Business – Page 41 – Paper Street Enterprises

CRM – Contact Tags

Now that we have a CRM system up and running, and we have our contacts all loaded, we’re slowly learning how to merge them into a cohesive contact list. But it certainly didn’t just fall into place. 🙂 Once we picked our CRM system (we ended up choosing capsulecrm), the next task was to add contact tags consistently.

This sounds like a simple task, but believe me, even terminology that seems clear can easily be interpreted in different way. When my partner uploaded his contacts, first they had no tags. Then when we loaded up the tags, I proceeded to update the mailchimp mailing lists. This all seemed to be rolling along great. Until my partner took a look at the lists and started asking where some of the contacts were. I looked in the mailing list, and proceeded to determine that several hundred contacts were in the wrong list. So that meant I needed to delete them from the mailchimp lists, and then go back to CRM and change the contact tags. After a few hours of rework, I thought we were ready to try again… So I asked Mike if all the changes were good, and he told they were. So to be sure, I took a look at a few of the contacts and asked Mike what list they should go in… again, we were off the mark.

So, today, after some going back and forth, I finally got a clue and documented the tags and listed what mail chimp list each list should move to. So, the lesson learned is document early and save yourself a bunch of rework =)

thanks for reading.

Marketing – improving the SEO of our blog posts

Lately, I’ve had to put more time and effort in my marketing. One of the things I learned is to improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of my blog posts. One of the major things I missed when I wrote most of my blog posts is the use of the little SEO traffic light provided by Word Press. While it may not be the best, it at least gives me an idea of when my post has a chance for a search engine like Google to find my posts.

The idea is that if my posts could actually be located in a Google search (or Bing, or etc…) means more people might start finding my posts (exactly like you did). Since I’m still on the hunt for second customers, the more people that see my blog the better. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of the second customer, it’s the consultants, friends, or former clients that know and trust me enough to recommend me to others that might be able to use my software creations.

Well, to get back on track, I completely skipped entering the metadata tags for each of my posts. Thus it made it that much harder for people to find my blog posts. So my latest mission has been to go back to all of my posts and enter in the metadata. In addition, I’ve been cleaning up titles and adding some keywords to try to get all of my “best” posts into the green. So, take my advise. If you start blogging, start early and get as many posts into the green for SEO as possible. It’ll help you in the long run.

Thanks for reading.

Variant Configuration – OEWB Parameters

In the cool Order Engineering Workbench (OEWB) for Variant Configuration there are a number of settings that you can control using the OEWB Parameters. Today I’d like to talk about the ones I’m familiar with. While this topic should be a simple one, I’ve had a tough time finding any documentation on exactly what these parameters do and why they should be set one way vs. another.

/OEWB/P_COCH X OEWB: Copy Characteristic Values – this is used when attempting to insert another configurable material or classified materials below a configurable materials.

/OEWB/P_EXPL X OEWB: New BOM Explosion – Component – if there are char. values on dragged component, structure will be reexploded on drop later. This is for configurable materials.

/OEWB/P_INST X OEWB: Instantiation – this allows you to instantiate a material multiple times within a single BOM. Beware of potential performance issues if you use this functionality.

/OEWB/P_NOFX X OEWB: Changes Possible Without Fixing – this has to do with “fixing” which locks the BOM as it currently is, and can only be changed manually going forward. This is also used in conjunction with adding a material below a configurable material.

/OEWB/P_NORF X OEWB: Changes Without “Really Fix” – this is used in conjunction with P_INST & P_EXPL.

/OEWB/P_OBOM X OEWB: Entry with Order BOM Instead of Version

/OEWB/P_SAVE X OEWB: Save Without Leaving – this one is a pretty obvious. If this isn’t set to X, then everytime you save, you leave the /OEWB/MAIN screen.

/OEWB/P_COAD OEWB: Copy with Advanced checks – If this parameter is switched on, the configuration (of configurable materials) is copied and manual changes (insert, edit, delete of BOM items) of the source object are copied to the target. This also works multi level. As a prerequisite, the functionality does just work if parameter “/OEWB/P_EXPL” is NOT set. This parameter shall also influence copy of version data.

/OEWB/P_MATV OEWB: Type Matching – this will allow type matching to occur within the OEWB. This is likely to only be used for instantiated components.

Now some of these parameters I’m still trying to figure out, but not having access to the OEWB in my own system has made this challenging. If I get a chance to get back into the system, I’ll add more details to these, but for now, at least you have my initial notes of the recommended settings (any of the items with an X).

Thanks for reading.

