Ed. Note: Here are two subjects guaranteed to bring out the flamethrowers for some customers. They are put together so that I only have to put on my asbestos suit once.

SAFE 8: New Licencing Procedures!
We're making some subtle, but important changes to our licencing system. SAFE now has a 'phone home' system which automatically contacts our home server every 90 days to re-establish your licence.

1. Minor problem: Evidently, we've started another round of getting ripped off. There was always a certain amount of <ahem> licence bloat, but recently we've had to take it a bit more seriously, primarily because of the consolidation in the industry. As our customers have bought (and been bought by) other distributors, somewhere along the line, the number of people trying to 'share' the same SAFE licence seems to have multiplied.

2. A bit more important: Keeping in touch. Frankly, we don't hear from most of you all that often. And that can be good! But there are two potential problems: First your company will miss out on software updates. Second, the longer we go without electronic contact, the greater the likelihood that when you do need immediate help, we'll be unable to connect. And when you need help, the last thing you want to hear is that there is that 'what we have here is a failure to communicate.'

Therefore...
Every ninety days, SAFE will automatically attempt to 'phone home' to ensure that all the relevant communication protocols are still working properly (terminal services, remote desktop, iClose-Up file transfer, FTP).  If everything looks good? You won't notice a thing.

But if it doesn't--if we can't connect, your users will receive an annoying warning message during start-up, telling them to tell you (if you're reading this you're likely the principal or 'computer guy' at your store, right?). In that case, contact us so we can sort out the issue.

You Have Seven Days!
However, once you see this warning message, the clock is ticking. If you don't get back to us within seven days, SAFE will stop functioning until we do hear from you and re-establish your licence for another 90 days.

Well I Never!
It's important to recognise that when you purchased SAFE, you a licence; not a thing. We definitely want to respect your privacy, but we also have valid concerns about our rights as copyright holders--after all, we're counting on legal sales to keep this little shop open! We're sensitive to both sides of this issue.

But even more important to this decision is the fact that the complexity of networks has made it impossible for us to assume that when we need to access your system, we'll be able to do so. Not coincidentally, this is also the fault of the bad guys---the fact that over 85% of internet traffic is now spam, malware, porn and hacker activity (really, it's that bad) all those routers/firewalls/spam filters/et al. wouldn't be necessary. And we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not we could access a client's system.

In short, all security carries a certain PITA factor and our licencing system seems to be the least intrusive way to do that, plus it helps make sure we can help you when you need it.

We hope you'll view this as we do, as a positive step towards providing better service for all our customers.

Til Then!

SAFE 8: New Features That Require Form Re-Design!
With every major update to SAFE, more and more features are added. And at least a few of them make printing various forms (purchase orders, RFQs, checks, invoices, et al.) more flexible. Sadly, at least a few of these features will require a form re-design. Which means; let's cut to the chase; get out your checkbook. Here's the list for SAFE/8:

1. If you want to use the new Report Object Editor with any forms or Internal Custom Reports.

2. If, when you print RFQs you wish to select a Ship From for a Vendor, instead of the master address.

3. If you wish to use Line Item Specific Specs on Stock Purchase Orders.

4. If you want to be able to print only tagged line items when re-printing multi-line Custom Purchase Orders (from Sales Orders).

5. If you want to be able to print only tagged line items when re-printing multi-line Stock Purchase Orders (from the Vendor POs Browse).

6. If you want to use the new RFQ Sales Quote features (dollars vs. profit).

And If You Came In Late...
Here is a partial list of popular requests we've had regarding changes from SAFE/5 through SAFE/7 that would also require forms redesign.

1. If you want to e-Mail from Print Preview, in conjunction with PDFXtensions.

2. If you want to batch e-Mail any forms, either with or without PDFXtensions.

3. If you want to use any of the Extra Cost features which appeared in SAFE/6.

4. The RFQs Sales Quote is a new form as of SAFE/7
 

And Now An Oldie But A Goodie: Why You Have To Pay For 'Standard Features'!
With every major upgrade, we get at least one complaint like this:

Dear Suntower,

Hey! Why should I have to pay to have <insert cool new feature here> on my <insert form here>. If the upgrades are included in my support contract, then these should be free. Or do you guys have some creative new definition of the word 'free'?

Slightly Disgruntled
 

And every year, through the magic of Ctrl/C and Ctrl/V we post the same stock answer:

Dear SG,

 

We feel your pain. The problem is backward compatibility---something we take very seriously since we have hundreds of customers. And all our customers have told us that it is imperative that they be able to get upgrades to SAFE without disturbing existing form designs. Many of you have paid to have custom form designs and want to know these designs will be carried over as each version of SAFE is released.

