How Many Use Automated Workflows

In the last post, Companies Weigh In on Benefits of Automated Workflows, we explained that in a recent webinar we had asked the attendees this question: “What would be the most valuable benefit of automated workflows for your business?" We were fascinated by the response, and the full results of this poll can be found via this link.

But before we dive into the five benefits, we wanted to also show the results of the second poll from this same webinar, 5 Reasons to Use Automated Workflows in Your ERP Solution. In this second poll, we asked the attendees this: “How many automated workflows does your business currently have in place?” We were a little surprised by the results, because we learned that over 80% of the attendees said that they either were utilizing very few or no automated workflows in the ERP. Here’s the full breakdown below: 

To complement Macola 10, we partner with best-in-class third party providers to offer add-on solutions that integrate with Macola’s ERP solution, Macola 10. Today, we are pleased to feature a guest blog post from one of our technology solution partners, Data Masons, which offers Vantage Point EDI for Macola, is a cost-effective and reliable gateway for EDI processing and is well suited for enterprise-level EDI environments—and of course—integrates with Macola 10:

21^st Century ERP

This is the 1st blog in the three-part blog series titled, “21st Century ERP”, which consists of the following posts:

1. Six Signs You Don’t Have a Modern ERP Solution
2. 21^st Century ERP Benefits
3. Who in Your Business Would Benefit the Most from 21^st Century ERP?

The Difference Between Old & Modern ERP

If you’re like most manufacturing and distribution companies, you’ve started out with a hodge podge of manual and siloed systems to manage your business. But workloads have grown. Your management can no longer see everything going on in the company.

• Vast quantities of information make decisions overwhelming.
• Manual business processes are cumbersome and time consuming.
• Documents get misplaced.

Answering questions such as—what is the cost of labor and materials for a particular product? Or, where an order is in the production line?—demand increasingly time-consuming research via email, voice mail, or walking to the shop floor. Important work falls through the cracks.

21st Century ERP

This is the 2^nd part of a three-part blog series titled, “21st Century ERP,” which consists of the following posts:

1. Six Signs You Don’t Have a Modern ERP Solution
2. 21^st Century ERP Benefits
3. Who in Your Business Would Benefit the Most from 21^st Century ERP?

Poll: 3 Primary Benefits of New ERP

We recently conducted a poll of both Macola customers as well as prospects and asked this question: “What area of ‘New ERP’ would bring the most benefit to your business?”

We found the results to be very interesting, as over 60% claimed that the greatest benefit of ERP was Automated Workflows. The next closest, at 25%, was Built-in CRM, with Personalized Workspaces coming in third.

Of course, there are many more benefits of a new ERP solution, such as streamlining operations, managing key business functions, increasing productivity and growing profitability—just to name a few. But for now, let’s look a little more closely at the three benefits listed in this poll: automated workflows, built-in CRM and personalized workspaces.

To complement Macola 10, we partner with best-in-class third party providers to offer add-on solutions that integrate with our ERP solution, Macola 10. Today, we are pleased to feature a guest blog post from one of our technology solution partners, Business Forecast Systems, Inc., which offers Forecast Pro for Macola, a comprehensive forecasting and forecast management system that is affordable, easy-to-use and offers the ability to create accurate and credible forecasts, as well as provide the tools to efficiently manage, monitor and improve your forecast process—and of course—integrates with Macola 10:

Streamlining and automating the basic core EDI documents – customer-facing Purchase Orders, ASNs and Invoices – is a process that many business organizations have figured out and they have integrated those documents seamlessly with the ERP. However, bigger EDI challenges that extend beyond those documents can truly threaten your company’s business operations and efficiency.

753 and 754 Document Set: Request for Routing Instructions and Response

In an effort to improve their logistics efficiency and lower their operating costs, some of the larger trading partners such as Amazon, JCPenney, Cabela’s and Kohl’s, are expanding their ability to make last minute changes to how and where shipments are routed. These initiatives have a significant impact on suppliers and challenge their systems to assemble all of the data for a hypothetical shipment, transmit that information and then receive a response document that finalizes the shipment. The response can have a significant impact on WMS and ERP systems and thus provide a major challenge for seamless automation.

