The newsletter for
Key Operators of
DDMS Systems
Vol. 6, No. 3
Oct. 26, 2006
Comments? Tips for fellow dealers? Success stories? Ideas to improve ECi technical Support? Email keyops@eci2.com
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Key Ops Dispatch, an e-mail newsletter, comes free of charge to all DDMS® customers.
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In This Issue:
Hello from your ECi Support Teams!
We'd like to point out important information in this issue of the KeyOps Dispatch:
Sincerely yours,
 Premier Account Manager Sean Jowers joined the company in 1987 with a Bachelor's in business administration from Southwest Texas State University, majoring in computer information systems. Sean served on the support management team for many years. He has also served as an authority on order flow, communications, inventory catalog updates, system maintenance, and credit card processing. He joined the ECi Premier Account Management team in 2002.
 Team Synergy’s Debra McClure first joined the company in 1988 with 10 years of office supply experience. She has held several positions, including senior trainer and consultant, and even named most valuable player in 2000. In 2001, she was instrumental in instituting our virtual classroom and going live programs, which shifted the training department's focus from training trainers to training end-users. In January 2006, she joined ECi Technical Support full time.
 Team Collective’s Brian Holder first joined the company in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from DeVry University and four years of programming experience. Previously, he developed and maintained legacy software for the telecom industry and for 1033 mainframe databases.
 Team Pinnacle’s Kevin Cooper joined ECi in April 2005 with an Associates degree in information systems from Brookhaven College. He brings six years of experience in technical support, training, and marketing for store inventory systems, Great Plains accounting systems, customer relationship management systems, and other proprietary software.
 Team Alliance’s Harvey Schwartz joined ECi in April 2005 with 20 years of experience in customer service at Nortel. He studied computer science at University of Texas at Dallas. “I like customer service because I see the results of my work immediately,” Harvey said. “It makes me feel good about what I do when my customers’ problems are resolved.”
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Version 8.11 Touts Price Plans, Price Modeling, PSN Services
 eCommerce Industries, Inc. (ECi), is releasing additional enhancements in Version 8.11 of the DDMS business system software.
This major release gives you exceptional power to compete and measure your success. Significant Version 8.11 enhancements are as follows, pending final testing at the end of October:
- Customer Price Plans. ECi has reinvented contract maintenance, simplifying how you build, update, and assign customer contracts, price plans, or pricing matrices. To help you protect your margins and ensure your profitability, the information you need to develop price plans is displayed in real time. Look into what-if scenarios without affecting your current price plans. Modify costs and prices to see the effects of different pricing percentages while retaining your original pricing. Modify and recalculate until you have the pricing you want.
- Price Modeling. Delve with ease into data across your past sales journals, contracts, inventory files, and even past price model files. Select from numerous fields to limit your analysis to targeted criteria. For example, pull the history of a very specific item category or customer department. Then filter the list by year to date hits above a certain number or in a certain range. Evaluate the profitability of past sales, compared to your original pricing. Then, use an existing account as a template for a new price model, and/or select new pricing options. Once a satisfactory price model has been created, the on-screen end results can be printed, saved for future price modeling, saved as a new contract, or exported to a Microsoft® Excel® file.
- Furniture Purchasing Communications. ECi is releasing purchase order transmission services via the Private Supply Network for the following furniture manufacturers: Kimball®/National™ and Haworth®. Kimball/National will receive orders and send acknowledgements via the PSN. Haworth will use the PSN service to translate files from DDMS to its respective proprietary file formats, which will allow dealers to upload the translated files into its order management systems.
- Improved Furniture Delivery and Install Marking. From time to time, furniture dealers need to adjust the delivery and install dates for an order or line item. You can use the Delivery/Install dialog box to specify the actual install date. The system will automatically update Project Management. In turn, you can generate delivery and install tickets based on the actual dates you need them.
- Tie Meter to Machine. The Machine database now retains usage meter records for each machine. Previously, meter records were kept solely in the Contract database. Some meter-related readings remain linked with the contract, where related to billing, overages, and so on. Contract reading records can certainly vary as contract types, equipment placement, and ownership change. However, other hard meter readings are now tied directly to the equipment and are available throughout its entire historical life to assist in service analysis and future procurement decisions.
