Comsense - Articles

Comsense Publishing via RSS

comsense — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:46:00 GMT

What is RSS?

RSS stands for RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a means of syndicating web content using XML. The beauty of RSS is that it gives you the power of subscribing to content that appeals to you. Whenever new content is made available it is automatically delivered to you via your RSS reader. RSS readers are available that run from your desktop and integrate with your email program like Newsgator for Outlook or run online like Newsgator online or My Yahoo. The most popular use for RSS today is to syndicate Blogs, short for Weblogs which are online journals kept by individuals publishing their thoughts on whatever suits them. For some sample blogs check out blogs.msdn.com where hundreds of Microsoft employees keep their blogs.

What is Comsense doing with RSS?

Comsense has begun publishing news and other information using RSS.In particular we provide four feeds that you can subscribe to: Announcements, Articles, Software Enhancements and eCatalog Updates. The Software Enhancements and eCatalog Info feeds are particularly useful for our customers in that they provide a proactive means of notifying when a new version of our software is available and when new electronic catalogs have been released, as well as including notes to indicate what the new versions have to offer.

How do I subscribe to the Comsense RSS feeds?

To subscribe to our feeds, simply click on the heading of a particular category on our home page, for example Articles. This will take you to a listing of all of the articles we have published. To the right of the article list there is an orange XML graphic. This graphic has become a standard on the Web for indicating an RSS feed. Right click on the XML graphic and click Copy Shortcut. Next, in your chosen RSS reader, add a subscription and past the URL where the application asks for the feed address or URL.

As a shortcut here are the URLs for our feeds:

Announcements:              http://comsenseinc.com/blogs/announcements/rss.aspx
Articles:                          http://comsenseinc.com/blogs/articles/rss.aspx
Software Enhancements: http://comsenseinc.com/blogs/programupdates/rss.aspx
eCatalog Updates:            http://comsenseinc.com/blogs/eCatalogs/rss.aspx

In addition to the RSS feeds, the same information is also published to our website at www.comsenseinc.com. At a glance you can see what the latest release of our software is, recent eCatalog releases and other information relevant to our customers and partners.

Please take a few moments to look at our website and consider using an RSS reader to help you stay on top of information that is important to you.

Support as an Enhancement Launchpad

comsense — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:45:00 GMT

By Shannon Hobson

In a perfect world, if we had a software problem we could call on our support group, they would rattle off an easy answer and we could move on in a matter of minutes.

As we all know we do not live in a perfect world and there are times when the call that you initiate requires the issue to be recreated by support staff, developers to become involved and updates to be released before you can continue. We, at Comsense Support, are attempting to make any issue that affects, or has the possibility of affecting, multiple customers be corrected and released via Program Updates to eliminate the chain reaction of one user after another being held up by these issues.

As our customer base grows and each company utilizes our software with subtle, unique differences suited to their business needs and current procedures, we refine our program to eliminate as many reported issues and suggested enhancements to our software to meet the requirements of the masses. Some of the changes incorporated are very apparent to our users and others are background changes implemented to improve the performance of the program and while not visibly noticeable are important to the accurancy and functionality of the program. I recommend reviewing the Today screen after each update to familiarize yourself with the corrections and/or changes contained in that particular update, also available is an archive of each Update and the changes therein.

As a member of Comsense Support Team I welcome all calls for procedural help, any enhancements you think would be beneficial to the program and any questions you have regarding changes. All requests are submitted and reviewed for incorporation into our program, some will be addressed immediately, others will be under review for future releases and yes, unfortunately, some will not be possible to incorporate.

It is always interesting to see customers reactions to their requests being implemented, showing that we are working together to create a program that we are all happy with.

Are You Ready for Enterprise?

comsense — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 01:41:00 GMT

As Enterprise gets closer to release, we trust you are getting prepared as well......(read more)

Enterprise Inventory Management

comsense — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 01:40:00 GMT

Wayne Teas

Recognizing the very significant impact that effective inventory management can have on your bottom line and customer satisfaction, we have implemented several features in our Enterprise product to help you better manage your inventory.

