Currently working through a large backlog of items.  No newsletter yet, over the weekend hopefully.  Also working on new version of c9 that includes Gift Card support and fix a number of minor bugs and annoyances reported over past few days.  I hope to get back on top of my workload by end of Monday at the latest.

Apple Mac tragics rejoice.  C9 now provides a Mac OSX terminal installer.

Goto our downloads page and you can find it there.

C9 is based on java architecture and because of this it is possible to run it on any modern operating system.  It has been tested on Windows XP and onwards (99% of what retail bike industry use), Linux (what Barney uses) and now Mac OSX.

The only requirement is that the OS is able to run Java 6 or above.  One of the many limitations Mac users are forced to suffer is that Java availability, in the past at least, on Mac is notoriously tardy compared to Windows and Linux.  Getting Java 6 onto older Mac OS versions can be something of a task.

• MacOS changes
• Changes to better emulate MacOS program lifecycle
• Fix slight difference in behaviour with MacOS Escape key in Java
• Barcode printing. For dedicated barcode printers like Zebra, modified printer handling so c9 intelligently tries to select appropriate media and margin settings automatically.  Added a global config switch to go back to old behaviour in case c9 makes a balls of it.
• Workshop Weekly planner
• added ability to add generic notes into the planner
• Added ability to open planner at any time while creating a new job
• F12 customer pickup : order created date displayed will be invoice date for reserve orders
• Workshop bug fix : (regression bug) was hiding completed button when it should of been hiding pickup button. Now fixed.

There are many ways to skin a c9 powered website. Various options available to you to help the dealer you are working with differentiate their online web business beyond the basic controls built into c9 itself.

Read more...

• Tweaks to UI experience with adding a purchase unit.
• If key in a reference that already exists, do not replace make/model/type with details from existing unit if these fields have already been keyed in
• Fix for add similar unit. Was behaving strangely if unit being copied was as described above
• Spares Point of sale complete
• Show an obvious 'f8 show profit' button
• Pressing hotkeys in complete screen would not work immediately. Now fixed
• Job card - print a footer prominently showing unit type and job description. Also print scheduled mechanic
• Workshop. Ability to set scheduled mechanic in new job or in any of the view job tabs. (Previously could only do it in schedule view tabs)
• Reports - print date/time, & report name at very top margin of report.
• Only on reports, not invoices or barcode sheets.
• Does not export on save as CSV
• Prints on upmost margin. So if your printer is unable to print immediately after the first 1/4 inch of a page  will not work.
• Can be disabled in setup on a per terminal basis. Enabled by default
• Bug fixes
• on version 4.279 view unit/rebates button logic was accidently deleted.  The button no longer does anything when you click on it. Now restored.
• View/change part (F6). Would not fetch/display last order sent/received details properly. Now fixed.
• Website : add one button option to map all second hand units onto website

c9 online websites with fiche diagrams categorize diagrams into different sections. i.e. 'Rear Wheel', 'Wiring Harness' etc.  C9 does this by looking at the name of a diagram and matching it against a rule to figure out what category it is.

The rules built into c9 are tuned originally for Honda and KTM early 2011 but little work has happened since then and there is no consistency across suppliers.  Result is as of time of writing this, of the 1.2 million diagrams hosted on c9 powered websites, 15% of those diagrams are located in the 'Uncategorized' section on the website.

Managing mapping of diagrams is tedious work, which is why we created tools in c9 so that you can do this task :-). Read on for more

Read more...

• Workshop UI tweaks
• Select job. Visual changes to make it more obvious what job is currently highlighted
• Complete/Pickup job : display purchase date of the unit. But only if unit was purchased from the dealer
• View/Complete/Pickup:  history buttons allow you to quickly access job history for the given customer or unit
• Sell parts from spares to workshop. Display more info about the job, not just this job number in F10 complete
• Website Settings. Configurable email footer was limited to 1k of text which is not alot. Increased to 16k.
• More tweaks to Toro duplicate part behaviour. If you key in a part that is duplicated, c9 will display all part numbers matching the duplicate.

Toro part lists have a interesting feature that no other supplier we have dealt with in the last 20+ years have.  Toro contains duplicate part numbers which are sensitive to location of dashes. For example:

C9 can now support such setups.  Read on for more details

Read more...

Bugfix with prior version of c9 : 4.279.  Typing/scanning superceded/barcoded part number into point of sale would fail with part not found. But if you F2 then keying part number it was okay.  Now fixed. Relates to changes made to better support Toro part numbers.

This version includes database changes. You will be forced to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Units + Web
• Redesigned UI on multiple unit screens (i.e. view/modify unit, add purchase unit) so web publishing details/images are more easily accessed and managed.
• Added ability to configure web details (text + pictures) at point of purchase/add unit
• Added check to publish to aussiebikefinder.com.au
• Added ability to publish to bikesales.com.au (backoffice support not yet written. Still work in progress)
• Spares Point of sale : GST component was being rounded on a unit cost price basis. This could cause inaccuracies for selling cheap high volume items. Fixed by calculating GST on line item basis and using higher level of decimal accuracy during GST calculation
• Web order email notification. Now possible to configure custom email footers via business -> website -> settings.
• Import Toro price files.   Toro part numbers are sensitive to position of dashes!  e.g. the following part numbers describe two completely different parts: 325-11 and 3251-1!  Modified price file import to cope with this, but at same time preserve c9 behaviour of being able to keyin part number without spaces or dashes remain intact.  On a per franchise basis is a new checkbox 'Parts from this supplier are sensitive to dash location'. If set then new logic on price file import applies. At the moment this switch can only be toggled if franchise name contains 'toro' in its name. If you key in a toro part number that is duplicated, it will return part already on file prior to this upgrade.  To access duplicated part, press f2, you can see both parts in the list.  For anyone that installs a toro franchise after this fix, then keying in a duplicate part number should yield 'part not found'. You will have to press F2 and select the appropriate part. For Toro parts, approx 2% of parts are duplicated.
• Point of sale. Optimized database operations that handle stripping leading 'P' infront of Polaris parts.
• Online backup/Sync
• if database link was down, c9 messenger would eat 100% of CPU trying to constantly reconnect to the database.  Now fixed by switching into 'pause' mode and checking DB every 5 seconds or so
• Under some circumstances, web orders would not sync from web server to c9 correctly. Now fixed.
• Tuned online backup so it should backup images in bulk alot faster with much less bandwidth  (i.e. on import catalog).
• Do not auto-start messenger on login if database is not c9 database. Prior behaviour could potentially cause problems for dealers that periodically restore old databases who use online shopping. Web orders could inadvertently sync to the archived database.