2009 Common Annual Meeting and Exposition Visit Solarsoft at Booth #401 April 26 - 30, 2009 at the Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, Nevada. This is COMMON’s largest educational event of the year. Five full days of in-depth IBM i and AIX education that includes all-day pre-conference workshops, all-day Integrated Seminars, open labs and a wide variety of regular-length sessions.
Good turn out at the event venue
The Annual Meeting will kickoff on Sunday, April 26th with the Opening Session, followed by four days of leadingedge IBM i and AIX-related education, closing with the fun and exciting Power Down Main Event on Thursday, April 30th. Of course, as is expected from all COMMON conferences, there will be plenty of social and networking events taking place throughout the week.
In this Edition 2009 Common Annual Meeting and Exposition Visit Solarsoft at Booth #401
New Offering from your Solarsoft Team! Managed Services Experts should do what experts are good at
To iVP 5.1 Users: We Have Heard You Solarsoft takes on feedback
IBM i 6.1: the Latest Operating System for your iSeries/ Power System Server
The COMMON Exposition provides a one-stop source of up-to-the minute information and ideas for the IT industry. Discover what’s new in the IBM i and AIX world and give your company ways to reduce costs and improve productivity. Also, since many different technologies are on display, you can compare alternatives and determine what’s right for you. To learn more about the conference visit: http//www.common.org/annualmeeting.
To iVP 5.1 Users: We Have Heard You As you know, the sunset date to continue the support of your current version is December 31, 2008.
Update on customer care
With that in mind, we recognize that many of you are making gallant efforts to upgrade to v5.2. We are sympathetic to the fact that during these challenging times many businesses find it difficult to deploy the necessary resources required for the upgrade process. Many of you have contacted Solarsoft concerned that you will soon be running an unsupported version of the software.
FEB 09
At Solarsoft we take great pride in the close relationship that we have with each of you. As such, we would not want
Efficiencies in the new system
Preparing Your System for an iVP 5.2 Upgrade What you need to do
iVP Support
As your partner, we are listening.
Customer Quote of the Month
to leave you without solutions. In recognition of all that is happening we are committing to the continued support of iVP v5.1 through December 31st, 2009. This will give you increased control over your own planning. The decision to support three active versions of the software significantly increases our internal support costs. Accordingly, we are asking those who remain on v5.1 after the December 31, 2008 sunset date to help offset a portion of these costs by paying an additional 10% in support fees. We feel that this is a fair amount and encourages allocation of resources to the upgrade process. We want you to know that we are extremely sensitive to the times you are facing as manufacturers. We are implementing a grace period covering the first three calendar months of 2009. This grace period will provide you an additional three months to upgrade to v5.2 without having to pay additional support fees. We thank you for making Solarsoft your chosen provider of your ERP solution and will continue with our commitment to your continued success. Paul Craven, Chief Operating Officer, Solarsoft Business Systems
Servers at work in the office
Solarsoft has completed the testing of 6.1 with our iVP software application. We are ready to go! If you are interested in moving to 6.1 of the operating system please let us know. You can contact Doug Wallace at Doug.Wallace@ solarsoft.com or 905-224-2222 ext 238.
iVP Support Customer Care Center: From 8am to 8pm EST If you find that you don’t have time during your busy day to call us, don’t forget that we are open for your convenience Monday through Friday, 8am to 8pm, EST.
Analyst on Demand Services IBM i 6.1: the Latest Are you having problems balancing your Operating System accruals? Do you understand where the job variances are coming from at month end? Do for your iSeries/ need personalized flow charts to better Power System Server you understand the flow of information within your IBM i 6.1 (i5/OS V6R1) takes a great step forward to set new standards for efficiency and resiliency in business processing. To help businesses thrive in competitive marketplaces, this release includes expanded options for virtualization, upgraded storage and availability management, breakthrough Java performance, new support for POWER6™ processors and Blade-Center®, and a broad range of middleware and tools to help drive SOA transformation.
Hi Joseph, Thanks again. I was so lucky to get you on the phone to handle my EDI issue. You always take very good care of my incidents and follow up with wonderful service. It’s a pleasure working with you every time. Regards, Solarsoft Customer
system? Why not buy the extra service you need for when you need it? We can help. We will help you analyze and answer your questions about any part of the software, not just the examples given. For more information or to book some time, please call Maureen Capp at 905-2242222 ext 278.
New Offering from your Solarsoft Team! Managed Services Experts should do what experts are good at - you look after making parts, we look after your iSeries infrastructure. Tailored services just for you can include the following: Features
Lower Your Costs With These Benefits!