Determining optimal safety quantity is a very delicate balancing act. What is the acceptable percentage of stock-outs? What are my customers’ expectations on product availability? How much am I willing to invest in excess inventory to achieve this level of product availability? How can I better forecast inventory requirements?

Enterprise offers you many tools to help you effectively address these very important and difficult questions. We have enhanced the model used in our DOS version for the last 15 years. This model is based on Gordon Graham’s book Distribution Inventory Management for the 1990s. We find his principles and models appropriate for the Door and Hardware Industry with some refinements to better account for today’s market conditions. We have incorporated a weighted average algorithm and an additional ‘seasonal’ model for products which tend to be more seasonal in nature. It is vital that inventory managers understand the fundamentals of this model in order to effectively utilize and implement a successful inventory management system – it’s simplicity serves to achieve this goal while maintaining a high degree of effective inventory management.

Our very powerful database engine and extensive database of key product movement information allows us to supply you with critical information which, by any other means, is practically impossible to achieve. A calendar of supplier and distributor ‘shut-down’ days, date sensitive review cycle dates, analysis of excess safety quantity at time of product receipt and lead time variance analysis serve to significantly enhance the accuracy of both re-order alerts and re-order quantities.

One of the more important features is the introduction of the concept of ‘Anticipated Stock-Outs’. We are now able to be pro-active in identifying potential stock-out conditions. Purchasing personnel performing their daily purchasing tasks are alerted to stock-out conditions and may take immediate action to reorder. Of course this would be subject to the all important questions of ‘Should I create an ‘out-of-cycle’ stock replenishment order or wait until sufficient related product is ready for ordering to minimize freight costs?” What are my potential lost profits and to what degree will this impact my target ‘product availability, customer service level’? These decisions now become much easier to rationalize with information regarding anticipated number of stock-out days, potential profit opportunity losses, minimum order values and minimum ‘free-freight’ order values being presented to the user during this decision process.

Minimum Steps to Purging

comsense — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 14:55:00 GMT

These steps should be performed in this specific order.

Projects <AHM/Project Menu/Miscellaneous Project Menu/Purge Projects>

Ø Decide the cutoff date prior to purging to determine which projects will be purged.

Ø Print a project listing of all projects, and highlight which projects will be purged.

Ø Circulate the list to all affected staff to let them know what will be purged.

Ø Enter closed dates for all projects to be purged, using the bulk option #1 of the Project Purge routine making it valid for purging regardless of anything outstanding.

Ø It is not recommended to purge projects less than 1 year old.

Quotes, Orders, Purchase Orders <Orders/Housekeeping Menu/Purge Order Entry>

Ø Print Sales Orders Summary report and review for outstanding Sales Orders.

Ø Investigate Sales Orders older than proposed purge cutoff date and determine if there is outstanding material or if they should be purged.

Ø Print Quotation Summary report and review quotations older than the proposed purge cutoff date. If blanket quotations or sample quotations exist that will be required in the future, create new quotations based on the existing.

Ø Print Purchase Order Status report based on filled flag being NO and review purchase orders older than proposed purge cutoff date.

Ø If there is information required that is older than proposed cutoff date, revise the cutoff date to exclude these items.

Note: If you specify for items before a certain cutoff date to be purged, they will be purged regardless of outstanding information.

Ø Choose whether to purge only Sales Orders that have been invoiced.

Ø Purge Quotes, Sales Orders and Purchase Orders created prior to the purge cutoff date.

Ø After Order Entry purge, wait until after the next month end has been performed. This will give Receivables and Credit time to check to make sure none of the purged orders are required.

Inventory <Inventory/Housekeeping Menu/Purge Inactive Inventory>

Ø Purge Inactive Inventory, this will purge non-stock inventory that is not required on a project, quote, order or invoice.

Purging Notes

Ø Perform a complete system backup before the purge

Ø Ensure the scheduled backup will not run or network routines will not close the application while the purge is in process, including screen savers. It is recommended this process be done during off hours. All other users including Indexer need to be logged out during this process.

Ø If this is your first purge, a large amount of records will require more time, and Comsense recommends purging on a Friday night or Saturday.

Ø Wait two weeks between all purges to give the users a chance to restore items that were purged incorrectly.

Ø All records can be restored using a menu item, except for inventory.

Comsense Inc.