Customer FX

Workshop Reminder: Merging Records - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above

Brianna Tinjum — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:02:00 GMT

If you would like to attend the workshop, "Merging Records - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above", but haven't registered, now is the time! The ability to merge records is a great skill to have and we wouldn't want you to miss out. Join this meeting now....(read more)

Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 5) The Leads KPI

George Jensen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:22:00 GMT

Because we have run through the process a couple of times these posts on setting up the KPI spreadsheets start getting a little less repetitive and little more to the point.

I entered into my eval system as Lee Hogan and entered one Lead through the Insert Lead menu item. I refreshed the Visual Analyzer (VA) file and the Lead Dial now showed that Lee had 1 Lead in the database.

Seems simple enough, my next thought was what happens when I convert the Lead to a Contact in the database. I experimented around with my newly entered lead and used the Convert Qualified Lead wizard. After the wizard operation was complete, I refreshed VA and noticed the Lead dial for Lee went back down to 0. I checked into the Leads table a little and discovered that my contact indeed did not exist and was completely transformed over to the Contact table.

Next, I did a search and found the newly entered Contact. The Contact record had a History record written in the database with a description of "Lead Conversion Notes". This provided the information I needed to draw the number of Leads a User enters into the system and also allows me to pull out the number of Leads that were also converted into Contacts.

For the client I am working with, I wrote the following SQL Script to help determine how many Leads had been converted to Contacts in the system.

SELECT     COUNT(sysdba.CONTACT.CONTACTID) AS ConvertedLeads, sysdba.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(sysdba.CONTACT.CREATEDATE) as Year

FROM         sysdba.CONTACT INNER JOIN
                   sysdba.HISTORY ON sysdba.CONTACT.CONTACTID = sysdba.HISTORY.CONTACTID INNER JOIN
                   sysdba.USERINFO ON sysdba.HISTORY.USERID = sysdba.USERINFO.USERID
WHERE     (sysdba.HISTORY.DESCRIPTION LIKE '%Lead Conversion Notes%')
GROUP BY sysdba.USERINFO.USERNAME, sysdba.CONTACT.CREATEDATE

I then wrote this SQL Script to determine the number of Leads that the users had in the system by year.

SELECT     sysdba.USERINFO.USERNAME, COUNT(sysdba.LEAD.LEADID) AS UnConvertedLeads, YEAR(sysdba.LEAD.CREATEDATE) AS [Year]
FROM         sysdba.LEAD INNER JOIN
                   sysdba.USERINFO ON sysdba.LEAD.CREATEUSER = sysdba.USERINFO.USERID
GROUP BY sysdba.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(sysdba.LEAD.CREATEDATE)

For each user, we looked at the number of Leads leads and the number of Leads converted to Contact for the last three years. The clients top user had 905 Leads in the system for 2007, 127 were converted into Contacts. This calculated out to 14% of the user entered as Leads had been converted to actual Contacts. Using this information the client set the goal for each user at 600 leads for 2008/2009 with the hope that there would be a 10% conversion of leads to Contacts with a further hope that more then 50% of those Contacts will become customers. This means 50 new Leads a month with 5 actually becoming Contacts and 2-3 becoming Customers while maintaining the Users current base.

We updated the Leads Spread Sheet as stated in previous posts. Just remember the spreadsheet name within the Microsoft Excel file is KPI (4). Also, remember the evaluation users (like Lee Hogan) will continue to display until all of the KPI Spread Sheets are updated with your User base.

Tickets KPI is up next.

Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 4) The Activity KPI

George Jensen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:15:00 GMT

I am continuing on with the set up of Sage SalesLogix (SLX) Visual Analyzer (VA), currently our focus is with the Microsoft Excel Spread Sheets that support Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Today we will concentrate on the Activity KPI

To detiermine what adds up into the Actual field in the dial I went into the SLX Eval database and entered in the different types of activities for Lee Hogan. I discovered that the Meeting, Phone Call, To - Do, Literature Request, along with the Activity Note Pad all add to the Actual total seen in the dail above. The Event and Personal Activites did count against the Goal.

As you probably already have guessed the Goal of 24 was entered into the KPI Spread Sheets for Lee. Since this is July (the 7 month of the year), VA calculated that Lee's goal year to date is 14 Activities. Please note, that I met his Goal in 15 minutes of playing around with the system. So how do you set quality meaninful Activity goals for your users? For the my VA clients database we used the following SQL Script to help decide what their users goals should be.

