Rockton Disney World Retreat Retrospective

Written By Jenn Schoemer,
Project Manager at Rockton Software

Retrospective
ADJECTIVE 
1. reviewing past: looking back over things in the past
2. applying to past events: applying to things that have happened in the past as well as the present

Here at Rockton www.rocktonsoftware.com, retrospectives have become a normal part of our business and development process, so I only found it fitting to apply it to my recent travels to Walt Disney World.

For years I’ve been traveling solo, so I think I just slip into auto-pilot and go through motions.  But when we had the opportunity to take my husband and two oldest children along with me to Disney World for the Rockton Retreat, I jumped at it. However, I have to say I was a little nervous it would throw me off my traveling game.

We did a little planning by asking friends and Disney veterans a ton of questions, and I don’t think we did too bad for our first run.  The kids loved it so much.  They were a little heartbroken that we didn’t bring their baby sister, who is two years old, so they are already busy planning our next trip.

I found it fitting to do a retrospective of our trip, so when the time comes to go to Disney World, again, our planning is not fogged by the years, and we are able to learn from our first trip.

At Rockton, to start our retrospectives, we make two lists—pluses and deltas. The pluses are everything we loved, would do again, and would recommend to others. The deltas are the things we would like to change or would not recommend to another person.


Pluses: 

• Plan, plan and plan some more  -  We had a general plan of which park we would go to each day, and then each night we would list out which rides and attractions we were going to go to.  We used the ‘PassPorter’s’ Disney travel book.  They had a great itinerary for each park.  One for if you were traveling with kids and another for just adults.  We would use this as a guideline and make modifications based on what we wanted to make sure to see. 
• Advice – Ask others.  We got a lot of great information from friends and Disney veterans.  We were lucky that our sources had kids who were similar in age to ours.
• PhotoPass
• Park Hopper passes
• Fastpasses – A must.  If there are rides you know you will want to go on multiple times one idea is to get a fastpass for the ride, get in line, ride the ride, and then go back and ride it again. 
• Stay on property – if you can swing it, stay on property.  Here are a few benefits we found from staying on property: 
• Magic hours – where the park is open early or later for guests staying on property.  We benefitted from this a few times.  One we were able to sign our son up for Jedi Training (Hollywood Studios), get fast passes to some of the very popular rides (rides which normally have 1 -3 hr. wait times,) and walked on to other rides because the park was closed to other guests.
• Disney Magic Express (DME) – LOVED this!  This service picks you up at the airport and brings you to your hotel.  We didn’t have to worry about getting our bags when we arrived in Orlando.  Instead the DME picked up our bags and brought them to our room.  When we headed home we were able to check our bags at the DME curbside check-in right at the hotel and didn’t have to worry about checking them ourselves at the airport.  This was a HUGE help when traveling with kids.
• Your room card doubles as a credit card – We didn’t have to carry around extra cards because we always knew we would be able to charge purchases back to our room if we needed/wanted to.
• Parking – we didn’t have the added expense or worry about parking
• Groceries - We had groceries delivered right to the hotel via Garden Grocer. We ordered things like, yogurt, cheese, lunch meat, Peanut butter, jelly, crackers, bread, trail mix and water.  All things which could be used for a meal or a snack.
• Snacks – We brought snacks and water into the parks. This doubled as a money and a time saver. 
• Backpack/cooler/water bottles – We brought a soft-sided cooler and ice packs with us in our backpack.
• Phone Apps – Disney Magic or Disney Wait times worked great for us
• Daily allowance/Budget – We set a daily allowance for what each child could spend.  This helped reduce them asking for everything under the sun and made them really think about what they wanted to buy.  We also had an overall daily budget.  I have to say bringing snacks and water into the park helped us spend less than half of what we budgeted. 
• Disney apparel – Buying Disney apparel and even souvenirs where a ton cheaper online. We bought the kids shirts, pjs and a few other Disney items before we even left and brought them with us.
• Stroller rental
• Shows - We loved all the shows we were able to catch.  Originally, we focused on hitting the nightly shows, which are must sees.  My daughter and I took in a Beauty and the Beast show at Hollywood Studios that ended up being a great little break in our day and very entertaining.
• Jedi Training – If you have a Star Wars fan this is a must.  Hollywood Studios offers training but you have to sign up.  They offer a set number of show/training times.  Here is one time where the Magic hours saved us.  The park opened at 9:00am, Magic hours started at 8:00am, we were in line at 8:30ish and the soonest we could get our son in as the 2:00pm show. We also lucked out and got some great pictures of the training because of our pre-purchased PhotoPass.
• Epcot – Epcot was a great park to hit all the character spots for us. Given the ages of our children—six and four years old—we had a much smaller laundry list of attractions to hit at Epcot.  So taking advantage of seeing the characters here was great!