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SQL Reporting of Sales Data. All the information for your sales reports is now available in industry-standard Structured Query Language (SQL), a widespread standard for manipulating relational databases. See the article below, DDMS Sales Data Now Available in Industry-Standard SQL.
The list may change, pending final testing. For a complete list of all recent DDMS enhancements, see What's New in Version 8 and Program Updates.
If you wish to use these new features, please email a request for Version 8.11 or higher to ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com. Please include your name, company name, account number, phone number, and shipping address for verification purposes.
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ECinteractive® Dealers Begin Converting Live Customers
 The first dealership to get a live customer order on ECinteractive®, ECi's new Internet service solutions formerly known as Project Cozumel, was Keeton's Office Supply Co., Inc., of Bradenton, Fla.
"We really didn't have to train the customer," said Keeton's systems administrator, Ed Copeland. "I just gave them the user name and password. It was a new account, where our sales rep had entered an order as a quote in DDMS. The customer found the order on hold in ECinteractive, and added it right to their cart. When I followed up, they said it was very user-friendly. That first live order was almost $1,200."
Since moving from beta to production, Ed has added several customer accounts to his ECinteractive site.
One challenge in converting to the ECinteractive site, Ed said, was getting used to the new Customer Groups. This administrative control panel feature is designed to give you unmatched flexibility in saving parameter settings for various ways of doing business, and assigning saved settings to customer groups or individual users.
"I can certainly see how it will be a plus where one account has 120 users," he said. "I can set up a customer group just for that account, and not have to remember individual settings when I add all the new users. But the new process of using customer groups to set up accounts can take some getting used to."
ECi and is.group firmly believe that a controlled general release schedule leads to the most successful implementation for each customer. It allows your training and support teams to provide the requisite attention to all dealers in a fair manner, and to properly assess server performance as consumer usage increases.
For the road ahead, look for the following milestones:
- The first wave of dealers will convert more and more of their customers and individual users. As this occurs, we will closely monitor server and support loads and allocate resources accordingly.
- Dealers will use new tools to convert customers, including:
- New applications in Dealer Station® and is.D-Force® help you analyze and migrate customer settings and approval trees to ECinteractive® and is.D-Force® 2, respectively.
- An information kit you can use to communicate to your customers. It highlights the features that your consumers care about, with full-page screen shots, and charts for side-by-side comparison to Dealer Station/D-Force.
- Over the next several weeks, ECi Product Manager Lewis Bass will invite additional groups of dealers to attend Web based training, set up their sites, and migrate their customer accounts. Selected dealers will include investors and other dealers with consideration made for historical online order volume.
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DDMS Automates HP PurchasEdge Invoicing
 If you have customers who purchase $1,000 USD or more in Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com) supplies per year, the HP PurchasEdge program can help you boost those sales.
At the same time, you'll be helping your customers save money and get free HP products for their business. Your customers earn one point for every $4 USD they spend on qualifying items.
The PurchasEdge program is integrated with your ECi Web storefront and DDMS business system. On behalf of your customers, you submit invoices to HP electronically. Note: DDMS can be set up to automate this step!
Customers redeem points for free HP printers, digital cameras and more at www.purchasedge.com.
Customers who took advantage of PurchasEdge bought an average of 17% more print supplies their first year of membership, and 34% more their second year, according to HP PurchasEdge database metrics.
To find out how PurchasEdge can benefit both you and your customers, and to sign up to integrate PurchasEdge with your DDMS system, click here.
If you have additional questions, please contact a member of your ECi Technical Support Team at ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com or 1-800-366-4778. We will be glad to help you with additional information and setup.
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Free Web Based Training this Fall
Each month, ECi offers free Webinars for large groups to learn about features you can implement now!
Currently, we've scheduled the following topics:
- October (last session Friday the 27th) - I Didn't Know It Could Do That!
- November - Customer Price Plans
- December - Year-End
Each session welcomes up to 50 connections on a first-come, first served basis (No need to register!), and you can choose from four dates each month.