My Apologies…

I just wanted to put this out there. My wife is due this week with second little munchkin, so don’t be surprised if there are some days without posts. I’m trying to write some posts in advance to try to keep giving you the information you’ve grown used to… but even the best of us fall behind eventually =)

so in short, accept my apology in advance and I promise to be back… of course, I might be in a bit of a fog for the next few weeks, but I’ll be here =)

as always, if you have any ideas or want to know more about something… let me know. I can always use new ideas for blogging =)

Marketing – Selecting a CRM System

I know it’s been a while since I originally talked about selecting a CRM system, and we haven’t “quite” finished the job, but after 4 – 5 nights, I have it narrowed down to 2 option. I’m just gonna have my partner give them both a try (I already have my favorite). So when you’re making this decision, the first thing you need to do is figure out what you’re looking for out of CRM. So to give you some ideas… here’s what i personally was looking for:

1. Contact Management – this is the big one for me. I wanted to be able to dump all of our contacts into the same place. Currently, I’ve been using an Access database, which works fine, but trying to make it “useable” enough for my partner to setup/maintain as well just isn’t gonna happen. He’s technical, but not as technical as I am. So having it be nice and easy for him to enter his contacts just makes life easier.

2. Tasks – this gives us a common place to find our to-do list for the business. While we stay in communication, it’s tougher when we both travel. If we can assign each other things to accomplish, like “email the MFG list”, or write a blog post or even enough just so he knows what I’m working on and vice versa.

3. Online – pretty straightforward. I don’t want the hassle of hosting something else myself, so we want something online.

4. Mass Email Functionality – This is an area I had to compromise on. What I’ve found is that only the more expensive solutions have this functionality integrated. If it isn’t expensive, it just uses your email account(s) to do the sending. Not the end of the world, but if you go with a “real” solution your delivery rate will be much better. I’m already using Mail Chimp, so it’s not the end of the world, but it is still a hassle to have to use 2 systems to handle this all.

5. Mobile Capability – like to be able to maintain tasks and contacts from our smartphones.

6. Price – didn’t want to pay more than $25/months (less if possible).

Now, I did a lot of online hunting, and found quite a few different packages with potential:
Capsule
Zoho
Podio (too much around Social Media)
FreeCRM (very ugly interface)KarmaCRM
Funnela (I liked this one, but too much wasn’t translated into English made it difficult to pay for)
MS Dynamics (too expensive)
salesforce.com (too expensive)
Relenta – had potential, but was more expensive than Capsule or Zoho without any additional functionality.

Right now, I’ve narrowed it down to Capsule (integrates with Mailchimp) and Zoho that does include mass mailing functionality. Personally, I like Capsule’s look and feel a little better. I like that it automatically creates an company if I assign a company to a lead. It also has an easy way to mass update users. Zoho does have a added bonus of doing the mass emails/reporting in the same system. Both of them are the same price. So let’s see what Mike likes.

I hope my digging might make your life a little easier if you find yourself in the same dilemma.

Thanks for reading.

Material Master – an easy way to restrict maintenance of views

Well, another day, another product. ha ha ha. I wanted to throw this out to you and see if you think it’s something that might be useful. In the design of the new Proximity application, we’ve added a couple of options to that allow you update a single view of the material master, and can configure what fields are shown and in what order.

Right now, I’ve created the MRP views into 1 transaction, Work Scheduling and Forecasting. These were the views important for Proximity, but I was curious if you might see an opportunity of this to be a simple product that your company might have use for. Pumping out the remaining screens wouldn’t take too long. Sales and Purchasing would be the only pieces with a new wrinkle, and that’s just because of the long text.

I’d love your feedback. I’m curious because I know that you “can” handle much of this through security, but it’s my understanding that it’s a major PITA, and most security teams give a LOT of pushback to do this. Yet, with the impacts of improperly maintaining the material master, seemed like it might a quick win to provide something like this. We haven’t done any marketing materials or demo’s yet, but if you have any interest, let me know and I’ll be happy to give you a live demo.

As always, I appreciate your feedback and your support.

ASUG – Carolinas April 2013

We recently attended the regional ASUG in Greenville, SC. This was our first round as being a sponsor and all and all, I think it turned it out pretty well.conference itself was fine. The attendance was small, but having the ability to do a 45 minute presentation on one our products was awesome.

Mike gave a great presentation on our Proximity product, and due to that presentation, I think we might have got another lead. There is one drawback, and that is that you cannot “overtly” solicit leads. We’ll have to look into this further before October, to determine if we can still collect business cards in exchange for a prize.