To complicate matters, all of this must happen in a limited time window, typically 24-48 hours prior to scheduled shipment, which drives the need for a sophisticated EDI solution to “simplify” the process flow. The EDI solution must have advanced logic to propose the shipment and associated routing (753) and then be able to build the final shipment and ASN using the partner’s response (754). Failure to respond quickly within the established time window or follow the instructions provided, can result in significant chargebacks, lost profits and lowered scorecard results.

Data Masons has constructed a solid solution that lowers risk and makes this difficult process simple and efficient. With the 753 and 754 Routing Requests solution, you’ll be able to effectively manage and respond to customer routing requests accurately with minimal added effort.

Vantage Point EDI’s 753/754 Routing Requests Solution:

• Generates a proposed shipment profile or imports this information from select WMS systems that provide these capabilities, sends a routing request and receives an authorization for the shipment;
• Updates outbound shipments and ASNs automatically based on received routing instructions;
• Satisfies your trading partners’ 753/754 compliance requirements; and
• Provides a 754 report that lets users easily determine what orders the retailer has authorized to ship.

Glenn is an expert in the electronic integration of supply chain activities with 28 Years of Exact Macola-related experience in system analysis, product design, software development, Macola consulting and project management, dating back to 1986 and Exact Macola Version 2.0. Glenn has managed and/or executed over 200 successful ERP and EDI related projects in a wide array of manufacturing and distribution oriented industries. Glenn holds a Bachelor of Science degree with highest distinction from Babson College, is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society and holds numerous Microsoft Certifications. Visit Data Masons to learn more about our powerful 753/754 Routing Requests Solution.

Dare to be Bold... Join us at Exact Macola Evolve 2015 to learn new ways to compete in an evolving world. The manufacturing renaissance is upon us and businesses today have a unique opportunity to reinvent themselves, affect change, and provide dynamic customer experiences. Register today at www.ExactMacolaEvolve.com.

Here are our top 5 reasons you should attend Exact Macola Evolve:

1. Get Ahead of the Curve

Learn from manufacturing and technology industry authorities as they share their insight and advice on topics that will affect your day-to-day business operations in the new digital economy. Featured speakers include:

• David Chavern, Former Executive Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Travis Hessman, Associate Editor, Manufacturing Technology, IndustryWeek
• Dr. Daren Martin, PhD, International Speaker, Culture Architect and Growth Strategist
• Jim Abbott, Former Major League Baseball Pitcher and Motivational Speaker

2. Get Hands-On with Exact Macola 10

• Gain first-hand experience with Exact Macola 10 in a hands-on lab or at the Exact Macola booth in the Solution Center
• Hear directly from Dan Griffin, Director of Product Management, about product roadmap plans
• Attend a live Exact Macola User Group meeting to share experiences and best practices with your peers

3. Unite with Business Partners 

• Get advice from experienced solution providers that implement Exact Macola solutions on a daily basis
• Discover new tools that can enhance the power of your existing solutions
• Learn about complementary offerings from Exact Macola technology partners

4. Interact with Exact Macola Product Experts

• Choose from 15 different product sessions to learn more about your Exact Macola solutions and see first-hand the newest version of Exact Macola 10
• Visit the Exact Macola booth in the Solution Center and get all your specific questions answered
• Schedule a one-on-one meeting with a support professional
• Provide your feedback to the Exact Macola leadership team

5. Connect

• Create new connections with industry experts, discover new partners, and participate in networking events
• Visit event sponsors in the Solution Center and discover new ways to enhance your Exact Macola solutions
• Participate in the evening activities, unwind with us, and take the opportunity to connect with your peers

Register today at www.ExactMacolaEvolve.com and be sure to let us know who referred you!

Hello everyone. I’m really excited to write this blog post to let you know that today we have officially released Exact Macola 10.2 – the latest update to our flagship product Exact Macola 10. This new update adds four key new features and over 300 smaller enhancements.

But before I dive into what’s new with version 10.2, let’s first spend a minute on a quick refresher of Exact Macola 10– and what makes version 10 such a leap forward from our previous generation products, Exact Macola Progression and Exact Macola ES.

Exact Macola 10 is built on several foundational products that you may already be familiar with.

