Vol. 8, No. 3, July 31, 2008

Hello from your ECi DDMS® Support Team! In this issue of the KeyOps Dispatch:

Prep Your Firewall by August 8 for New ECi Data Center
ECi Launches Redesigned Web Site August 8 (08/08/08)
DDMS Client Works on Windows Vista Business Edition
ECinteractive Lets Users Pick Department Per Line
Furniture Manufacturers Ackowledge Exceptions
How to Handle Kimball Office and National Surcharge
DDMS 8.15 Enhances Price Plan Item Edit, Limits
Five Reports Help Capitalize on Monthly Trends
CCH Taxing Helps Win, Maintain National Accounts

Prep Your Firewall by August 8 for New ECi Data Center

ECi Operations is moving to a data enter close to our headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. The new facilities provide world-class Tier 1 Internet connectivity with flexible infrastructure to meet our changing business needs.

We will be moving all ECi products currently hosted in our Virginia Data Center in phases. This move affects the ECinteractive®, Dealer Station®, and is.D-Force® families of ECi DDMS-integrated Web storefronts, as well as the ECi Private Supply Network (PSN) services.

Action Required

At the new data center, ECi-hosted products and services will have a new IP address range, from 205.216.10.1 to 205.216.10.254. If your network currently has a firewall with rules to accept Internet traffic from our existing IP range, you must add the new IP range to your firewall's rules by Friday, Aug. 8, 2008.

Exceptions

Please do not remove your existing range (207.126.108.1 – 207.126.108.255) until we confirm it issafe to do so — when we notify you that the migration is complete.
If you currently have an additional firewall rule set up to allow 65.208.30.254 traffic, do not remove it or block it. This rule is critical for ECi DDMS Support in Fort Worth to be able to troubleshoot your DDMS system. If you do not already have this rule, you might take this opportunity to open 65.208.30.254, at least ports 5631 TCP and 5632 UDP (for pcAnywhere), and port 8765 (for Web storefront troubleshooting via eGate Test). If your firewall already has this IP or these ports open, let those rules remain.

Note: ECi Technical Support does not have the resources to access or configure your firewall. Only your network personnel, Internet service provider (ISP), or outside consultant can verify whether adding the new IP address is necessary and make the required change. If you or your network/ISP technician have additional questions, contact your ECi Technical Support team: log on to support.ECiSolutions.com, email ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com, or call 800-366-4778.

ECi Operations plans to perform its migration tasks during evening hours on various weekends in August. We will notify you via email when your product's maintenance is scheduled, and provide further instructions.

For more details, see the message, ECi Plans Data Center Migration To Texas
(www.DDMS.com/support/massfax/dcmigration.htm).

ECi Launches Redesigned Web Site August 8 (08/08/08)

eCommerce Industries, Inc. (ECi) announces the launch of its newly-redesigned Web site:
www.ecisolutions.com, effective August 8, 2008 (08/08/08).

As ECi’s Web development team continues to build out the new site, it will become an invaluable resource for our current customers who want to learn more about cost-saving and growth-enhancing technology solutions for their business.

An ECi DDMS page on the new ECiSolutions.com site The URL for the site is the same — but that’s almost the only thing that users will recognize from the old site.The new ECiSolutions.com has been completely re-built from the ground up. Its architecture reflects the latest industry trends, techniques and design standards and incorporates new technologies to make the site fast and responsive.

For the last several months, ECi has been implementing a comprehensive re-branding effort across all of its communication and media channels. The Web site is the final and most-comprehensive piece of this major marketing project. The revamped site’s improved interface and sleek new design reflect the new look and tone of the company.

Deb Coulson, Senior Vice President of Marketing for ECi, says, “The new Web site will be a fundamental source of information for independent dealers and distributors within our industries and a powerful tool for brand strengthening and awareness. This is a very exciting time for ECi and everyone involved with our company — both current clients and prospective ones.”

Andy Ballard, Director of Business Development for ECi, says that the new Web site will benefit current customers in many ways.“With the new site, our customers will be able to research additional tools to help them manage their growth and take on additional opportunities. Whenever they want to expand into a new market or their customers begin to ask them to provide a new service, they can go to ECiSolutions.com and find features to help them meet those challenges. The ECi Web site is the primary place to gather information about our breadth of business system offerings.”