In addition, there were also some good presentations on Data Archiving and some upgrade strategies for moving up to higher enhancement packages, as well as some other vendor presentations. It really is worth a day of our time if you can make it to one, and plus, you could see me in person. ha ha ha

As a fun side note, I even won a ZepplinAir at the end of the meeting. Who can complain about that? =)

Business – Finding a CRM System for a small business

Well, one of my newest hats in the business experiment has been marketing. If you’ve ready any of my previous posts, I’m sure you’ve figured out, it’s a work in progress. Ha ha ha. Short story if you’re new to my stuff, is that I’m engineer trying to run a business. I have a partner, the problem is, he’s an engineer too. So, I’m doing my best to learn how to market all this hard work I’ve done. Now that there are two of us, it’s getting more and more important that we are on the same page. We each have some email lists, and we “try” to keep eachother in the loop of what we’re doing, but it can be challenging. So I’m thinking it might be time to start looking at a CRM system we can use. The trick is finding a CRM system for a small business that gives us what we need, without too much fluff or too much cost.

Now, why on earth would I want another system to add to my workload? Because marketing is the heart of our business. If we can’t get the word out about how good our stuff is, well, then our business is doomed. So it’s time to focusing the effort it deserves. Now, I’ve got an access database of contacts that email on a semi-regular basis, and I have some opt-in contacts on MailChimp. My partner, Mike, has the list from our manufacturing conference, as well his previous contacts. So the challenge is how do we merge all this stuff together, and still maintain some segregation?

It seems like CRM is the answer. But which one? I’ve started doing some preliminary research, but then I realized, I first better figure out what I need to do with it. The web based CRM programs can be free, $12/month/user (or more)… so what is it worth… and can the free version do what we need without limiting us. So, what do I need it to do:

Import all of my current contacts.
1. We need to keep them grouped by module/focus
2. Consultant vs. prospect (customer vs. 2^nd customer)
3. where we found them, etc. conference/e-course/purchased list/colleague or customer.
4. Prospect vs. partner
5. Need to pull them in from excel, access & Mailchimp
6. Need to keep track of our interactions with our contacts
  1. When is the last time they were emailed.

i. What did we email them about? E-course, specific product? Certification, etc.

Have they ever responded to us
Need to keep track of our customers
1. Pretty easy right now, since we only have 1… but that will change J
2. What have they bought, what can we probably sell them
3. Email Campaigns
  1. Integration with MailChimp

i. Since I’m already using this, and have formats setup, this would be nice to have feature

Built in features of its own to send professional emails to our contacts
Metrics for those campaigns, including opens/clicks/responses etc.

i. Mailchimp has this, but it would be nice to have everything in a single location.

Needs to be on-line/accessable so both of us can enter in our data
Reminders/tasks – options
1. Nice to have a task list to email customers every 2 weeks

Now, those are the things I can think of off the top of my head. My friend Jer put me on this path and originally suggested SugarCRM. While it’s nice, it’s more expensive and probably more functionality than a 2 man show needs. So, here’s my initial list that I’m going to inspect. I’ll give you the pro’s and cons once I start playing with each one. In the meantime, let me know if there’s anything else I should be factoring into my choice. Especially, if I have any marketing guru’s out there J

SugarCRM
Xero
Capsule
FreeCRM
Any others you’d recommend???

As always, thanks for reading and I look forward to any feedback or ideas.

Field Service Web Application – Help Please =)

This is going to become my center piece for Renovation. So, I again have a question for my audience… what features would you want to see in a field engineering application. Please keep in mind, the initial release will not be a mobile app. That comes next… first I need to design all of the features. If your organization has on-site or field service, I could really use your input. What features would you need? what would you like to have? and would could I offer that would make it a no brainer for your organization to purchase?

Now some of the obvious things I plan to include will be a worklist for the field engineer. It will show all the service orders, notifications, tasks etc assigned to the engineer. It will provide the option to show the details of each item on the list. This will be configurable based on business need.

It will also include the ability to enter time and material to each order. Enter in measurement documents for pieces of equipment.

So what would you like to see? I appreciate your help and I look forward to providing a new application to help you out.

Rapier is now in ABAP Web Dynpro!!!

Well, this might not seem like a big deal to many, this is huge for me. Rapier started as dream of mine almost 6 years ago. That dream started this crazy adventure that I’ve been blogging about to all of you. Well, my dream hit a new level that now includes ABAP Web Dynpro.

Well, Rapier was originally written in BSP, and little did I know that by the time I finished learning and writing my first real application, the technology would no longer be supported. As a consequence of that, I found that my application that I spent so much time and effort on, only worked in a few browsers because SAP stopped updating browser support for BSP.

This made Web Dynpro my mission. Not only did I need to learn Web Dynpro for Rapier, I have a lot of plans for my current applications to all be visible on the web… and of course, my newest baby that I’m about to start… my field service application.

Now, Rapier will work on Safari, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Also, if your support packages are up to date, it will work on Firefox (this browser for some reason is tough to keep current with). But Safari was a big win for me. I’m currently testing it on the IPad to see how it work. Wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to keep you posted. Thanks as always for you Support…

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