If you were, or maybe still are a user of Exact Macola Enterprise Suite (we usually call it ES) – then you are already familiar with one of the foundational pieces of Exact Macola 10. In version 10, we brought in nearly all of the core Exact Macola ES functionality, including nearly all of the modules, and included them out of the box. That includes the modules for accounting, distribution, and manufacturing.

Second, we included Exact Synergy Enterprise– which is a very valuable product even on its own merits. We use Exact Synergy Enterprise for three key pieces of functionality. Probably the most obvious is Customer Relationship Management– or CRM. This is the functionality that allows you to track information about your customers, your potential customers, and your employees. The second piece is document management, which allows you to save and archive documents into a searchable system. The third part of Synergy is workflows. With workflows, you have the ability to define a process and ensure that it is followed, sending an approval through the appropriate channels, and establishing an audit trail. For example, when inventory needs to be ordered, a workflow may specify that the order goes to the inventory manager for approval. If the order is over a certain dollar figure, you could also configure the workflow to require an approval from the CFO. You can establish a processes around handling orders, contacting customers, or whatever else you can dream up.

The third piece of Exact Macola 10 is the automation piece, which leverages Exact Event Manager. With this tool, you can define all sorts of automated triggers. When x happens, you want the system to automatically do y. A great example of this would be creating email alerts for low inventory, trigger database actions, or even launching a workflow.

The fourth, and perhaps the most unique piece of Exact Macola 10, are the Personalized Workspaces (which you may have previously heard referred to as “Navigator”). These workspaces wrap-up the information from the three pieces I mentioned above and display information in a way that is easily and quickly consumable and actionable to the end user. Workspaces give you a view of your data personalized to you, or your role. But more than just viewing information, you can take action directly from those workspaces. If you see that inventory is low – click and launch the process to order more. If you see that customers have placed new orders, you can click to generate pick tickets. The best thing about workspaces is how customizable they are. You can build whatever you want. They really are a game changer – and something unique to Exact Macola.

What’s New in 10.2?

Now that we have a refresher on the pieces that make up Exact Macola 10, let’s talk about what’s new in version 10.2, which is available as of today.

There are four key pieces of new functionality that we worked on for this release – plus several other smaller enhancements. As you may notice – three of these four items either are web services or leverage web services. As we’ve been discussing with our customers for the last year or so, exposing key functionality as web services was and is core to our strategy for the long term vision of the product.

So let’s take a minute to review the four big pieces we added.

1. Probably our most significant addition in this version is order entry (OE) as a web service. With OE exposed as a web service, our customers can accept orders from any software that can submit that order in the form of a URL. That is also the key that allowed us to build out a web interface and a mobile interface for order entry. What benefit(s) does this offer the customer?

• Easy/fast/simple/cheap integration to nearly any e-commerce solution, commercial or homegrown
• Faster you can accept orders, the faster you can grow your business
• Automating the order entry process, we deduce the costly errors and mistakes as critical information is first brought into the Exact Macola system

2. Our second important addition in version 10.2 is with accounts payable (AP) as a web service. Similar to order entry, we wanted to expose this as a web service to open up a world of possibilities. With AP exposed as a web service, not only did we build a web front end that allows us to do things we couldn’t do in the original client, but with AP exposed as a web service, you can potentially automate what has traditionally been hours of manual entry.

3. Third, we now have the ability to launch our web services– including OE and AP that we just talked about - from a workflow. So, for example, if one of your engineers creates specs for a new 3D printable item, you probably want to route through various departments for approval. Once everything is approved, instead of re-entering all of those specs into your master data, the workflow can automatically engage a web service to create that item for you. That’s just an example – and the automation possibilities here are pretty exciting. Reduce the amount of manual entry and likewise reduce costly human errors, accelerate the order entry and account payable processes (and therefore be able to handle/process more) with automation

4. The fourth and final of our major enhancements is our mobile app. Thanks to the advances we’ve been making with web services, we’ve also opened up a tremendous amount of new functionality that we can enable for mobile devices. For example, with this new app, you’ll be able to enter an order from the field, find customers near you, open customer cards, check inventory availability, and open up any of your defined workspaces! This kind of functionality makes our mobile app infinitely more valuable for field employees, as well as those who just happen to be at home or out of the office. The mobile app for iOS has been submitted to the Apple app store and should show up any day now. The Android version will follow in the coming months.