Deltas:

• Stay longer – We only had 4 day, next time we will be going for no less than a week.
• Travel day - Do not try to squeeze in an entire park the first day or night you get there.  Instead either go to the pool, Downtown Disney, or try hitting one of the evening shows at one of the parks.
• Dining Reservations – Make these at least 3 months in advance or more if you can.  For us I’m going to find a few places we really want to go to, not necessarily every day or night, but at least the places we really want to make sure to go to. 
• Multiple Days per Park – Make sure we have at least two days to go to the Magic Kingdom or the parks important to you.
• Sea World – Make sure there is time to go to Sea World.
• Be flexible – Have some flexibility to change your schedule or make adjustments for weather/crowd size and other situations that might pop-up.
• Go to Cinderella’s castle – Believe it or not, we admired the castle from a far, but we never went right up to it.  
• Transportation – Plan extra time for transportation, it always takes longer than we planned for.
• Rain gear – Bring it!
• Break – My husband, and many others I talk to, said he or they would plan breaks mid-day to take naps and then head back to the park.  I’m a wake up and don’t-stop-until- you-drop kind of girl, so I will still need to think implementing this one.

Doing a retrospective will tremendously help our next vacation there, so we don’t make the same mistakes twice. This is why we implemented it at Rockton; retrospectives help us, here at Rockton, keep on track with our daily work, as well as major projects.

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What Makes Software Support Great!

Written By Pam Rasmussen,
Technical Support at Rockton Software

You've likely had to reach out for support of an application or system at some time in your career, maybe more times than you would like to admit.  If you are like most people, you start by asking co-workers, friends, or even search the Internet for answers. Eventually, you realize you need to go one step further, so you send an email or make the phone call to support and wait. What happens next will be a “sweet” or “bitter” experience—preferably sweet, especially when working with Rockton Software (www.rocktonsoftware.com).

I would like to talk about some attributes that will make for great support, consistently. A support team that consistently provides a “sweet” experience typically includes people with excellent verbal and written communication skills. They are also detail oriented and able to work with Users at all levels. There’s more to it than that though.

A support person has to have the ability to develop a professional relationship with the customer and earn their trust. Someone can tell you whatever they think you want to hear, but if you don’t trust them, then you are not going to be fully engaged in what they are saying and they might as well be telling you blah, blah, blah because that is what you’ll be hearing. Trust comes in many forms, be it giving the customer the correct information, being knowledgeable about an application, or treating them with respect.

A support person has to genuinely care about the customer’s issue and be able to feel any frustrations they are having. In other words, they must be compassionate and able to empathize with the customer. If you have ever reached a person on the other end that makes you feel like they wished you would just go away, you know how important having these qualities are.

They must be able to stand out from other support people in some way. We all experience service people (cashiers, tellers, clerks, etc.) in our everyday lives, but we always remember that one clerk or that teller that remembers we have three kids. They’re the one that asks you how little Johnny is feeling after a case of the flu, or how little Susie likes first grade. It’s a warm and fuzzy feeling and we all like it.

Another important attribute that comes to mind, and it is probably the most important one, is honesty, which Rockton prides itself on. Nothing makes a person distrust someone faster than hearing non-truth from them. In the support world, it is crucial to tell the truth. For example, if a support person doesn't know the answer to a customer’s question, it’s alright to say, “I don’t know” followed up with, “but I’ll find out the answer and get back to you.” You cannot possibly know everything about each product or feature. People want to hear the truth, even if it doesn't answer their question immediately. It makes them feel like someone cares about their question and is going to take the time to find out the answer for them. It gives them instant gratification without getting an answer—pretty impressive.

Lastly, not only does a support person need to be a problem-solver, have compassion, build trusting relationships with their customers and so on, they need to have a positive and non-intrusive attitude and personality, respectively. They need intuition and sensitivity to communicate with so many different levels of customers. From one moment to another, they could be talking to a CEO, Accountant, or Warehouse worker. It varies greatly and to have a balanced personality and good attitude, will only bring success to those relationships while dealing with a software support case.

If you think back, there is likely at least one person that has made a “sweet” impact on your life in a support/customer type role.  Think about why or how they did that. Then, take from that to become a better support person.

Stay updated on Rockton Software by viewing our latest publication—GP Optimizer Winter 2013! You can also manage your subscriptions on Rockton’s website, thus, keeping up with all Rockton Software news!

Before Convergence 2013, Meet the Rockton Team featuring Rhonda Sutliff!

Written By Rhonda Sutliff,  Product
 Specialist at Rockton Software

What are you most looking forward to at Convergence 2013?

