What’s New Since Elliott V7.1

In Elliott V7.2, we specifically improved the printing capability and optimized support for Microsoft Terminal Server.  Many features added in the IM, COP and PO modules are collectively referred to as the Warehouse Management solution.  Prepaid Or Deposit taking processes are greatly improved.  The On-line Credit Card process improves support for mail order & telemarketing type businesses.  It can also be used for Point of Sale.  Elliott V7.2 provides the necessary foundation for Elliott Internet Solutions to move to a .NET platform.  The following is a list of improvement in Elliott V7.2:

System Wide Features

Printing

In Elliott V7.2, printing has been significantly improved.  In the past, long printer names (names greater than 32 characters) were not supported.  V7.2 supports all Windows printer names up to 220 characters long.  This change significantly improves support for printing to the client’s local printer in Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Terminal Server. 

In addition, V7.2 supports saving printer dev mode which means any printing characteristic of a printer driver can be saved and remembered in Elliott by workstation and report.  For example, you may choose to print a certain print job to a certain printer and paper tray and Elliott will remember that and use it the next time as the default.  You can also send a print job to multiple printers at the same time.  For example, you can print one copy of a picking ticket in the office and one copy to the warehouse at the same time.

Most of the GUI windows with list view now support the printing of the list view.  Simply right click on the list view and choose “Print this list” and the content in the list view can be printed on the selected printer.

A new printer default maintenance utility program is provided under “Printer Setup”.  Users can print the Printer Default List by workstation ID or delete a Printer Default.  The printer default is created automatically in the print option window.  In case the printer default is corrupted to a point that user can’t recover in the print option window, the user can use the Printer Default delete option to delete the entry and start over for that particular print job.

Attribute

An Attribute is a way to expand the Elliott database without any modification.  In Elliott V7.2, the screen design capability for attributes has been significantly improved: (1) The user can specify the field length and default value for each field in an Attribute.  (2) Each field can be a free form field or validate against an Elliott master table or against a user pre-defined codes table. (3) User can decide the sequence of each field.

In addition, an attribute can be associated with a specific master table and only available for that master table.  When you choose to do so, a special data collection screen for that attribute will be available under the special function within the designated module.

We also added referential integrity support for attributes.  That is, when an attribute code is deleted, the associated attribute records will be deleted as well.

Mass Email & Export Processor

Mass Email & Export Processor can now start up from the Elliott Main Menu.  In addition, new data sources were added for sending email or exporting data.  This includes, and is not limited to, order or invoice line item.  For example, you can now send mass email based on the order or purchase history of certain items.  Inventory Location data sources were normalized so users can get inventory quantity information from all locations, including the ones from the item table.

Password Security

In Elliott V7.2, the administrator can force either all or some users to periodically change their password.  The administrator can also define the number of login attempts allowed before the user account is suspended.  A summary format of the User List is provided now to make it more readable.

The administrator can now link a user to a salesman.  If a user is identified as a salesman, additional restrictions will apply to this user to prevent them from accessing another salesman’s orders or customers in the following areas: Contact manager, order entry, order edit list, acknowledgement, quote printing, sales desk, stock status inquiry, freight calculation, order and invoice inquiry, open orders by salesman report, customer file maintenance & inquiry and customer account inquiry (both original and summary).  By utilizing Internet and Terminal Service technology, it is now possible to allow remote sales or manufacture rep to login Elliott to view their orders, invoices and customer information securely.

New security flags are also added to control the following:

·         Allow the user to change or delete a sales order once the picking ticket is printed.

·         Allow the user to create credit memos.

·         Allow the user to create sales orders.

·         Allow the user to delete sales orders.

·         Determine access rights to credit card information.

·         Allow the user to override terms code or salesman in order entry.

·         Allow the user to override discount percent.

·         Determine access rights for change and delete customer records.

·         And many more…

It is suggested that you review the new Elliott security flags in Global Security immediately after you upgrade to V7.2.