 

Unfortunately, if a feature was developed after you purchased SAFE, the existing form will not know how to make it happen. In other words, when you print, SAFE will send a request to the old form saying, 'Do this new feature!'. But since the existing form doesn't know what that request means, it simply ignores the request and prints as always.

 

When we release a new version of SAFE, we do not (and cannot) touch existing forms for clients. So if we add functionality to SAFE that also requires a change to the forms, you will -not- see that new feature in your installation unless you have been using -only- our standard forms -or- pay a form design fee to upgrade the form to be able to 'see' the new features.

 

Most of the time our customers do not seem to mind this, since they do not use every new feature that comes down the pike. -However- virtually -every- customer we have will, at some point, see some neat-o feature that we say is standard with the product and then feel 'gypped' because they can't use said feature in their installation. We've heard every complaint under the sun about this.

 

But there simply is no way to make this happen -and- offer inexpensive custom forms for each client unless -we- commit to offering free form re-designs for every customer every time we add a new feature to SAFE. And since altering each form design/compile takes 1-2 hours---that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

 

So the choice for us is really to either:

a) Give up form customization in favour of one-size-fits-all forms.
 

b) Ask customers to pay a nominal fee as needed to incorporate features of importance as they come up. We do our part by discounting the form design fees for these upgrades by 50%.

In Short...
SAFE pioneered user-specific forms and reports over a decade ago. The price of this open-ended system is that not every new feature can be automatically grandfathered into your current forms. The good news is that updating your forms is always possible, always painless and quite economical. The biggest challenge may be keeping up with what new features require an update as new versions of SAFE are released. Hopefully this article addresses that challenge. If you have questions about your specific forms or how any SAFE feature affects them, of course, do not hesitate to contact us!

Til Next Time!

Ciaran's Corner: Some Thoughts On Web Users!
When customers first purchase Ollie they learn really fast that a web application is not like a desktop application. The term 'bandwidth', which heretofore was only geek-speak, quickly becomes a natural part of the lexicon. Why? Because when your web site becomes popular, it can easily be overwhelmed by dozens or even hundreds of users in a way that you didn't expect.

Get In And Get Out!
Every user who starts a web application is, in effect, using your server, just like someone in your office. So everything about the web site needs to be designed to get people in, get their tasks done, and then, get them out as quickly as possible. This is diametrically opposed to how your people tend to work in the office, where they'll leave SAFE open all day and come back to various tasks 'whenever'. That's fine for the relatively small number of in-house users you may have, but doesn't work for web servers where you may process hundreds of orders every day. In fact, this characteristic of web servers is one of the easiest (and most effective) ways that hackers mess with web sites---by writing little programs that automatically log onto the same web site over and over and over and over... until the site crashes. This is referred to as the dreaded 'Denial Of Service Attack' and it is the bane of ISPs everywhere.

Time Out!
So Ollie, like all web applications, and your server, have various timers to limit how long any user can stick around. The defaults in Ollie are 60 minutes. In other words, users have 60 minutes to complete a session before being given the boot.

I'll Show Them!
Evidently, this drives some users nuts. So a common request we get is to make these timers reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllly long. In effect, to make them go away. Trust me, you do not want that. To which you reply, 'Oh but you don't know my customers!'. Then get other customers (just kidding!). Every human being under the age of 35 already knows about these limits and doesn't expect to hang out all day on a web transaction. Their expectations are correct simply because they're already used to ordering things like Amazon.Com or iTunes and they've seen what happens when they simply walk away from a transaction in mid-process---it simply cancels out.

So, What To Do?
As with so many things, the best solution is two-fold:

1. Keeping one's tools up to date and

2. Edducating your end-users.

With each version of Ollie and WebSAFE, the stress on your web server gets less and less. For example, the load balancing features in Windows 2003 really lighten the load for each server session. Similarly, upgrading to SQL Server 2005 further eases the 'cost' of every session in any portion of Simple Accounting---including web offerings. And last but not least, each version of Ollie and WebSAFE are fully optimized to take advantage of the improvements in both Windows 2003 and SQL Server 2005, so keeping your Suntower Systems web software up to date is crucial as well!

But at the end of the day, it's also necessary to work with your end-users, web savvy or not, to understand the limitations of any web platform. We've found that most all customers can easily grasp that "there's only so much water in the well" and will do their best to cooperate once they understand that it's all for a common good  (especially in the current climate of high energy prices and new focus on the environment.) Everyone sees the need to 'share and share alike'. Usually it's simply a matter of making users aware and letting them take it from there.

Til Next Time!

Ciarān Marron
Technical Support Manager
cm@suntowersystems.com

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End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume VIII #14