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Release 4.874 March 3, 2021 barney

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

This version includes some non functional changes to bank reconciliation. V5 c9's general ledger is alot more flexible allowing postings to be modified : changing amounts, GL codes etc whereas with V4 all you can do is toggle delete/restore a posting.

Being able to fiddle other things on a posting has obvious implications for bank rec. In order to make transition from v4 to v5 simpler it makes sense, from a technical perspective, to drop a few things into v4 now to lay groundwork to accommodate this instead of rolling in bigger set of changes into v5.

Honda order submission changes

Low level java bugfix with how java handles failed http POST requests. Java has a 15 year old bug in it where it will resubmit POST requests if they disconnect. Instead of fixing the bug, like they should of, java instead decided to add an obscure switch to fix the bug which you have to explicitly enable. This  version of c9 now throws that switch. ( https://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6382788 ).

In terms of c9 integration to Honda what this means is that reports of orders doubling up should no longer occur after updating to this version. Overall there still remains outstanding issues, i.e. the timeouts that trigger the resends in the first place are still of themselves harmful and these are confirmed via packet sniffing to be coming from the Honda service, but this change at least represents a solid step forward towards improving the overall interconnect.

Other changes

  • View bug in contacts - > view transactions. Under some circumstances view button can get disabled (due to txn referencing a non existing sale for example), but once it is disabled clicking on any other txn will not re-enable it. Now fixed
  • Shopify sync : for orders where there is no shipping address, only a billing address, pull details from billing address
  • View account -> parts handled tab.  Display invoice type. As is hard to figure out if items have been supplied or just looking at a quote.
Release 4.873 March 1, 2021 barney
  • Unit sales. Reworked unit sale $ input screen to make things flow a bit better with base prices etc.
    • added Explicit Base price + GST field
    • Added explicit checkbox toggles to toggle fixed price
    • Now there are toggles tweaked computation logic a bit so it is more intuitive. Main thing is locked base price behavior is more ergonomic, you now explicitly switch it on and off as needed as opposed to before where you had to make obscure, unintuitive user interface incantations to get it to toggle
  • Business balance sheet report, multiple fixes
    • Was not tallying banks into total. Now fixed
    • Was doubling up PAYG withholding, when it should of be been reporting PAYG and super as separate lines. Now fixed
  • cust view parts on order bugfix
  • highlight/colorcode workshop/unit images buttons if there are images/attachments. On following key screens:view job, modify job, complete and pickup
  • KTM group magician :  show simple tally only instead of showing that tally is aggregated across multiple lines. This is necessary to to get web based part availability working for crossover parts. It will require a restart of messenger to work
  • Add option to import Gas Gas EPC for non Gas Gas dealers who are otherwise KTM group dealers.

 

Release 4.872 February 12, 2021 barney

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

  • Single touch payroll tweaks. Data sent to STP was slightly wrong (was not sending commencement date). Tweaked in order to correctly support jobmaker. (See below for info on how to tag an employee for jobmaker)
  • F7 alterns, reworked the screen a bit. Works alot faster on loading shows a bit more info. The amount of records it shows is slightly less. It will only show a given part once.  Working on a new data set with alot of alternatives, old way of doing things blew out the resulting list to millions of records with old way to traversed the graph of interlinked parts.

How to tag an employee for Job Maker credit

The staff record needs to have following set:

  • Their date of birth (on General Stuff tab)
  • Their start date (on Payroll tab)

Then in payrun you need to add a manual pay record. Structured like so:

 

 

Specifics:

  • Make sure type is Allowances
  • Make description exactly this:  JMHC-NOM
  • Make amount one cent. This will trigger a 0.01 once off pay increase for the payrun but is necessary to push data via STP
  • On Notes tab, make sure Other is selected in Allowances
Release 4.871 February 8, 2021 barney
  • Unit deals / sales. Increase max size of detailed notes to allow much larger notes. previously would max out at about 1/3rd of a page. Now x16 bigger
  • Miner : added ability to build miner queries on unit invoices/deals
  • Select txns to pay : add filter option on this screen
  • Gas Gas Integration
    • Import EPC diagrams from factory website
    • Magician check on KTM Aus dealernet portal

This version of c9 tweaks Honda API order upload screen to include a warning about error handling. Following describes an alternative process for submitting orders to Honda, via their SAP dealer portal.

