How to Generate Registration Keys on the eOne Website

Since we have updated our website this year we've been creating several how-to website videos to highlight and help you accomplish the basic and most important uses of our website. In this video I walk you through how to generate registration keys through our website.


If you have any questions or additional feature requests regarding our website please feel free to let us know by emailing sales@eonesolutions.com.

Tech Tuesday: Including Extender Fields in SmartLists using a Calculated Field in SmartList Builder

The Tech Tuesday post today is inspired by real-world events. Every once in a while I see someone who has added a simple field or two using Extender and now wants to include this information in a calculation on a SmartList using SmartList Builder. What happens inevitably is that some of the records may not have a record in the Extender side of things. When you pull the field onto the SmartList you will see that you have a value of 0 (for numbers or blank for strings). The actual value behind the scenes is NULL because there was no record.

The behavior that you see in your calculated field is that a value of 0 or blank will always be returned. You can correct your calculation simply by adding a CASE statement to account for the records that don't have values. Below you will find a sample:

CASE

    WHEN ({Extender Window:Value}) IS NULL THEN ({GP Table:Amount} – ({GP Table:Cost}))

     ELSE ({GP Table:Amount} – ({GP Table:Cost} + {Extender Window:Value})) 

END

The CASE statement in calculated fields can be very helpful to get the desired results in your SmartLists. Have fun with this one and let me know if you have additional ideas for calculated fields you would like to see.

Thanks,

Chris Dew

Director of Product Management

Curious to learn more about SmartList Builder or Extender? Reach out to us at sales@eonesolutions.com.

How to Pay for Renewals on the eOne Website

This year we've been adding a lot of new features to our website with a goal of making it easier and more efficient for you to navigate, process payments and find your eOne product information. Below is a quick three-minute video taking you through the process of paying for your renewals on our website.



If you have any questions or additional feature requests regarding our website please feel free to let us know by emailing sales@eonesolutions.com. 

Tech Tuesday: Table Joins in SmartList Builder

Our Product Specialist, Nicole Albertson, will be clearing up the confusion around which Link Method to use when you are joining two tables in SmartList Builder for today's Tech Tuesday. 

Equals:

This option will exclude any records that don't exist in both tables from the results. A record must exist in both the table you are linking and the table you are linking it to for it to be included in the results. 

Left Outer: 

This option will include all of the records from the first table and all matching records from the second table.

For example:

Let's take the Customers and their addresses. You can have a customer without entering an address, but you cannot enter an address without entering a customer.

So, if I use an Equals join between the Customer Master and the Customer Address Master, I am only going to get the customers that do have addresses.

If I use a Left Outer join, I will get all the customers and the address if they have one. 

Table Order in the Link:

The other thing to take into consideration with this is the order you link the tables into the SmartList Builder setup.

If I add the Customer Master table and then link the Customer Address Master table to it using a Left Outer join, I will get all the customers and then any addresses the customers have saved.

If I add the Customer Address Master table and then link the Customer Master table to it using a Left Outer join, I will get all the addresses and any customer information for those addresses. I will not get the customers that don't have addresses.

If I add the Customer Master table and then link the Customer Address Master table to it using an Equals join, I will get only the customers that have addresses saved and those addresses.

If I add the Customer Address Master table and then link the Customer Master table to it using an Equals join, I will get all of the addresses and any customer information for those addresses. This is because you cannot have a address record without the customer record being there as well. If a customer doesn't have an address, they will not be returned as they aren't in both tables. 

Side Note:

The Left Outer join is almost always slower than an Equals join. A Left Outer has to do all the work of an Equals plus the extra work of null-extending the results. It would also be expected to return more rows, further increasing the total execution time simply due to the larger size of the result set.

Hopefully this helps you think about how you might link the tables in your setup. If you are in doubt, try it a couple of different ways and see if you get the results you would expect. You can always change it.

Interested in learning more about SmartList Builder? Email sales@eonesolutions.com for more information!

Join Us at One of Our SmartConnect Classroom Trainings this 2014

Now that Convergence has passed and we've had a successful SmartConnect classroom training in Atlanta. We thought we'd release a little reminder on our other SmartConnect classroom training sessions we're hosting throughout 2014.

April 9th & 10th: Chicago, IL

May 7th & 8th: Seattle, WA

June 11th & 12th: Philadelphia, PA

July 16th & 17th: Fargo, ND

August 13th & 14th: Denver, CO

September 17th & 18th: Los Angeles, CA

October 12th & 13th: St. Louis, MO (prior to GPUG) 

November 12th & 13th: Fargo, ND (prior to Microsoft's Stampede)

December 3rd & 4th: Phoenix, AZ

So are you ready to become an integration guru? The sessions are $1400/per person for two full days of hands-on training and lunches each day. If you send 2 people from your organization, the 2nd person is half off! We have LIMITED SEATING available so please sign up early. 

You may sign up through our website calendar or email sales@eonesolutions.com.

How to Add a New Payment Method to the eOne Website

We've been adding a lot of new features to our website this year making it easier and more efficient for you to navigate, process payments and find your eOne product information. Below is a quick three-minute video on how to add new payment methods to our website, making it more efficient for you to use our website to process your orders and renewals.



If you have any questions or additional feature requests regarding our website please feel free to let us know by emailing sales@eonesolutions.com.

SmartConnect Windows Service

I hope to clear up some confusion about the One SmartConnect Windows Service functionality and where/how it should be installed for SmartConnect to function properly. 

The main purpose of the Windows Service is to execute SmartConnect maps on a scheduled basis but is also used to manage changed data source records and map logs.  

Map Schedules

As long as the service is running on at least one machine, it will execute any SmartConnect map that is currently scheduled to run but if there is more than one server or machine running the SmartConnect Windows Service, each one will try and execute a SmartConnect map when it is due to be executed.

Change Table Records

When setting up a Change Data Source; Extender, CRM, GP or MSSQL Table, the Windows Service will remove processed records to prevent the Change Table from becoming too large.

Once the Change Table Source has been setup and defined, click on the Maintenance Button Drop Down list and select Schedule Maintenance. Tick the box to Remove processed changes and set number of days old the records should be when they are removed. 

Map Logs

The Windows Service will also remove any Map logs that have been generated. The setting for maintaining the map logs is set in Smart Connect Setup - Other Settings. The number of days logs are maintained and the number of logs are configured in this window as well.

Some important points to note when installing or setting up the SmartConnect Windows Service.

1. Make sure all servers have access to the same folders or some maps may fail.
2. Make sure the service is running on a server and not a client machine or on a machine that will be competing for resources, such as a terminal server or a Citrix server.
3. If the service is installed on multiple servers, ensure the same credentials are assigned to the windows service.

Since the SmartConnect Windows Service user is not actually logged into the machine it is beneficial to make sure the maps point to a network share versus a mapped drive as that Service User may not have the same set of mapped drives.

If you follow these simple rules your SmartConnect Windows Service should help your SmartConnect integration running smoothly.

Happy Integrating!

Interested in SmartConnect? Feel free to reach out to us at sales@eonesolutions.com for more information!