• Tweaks to BRP import
• Include Can-am ATV as import option
• Corrected description of Spyder import option
• Tweak to PFG import : make sure engine displacement is part of model name. i.e. instead of 'CR', it is 'CR 125', 'CR 250', etc

• Website : left hand menu bar can be setup so that clicking on a menu item will link you to an external website.
• Point of sale: option to sell parts directly to a unit.  Sale is actually treated as a workshop sale, workshop job is automatically created and then finalized as part of the point of sale process.  Saves having to go through workshop workflow when all you want to do is sell a couple of items to a floor unit.
• F12 pickup : display earliest creation date for orders involved for a given invoice
• Catalogs
• image processing improvements (better image scaling, better/faster clipping).
• Update Suzuki Aus bike listing.
• Import from brp website.  Can-am Spyder and Sea-doo Jet-skis
• Import from softway website, via Paul Feeney.   Husqvarna Motorcycles and MV Augusta.
• Usability : permit double click on catalog unit listing to drill down to actual diagrams
• Bug Fixes
• Receive order: somehow a received part ended up on an active order. Modify F12 receive to check active/printed order as well for parts ready for pickup.
• MYOB chart of accounts : structure was being inferred based on account numbering system. Modified to reflect the precise structure as managed inside MYOB, without regard for the numbering employed.
• Internal software changes
• Switched to latest Clarion 8 IDE.  Carefully audited software, function by function, and am confident in quality of migration
• Restructured code so that projection from network map to 1:M hierarchy is much smaller, 1/1000 of what it was.  Excessively large map projection was causing older Clarion 5.5 IDE to crash.

Problems with sending email via c9.  An ongoing network configuration issue means that some email channelled via c9 cannot reach its destination.  I was hoping that our provider would of fixed the issue by now but they are dragging their feet on this :-(. In meantime be advised that some mail delivered by c9 or email from myself directly will not necessarily get there.

UPDATE: all fixed now.

Requires database changes. Will force you to log all terminals out.

• Ad hoc adjustment report.  Reports cost variance (lastincost * adjustment).  System now tracks precise lastincost at time of adjustment; but this info is only available after upgrade to this version. For reporting prior to this system will use lastincost at start of the month
• Stock - new tracking: keep discounts. If set then importing new master will will not override discounts on stock. Similar to keep header and keep retail price.  On receive order if you select option set set daily or stock discount to reflect buy price then keep discounts flag is also automatically set.  Means that if you negotiate additional discount with a supplier then recording of that information will not be lost when a new price file is imported.
• Suzuki catalog : on raw catalog data from PMP,hotspots are regularly duplicated. This change means importing Suzuki will be a bit faster and database storage required much less.
• Catalogs : in add/edit franchise is an option that allows you to turn off online access to cataloges for the selected franchise. Defaults to on.
• Select customer: include option to compliment F6 = search by phone.  F7 = query search. Select customer based on things such as post code, contact name, etc etc.

Update: I managed to isolate the problem and fix it.  Back to normal operation. Better actually: the changes I applied make the tools I use work even better and faster than before.

A temporary setback which will slow me down for a week or two...

Working on a few new features for c9; I think I have outgrown the tools I use to work on c9 :-(.  Apparently a common problem for working on very large programs using the technology that c9 is based on; tools now run very slow and are unreliable.  C9 is as solid as ever but the tools I need to work on c9 are now flaky; which is frustrating me to no end.

C9 now contains 550 windows and 90 reports, it has almost doubled in size in last 2 years. Due to dealer appetite for more sophistication and capability, there is no indication that things are going to slow down anytime soon.  This rapid growth is main reason I have outgrown my professional development tools.

Going to retool my workshop so to speak;  just purchased latest version of the software tools I use; to be shipped from USA (for some reason they don't offer software download so have to wait). Hope to receive it in a week or  3.  Other programmers that use latest versions tell me it is a massive improvement on ability to get work done.  Also it is based on technology I hope will allow me to run in an environment more comfortable for me (under Mono or Wine, which older versions could not do).

In meantime I'll need to suffer working at reduced productivity for a while.  Luckily most of focus at the moment, on catalogs and web development will not be impacted by this.  New versions of c9 will continue to ship as normal, but I'll be holding back a little bit until I finish retooling.