All you need is a PC with an Internet connection to view the demonstration, and a phone line to hear the host. For connection instructions, see Free Web Based Training (www.DDMS.com/training/free/), and look for upcoming email announcements for details on new topics.
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Fort Worth Hosts Hands-On
Key Operator, Year-End Training
ECi is hosting special hands-on software training seminars at our Fort Worth, Texas facility. Each three-day seminar consists of two sessions with complementing topics:
Attend a specific session, or join us for all three days at a discounted rate – whichever is more appropriate for your business. Each seminar offers hands-on training in the newly released Version 8 software. Participants will have the opportunity to learn by actually using the software to perform everyday tasks.
*The cost to attend includes lunches and training materials. For session outlines, registration forms, and details on lodging and transportation, see Training Seminars on ECiSolutions.com.
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TIP: Creating a Contract
Based on Super Store Pricing
 Effective for fourth quarter 2006, Trade Service has provided the option to load competitor pricing data in its quarterly Super Store Data Update. Currently, it offers data from Corporate Express, Office Depot, Office Max, Quill, and Staples.
As a result, dealers who have Trade Service's authorization to load the pricing file can now view and compare super store pricing from their DDMS Item database, Order Entry, and Purchasing. Your customers can search your integrated Web storefront (such as Dealer Station® and is.D-Force®) for a super store SKU, and the results will find matching items from your inventory.
But what if you want to create a contract based on Super Store Pricing? Your OPdb Toolbox has just the tool: (+ I &). It allows you to create a consumer contract from any vendor with pricing in your I-CAT multi-vendor catalog.
If you authorized the Super Store pricing update this quarter, and loaded it into I-CAT via the SSDpricing file load, you can run the (+ I &) program to create a customer price plan based on super store data.
All you need to do is specify the vendor (CORP, DEPO, OFFI, QUIL, or STAP), the contract number, and the contract description. You can even enter a percent to increase or decrease the vendor cost (such as 2.0 or -2.0).
You can also enter a customer account number If you are authorized for Advanced Contracts, entering the account number will assign the contract to the specified customer in the (ET) Inventory Contracts screen.
For instructions on installing and using the new super store pricing, see Super Store Data Update (pdf).
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Internet-Based Ordering with
O Henry Inc. and Pens Plus Inc.
 ECi has partnered with two more office product wholesalers to allow you to communicate with them through your broadband Internet connections, instead of using a modem line.
 O Henry, Inc. (www.ohenryinc.com), and Pens Plus, Inc. (www.ppiwholesale.com) now accept Internet-based ordering, so that you can take advantage of faster and more reliable communications:
- Build and transmit purchase orders to these vendors electronically.
- Automatically accept partial shipments or only complete orders.
- Elect to allow or disallow automatic item substitutions.
- Specify whether to round up or to cancel an item if the order is below the vendor's minimum quantity.
- Use the Wrap-N-Pack feature to ship to a customer directly from the wholesaler.
- Place multiple drop ship orders on a single P/O.
- Opt to accept backorders or cancel items not in stock.
- Receive the vendor's line-item acknowledgements of shipping quantities and prices.
- Automatically pre-receive your orders when you receive the acknowledgements.
For O Henry Inc., you can even set up your sales people to be able to check O Henry stock availability and pricing from Order Entry Item Detail.
These new communications services require a software update for your communications setup screens. Please email a request for Version 8.10.42 or higher to ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com. Please include your name, company name, account number, phone number, and shipping address for verification purposes.
These services require an account on the ECi Private Supply Network (PSN). If necessary, you can set up an account using the online form on the Starting a New PSN Account Web page.
If you already have a PSN account, you can simply set up the new features on your system by following each vendor's PSN documentation:
Electronic communication features may vary with other suppliers. For more information on other vendor communications, see Purchasing Communications FAQs and Private Supply Network (PSN) Documentation on our Web site.
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CAP Worksheet™ 3.0 Exports DDMS SIF, Fixes Rounding
 As part of our ongoing collaboration with 20-20 Technologies Inc. (www.2020technologies.com), ECi has worked closely with 20-20 to ensure that its CAP Worksheet™ specification software will export a standard interchange format (SIF) file for use with DDMS business systems.
