To Pre-Build or Not Pre-Build that is the Question

[HarryGlos]

Hey there fine feeling fellow FileMaker-Ins,

I had a great chat with Geoff Ryle President & Co-Founder, of Excelisys the other day. Geoff and the Excelisys team are the fine folks who brought us Business Tracker, aka eX-BizTracker, one of the solutions previewed here.

What prompted the discussion is the future plans Excelisys has for eX-BizTracker 2.0. Before sharing the conversation, let me add a little history… FileMaker Inc. hired Excelisys back in 2004 to develop what we know today as eX-BizTracker and to coincide with the release of FMP7. So version 1 of eX-BizTracker was released at the 2006 FileMaker Developer Conference. The current free and unlocked version 2.0 was introduced at DevCon 2008.

Now to my conversation with Geoff… And it’s all good!

First I’m happy to report that Geoff not only possesses significant technical prowess, he also has an excellent sense of humor. Having laughed at me a number of times.smiley-laughing

Between now and DevCon 2009 starting August 13th, we can expect new versions of Business Tracker. Geoff felt it would be more helpful to release new versions as important changes and/or additions are made and I like that way of thinking.

I asked if he had any bones he could throw our way as to what we may expect and It looks like we may see a Calendar & To Do List just to mention a couple. I understand it’s not going to be just the standard run-of-the-mill calendar either. What does that mean? Oh buddy, you just sit back and smile…smiley-laughing Do I hear a Woo-Haa from the audience!

I think if we look at the new and exciting things added by FileMaker to 10 and overlay that with what we already know about the way Excelisys does things. Another Woo-Haa is very much in order! Oh and I asked about an eX-BizTracker forum for questions and answeres and updates and all that good stuff and he Geoff said "hjeihppkidkunelluebnd" and I said "really" and he said and I quote "jikdnjejlodnle nkkdi nkneoikd", so he was very clear and emphatic about it... All good!smiley-wink

There are a lot of things unique to Business Tracker and important to the business community. Not the least of which is their inclusion of the proper ways of using "accounts and privileges" and maybe the best "reports generator" on the planet. But I must leave it there although I know a lot more… That’s code for “Geoff was smart enough to know he was dealing with a deadbeat and wouldn’t tell me nothin�! Don’t you hate when that happens…smiley-undecided

Excelisys built Business Tracker RIGHT and I’m delighted they will continue this truly superior solution… So more good stuff is coming your way and I’ll be telling you about it here on the good ol Café right here on the World!

By the way, I’m going to do full review of eX-BizTracker 2.0 in the next couple days so it’s easier to highlight the new changes as they are being made.

I love this stuff, it’s what dreams are made of. Just like when I dream of my dates with the semi beautiful Griffith twins.smiley-surprised OK so that’s maybe a different forum…smiley_cool

Live Long & Prosper and Remember Who Loves Ya,

Harry

[HarryGlos]

Here you go Fellow FileMaker-Ins as Promised...

eX-BizTracker from our friends at Excelisys...


When you first open ex-BizTracker you can open the solution 10 times before you must fill in your information and receive aRegistration/Activation Code. I frankly like the process because you can open the solution to decide if it’s important to you before you fill out an on line information sheet. The information they ask for is very straight forward and also has a button to click to be informed of upgrades etc. All very professional and all very well done and once you get the registration the solution is yours! Read the EULA pdf “EXCELISYS BUSINESS TRACKER SOFTWARE LICENSE� that ships with the solution.

Don’t forget to read the eXBT2_ReadMe pdf for all kinds of good information…

OK we’ve registered our copy opened it, pressed the Re-Login button, entered “admin� into account name and clicked OK, giving full access privileges. We’re now looking at the Home page.

Home Page looks clean and uncluttered with navigation buttons on top. I see a big blue X on the far right and just like a kid I’ve got to click it. Hm… It takes me to the about layout! I don’t know where I thought it would take me but didn’t expect the About layout. The navigation area is the main activity area and how many times do you go to the About layout? If it’s going to be on the layout at all id rather see it to the left of Re-Login so its there but out of the prime real-estate area. Or even better on the script pull down menu. Let’s click on the Home button.