Credit Card Tracking

In Elliott V7.2, each contact is allowed to have multiple credit cards.  Credit card information is stored and encrypted with a 128-bit key and is secured throughout the Elliott system.  The credit card information stored in Elliott can be used in the Elliott On-Line Credit Card Processing feature (optional add-on) to improve efficiency with charging credit cards.

Database Activity Log

In Elliott V7.2, the user may press CTL-ATL-D as a hot key to bring up the database activity log window.  This feature allows easy tracking of database problems and errors.  The end result is to improve the time to find a particular support problem.  The Database Activity Log is also available when a critical file access error message shows up.  This will help the user find the file I-O activities leading up to the error.

Also, when a file is initialized, a log is placed in INITFILE.LOG of the corresponding DATA directory.  This is for auditing and security purposes.  The log contains the user-id, workstation-id, file name, process and date and time when a file was initialized.

Events

More events are added in Elliott V7.2:

·         Age Customer Account Balance with Detail Events by Customer: This detail event allows the supervisor to monitor when a customer is past due over a certain amount or certain time period.

·         Order Entry Event Add Total and Order Type: This improvement allows the supervisor to monitor any sales order or credit memo greater than a certain amount when it is created.

·         Invoice Printing Management Event:  Provides a management event to show the total information of an invoice printing batch.  Management may be interested to know the total invoice amount printing when each batch of invoices is printed.

Miscellaneous

·         Suppress Startup Image: Preference Setup allows the user to suppress Elliott Startup and Background graphics.  This will speed up the startup of Elliott over a slow Terminal Service link.

·         Elliott Startup Speed Improvements: Various changes were made to make the Elliott startup process more efficient and speed up the startup time.

·         Spool Report Manager Improvements: User Interface and Performance improvements for Spool Report Manager.

·         File Error Window Improvements: In the File Error Window, two new buttons were added: Database Activity Log and Environment.  These two buttons provide additional information to investigate the cause of the file access error.

·         New user definable Zip Code table:  Elliott V7.2 delivers a new Zip Code table that contains city, county and longitude and latitude information.  A maintenance utility is provided so the user can update the Zip Code table manually.

·         “V” Library File Support: Before 7.2, Elliott supported B, U, E and C library files.  With Elliott V7.2, V library file support is added.  The V Library file priority is between U and E and is used primarily for interim version support.

·         Improved File Handler: In Elliott V7.2, all files are created with a 4,096 byte page size for better performance.  In addition, the case insensitive key is supported starting with V7.2.

Accounts Receivable

County File and Sales Tax Code Auto Assignment

Elliott V7.2 delivers a county file as well as a new zip code file.  The county file is identified by a standard code called “FIPS”.  The new zip code file identifies the county that the zip code belongs to.  If a county code is associated with a tax code and a valid zip code is entered in the customer file, the system can determine the tax code based on the county file automatically.  This feature is intended to replace previous tax code auto assignment method which was based on zip code range.

Customer EDI Profile

Before V7.2, most EDI settings and default values were set up globally (in Global Setup). In V7.2, EDI settings and default values can be set up by customer, which is well suited for customers with multiple EDI trading partners.  The customer EDI profile can also enforce the setup of UPC and Customer Item Number during sales order import and export.

Customer and Order Address Synchronization

In Elliott V7.2, when a customer address or ship-to address is changed, the open sales orders’ bill-to and ship-to addresses can be updated automatically.

Customer User Defined Fields Import

A utility is provided for users to import a CSV file (editable in Excel spreadsheet) to update Customer Notes1-5, User-Date and User-Amount fields.

Post Cash Prompts for Cash Account

Elliott V7.2 now supports entering cash receipt transactions for multiple locations by asking for a cash account when the user tries to post cash receipts.

