ABC Softwork Blog

On May 28th ABC Analyzer 4.2.2 was released. This is a minor release that fixes some issues that have occurred in the software – including but not limited to:

• Issue when using templates along with formulas containing the new date functions “FileDate” and “ImportDate”. These templates would fail to load due to an error in the template unpacking function. Previously created templates containing these characteristica will now load properly and there is no need to remake them.
• The “Report Issue” dialog now correctly displays the option to preview the screenshot being submitted. The option is available next to the checkbox.
• The last step of the import wizard has been removed as the options it previously held have been disabled. The import wizard is now one step shorter.

Finally! Microsoft has changed the default security settings for Windows and the .NET platform.

Many of our users wish to run from one single installation shared internally within the company on a common network drive. Normal Windows installations along with Windows Server installations include the functionality to share portions of folder structures – but so far running ABC Analyzer from such a shared folder has been prohibited by the default security policy.

This restriction has been removed in recent security updates and/or service packs. This makes it possible to run all .NET-programs stored on a network share directly without changing the default per-folder settings through the Code Access Security Policy Tool (Caspol.exe).

Friday afternoon we released ABC Analyzer 4.2.1.

This release is a critical update to the previous ABC Analyzer 4.2.1 and resolves the following issues:

• Excel integration with Excel versions other than 2007 has now been fixed. The necessary bindings are now included in the installation package.
• The “Report Issue” function now works properly when tunneling through a proxy server. The settings used to set up proxy server when verifying the software license are now used.

The ABC Softwork Development Team would like to thank our users for providing the error reports needed to identify and successfully resolve these issues. Your reports fuel our continued effort to make the best possible software.

In this blog post I wish to address the importance of making sure that people who are held responsible have the authority to decide!

In most companies, you have a purchase  or logistics manager who is responsible for the inventory performance. These managers are measured on how efficient they run the entire inventory, which makes a lot of sense… most of the time!

When dealing with inventory management, we often see a conflict between sales and purchasing. The conflict occurs when empirical data indicates that it would be wrong to keep specific SKU’s in stock. In many cases, sales are pushing to keep certain items because they are afraid of missing out on potential business if the product portfolio gets too narrow. (more…)

We hope the mail containing the update notice has landed safely in your inbox. The mail contains a link to the ABC Analyzer 4.2.0 installation file. When you click on the link to download, you can run the installer and go through the usual steps confirming or changing the pre-defined setup. During the last step, you will be asked two questions – to launch the uninstaller of ABC-tool and to launch ABC Analyzer. We recommend that you do both to ensure that you remove the old ABC-tool installation and setup the license code of ABC Analyzer properly.

If your ABC-tool is installed in a different folder that the previous defaults value the uninstallation will not happen, and we strongly recommend that you contact your systems administrator to ensure that ABC-tool is successfully removed from your system.

We’re happy to introduce the latest version of our software. The opening screen provides you short cuts to your recently used files and news from our brand new blog.

Understanding the splash screen

Here’s a few tips on how to get the most out of your splash screen. (Click the image enlarge)

Project files and templates?

Some time ago we introduced a really useful way of storing your categorizations called ABC project files – if this is a new feature to you, start your reading here. Templates, on the other hand, are brand new. As one of our developer described it: It’s a project file without any data! Curious to find out how this will help you distribute your knowledge in a faster and safer way? Read more about the benefits of templates

At ABC Softwork, we have undertaken a new project for our Danish customers: ABC Breakfast Clubs! Show up and enjoy ABC-related insights while sipping your morning coffee.

We’re hosting our 6 initial ABC Breakfast Club seminars in Kolding and Copenhagen in May and June 2010. Find a seminar near you (please note seminars are in Danish only) (more…)

ABC Analyzer currently operates on a single static dataset that is read into the memory (RAM) of your computer. When memory consumption rises your Windows will try and use the hard drive for swap memory. This makes the system run slowly – very slowly – as the hard drive is a serious bottleneck compared to the RAM. The absolute best way to ensure good performance (more…)