No, DDMS does not use a proprietary SIF format. The issue was simply a rounding of different decimal places.
When exporting a SIF, CAP Worksheet calculates sell price and cost based on a percentage of list price, instead of simply presenting the net value. Moreover, while CAP Worksheet rounds to two decimal places, DDMS carries dollar amounts to a third decimal place. As a result, the difference between a quote or order from CAP Worksheet and an invoice from DDMS may be a few pennies.
"It doesn't sound like much, but this could be a significant problem with the GSA [Government Services Administration], which has a strict policy to match the invoice to the P/O," said Mark Goldman, ECi product manager. "Even if it's only a three cent difference, they won't pay."
DDMS users have not seen this discrepancy with Giza Studio™, ProjectSpec™, or Design Express specification software, because they present the net value instead of a calculation.
20-20 Technologies is releasing CAP Worksheet 3.0 in October 2006, with the new DDMS export menu option under File > Manufacturer Specific > DDMS (.SIF). To obtain CAP Worksheet 3.0, contact your 20-20 Technologies representative.
Since the CAP Worksheet 3.0 SIF for DDMS presents the net amounts for sell price, cost, and list price, no changes were needed in DDMS software.
"This is huge for our dealers," Mark said. "It corrects a long-standing problem with price discrepancies between what is in CAP and what comes into DDMS."
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Herman Miller Dealers Must Realign Meridian Vendor Aliases
 Furniture manufacturer Herman Miller® (www.hermanmiller.com) recently announced a project to move all order processing into its centralized mainframe system.
The first major milestone is to centralize its Spring Lake (Meridian) order processing. Effective Nov. 20, 2006, all furniture dealers will need to ensure Meridian line items appear on their Herman Miller purchase orders.
This project affects DDMS furniture dealers who have set up vendor records and aliases for companies acquired by Herman Miller. The Meridian catalog codes remain the same in your specifier software, according to a Herman Miller representative. The Meridian library codes in your specification system (CAP, Project Matrix, Z-Axis, and so on) determine the vendor aliases you set up in your DDMS vendor alias records.
To ensure DDMS purchases Meridian (Spring Lake) items via Herman Miller Kiosk, your must realign your Meridian (Spring Lake) vendor aliases. The task involves the following steps, and should be completed immediately before Nov. 20, 2006:
- In DDMS, look in your Vendor database for your Meridian (Spring Lake) vendor aliases.
- If you do NOT have Meridian vendor aliases, no further action is needed.
- If you have Meridian vendor aliases, complete the following steps.
- Check your (LØ) Global Parameters parameters for the vendor data volume serial and (LC) Vendor Parameters for your Delete password.
- Use the (ZD2) Print Disk File utility screen to print your V-ALIAS file, and note the Spring Lake (Meridian) vendor aliases that need to be moved to the Herman Miller record.
- The remainder of the procedure is dedicated. Make sure no one else is using your DDMS system.
- Shut down and run a back-up, or at least copy your V-ALIAS files (including those with extensions .cdx, .dbf, and .key) to another folder.
- In the DDMS Vendor Database, delete all original vendor aliases from the Spring Lake (Meridian) vendor record.
- Referring to your V-ALIAS report, add the Spring Lake (Meridian) aliases to the Herman Miller vendor record.
- Rebuild the alias index, which lets you retrieve a vendor by alias.
For detailed instructions, see the online help topics:
NOTE: It's important to delete existing aliases before adding them to the Herman Miller record. Duplicate aliases are not allowed, because the system can't determine which vendor to use in purchasing the item or which general ledger department to use in accounting.
ECi Technical Support will send a reminder message with detailed instructions closer to Herman Miller's deadline of Nov. 20, 2006.
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Electronic Order Processing
With Global Industries
 ECi has partnered with the furniture manufacturer, GLOBAL® Industries (www.globaltotaloffice.com/gi) to allow DDMS Office Furniture Edition to exchange purchasing data directly via your broadband Internet connection.
You can now take advantage of electronic order processing between your DDMS system and Global Industries:
- Import quotes or orders as SIF files from third-party specifiers into the DDMS Order Entry window, so that Global Industries items flow through your standard order and accounting flow.
