American Institute of Physics Goes Live on Advantage
by Cindy Mikol
American Institute of Physics Publishing is now live on Advantage, after a comprehensive implementation project. This migration marks a major milestone for AIP Publishing. One of the world's largest publishers of scientific information in physics and the related sciences, AIP Publishing offers publishing services for the American Institute of Physics and AIP Member Society publishing partners. AIP Publishing's suite of publications includes 17 journals, three of which are published in partnership with other organizations; magazines, including AIP's flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series.
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by John Sheehy
Would you be surprised to know that 62% of organizations consider the customer experience provided through call centers as a key differentiator from their competition (Deloitte - 2013 Global Contact Center Survey)? Or that nearly 80% of survey respondents feel the call center is the single largest factor involved in defining the customer service experience (Executive Report on Customer Experience)?
There are many call center statistics pointing to a common conclusion: an organization's call center is critical to its success. Sounds simple, right? Well, if it was that easy, then you wouldn't have 86% of people willing to pay for better service and yet only 1% saying that organizations are meeting their expectations (Forbes). A good call center provides quick, expert service to customers and builds customer loyalty translating to retention and an overall positive image. All of our clients use a call center to some degree, whether it be in-house or outsourced, 10 users or 300 users. With Advantage at the center of operations, the users need to be able to efficiently guide customers through the process. Additionally, call centers often experience high employee turnover, so new users need to be up and running quickly.

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Update on eCommerce Initiative: Cider
by John Sheehy
On this blog back in February, I introduced our eCommerce platform initiative: Cider. I then presented on Cider at the annual user group conferences in New Orleans (March) and Copenhagen (April). For those needing a refresher, Cider is a feature-rich eCommerce platform that offers powerful shopping cart and self-service capabilities, a marketing portal for marketers to create and assign promotions, a flexible administration panel for customizing the look and feel of your site, and built-in support for third-party plug-ins. The platform integrates directly with the Advantage engine via a new REST API.
So, six months later, how are things coming along? I'm happy to report that Cider is looking fantastic!
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Advantage Feature Updates
by Bryan Varblow and John Sheehy

If you've been with Advantage since the early 2000's, you recall when the release naming convention had two or three-sometimes more-numbers, such as 7.2.3, for example, and the numbers incremented with each release. In 2003, we switched to a year/revision naming convention starting with 2003R1.
Now we're making another change, primarily because we've updated our method of delivering software to clients.
Starting with 2013R1, we deliver software updates through deployment packages. These packages allow you to review the latest patches and download them on an automatic schedule, or at a time of your choosing. The installation of a deployment package is done simply by running a process. It's really easy!
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Help Is Just a Click Away!
New User Interface on Advantage Help Website Offers Click-through Browsing, Focused Search, and Proximity Search
by Tim Martin
Now it's much easier to find the help you need on the Advantage help website. It's been reformatted using the Orchard online platform. This change, effective with the 2014r1 version of the help, offers an improved user interface, easier click-through browsing, and powerful search tools to help focus your search results.
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Upgrade Activity Strong All Summer
by Cindy Mikol
Congratulations to Mary Ann Liebert, Duke University Press and Massachusetts Medical Society who recently completed Advantage upgrades.
The Mary Ann Liebert team comprised Nancy Piscitello and Roddy Pimentel, while Lesley Jones and Ling Mao led the charge for Duke University Press.
Philippe Rowland spearheaded the ACS team for both projects, supported by a host of engineers including Mike Hasey, Mark Sauter, Linda Woodman, Jon Bartholomay, Paul DesRosiers, Larry Kleber and Ray Zick. Eric Burbeck and Bill Pinard provided project management back-up for Philippe as well.
The upgrade of the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine, was a multi-faceted project. In addition to moving from a Tools environment to .NET, they implemented a new credit card interface and a true multi-currency environment.
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Agora Implements Advantage's Call Center by Cindy Mikol Congratulations to Agora Publishing who recently went live on the 2014r1 release of Advantage. This release includes Call Center, a major new feature (see related story in this newsletter). More than 200 users were in the system and going strong within 24 hours of cutover, and both groups are to be commended for their hard work.
The Agora Publishing team was led by Suzanne Earley for both the upgrade and Call Center Development. Tim Dodge and Nikki Miller helped lead the Call Center integration. Several others helped to see both projects through. VIEW FULL STORY
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AdvantageCS
Editor: Cindy Mikol
Visit Advantage at These Upcoming Trade Shows
Please stop by the Advantage booth if you will be attending the following shows and conferences this spring:
October 7, 2014, Frankfurt
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