ISCO Industries is one of the largest suppliers of HDPE (high-density polyethylene) pipe and related services in the United States. Founded in 1962 in Louisville, Kentucky, the company distributed a progression of pipe categories over time. In 1975, ISCO began developing its expertise in HDPE pipe, along with the fusion equipment used to install it.

In 2006, ISCO began managing its business with the Activant Prelude enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. At the same time, the company's geographically widespread sales force consisting of outside reps and a large, centralized order processing unit recognized the need for easy-to-access, up-to-date information on customers and orders.

DATA ACCESS REQUIREMENTS BOTH COMMONPLACE AND UNIQUE Kim Byram joined ISCO as Director of Information Systems shortly after their decision to purchase Activant Prelude and was charged with overseeing the Prelude implementation. "Our sales force, including about 80 inside and outside reps, needed to be able to get information fast; a customer's order history, current order status, receivables balance and so on." They also needed the ability to drill down into specific transactions to research customer inquiries or analyze pricing proposals. "We needed both broad and deep access to sales data," elaborates Byram.

While the Prelude system enabled ISCO to dramatically improve processes and business results in order entry, inventory management and financials, asking sales reps to use the Prelude ERP application to get the information they needed proved impractical. "It's time-consuming to log in and out of the ERP application when you only need a certain kind of information" says Byram. "We didn't want to force the sales reps to use their time that way." While a dashboard solution was available from Activant, it did not provide access to all of the types of underlying sales and customer data ISCO sales reps needed.

ISCO also had stringent security requirements that forced it to look for other solutions. "Our primary focus for the initial solution was our sales force. We needed to give each sales rep access to their sales, order, and customer information, without giving them access to info for all the other sales reps." explains Byram.

Usability and a short learning curve were also critical. "With so many reps, each of them critical to our business, we were determined to find a query and reporting solution that was easy to learn and use. Acceptance by the sales force was going to be a key and we couldn't afford to choose anything that would require a lengthy implementation and training phase."

MITS DISCOVER : THE RIGHT BLEND OF ACCESS, SECURITY AND SPEED
In a sense, the search for a business intelligence solution to support the required queries and reports began before ISCO's need was understood. Byram, in a previous position managing Oracle databases, had already invested significant effort evaluating business intelligence and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) solutions so she fully understood (and embraced) the range of features and capabilities available from leading solutions.

At ISCO, Byram quickly became aware of the MITS Discover Business Intelligence solution. "Discover was already in use with a large number of Prelude implementations, in something like two thirds of the Prelude installed base, so we knew it was likely to be a good solution for us."

One of the most positive aspects of implementing MITS Discover has been speed. "It's so easy to learn and use that we usually need less than half of the 30 minutes we set aside to train an end user," reports Byram. Rapid training and user acceptance have also meant a faster overall rollout. Byram adds, "We started slowly, introducing just a single set of sales queries, but things went so well that we very quickly rolled out three additional sets: open orders, open quotes and accounts receivable."

The results have been gratifying. "Now the sales force can very quickly get all the information they need to do their job, all four parts of the business they need to understand, without having to come into Prelude ." Support is also a positive: "We've had very few questions coming back to us from the sales force. They just don't have any problems understanding how to get the information they need. It's a real time save for IT."

RESULTS: VISION FULFILLED
When asked how ISCO had completed one of the largest, and fastest, MITS Discover implementations for Activant Prelude on record, Byram credited the solution itself coupled with MITS support. "Most importantly, we had a vision. We knew how we wanted things to work, we knew the capabilities we needed, and we knew we wanted to take things in steps. Once we saw Discover, we were convinced it would fit that vision nicely."

SAPUG - Seattle Area Pick User Group

http://www.sapug.org
Date: Thursday, Aug 21
Time: 05:30pm
Location: TBD
SAPUG goes to the Ball Game - Oakland at Seattle

TEXMUG - Texas MultiValue User Group

http://www.texmug.org/
Date: Thursday, Sep 25
Time: 04:00pm - 08:00pm
Location: Balck Eyed Pea, 1400 N Colins St, Arlington
Speaker: Fred Owen - MITS

CMUG - Colorado Pick Users Group

Http://cmug.plaxogroups.com/
Date: Tuesday, Sep 9
Time: 05:30pm - 07:00pm
Location: IBM offices
Speaker: Rich Weiser - DesignBais

