Greetings from the FormSprint help desk!
Happy summer to one and all! We've been doing a little spring cleaning and 'spiffing up' of our website. Although designed as a marketing tool, we thought our customers might enjoy viewing our new flash presentation on our home page. Go to formsprint.com and click on the big pointer. Perhaps you'll see or hear something that's new or at least gives you a thought on a new way to use FormSprint. The rest of the articles in this issue are also geared toward 'What's New'.... new features, new add-ons, new ways to get the most out of FormSprint.... Enjoy!
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Why fix it if it ain't broke?
We know it's often easier not to change anything if the program is working and past experience tells you you're in for trouble if you go and mess with updates. We want you to know that we understand and at the same time we really encourage you to take the leap and keep FormSprint up to date. We try to test thoroughly so that things do go smoothly. We won't tell you that there never is a problem, but we can tell you that any issues are quickly resolved. Sometimes there are program fixes that are included that you may never know about until you encounter a problem. It makes our life at the Help Desk much easier if your software is up to date - and we're working on the same page, so to speak. But most of all, the updates always include new functionality. The newest software can be downloaded and the whole process takes only about 10-15 minutes. So, when you're ready, please give us a call for the url and userid and password. Now to some of the new stuff.... |
Data File Extract or 'Darn why
didn't they put that in the spool file?'
Have you ever been frustrated that a certain field was not included in a spool file that you really needed - like an email address, fax number, perhaps a location code? Included in the newest FormSprint update is the Data File Extraction. This function retrieves data from system data files based on key values available in the input spool file. Input values for the search key are
passed to the function from the spool mapper and include the file name, library, member name and field. Compound keys (for example, company number and customer number) can be 'constructed' using buffer concatenation. |
Seeing is believing!
For our customers with the new PowerPDF module, form flash and forms
with data can be viewed on screen by using VIEW.PDF. To enhance this,
we have added VIEW.PDFG which not only displays the form flash (or form
with data) but adds a grid background to aid in positioning. |
Add even more Power!
We are releasing two new products for emailing and faxing. (Don't worry, we will continue to support the various third party products we have been offering for these functions.) These new products have been specifically designed to interface with FormSprint processing and provide support for some of the unique features available with FormSprint printing that are not supported by the other products. The new products are completely AS/400 based. Since they are written by ICS, they will be easier for us to support and modify.
The software is currently in beta testing, and existing users are invited to participate in the evaluation. We will help you with the installation and setup, and provide close technical support and monitoring. Your comments and recommendations are important to us and will shape the final products.
If you like what you experience during the evaluation, you can purchase either or both of the products at half price (half of $1750 each) and receive free first-year support. Note that the email package also requires a PDF conversion package to generate the email attachment. If you don't already have a conversion package, the FormSprint PowerPDF conversion module will be provided for the
evaluation and can be purchased for $1250 plus $100 annual support. |
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And now for something completely different!
We frequently receive support calls that begin "I don't think this has
anything to do with FormSprint, but......" and we're happy to help. So
here is a completely unrelated tip.
We (and we're pretty sure
quite a few of our users) have a number of empty quarter inch tape
cases. We have found that these have a valuable second use - bug
catcher! For reasons well outside of our expertise, flies, wasps, and
other bugs are not afraid of the transparent case. The case is springy,
so with one hand you can easily surround the bug and close the case -
the bug just sits there and lets it happen!
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