• Bugfix with Suzuki Catalog import.  I assumed that Suzuki model names were unique but this is not the case.  i.e. a model name can exist for different regions. i.e. there are 2 GSX1250F 2011's : a E21 and a E28. Modified c9 to cope with this.  For units where there are duplicate matching years, i.e. like DR250S - import the model with the region code embedded in the name of the unit.
• Buy/Sell part : show receive inv number are applicable
• Bugfix with tracking supp/cust order qtys on stock. These figures can get out of sync for various reasons, modified code so that these are periodically checkpointed back to actual values, i.e. when stock order is generated and when a order is received.  There was a problem with a customer where c9 was generating database errors when trying to put parts on order. Cause was that system thought that there were over 32,000 engine oil containers on order; and database cannot handle numbers this big for this item.

Bugfix : Point Of Sale provides the ability to import part list from a workshop estimate.  If you access point of sale to add parts to workshop, either via Workshop F5 = add parts option or F11 = Modify/other and then use F7 to import from an estimate this will not work as you would expect; it does not add parts onto the selected job at all and it generates a spares invoice that refers to the estimate, not the actual job selected and it will order parts and take parts out of stock.  Now fixed.    The more commonly used technique of creating a new job from a estimate did indeed work and still works.  Also the technique of going to Point of Sale directly and picking the workshop job via F10 also worked; but any process where you selected the workshop job to add parts to before you selected the estimate to import parts from would not work correctly.

• Catalogues
• Import DealerNet web suppliers:  KTM and Husaberg.  For KTM this new method is preferred over importing PDF files : as this method gets units prior to 2006 and it also extracts hotspot information. (clickable zones on fiche diagrams)
• View invoice : show related invoices in a hierarchy (i.e. credit notes, order/receive invoices).  Allow user to select related invoice to view invoice information (removed parent/child buttons added in previous version. This UI model is much easier to work with)
• Spares credit note:  on changing customer with F6=Select Customer, do not automatically override discount to offset credit note using customers default discount if the credit note has inherited discounting information from the original invoice.  To change discount, user has to now explicitly select 'F2 discount' option and key in discount offset.

• Catalogues
• Kawasaki import was failing to import some units; i.e. KLX450,  now fixed.
• Suzuki - suzuki parts have trailing 000 on them.  C9 deals with this when you barcode scan part, but fiche function were not properly coping with this. Now fixed
• Spares - F7 Buy/Sell. Users can now browse orders and invoices connected to a given part.  New window allows you to drill down into the invoice, the original order, or access order receive function.  Makes navigating the relationships managed in c9 easier.  Also shows various part numbers that eventually supercede from/to the selected part.
• View Invoice : give user ability to access parent invoice and child invoice. Child invoices are typically credit notes and subsequent invoicing of parts previously ordered. Makes navigating the relationships managed in c9 easier
• Workshop bug : it was possible to pickup a workshop job twice; on different terminals. Modified so when pickup is selected the system explicitly checks that job status has not been changed by another terminal

This version includes database changes and will force you to log all terminals out in order to apply those changes

• Catalog changes
• Added support for Suzuki
• Added ability to do full reimport.
• Added filter options. i.e. only import 2009 units; only import units that contain NINJA in their model name etc
• Track/display year code of unit and notes on parts.  Important for intepreting suzuki diagrams
• Performance/Image Tweaks
• image processing (clipping/resizing/conversion) speed improved dramatically by upto x10(!)
• KTM - improved ability to skip processing of already processed units.
• Viewing diagrams, busy diagrams with lots of hotspots would refresh slowly in c9. Now dramatically improved
• KTM - images are now more space efficient. (smaller and lower grayscale bitdepth)
• Optimize image size; post clipping. I.e. fit post clip image to a 800x800 box, as opposed to fitting to a box and then clipping
• Reimport image : if image already imported and on file and is exactly the same. Use it. Save disk space and save replication bandwidth to c9 online backup service
• Bugfix : Catalogs where same part number appears twice. Usually c9 imports these ok, but sometimes, about one in 100 images, c9 will only import some of the part number references, not all of them. Now fixed
• Spares ordering
• New setup option under orders. 'Automatially update buy price' : will update buy price on accessory stocked items on receive order to received price.
• Cancel customer invoice; if invoice in question has unused deposit then open up view deposit window to allow refunding of deposit at time parts on order are cancelled.