Monday, February 08, 2010
Transmittals Made Easier
Project transmittals containing several items have previously required the manual addition of each document or software item individually. Now, all the items required for a transmittal can be added at once through a single dialog. This will save time and simplify the process of getting the transmittal to the customer.
Filtering & Selections
The Multi-Add dialog lists all the document and software revisions available for the project, minus any that have already been added to the transmittal. This list can be filtered according to item type, transmitted status, and by keyword. Selections made at any point within the dialog are remembered, even if the selection is no longer displayed due to the filters chosen. This allows you to search for an item, select it and then continue searching without having to scroll through a large list or open another window. The transmittal reason and comments due date are based off of the default values and are applied when the item is selected. Before saving, all the selections can be reviewed by clearing the filters and then choosing the selections only option.
The Multi-Add option simplifies and speeds up the already valuable functionality of electronic transmittals within GrandView.
Peter Forney
GrandView Business Solutions Developer
Friday, January 22, 2010
Keeping data consistent across multiple offices is absolutely vital to any business, but it is made much more difficult when your offices are on opposite sides of the world. Having a single, centralized database is obviously ideal from a maintenance standpoint, but is impractical if it takes tens of seconds to perform even the simplest tasks from across the pond; sometimes, you can only be as productive as network latency allows. Having a separate database for each regional office solves the latency issue, but brings on the nightmare of worrying about synchronizing the data you have scattered about.
Enter SQL Server Replication.
SQL Server Replication offers a way to solve both of these problems. Set up a master "Publication" database at your main site, and a "Subscription" database at each of your satellite offices, and SQL Server takes care of the rest. No matter where your users are, changes made at one office will automatically be replicated to the rest. Now, you have the benefit of fast, local access, as well as managed data synchronization. We use this technology at RoviSys to further streamline our business process and tackle some of our multi-office challenges.
Stay tuned for a follow-up post covering some of the technical challenges we encountered setting up SQL Server Replication.
Also coming soon is an upcoming series on some of the other Multi-Office Challenges we've faced, and how GrandView has helped us overcome them!
Mark Carpenter
GrandView Business Solutions Developer
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 (released Nov. 7, 2005), Master Pages provides an object-oriented approach to web page design. Master Pages is the next generation to templates. In the blog post, Master Pages, Part 1, the master page concept was introduced. This article talks about image reference paths.
Image Paths
The .master page image references are always resolved from the location of the page which inherits the .master page (the content page). As long as the .master page is at the same folder level as the content page, the reference to the image resolves correctly:
In this example, Index.aspx uses the .master page and images referenced by the .master page resolve correctly.
If the .master and content pages are at different folder levels, as shown...
... then the .master page contains a different path to the image than the content page and the image can't be resolved.
Solution one:
ASP.NET runtime provides a feature called “URL rebasing”. The runtime will try to “rebase” relative URLs it finds on server-side controls inside a master page. This means the following relative path will work, no matter where the master page and web form live. Putting a runat=Server" statement in the <img> attributes resolves the image location:
<img src="~/Images/GVLighthouse.gif" runat="server" />
Solution two:
ASP.NET contains a handy function in the Page object called ResolveClientURL, which will resolve URL's that are defined client-side. This is particularly useful if an object CAN"T be converted to a server-side object, such as the <Body> tag:
<Body background = '<%ResolveClientUrl("~/Images/GVLighthouse.gif") %>' style="margin-left: 10px" />
Or on the simple image tag:
<img src="<%=ResolveClientUrl("~/Images/GVLighthouse.gif") %>" style="margin-left: 10px" />
Quite often, images will also be referred to from within the included .css style sheet in the .master page. This is not a problem, though, since the image URL path is always with respect to the .css style sheet location:
body
{
background-image:url('images\mylogo.gif');
}
Image and other element references can be tricky when using .master pages, but the payoff is the flexibility of a more object-oriented approach by putting all the common parts of your pages in .master pages.
David Heater, P.E.
GrandView Business Solutions Developer
Friday, October 30, 2009
Email is great. Shared files are fast and convenient. At the end of the day though, who is keeping track of all of the files that get passed between team members, managers, and customers on a project? GrandView can keep tabs on the documents and software that get passed back and forth with Electronic Transmittals. By tracking the who, what and when of file transfers Electronic Transmittals inject accountability, ease of use, and customer peace of mind into your project.
