Thursday, May 14, 2009
CONNECTIT: ConnectIT-Sage v1.10.1 released
UPDATE: replaced the files for the SDO (Sage Data Objects) which allow ConnectIT to integrate with Sage 50 Accounts 2009 for the revised ones released by Sage 12/5/2009. This revision allows up to 6 simultaneous SDO connections without the need to purchase additional Sage licenses.
FIXED: discrepencies seen in the Tax on Sage Purchase Order line items - ConnectIT was using the selling price tax value, not the cost price tax value when writing Purchase Order information to Sage.
FIXED: a tax amount for Carriage may show on a Purchase Order even though the ConnectIT Configuration had the Purchase Document Carriage Tax Code set as "T0" - ConnectIT was ignoring this setting when creating Purchase Order documents, the QuoteWerks document tax rate was always applied to Purchase Order carriage.
FIXED: Conversion from string "" to type 'Boolean' is not valid error when running ConnectIT - this could occur if the user had not opened ConnectIT Configuration to check the new settings added in version 1.10.0 and pressed "Save".
After more than 2 years of having no bugs in a production release, the ConnectIT development team were mortified to find out that a bug had been found in the software. As is stereotypically the case, the ConnectIT software development team have a love for fast food (second only to their love for programming!). By way of self-inflicted punishment for the bug (which was ultimately a school boy error in the code) they are banning themselves from fast food for 1 month!!! (I just hope they survive! - Ed.)
For more information on ConnectIT-Sage and the other products in the ConnectIT suite of time and labour saving products, please see the ConnectIT website here, contact your QuoteWerks / ConnectIT reseller or email info@connectit-online.co.uk
Sunday, May 10, 2009
QUOTEWERKS: free example report
We use the report as part of our QuoteWerks Reporting training course which we have successfully delivered to QuoteWerks users both in person and worldwide over the internet using gotomeeting screen sharing software. If you are a new user to QuoteWerks or would like some advanced training to unleash the power of QuoteWerks business intelligence reporting, then please get in touch now on +44(0) 1782 564252, +44(0) 844 357 7360 or email info@hilltopsit.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from you!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
QUOTEWERKS: v4.0 build 45 released
New Features
1. When creating Sales Opportunities in MS CRM, QuoteWerks now supports custom CRM Opportunity Rating Codes in addition to the standard codes of "Hot", "Warm", and "Cold". [Service Release: 45.01]
2. Added support for Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager (BCM). The integration includes:
a) The currently open Outlook BCM Contact or Account can be pulled into the quote.
b) The Business Contacts and Accounts can be searched to find Contacts or Accounts to pull into the quote.
c) When searching for contacts, subfolders within the specified Outlook BCM Accounts or Contacts folder are included in the search.
d) QuoteWerks will create/update linked documents (as Outlook journal entries) in Outlook BCM.
e) QuoteWerks will create/update a follow up call (as an Outlook appointment) in Outlook BCM.
f) QuoteWerks will create/update Sales Opportunities (as an Outlook BCM opportunity) in Outlook BCM.
g) The QuoteWerks DataLink feature can be used with Outlook BCM enabling you to retrieve information like Terms and shipping method from the Outlook BCM contact into the quote.
h) When printing, QuoteWerks can retrieve data from Outlook BCM and include it in the printed output.
3. Online Ordering module can place online orders with Ingram Micro (USA and Canada) from within QuoteWerks (requires Real-time and Online Ordering modules). Order items from a single order, or combine items from multiple QuoteWerks orders into a single Ingram Micro order. This will save you the time and hassle of calling your Ingram Micro sales rep and reading each part number, quantity, and price to him/her. Another benefit is that the order date and Ingram Micro sales order number will automatically be stored with your QuoteWerks order for reference. When placing Ingram Micro online orders electronically through QuoteWerks, there is an option that will let you place the order on hold. This will afford you an opportunity to review the order with your distributor rep and negotiate pricing without the time consuming process of reading to your sales rep all the part numbers, quantities, ship to location, etc. No more calling your distributor sales rep only to reach voice mail (understandable - sales reps can't be on the phone with more than one customer at a time) and then have to remember try again later in the day to place the order - or wait for a call back! This is truly the best of both worlds - automation with sales rep service! Supports government and educational pricing.
