The Ledger : procedures

Strong Passwords are on the way!

Daniel Dalnekoff — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:31:00 GMT

That's right!

Beginning with the release of The Financial Edge 7.77 new users in the system will require a strong password when being setup. This requirement will not be changing for existing users, but if a change is made to the existing user in system security that requires the user record be saved, the new password will need to adhere to the new strong password rules.

What is a STRONG Password?

For The Financial Edge, a strong password will be one that consists of at least 8 characters, and contains at least 1 letter and 1 number. Some examples include:

my1password

pizza999

Stay tuned for more exciting news on new functionality coming out with the 7.77 release...

Converting to Payroll 7

Daniel Dalnekoff — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:55:00 GMT

September is a month that I have always shared a love hate relationship with. When I was a kid, it meant the end of summer vacation and thus began with a most somber feeling. On the other hand, my birthday falls in September so by default this should be one of my favorite months.

In 2008, this particular September, something special is happening here as support for Payroll 6 draws to a close. I know that right now many of us are thinking, its early July right now and there is really no reason why I should start thinking about this with September 30th being so far off. Sorry fellow procrastinators, but this IS the time to start thinking about running the Payroll conversion. Obviously, the best thing to do is run a test conversion on the data now and work forward from there. I have included below my suggestions on steps to take right now to enjoy a smooth transition:

1. Start Today! Make a backup of your live database, and load it on a standalone machine. If you have any questions on how to do this, give us a call in Support, or just email me and I will get someone to contact you and help set this up. Or, try the following solutions from our Knowledgebase:

How to make a backup (BB94455)
How to install The Financial Edge (BB273248)

2. Once you have this standalone machine up and running with the copy of your database loaded, run through the Payroll conversion on this machine. Let it complete so you can get a feel of how long the actual conversion process may take.

3. When that completes, print out the exception report. As soon as the conversion is complete, there will be a link to click to view it. If you accidentally closed it,dont worry - you can always browse to c:\ and look for the file pyconvert.log to get this information.

4. If you get any messages or errors on the conversion log that don't make sense, contact Support and we will be happy to walk you through what these errors or exceptions mean, and how we can address them in the converted Payroll 7 system, or how we can address them in your current Payroll 6 system (when possible) to remove those from the live conversion.

The key here is planning, planning, planning! We want to be sure that we allow enough time to run a few test conversions. This ensures that when the date comes to go live on Payroll 7, it can be as simple as letting the conversion run, and when complete users can login, get a few things setup and start getting out Payroll checks!

Happy Payrolling.

Daniel

How can Support help our Clients Integrate RE and FE?

Daniel Dalnekoff — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:18:00 GMT

I just finished spending 2 days at BBU in The Raiser's Edge Essentials I, which I felt was a great way to get some knowledge of another product under my belt to fill in space between the burger and fries I had for lunch. Ultimately though, the goal is to improve Product Support's responsiveness, and ability to support clients who choose to integrate The Financial Edge and The Raiser's Edge.

I still have quite a few more classes to go until I would say I "know" RE, but this project can't get started soon enough. A problem we face in Support is that RE and FE users and Support Analysts have different vocabularies (vocabularii ?). On top of that, because the 2 programs serve such different, but advanced functions in their own purpose it is no suprise that questions come up when working between the 2 products.

So, with the end goal of this project being a way for support to provide better "support" for the integration of FE and RE I would like to tap the knowledge of those integrated users...what hurdles did/does your organization face with integrating these 2 products? From a procedural standpoint, does your accounting staff have nightmares over what the development office is sending to your database? What are the questions you would like to be able to call Support and have someone know the answer to when it comes to your integration?

The floor then ladies and gents, is all yours...

Procedures & Processes

Daniel Dalnekoff — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:50:00 GMT

As a Product Lead, I constantly encounter different user scenarios and situations with how the software works, or how to perform a specific task. More often than not, I end up asking myself, "How does The Financial Edge help our clients with their business processes? Do they create processes around how they use FE, or use FE following their existing process?"

I would like to then, in the spirit of that thought, ask the Loyal Ledger Readers:

What process does your organization have in place for your end of year closing?

Feel free to be as detailed - down to individual work flow/steps; or as general "we check the box to soft close the prior year" as you like...

Anyone?