For the first time, all of ECi’s solutions will be presented on one cohesive site. Dealers, distributors and resellers can go to ECiSolutions.com and find extensive information about all of the company’s product offerings and the industries it serves.

In the coming months, users will find many more additions to the site, including additional content, discounts, special offers and other new site features.

Note: In a future phase of Web site redesign, all content regarding ECi DDMS software and solutions is set to be added to the ECiSolutions.com site. While information on all ECi products and services are on the new site, for now a great deal of software documentation, training, and support resources remain on the DDMS site
(www.DDMS.com).

DDMS Client Works on Windows Vista Business Edition

DDMS 8.15 has been enhanced to ensure compatibility with the Microsoft Windows Vista® Business Edition¹ operating system for client workstations.

If you are loading the software for the first time² on a new client workstation running Vista, use the new installation wizard and select Install Client.

¹ Windows Vista Business Edition is not a server-caliber operating system; it is meant only for client workstations.
Vista Home editions are not business-caliber operating systems. DDMS software will not install on Vista Home (neither Basic nor Premium).

²If you previously loaded DDMS software on a Vista workstation when it was not yet supported, please contact support for assistance in uninstalling DDMS from that client to avoid potential problems with the software update.

Our updated DDMS System Requirements page reflects the new operating system
(www.DDMS.com/products/win_requirements.htm).

ECi DDMS Version 8.15 is available on request: log in to submit a ticket for the latest software online at support.ECiSolutions.com. Or email your request to ddmssupport@ecisolutions.com, including your DDMS account number, contact name, company name, shipping address, and phone number.

For more details, see Announcing DDMS Version 8.15.20 Major Release
(www.DDMS.com/support/release/whatsnew/dd815.htm).

ECinteractive Lets Users Pick Department Per Line

In your back-end system, do you have Customer accounts set up with multiple departments? Just for them, the ECinteractive Admin Control Panel has a new option, previously exclusive to is.D-Force 2.

In the Features page of Customer Settings, you can check the box to Allow Multi-Department Ordering.

Those users can specify a different department for any line item in the shopping Cart (as shown below) and in QuickOrder. On your back-end system, the resulting order splits into separate tickets for each department.

You can specify a Department in the field under the price for each line.

To learn more about the latest ECinteractive features, see your ECinteractive Admin Control Panel, or go to www.DDMS.com.

For answers to frequently asked questions, see ECinteractive FAQs
(www.DDMS.com/support/doc/ecinteractive.htm).

To get your ECinteractive site up, email ECi Sales (info@ecisolutions.com) or call 866-374-3221.

Furniture Manufacturers Acknowledge Exceptions

No more manually comparing line-by-line from your original purchase order to your furniture manufacturer's acknowledgment, thanks to the release of DDMS 8.15. With the newly revamped Communicate P/O window, new exceptions reporting options, automated reconciliation, and streamlined purging, you can manage just the items that require your attention.

The Communicate P/O window has been reorganized and streamlined. When you select the Communicate action code from Purchase Order Entry and then select the Receive action code in the Communicate P/O window, you'll notice that "Download" now replaces "Receive" in several places. We've moved certain options from the (F2) Vendor Info and (F5) Acknowledgement tab to where they make the most sense: 1) The (F6) Acknowledgement Summary tab displays any unprocessed acknowledgements, where you can set filters and limits, customize the column display, delete, re-compare, print preview, link to P/O History, and more. 2) The (F7) Acknowledge Detail tab allows you to fine-tune the columns displayed, sorts, toggle line specials (off by default), toggle line exceptions (on by default), and more.

The Acknowledgment Summary tab of the new Communicate P/O window

New printing options offer greater flexibility and ease of use. Print only exceptions on their acknowledgement report, or print all items. Reprint an acknowledgment without having to re-request it from the manufacturer. You'll see better details on the exceptions report, such as the original quantity ordered vs. the acknowledged quantity, billing and shipping address, item options, and line item exceptions. And while you set the acknowledgement's default printer and report selector in (LGC) Furniture Order Entry parameters, now the user's Furniture Profile Settings can override it. Also, you can override it at the purchase order level when you communicate P/Os and receive acknowledgements.
Automated reconciliation saves you valuable time for managing your installations and deliveries. Let the system automatically update the cost on the purchase order and ticket for items that were acknowledged without any exceptions. Let the system automatically reconcile exceptions including item numbers not found on the P/O, changed item numbers, and discrepancies in cost, quantity, ship date, option, invalid ticket status, or line already acknowledged or received.
Purge acknowledgements from the (SGG) screen. This screen now features a 30/60/90 day prompt for purging, with blank defaulting to 90.