Hey the two arrows top left on the navigation bar are like on the web, taking you back and forth to the last pages visited. I love that… But wait a minute something changed with my trip to the about layout. Since I clicked on the Home button I see under the “Back Fwd� buttons I’m still in Admin mode but I’ve lost my full access.smiley-undecided What’s that about? That’s just too weird so I closed the solution and re-opened it and I’m in Admin mode again but with full privilege set. Hm… So I go back and click on the big X again, go to the about layout and click on the Home button and guess what. I’m in Admin mode and lost the Admin privileges again, you know access to scripts, layouts etc. I don’t get it! So I clicked on the Re-Login button, typed in admin, clicked on OK and now I’m back with full privileges again. Strange and it happens anytime you leave the home page. I’m not sure about that one!smiley-frown

One of the first things you see is a field labeled “Quick Find� which I guess can be useful but I’m not sure how much as it would require a good memory or something sitting in front of you. What you do is type in a word like Widget and click on the Products button to the right and it takes you to the Products layout showing all products that have Widget in the name. It’s set up right though in that if Widget is only one product you go to the form view and if more than one the list view. They have this quick find field on all primary form layouts where I think it will get most of its use.

Just below Quick Find is “Quick Task�. Here you can click on a button like “Add a Company� and it does what you’d expect. You go to the Companies layout where a new record is ready for you enter a new customer.

Next is a tab panel with the first tab showing “Invoices at a Glance� showing all invoices and gives the ability to perform searches. It has pick lists pre sets for such things as today, yesterday, this week, last quarter etc, as well as date fields to search by start and stop dates. There is also a Status field where you can select a search by Open, Invoiced, shipped and Void orders. What about Paid invoices? Why is it not included in this list and in the Status field? Another oddity is you go to the Invoices layout and create a new invoice. “Open� will show in the status field which is right. However, this Open invoice does not show up in the “Invoices at a Glance� window even if you select Open from the Status field!smiley-cry It should show up right. Because it’s an un-invoiced order and where better to see it than here! The next tab is “Products to Reorder� and shows just what you’d expect which is the “Reorder at� and the “In Stock� amount.

Excelisys decided to make the Home page a working functional part of the solution and I like it.

Companies is next so go up top click the button and it opens to a list view. It’s hard getting use to opening to the list view and can think of no other solution that does it that way. I think I understand the reasoning, so you can see the customer you want, click on it and go to the form view, but it takes some getting use to. Most solution I build has a company’s selection portal on the form view and can be filtered for quick selection. Business Tracker has some built in data so either create a new record of your own or click on Bob’s Instruments and go to the Form layout.

You will note on the dark blue strip under the navigation bar tabs for List and Detail and New, Delete and Print buttons along with the Find field we discussed earlier. Off to the far right are the records navigation buttons and record count. I forgot to mention these items are also available to you in List view.

The companies layout is different from most that you see. It starts with the company name and then goes into things pertaining to that customer. So you tab out of customer and go into “Type�. A pick list where they have things like Sole Proprietorship, Partnership etc. You may want to scratch these and enter your own like Distributor, Service Company etc whatever fits your business. Then you go to Terms, Status and URL (URL is one thing I don’t think belongs there) and then Source meaning where did you hear about us?

To the right is Phone and Email and guess what? It’s a portal just like God intended where you can enter as many phones and emails that are related to this company. Yah Excelisys, you go girl…smiley-smile BTW this is also where the URL belongs in my humble yet steadfast opinion!

To the right of phones and emails is Locations. Here you can put in up to 4 different billing and shipping addresses and for each one it makes a new tab. Although that’s twice the number offered by other solutions and generating the new tab is cool, it begs the question, why not a portal to handle addresses just like they did phones?

The problem here is obvious that you have no place to put other addresses. The other is if you can’t put in a 5th, 6th & 7th address, where do you put it? You also lose the ability to select it so you have an order with no place to ship it. And guess what folks, where do you need to select it? That’s right from the invoice! Ah yes Grasshopper the Invoice…smiley-laughing BTW you can add a new invoice from the Home layout by clicking on the “Add an Invoice� button, so why can’t you create an invoice from the Company layout? You should be able to click a button, go to the invoice where a new record has been created with that customers information all automatically filled in.