- Automatically include any required add-on items specified in your (LGC1) parameters.
- Opt to automatically build the purchase order when you end and accept the order.
- Set up default vendor contract, billing, and shipping information to be transmitted with the P/O data, or change this information on specific P/Os.
- Opt to exclude a P/O from being transmitted.
- Communicate P/Os directly into the manufacturer's system from the P/O Entry window.
- Receive acknowledgements from the P/O Entry window, to update the P/O Ship Date and Acknowledgement Number in the purchase order.
The new purchasing communications services require a software update for your communications setup screens. Please email a request for Version 8.10.42 or higher to ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com. Please include your name, company name, account number, phone number, and shipping address for verification purposes.
These services require an account on the ECi Private Supply Network (PSN). If you already have a PSN account, you can simply set up the new features on your system by following the instructions in Setting Up and Using the Global Industries PSN (pdf). If you do not already use the PSN, you can set up an account using the online form on the Starting a New PSN Account Web page.
Global Industries also provides quarterly item and pricing data. It is listed as an Additional Vendor in the O/PUS multi-vendor catalog update. For details on Global Industries update parameters, see page 44 of the O/PUS Complete Multi-Vendor documentation (pdf). For loading instructions, see O/PUS Made SIMPLE (pdf).
Electronic communication features may vary with other suppliers. For more information on other vendor communications, see Furniture FAQs and Private Supply Network (PSN) Documentation on our Web site.
Coming soon: our upcoming major release, Version 8.11, will allow electronic communications with additional furniture manufacturers, Haworth and Kimball/National.
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Assigning Serial Numbers in
Machine Accessories is Critical
The Machine Accessories window makes it easy to sell or lease machines with the accessories the customer needs.
Suppose you're selling a copier with a document feeder and a finisher. You can access Machine Accessories from the Machine Detail database and from order entry. You specify the base model number for the copier and the accessories, and let the system search. It will list exact matches first: any copiers with all three accessories that are on hand. It will also list copiers that have some but not all of the accessories you specified, and list the individual accessories available. You can drag and drop machines and accessories to assemble the copier you need. You also have the option of generating setup or delivery work orders for the machine, with all the accessories you specified.
IMPORTANT: You must assign serial numbers in Machine Accessories. Each line item on the left should have serial numbers and blue lines (as shown below) or backordered (red) before you Save & Close. If you see red, it hasn't been specified yet, and you need to assign it a blue serial number or red backorder before saving and closing.
The only red text should be "Backordered." Any other red text can prevent you from completing the order.
For instructions on properly adding machine accessories to an order, see:
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DDMS Sales Data Now Available in Industry-Standard SQL
Part of the task of creating Version 8.11's Price Modeling application involved rewriting all of DDMS's sales history databases and tables in SQL and .NET.
As a result, all the information for your sales reports are now available in industry-standard Structured Query Language (SQL), a widespread standard for relational databases.
Our goal in an upcoming release is to provide you with standard DDMS reports in SQL format. We are also planning to release an intuitive interface to DDMS SQL data, so that you can make basic report modifications.
In the interim, you can use any third party SQL reporting tool such as Crystal Reports® or Microsoft® Access® to design and save your own reports from DDMS SQL sales data. For example, you can drill down to various levels of detail, customize the headers and footers, and export to Excel, PDF, and other options. All third-party SQL reporting tools are outside the scope of ECi Technical Support. They are designed for users who have experience creating SQL statements for relational databases.
If you don't already use those commercial tools, but are familiar with designing SQL queries and reports, we can make an alternative tool, C1 Report Designer, available to you for free.
ECi has no plans to support custom SQL statements or any third-party SQL reporting tool, including C1 Report Designer. The ComponentOne® HelpCentral offers
documentation and a community forum to support C1 Report Designer, which is
part of ComponentOne Studio® and ComponentOne Reports™ for .NET Designer Edition.
Of course, ECi supports the accuracy and integrity of the
data in our new SQL tables, as required to operate DDMS applications. More details and documentation will be provided in an upcoming announcement.
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