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Welcome New Client Bonnier Magazine Data
by Cindy Twiss
AdvantageCS is pleased to announce our newest client: Bonnier Magazine Data ("BMD"). Located in the Østerbro borough of Copenhagen, Denmark, BMD is an internal provider of subscription management systems, CRM system functionality and related services to Bonnier companies. BMD specializes in subscription management within the field of weekly and monthly magazines, publications and other media products.
BMD is wholly owned by Bonnier Publications ("BP") and Bonnier Tidskrifter ("BT") which are also two major customers. Whereas BP is represented in Copenhagen, Helsinki (Finland), Oslo (Norway) and Stockholm (Sweden), BT is represented solely in Stockholm. Between the two publishing companies, BMD systems manage around 2 million subscriptions.
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"Advantage is a very comprehensive and flexible platform, with the ability to support our traditional business and our initiatives to grow our business digitally. The people at AdvantageCS have a reputation for being reliable and trusted partners, shown not least by their ability to quickly learn and understand our ways of doing business, and the stability of the company's ownership and finances gave us confidence that they will be around to support us for many years to come."
CEO, Bonnier Magazine Data
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QA Q & A
New Initiatives in Advantage Quality Assurance
Eva Weissman recently became the QA Team Leader here at AdvantageCS and brings a wealth of experience to her new role. Her expertise is not limited to quality assurance---she is adept at analyzing processes and workflows and instituting efficiency measures at many levels. Through a series of questions from eVantage, Eva describes her approach, the initiatives she has put in place and her future plans for QA.
- How do you describe your new role at AdvantageCS in quality assurance testing?
I lead a team of analysts that is responsible for quality assurance. We focus on three main areas: software modifications, regression testing, and process improvements. With regard to software modifications, we develop test plans, do the actual testing and assist clients with testing when they implement new functionality. We also develop automated tests, which help us to avoid breaking existing functionality in future software updates. With regard to regression testing, we test the stability of new updates. In particular, we conduct "warm-ups" across different areas of the software before making it available to clients. A third aspect of our work is optimizing our internal processes and procedures to ensure the quality of our products and to help clients implement procedures that streamline their testing especially for continuous updates.
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Advantage Software: New Features Coming First Quarter 2016
by Tim Martin
These Advantage features are either available now or will be soon. Contact your Advantage account manager for more information.
- MST210 - Consolidated Processes, Plus Additional Process Changes
- "Copy Column" from List Frames
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Bug Extinction - Automated Testing Using Frameworks in Advantage
by Sean Leslie
"What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."
-Conan, the Barbarian
As software engineers, we find ourselves fighting a war against an enemy of our own creation. An enemy armed with complexity, obscurity, and redundancy. From a fortified position in legacy code it charges forth using our past compromises as a battle cry. Like the Hydra, software development can work against us: each problem we fix with a cutting change can sometimes spawn more bugs. What is an engineer to do in the face of such odds?
Creating bug-free software can happen in one of two ways. Write no bugs, which given the complexity and breadth of Advantage is impossible, or find the bugs that are created and fix them. To this end, bug detection becomes the most important task in QA, and automated testing. If the bug can be found, then the bug can be killed. Automation is our best tool for this purpose. Through automation we can perform thousands of repetitious tests a minute, and hopefully cover hotspots with enough checks to find bugs before the software can goes live.
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Here's to a Successful and Productive 2016!
by Tim Zapawa
All of us at AdvantageCS would like to wish you a happy and prosperous new year. For many people, the start of a new year is a good time to assess their current situation and also to look ahead to set new goals. At AdvantageCS, we're doing that on a regular basis as it relates to many aspects of our company and in particular to the software and services that we offer.
To ensure that we continue to offer you the industry-leading software solution to meet all your needs in the ever-changing digital fulfillment marketplace, we make substantial investments in our software every year. One of our goals is to deliver more innovative solutions and services to Advantage clients that help you to grow revenue, reduce cost, and increase customer satisfaction. Another of our goals for 2016 is to help more and more clients implement the steady stream of software enhancements that we are working hard to add to Advantage.
In just the last two years, for example, we've developed over 120,000 hours of software enhancements (documented in release notes available on our client portal 2014-2015 Summary.
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Check out our blog for the most up-to-date news and information about Advantage. New posts weekly!
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Multiple ARPCAR Applications
by Molly Mathe
The ARPCAR view allows you to add payment by selecting an invoice with an amount remaining. By setting the ARP option DFPAYAMT to "Y" (available at 2014r1), the payment amount will default in based on the invoice's amount due. With this option set to Y, you can also select multiple invoices and enter one payment to be applied across them. The steps involved are as follows:
- Set the ARP option DFPAYAMT to Y.
- From the ARPCAR list frame, select multiple invoices via keyboard controls (usually shift + click to select multiple invoices, ctrl + click to select a range of invoices).
- Invoke the Add Payment action, which will bring up a payment dialog box with the total amount due from the selected invoices defaulted in as the payment amount. The payment amount is open so it can be adjusted.
- Enter the payment as normal (check, credit card, etc.)
If the payment amount does not match the total amount due on the selected invoices (that is, you adjust the defaulted amount), Advantage will handle as follows:
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How to Always Know What's New in Advantage
Stay Up to Date with Auto Notification of Continuous Update Features
What do these seemingly unrelated Advantage features have in common?
- A right-click action at all Advantage list frames to copy the value of any currently displayed column to your clipboard.
- The addition of data entry scripts for agreement orders and maintenance, whether using the Fast Entry or the dedicated agreement view.
- The consolidation of all select set setup in Advantage under the single Selection view.
If you answered "they've all entered the product within the past four calendar months," you would be correct!
Advantage development, which has always been fast and furious, has become even more so with the introduction of the continuous update track within the past year. How can you keep up on what's new in the product? What if your company isn't on continuous updates? Does that prevent you from learning about new features?
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Editor: Cindy Mikol Twiss
3850 Ranchero Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA
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