4. Online Ordering module can place online orders with SYNNEX (USA and Canada) from within QuoteWerks (requires Real-time and Online Ordering modules). Order items from a single order, or combine items from multiple QuoteWerks orders into a single SYNNEX order. This will save you the time and hassle of calling your SYNNEX sales rep and reading each part number, quantity, and price to him/her. Another benefit is that the order date and SYNNEX sales order number will automatically be stored with your QuoteWerks order for reference. When placing SYNNEX online orders electronically through QuoteWerks, there is an option that will let you place the order on hold. This will afford you an opportunity to review the order with your distributor rep and negotiate pricing without the time consuming process of reading to your sales rep all the part numbers, quantities, ship to location, etc. No more calling your distributor sales rep only to reach voice mail (understandable - sales reps can't be on the phone with more than one customer at a time) and then have to remember try again later in the day to place the order - or wait for a call back! This is truly the best of both worlds - automation with sales rep service! Supports vendor promotion, government, and educational pricing.
5. When no documents are open, the FileNew and FileOpen menus now have shortcut keys CTRL-N and CTRL-O respectively.
6. The Bundles window (ProductsBundles menu), Configurations window (ProductsConfigurator menu), Required Items window (ProductsRequired Items menu), Optional Items window (ProductsOptional Items menu), and Substitute Items window (ProductsSubstitute Items menu) are now all resizable.
7. Added macro fields &DH_&SoldToFirstName, &DH_&SoldToLastName, &DH_&ShipToFirstName, &DH_&ShipToLastName, &DH_&BillToFirstName, and &DH_&BillToLastName.
Misc Features
1. The fields on the SoldTo/ShipTo tab, SaleInfo, Notes, and Custom tabs now limit the number of characters that can be entered based on the size of the field in the database. [Service Release: 45.01]
2. The Required Items window (ProductsRequired Items menu), Optional Items window (ProductsOptional Items menu), and Substitute Items window (ProductsSubstitute Items menu) have been re-designed.
3. When creating a Bundle, the maximum length of the Bundle name was increased from 40 to 255 characters.
4. Added new Technical support Debug Command for changing seed numbers.
Fixes
1. For MSCRM 1.2 users, when closing an opportunity, the Actual Close Date was not being populated. [Service Release: 45.01]
2. If the FileConvert to Lost Sale menu was selected for a document that did not have a contact linked to it, an error would be displayed. [Service Release: 45.01]
3. When doing a FileSave As and choosing "Assign new Project #", a new project number was not being generated. [Service Release: 45.01]
4. In the Layout Designer when inserting fields, if the CustomNumber03, CustomNumber04, or CustomNumber05 labels (In the DocumentItems or Products tables) were renamed, the label name did not display next to the field like "CustomNumber03 (Size)". [Service Release: 45.01]
5. When editing a Management Report on the Filter tab, DocumentItems macros like &LineAttributesOption were being listed as available fields. [Service Release: 45.01]
6. For SalesLogix users, issue with German / European decimal and date formatting when creating SalesLogix Opportunities.
7. On some machines, Would receive "Run-time error '339': Component 'comctl32.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid" when downloading the price file from SYNNEX FTP site.
8. In the Open Export Module wizard, the title bar would repeat the step like "- Step 1: Step1".
Users with valid UMP subscriptions can download and install this latest QuoteWerks build from by clicking the link.
For new users and for users looking for additional help with their QuoteWerks setup or require training, consultancy or development services, then please don't hesitate to contact us on +44(0) 1782 564252.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
BLOG: QuoteWerks award press release - Steve's photo shoot!