For detailed instructions, see the PSN Documentation for your manufacturer (www.DDMS.com/support/doc/psn.htm). Once you have set up your communication parameters, see Phase III: Setting Up and Using Furniture Acknowledgments
(www.DDMS.com/Resources/Doc/PSN/furnackpsn.pdf)

For more details, see Announcing DDMS Version 8.15.20 Major Release
(www.DDMS.com/support/release/whatsnew/dd815.htm).

How to Handle Kimball Office, National Surcharge

In response to soaring energy and material costs, furniture manufacturers Kimball Office and National recently announced a surcharge of 1 percent of net purchase effective with orders placed July 7, 2008.

Meanwhile, you must still create your purchase orders with the current pricing that does not include the 1 percent surcharge. If you attempt to increase your pricing, you may encounter an issue when transmitting affected purchase orders to those manufacturers.

Why? Both Kimball Office and National have “expected pricing” built into their order fulfillment systems. The 1 percent surcharge, however, is not calculated into their systems' expected pricing matrices. Therefore, if you transmit a purchase order with the 1 percent surcharge included, the Kimball Office and National order fulfillment system will reject your purchase order due to the discrepancy with their systems' expected pricing.

How should you handle the 1 percent surcharge pricing in DDMS office furniture edition? The best way to account for the surcharge is to use Change Mode, as follows:

Create purchase orders to Kimball Office and National as usual in DDMS:

Create the ticket (salesorder) in Order Entry.
Create the purchase order(s) from the Order Totals tab in Order Entry.

Transmit purchase orders as usual to Kimball Office and National via the ECi Private Supply Network (PSN):

Go to Purchase Order Entry.
In the Action Code field, select Communicate.
In the Vendor Type field, select Kimball or National
Select Purchase Order.

After you have received the acknowledgement, use the Change Mode of Order Entry in DDMS to modify the cost by 1 percent:

Note: It is important that you perform these steps before you receive purchase orders. Once a purchase order has been received, updating cost on the sales order will not update cost on the purchase order.

In Order Entry, go to the Action Code field, and select Change.
Enter the Ticket number attached to the purchase order for Kimball Office or National. (There is no need to limit to specific purchase orders.)
In the Enter Furniture Limits dialog box that appears, click OK.
Once the items have displayed, go to the Order Entry drop-down field and select Modify Order.
When the Modify Order screen appears, select the Vendors Kimball Office and/or National (all items associated with Kimball Office and/or National will be highlighted on the screen).
Next, click on the arrow next to Modify and select Cost from the drop down menu.
Now click on Adjust and select Percentage.
Enter the number 1 in the Change By box.
Click the Apply button.
Click the Update button. All costs for the selected items will then be adjusted to reflect a 1.0 percent increase.
On the Change Tab of Order Entry, click the Accept button.

If, by mistake, you do not update the cost as recommended in the steps above, you can still correct the purchase order cost through the Post PO function in Accounts Payable.

ECi continues to work closely with furniture manufacturers to ensure that the process of communicating your order data is as smooth as possible.

DDMS 8.15 Enhances Price Plan Item Edit, Limits

Enhancements for Quick Edit and revamped Limits in the Customer Price Plans application are included in DDMS 8.15 and higher.

A new task below Edit an Existing Price Plan is the Quick Item Edit, which lets you specify the item, view a detail grid of all the price plans where the item exists, make changes, save, and print or export. You no longer have to navigate through all the limits options just to inquire on a single item. All matching detail lines from all price plans immediately appear on one screen to edit as you wish.
Previously, it was difficult to report all the price plans for a customer; it was a task of limiting to four different slots from the Customer Order Entry tab. But now, the Edit an Existing Price Plan task lets you set limits to pull all price plans for an account, a group of accounts, or salesperson(s). It will find all all the contracts for the customer(s) or salesperson(s) specified, and immediately let you edit the detail lines on one screen.
Also, the special Vendor limits for Mfg, Whl, and Cat were moved out of the Item category, into their own groups. New limits include “Exclude Price Plan X” and "SpecialtyType."