SoCalRUG - Southern Calif Revelation UserGroup

http://www.srpcs.com/rev_socalrug.aspx
Date: Wednesday, Sep 17
Time: 09:00am - 12:00pm
Location: SRP Computer Solutions Office
Speaker: Mike Ruane - Revelation Software

Atlanta Area Pick Users Group - AAPUG

http://www.aapug.org
Date: Tuesday, Sep 16
Time: 06:30pm - 09:00pm
Location: Aldo's Italian Restaurant

For years we explored how we could generate interest and use in our legacy system with upper management.   Our legacy system requires users to navigate an extensive menu system and enter multiple responses to get to vast array of available data.      Upper management types have failed to develop the patience or interest to use our legacy character based system. 

Last year [2007], we attempted to gain final approval for a tool to enable browser base reporting via our intranet.   We decided on a tool we first got a glimpse of at Spectrum 2006.  Although, we had planned the year before and had an approved budget, our CFO failed to let us pull the trigger to purchase.

I attended Kevin King of Precision Solutions session, Quick Start: Programming in PHP, at Spectrum 2008 in New Port Beach.

Using information from this session on syntax and processes needed to create and deploy PHP applications, I was able to create several browser based inquiry options that replicate the report data of existing menu options.  These new browser based  inquiry options are able to be used without the need to know our extensive menu system and without having to respond to numerous prompts .   These new options allowed the user to point and click to generate useful report.  We used these new browser based options to generate interest and ideas from our user community, and to demonstrate to our CFO the merits of our pursuit of a tool for web based reporting.

Our CFO has now given approval for the purchase of the tool we selected for browser based reporting [at Spectrum 2006].

Bruce W. McAdoo
Wagner & Brown, Ltd.

Kore Technologies announced they have partnered with Campana Systems Inc., an international leader in integrated business and information management solutions for the auto club industry, to resell Kore's Kourier Integrator for U2 and SQL Accelerator products. These industry-leading solutions will provide Campana's AXIS customers with robust UniVerse data extraction and incremental update capabilities.

Through its AXIS Division, Campana has been a trusted business partner to AAA/CAA auto clubs for over 20 years. The AXIS product suite consists of specialized toolkits in the areas of member relationship management, emergency road service, membership, travel, point-of-sale and financials. These toolkits, many of which can be deployed individually or combined to create a fully integrated solution, are used by auto clubs to deliver timely service, strengthen member relationships and increase product adoption.

"Partnering with Kore Technologies will allow Campana to provide our customers with enterprise integration and automation solutions that not only deliver expert data extraction capabilities, but also complements the interconnectivity of the AXIS system ", says Pierre Lapalme, director of sales and marketing at Campana Systems. 

Kore Technologies ' Kourier Integrator provides companies operating IBM U2 (UniVerse /UniData ) databases with Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) capabilities. These ETL capabilities, combined with the automatic normalization of MultiValue data, and various export formats, will allow AXIS customers to extract data from any file from a UniVerse database or AXIS system for exchange/transport with other applications and databases. The integration and automation of these extraction processes ensures data consistency, eliminates redundant data entry and saves time.

"As a recognized leader in the auto club industry, Campana is well known for their integrated business and information management solutions ", says Keith Lambert, vice president of marketing and business development at Kore Technologies . "We're excited to partner with Campana, and look forward to helping their clients take full advantage of their UniVerse database while providing them with the ability to extend their business intelligence and integration capabilities using Kourier Integrator and SQL Accelerator. "

If you would like more information regarding the Kourier Integrator for U2 / SQL Accelerator solution and how it can help you integrate your MultiValue data with Microsoft SQL Server or other applications, please contact your Kore Technologies representative, call us at 866-763-5673 or send an email to sales@koretech.com.

Total Computing Solutions

Full-time career position with Total Computing Solutions in American Fork, UT.

Salary is negotiable depending on experience.

Applicant must have at least 2 years experience with Pick, and be proficient in Windows, and Linux.

Analytical skills are essential as well as the ability to multi-task.

For additional information contact jobs@total-computing.com

UniVerse does not have a SYSTEM function to return the current spooler number. On other conversion projects we have written subroutines to execute SETPTR and capture the output. It is not a perfect solution because, unlike other platforms, UniVerse does not generate the spooler number when you do PRINTER ON; it generates it when you do the first actual PRINT statement.

This is what we do as well, far from ideal but we couldn't think of a better way.  Here is the subroutine that we use that does the job.