October 26, 1999
- Highlights:
- Y2K Loose Ends
We've recently completed the first IDW (Industry Data Warehouse) interface program. This is program IN/721. What it does is take the EDI 832 product information records that you'd receive from IDW and reformat them into the Trade Service PFMS format. You would then use your same IN/421 and 521 programs for updating your item file and Trade Service price reference file, respectively. This program is a standard enhancement available to all users.
The other part of IDW is a separately charged, optional module for housing the IDW warehouse itself on a dedicated SQL server. We will be putting together a flyer on this as soon as everything is in place. We will basically be packaging the various third party components needed for IDW.
As of the beginning of October, there were reportedly only about 15,000 items with full information on them in IDW. It would appear that some of the manufacturers have been sidetracked by Y2K and other issues. Trade Service is helping to populate the IDW database by temporarily donating the information they have on over 800,000 electrical items. However, since this is primarily the same data that's already available in PFMS for $300 or so per month, it seems a bit questionable to jump into the SQL Server environment right now.
We've also completed a new series of reports for helping you analyze your price matrix. Most of our users realized major improvements in gross margin percentages after they automated pricing with the POWER Plus system. However, after a number of years, it may be time for some of our users to re-assess where they're at with their price matrix. To assist in this effort, we've created the following:
- A new report program that sorts down items within product price
class (and optionally by branch), showing those with the most activity
("A" items) first, just like on the ABC Report. A popular way of
categorizing items for discounting is based on their popularity.
However, you may have items that were hot sellers several years ago
that are no longer popular and vice versa. This report is intended
to make it easier to find such items and determine whether items should
be reclassified into a different price class.
- Another way to fine tune the price matrix is to adjust the
multipliers in the cells. The second report we've developed totals
up sales, gross profit, demand and hits by customer price class by
product price class. In other words, it is not showing individual
customers or items. Rather, it's giving you the totals for each
product price class within a given customer price class. For example,
you may find that you have a cell in your matrix with a very high
discount that is not justified by the level of activity in that cell.
This report should help you find such situations.
- The third program we've developed helps you analyze the customer
activity within a given price class. In other words, just as there
are some items that should be reclassified into a new price class,
there are probably some customers who should also be reclassified
into a different customer price class.
Lastly but not least we are also offering consulting services to help analyze your pricing structures. Often times, places talk about revamping the price matrix, but find it hard to dedicate enough time or find the ability to focus on the task. If you want us to come in and just concentrate on this for a few days, we probably should be able to find a g.p. point or so.
Y2K Loose Ends:
- We've been asked whether WFL/SYS/SCHEDULER, the automated end of day, end
of month job streamer, is Y2K compliant. The answer is yes, it already was.
We advanced our system date to 12/31/99 and then to mid-January 2000, and the
SCHEDULER ran fine both nights.
- The Fax Module programs had not been made Y2K compliant by Advent. We just
recently went through and did this, and again tested with our system advanced to
the year 2000. This fix is not available in patch form. Part of the task involved
changing these programs to use the standard copy libraries. In the process, we
also removed govs of superfluous code from these programs. We will send out
tapes of the new version of the fax programs. Any existing patch files would
need to be merged in to these new versions. Also, if you have not already
combined the OCDB database into the PLUSDB database, this would be the time to
do so. This step will simplify your database backups, etc. It is also necessary
for future releases of POWER Plus. If you need help installing the new fax
programs or combining your OCDB and PLUSDB databases, please contact us.
- Execusense. Y2K compliant. We'll e-mail you the patches so you can check
to make sure they are installed on your system.
- Paperless Warehouse. Minor patches will be e-mailed. Should be easy to install.
We've recently learned how to install and use the Infoaccess ODBC link that's provided with most Clear/Paths. ODBC stands for Open Data Base Connectivity, and is a Microsoft standard.
This link allows you to easily import data from the PLUS database into Excel, Access and other ODBC compliant PC software (such as Crystal Reports, Goldmine, etc.). It's really pretty neat. And, whereas historically there's only been one or two people at a site that knew IMPULSE, a lot of people are comfortable with Excel, for example.
Another feature of Infoaccess is the ability to do standalone SQL commands (don't have to be in Excel, etc.) SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It's an IBM standard that has some similarities to DMS/INQUIRY or ERGO. From our experience, it appears to be a very feasible alternative to DMINQ or ERGO. Like it's Unisys counterparts, SQL allows you to examine the contents of a selected record, do updates (for quick fixes) as well as report.
BJ Electric and Hornung Pro Golf are using Infoaccess ODBC. You have to use a TCP/IP connection to your PC for Infoaccess to work. Let's repeat that so that everyone is clear: you have to use a TCP/IP connection. Regular poll/select will not do.
Please contact us if you'd like us to come in and set up ODBC and show you how to use it in real life situations.
Springfield Electric recently began processing orders electronically from Caterpillar. It's like EDI, but a goofier format. The data is reformatted and processed through the standard Batch Order Entry program that's part of the POWER Plus system.
With all the revisions to area codes going on, don't forget you have a couple of utility programs for mass changing of area codes. These are run with WFL/FM/UPDATE/AREACODES and WFL/FM/UPDATE/AREACODES/OCDB (for the fax datasets). You give it parameters telling it the range of prefixes within an area code to change to a new area code. Saves a lot of maintenance time and protects against missing some. Lincoln Patrick at Brock-McVey said it saved him a bunch of time when a big chunk of Kentucky recently changed.