SELECT COUNT(SYSDBA.HISTORY.HISTORYID) AS COUNT, SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(SYSDBA.HISTORY.COMPLETEDDATE) AS [Year]

FROM SYSDBA.HISTORY INNER JOIN SYSDBA.PICKLIST
ON SYSDBA.HISTORY.TYPE = SYSDBA.PICKLIST.ID
INNER JOIN SYSDBA.USERINFO
ON SYSDBA.HISTORY.COMPLETEDUSER = SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERID

WHERE
(SYSDBA.PICKLIST.TEXT IN ('MEETING', 'PHONE CALL', 'To-Do', 'Literature Request'))
and YEAR(SYSDBA.HISTORY.COMPLETEDDATE)='2008'

GROUP BY SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(SYSDBA.HISTORY.COMPLETEDDATE)
ORDER BY YEAR(SYSDBA.HISTORY.COMPLETEDDATE), SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME

If you adjust the WHERE clause YEAR value you can really get a good idea of how your users have previously used the system and come up with some good solid performance based Activity goals for coming years.

To update the KPI spread sheet with your Activity Goals follow these steps:

Log into the SLX Database as Admin.
Navigate to the VA interface by the NAV Bar button.
Along the top center of the view you will see a tool bar box with a number of icons, The second icon from the right has a drop down, select the "Manage Configuration" from the list.

The Manage Configuration view will appear. Select the "Open in Excel" button and select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The KPI spread sheet should open.
Navigate to the KPIGoals(3) sheet.
The first thing I did was delete all of the data in the coulmns to the right of colum A. I entered the names of each of the users for each year I want to track based on the list established in Part 1 of this series of posts.
For each user and year, I added the Goal and then deleted or added the value of "Activities" in column A as necessary.
Save and close the KPIs.xls file.
On the Manage Configurations view, select the "Load From Excel" button
Again the select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The data sheet should now be updated with your data.
Now refresh to see the changes in VA.

One thing to note, until all of the KPI sheets are updated you will still see eval data in the VA.

I hope these posts are helpful and feel free to provide your feed back or ideas for future posts. Next, the Leads KPI.

SageCRM 6.2 Beta Preview

David Tinjum — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Beta for SageCRM 6.2 is rapidly approaching. The initial schedule calls for it to run from July 30 through August 22. As usual, Customer FX will be participating and keep you posted on the progress. Some highlights on the upcoming release: ...(read more)

Power2Survey for SalesLogix Released

David Tinjum — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:21:00 GMT

With Power2Survey administrators can create custom surveys without having to customize SalesLogix St. Paul, MN ( PRWEB ) July 15, 2008 -- Customer FX Corporation announces the release of Power2Survey for Sage SalesLogix. Power2Survey enables code-less creation of custom surveys for use in leading CRM suite Sage SalesLogix . Key features and benefits include: Account representatives can have a scripted set of questions Can be used to collect detailed and planned information about campaigns, account...(read more)

SalesLogix 7.5 Beta Testing Has Begun!

Ryan Farley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:55:00 GMT

The beta tesing for SalesLogix 7.5 has begun! Completely exciting. This is THE release for SalesLogix web, and one that IMO puts SalesLogix in the front of all other web-based CRM applications. If you're using SalesLogix Web and not yet planning on moving to 7.5 it's time to start planning that upgrade.

There will be plenty of things coming to show all the new features of 7.5 (like the upcoming Customer FX 7.5 Sneak Peek live workshop) , but I wanted to point out a few small and less talked about things that I've liked so far in this release.

New Look & Feel

The new "polished" look of the web client is completely impressive. I stuggled with the look of the original 7.2 client, had a hard time liking how it looked. Not the case any more. This looks awesome. Here's a few examples:

The new menus:

The new group viewer:

Collapsible navbar:

Awesome looking dialogs, especially lookups - wow those were really needed and I just can't get over how great they look!