Over 300 Enhancements

One of the things we want you to know is that we are responding to your requests and to the market. As such, in addition to the four large pieces outlined above, we’ve added over 300 smaller enhancements into version 10.2.

While there are obviously too many to mention here (you can check the release notes for the full list), here are a few examples.

• We’ve added the ability to purge the IM transaction history.
• We’ve added several forms of international support, such as support for Mexico Annex 24 and Malaysian GST tax requirements.
• We’ve continued to work on the phase out of ASImport.
• We are including integration with Kofax document scanning – so you can scan paper based documents and import the information directly into your Exact Macola system.

So that’s Exact Macola 10.2 in a nutshell. As you can likely tell, we’ve had a busy first half of 2015. It’s really exciting for us to be making so much progress from a product perspective – and I hope that you are excited as well around how Exact Macola 10.2 can make a positive impact on your business.

We are excited to announce a promotion for both Exact Macola Progression and Exact Macola ES customers!

The promotion – which will expire September 30, 2015 – gives customers an opportunity to grow their user base for free as part of an Exact Macola 10 upgrade.

Customers running Exact Macola Progression or Exact Macola ES who choose to upgrade to Exact Macola 10, will receive a 50% increase in user licenses for no charge!

For example, if you currently have 40 users of Exact Macola Progression or Exact Macola ES, we’ll give you an extra 20 user licenses as part of your upgrade. While there is no license charge for the users, you will be responsible for yearly maintenance and support for the additional users.

To take advantage of this offer, customers should contact their sales representative or click here to be contacted by our sales department.

Terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Offer expires September 30, 2015, maximum of 25 free user licenses, perpetual licenses only.This offer cannot be used in conjunction with or combined with any other Exact Macola promotion. Any applicable maintenance fees will be charged based on retail prices and will be pro-rated to match existing prolongation date, if applicable. Not applicable to past purchases. These terms and conditions are subject to change at any time without notice.

It has been an exciting couple years here at Exact Macola. We welcomed a new Managing Director, released Exact Macola 10, launched a new partner program, moved to a new office…and the list goes on!

We’ve also been fortunate to reconnect with several industry analysts to share our excitement. You can see clips below, and visit the In the News section on our website to see what these and more analysts are saying about Exact Macola.

From Mint Jutras;

April 2013 was a turning point for Exact Macola and the beginning of a transformation led by Exact Macola’s daring new MD, Alison herself. At the core of that transformation is a focus on exceptional customer service, brand revitalization and a cultural shift that has led to talent acquisition (that is still on-going), a strong partner strategy and renewed efforts in product development.

From Technology Evaluation Centers:

Exact Macola 10 is developed specifically for organizations focused on manufacturing and distribution in aerospace, automotive, food and beverage, metal fabrication, electronics manufacturing, and other industries. The solution ties in consolidated financials, inventory, tracked orders and costs, workflow, document storage, and customer relationship management (CRM). The core of the product is all native Exact. The vendor has partnerships with third parties such as WiSys for warehousing and Datamasons for electronic data interchange (EDI), which provide add-on solutions for Exact Macola 10.

From Bob Scott’s Insights

Exact Macola outlined important enhancements to version 10.2 and laid out a product road map this week at its Evolve user conference. All of this is a bit revolutionary—when Macola v. 10 debuted last year it was the first major release in 10 years, according to managing director Alison Forsythe. 

Read more about what the analysts are saying about Exact Macola on our website!

Grace Engineered Products is located in Davenport, Iowa and is the leading innovator of Permanent Electrical Safety Devices that help companies exceed electrical safety standards. The company was started in 1991 by President, Owner and CEO, Philip Allen.

In the early 2000s, Grace was still very much a start-up with little capital, but Phillip knew he needed to put the proper infrastructure in place to build the business and help manage his growing inventory. He started looking for an ERP system with a robust Bill of Materials and work order system. With the help of consulting firm Exceptional Software Solutions, Philip determined that Exact Macola was the right fit.

