Rundle-Spence Gets Reliable, Easy-To-Use Paperless Reporting & Business Intelligence With MITS

By Colin Sherman, National Sales Manager, MITS, mits.com

Rundle-Spence, a full-service plumbing, heating, and industrial supply distributor and fabrication shop, has provided quality products and services to its customers since 1871. The company's success over the years has been rooted in a deep-seated commitment to better service and better value, a pledge that has been backed up with a wide range of time-saving innovations on behalf of customers, partners, and employees.

A number of years ago, it became clear to President David Spence that the company needed a better way to get information out of its operational system Epicor's Eclipse. It was time consuming and cumbersome to run reports in Eclipse and according to David, "we needed a standard way of quickly getting paperless reports into the hands of the staff that needed them most: managers and the outside sales force."

Rundle-Spence spent a couple of years using a subscription based reporting product, an  experience that helped David really understand what his company needed to be successful: solution reliability, canned reports, and an easy-to-use interface.

"When the time came to pick a new solution, our team unanimously decided to move to MITS Distributor Analytics," said David. "MITS delivered everything promised during the evaluation process: product reliability, ease of use and pre-configured reports. MITS runs on a Linux or Unix server and resides in the Universe database along with Eclipse, so we are getting great product performance and exceptional reliability."

All Rundle-Spence managers, plus purchasing and the outside sales team, are using MITS today. "Our staff has been able to dive right into MITS to get the reports they need, whenever they need them," said David. "Many of the reports we needed came pre-built and ready to run or drill down into."

The sales team uses MITS to identify products that are down in sales, as well as areas where complementary products could be sold. Purchasing uses MITS to track dead stock and slow moving items. "MITS' GMROI reports are great-our asset committee uses them to discuss low turning items," said David. "And I use the customer and writer scorecards to identify low profit areas and trends in sales and units."

MITS helps Rundle-Spence quickly and easily identify areas of concern so company resources can be focused on growing the business and addressing any operational problems identified through improved reporting and analytics.

Solar Eclipse Java Update:

Starting with release 878, it is our policy to develop our releases on the latest generally available version of Java. In the case of release 878, the java version that was generally available when we built our development environment was 7u45. This procedure allows us to develop and test our software with the latest java version, and to ensure compatibility of both our core and our companion products. When the Solar release is rolled out to our customer base it is packaged with that java release. We currently develop three solar releases per year.  As always, we highly recommend that you obtain the Java version from the Solar Webstart page.

by Rich Chadwick, UFO Training Committee Chair

The Eclipse User's Group Training Committee is made up of users who want to expand the knowledge of the user base on the Eclipse software and its related products.  The formal goal is "To provide low cost/high value training to increase the value of membership to our users.  With the support of the Board of Directors, our membership, and our vendor partners this is accomplished in the following manner:

1.    Monthly Web classes, these web sessions are the backbone of the training effort.  At no charge we continue of expand this offering.  These monthly classes breakdown into a couple of categories,

a.  Basic Eclipse training designed to meet the needs for newer employees that are conducted on a repeating basis.  This is designed to assist member companies in giving new employees a basic understanding of how Eclipse functions, focusing on Sales Order Entry.

b. Specific subject sessions designed for more advanced users looking to enhance their knowledge of a subject they are know something about already.

c.  Vendor presentations where our vendor partners can explain the uses and advantages of their products.  Although not a product endorsement by the User's Group, these presentations typically highlight with other users have done with the vendor's product.

d.  User Roundtable, sessions dedicated to a specific subject, like Job Management, where users can exchange experiences and ideas. 

2.    Web Videos, web recordings of current classes that can be viewed on the user's time schedule.  This is designed for users that wanted the information that was reviewed during a Web Class but their schedule did not permit them to attend.  By expanding and tracking the use of these videos, the committee has seen a marking increase in their usage during the past year.

3.    In 2013, the committee along with the Board of Directors decided to start an annual Training and Network conference for just Eclipse users.  Last year's event, held in Las Vegas, was a tremendous success and will be expanded for 2014.   Now called ENCOUNTER 2014, this event will be held at the Atlanta Airport Hilton on September 17-19.  Building on last year's positive feedback the 2014 session will have:

a.   6 tracks of training subjects, up from 3 last year. 

b.   Training conducted by other users, Zerion, and Eclipse trainers from Epicor's Professional Development Department.

c.   Lots of opportunities to share experiences with other Eclipse users.

d.   Vendor product presentations on how their products can enhance your Eclipse system.

e.   Opportunities to see the most current release features and interact with Eclipse Product Management.

f.    The cost for both the conference and the hotel will be kept to a minimum, to encourage member companies to send multiple people, and take advantage of the training and networking opportunity.

g.   Be checking the Eclipse Users Group website for the most current information about ENCOUNTER 2014.

4.     The committee continues to monitor each of these activities to find the best possible methods to deliver training to our members. We are doing this for the members and here are some things you can do to help:

a.   Take full advantage of the free web classes, videos, and Roundtables. Make them a standard part of your training program.

b.   Make suggestions about the current schedule and other subjects that would be a benefit to the user base.

c.   Attend ENCOUNTER 2014, meet other users and exchange your experiences.

d.   Teach a class or host a Roundtable on a subject. 

e.   Join the Training Committee we can always use some help.