Session Timeout Indicator

In the bottom-right corner. And you get bumped out to the login screen as soon as it expires. Small change, yes, but a nice one to have. Also, you get a count down to when you are going to get automatically logged off too - "auto logoff in 1 minute":

Performance

One completely great addition in 7.5 is that you no longer have such a long wait time when clicking between tabs. In previous versions, each time you clicked a tab you'd get the progress bar while it was retrieved and loaded. You still have the for the first time you click it, but then it stays loaded so you can go to other tabs and then back to it and it displays immediately. The result is a huge and noticeable performance increase in just moving around the client. Cool!

Deployment

I don't know if this was an intended "feature" or not, but I love it. The deployment status window is no longer modal to the Application Architect. You can deploy and then click around in the AA while the deployment is happening. No more frustrating waits just to look at some things while it is deploying.

Forms

There's a new addition of non-entity related forms! There will be plenty more to come on this one.

Anyway, off the top of my head, those are some of the smaller things that hit me as I moved around and played with the first SalesLogix 7.5 beta. Plenty more will follow.

Jul 28, 2008 - New User Orientation for SalesLogix

Brianna Tinjum — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:06:26 GMT

Attend the Workshop - New User Orientation for SalesLogix!

Event details:

Monday, July 28, 2008
From 2:00 PM Central to 2:30 PM Central
(7:00 PM GMT to 7:30 PM GMT)

See Workshop Details

Register Today!

Outlook2CRM for Sage SalesLogix Reaches Major Milestone

David Tinjum — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:03:00 GMT

This is a major milestone in the lifecycle of this product. A special thanks to the 100+ SalesLogix Business Partners who helped us reach this level, says Brianna Tinjum, Channel Partner Manager for Customer FX. ...(read more)

Fiscal Year SalesLogix Promotions from Sage

David Tinjum — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:25:00 GMT

Sage Software has entered the final quarter of its fiscal year, which means of course, that new promotions have arrived. 4 promotions covering Swiftpage, Sage M&S, SalesLogix Mobile, Visual Analyzer and KnowledgeSync are effective through September 26, 2008....(read more)

SalesLogix Basics 1 - EditBox control

Jason Buss — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:37:00 GMT

I will be putting out a series of write-ups covering basic development topics in the SalesLogix LAN client, so without further ado...

SalesLogix Basics Part 1 - The EditBox control.

The standard EditBox is arguably the most commonly used control in SalesLogix. It allows direct user input or modification of data on the current form.

There is really only one property that must be set for the control, either at run-time or at design time. That is the Text Property.

At design time, clicking the button presents a list of fields for the current view’s parent table (Account, in this case). Select the desired field, and click ‘OK’.

At this point, there’s nothing else you need to do. When committed, the value is updated to the bound field.

Otherwise, you can set the Text property to a specific value using this syntax:

Edit1.Text = “Whatever”

Here are a few additional selected Properties which are used frequently.

Alignment: The alignment property determines the alignment of the text within the control. Enumerated values are; taLeftJustify, taRightJustify and taCenter.

Color: The color property determines the color displayed in the background of the control. Typically, I use this property to grey out the field if it has been set to readonly. Typically, I’m either setting the control to either “Window” or “BtnFace”, but using the StringToColor function, you have quite a few color options.

Ex. Edit1.Color = Application.BasicFunctions.StringToColor(“Window”)

Edit1.Color = Application.BasicFunctions.StringToColor(“BtnFace”)

Edit1.Color = Application.BasicFunctions.StringToColor(“Red”)

Enabled(T/F): This property determines if the control can respond to any user events. Turning off this property will make the control completely inaccessible to the user, although they will be able to view the data.

FormatType: The FormatType property determines the Format of the text displayed in the control. Enumerated values include; ftNone, ftInteger, ftDateTime, ftPercent, ftCurrency, ftUser, ftOwner, ftPhone (Other values exists, but I tend to use these 8 most often.)

FormatString: This property also determines the format of the text in the control, however while FormatType has a finite list of potential options, FormatString allows you a little more control used in conjunction with the FormatType Property.

Ex. Value = 100

FormatType = ftCurrency

Value = $100.00

FormatString = %.0m

Value = $100

Height, Width: These properties determine the Height and Width of the control.

Top, Left: These properties control the position of the control on the form.

ReadOnly(T/F): This functions similarly to Enabled, but a user is allowed to select the text in the control. Typically, I set the color property of the EditBox as well to designate that the control is not editable.

RecordChanges(T/F): If turned on, edits to this control will generate a history record containing the old value from the control.