Inventory Management Features

New Available to Promise (ATP) Features

There is a summary version of the Available to Promise (ATP) Report now which will only print one item per line.  You can optionally ask the system to print negative quantity balances only with the summary ATP report.  This is a valuable tool for determining, at a quick glance, if there will be future inventory shortages and if purchases need to be made immediately.

The ATP Report is useful for distributors, importers and manufactures that purchase or manufacture to order.  It is not useful if you only purchase or manufacture to stock.

In Elliott V7.2, you can also “Print All Items with Stock” in the ATP report to get a combination of ATP and stock status.

Warehouse Management Functions

In Elliott V7.2, many warehouse management functions were developed.  Elliott warehouse management functions are based on the portable wireless Tablet PC and wireless scanner.  Wireless functions can be achieved by either implementing 802.11b/g in your warehouse or accessing Terminal Services (Windows 2000/2003 required) by using wireless Internet access provided by the cell phone companies.  The following are newly added functions related to warehouse management in Elliott V7.2:

(1) The system now supports scanning of an item barcode anywhere in Elliott where it prompts the user for an item number.  Item barcode can be Item Number, UPC Code, EAN.UCC-8, 13, or 14, and Manufacture Item Number.  This allows the warehouse person to effectively manage inventory with a Tablet PC or similar device. 

(2) Designed for receiving at the dock, a new Warehouse Purchase Order Receiving function is available now in V7.2 as an add-on feature.  The new receiving function can be deployed with or without barcode scanning.  The entries and key strokes are greatly simplified making it suitable for warehouse operation.

(3) The Physical Count Tag entry program has been enhanced and is now suitable for barcode scanning.  Regular items or serialized items can be scanned efficiently.  The multi-bin function is also supported.

(4) GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) Support: In V7.2, the system supports GTIN which includes EAN.UCC-14 (SCC-14), EAN.UCC-13, UCC-12 (UPC) and EAN.UCC-8.  GTIN also supports package size.  Scanning of GTIN in Physical Count and Shipping Verification will increase the quantity by the package size.

Sales & Order Entry

Recurring Orders

Recurring Orders in COP is similar to the Recurring Service Invoice feature in Accounts Receivable.  The difference is that the Recurring Orders will interface with the inventory module and the support of invoice history in the COP module offers complete tracking.  Recurring Orders is an optional add-on feature.

New Laser Form Support

Three different types of new laser forms are now provided: Order Acknowledgement, Order Quote and Sales Desk Quote.  Pre-defined templates are provided and the user can modify the laser form format on their own.  Customer Phone, Fax and Email address are supported on these documents as well as printing on invoices.  This provides the salesman with a professional output to give to their customers.

New Email Functions Support

Three types of email functions are now provided.  Order Acknowledgement, Order Quote and Sales Desk Quote.  They can either be sent on a batch basis or interactively when they are created.  The email address is based on the customer data or ship-to contacts.  The shipping email acknowledgment now adds item number and customer PO number to the body of the email.

Prepaid Processing

If you take deposits or your orders are prepaid, then you will find Elliott V7.2 greatly improves your process.  Multiple deposits and different source of payments can be taken on an order or invoice.  This includes cash, checks, credit cards and gift certificates.  Multiple A/R open payments or credits can be used to apply to an order.

The sales desk, working in conjunction with the prepaid process window, functions much like a point of sale (POS).

The Payment History Report can be used for auditing purposes or for cash drawer reconciliation when using sales desk as a POS.

Enforce Qty Multiple/Item User Amt in Order Entry

You can now make Qty Multiple or Item User Amt as the Qty-Per-Box.  This can be used to enforce the selling of an item based on the Item Qty Multiple or Item User Amount.  If you sell a certain item based on per box, you can define per box quantity as Qty Multiple or Item User Amount.  COP Order Entry can enforce the quantity entered as a multiple of Qty Multiple or Item User Amount.  Qty-Per-Box can also be used for calculating the number of packages in Bill of Lading, Shipping Label and Shipping Verification.

