Like a neighbourhood burglar alarm that goes off with the slightest provocation; backup error emails are really starting to annoy me.

Actual backups are working correctly. The problem is that the process of verifying that the backup is an exact copy of your database sometimes returns an error when in fact the databases are perfect replicas.  This sends emails overnight incorrectly stating that there are backup errors.

The cause is largely the recent addition of fiche diagrams into c9.  These increase the size of the database significantly.  This increases the time it takes for online backup to perform a verification cycle.  Because of the increase in verification time there is increased chance that while a verification is in progress, a change to the database is made that invalidates the verification.  Result : a false alarm.

I will rethink the design of online backups and come up with a method that eliminates the inherent 'race condition' (as it is known in IT lingo), that triggers the false alarm during verification.

Inclusion of fiche diagrams has been a great addition to c9; but it has not been without its technical challenges;  which we are slowly mastering and resolving.

Update: Worked out a better system. Deployed bulk of changes to our webserver. Will take a few days to monitor and ensure it is working as designed before complete migration to new verification methods; but if they are working correctly should provide instant relief.  Next version of c9 will also include some minor changes to remove some 'race conditions' that exist in c9 itself during the process of creating verification statistics; but this is a much lesser issue than the server issues now corrected. False alarms are generated mainly because of how our backup web server was doing its job of cross checking fidelity of the backup.  Another advantage of new system is that our webserver will generally be much more responsive.   Verification workload on server has now been significantly reduced. Previously, running verification would load the webserver so much you could notice a difference in performance when loading our web pages for example; but new design this no longer happens. Also, I expect that online backup will be alot quicker, especially when installing a new system, as server code has now been tuned for increased performance.

Bugfix with Triumph catalog import.  Was not getting unit list right. i.e. missing Tiger 800 XC

• Create new job : default to booked in or start immediately (in progress).  Option to toggle this is now available in setup.
• Add alternative part. Make user interface alot more intuitive by reusing existing 'Find any part' screen.
• Unit Rebate reports : show rebate both Ex and Inc GSTs
• Catalogs
• Added support for Triumph
• Modified Paul Feeney so it permits directly login to softway website. (MV Agusta and Husqvarna)
• Minor fix with web based catalogs. Was downloading catalogs 3 times. Web downloads should now be marginally quicker
• Catalog download: provide user visual feedback as to what download is doing. Useful especially for some web based downloads that have a long pause at the start of the process while priming the download by getting unit list and catalog list of first few units to process.
• Miner : after F4 process query. Provide ability to delete items in the list; so user can pare back a bulk email/sms list for example before doing actual send.
• Bug Fixes
• Sell parts on invoice; system  was not passing line item discounts onto account. So account statement differed from invoices.  Statement was not subtracting discounts. Now fixed (on future raised invoices only)
• Miner: recent changes to workshop meant that previously saved workshop line item reports that refer to line item totals and prices would not work. Now fixed.

• Profit Summary report. Improved and expanded.
• More detailed breakdown.  Now separates  Sales and COGS on the report.
• Workshop : reported labour is invoiced labour.  Previously was booked labour. Also previously was incorrectly including labour on estimates.
• Workshop : separate out profit on spare parts here
• Other profit reports
• Spares profit report; only report on credit note adjustments  which match other invoice types. i.e. if workshop+credit notes are selected, then credit notes reported are only credit notes on workshop jobs (and parentless credit notes).
• Units profit report: was not handling write backs correctly. Write back should subtract on sale profit an add to subsequent tradein sale. It was doing the former but not the latter
• Point of sale freeform: increase description size from 20 characters to 60
• Image manipulation
• Bug with resizing image window, clicking on size and apply in quick succession damages image size.
• Set business header logo or invoices. Use image resizing system to make managing/cropping dealer logo/header easier

Redesigned the layout of gallery items so that text in a 'cell' cannot overflow into the cell below it.  Generally visually improve the layout of gallery items.  Interesting software development lesson in all of this (about accepted wisdom of not using tables to express html structure), but won't bore you with the details.