For detailed instructions, see Customer Price Plans
(www.DDMS.com/Resources/Support/faq/customer/CustPricePlan.pdf)

For more details, see Announcing DDMS Version 8.15.20 Major Release
(www.DDMS.com/support/release/whatsnew/dd815.htm).

Five Reports Help Capitalize on Monthly Trends

Month-end procedures are required to establish your company’s financial status as of a given date. However, you may be missing out on an opportunity to analyze your sales activity and identify trends, risk areas and opportunities for growth.

Your month-end procedures may only be standard fare: print invoices, create finance charges, journalize your databases in preparation for the coming month, and print reports for sales tax, trial balances, and cost of goods sold.

That's all very well and good, but consider how much more powerful your information could be, if you run these five additional reports at month-end:

The Exceptions Report, also known as the Margin Report or Bad Margin Report, shows items sold with profit margins that fall outside of a specified range of margins. Use it as a basis for correcting database or costing problems. This report can help you protect your bottom line by providing checks and balances to monitor your costs or even your salespeople. This improves your company profit and ensures no mistakes are made on salesperson commissions.
An Income Statement, also known as a Profit and Loss (P&L) statement, is a financial statement for companies that indicates how revenue is transformed
into net income. Profit and loss reports also show cost of goods. These reports
can be used by accounting personnel, CFOs, and upper management. Use these reports to make better budgets and business decisions based on fact not supposition. For example, you’ll know not to make capital expenditures in January if that has been your worst month over the past two years.
A Balance Sheet or statement of financial position is a summary of a person’s or organization’s assets, liabilities and ownership equity on a specific date, such as the end of its financial year. A balance sheet is often described as a snapshot of a company’s financial condition. For example, if you have contracts with local schools for school supplies, you might think August is a good month for your business. However, the reality is that you don’t get paid for these contracts until 60 or 90 days later. The balance sheet provides this information allowing you to budget and plan accordingly.
The Comparative Sales Analysis is a new SQL report that compares sales figures from two separate date ranges. The data is separated by account, showing the change in each customer's activity between the two date ranges.
The Customer Sales Trends is another new SQL report that shows sales and margin information for the previous twelve months, arranged by customer account number. The report displays the data broken down by month, as well as the total.

For detailed instructions and sample reports, see Getting More From Month-End
(www.DDMS.com/Resources/Support/faq/period/permonthend.pdf), the handout from our ECi Empowerment 2008 national user's meeting.

CCH Taxing Helps Win, Maintain National Accounts

In DDMS 8.15 and higher, you can take advantage of the CCH Taxing feature, and use just the right tax rate according to the buyer's tax jurisdiction. This can be especially helpful to win and serve big customers or national accounts with multiple ship-to addresses.

As you may know, tax rates vary — not only from state to state and city to city, but may also within an individual zip code or city limit. Some jurisdictions even tax different products and services differently by category. For instance, certain coffee, sweetener, snack, paper, school supply, educational material, computer media and hardware products may be taxable in one state but not another.

The CCH Taxing Service provides you greater flexibility of maintaining tax information for customers nationwide — without having to do the state-by-state research yourself. You can subscribe to services from CCH Group (cchgroup.com), to update your DDMS Server's tax tables on a periodic or monthly basis. The CCH Taxing feature allows you to set up individual items so that they can be taxed correctly by category, within each tax jurisdiction.

For more information on authorizing CCH Taxing and subscribing to CCH Tax Services, please contact ECi Sales (sales@eci2.com or 877-957-4672).

For detailed instructions, see your DDMS 8.15 online help topic, "About CCH Taxing," under Customer Concepts.

For more details, see Announcing DDMS Version 8.15.20 Major Release
(www.DDMS.com/support/release/whatsnew/dd815.htm).

Comments? Tips for fellow dealers? Success stories? Ideas to improve ECi DDMS Technical Support? Email keyops@eci2.com

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Need tech support? Contact us online or email support or call 800-366-4778

For other ECi contacts, see the Contact Us page.

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