Below you have tabs for Contacts, Invoices and Shipping showing as you’d expect. To the right of that is Notes. Here you can just click in the field and type away or click the clock that will date and time stamp the note. I for one think every note should be date and time stamped and including the user name. Right now if you click the clock it shows the oldest note 1st but it should be sorted newest to oldest, so the most recent note is on top.

eX-BizTracker Post 1 of 3

[HarryGlos]

eX-BizTracker continued Post 2 of 3

Contacts are next so please click on the button from the top navigation bar. Here you first select the First and Last name of the individual and the Salutation and Title. Next is a Company pick list where you can select a company previously entered and select the status of the contact. BTW don't just skip by the salutation when you enter data. We really do need to know if Dana is a Mr. or a Ms.

To the right is the same as companies where you can enter unlimited phones and emails and up to 4 addresses (should be a portal). These are addresses unique to the contact and you can click on the Company Info tab to see the addresses entered for the company. You can also change the company address here and I’m not sure how good of an idea that is. It seems to me if your changing something that pertains to a customer it should be changed on the customer layout. Plus if you are a company driven business where you ship to companies you will have little use for contact addresses because you would not be shipping to a individual. If you want it for birthday cards etc that’s up to you but I think for the most part it’s of little use.

At the bottom you have tabs for Invoices, Duplicates and Shipping and Notes to the right. Here again my notes comments above pertain here as well.

One thing severely lacking and I’m a little surprised by it, is a place for communication… You have all this company and contact information but no way to communicate with them. Most ongoing businesses email, send letters, faxes and otherwise corresponds with customers. I know companies you can’t even do business with without emailing. Many if you want to get paid you MUST email the invoice. This lack of communication needs to be addressed because it limits the use of this truly superior solution. (There is an email button on the Invoices layout to email invoices. It's on the blue line under the navigation bar, sweet!)

Vendors is next and if you remember what I said about the Companies layout the same applies here.

Products is next so please click on the button from the top navigation bar. Here is much as you’d expect where you can put in a product and a price to include inventory information. The bottom tabs show the invoices where this product was a line item and a web tab that will take you to that vendors/product web page.

Invoices is next and is of course the Holy Grail of any order entry system. Please click the button on the top navigation bar. First thing you do is select the customer from the pick list layout. If you notice the top of the pick layout you can perform a find if you have a long list and also select the customer by Companies or Contacts. It’s well done and easy to navigate and as you’d expect once you select the customer it auto fills the other fields. Oops hold the phone there crab cakes… When I entered my customer information I set up one billing address and three shipping addresses. When I go over to the “Ship To” on the far right of the layout I only have one shipping address available for selection. What’s that about?smiley-undecided Why give me up to 4 addresses on the Companies and Contacts layouts and then not let me select them? That makes me so mad I could eat pie with my left hand.smiley-tongue-out Come on guys what’s it all about?

Next, just above line items, is where you enter PO Number, Order, Ship and Invoice Date, Status, Terms and Sales Person. Terms and Salesman are pick fields unless you identified the terms in Companies/Contacts then its auto entered and a nice touch. Go down to Product Code in line items and click on the field and select a product from the pick list. Once you select a product the curser moves over to Qty field just as it should. BTW you can click on the name of the product and bring up that products information, a very nice touch as well. Type in a number and press the tab key and the curser moves to the Price field. Huh, change a price right on the invoice? That’s trouble with a capital “T”!smiley-undecided This is just about the best invoice system I’ve seen but changing a price on the invoice is just a very bad idea. The next field is Discount where you can also make an entry and is also a bad idea. This just sets the user up for mistakes and if you have multiple users and many customers it only expands the problems into a nightmare…smiley-cry

I know this is a free solution and as such should be happy with what we get and with this solution you get a bunch. But do yourself a favor and pay Excelisus to fix this for you. There are a number of ways to do this and they will know the best way based on your kind of business. Again depending on your business they can handle an exception where you can invoice without a product coming out of inventory. This is not rocket science, you explain your business and they can provide the functionality many times for a lot less than you may think.

The bottom left of the layout has tabs for Shipping, Payments, Notes and Comments. I personally would have the Payment tab first because that’s the one you’ll use the most, maybe that’s just being too picky. One thing Id definitely add is a button that will pop in the payment amount when the invoice is paid in full. Hey… When I paid the invoice in full it still says “Invoiced” under status. It should say PAID!smiley-undecided

The bottom right of the layout is where you find all the primary invoice numbers and I’m not even going to mention the ability to manually fill in Shipping and Tax rate. Now look at the very bottom right and what do you see? Yes friends and neighbors a button that says “Accept”!smiley-laughing You know what that puppy does? Well I’ll tell you… When you click the accept button;

1) the status of the invoice is changed from Open to Invoiced;
2) the listed items are removed from inventory by subtracting the quantity of each product being shipped and,
3) the invoice becomes locked and neither it nor its line items can be modified.