Name: The Name property sets the name of the control which can then be referenced in code. If you plan on writing any code, I strongly suggest naming all of your controls. It’s much easer to reference “txtAccountType” then “Edit1”, “Edit2”, etc…

I'll get into Events in the next Basics Article.

Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 3) The Opportunities KPI

George Jensen — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:36:00 GMT

I have been focusing on the setting up of Sage SalesLogix (SLX) Visual Analyzer (VA), specifally the Microsoft Excel Spread Sheets that support Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The Opportunity KPI is next on the list.

Using the SLX Eval database I have entered the SLX as Admin and I have navigated to the VA main view by using the Nav bar icon. Along the top you see numerous tabs but my only concern for the moment is the one labled KPIs. Under the 'Name' list box I have our friend Lee Hogan highlighted with June 2008 selected under End Date.

As you can see a goal has been established in the VA KPI spread sheet for Lee to have a total of $3,600,000 of open Opportunities in 2008. With standard VA doing the math and since this is June the Goal reflected in the dial is $1,800,000.

The "Actual" amount reflects the current Pipeline for each user by summing the Weighted amount of all Open Opportunties that have a close date in or before the selected month (In this example June) and the Selected year (2008). This means unless the Opportunities are updated when the new year comes around all open Opportunites with a Close date within the old year will not display. This is the case with our example, Lee shows none but when you dig into his records you will find plenty of open Opportunities from 2007.

In order to come up with a Opp goal numbers for 2008 in my client database installation, I ran the following SQL Query to help discover goals for this KPI:

SELECT
SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME AS [User]
, Sum(SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.SalesPotential) As TotalPotential
, Count(SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.OpportunityID) AS NumberofOpps
, YEAR(SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.CREATEDATE) AS [Year]
, SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.ACCOUNTMANAGERID

FROM SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY INNER JOIN SYSDBA.USERINFO
ON SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.ACCOUNTMANAGERID = SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERID

--Where SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.STATUS = 'Closed - Won'

GROUP BY SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.CREATEDATE),SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.ACCOUNTMANAGERID
ORDER BY YEAR(SYSDBA.OPPORTUNITY.CREATEDATE), SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME

In our evaluation database this query told me that Lee Hogan had 42 Opportunites worth over 18 million dollars in the system in 2007.

Removing the "--" in front of the SQL Where clause told me that in 2007, Lee won 17 Opportunities which added up to just over 8 million dollars.

The numbers from these queries told us that Lee Closed and Won just over 40% of the Opportunties, this added up to about 45% of the SalesPotential entered into the system.

If you gave Lee a goal of $8,800,000 dollars for 2008 based on a 10% increase of Sales from last year and divided that by 12, gives Lee has a monthly goal of $733,333 Sales per month.

Taking in to consideration the 40% succesful close rate, our client decided to multiply this goal by 1.6 giving the user a yearly goal for Open Opportunities of $14,080,000 which rounds out to about $1,173,000 a month.

To update the KPI spread sheet with data decided above I followed these steps:

Log into the SLX Database as Admin.
Navigate to the VA interface by the NAV Bar button.
Along the top center of the view you will see a tool bar box with a number of icons, The second icon from the right has a drop down, select the "Manage Configuration" from the list.

The Manage Configuration view will appear. Select the "Open in Excel" button and select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The KPI spread sheet should open.
Navigate to the KPIGoals(2) sheet.
The first thing I did was delete all of the data in the coulmns to the right of colum A. I entered the names of each of the users for each year I want to track based on the list established in Part 1 of this series of posts.
For each user and year, I added the Goal and then deleted or added the value of "Opps" in column A as necessary.
Save and close the KPIs.xls file.
On the Manage Configurations view, select the "Load From Excel" button
Again the select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The data sheet should now be updated with your data.
Now refresh to see the changes in VA.

After digging into this KPI, I have to say I feel there could be a better way of looking at the PipeLine. Why would you want to leave Opportunties open in the month they are originally estimated to close? Wouldn't you continue to manage your Opportunities Estimated Close date through the close of the Opportunity. Isn't that what managing Opportunties all about? Of course I know that everyone will have thier own opinion but I think a better method of measurement for this dial would be to display the Total Weighted Potential for all Open Opportunites and compare that to an Opportunity Goal based on the Sales Person Closed - Won rate. In other words, if Lee's Sales goal is $733,000 each month to reach $8,800,000 this year, and you know that on average he closes and wins 45% of the Sales Potential in the system. To establish his Opportunity Goal the equations could be $733,000 multiplied by 1.55 to equal $1,136,000 which says this is the amount of Open Opportunites you want Lee to have in the system at all times.