"The biggest benefit to us with Exact Macola Software is, I know that I can grow to 10 to 20 times our size, and they'll be able to grow with us."

- Philip Allen 
President of Grace Engingeered Products

You can watch Phillip explain why he chose Exact Macola in the video below.

See more customer testimonials on our webstie.

We are excited to announce a new integration with VeriFone’s PAYware Connect.

PAYware Connect is completely hosted so there is no longer the need to run a payment server locally or set up anything other than the appropria

te Exact Macola settings on the customer’s side. Utilizing this new solution also helps with maintaining our customer’s PCI compliance as the only place credit card information will be stored locally is in the Exact Macola SQL database where it is encrypted with our proprietary encryption routine and password protected in the application. Anywhere else that credit card information resides is on the VeriFone servers where they meet and stay up-to-date with PCI compliance regulations.

With the sunset of PC Charge and its compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows, we have decided to phase out support for VeriFone’s PC Charge application and we will no longer re-sell Verifone solutions. PAYware Connect may be purchased directly from Verifone.

Please note: In order to use the PAYware Connect integration, customers must be on a minimum of Exact Macola ES 9.6.100 code or Exact Macola 10. Exact Macola Progression does not support the PAYware Connect solution.

More information about PAYware Connect can be found by visiting the VeriFone website here.

If you have any questions about Exact Macola credit card processing integrated solutions, please contact Dave Dozer, Senior Functional Designer.

HFI is a long-time Exact Macola customer and Tier 2 provider of automotive interiors.

Complete Solution

At HFI, Exact Macola runs all aspects of the business.

“It starts with order entry. We do our material planning, work with our vendors, all the way out to shipping and invoicing. So it is the system that runs HFI,” explains Karen Hartley, Directory of IT.

Value

Exact Macola provides all the functionality HFI needs to run their business.

“We can customize it to fit our business without shelling out millions of dollars to make that happen. So it really allows us to modify it to run our business,” says Karen.

Trusted Partner

At the end of 2014, HFI made a sizable investment in Exact Macola.

“We did this for several reasons. First of all, our business is growing. We had to find a partner that would be able to grow with us. As we look at the company, we do see a reinvigoration with the product - Exact Macola 10. We invested in that and look forward to an opportunity for us to grow our business and our future along with the product,” says Karen. 

Hear Karen Hartley describe HFI’s partnership with Exact Macola in the video below.

Hello Exact Macola customers!

As you all hopefully know by now, we released Exact Macola 10.2 in late June of this year. One of the major advancements as part of that release was the all new Exact Macola mobile app (currently iOS only) which was released in the Apple app store a few weeks ago.

This mobile app allows order entry and quoting, finding customers “near me,” viewing workspaces, CRM functions, and more.

As a reminder, this app only works with Exact Macola 10.2, and will not work with previous Exact Macola versions.

If you’d like to see the mobile app in action, take a look at the video below. In the video, I spend about 15 minutes showing features of Exact Macola 10.2 – and the first 4 minutes cover the features of the mobile app.

As I mentioned, right now the mobile app is for iOS only. We are actively developing the app for Android now and expect to have it available with the Exact Macola 10.3 release in December. (Hopefully earlier!)

You can download the iOS app here.

Dan Griffin
Director of Product Management, Exact Macola

G.L. Mezzetta is a leading producer of high quality peppers, olives, and specialty foods in the United States. They have been family-owned since 1935 and are committed to bringing their customers the highest quality foods available.

Because G.L. Mezzetta prides itself on quality, they wanted to find an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with processes that were reliable and robust. They wanted an ERP system that would provide assurance about the way they were doing things.

“We didn’t go into this to save money. We went into it to get smarter.”

- Don McCall, Director of IT, G.L. Mezzetta

Challenges

Two years ago, G.L. Mezzetta was using a system that wasn’t working for them. Employees didn’t understand the processes, they were having trouble tracking where money was being spent and they were struggling to educate a department with high turnover. “We had business users that didn’t know what to do or why they were doing it,” explains Don McCall, Director of IT.

Success with Exact Macola 10

After implementing Exact Macola 10, G.L. Mezzetta is now able to track exactly where money is being spent and better manage internal tasks. Because they import a lot of raw materials and fresh produce from Europe, they have to consider things like freight, duty and changes in the euro when tracking their costs. And that’s something they are now able to accomplish with Exact Macola 10.