Says Steve: "This is the third consecutive year that Hilltops IT has been given the QuoteWerks Top 10 International Sales Partner award. With an increasingly large team and an increasing portfolio of QuoteWerks training courses, products which work alongside QuoteWerks, QuoteWerks report layouts, QuoteWerks development utility add-ons and the Hilltops IT team's individual QuoteWerks consultancy skills, etc, we're certainly aiming to make it for a fourth consecutive year in 2009!"
Hilltops IT has been approached by Vistage - chief executives organisation to do some joint marketing of the achievement. You can see the pictures below; the press release is expected to be issued towards the end of the month and sent to various local and national magazines and newspapers.
Friday, January 16, 2009
SUPPORT: Fortnightly digest - what's happening at Hilltops IT and in the world of computer software
It's been an exciting but busy couple of weeks on the support desk as clients come back after Christmas with new ideas on what they'd like to do with their software systems. In particular we have had several enquiries about QuoteWerks reporting and ACT! customisation. Most companies seem to have taken a good two weeks off over Christmas and seemingly this has given users a chance to reflect on their systems, how they use them and what more they'd like to get out of them. The great thing and the products and solutions we offer for contact managment, sales quoting and sales order processing - QuoteWerks, ACT! by Sage and Microsoft Dynamics CRM in particular - is that there's plenty of depth to them for clients to be able to move the software along with their business and not be constrained.
There's also still been plenty of interest in the business perfomance report for QuoteWerks we have been sending out. This free report summarises sales by Sales Rep by Month and details the invoiced amount, profit, number of invoices and average sales value for the year January to December.
- Compare how month-on-month sales fluctuate through the year.
- Compare your individual performance to colleagues.
- Compare your individual performance to the company as a whole.
- You can also use this report to compare year-on-year performance!
To get your copy, please email support@hilltopsit.co.uk with the code "HITBLOGREP" in the title. We will get a copy straight out to you.
For further information on our software support services, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on +44(0) 844 357 7360 or +44(0) 1782 564252 or email support@hilltopsit.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from you!
Friday, January 2, 2009
SUPPORT: Fortnightly digest - what's happening at Hilltops IT and in the world of computer software
It has been a quiet couple of weeks over the Christmas period, so not much to report. The main focus has been on reviewing our internal processes and use of our software systems - it makes a change from looking at how our clients can best use the software!!! :-) We are also working on publishing some additional articles for the ConnectIT Knowledgebase which have only previously been available internally. This will help end users and partner resellers alike.
We have released an interim version of ConnectIT-Sage to work for a particular client's requirements. The feature - the ability to select which Suppliers (Vendors) a document is created for - will be rolled into a future build release for all users later in the year.
Finally, we have been involved in reviewing the final drafts of the new Hilltops IT website branding. We're really excited about this - in the coming weeks and months there are going to be some additional tools introduced so that we can help support our clients even better than we do already!
Industry News
Sage CRM Solutions 2010 Strategy
A very interesting insight into Sage CRM Solutions' thoughts on CRM and CRM solutions generally, plus future development roadmap plans.
INTRODUCTION
Since the inception of CRM, the balance of power has shifted dramatically between buyers and sellers, with the rate of change accelerating in the past five years. Today, companies must offer extremely cost-efficient, differentiable customer experiences to acquire and retain profitable customer relationships. In our highly globalized economy, CRM is critical to enable businesses of every shape and size to fulfill the needs and expectations of their customers.
See the full article here.
For further information on our software support services, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on +44(0) 844 357 7360 or +44(0) 1782 564252 or email support@hilltopsit.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from you!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
QUOTEWERKS: Free report showing your business' performance
Then get this free QuoteWerks report to summarise your business' performance.
This free report summarises sales by Sales Rep by Month and details the invoiced amount, profit, number of invoices and average sales value for the year January to December.
- Compare how month-on-month sales fluctuate through the year.