Also redesigned checkout process so initial checkout page is hopefully more intuitive.  More suggestions here welcome.

Finally, fixed an annoying IE9 bug relating to browser compatibility.

This version requires database changes and will force you to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Overhaul workshop discounting, tax and profit tracking
• Workshop spares: track cost price for profit reporting. Defaults to current price for existing items on upgrade. (i.e. no profit on workshop items).
• Discounting Spares : differentiate between group discounts and line item discounts.  Parts discounted when sold to workshop job are treated as line item discounts.  Parts not yet discounted will be discounted by discount % set on the workshop job; i.e. group discount. This not only provides line item discounting in workshop, it solves a problem in prior version where you could accidently double discount a part.
• Modify spares pricing; modifying spares pricing adjusts line item discount to indicate spares discount has been awarded.  If price is set above current retail price, then retail price presented on invoice is raised.
• Spares : More accurate tracking of cost price for profit reporting.
• Default discount: do not set default discount on workshop job if account uses cost or margin based discounting.  These notions exist in spares only.  To apply them, you need to sell parts from spares to workshop setting appropriate discount
• Workshop item pricing : allow user to modify pricing to set either ex GST price or inc GST price; at users discretion. e.g. in prior version c9 would usually only track one price; i.e. ex GST for labour.  If you wanted to charge $90 in GST, c9 now internally tracks the line item as $90 inc GST, instead of internally tracking it as $81.82 ex GST and recalculating to GST; which can create some rounding problems.  e.g. $12.70 INC = 11.55 Ex. But converting from 11.55 ex back to inc the result is 12.71.
• Workshop spares: track whether retail price is inc or ex GST, as per above described behaviour. Note the above behaviour changes do not apply to default staff rates.  Labour line items will track modified pricing, but default staff rates is always ex GST.
• Business : in activity is an option to 'lock' c9.  Transactions inserts or modifications that occur prior to the current lock date are disallowed.  i.e you cannot delete transaction records or insert new transaction records or make certain changes for items that occur in a prior GST reporting period.
• Bugfix with database connectivity.  C9 is designed to invisibly reconnect to database on network error. But it should not do this while in the middle of a database transaction; because this violates database integrity. Modified c9 to not do this.  Very rare condition because typically transactions only exist for a fraction of a second and if there are network breaks prior to transaction start the process of establishing a new transaction corrects the disconnect. Yet I know of at least once instance where this has probably happened.
• Catalog fixes
• Web based catalogs would not save the last two units. You had to run import 2 more times to get these. Now fixed
• Recent change broke catalogs that use tif encoded images (i.e. Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki). Imported images would be tiny white images with nothing in them.  Now fixed.

Bugfix : online web order processing could send out emails with 'Bolton Motorcycles' hard coded into the email message. Now fixed.

Adjustment to import softway catalogs (Husqvarna and MV Augusta) :  skip over broken hotlinks. In prior version some parts on diagrams in 2012 Husky range would generate a web page errr and cause import to abort. Modified so it skips over such parts.

• Bug : c9 would allow you to merge parts on order onto different invoice types. i.e. merge 'pickup later' parts onto a 'receipt' invoice.  This should not be allowed to occur. Modified c9 so it only allows for merging onto invoices of the same type.
• Point of sale at cost:  provide ability to configure, in setup, what cost price to use for calculating at cost.  Defaults to actual cost (i.e. lastincost for stocked items and daily buy for ordered items), can be changed to 'daily buy' or 'stock buy'.
• F7 lookup catalog. When selecting franchise, only display franchises that have catalogs
• Terminal Menu - what is my ip address? Add new menu option : what is the servers ip address?  Needed for Dave/Barney for doing network diagnostics

C9 powered website now have hotspots on the catalog diagrams.  Web shoppers can now click on diagrams directly to browse and order items. Try it yourself:

http://c8software.com.au/shop/test/find/fiche/269951