In c9 export order

  • Select button 'change export method'
  • Change it to OPEA
  • Set company ID to 'HON'
  • Set dealer code to your Honda dealer ID
  • File format is standard OPEA
  • Export a file

 

Then in SAP do following....

  1. Click on Upload DMS Order
  2. Select Stock / Daily
  3. Select Step 2
  4. Supply order file generated above. Upload it check it and submit it

For Dealers with multiple brands under KTM Group, e.g. KTM + Husqvarna the following describes a possible mechanism for managing inventory and ordering.

The idea is to consolidate inventory into a single franchise.

Advantages:

  • Have just one count of parts since there is alot of overlap between the parts. (e.g. for KTM + HQV 48% of parts overlap)
  • When submitting orders to KTM, submit under the brand that offers the cheapest price. e.g. a histogram of price variations for overlapping parts for KTM vs HQV shared parts shows noticeable variation either side of 0 line (same price):

IMPORTANT! Caveats and consequences of doing this.

  • Once you've merged everything into a single franchise it cannot be easily undone. So make sure this is what you want to do. Think through implications of this carefully for stock control, stock management etc before pulling the lever on this. Contact us if unsure
  • This system only works in tandem with using c9 repository price files. There is critical information in the C9 repo which is needed to make this work which does not exist in the price file provided directly by KTM. This cannot work using manual price files. The key thing missing is an attribute tag tags the 'brand' to use for each part on generating export order files

Read more...

Release 4.869 February 1, 2021 barney
  • KTM Umbrella brands : this version contains a very powerful change for dealers who carry 2 or more of KTM, HQV or GAS brands. C9 will now allow you to organise all parts into a single franchise. On export order c9 will emit different files for different brands, and it will automatically arbitrage to minimise buy price if there is a buy price difference. Gains from this:
    • Manage one set of inventory only, since high % of parts are common already
    • Always order the cheapest part
    • Details on how to make this work will be in a separate post. TBA
  • Other tweaks and fixes
    • Remittance details print warning in red : Cyber Security: First time transfers call us to confirm bank details
    • Bug with Workshop Sublet  report. invoiced / not invoiced filter was working incorrectly. Tweaked to fix.
    • Some tweaks to cash till layout to realign some items on screen. Unable to replicate reported issue with misaligned stuff but hopefully some changes here will fix up the problem.
    • Triumph EPC importer updated. Should be working now
    • Tweak contacts general expense report to also include Goods only and CapEx data. Make audit field on report bigger.
    • Accounting reports: new option to export detailed txn listing that substantially feeds the accounting reports
    • Select transactions screen : add horizontal scrollbar
    • Unit purchase. Disallow combo of factory purchase + consignment. Does not work as expected so easier to just disallow this combo.
    • Import from E-Ref in point of sale: default proposed contact to create as a cash customer
    • View contact. From here access point of sale to do a sale with contact primed (via spares invoices tab)
Release 4.868 January 21, 2021 barney

This version of c9 includes some changes and tweaks relevant to remote c9 access.

There is a new version of remote c9 as well.  Downloaded here (https://c8software.com.au/remote/)

New C9/Remote are interoperable with older Remote/c9 but there are some niggles where things work a bit smoother with both upgraded.

Some specifics:

  • Workshop Scheduler now remotely accessible
  • C9 provides visual feedback if been accessed remotely (at top right bar). It will complain if accessing using older remote client
  • Some minor visual tweaks
    • Notify bar now appears at top right
    • Some minor styling stuff, like border colors on top status bar backup/verify/version traffic lights
  • Low level changes and improvements. Too difficult to describe in too much detail. Remote c9 and c9 in shop need to keep 'state' of screen widgets, buttons etc, their positions, size, contents etc in sync.  Some changes here to do this more robustly, better controlling flow of changes from remote to c9 and c9 to remote. Under some circumstances changes could pingpong back and forth which would result in some odd things happening via remote creating hysteresis effects; for example a selection on a list toggling between two different selections and getting stuck doing this. This issue is substantially caused by different hysteresis guards added into more recent c9s which didn't impact older remotes but were improperly implemented and become obvious on a remote client rebuild. New versions of both include a more robust mechanism for managing shared state between remote and c9 core and making sure changes annouced by one endpoint are less likely to be reflected back by the other.
Release 4.867 January 19, 2021 barney