- Compare your individual performance to colleagues.
- Compare your individual performance to the company as a whole.
- You can also use this report to compare year-on-year performance!
To get your copy, please email support@hilltopsit.co.uk with the code "HITBLOGREP" in the title. We will get a copy straight out to you.
QUOTEWERKS RESELLERS: would you like this report to redistribute to your client base? Email us your logo and we'll rebrand the report for you. All completely free of charge!
Email support@hilltopsit.co.uk now!
For further assistance with QuoteWerks document and report layout authoring, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on 0844 357 7360 or 01782 721301 or email sales@hilltopsit.co.uk as well as having a host of report layout examples that we have developed over the years, we offer very competitive hourly rates for building layouts and reports specific to your business's requirements.
We look forward to hearing from you!
QUOTEWERKS: Business Intelligence reports
Please find below a couple of formulae you could add as page footers to your QuoteWerks management reports to give them an added bit of professionalism...
Just open your QuoteWerks document layout, click the formula button, give the formula a name (i.e. "PAGE_X_OF_Y"), click OK and copy/paste the formula in.
PAGE_X_OF_Y:
"Page "+text(sys->page)+" of "+text(sys->page_count)
DATE_TIME:
"Report Produced: "+text(day(sys->date))+"/"+text(month(sys->date))+"/"+first(text(year(sys->date)),2)+last(text(year(sys->date)),3)+" "+text(sys->time)PRODUCED_BY:"Report Produced By: "+application->loggedinusername+" - "+application->loggedinuseremail
For further assistance with QuoteWerks document and report layout authoring, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on 0844 357 7360 or 01782 721301 or email sales@hilltopsit.co.uk as well as having a host of report layout examples that we have developed over the years, we offer very competitive hourly rates for building layouts and reports specific to your business's requirements.
We look forward to hearing from you!
QUOTEWERKS: Getting the address on documents to "look right"
With all the fields available - Address1, Address2, Address3, City, State, Zip and Country - an actual address might be held in just a few or all seven of these fields.
Then try these formulae - just open your QuoteWerks document layout, click the formula button, give the formula a name (e.g. "SOLDTO_ADDRESS"), click OK and copy/paste the formula in.
Sold To:
documentheaders->soldtoaddress1+(.if.(documentheaders->soldtoaddress1="".or.documentheaders->soldtoaddress2="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->soldtoaddress2+addline(documentheaders->soldtoaddress3)+addline(documentheaders->soldtocity)+addline(documentheaders->soldtostate+(.if.(documentheaders->soldtostate="".or.documentheaders->soldtopostalcode="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->soldtopostalcode)+addline(documentheaders->soldtocountry)
Ship To:
documentheaders->shiptoaddress1+(.if.(documentheaders->shiptoaddress1="".or.documentheaders->shiptoaddress2="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->shiptoaddress2+addline(documentheaders->shiptoaddress3)+addline(documentheaders->shiptocity)+addline(documentheaders->shiptostate+(.if.(documentheaders->shiptostate="".or.documentheaders->shiptopostalcode="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->shiptopostalcode)+addline(documentheaders->shiptocountry)
Bill To:
documentheaders->billtoaddress1+(.if.(documentheaders->billtoaddress1="".or.documentheaders->billtoaddress2="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->billtoaddress2+addline(documentheaders->billtoaddress3)+addline(documentheaders->billtocity)+addline(documentheaders->billtostate+(.if.(documentheaders->billtostate="".or.documentheaders->billtopostalcode="").then."".else.", ")+documentheaders->billtopostalcode)+addline(documentheaders->billtocountry)
For further assistance with QuoteWerks document and report layout authoring, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on 0844 357 7360 or 01782 721301 or email sales@hilltopsit.co.uk as well as having a host of report layout examples that we have developed over the years, we offer very competitive hourly rates for building layouts and reports specific to your business's requirements.
We look forward to hearing from you!


