl • Interface, Inc. • International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers • J & J Industries • J & R Schugel Trucking Inc. • J2C Informatica • MBPI • Napa Balkamp, Inc. • NSCSA • Oklahoma Board of Nurses • Ouachita Baptist University • Plumbers Local Union 3 • Prime Inc. • Schiff Food Products • Scovill Fasteners Inc. • Simonds International • Sinv_ Spa • Skills • Smalley Steel Ring Company • Textile Care Services • Tidi Products • Tietex Corporation • TOP The Opportunity Partners • Tredit Tire & Wheel • Unicolor • United Dairymen of Arizona • Vishay Vitramon • Westinghouse Electric Co.
Organizations
That Have Recently Contracted BCD Professional Services
Demco • Swift Transport • Hans Johnsen Bikes • Compass Technologies • Cosyn Software New Zealand • QuickPayNet • Vermont Information Processing • Wenger Corporation
|
Getting Started with Catapult