Although this process may not fit the exact needs of your specific businesses, it’s a great start… How many times have I made you crazy talking about how crazy it is with all these solutions that allow you to make changes to a paid invoice? This is great-great-great and I hope the good folks at Excelisus hear me clapping.smiley_cool

[HarryGlos]

eX-BizTracker Post 3 of 3

Reports is next so please click on the button from the top navigation bar. This is arguably the best reports generator in the business. Click on one of the layouts under Reports like Companies for example. Go over to the right under Criteria and from the pick list select from a number of choices like All, Custom, This Week, This Quarter etc. Or enter a Start date and End date and click the print button and enter preview mode. You also have a click box allowing you to constrain the found set.

This reports screen is so very clean and easy to understand and simply puts all report generation in one place where it should be. Adding new print layout to Reports is doable without a lot of fuss. Maybe a little knowledge, but not fuss! Here again is an area, especially with FMP10, you could get the fine folks at Excelisus to automate this process for you.

Preferences is the last button on the navigation bar so please give it a click. The first thing you’ll notice under the Settings tab is Phone Formats showing how phones are formatted for each country. If you don’t like a given format you can change it to whatever you like. The way its suppose to work is when you type a phone number using numbers only 8005551212 for example, it will automatically format the number (as shown here under USA) as (800) 555-1212. Phone numbers are found on the Companies, Contacts and Vendor form layouts. For some reason it’s not currently working however.smiley-undecided It's handled by a custom function but I didn't go in and check it out... Hey I can't do everything!smiley-tongue-out

Next is Payment Types. What you type here is what you will select from the “Payments” tab on the bottom left of the involice. The other fields are self explanatory for such things as your company name address etc. If you go up to the top right in the blue line under the navigation bar is “Manage Interface”. Here you can change the name and icons shown on the navigation bar. This is also where you can add new ones!

Lastly click on the Prefs tab. Whatever you enter here is included in FileMakers “Manage Accounts & Privileges”. I have not seen this functionality included in any other FMP solution and it’s frankly a big deal. One of the most important things we need to do is protect our data and database. This is what does that and you need to read the manual and built in FMP help to make sure you understand it. So please spend some time here and you’ll be very happy you did.

Well, like all good things they must ultimately come to an end. I know what your saying “hey Harry don’t stop now I’m just getting warmed up” and I thank my Mom for saying that.smiley-smile But alas the time has come “yeeeeeeeeee-Haaaaaaaaaaa”… Now that was just rude!smiley-frown

One last note and that’s Excelisys upgrades to this excellent solution. I am really looking forward to it and will review it for you here on the Café and the World.

Oh and one other note. I’ve been in this crazy database business for awhile now and one thing I can tell you is we have NEVER had two companies Excelisys and Richard Carlton, offering a free unlocked Order Entry/Calendar/Communication General Business solution like these before. And we are the direct beneficiary’s of it.

These companies may be putting out seemingly similar solution but this I can tell you from a guy who’s spent hours climbing around inside the scripts, calculation, TO’s and relationships… They come to solution building from two very different mind sets and for me is about as much fun as I can have without a lose woman on a holiday.smiley-wink It’s all great stuff and to the good folks at Excelisys and Richard Carlton you have both my thanks and admiration.

Live Long & Prosper and Remember Who Loves Ya,

Harry

[Wingwalker]

Hi Harry

When you reviewed FM Starting Point I downloaded a copy and followed along with the review and did the same thing with Business Tracker. Most reviews I read are more of a general overview of a product. You review from the user side of things and it helps me to understand how things work that way. I especially like your comments as you review each page because you discuss user interface and issues I otherwise would not have even thought of.

I have used business tracker and have had great success with it. But you are right that it really falls down from the communication point of view. That is a real strongpoint of FM Starting Point that I like very much. I agree with you about the way the calendar works its almost like it was the last thing they did and didn’t have time to finish it.

Do you have any idea when there will be new versions of FM Starting Point and when the new features will be added to Business Tracker?

