• Units
  • Dealer units : show and style new/used units. Also permit filtering of new/used
  • Sale : show deposit and changeover on confirmation screen
  • Setup option to disable duty on spares/workshop line items added onto a sale (works globally)
  • Allow deifnition of liability line items in unit costs
• Spares
  • Restore ability to delete account records for spares sales
  • Receive spares : redesigned printout so it is blindingly obvious which items are for spares or workshop or units/sales
• Workshop
  • Hot key on (S)pares in add parts/labour

Encountered enough of these to make it worth while adding a page on them. Also the manual is 400 pages long, which is a bit excessive to work through for simple, common task of adding STX, so here is a cheat sheet:

Adding STX/ETX

Step 1 - set Barcode Structure as Prefix + Data + Suffix

Read more...

Bugfix with emailing some reports: does not set email subject correctly, sets subject to blank were previously it was something useful.

Redesigned orderbook slightly, removed 'merged' view on status/order number views. Also allow parts to be added/modified for sent orders. (i.e. last minute order tweaks phoned through)

Print barcodes, access F6=view part from here

Usability issue/bug with last version.

Newly added 'do you want to close' nag screen on recieve orders was also popping up after receiving an order, misleading the operator into thinking the receive was not processed, clicking on F10 would double receive the order. Smartened things up so it only nags when something was likely modified and never nags after a successful receive.

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

• Spares
  • Allow 100% discount on invoices
  • allow change description on parts on invoice (affects invoice only, not price/master file)
  • Receive order : permit setting of daily or stock, system will default buy price for newly ad-hoc added items accordingly
  • Reserve/Pickup later : make it obvious on pointout whether or not money is still owing.
  • Bugfix: under some usage scenarios invoivling ad-hoc parts ordering it was possible for parts to be added into stock without a description, system was unable to utilise description keyed into the ad-hoc order item. Now fixed
  • Bugfix : pressing enter on qty req on edit in point of sale would erroneously show qty info that is only relevant when doing customer pickup. Now fixed.
  • Improved fuzzy part matching logic to simultaneously cope with both zero trimming and with configured prefix trimming, correctly selecting correct part number (especially useful for dealers migrating from biscount to c9)
  • Warn user when closing spares receive screen with parts on it, to help protect against accidental loss of work while receiving orders
  • Stock types : permit blank stock type for purposes of clearing a parts type
• Units
  • View all units : show customer name as well
• Workshop
  • Overhauled how workshop invoices are tallied so they are easier to interpret.  Spares/Labour/Other are separated into sub totals with line items for discount + final price for each sub group.
• System
  • Disallow user to key in date beyond 9999
  • Store dates beyond 9999 in database correctly. Previously would store '20150'  as '0150' truncating extraneous leading digits
  • Change workshop browsing to not throw errors on screen when jobs have ridiculous dates attached to them (i.e. 150 B.C. causing int32 numeric overflow error on the database).
  • Fixed annoying usability issue with scrolling lists. Some lists when scrolled to the right, would reset to the far left if you tried to then scroll the list up and down.  Now when lists are scrolled up and down the system should retain the horizontal offset of the scrolled list.
  • Very technical tweak relating to graphics subsystem required to make tweaks to point of sale to allow modification of part description. (after window is opened, wait until graphics operations have processed before continuing application logic behaviour so that any behaviour that relies on widget sizing information has access to size information after window resizing actions etc have completed, previously AWT event loop and clarion event loop would race and AWT event loop would usually lose that race).

A few minor tweaks and tidies in this version

• Dropped TeamViewer as our preferred remote support tool, now using Single Click Ultra VNC.
• General
  • new setup option to control whether system defaults to secure or reprintable gift cards
• Workshop
  • Select job type: now implements incremental search. i.e. type in 'MAJ' will search/jump to MAJSERV for example
  • Create new job from estimate, system gives option to use either pricing on the original quote or to use latest prices. (Previously would always use pricing on original quote)
  • Job locking, system no longer jobs job for stuff unrelated to modifying the job itself, i.e. view modify/customer, view unit etc, view the job (without modifying)
  • Job locking,  system allows you to goto modify job screen for a cancelled terminal lock, but you cannot modify/save changes made here. (c9 warns you of this)
  • Parts on order :changed nag screen on complete/pickup job to reflect what really happens when you finalise a job with parts on order. (Customer is billed for those parts)
  • Fixed some screen refresh bugs with warranty payment management
  • Fixed recently estimate move line item buttons, was appearing on every tab, not just cost/tally tab
• Spare parts
  • Import parts from  workshop estimate asks whether or not to use pricing on estimate or current pricing

Alot of helpdesk/support problems are typically solved over the phone using tooling within c9 itself. Though occasionally we need to take full control of a computer in order to help resolve some issues.

