Tweaks and fixes

• Print order receive report. Would incorrectly print notify disabled for invoices where notify status is not set now fixed
• Bug in c9 means we cannot invoice out February rego lookup invoices because we didn't log which dealers did the actual queries.  So rego lookups in Feb will be free and c9 will eat this cost. Now fixed in this ver. Prev versions of c9, rego check will no longer work. You need to update to this version of c9 to regain this functionality

 

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

This version refines a step in 5.1.65 about hosing out useless supp.format metadata out of pricefiles.

For dealers who are installed 5.1.65 already, this update will be non functional. But for dealers not yet updated, this version applies this fix in a more thorough/efficient way. Also if forces DB upgrade lock to make sure the job is done.

Backstory: c9 now includes the ability to magically reformat part numbers from suppliers who don't bother to format them nicely for our eyeballs but retain the suppliers formatting where needed because some suppliers not only kill off spaces and dashes, but they leave them in some parts and representing them this way is essential for processes such as electronic ordering 🙃. The solution is a bit of a quick and dirty cludge in that it parks the supplier formatted number as a price file attribute and uses that at key points (order export & magician query), and the underlying problem is a complex one. But hopefully now it is sorted / robust.

• Tweaks and fixes
  • Supplier part number reformat writing. Fix a few bugs and issues here
    • supplier format issue could result in that part picking up the last parts valid supplier format string. Now fixed
    • Efficiently hose out unused/ unneeded blank supp.formats . These make price files a bit messy, especially the repo.
    • Recommend anyone how has done a part number reformat previously to redo it after updating to this version, especially KTM franchises. If you don't know what this means, probably doesn't apply to you.
  • KTM MAgician
    • Rework output for a part with an eta order so it shows 0 (ETA:date).  Backorder magician will no longer incorrectly green these
    • Disable website supplier check for KTM and Husky. Doesn't work and even if it did, it is too slow.

Tweaks and fixes

• Obscure bug with v5 migration. v5 migrated workshop jobs where the jobs where invoiced but then reopened in v4 and were open at time of migration will not migrate to v5 correctly. Subsequent operations on the job will not journal correctly. Now fixed in this ver of c9.
• Part of cancel pickup, make sure any cust deposit txn lines are also flagged as deleted as part of deleting txn lines

Fixes and tweaks

• New rego query was not correctly presetting free option for relevant states (QLD, NSW). Now fixed
• Bankrec : under some circumstances bankrec would not correctly identify most recent bankrec and will preset start date to start of current month. Now fixed. (bankrec was looking at insmask which was retired ages ago instead of looking al GL codes for figuring out latest bank rec)
• recently added supplier part number format facility : would send the reformatted part, not supplier part # to magician queries. Which for some supplier will not return results. Now fixed.

Includes DB changes you need to log terminals out during upgrade

Changes and tweaks

• New rego lookup facility
• BAS : option to computer payroll component based on last month in the period only
• F2 lookup. Visually indicate whether or not parts are the end of a supercesion chain.  Knowing this can be handy in some situations, (e.g. on picking and old parts have not been retagged yet).
• tweaks to make install and upgrade of v5 more robust after some issues with a dealer who recently updated. Only impacts dealers who have not yet installed v5 (vacuum analyze key txnengine tables post migrate. Make sure failed upgrade can reliably re-do various bankrec changes)

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Tweaks and fixes
  • Bulk linkable barcode generation
    • Was broken when changes to barcodes from a few years ago. Now working again (I guess noone ever uses this?)
    • Ability to reprint last batch of barcodes instead of generating new ones
    • Ability to suppress plaintext number on output
    • Option to export results to a CSV file instead of print
    • Some slight ergonomic improvements. e.g. keep screen open from print to print to allow fine tuning etc
    • Tweak unsupercede alert so it is explicit what its behaviour is (superceding part is physically deleted )
  • View customer.
    • Access notification history from here
    • Got rid of correct aged balance variation. Utility of this is long gone since open invoice tracking is now years established for c9
  • Add alternatives, access this view view part / view change part preloaded with the viewed part
  • SMS Billing : some internal tweaks with how we track SMS for billing.  No real functional changes except that SMS billing will now bill for delivered SMS right up until date of invoice where previously we would only bill for SMS sent upto 3 days prior, so next bill might be a tiny smidge more than what would of been generated previously. This change is mostly to support further changes coming with additional billable service offerings (rego lookup). More details to come in a direct email shortly which will only become relevant in a version or two from now