I tried to use the standard functiality to get the VA to think this way but was unsuccesful. You will probably see this modification in a future post. Next up, the Activities KPI

Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 2)

George Jensen — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:36:00 GMT

Yesterday we start talking about the installation of Sage SalesLogix Visual Analyzer. As stated in our post Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 1) we are focusing on establishing the supporting data behind the KPI tab of the Visual Analyzer.

In part one we created a list of Users who are targets for our KPI's. We also discussed determining how far back in history do you want be able to make your comparisons. With these two items in hand you are ready to start modifying your KPI spread sheets. I will continue to use the eval database names and data but any examples are from the installation of Sage SalesLogix (SLX) Visual Analyzer (VA) against an actual clients custom database.

Today we are focusing on the Sales KPI.

There are two parts to the Sales KPI, "Actual" is the sum of all Closed - Won Opportunities to date, "Goal" is the to date yearly Goal amount as entered in the KPI Spread Sheet. In the example above I have closed one of Lee's Opportunities worth $800.00. The Eval KPI Spread Sheet has a Goal established for Lee in the year 2008 of $1,200,000. Since this is June 2008, VA did the math and detimined Lee's Goal to date is $600,000.

My clients were actually using the SLX standard functionality of Manage Goals. The difference was that my Client had unique goals for every month for each of thier users. I used the following SQL Statement to sum up the Goals entered in SLX so I could use them in the KPI spread sheet.

SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME AS [User], 
SUM(SYSDBA.QUOTA.AMOUNT) AS [Yearly Goal], MIN(SYSDBA.QUOTA.BEGINDATE) 
AS [Begin Date], MAX(SYSDBA.QUOTA.ENDDATE) AS [End Date] 
FROM SYSDBA.USERINFO INNER JOIN SYSDBA.QUOTA 
  ON SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERID = SYSDBA.QUOTA.USERID 
GROUP BY SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME, YEAR(SYSDBA.QUOTA.BEGINDATE) 
ORDER BY YEAR(SYSDBA.QUOTA.BEGINDATE), SYSDBA.USERINFO.USERNAME

This gave me the goals for the year and for 3 years previous for this client.

To update the KPI spread sheet with data with this data I followed these steps:

Log into the SLX Database as Admin.
Navigate to the VA interface by the NAV Bar button.
Along the top center of the view you will see a tool bar box with a number of icons, The second icon from the right has a drop down, select the "Manage Configuration" from the list.

The Manage Configuration view will appear. Select the "Open in Excel" button and select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The KPI spread sheet should open.
Navigate to the KPIGoals(1) sheet.
The first thing I did was delete all of the data in the coulmns to the right of colum A. I then copied in the data from the SQL query into the KPIGoals (1) Spread Sheet.
I then deleted or added the value of "Sales" in column A as necessary.
Save and close the KPIs.xls file.
On the Manage Configurations view, select the "Load From Excel" button
Again the select the KPIs.xls file from the windows open view. The data sheet should now be updated with your data.

As an example I updated the evaluation KPI data under Lee for the year 2008 to $2,400,000.

The KPI dial for Sales shows the difference.

Old Lee better get to work :-)

Next post covers the Opportunity KPI.

Visual Analyzer Set Up (Part 1)

George Jensen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:54:00 GMT

I have been provided the Opportunity by Customer FX to get to know the new Business Intelligence tool from Sage for SalesLogix called Visual Analyzer. While waiting for the dates of Visual Analyzer Developers course, provided by Sage University, I tried to learn as much about the tool on my own by using the many references from both Sage and QlikTech (Makers of the Qlikview). Although I found this material very helpful and easy to read I still ran into many items that I could not find the answers for. I am happy to report that Visual Analyzer Developers Course was excellent and it really answered a lot of those questions and provided enough guidance on the others that I feel comfortable to start writing on my experience with this tool.

