Includes Database changes, you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO C9 DATA & CLOUD STORAGE

This version of c9 bakes in a critical change in technical approach for us for storing information in your c9 and how it is backed up into the cloud backup service we provide.

More and more dealers are using c9 as a generic document store as well as taking advantage of other data intensive features like pictures of units for website advertising.

We are are fast approaching limits on what we can store because of this.

We have solved this issue by creating a 'hybrid' model. Key data elements which we identify as 'archival/historical' we will offload out of you c9 and into our cloud service. The architecture:

• reduces size of your locally installed database by putting historical stuff in the cloud
• dramatically reduces our cloud storage requirements because we are not duplicating massive data store with overnight and monthly data saves
• the solution is near invisible for your c9. If you go to access a historical / archived element it will seamlessly fetch from cloud just like it would have if it was still stored in your local c9. The only constraint is for historical queries you must be online
• full restores of c9 will now be significantly faster as data flagged as stored in cloud will no longer need to be downloaded / restored

Initially we have identified the following items for archival

• emailed attachments, like invoices older than 6 months
• attachments and web images on units sold 6 months ago
• attachments on workshop jobs invoiced 6 months ago
• unused web images initially uploaded 6 months ago

We will monitor rollout of this solution over coming months and may make further adjustments to what we store locally in your c9. This architecture opens up some new opportunities to allow c9 to be used for document / receipt storage etc. But we will assess initial impacts of this change first before exploring other possibilities.

Other tweaks and fixes

• internal tweaks for things we use in c9 for emailing our invoices : was broken last two months. Should now be fixed.
• Reconciliation report : was not including recently added gl code for payment gateway clearing (1-1400-xxxx) so was often misreporting txns involving these as problematic. Now fixed
• ABA file creation. In event of a file creation error, like invalid path, c9 would try and plow on with ABA file create anyway. Result was a null pointer crash. Now just report error and bail
• Mojo Magician. Would show wrong price, showing trade price when it should show dealer price.
• website magician check . on dealer websites not working for a number of brands. Now fixed. Specifically Suzuki but possibly also impacting Gas imports, BCE, ORI, Ficeda, Motonat and Cassons
• Minor typo fix on supplier return screen
• tillpay tweaks. Tweaks to help highlight possibly fraudulent txns
  • Highlight 3DS Result if result is adverse
  • Display issuer bank + country. Highlight if it isn't australia
• Part number matching.  Tweak logic used to try and match polaris parts with extaneous 'P' in part number and prefix trim which is in place for some dealers who migrated from competitor system where that system requires a 3 letter prefix at front of part. Previously c9 will trim prefix then apply the polaris trim rule ontop of that. These two tests need to be independent on original user input.
• View job : show part no on a separate field below list so it can be right clicked and copied
• Mojo EPC importer : subtle bug with importing multiple units which share diagrams; the second model it would encounter with same diagram would fail to import diagram. This possibly will explain recent issues with missing engine components. Root cause is recent changes to improve memory usage of EPC import was misimplemented for Mojo

Includes Database changes, you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Statement on time bonus / late penalty bug fixes

For some time c9 has included a feature where AR statements will offer a discount bonus for ontime payment / penalty for late payment.  There were rare but impactful edge cases and issues with how this was originally implemented; in part because of limitations in v4 / v5.1 debtor implementation. Original logic was carried over in v5.2 but better approaches are now possible.

The core issue is that c9 originally would assess if a condition is met by tallying up payment type txns in condition test period (i.e. calendar month after statement is created) and comparing to the figure on the statement. The main issue with this is the txns in question could be closed some other way : either by recording payments that backdate even those txns and / or manipulation or deletion of the txns on statement in first place.

This version of c9 implements a newer / better algorithm.

• Look at open txns and amount still owing on them at the start of the test period
• On those same txns note balance owing as of end of the test period
• The difference between the above the 'paydown' use this to compute test discount/penalty conditions instead of txns explicitly in the condition period.
• Before apply above, compare to what was originally recorded for open txn tally to recalculate amount owing. Ignore increases; amortize down, to zero if needed any varied decreases. so for example if original bal on open txns that make up a penalty on a statement are reduced  ( or removed), reduce the condition and effect accordingly first.

