Advantage Blog

So, you ask: "What happened with all those great ideas generated at the Advertising Forum in May of 2008?" (Previously reported in the June 2008 eVantage) I'm glad you asked!  Here is a summary by release. 2009r1   In this first release of the year, ADM's financial accounting feature was converted to use account mappings. 2009r2   This release provides a new ADMDAT workspace and simplifies the order database for reporting. 2009r3   ADM's Short-rate/Rebate feature is added to the ADMDAT workspace in this release. Certainly the star of the show is the ADMDAT workspace, which replaces six screens that contained over 100 different functions ? one screen alone had 41 different functions.  This "new-style" screen allows you to do all your Advertising …

With the 2008R1 release (and later), you can set up an item to be valid for only those promotions under which it has been specifically defined as a promotion item at CPNPMO/ITM. When this setting is used, the item cannot be added under a different promotion, even when the promotion is set up to allow additional items.  This would allow you, for example, to protect an item from being sold under the wrong promotion---one intended for another owning organization, for example. Defining the item at INVDAT Order Entry The order entry edit that prohibits addition of promotion-exclusive items to "non-participating" promotions is in place at the following places: Order entry views (e.g., MSTDAT/FST, /CIR) …

Paul DesRosiers is a man of many talents and he has put them to good use in his 12 years at ACS.  After earning a degree in computer engineering, his first job was as a programmer for a company that developed accounting software.  During his time there, he enrolled in night school at Eastern Michigan University, where he earned an MBA with a concentration in Strategic Quality Management.  Paul still retains his membership in the American Society for Quality. Although he enjoyed programming, Paul wanted to use his business skills as well.  He joined ACS in 1997 as an analyst in the implementation area, and began learning Advantage and the project methodology.  Paul has great memories of working with Caryn Bair on his first …

ACS is thrilled to announce that Egmont Magasiner of Denmark is the newest addition to the Advantage client list.  Located in Hellerup, a suburb of Copenhagen, Egmont Magasiner publishes 17 consumer magazines in the areas of house and home, car and boat, parenting, computing, sports, leisure, travel and hobby, plus general men's and women's titles.  Egmont Magasiner is one of about 20 companies in Europe which are part of the Egmont Foundation.  Egmont Magasiner chose Advantage after a thorough search and evaluation process lasting almost two years.  The implementation project is underway with go-live planned for mid 2010. Welcome, Egmont Magasiner, to the Advantage family!

The next release of Advantage--available in the second half of October?is jam-packed with new features and functionality.  Here are just some of the new things contained in the release. Customer Hierarchy:  The Customer Relationships feature has been expanded to offer a more robust use of relationships---the Customer Hierarchy, which makes use of the concept of relationship trees.  Previously, customer relationships were usually reciprocal (employer/employee), or nested in a two-deep hierarchy (such as with the Master Customer Relationships feature).  Now, relationship trees allow you to set up structures with multiple, theoretically unlimited, nesting levels (for example, employees within branch office within company within parent company).  In addition, …

We are pleased to announce the latest Advantage module: Business Intelligence.  You've told us that people in your organization need to be able to get at the vast amount of data in Advantage; that they want meaningful reports, easily accessed and not requiring detailed technical knowledge or deep familiarity with Advantage.  We listened and the BI module is our response. BI offers you 3 main benefits: Meaningful Reports Rather than selecting reports and then running them, you simply go to a website to access reports which will include graphs, pivot tables you can modify and standard "canned" reports.  You can configure your home page to display specific reports of your choice at the time interval of your choice.  Reports include the analysis …

Philippe van Mastrigt has been appointed the ACS Director for European Operations.  In this role, Philippe provides a permanent ACS presence in Europe and the UK, working closely with current and prospective Advantage clients.  Philippe's move to ACS was made possible through his work with Bayard Presse, ACS' first major client in France. Philippe led a successful implementation of Advantage in 2007, and he now continues to provide services for this major French publisher as an ACS consultant. "Philippe provides for ACS a new level of competency in serving our clients in the publishing marketplace in Europe," explains Tom Burbeck, ACS Executive Vice President. "His 11 years' experience at one of the top five publishers in France, combined with his competency in …

On July 7, 2009, an historic meeting took place in London.  The ACS clients in the European region came together to meet one another, talk about their participation in the Advantage Users Group, view presentations on product direction at ACS, hear about some of our latest features and spend plenty of time networking.  Five clients were represented at this first meeting, with a total of 20 attendees. The day began with an introduction and news update from me (VP and Chief Product Manager at ACS), followed by a presentation about AUG from Andy Wright, Advantage Administrator at Oxford University Press. Andy's presentation was the catalyst for a lively discussion about meeting together regularly in the EU region as well as participating in the AUG meetings …