“Not only does it give us access to information we didn’t have before, but it saves a lot of time out of everybody’s life compared to when we had to try to figure out what did happen,” says McCall.

Thanks to workflows and document management, one department now saves four hours every day on just one task. Instead of dreading completing required tasks in an outdated system, employees now enjoy using Exact Macola 10 as their main source of information throughout the day.

In the department with high turnover, G.L. Mezzetta now uses custom Exact Macola 10 workspaces to quickly get new employees up to speed. This makes training easy and keeps knowledge within that department.

Hear Don McCall, Director of IT at G.L. Mezzetta, Inc, share their story in the video below.

It is very exciting to see so many new customer sites being added to the Exact Macola family. Solution provider Copious Solutions, LLC, has recently added The Employers Association of the Northeast (EANE) to our growing list of customers. EANE, located in Agawam, Massachusetts, is an employers association serving the northeast region of the United States. With over 900 small and medium business members, including manufacturing, finance, health and human services, education, and retail organizations, EANE offers members access to a powerful network of experienced HR professionals.

EANE purchased Exact Macola 10 in order to streamline operational activities and the services they offer their membership clients. They are moving off of disparate systems such as Sage and Goldmine to a unified ERP experience for their employees and members. The information Exact Macola 10 will provide in daily dashboards was previously only available once per month after a lengthy process of data consolidation and manipulation. Critical information will now be available on-demand to guide proactive activities so EANE can expand their membership base.

Sutter's Mill Specialties is a leading provider of custom laser engraved products. They manufacture unique, high-quality promotional and advertising products for companies around the world.

Challenges

Before using Exact Macola, Sutter’s Mill was struggling with production slow downs. Their engraving machines were taking more time to set up than doing the actual engraving work on each job and they were too reliant on paper documents that could easily be lost or buried.

Success with Exact Macola

Sutter’s Mill worked with Red Deer Systems to implement Exact Macola Software. Since then, they have doubled their production and sales without purchasing another machine. “If I had not gone to Exact Macola, I would have had to purchase another ten machines. So there was a great savings to our company,” explains Michael Butler, President of Sutter’s Mill.

With Exact Macola, “it just flows,” says Brian Matthews, CTO of Sutter’s Mill. “It has allowed us to do things that we couldn’t have otherwise done.” What used to require 12 sheets of paper now only requires two and everyone on the team can now easily track the status of orders.

“Sometimes I take it for granted because it works so well and so seamlessly. Exact Macola is the glue that holds it all together.”

- Michael Butler, President of Sutter’s Mill Specialties

Hear the President and CTO of Sutter's Mill Specialties share more of their story in the video below.

This blog post is intended for users who have experience designing custom Workspaces in SSRS and creating Action links for Workspace menus.

The introduction of Workspaces to Exact Macola 10 has allowed customers to tailor their user’s experience based on the role of that person and the unique functions that they serve. Menus are configured to allow users to have a myriad of choices available to them so they may take action on any pertinent data and operate in a contextual and natural way.

When designing a custom workspace there are some scenarios where you may wish to make the menu even “smarter” and display different options based on certain criteria being met even though the data is in the same grid.

For example, if you are joining data from your open orders and your historical posted orders into a single table, you may want the user to be able to drill down into the detail for those orders/invoices. You may also want them to be able to edit open orders but not see the option for posted orders. In a standard menu you would have to create menu links for both open and posted even though only one would be applicable.

Your menu would look something like this:

In this example, I am using a simple query in our SSRS report that unions the oeordhdr_sql and oehdrhst_sql tables together: 

select 'OPEN' as status, ord_type, ord_no, inv_no, cus_no, bill_to_name, tot_sls_amt, ord_dt, inv_dt

from oeordhdr_sql with(NOLOCK)

UNION ALL

select 'HISTORY' as status, case when orig_ord_type is NULL then ord_type else orig_ord_type end as ord_type, ord_no, inv_no, cus_no, bill_to_name, tot_sls_amt, ord_dt, inv_dt

from oehdrhst_sql with(NOLOCK)

I’ve made a very simple Tablix using the data from the above query:

On the ord_no field I am using the following for the URL Action to call our workspace menu:

=UFssrsCA.CAFunctions.ContextualMenu("OETest_OrdNoLink",Variables!ReportID.Value,Parameters!Division.Value, Parameters!Division.Value, Fields!ord_type.Value, Fields!ord_no.Value, Fields!inv_no.Value, Fields!status.Value, Fields!ISHistory.Value)

Using this method, I will have to display both the View and the Edit links on the menu. However, I can use an if statement to switch the menu based on certain criteria.