Thanks for everything,

James

[HarryGlos]

Hey James,

Not seen you around for awhile and it's good to hear from you. Thanks for your comments but I must tell you after rereading my write ups on both solutions. More time needs to be spent on the many things both of these solutions do so very WELL, so very RIGHT...smiley-wink The good news is I can still do that and I intend too!smiley-laughing

As far as knowing when new versions will be added by Excelisys and Richard Carlton I really don't. Geoff from Excelisys said they will be making changes between now and DevCon 2009 which is August 13th. So I'll let you know as soon as I know. Richard has been involved here on the Cafe as we've discussed Data4Life and now FM Starting Point and Richard I thank you again for that, so I'm sure Richard will let us know as things happen.

We must remember that although both products from both companies are FREE they stay in business by billing for services rendered. Thinking about that, I asked if I could bill them for my review time and I guess they must know each other because they both said the same thing. Something about pigs flying!smiley-surprised I amended the actual language for the forum.smiley-laughing

Live Long & Prosper and Rememer Who Loves Ya,

Harry

[Ross MacLane]

when pigs fly!

Who loves you Harry!

We must remember that although both products from both companies are FREE they stay in business by billing for services rendered. Thinking about that, I asked if I could bill them for my review time and I guess they must know each other because they both said the same thing. Something about pigs flying!smiley-surprised I amended the actual language for the forum.smiley-laughing

Live Long & Prosper and Rememer Who Loves Ya,

Harry

[HarryGlos]

Hey Ross,

This is just so great, a flying pig finely! I of curse set up a conference call immediately with Geoff and Richard. These are, as you would expect, two very honest and honorable men, with whom I directed to your post, showing proof positive that pigs do fly!smiley_cool

My personal thanks to you Ross, for allowing me to bring the full weight of your office, FileMaker Café and its position within the FileMaker community to the conversation. I must tell you in advance of their calls to you that I at no time mentioned anything like “Law Suits� or your crack legal firm of “Slippery, Conniver and Finangle�. Ok Ok maybe I said something like Jurisprudence, but who’d of expected they’d know that word?smiley-surprised

The bottom line is this… They both agreed on paying me my standard $619.99 hourly rate for 3 1/2 hours each for the review, to be paid February 29th 2009 in a draft directly from their Lehman Brothers accounts.smiley-laughing


I guess I’ve shown them and anyone else listening in, that I am not someone to be messed with. Thanks again Ross for allowing me to be judged simply on my merits… Thanks Dad!smiley-wink

Live Long & Prosper and Remember Who Loves Ya,

Harry

[FingerPrice]

Hi,

I have downloaded 4 of the solutions you have reviewed and followed along with while you have done the reviews. The last two were FM Starting Point and Business Tracker. I just wanted to ask if anyone ever gets angry at your comments and does that effect much of what you have to say in your reviews?

John

[HarryGlos]

Hi John,

John said: I just wanted to ask if anyone ever gets angry at your comments.

Probably! I’ve had someone ask me for a loan of $100.00 and then was angry because it was in $5’s and $10’s. So no matter what you do or how you do it, you’ll not keep everyone happy. That said, I did not hear any angry words from anyone from the solutions I reviewed. Sure, I received some threats and slanderous remarks, even questioning my heritage. But I’m use to that from my family!smiley-wink

Look none of these guys build something their not proud of and there is not a singe one of us who enjoy what we do being criticized. Hopefully we will take the useful comments and use them as we go along, or disagree on the basis of, that’s not the way I wanted it done. Contrary to popular belief mine is not the last word on the subject!smiley-laughing

My review style was to primarily walk through the Customer, Products and Invoice layouts just as a typical user would do. I think doing it that way is fare because you can following along, as you did John and decide on your own if you think the comments are reasonable or not, based on your own thinking.

John said: does that effect much of what you have to say in your reviews?

If you mean do I pull my punches or add punches, so to speak, because I know and like or dislike someone or some company. I would certainly hope not! If you feel, as you followed along with the 4 solutions you mentioned, that I was not even handed in my comments. I would appreciate you posting those observations. That applies to anyone reading this post as I would very much appreciate your comments…

I tried as best I could, to approach each review from the user standpoint. I'm sure my developer overtones kicked in on occasion in some comments. But none were intended to be anything more than my feeling or maybe a different way of doing or thinking about something.

I hope I’ve answered your question John,

Live Long & Prosper and Remember Who Loves Ya,

Harry