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Updated 21-July

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

Another bug related to recent price file / part search changes. This time connected to price file importing.

Price file importing works in sending chunks of price file data to the database. Typically each chunk contains a few thousand parts to update/insert. Within a single chunk,  if two new/supers modified parts point to same supercession part then import will fail and abort. Now working again.

Includes DB changes, you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Another regression bug, sorry. Hopefully the last for a while. Problems with changes to backup system combined with remote fiche. C9 backup would try and backup parts of remote fiche data even though it shouldn't be backed up. Resulting in unnecessary network traffic and occasionally messing with backups in a way that causes verification issues : by placing remote fiche into the cloud backup even though remote fiche isn't considered part of backup : resulting in backup verification failing and creating lots of work for me hosing out that crap data.

For a couple of dealers this issue is serious enough that it can cause online website OEM diagrams to become corrupted because of a conflict between real OEM epc data and remote data. For these dealers impact is some epc diagrams will become screwy on their websites and their cloud backups will be genuinely broken in terms of the EPC bits. Again easily fixed but represents a genuine cloud backup issue with this data. The affected dealers have been directly contacted.

Includes database changes you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

This version fixes/ finalizes F2 lookup changes made a couple of weeks ago. Current version of F2 is now very quick when looking at all parts, but when you look at stocked items only it is slow, significantly slower than prior versions of c9.  This version fixes this.

One of the new things F2 changes try to do is treat old superceded parts as though they are the real parts. So you can optionally easily find things by old numbers or new numbers, or barcodes or custom numbers. When you look at a old part you should also show actual price and qty on hand for the part it eventually supercedes to.

Consider part, 502 08 410 000. 5 other parts supercede to it. In F2 screen  we want to show all these but also show the qty and price on final part at end of the supercession chain so you can quickly eyeball your effective inventory without having to pick the part going to next screen. The results also need to be sorted in part number order, without regard for what part number is for eventual part it supers to.

Now when in view stock only view ,the F2 screen still needs to look at supers parts but only those parts that eventually land on a stocked item. So as soon a terminal adds part 502 08 410 000 into stock not only this part but the 5+ parts that superceed to it also need to be visible in F2 screen when f2 screen is in stock only mode, interleaved with every other stocked item which also has supers pointing to it.

Further when filtering results such on description if the filter matches an item which has alot of parts that super to it, then those old/customer/barcoded part numbers should be displayed too.

Advanced database indexing involved here needs to also cope with multiple terminals simultaneously doing things like add parts into stock and added new supercessions/installing price files etc. The end result needs to be consistent irrespective of the sub millisecond timing involved in what various terminals are doing.

All this should now be fixed in this version of c9.  With instantaneous scrolling and part number searching in F2 screen. Database queries generally should be around under 20 milliseconds or faster to refresh if c9's server is running on a decent computer.

Other changes

• Further f2 optimisations. Query hints optimisation  that was supposedto be in version 4.832 didn't actually make it into c9. This will improve performance further in some areas. For example if you key in '123' in F2 it is generally fast, but typing in 'XYZ' can be slow due to poor query planner optimisation in postgres.
• Part group filtering has been removed. This part of ongoing effort to deprecate grouping since it has been replaced with variations for web based part grouping. For dealers that relied on part grouping for additional filtering and have ignored warnings in c9 about this feature is about to disappear, contact barney directly : grouping data can be bulk merged into part attributes if needed to restore this facility.

Tweaks and fixes

• Image import for KTM promo that was supposed to be in yesterdays version didn't actually make it into the release. Now added. Also added a slot for husky promo
• Print open deals:
  • Apply quote filter to print deals
  • Allow user to filter print open deals by pickup date. e.g. print all deals going out this week

Following is a rough plan on how to get 25% fathers day items onto your website.   A similar setup will be ready towards end of the week for Husqvarna (waiting for KTM to provide us with promo details for Husky).

process...

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Includes DB changes you need to log c9 out during upgrade

• Fixes and tweaks
  • On receive order or process parts credit disallow total amount to go into -ve. Doing so would result in incorrect journal postings that would reduce c9s reporting of input credits. If you are processing a net credit then use supplier credits, or a net positive do receivals. This change is to prevent one screen from being used to try and implement the functional equivalent of the other
  • Setup : database tools. Add a new db task to blow away un-referenced stock records. (Unused for 12+ months & no linked web assets : images etc). Previously this tool was standard part of import price file . But was removed from there because of issue of web assets. Reintroduced here as an sepeate db maintenance task
  • Cloud Backup & import master file performance : Tweaked how cloud backup works for elements which are generally bulk updated so they queue faster. (Price file importing and EPC importing)
  • Website part variations. Tweaked auto variation generator so it can recognise things like 'S-MX6 WP BOOTS 39' and 'S-MX6 WP BOOTS 41' being variations of one another. Previous algorithm would bail if variation only matched numbers at the end, since this would pickup lots of spare parts too. New variation system also looks for certain key words like boots/pants etc in the part description. You'll need to reapply and manually refresh website like so
    • Business -> website -> settings -> parts variance management to regenerate variations
    • Business -> website -> settings -> general : click on 'Force website to refresh pages now' to force website page refresh
  • KTM Fathers day promo added some tweaks to support this.  More info to be provided on a separate post on how to make it all happen.
    • Added ability to configure a web discount on a specific franchise
    • Added new part image importer, that will import images for 'KTM Promo' franchise

Requires DB update, you'll need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Bugfix with cloud backup.  Under some circumstances verify task will not run.

Verify usually happens once a day. It main purpose is to double check copy of c9 is same as what is in the cloud. Beyond verification one useful thing it does is make sure your entire database is functioning as it will double check everything is accessible and correct, including very old historical invoices etc.

Recent changes to how F2 select part works can interfere with verify. If you search for parts by description like this:

This sets the database up in a way where verify cannot complete. It will run but never finish meaning verify will never finalise. Closing F2 screen is not enough, you need to close c9 terminal where F2 screen was done in order to unwedge it. Result is eventually verify report due and then overdue.

Technical root cause and fix:  Search by description creates a temporary table which uses same primary key semantics cloud backup uses to trigger backups. Verify tries, incorrectly to verify a 'temporary table' description search creates and fails because the table isn't accessible to it. Two fixes

• Make verify only check permanent tables. Skip over temporary tables
• F2 select part screen : drop all temporary tables on closing this screen.

Non functioning verify is not a critical error as error detection rate for verify is less than <0.1% . But it can put significant load on database server as once verify goes undone for more than 24 hours, c9 will spin more aggressively trying to complete a verify which will cause unnecessary disk thrashing.

Couple of bug fixes

• Bug that has been in system for a while. Add a part to order receive for accessory supplier. Would not walk supercession chain on any added part so would add pre-superceded part causing various issues with restocking. Now fixed
• Another regression on v4.832 released yesterday. Workshop scheduler was broken whenever you tried to do things like move jobs around. Now fixed.

Includes database changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade. Upgrade is very fast, couple of seconds.

Performance related regression with v4.832 : when adding parts in point of sale the screen could pause for a couple of seconds on systems with large orderbooks while c9 checks to see if part is already on order. Now fixed and should now be instantaneous.

Regression bugfix with just dropped version 4.832 : search tools on some list screens were not working : orderbook, F12 pickup order and AusPOST dispatch screens mostly. Now working again.