Daily check of backup status Ensure data is properly backed up; 50% of our customers don’t even check! Semi annual restore of backup Verify that the appropriate data is being saved and can be restored Respond to sev 40 messages Ensure accurate, prompt response to critical system messages, even after hours! Apply IBM Hiper PTFs and IBM Cums If you don’t know what these are you need the service! Manage full system save Are you doing this monthly? If not what happens if disaster strikes? User maintenance Let us properly and securely add/update and delete users. Check for intruders When was the last time you looked to ensure there were no unauthorized attempts to access your data Printer configurations You no longer need to read through countless manuals; give us a call! General space management Ensure maximum use of your iSeries resource For more information and to get started, please call John Kellett, your VP in charge at 905 224 2222 x307. Feb 09 Solarsoft Fast Facts
EDI EXTRA: Why and When You Need it Because of contractual obligations with key suppliers involving EDI, many times specific, real time, urgent business EDI issues arise that must be handled immediately.
iVP Customer care centre in action
In recognition of this, iVP Customer Care Center offers EDI Extra. EDI Extra is emergency customer service over and above our regular support and education services that provides special, real time EDI expertise in response to these specific, urgent problems that may arise from time-to-time.
programs we only support what Inovis supports. The latest version of TLi that was recently released is version 6.2.1. The earliest version that can be obtained from Inovis today is 6.1.4. We will be upgrading our development server to 6.1.4 to fall in line with the supported versions.
SOFTWARE SUPPORT & TIPS FROM THE EXPERTS
What does that mean to you TLi users? If you are on a version less than 6.1.4 your current setup will still work without any issues. However, importing of maps from RAMN02 option 18 or new map requirements will only work for 6.1.4 version or higher. That means it’s time to upgrade. To upgrade, please contact Inovis.
Preparing Your System for an iVP 5.2 Upgrade
Business Intelligence in the News Through 2012 more than 35 percent of the largest 5,000 companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets, according to analyst house Gartner.
Some areas of urgency that might arise could involve one or more of the following: Missing mandatory elements/segments on an outgoing ASN; Communication problems with your TL product; Trading partner setup and testing; and Maps that are required and that can’t wait for standard queue time
V5R4 will be withdrawn from marketing by IBM in January 2010 (i.e. you will not be able to buy it on new servers or order as an upgrade to existing servers). That would indicate that support for IBM V5R4 will end sometime in 2011.
V5R3 Support Ending April 30, 2009 IBM support for V5R3 is scheduled to end April 30th 2009.
Preparing Your System for an iVP 5.2 Upgrade Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2.
Preparing Your System for an iVP 5.2 Upgrade
There is an hourly charge for this service. Please contact our iVP Customer Care Center for more information.
V5R4 Withdrawal January 2010
Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2.
Mega vendors are not always the best option
That’s Gartner’s first, out of five, predictions for the business intelligence fray for 2009 through 2012. Not surprisingly -- particularly in these turbulent economic times -- the overarching theme of BI will be to combat such errors and to instead deliver greater business value, the research firm said. As IT shops move to make the most out of their BI platforms in the coming years, Gartner offers this piece of advice: “Businesses should not trust their megavendor to solve all their integration problems. Vendors move slowly to integrate the disparate code bases they have acquired,” Gartner explained in the report. “Reliance on one vendor also limits the ability to use best-ofbreed capabilities and weakens the buyer’s negotiating position.”
Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2. Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2. Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2.
Preparing Your System for an iVP 5.2 Upgrade Your system must be running Version 5 Release 4 (V5R4) of the Operating System before upgrading to iVP 5.2.
Attention TLi Users: Is it Time to Upgrade? It’s time to take note of the version you are using to see if you need to upgrade. As with all our EDI supported software Solarsoft Fast Facts Feb 09
Solarsoft Contact List
Solarsoft Fast Facts
To help us better serve you, please use the contact list below
North American Headquarters
Dial 905-224 - 2222
45 Vogell Road, Ste. 700
followed by the appropriate extension number listed below
Canada L4B 3P6
A publication of Solarsoft Business Systems
Richmond Hill, Ontario Tel.: (905) 224-2222 Fax: (905) 224-2221
Do you need
Contact
Ext
iVP Customer Care Center
-
1
mVP Customer Care Center
-
2
General information and administrative services
Raien Li
221
Customer services (upgrade, education, and course information)
Sandi Ingram
231
Sales information for installed iVP and mVP: jGO, Easy e-Business Suite, Production Analysis Toolkit, and additional software site licenses and license transfers; Third party software packages including data analysis (Cognos) and business partners
Aidan Killean
233
Analyst on demand (to help you analyze and answer your questions about any part of the software)
Maureen Capp
278
IBM hardware sales (iSeries and xSeries) and Intermec data collection equipment
Doug Wallace
238
EDI translation software (Inovis TrustedLink for iSeries and TrustedLink for Windows) and labeling (LabelView)
Stan Herschorn
308
Strategic software solutions, including: Quality Assurance, Financial Reporting, Document Management & Workflow, and CRM
Stan Herschorn
308
How can I get this newsletter? To receive this newsletter by email (PDF attachment), please contact: Sandi Ingram at sandi.ingram@solarsoft.com.
Newsletter comments: Please send your comments to Joel Hirchberg, Mgr, Documentation, at: joel.hirchberg@solarsoft. com. The information provided herein is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Solarsoft Business Systems. We make every effort to ensure that the information herein is accurate; however, Solarsoft assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear.
CONTACT YOUR LOCAL SOLARSOFT OFFICE OR VISIT US ONLINE TO FIND OUT HOW SOLARSOFT CAN HELP INCREASE RETURNS IN YOUR BUSINESS SOLARSOFT EUROPE +44 (0)8447 700900 SOLARSOFT NORTH AMERICA +1 (905) 224 2222
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