Miscellaneous

·         Sales Desk Database Purge: The system now supports the purging of the Sales Desk database by using a cut-off date.

·         Consumer Scanner Support in Sales Desk: Consumer Scanner is supported in Sales Desk as a quick way of taking customer orders.  This function is especially useful in a trade show situation.

·         Lot# Consolidate on Invoice Printing:  An invoice that contains multiple line items with identical items, but different lot numbers, can now be consolidated during invoice printing.

Shipping

Shipping Verification to Support Billing Selection

The user can now configure Shipping Verification to automatically select the order for billing after confirmation of the shipment.  After the order is selected for billing, the user can optionally print the invoice.  This feature streamlines the shipping, billing and invoice process where all three tasks can be accomplished at the shipping station and result in increased productivity.  Shipping Verification is an optional add-on feature.

Restricted Attribute Support during Picking Ticket Printing

Before this release, Attribute checking was performed at the time of invoice printing where an order may be put on hold if the customer’s attribute was expired.  However, checking the attribute at the time of invoicing may be too late unless the user uses the invoice as a shipping document.  This release supports attribute checking at the time of picking ticket printing and puts the order on hold if the customer attribute has expired. 

Simple Billing

“Simple Billing” is a new way to perform billing selection.  It is intended to be simple and secure enough for the warehouse operator to use.  In Simple Billing, the user is not allowed to edit the order header and line items, therefore avoiding security issues with the warehouse operator.  It assumes no shipping variance and the process takes no more than a few keystrokes to complete.  The user can optionally print the invoice after the selection.  Simple Billing can greatly speed up the shipping process where shipping, billing and invoicing can be done in one step.  Simple Billing is an optional add-on feature.

User Definable Shipper On-Line Tracking

Before this release, Elliott supported on-line shipment tracking for UPS, FedEx, US Mail and Airborne Express.  With this release, the user can define any shipper (i.e. trucking company) for on-line tracking as long as their tracking web page supports the HTTP GET method (as opposed to POST method).

Other Functions

Immediate BOMP Production Transaction Posting

It is now possible to immediately post BOMP production transactions once the transactions have been entered into Elliott.

New Add On Options since V7.1

Credit Card On-Line Processing

Elliott V7.2 supports on-line credit card processing by using Via Warp and Nova.  With on-line credit card processing, the credit card is charged through Elliott and the payment is automatically posted to your Merchant account, as well as performing a real time Elliott cash receipt.  In Elliott, you can perform an on-line credit card charge through:

·         Contact Screen (Real Time Cash Receipt)

·         A/R Credit Card Transaction Handling (Batch Cash Receipt)

·         COP Sales Desk (Real Time Cash Receipt)

·         COP Order Entry Billing Screen (Real Time Cash Receipt)

Access of the credit card information and charging of the credit card is controllable user by user.  The credit card number is encrypted with a user defined 128-bit key to protect against leaking the credit card number.

Radio Beacon Interface

Radio Beacon is one of the leading warehouse management solutions.  Elliott V7.2 provides an interface with Radio Beacon in the following areas:

Consumer Scanner Interface

Consumer Scanner is a low cost, compact, portable barcode scanner from Symbol Technologies.  Consumer Scanner does not have a display screen or keyboard.  It is intended to scan item information and interface to the host system.  Elliott V7.2 now supports a Consumer Scanner interface in the following areas:

·         Sales Desk: This will be used in a situation like a trade show where a sales rep can discuss with the customer the item they want by scanning the barcode of the item.  From a workstation that has sales desk open, the sales rep can identify the customer first, then perform the interface to download the item that was scanned.

·         Serial Window: This will be used in receiving hundreds of serial numbers for the same item.  The user can perform the scanning of all the serial numbers and then interface to the Serial Window to save key strokes.

