ACS is pleased to announce that Egmont Tidskrifter, based in Sweden, is the latest addition to the Advantage client roster.  They publish about 60 magazines, mostly consumer, and many for children.  Egmont Sweden has the Disney print and distribution license for Europe, and so their offerings include a lot of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Toy Story, etc. comics. They also publish titles for pre-teens. Their adult magazines cover a variety of topics such as travel, style, cooking, interior decorating, celebrity news, and more.

The implementation is currently underway, spearheaded by ACS project manager Daryl Vautour and Klas Persson at Egmont.   

Egmont Tidskrifter joins their sister company, Egmont Magasiner, based in Denmark, which has been an Advantage client since 2009. 

We are always looking for ways to improve our internal processes to provide better services and software. Recently, we've started experimenting with a different software development methodology called Scrum. Traditionally, we have used the Waterfall methodology, which our clients will be familiar with in practice if not by name. Roughly, the process progresses through the following steps: business requirement -> functional design -> development -> QA -> release. Here is a diagram of the classic Waterfall method we've been using for the past 30 years.

Evelyn Acton leaves an impressive legacy here at ACS.  She was hired in 1998 to be the first manager of the newly established Advantage Support Center and has spent the past 16 years enhancing and fine-tuning that department.  She has provided leadership and trained more than a dozen support analysts and personally provided support--and friendship--to nearly every Advantage client over those years.

Nikki Lorenz of Kalmbach Publishing has known Ev since the beginning.  "Back when Ev started with ACS, there really was no 'Support Center,'" explains Nikki.  "While ACS did an adequate job of supporting clients then, Ev has built a well-oiled support organization from the ground up. I don't think she quite attained the 'perfect world' she strives for, but she has certainly championed an operation she can be proud of."

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Who hasn't found themselves with too much work and not enough people?  It's a common scenario in today's business climate.   The next time it happens to you, consider turning to ACS for help.  In addition to assisting with the typical Advantage-related tasks such as in-converting new publications, third-party integration projects, implementing new Advantage features, monitoring nightly processing, server configuration and fine-tuning, upgrade projects, testing and training, we have experts ready, willing and eager to help you with a host of additional tasks. 

Scott Ghormley will take over as manager of the support center on May 1st, replacing Evelyn Acton, who is retiring.  Scott's personality, knowledge of Advantage, and diverse history with ACS and many of our clients make him uniquely qualified to manage the Advantage Support Center team. 

Scott's ACS career began before ACS even existed.  As a sophomore in high school, he worked at Infomatics, which was one of the precursors to T & B Computing, later re-named AdvantageCS.  He was an intern at T & B during college and joined full-time upon graduation from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in Operations Research and Information Systems.  Although he left the company for almost ten years, working at Domino's Pizza and other firms, he returned to ACS in 1997.

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You can now store signature image files (for example, TIFF files) for users, which can then be appended, as context elements, to customer communications.

Use the CDS option USIGIMGP (User Signature Image Path) to specify the network location and file name pattern of the files.

For example, the option might be set to:

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The 2014 Advantage Users Group (AUG) was--despite the Midwestern winter-like temperatures--a success.  As has been the case at past AUG gatherings, the weather was once again a factor for many traveling to New Orleans. Despite that, most of the 75 registrants made it to the conference, including representatives from Egmont in Sweden.