Accountability
One of the best reasons to use Electronic Transmittals is accountability. When a document is sent to a customer, GrandView keeps a record of the transaction, and once it has been acknowledged, it cannot be erased from history. This allows project managers to keep a close eye on what has or has not been sent to and seen by customers. You'll never have to hear "I think I sent that last week." or "We never got that file." It's all right there in GrandView.
Ease of Use
With Electronic Transmittals, you'll never find yourself searching your email for that design document your engineer sent out. It's right there in your project in GrandView. Plus, with GrandView's search functionality, you can easily track down files from older projects as well. Once a file has been sent using Electronic Transmittals, that file is easily accessible from one location for you, your project team, and your customers.
Peace of Mind
When a file has been sent using GrandView Electronic Transmittals and acknowledged by a customer or team member, the contents of that file are locked. This allows both project managers and customers to rest easy knowing that the document they read will not change. Revisions and new files are transmitted separately, so all changes are captured in GrandView. This instills confidence in customers and becomes a great selling point when proposing projects.
GrandView Electronic Transmittals provide value to you and your customers that makes your services more desirable and more easily managed by your team.
Jeff Eganhouse
GrandView Business Solutions Developer
Monday, October 26, 2009
Profiling employee experience is easy with the new Employee Profile feature and the new Global Categories functionality in GrandView. The Employee Profile functionality allows employees to document and categorize their experience and also allows managers and other users to search and view employee summary information. Some of the features of the new employee profile functionality are:
- Search and view employee summary information
- Update bio information
- Update resume information: employment history, education, work experience, professional experience, patents and publications, professional affiliations, certifications, and other relevant experience
- Add/maintain resume files
- View employee resume information including training and project history
Chris Engelmann, GrandView Product Manager
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
After a summer hiatus, the GrandView Blog is returning at full strength this fall. Our GrandView Business Solutions team has been busy putting the finishing touches on the latest customer version 7.1 (look for a new post coming soon), helping to develop other products and tools at RoviSys, and addressing multi-office challenges (more about that in a series of future posts). We will bring you more new and exciting technical and product information. We'll also keep you abreast of support issues and continue to throw some project management tips in for good measure. Another area that we'd like to touch on is our business solutions experience. We'd like to provide tips and examples of how we've kept RoviSys a step above our competition by running our organization efficiently and effectively.
Chris Engelmann, GrandView Product Manager
Friday, September 25, 2009
TimeSheet is an important part of any GrandView user's day. However, many users do not realize the features that TimeSheet makes available to them.
- The TimeSheet Data icon
is scattered throughout the page. Click on it to see a detailed list of all hours charged.
- Clicking the PDF icon above the Montly Hours view
will produce a monthly report of your time suitable for printing.
- To control which projects and tasks appear in the Weekly Hours grid, you have three options:
- You can choose to view all Projects and Sub-Jobs
- You can choose to view only recently charged Projects and Sub-Jobs
- You can choose to view a specific selection of Projects and Sub-Jobs
- When entering data, you have a couple of key options:
- Marking tasks as complete, then choosing to hide them is a great way to clear up a cluttered Data Entry screen. And, if you ever need to charge to that task again, simply uncheck "Hide Completed Tasks" and charge away!
- If your Project Manager has chosen to use Project Task Analysis, choosing to show the schedule is a great way to gauge how far along you should be on any given task.
- You wanted a bigger area to write comments on your tasks, and we delivered!
The new expanding comments field will allow you to get as detailed as you want with your task descriptions. So fill it up--your Project Managers will thank you!
And remember, the GrandView Team is always looking for ways to make project management easier. So, if you see something missing, click on the Support link in the upper right-hand corner and tell us about it!
Bryan DeBois
GrandView Business Solutions Senior Developer
Friday, June 26, 2009
Over the past few months, we have been upgrading parts of GrandView to use the most up-to-date third-party controls to offer the best web experience possible to our users. Most non-standard web controls that we use come from Telerik, a widely known provider of quality, highly functional controls for both web and client applications. The first major update we want to share with you is: The RadEditor.
