ACS welcomed a number of client representatives to Ann Arbor on May 6 and 7 for a Client Forum focused on the Advertising module. We have found that the "forum" format works best to involve you in identifying the best direction forward for an area of the system – in this case the Advertising module.

Participants from Kalmbach Publishing, Motor Information Systems, and The Taunton Press were able to attend. Other clients (Oxford University Press and Traplet Publications) while not able to attend in person, provided input on features that are important to them.

Why Advertising? The Advertising Contract and Insertion Order screens are going to be moved to the new user interface. (This has already been done for the table views.) Improvements can often be incorporated during such a transition. Also, it is a good time to identify functional improvements and additional features in general.

We reviewed functional designs for the key screens and for every potential improvement suggestion that had been made in the last five years. Participants ranked what was most important. The clear winners were the screen improvements and support for Internet Ads.

The Data Entry Script feature (now available at MSTDAT/FST) will be included with the new screen. The Advertising Insertion Order has many data elements and every client wants a different set of them. The ability to control which fields open for input was particularly exciting. The Data Entry Script feature also lets you set default values. This feature will make it easier to enter these orders – easy enough that a sales rep will want to do it!! Guaranteed!

Many thanks to all who participated! Your input is invaluable. It is always great to work with you.

It's full of new features and functionality. Here is a sampling of the great things you'll find in Advantage 8R2, available in early June.

• Advantage now supports multiple credit card (and/or direct debit) clearing vendors on the same instance of the software. This would allow your organization, for example, to use the same instance of Advantage for operations in different geographic locations, each with its own credit card or direct debit vendor.

• An upload process has been added for Access Management and Billing. You can load up agreements---with full participant and access point information---including agreements that may have been entered outside of Advantage. The upload process can be particularly useful for moving agreement management from an outside system onto the Advantage database.

• Separate "transaction only" tables have been created as appendices to the promotion analysis tables (CPNPMO-M and CIRPMO-M). The transaction tables contain only the statistical fields from CPNPMO-M and CIRPMO-M. Advantage processes that update promotion stats now write to the transaction tables and then roll up the statistics to CPNPMO-M and CIRPMO-M at the end of the process. As a result, promotion code maintenance at CPNPMO can occur while Advantage posting processes are running.

• An upload process has been added for the Contact Management system, with the option to create a task that is linked to an image on the network. You could scan in documents that are related to customer service issues and then create a CRM task via the upload that is automatically linked to one of the images.

• You can now enter PRO returns at SVCDAT/PRO, instead of MSTDAT/FST. For example, if a customer calls in the return, the rep can locate the order at SVCDAT/PRO and process an applied return without having to route away from the basic customer service flow.

For more information, contact your ACS account manager.