April 2016 Newsletter

Vegas or Bust!
 
It's that time again, are you ready??   Once again, Epicor Insights will be held April 17th - 20th in the City of Lights, Las Vegas!
You're going, right??  If not, you should, everyone will be there!
Here are a few reasons why you should attend:
  1. Extended Education Classes are being offered on Saturday and Sunday prior to the conference.   They are an additional fee, BUT you get a full 4 hr. class valued at $495 for only $260! 
  2. The agenda includes tons of classes geared toward Operations, IT, Finance and HR.
  3. The Eclipse Users Group (UFO) breakout session will be held on Tuesday April 19th at 9:30 am.  Join us for an update on all that is happening with the Users Group.  Come learn how to get the MOST out of your membership dollars.  Mary and Suzanne will be available in the UFO booth (#19) to talk to you about the website and how to go about getting your enhancement ideas onto the IDEAS site.  Please stop by and talk with them and meet your UFO board members.  They will have some great giveaways and as always will have a couple of drawings for prizes; be sure to come by and enter.
  4. Networking!  One of the biggest "takeaways" you will get at Insights is the people you meet. Classes and lunch offer great opportunities to network.  Sit with someone you don't know at lunch.  The person you meet might have some expertise in an area that you don't.   This is my 6th Eclipse conference and I stay in contact with a number of people I've met at previous conferences.  They have always been a big help when I hit a roadblock.
  5. The Solutions Pavilion is a great way to meet third party vendors and to get demos of new features in Eclipse.  It's also a great opportunity to speak with your Customer Account Manager and other Eclipse associates who can provide information on a number of different topics.
  6. Last but not least, it is Vegas!  Take some time after class and see the city.  There's always something going on.  Just be sure to be wide awake for your 8 am classes!
Sign up for Insights today and make sure you bring LOTS of business cards! 
Don't forget to stop in at the UFO Booth #19, in the Solutions Pavilion.  We've got some great giveaways and Mary & Suzanne will be there to answer questions!
See you at Insights!!

In This Issue
Click on the link above - It will take you to the April Calendar on our website. You can click on each class to see the detail, make sure to click the back button in your browser to get back to this newsletter.
New and Returning Members January 2016
Name
City
State
New


Johnstone Supply - Monaca Group
Pittsburgh
PA

PathGuide
Tour de Force
More than CRM

As a member of the Eclipse Users Group (UFO),
 you've most likely have heard of  Tour de Force as a software solution which is purpose-built for the wholesale distribution and manufacturing industries. 

Tour de Force delivers combined customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI), or sales analysis and reporting, including advanced integration to Epicor Eclipse. Tour de Force can run either on premise or in the Cloud, which removes the need for client IT server and database infrastructure. 
Tour de Force has several key benefits enabling sales and marketing teams to become more efficient and effective.

Save time accessing actionable customer data

* Gain a 360� consolidated view of all key customer information including data from your ERP system, with ability to immediately create an associated task or appointment.
* Analyze data online and easily access reports and dashboards at various levels from the overall corporation down to individual territories. 
* Receive key and prioritized information delivered automatically to your Tour de Force Cloud home page and email through alerts and notifications. 

Optimize business processes

* Delivers capabilities well beyond traditional CRM, including such areas as: 
* Job management for managing projects including resource requirements, project milestones and timing. 
* Case management and support for identifying, tracking and resolving customer issues. 

Leverage institutional knowledge

* Utilizes a centralized customer knowledge base which retains customer information over time, including automated logging of email communications, keeping your entire team up to date and on the same page. 
* Accounts can be assigned and analyzed at ship-to and/or bill-to levels, providing more granular coverage and view of performance.

Grow sales by streamlining and standardizing your sales processes

* Efficiently manage the entire sales process from initial interest through closure and beyond, including tasks, activities, appointments, opportunities, and sales quote delivery and follow up. 
* Sales quotes can be created in your existing ERP system or in Tour de Force Cloud while utilizing customer-specific pricing and viewing product availability by warehouse through the integration between the two systems.