Other Tweaks and fixes

• warranty job invoice : was incorrectly printing warranty alert on jobs which had been picked up as warranty but then cancelled and revert to normal job. Now fixed
• Toro edit part : F6 change part with toro would not work correctly with toro's unusual part numbering where dashes are relevant. Attempts to save a part could result in wrong part being updated with toro only when contending with dash part number rules. Now fixed
• Date range widget: would misbehave on some screens, such as create BAS. When clicking on BAS, date widget would reapply the selected 'shortcut' option overriding any dates manually inputted first. Fixed to not do this.
• Terms and conditions tweak: to help with transitioning new owners of a shop we need new owners to accept T&C. The logic in c9 that validates this was a bit broken. Tidied (check T&C version and acceptance).
• Parts on order on deal. For parts where preferred supplier is not a franchise, when deal is saved to be ordered later, the later ordering would incorrectly place parts on order under the OEM, not the preferred supplier. Now fixed
• i-motor : add accessible option to allow all units to be exported in setup screen
• attachments : make sure save attachment works via c9 remote. Disable open option if accessed via remote
• staff report: changing staff code would push result into aggregated <unknown> staff classifier in report. Tweaks so that the report will still partially disambiguate labour figures . Timesheeting records connect be connected to labour records but charged labour can be reported with original staff code.
• Scheduler : allow access to view job from modify scheduled task screen which in turn lets you access reprint job card
• Statements
  • Option to disable printing recent changes that print print statements where balance is zero but there are txns in period
  • Change wording for statements which are zero. Previous message about account being in credit is confusing / misleading
• Workshop invoices : option to show pricing as ex GST to accommodate a NSW insurer
• Modify deal : make sure an allocated plate on a new unit isn't on an existing deal or invoice already. Avoid incorrectly reused plates on deals.
• auto reconciliation tweaks
  • Nag user when they fail to input a supplier
  • When auto reconciliation triggers provide option to provide a more detailed breakdown to root cause
• OEMs on website. Change name and order
  • Previously could only be done by Barney now options in website tab in edit franchise to change name as displayed on website and change order relative to other oems.

C9 websites can now display information on part alternatives.

When you view a part part will show you list of alternative part numbers. Useful for finding stocked aftermarket alternatives etc

This new feature is disabled by default as some dealers alternatives database is either inaccurate or confidential and shouldn't be effectively published on dealer websites.

If you are interested in this feature, contact us to enable.

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Tweaks and fixes

• Statements print zero balance statements if there are txns in the reporting period.
• clocking bug fix when clocked onto a wait type overnight the wait type is no longer selectable on the next day until you clockoff / clock onto something else. Now fixed
• Payment gateway reconcile  : grant access to other generic txn types like merchant fees while reconciling tillpay/paypal txns
• Warranty export : ignore case when grouping makes. e.g. Stihl and STIHL are same.
• Unit sale invoice : print customer email addr
• Aged payables : provide a second tally line that tallies older aging. e.g. for DUE shows the tally of due and older overdue figures
• Import price file : a while ago a supplier reformat option was added to reformat part numbers the way they should be, with spaces and dashes to make them more readable to people: something that OEM's one by one have forgotten how to do. The facility in c9 would cause huge performance penalties on price file import if most/all of the part numbers were fine as is to the point for some database setups the import would freeze entirely. This version optimises the affected code and import is now same speed irrespective of whether or not part number re-format is in play.
• List unit on website : web order option now allows -ve values so you can make sure a given unit appears early in the page. previously could only input +ve values which push unit towards end of the web page.
• Unit stock take report :  show count # of units in each category
• Triumph EPC: working again : more changes on triumph website
• Emails : new option to send a copy of emails to originator; adding the From: email addr to email CC recipient list.
• Miner: query stock attributes
• Suzuki EPC import : improvements to cope with rate limit logic in Suzuki API

Ongoing issues with epc import. Recent changes to help with Triumph broke all epc importing : mashing results into a single diagram.