The next several posts will focus on lessons learned during Installation and set up of the Visual Analyzer (VA) 2.5 in a test environment. One of the first lessons we learned as a company was the tool works great using the SLX evaluation database, but when you apply the tool to an actual existing modified SalesLogix (SLX) database, the challenges begin. The notes provided in these posts will come from lessons learned while establishing this tool against actual client database with the purpose of identifying the challenges you will face during your implementation.

CFX strongly encourages you to first establish a test environment using a copy of the database you plan to install VA in. Although the installation using the SLX VA Implementation guide is pretty straight forward, practicing against a test system allows the user the ability to make mistakes with out effecting the production environment.

As stated before most of the documentation is adequate, there were very few issues we incountered during installing of any of the components. When installing the QlikView server on a Microsoft Windows 2003 machine we had to stop the CRM Indexer Service prior to running the installation wizard. If we did not, the installation failed. One other important note is that we did not see a way of updating the User Security in SLX version 6.2.6 as stated on page 13 of the implementation guide. It has been available in installation of 7.2.1.

Finally, we feel it is important for you to understand that VA out of the box assumes that you are using standard SLX functionality such as Opportunities, History and Activities to track your Sales force. If this is not the case then VA will need to be modified to your internal processes for the KPI's to work. You must have a QlikView Enterprise license and some training to modify the .qvw file.

During the installation process you are instructed to set up the KPI data sheets. The installation guide fails to go in to detail about each of the KPI so I thought I would dig into to this topic a little deeper.

VA has 10 standard Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and an important task in a successful implementation is deciding which KPI's are important to your company. Since this article would be a mile long if I went into the details of each KPI in one post, today I will focus on first establishing the list of Users you are going to track. I will follow up with KPI's and the supporting details in future posts over the next several days.

The KPI data displayed in VA is a combination of data derived from your SalesLogix data and goal data input by your company into supporting KPI Microsoft Excel Spread Sheets. These Spread Sheets are what we need to modify. The spread sheets are accessible through SLX when logged in as ADMIN, once logged in navigate to the VA interface.

On the top middle of the view you find a tool bar box with icons. The second icon from the right has a drop down, select the "Manage Configurations" from the list and the following view appears.

This interface allows the Admin user to manage the data for your KPI's along with several other items we will get into in future posts. With the KPI's sheet active, you will see a list of the standard 10 KPI's. As you highlight the rows on the left the list to the right displays the corresponding spread sheets data. (We will get into the exact steps of modifying these sheets in the next post.) Right now, as you look at each of the sheets you will notice the User column contians a list of users. VA uses this column to match against the data in SLX. The match is to thename in this coulmn to SLX USERINFO.USERNAME field. This is why our first step in establsihing the KPI's in your system is discovering the list of users we want to track under the KPI's.

Since the User Name in the KPI Spread Sheet has to be an exact match against the User Name field in SLX, I thought the best way to collect the list of names was to run a SQL Query against the SLX USERINFO table. I used the following query based on what I know of the company I am working with.

SELECT Title,Username, Department,Region

FROM SYSDBA.USERINFO

WHERE (DEPARTMENT = 'Sales')

This provided me a fairly accurate list and I was able to work with the client to narrow it down. Right now this list is simply a reference but we have a start. The next thing to think about is how far back in History do you want to query. Standard VA comes with the ability to query data in the years 2004 through 2008. Once you have the list of Users and the number of years of history you want VA to query you are ready to start modifying the KPI sheets with your companies goals. In the next article we will look at the Sales KPI and how we came up with the data to populate the supporting spread sheet.

Just to clarify the term "we" used through out the post, I have the distinct pleasure of working with Larry Halsrud (Director of Support at Customer FX) on this project.

Running SalesLogix Web on IIS7

Ryan Farley — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:31:00 GMT

I blogged a while back about using Vista for developing for SalesLogix 7.2 Web without using IIS but instead using the ASP.NET Dev Server. I wanted to outline some additional tweaks you can make to get the SalesLogix portals running on full-blown IIS7 on Vista as well.

While it is not officially supported to run SalesLogix 7.2 Web on IIS7, you can make some tweaks to get things running. The first thing you'll need to do is turn on (install) the IIS6 compatibility for IIS7. Don't bother looking for that in the IIS console, you add that by going to Add/Remove in Control Panel.

You need to add the IIS 6 Management Compatibility, at a minimum. To be honest, while trying to get SalesLogix working on IIS7 I tried all sorts of combinations of settings, so there may be others to add as well (leave a comment and I can check my settings to compare).