TeamViewer seems to be the standard toolset used by most IT support people in the industry.  Though ongoing dispute with TeamViewer over their deceptive pricing model has marred our experience with them and attempts to get them to provide the service that c9 paid for have been fruitless.

I've finally moved onto a new toolset, the new toolset has a number of advantages.

• Download from our website is >10 times faster
• No longer require ID or Password from teamviewer to work
• No longer tripping over incompatible versions of teamviewer, which can be a real pain when teamviewer is installed as a windows service

Moving c9 database server onto a different/new computer is reasonably straight forward.

IMPORTANT!!!

The critical thing to ensure is that you do not end up with a network where there are two databases running on the one network. Result of this can be disasterous.  So work through steps carefully and pay close attention to steps that are concerned with validating that the old server has indeed being removed

 On old server:

1. go into control panel/programs and uninstall c9 database installer. It is called "C9 PostgreSQL xx.xx" where xx.xx corresonds to version number. uninstall all you find here
2. Make sure database is uninstalled by doing the following:
   • Confirm c9 can no longer run on the old server
   • Confirm there are no postgres.exe processes in process table (make sure you select show all processes in process table)
   • Perform both steps above after a reboot of old server
3. copy c:\c9db\ folder from old server to new server into a c:\c9db\ folder on new server
   • IMPORTANT: make sure you copy empty directories too! These are important and database will not start without them, some copy processes will skip over these, make sure you use a copy process that picks these up too. example folder that is usually empty: \c9db\8.4\data\pg_tblspc (there are many others too)
4. After copy is complete, recommend rename folder from c9db to c9db.old on old computer: to avoid accidental reinstall of the database on this old computer.

On new server:

1. download following from our website in downloads section (C9 database installer):  https://c8software.com.au/wp/downloads/
2. run the above
3. follow instructions on setup a new terminal on new server to verify c9 is working on server. (http://c8software.com.au/wp/2011/02/adding-a-new-terminal/)
4. For other terminals, follow steps 6 onwards in above 'how to add a new terminal' help page

Verification:

1. In c9 go and look at history/activity : in business -> activity, spares -> reprint invoices -> and/or workshop jobs to confirm everything looks like it should look and is up2date. That there are no missing invoices etc
2. Keep an eye on backup status in top right for next day or so.  If it goes from green to red let c9 know. Especially the verification status

• Tweaks to online unit rego query
  • Now works for Vic Cars/Trucks as well as Motorcycles
  • Added support for QLD and NSW rego query
• Workshop tweaks
  • Modify job, make it visually obvious that F10 saves job
  • Complete job, if user opts to cancel completion, ask them if they want to save changes made so far anyway (i.e. odo reading)
  • Estimates : allow user to change order of line items on estimate via modify estimate
• Other
  • Unit profit/spares report includes new ordering options to organise report by new/used, make/type and to summarise by clerk key who did the sale. Also permits only printing summary
  • F12 Magician, option to hide price incase customers are looking at the screen
  • Fixed contact details in help->about.

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

Main feature in this release is Online unit detail fetch.  Type in rego number or VIN number and c9 will retrieve colour/rego expiry/vin/type/color/engine no etc.  Currently only works for bikes registered in Victoria.  If other state bodies (or suppliers) provide query tools, c9 can hook into these as well.

Other changes:

• Units
  • Select customer unit, ability to order or filter units by rego number. Useful for dealers that service large fleets, i.e. delivery/postie bikes.
  • Unit rego number lookup behaves like part numbers,  case insensitive and ignores dashes and spaces. i.e. AB-123 is same as AB123, same as AB 123
  • VicRoads rego query, as per above
• Other/System
  • Recent database updates caused problems for a couple of dealers.  Upgrade process could fail and leave database damaged if user tried to update c9 on two terminals simultaneously.  Generally rare, though a recent update conditions of this problem were reasonably likely to happen. Made changes so c9 enforces strict database locking and checking before proceeding with upgrade so terminals can verify whether or not an upgrade is already in progress and whether or not another terminal may of already performed the upgrade