Now fixed here

PPSR lookup timeout.  It appears that PPSR service c9 uses has slowed down alot and is bumping into c9's default 10 second timeout.  Modified c9 to increase timeout to 45 seconds. One further tweak which will be finished off today : part of PPSR check will send original PPSR pdf report to sales email address to help cope with scenario where PPSR isn't delivered bc of network issue

New report for till / paypal  : Business -> reports -> Gateway Rec.  Payment Gateway Reconciliation / Journal.  Does what it says on the packet. Similar to reconciliation screen but provides a heap more detail / information. Showing gateway txns and their application within c9.

Bugfix release

Fiche Import bugfix

Recent changes to fiche import to allow editing of models gets sideways for epc diagrams where default epc model name is excessively long, >= ~ 70 characters.  Mainly impacts triumph importing resulting in import being badly scrambled.  Fixed in this version.

Also fixed another smaller long term issue where reimport would blat 'visible' setting on an epc unit making a unit previously flagged as hidden visible again

Add transaction : txn selector issues

Recent version of c9 included modifications to verify that selected txn list is what a newly minted payment actually links to contending with simultaneous activity occuring in other copies of c9.  This change was not properly implemented and didn't handle case where something like a supplier credit is unlinked and then bundled into a collection of txns to settle. Now fixed and working for this case too.

Other tweaks

• Local EPC import : a couple of tweaks for importing EPC in a very specific excel  / folder structure. This is targeting a very specific non motorcycle / small engine client of ours.  So of no interest to most everyone else. Documented here for completeness.

Includes database changes. You need to log terminals out during upgrade

Payment invoice selection / allocation

fix a subtle bug with simultaneous adding txns and payments across multiple terminals. A terminal processing a payment would see a simultaneously added txn in select invoice to pay screen and let the operator select it but at time of saving the txn this newly added txn would be ignored for purposes of allocation of payment. This is potentially problematic for dealers who rely on payment allocation to reconcile especially large and complex AR clients where repair to reconcile is made in-situ during reconciliation effort. This version includes a bunch of changes and guards to protect against this .  One key change is a guard to double check on construction of the txn to save to database that allocations created match exactly what the user selected and to fail the txn and reload any cached changes from database to retry : picking up any simultaneous work done on other terminals.

Other Tweaks and fixes

• EPC Changes
  • Polaris EPC : was crashing on importing a dodgy epc record. Now fixed
  • Triumph EPC : triumph model names would resolve in an ambiguous way mashing two different bikes together. This version changes how model names are rationalised.
  • Beta EPC : now working again
  • EPC model names : allow model names to be modified and for the modifications to be preserved on future import
• Other Misc
  • Supplier statement conditions : allow easy inputting of same day invoicing. "same" or "+0 day" now work as valid inputs
• Estimates - Fix superceded parts broken with UOM part pricing.  Completely reworked this code fixing the UOM issue and now runs alot faster too.
• Deals - include pickup time. Add an option to show deals to pickup sorted by pickup date/time

C9 hosted website email notifications are changing so that the email address configured for the dealership now uses the email address you have in c9 itself.

To check what email address you have setup goto setup -> other settings -> dealership details.

This will trigger some subtle changes about where email alerts are sent for web sites.

• queries on units will be sent to your preferred 'sales' email address, not email currently configured in the website. (making it consistent with aussie bike finder enquiries)
• all other alerts will goto spares email address

For newly added payment links feature integrated into workshop, payment links payments notifications will send two emails to you. One to default checkout email and a duplicate will also be sent to your workshop email address.

F12 magician check : is now working again. Key in a suzuki part into c9 and press F12 magician. click "dealer login" button if it doesn't work right away and it should then return an instant result.

Suzuki Website EPC : For c9 dealers who run a website: contact Suzuki to request an API key. They will request two things before providing a key.

Those two things:

• IP Address : 101.0.111.74
• Website domain  : the address of your website e.g my-dealership-x.com.au

Once you have provided above and have an API key feed it into c9 here:

• Spares -> utilities -> import fiche
• Select suzuki franchise
• Select 'Suzuki API as import method'
• Press on from there to finalise import