Once everything is installed, the second item has to do with the application pool for the deployed SalesLogix portal. In IIS, create an app pool for your SalesLogix Web portals. Make sure it is set to use .NET 2.0, but the important thing to set here is to use a Classic pipeline, not integrated.

Of course, also make sure your deployed SalesLogix portals are using this new app pool as well. So that is really it. You should now have it working. One more thing to note, if you're running 64-bit Vista, make sure you also read Mark Dykun's post on the additional necessary tweaks you'll have to make there as well. Good luck!

Jul 21, 2008 - Merging Records - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above

Brianna Tinjum — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:15:35 GMT

Attend the Workshop - Merging Records - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above!

Event details:

Monday, July 21, 2008
From 2:00 PM Central to 2:30 PM Central
(7:00 PM GMT to 7:30 PM GMT)

See Workshop Details

Register Today!

Aug 04, 2008 - Using The Tools/Options Menu - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above

Brianna Tinjum — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:45:00 GMT

Attend the Workshop - Using The Tools/Options Menu - SalesLogix v6.2 and Above!

Event details:

Monday, August 04, 2008
From 2:00 PM Central to 2:30 PM Central
(7:00 PM GMT to 7:30 PM GMT)

See Workshop Details

Register Today!

Displaying SQL Views in SalesLogix

Kris Halsrud — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:34:00 GMT

A great feature, introduced in SalesLogix 7.0 is the ability to embed SQL views in SalesLogix, just as if they were a standard SalesLogix table. SQL views, can be a tremendously flexible solution to roll-up/aggregate data from various data sources into a consolidated source. Obviously. use of the SQL views is predicated on the ability for users to access the data sources where the view originates. For this reason, utilizing SQL views is not a viable solution for remote users (Unless you utilize web...(read more)

Jul 15, 2008 - SalesLogix v7.5 Sneak Peek Live - A Customer FX Exclusive

Brianna Tinjum — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:10:00 GMT

Attend the Workshop - SalesLogix v7.5 Sneak Peek Live - A Customer FX Exclusive!

Event details:

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
From 12:00 PM Central to 1:00 PM Central
(5:00 PM GMT to 6:00 PM GMT)
Cost: FREE!

See Workshop Details

Register Today!

MAS 90/200 Extended Product Description

Kris Halsrud — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:15:00 GMT

I thought I would post a quick note on how to find the extended description of an item in the MAS 90/200 database structure. I frequently forget which tables are needed in order to get the extended description....(read more)

DynaLink 7.0 Map Limitations

Kris Halsrud — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:06:00 GMT

Sage DynaLink 7.0, which is a Sage branded product to integrate Sage MAS 90/200 or 500 with SalesLogix is one of the current ways of tying these systems together. Sage is working on ERP Link which will eventually be the replacement for DynaLink. However, the ERP link has been in in internal development at Sage for a long time and is not expected to be available until 4Q 2008 at the earliest. For now DynaLink is the one Sage solution available if you want to integrate MAS and SalesLogix without building...(read more)

Workaround for hanging mainview objects

Jason Buss — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:13:00 GMT

In SalesLogix, you have the ability to invoke a form as a main view object. This is handy for a number of reasons, but there appears to be one major drawback. When invoking a form as a main view object, sometimes the form can take an inordinate amount of time to open, giving the sense that the system has hung.

Instead of opening a main view object, you can avoid the delay in opening the form by simply invoking the new form, and then using global variables to pass any necessary information back to the invoked form.

This sample code is for an account tab which calls an edit view containing a single picklist control, which sets the current Account Type value.

Using a main view object, a recordset is opened, getting the current type value, which is then passed on to the main view form. On a modal result of “mrOK”, the recordset is updated with whatever value was selected in the edit view. The mainview itself contains no code; View defaults and dataupdates are performed by the originating script.