Increase sales revenue with sales planning tools

* Effectively manage sales planning including establishing goals by territory, region, customer account, and/or sales person, including the ability to track and report performance to goal and sales commissions earned. 
* Perform gap analysis to identify opportunities to upsell and cross sell customers. and 
* Review leakage of products and product groups by customer to identify issues to be resolved in a timely manner to maintain strong business performance.

Want to learn more about what Tour de Force? Call us at 877-285-4800 or click on the link below to schedule a one-on-one web demonstration.

Epicor Eclipse Support Corner

Important Starship Customer Alert
Newsflash Posted: March 22, 2016

All customers that utilize the Starship companion product should review the supported server requirements and updates detailed here.
Failure to update, if needed, may result in an inability to ship starting May 31, 2016.

Did you Receive and Email about the new Support Tool?

By now, you should have received an email asking you to register as a support contact for our new Support tool.  This step gives you the opportunity to specify the type of user you are, and add, correct or delete important information related to your contact record.   We very much appreciate your time and effort on this key step.
 
Now, to give you a quick update on our progress with the new Support Tool...This week, a small group of Eclipse support personnel started testing the new system and, as a result, we learned a lot about the way it works, and we are very excited about what we see!  Over the next several weeks, we will be simulating a live environment to ensure we are ready to roll it out.   
 
Our target is still an April 11th live date, but we need to get through some more testing before we can say 4/11 is a definite.  We will keep you informed as to our progress.
 
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, and I hope to see you at Insights!
Camille (and the Eclipse support team)

Camille Alberico
Senior Manager, Eclipse Customer Support Epicor Software Corporation 
Epicor Software Corporation  | 
Users Helping Users Article
 
I love seeing all the interaction between our users group and this post below is an excellent example of why this organization is so crucial to our businesses.  The member needed a report and it was time sensitive for a client and had two people offer to help.  The first within 3 hours! 

Question:
Title:  List of Kits and corresponding components
Is there a report that I can run that will give me all the kits created with their corresponding components? I have looked on the F11 help pages and here, and can't seem to locate an answer. This is time sensitive as it is for an inventory report that I am running for a client. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Answers:
I'm actually not going to post the answers on here this time since both members offered up their contact information for them to call or email for how to create a report writer to handle the problem. Which was great!  Instead I thought I would share with you that there is an option on our Bulletin Boards to upload screen shots as well.  So if you don't mind sharing with the whole group, below is the instructions on how to do that.

FAQ:  How do I attach a file to a post?

To attach a file to your post, you need to be using the main 'New Post' or 'New Thread' page and not 'Quick Reply'. To use the main 'New Post' page, click the 'Post Reply' button in the relevant thread.
On this page, below the message box, you will find a button labelled 'Manage Attachments'. Clicking this button will open a new window for uploading attachments. You can upload an attachment either from your computer or from another URL by using the appropriate box on this page. Alternatively you can click the Attachment Icon to open this page.
To upload a file from your computer, click the 'Browse' button and locate the file. To upload a file from another URL, enter the full URL for the file in the second box on this page. Once you have completed one of the boxes, click 'Upload'.
Once the upload is completed the file name will appear below the input boxes in this window. You can then close the window to return to the new post screen.

What files types can I use? How large can attachments be?

In the attachment window you will find a list of the allowed file types and their maximum sizes. Files that are larger than these sizes will be rejected. There may also be an overall quota limit to the number of attachments you can post to the board.

How do I add an image to a post?

If you have uploaded an image as an attachment, you can click the arrow next to the 'Attachment Icon' and select it from the list. This will be inserted into your post and can be located where you want it displayed.
To include an image that is not uploaded as an attachment and is located on another website, you can do so by copying the full URL to the image, (not the page on which the image is located), and either pressing the 'Insert Image' icon or by typing [img] before the URL and [/img] after it, ensuring that you do not have any spaces before or after the URL of the image. You can insert pictures from your albums (?) in this way too.