In this example, I will check out “Status” field and display a different menu based on if it is a History or Open order:

=iif(trim(Fields!status.Value)="OPEN",UFssrsCA.CAFunctions.ContextualMenu("OETest_OrdNoLink",Variables!ReportID.Value,Parameters!Division.Value, Parameters!Division.Value, Fields!ord_type.Value, Fields!ord_no.Value, Fields!inv_no.Value, Fields!status.Value, Fields!ISHistory.Value),UFssrsCA.CAFunctions.ContextualMenu("OETest_OrdNoLink_History",Variables!ReportID.Value,Parameters!Division.Value, Parameters!Division.Value, Fields!ord_type.Value, Fields!ord_no.Value, Fields!inv_no.Value, Fields!status.Value, Fields!ISHistory.Value))

Based on the value in the status field, I am able to show a completely different menu within the same field in the table.

Now if I upload my workspace I still see the menu I already configured on open orders:

But if I go to a History order I have a blank menu ready to be configured:

There are many other scenarios where this can be a useful trick. For instance you may want to show a link for releasing orders on credit hold but you wouldn’t want to show that menu item on orders not on credit hold. You could also add nested if statements and have more than 2 menus available on a single data point.

Keep following the Exact Macola blog for more technical tips!

At Exact Macola we believe in focusing on what’s next and never settling for the status quo. We are continually re-creating ourselves and developing new innovations into our solutions - and we encourage you to do the same. It’s the only way to get ahead of the competition!

We want to provide you the resources and tools to help you transform your business! We strive to provide exceptional customer service and offer best-in-class solutions. This year’s conference is dedicated to helping you become a master of your Exact Macola solutions and motivating you to find your fierce ambition.

Last year’s theme was Dare to Do! and we challenged every attendee to do something extraordinary to make an impact on his or her business. This year we’re taking it to the next level and challenging you to find your fierce ambition! We have put this strategy to work within our own organization. To us, capturing our fierce ambition means we have a passionate desire for success and a relentless quest for improvement. Exact Macola has an unshakeable drive to become a leader in the marketplace and possesses a laser focus on transformation to meet market demand. Our ultimate goal is to become your trusted advisor. We will help you to transform your business, help you accelerate and inspire your organization to take your growth to the next level.

We hope you will join us at Exact Macola Evolve 2016! Here are just some of the reasons you should attend this year's event:

1. Choose from more than 50 sessions to help you build knowledge and accelerate your company’s growth

2. Earn CPE credits when you attend our new product training sessions

3. Gain knowledge you can put into action when you attend customer-led success stories and best practices sessions

4. Collaborate with respected solution providers that are local to you and learn how their vast experience with Exact Macola solutions can propel your business forward

5. Meet 1:1 with your key support professionals at the Support Help Desk

6. Connect with peers based on specific topics of conversation that you choose in facilitated roundtable discussion sessions - vote here

7. Discover 3rd party technology solutions that will enhance your Exact Macola investment

8. Learn about the latest trends and strategies to help propel your business into the future and how, as your trusted advisor, we can help get you there

9. Be inspired by the stories of others and embrace your own fierce ambition

Register for Exact Macola Evolve now! 

We’ve talked a lot about the power of Workspaces in Exact Macola 10 and the efficiency that they bring to day-to-day activities. But I still need to log into Exact Macola 10 and then go to the Workspaces module to access my personalized Workspaces. What if I want to see my Workspace right when I log into Exact Macola 10? Or better yet, what if I have to cover other departments or work in cross-functional areas and want to create customized homepages so I can switch back and forth between all my different roles? 

Today’s tech tip covers just that!