Sub cmdMainViewClick(Sender)
    Dim objRS
    Dim objMainView, objDetail

    Set objRS = Application.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

    With objRS
        .LockType = adLockOptimistic
        .Open "Select type from account where accountid = '" & Application.BasicFunctions.CurrentAccountID & "'", Application.GetNewConnection
           Set objMainView = Application.MainViews.Add("Personal:Set Account Type", 0, False)
           Set objDetail = objMainView.DetailsView
           objMainView.BorderStyle = 3
           objMainView.Caption = Application.Translator.Localize("Set Account Type")
           objDetail.pklAccountType.Text = .Fields("Type").Value & ""
           If objMainView.ShowModal = mrOK Then
                .Fields("Type").Value = objDetail.pklAccountType.Text
                .Update
           End If
           Set objDetail = Nothing
           Set objMainView = Nothing
        .Close
    End With
    Set objRS = Nothing
End Sub

Using the DoInvoke function instead simplifies the process of launching the view, however you will need to add any code to update data to the invoked form in order to be able to control committing the data when closing the form.

I order to launch the form, I simply set any parameters I need to global variables, then invoke the form:

Sub cmdDoInvokeClick(Sender)
Application.BasicFunctions.GlobalInfoSet "gAccountID", Application.BasicFunctions.CurrentAccountID
Application.BasicFunctions.DoInvoke "View", "Personal:Set Account Type"
End Sub

On the WhenOpen event of the form, I set any initial values I need on the form using the globals I set before invoking the edit view.

Sub AXFormOpen(Sender)
    If Application.BasicFunctions.GlobalInfoExists("gAccountID") Then
        strAccountID = Application.BasicFunctions.GlobalInfoFor("gAccountID")
        Form.Caption = "Set Account Type"
        Form.ModalResult = mrNone
        pklAccountType.Text = GetField("TYPE", "ACCOUNT", "ACCOUNTID = '" & strAccountID & "'")
    end If
End Sub

On the whenclick event of the ok button, I update values as necessary and close the view:

Sub cmdOKClick(Sender)
Dim objSLX

    If Application.BasicFunctions.GlobalInfoExists("gAccountID") Then
        Set objSLX = New SLX_DB
        objSLX.ExecuteSql "update account set type = '" & pklAccountType.Text & "' where accountid = '" & strAccountID & "'"
        Application.BasicFunctions.GlobalInfoClear "gAccountID"
        Form.ModalResult = mrOK
    End If
End Sub

As a best practice, using the DoInvoke function isn't ideal. For now though, it seems to be the most effective way to get around that pesky delay when opening mainview objects.

(The bundle contains the views and code as outlined above)

Invoke Test.zip

SQLBrowser

Ryan Farley — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:21:00 GMT

SQLBrowser is a utility that will help you manage multiple SalesLogix databases. As a SalesLogix business partner, we can have hundreds of SalesLogix databases on our network at any given moment. With SQLBrowser you just log onto a SQL Server instance on the network and you'll see which SalesLogix databases are hosted there, what version of SalesLogix they are for, which SalesLogix server they are hosted on, and when they were created....(read more)

Integrating the SalesLogix Lead Capture Portal with an Existing Website

Ryan Farley — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:35:00 GMT

It's much easier than many might think to fully integrate the SalesLogix 7.2 Lead Capture portal into an existing website. For a sample of this, I grabbed a free online website template and put it up as a website and within 5 minutes (seriously, 5 minutes) I had the Lead Capture portal fully integrated into the site. Brain-dead easy. Best of all, no frames.

So, I've created a free workshop on June 24th (Tuesday) at 2:00PM Central to cover this topic and demonstrate how to integrate the lead capture portal with an existing website. If you'd like to attend you can register here: Click to Register

Join me on the workshop (it's free) and we can take a look at this together and discuss different scenarios for websites built on different technologies (doesn't need to be an ASP.NET site).

See you there.

Jun 24, 2008 - Integrating the SalesLogix 7.2 Lead Capture Portal with an Existing Website

Ryan Farley — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:54:00 GMT

Attend the Workshop - Integrating the SalesLogix 7.2 Lead Capture Portal with an Existing Website!

Event details:

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
From 2:00 PM Central to 2:30 PM Central
(7:00 PM GMT to 7:30 PM GMT)
Cost: FREE!

See Workshop Details

Register Today!

Jul 07, 2008 - Navigating Reports - SalesLogix v7.x

Brianna Tinjum — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:02:11 GMT

Attend the Workshop - Navigating Reports - SalesLogix v7.x!

Event details:

Monday, July 07, 2008
From 2:00 PM Central to 2:30 PM Central
(7:00 PM GMT to 7:30 PM GMT)

See Workshop Details

Register Today!