Increase email_addr field size ? 1

[jaustill]

Macola Progression 7.7.100 running on a mssql 2000 server with ICR version 11[no Flex] [no custom]

How much trouble would I cause myself if I were to increase the field size in APVENFIL_SQL for field email_addr from 20 characters to 50 characters and also the field size in APALTADR_SQL for field email_addr from 20 characters to 50 characters. (So that they are actually useful)

I doubt Macola will ever make this field long enough to be useful like they did when they made the AR email_addr fields 40 characters long.

My thoughts are that at the worst I may loose the extra 30 characters each time I update Macola.

Does anyone here have any real world experience with consequences of doing this?

 

[dgillz]

Jere,

No way. You are asking for trouble. There are some user defined fields you could use if they are not already in use, these are 30 characters long instead of 20.

What are you trying to do? There may be a way to do it with a custom table and Flex. With your programming skills you would eat Flex up and do a lot of cool stuff.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, Synergy, and Crystal Reports. Check out our Macola tools:

http://www.gainfocus.biz/exceladdin.html

 

[jaustill]

Don,
We gave up on the slowness of Crystal and have started using fpdf (fpdf.org) to make emailable and network faxable PDF's of already printed purchase orders to send to our suppliers. Macola's email_addr field at 20 characters is way too short and the user defined fields at 30 characters is marginal. What the users have to do now is type in the email address each time a PO is emailed.

I was trying to avoid adding an extra tables to solve this simple issue. We have already added extra tables for other more complex shortcomings like the data required to send international shipments.

I don't really think we want to take on flex now as we ultimately will have to move to ERS.

 

[randva1]

jaustill:

How do you use fpdf to make emailable PO's?

 

[jaustill]

Short version is we use fpdf to "Draw" a blank PO with all the lines, boxes and shading and at the same time fpdf runs multiple if else queries against all the tables that Macola uses to build the PO. fpdf then puts that data in the PO it is drawing and outputs a finished PDF file of our PO to wherever we want it to go.

We actually have two versions, one to print duplicates or "print" to the faxserver the other that pops up a Browser to ask for additional info and then send the PO as an email attachment using PHPmailer code (

http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net)

End result is a duplicate of our PO sent wherever we want it to go in about 2 seconds total time.

Still have to actually print a real PO from Macola to update the database, but no more walking to the fax or scanning a PO just to email it.

By the way fpdf and PHPmailer are both opensource, meaning FREE.

 

[dgillz]

I have requested this change with Exact. I actually think they are going to do it, but it may be a few months.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, Synergy, and Crystal Reports. Check out our Macola tools:

http://www.gainfocus.biz/exceladdin.html