Tweaks and fixes

  • KTM Magician change. Tweaked to cope with AX returning multiple rows
  • Staff availability bugfix. Certain input operations on edit leave record screen could break c9 now fixed (messing with day or week flags and then switching to non scheduler record)
  • Print labels. Hitting enter key on part number would not re-highlight the part allowing you to quickly type a new part over top of existing part. Now tidied.
  • deals screen. Tweak filter so it can filter unit particulars : make, model, VIN and reference. Works on any unit attached to deal, not just the visible unit on deal browse screen.
  • honda opt2ma reporting. Tweak sourcing of data to use exactly same version of profit summary report as what you can see in business reports.
  • Migrate parts. IS currently not migrating website part mappings. Now fixed.
  • unit sales report. Reprint subtotals at bottom of report if in detailed view. Subtotal staff records separately as well for commission reporting.
  • add location filter to following stock reports
    • Full stock report
    • Full stock summary
Release 4.866 December 3, 2020 barney

Includes DB changes, you'll need to log all terminals out during upgrade

  • Tweaks and fixes
    • Scheduler : right hand job listing now has its own orderbook style search function.
    • Modify linked transactions : selector some tweaks to make ordering result a bit more intuitive.
      • Show created date separately. Show 'date' as being sorted date
      • Add a 3rd tab which sorts results same as view transactions screen, instead of screens default ( which is billpay due date then created date)
    • Bank rec code includes some stuff to efficiently determine which recs are good and which are busted. THere is a scenario where this fails, when deleting some transaction types, typically will happen with deleting a unit sale involving multiple units for example. Some other scenarios where it might happen too. THe rec might be repaired but c9 does not think so. This fix 'reindexes' the recs so their proper status is reflected and includes changes that will prevent scenario that caused this happening in future.
    • install price file : originally c9 would pop a screen to allow printing of labels for repriced parts.  This functionality was accidently removed around July. Readded
    • Browse prior bank recs : new default option to sort by reconcile period date (end date), not by when bank rec was created.  This sorting should be more useful/intuitive for most bankrec forensic deep dives
    • freeform stock take : is not following supercession chains, fixed
    • View/edit order : option to show finalized orders for historical digging based on ordno
    • Serco magician check
    • Stock checkpointing (what is used to figure out historical stock on hand) has been heavily reworked. Original code was written around 2011. Rewrite uses more robust/reliable techniques I developed recently with supers/masterfile tweaks as part of V5 work (sql trigger based instead of client side computation with lots of automated regression testing)
      • Prior checkpointing  would generate alot of extraneous/unnecessary records. Update of this ver hoses all this unnecessary data out
      • Move Part / Migrate part migration of checkpoints was broken by design. New implementation is more robust. Generally not a problem when migrating data into a sparse new franchise, but when mashing histories together the old code wasn't up to the task. Some things on the go here that are important (for dealers who are both KTM + Husky franchise holders, working on some tweaks to make life easier by smashing the two franchises together. More to come when ready, still alot of work to be done first)
    • Migrate webcontent : was not updated with recent heavy changes to how text+images link to parts so text/images would not move correctly. Now fixed in this ver.
    • Refreshed/Updated following 4 vicroads docs: registration. Online authoritory. Concessions. Rego Transfer.
    • Workshop modify / view job : show tally of quote component in quote disclaimer box.
    • Contacts: add a new icon for customers as a 'c9' icon.  Any contact you map from magician lookup screen or receive a weborder from which is submitted via 'export to other c9 dealer' web order option will be automatically tagged with this icon. Installing this version will retroactively tag contacts that meet this criteria.
    • Payroll : new option under employment type which filters wages entitlements for public holidays or globally enforced annual leave taking : for use with casuals.
    • Unit spares/profit new order option : sort by clerk + make
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