The
RadEditor replaces the RichTextBox, mostly used in the composition of Status Logs. The obvious difference between the two controls is the much improved look and feel.
| InfoTextBox |
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| RadEditor |
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In addition to looking great, the RadEditor offers more functionality and expressiveness than was previously possible in GrandView. Some of the most notable changes/additions include:
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Enhanced table editing tools, now merged into their own menu, now allows specifying the number of rows and columns in advance
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The Spell Checker now highlights all misspelled words when activated, and shows alternative spellings when a misspelled word is clicked
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The ability to strip all formatting from text when pasting from either a web page or a Word Document
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The ability to arrange a message in logical parts using Group Boxes, each box with its own header
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A Preview mode to display exactly what other users will see when a message is sent
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A zoom feature to view parts of a message up close, or the whole thing from a distance
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A Code Formatting dialog to insert code in different languages (including HTML, XML, C#, and SQL), with proper formatting and highlighting
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An enhanced Template Manager to display a list of available message templates, allowing a preview of things before inserting it into a message.
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A greatly enhanced Hyperlink Editor, which gives more flexibility when adding either hyperlinks or email links
With so many improvements, sending organized, easy to read, expressive messages to clients and team members has never been easier!
Stay tuned for a closer look at some of the other controls we are bringing to GrandView to make your work easier, including the RadUpload, and the RadChart.
Mark A. Carpenter Jr., GrandView Business Solutions Developer
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Table Editing Tools
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Spell Checker
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Friday, May 29, 2009
The RoviSys Company has grown considerably since its inception nearly 20 years ago. When you have a good project methodology and a vast wealth of experience, which for us includes over a couple thousand projects with a multitude of customers, you start to notice patterns and common questions whose answers can lead to even greater efficiency... and repeat business.
Have we worked on a project using technology ABC? Have we performed service for industry XYZ? When was the last time we completed a project using the specific technology required by our new customer? Who worked on the project and how familiar are they with the specific tools? These questions and more can be answered using the new Category features in GrandView!
Categories in GrandView are essentially labels that can be applied to any Proposal, Project, or Contact. We focus on proposals and projects now, and will discuss contacts in a future post. Categories can be applied to any proposal or project directly -- however, when an order is created from a proposal and the order becomes a project, any categories tied to the proposal are conveniently copied to the resulting project. This process is shown in the diagram below.
GrandView defines four types of project and proposal categories. The Industries > Applications category defines industries in which we do business, while the Services and Manufacturers > Products categories describe services we offer and the technologies we use to implement projects. Finally, the Keywords category is used to apply common labels to projects. Once we have categories applied to our proposals and projects, we can easily search for proposals or projects having a combination of categories using the new Sales > Proposals > Proposal List and Projects > Projects List pages. Or, for a simpler search matching just one category value, you can use the SideBar proposal or project search and select Industries, Services, Technologies, or Keywords in the Advanced search options.
Labeling proposals and projects with specific categories is not a difficult task until you've worked on more than a couple hundred projects, so it's a good idea to start early. As always, if you have any questions using these new features, click the Support link next to your company logo and we'll be ready to help!
Jeromie L. Walters
GrandView Business Solutions Developer
Friday, April 24, 2009
Executing projects consistently and efficiently is nothing less than the secret to successful and profitable projects. At Rovisys, we understand that--we've been doing it for almost 20 years. However, there's always room for improvement. To that end, we have developed a brand new module called "Project Execution." This single tab pulls together those two fundamental keys to successful projects:
- Consistency - Consistency breeds credibility--to your employees certainly, but especially to your customers. We have always had standards on how projects must be executed at Rovisys; now, those standards have been codified into a single workflow that every engineer can easily follow.
- Efficiency - As GrandView has grown over its 15 years of existence, it has become the primary place for all information we have pertaining to a project. While this has always been its intent, it can make finding a specific piece of information a bit challenging. Maybe you need to reread that key status log again, or a you're a new engineer trying to get acquainted with the coding standards in use on a project. The Project Execution tab solves this problem perfectly. It serves as an index into the project, allowing quick access to the most important files, status logs, transmittals, and links. And every item can be commented on, with full history of all changes.
The Project Execution module represents the culmination of decades of project excellence, and is just another way that GrandView is making successful projects simple.
Bryan DeBois
GrandView Business Solutions Senior Developer