New Internet Functions

Elliott eStore.NET

Elliott eStore.NET is designed as an ecommerce solution that can be used for B2C or B2B.  It includes a catalog solution that you can manage right inside Elliott.  Your customer can see real time inventory, pricing and place an on-line order.  The customer can also track the status of their order and view invoice history.  Elliott eStore.NET is based on the latest Microsoft .NET technology, so the user does not need to host a web site in-house to achieve real time inventory and order delivery.

Elliott eOrders.NET

Elliott eOrders.NET is similar to eStore.NET, but it is intended to be used by your sales reps.  Through eOrders.NET, your sales rep can search customers, view account statistics and view customer detail account balances.  Like eStore.NET, sales reps can place orders on-line for their customers, check order status and view invoice history.

Yahoo Store Integration

For people who prefer using Yahoo Store as their ecommerce solution, Elliott now offers Yahoo Store Integration in the area of real time inventory and order delivery.  Yahoo Store is more flexible for designing the look and feel of a catalog page.  However, at the same time, it is more time consuming in maintaining the catalog page.  The Yahoo Store solution requires a separate hosting and transaction fee from Yahoo.

Resellers Near You Search

Elliott V7.2 delivers a new Zip Code table with longitude and latitude information to support Resellers Near You Search.  If you sell products through a reseller channel and you would like to refer business to them through your web site, Resellers Near You Search will allow the user to enter their zip code at your web site and the system will return a list of resellers in their area sorted by distance.  In the setup of Resellers Near You Search, you can define the criteria for your resellers (i.e. Customer Type, Sales Volume, etc.)

New Tables Added Since V7.1

ARCUSEXT (AR Customer Extended File): This file stores the EDI profile for each customer.

ARCOUNTY (AR County File): This file contains all US county records.  The user can specify the Tax code by county so the system can assign a tax code automatically when a zip code is entered.  This file should reside in each DATA directory.  The distributed file is in the Elliott root directory and the user can manually copy to each DATA directory.

CPRECHDR (COP Recurring Header File): This file contains Recurring Order Header information.

CPRECLIN (COP Recurring Line Item File): This file contains Recurring Line Item information.

CPORDPMT (COP Order Payment File): This file contains Order Payment Information and is also used for the COP Payment History Report.

IMGTINFI (IM GTIN File): This file contains the valid GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) for each Elliott item.  It supports the following code standards: UCC-8, 12, 13 and 14.

POWHRECI (PO Warehouse Receiving Item File): This file contains the data for the new add-on function, PO Warehouse Receiving.

POWHRECS (PO Warehouse Receiving Serial File): This file stores the serial number information for each warehouse receiving item.

PRINTTPL (Print Template File): This file stores the printer configuration information for Elliott V7.2.

SYATRENH (System Attribute Enhancement File): This file stores the newly enhanced Attribute feature in Elliott V7.2.  This includes the field length, validation, default value, sequence, etc.

SYCDTYPE (System Code Type File): This file stores the valid code types that the new enhanced Attribute validates.

SYCDVALU (System Code Value File): This file stores the valid value for each code type that enhanced Attribute validates.

SYCONCRD (System Contact Credit File): This file stores the credit card information for each contact.  All credit card numbers are encrypted in this file.  Before you can use this table, you must assign a master password in Global Setup Utility for this file.

SYZIPCDS (System Zip Codes File): This file contains the valid zip codes for US addresses.  This file is used for “Reseller Near You Search.”  It is also used for City, State lookup by Zip Code as well as tax code automatic assignment.  This file should reside in each DATA directory.  The distributed file is in the Elliott root directory and the user can manually copy it to each DATA directory.

WSORDHDR (Web Services Order Header File): This is for Elliott e-Orders and e-Store applications.  When Web Service EliOrderServices fails to create an order for whatever reason, it will store the order header data in this table for administrator management purposes.

WSORDLIN (Web Services Order Line Item File): This is for Elliott e-Orders and e-Store applications.  When Web Service EliOrderServices fails to create an order for whatever reason, it will store the order line item data in this table for administrator management purposes.