 

Part number formatting

10+ years ago most OEM suppliers provided quality price files  where part numbers are formatted to be easy to read and conveyed additional information about type and era of bikes the parts fit based on grouping of spaces and dashes. More and more suppliers are forgetting how to do this (and forgetting how to do IT well in general) and instead price files land as big clumps of difficult to read numbers. Several major OEMs now do this.

As an example.

Old pricefile:     901 03 940 044 01S 
Current Pricefile: 9010394004401S

Solving this problem in a proper and safe way is fiddly because of concerns about what happens when you present a part number back to a supplier which has been reformatted? Will they accept it or not?  To work around this, c9 tracks the 'format' the supplier provide and your 'reformat' .  Supplier 'format' is presented on things like order export.  This may have some implications. See below for details on KTM order export.

To enable the feature, in edit franchise , advanced (2) tab you'll see this:

The rule is a complex bit of code that tells c9 how to format the part. Use radio buttons at bottom to pick a recipe.  KTM rule is complex. Others are alot simpler. e.g.

After making the change. You need to reimport price file. For repo price files, reimport the price file and pick the option 'Reimport full pricefile' e.g.:

Other tweaks and fixes

• VicRoads Rego grab disabled. Working on replacement options... will be a few weeks away
• Bugfix with rolling back factory units.  Rollback unit would hose out general ledger stuff but would leave unit in stock. Second rollback would fix it.  Bug is related to more recent changes. PReviously factory rollback would throw up a weird looking alert screen but would work. The fix for that suppressed the alert screen ,but injectation new & functionally incorrect behaviour. Now fixed.
• KTM Order export : tweaked to send 'formatted' part number. This reworked KTM order export requires you have latest repo pricefile installed to grab correct 'formatted' part. This is needed to contend with parts with a space in the KTM supplied part nos. Like Piston Kits. The previous dodgy piston kit detect hack to deal with piston kit parts has been removed in favour of using  supplier provided formatted part numbers.

KTM Order Export Advice

If you are using Generic export, It is recommended you change export pattern from PQR to FQR to include formatted part as formatted by KTM. Necessary to make sure parts with spaces in them from KTM, like Piston Kits have correct formatting.

e.g. in advanced tab:

 

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Couple of tweaks
  • Workshop, reschedule clear job would throw up an error on the screen. The actual clear scheduled mechanic operation would work so the error message was an annoyance. (caused by recent location based changes on mechanics.) Now fixed
  • A subtle performance bug with installing price files into a master file with existing pathalogical supers issues. More details below

supers resolution performance details

Some price files have baked into them a supercession which is really just a NLA flag. For example supers to 9999999 means all these parts are NLA. In a file, 50k or more such parts could supercede this way. On initial install this is okay, but on subsequent changes, merging those changes would result in install price file failing to complete due to excessive inefficiencies, which was originally designed assuming supers graph would only be 100 or so parts max, not 10k+ -> 100k+ parts.

More backstory: Changes made to c9 about 18 months ago, in part to support v5 project, dramatically reworked how supers resolve.  supers resolution in c9 is now 'front loaded' during price file manipulation / installation so that the heavy work is done at this point to resolve supers. When later on when you are selling parts etc, the supers resolution is extremely efficient/fast. Where previously c9 would resolve / walk supers chains every time a part is keyed in. Now supers are pre-walked during price file installs. This ver tweaks this a bit to cope with pathalogical price files where we have 10k+ parts superceding to a single part number.