Email PO Progression 7.6.300

[bruggles]

We are trying to increase the efficiency of our purchasing process. Am looking to do the following and wonder if anyone else has done this. FAXING hard copy PO's seems so tedious, slow, costly and inefficient.

Am thinking to go in and design one of the built in PO ICR's, add a bitmap signature for the buyer and then use a third party tool to convert the PO to an PDF email attachment thus achieving a signed PDF in digital format and speed up our sending out of PO's. Currently we are able to convert the PO to a PDF but it is using one of the built in PO form's and our Purchasing department says our Vendors need a signed copy.

Has anyone else done this? Form Designer is a terrible applet and seems so limited. It seems this would work.

TIA

 

[randva]

bruggles:

I think this would be easy to do using Crystal Reports.

We print original PO's in Macola for internal use. Then the buyer runs a crystal report (which makes the formatting and signature .tif easy). The crystal report is faxed or emailed to the vendor.

I hope this is helpful.

randva

 

[crystalreporting]

The ideal solution for emailing of forms and other documents is Crystal Reports in conjunction with Ido Millets Visual Cut program. Visual cut allows you to 'burst' and email, using email addresses from within the Crystal report (i.e. pulling from APVENFIL or ARCUSFIL).

All of the standard Crystal export formats are supported (PDF, HTML etc.) and the bursting feature allows you to split a single report up into multiple exports and emails i.e. a sales report can be split into separate reports for each salesperson and emailed automatically. I have used this solution at a number of Macola customer sites with great success.

Visual Cut can also be scheduled using windows scheduler to fully automate the email and distribution of Crystal reports.

Automated faxing is also possible - I use a product called Faxware. It is a server based faxing solution that polls nominated folders for incoming documents. Crystal reports are run (via Visual Cut) and exported to the polling folder. Faxware interprets the incoming document for the fax number and strips it from the document prior to converting it to PCL and faxing it. Works like a charm.

Peter Shirley

http://www.srhconsulting.com

 

[dgillz]

Crystal is a great tool but it does not do the critical database update that printing the PO in Macola does. So in other words the PO status would not change to P-printed and the items themselves would not show up as on order in Macola.

So to get past this I recommend Reform. I have this in use at several clients and it can print on plain paper, email pdfs, or fax as needed. Its a great piece of software.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
" - unknown

 

[bruggles]

Thank you for the replys. Thought I had a simple solution with the ICR but am aghast that the ICR does not have a switch to flag the PO as printed.

I continue to be dismayed (again) as to why Macola would not simply add this feature\function so the PO is flagged as Printed when printing the ICR from their PO module in Progression. Additionally they should junk the built in Form Designer (another mechanism from the 60's) and allow you to simply modify and select an ICR to use for output in the main PO module or any other for that matter.

FAX was neat back in the 60's but it is "2006" and FAX is not a tool that allows a company to reduce their overhead and move quicker toward the ideal realm of lean manufacturing.

 

[dgillz]

Brent,

I feel your pain, and share the frustration. Who have you talked to at Macola? Did you share your frustration? Did you merely vent or did formally you ask that the software be enhanced to include this functionality?

While I agree I would like to see a lot of what you are talking about built into Macola, Reform WILL SOLVE your faxing issues.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
" - unknown

 

[crystalreporting]

It's a popular misconception that Crystal Reports cannot update a database.

In the example of a PO, the printed status is more than just a flag on the PO header, as the printing of a PO updates the QOO and generates the IMINVTRX record amongst other things. While this could be done with Crystal, the SQL statement would be complex at best.

While Crystal updating may not be a good option for PO's, it's worthwhile knowing that Crystal can update the database and works perfectly for simple SQL statements i.e. to change the status on a POP order from released to printed.

You can even make updating a hot-link within the report itself via an 'on-demand' subreport i.e. 'Click here if the Acknowledgement printed OK'. See Business Objects kbase article c2011921 for more information.

I agree that Exact have 'dropped the ball' with Crystal integration. Most comparable ERP products have strong Crystal integration for reports - even Macola ES is lacking in this area.

Peter Shirley

http://www.srhconsulting.com