I have been to Convergence a few times over the years and have always served my time at the Microsoft Dynamics GP help desk as a Microsoft employee. I am most looking forward to seeing Convergence from a different perspective, that of an ISV. I look forward to meeting new customers and partners, as well as seeing those I have met in the past. It is a great place to network, and there is so much to learn. I could never say I look forward to just one thing but rather the whole experience.

I would love to show you the great tools Rockton Software www.rocktonsoftware.com has to offer. I will be in the Rockton Booth #1851 each day during the expo hours, so stop by and say hi!

Doing Mobile Development Right

Written By Shawn Strayer, Web
Developer at Rockton Software 

The first step in doing mobile right is determining what mobile means to your organization. Mobile comes in many shapes and sizes and each approach comes with a near dizzying array of benefits and limitations. In the Age of the Customer  there is an expectation that your organization is accessible at any time on any device and how you meet those expectations will depend on many things including (but not limited to): budget, delivery time, and development skill sets. The lowest cost of entry involves the creation of a mobile friendly version of your website.

Mobile Website

Advantages:

• Ease of Development: Since this technology is server based there is no need to deploy onto client devices and you will most likely be able to leverage much of the content on your existing website. It is also easier to acquire developers with skill sets for this type of development.
• Ease of Maintenance: Since this approach is server-based you can easily deploy updates and have the changes reflected immediately without the need for client updates.
• Broader Reach: Unlike a mobile application that is targeted at a specific platform, the mobile website will be accessible across many devices using a standard browser.
• Familiarity: Users are familiar with using search engines to find your website and the user experience is similar to that found on most websites.
• Less Expensive:  There is a much lower investment in both time and money with this approach versus creating applications that are platform specific.

Limitations:

• Since this is a server based approach offline capabilities are limited.
• While website capabilities are constantly increasing, you usually cannot offer as rich of a user experience compared to a custom application.
• You are unable to take advantage of processing power and features that the mobile device is capable of. 

Custom Application

Advantages:

• Offers offline capability since the application is installed on the client mobile device.
• The user experience is much richer and interactivity is stronger than what is offered by a website.
• You can take advantage of processing power and features of each mobile device platform. 

Limitations:

• Difficulty of Development: It is exceedingly difficult to find developers with the skillset for multiple mobile device platforms and testing time is much greater since you need to either run an emulator or deploy to a client device.
• Difficulty of Maintenance: Updating custom applications is much more difficult since you will need to update the application for each platform and the user must download and install your updates.
• Narrow Reach: Unlike a website, which can be found using common search engines and run across platforms, your application will only be available from an app store location and only for the platform for which it was designed.
• More Expensive:  There is a much higher investment in both time and money with this approach versus creating a mobile website since the application will be platform specific and require exponential effort for development, debugging, testing, and deployment.

Doing mobile development right requires understanding the needs of your organization and ensuring that you allocate resources to the right solution. If your primary objective is to reach a broad audience with a marketing or information distribution intent, then a mobile website is probably the best option. However, if you want a rich, interactive and engaging experience with a specific mobile platform, then a custom application might be a better approach.

Rockton Software wishes to eventually create a mobile friendly version of our website (www.rocktonsoftware.com).

Stay updated with us by following Rockton on Twitter!

Previewing a SmartFill Object

Written By Jim Peliksza,
Developer at Rockton Software

Whether you are creating a new SmartFill object or modifying an existing one, it can be useful to “see it in action” to know that what you have entered will give you the results that you want.  In older builds of SmartFill, you would have had to first save the Object, and then open a window where this lookup was assigned and enter a value into a field on that window.  In the case of a new Object, you would need to assign it to an appropriate field on a window in the Repository, and then open that window to test your new Object.  Both of these options interrupt your flow when trying to make changes to your Object.

For this reason, we have added a Preview area to the bottom of the SmartFill Object Maintenance Details window.  On the SmartFill Objects window, when you edit an object or add a new one, the following window will open:

The Preview area is at the bottom of this window, below the ten Lookup fields.
 

Using the Preview

You can perform an actual SmartFill lookup using the displayed Object’s settings by entering a value in the Test Search field and clicking the Search button ().  Actual results from your database will be displayed in the list at the bottom of the window.  The advantages of this are:

1. You no longer need to first save your Object changes to see how they will behave. This means you do not need to exit off of the SmartFill Object Maintenance Details window every time you want to test a change.
2. You can make changes without affecting users who are currently in the system using this Object.
3. You can test a new Object without having to assign it to a window first.
4. It is much quicker than the old method.

The Preview area also allows you to set the column sizes for each field that will appear in the lookup, and also set the Default Sort Column.

To set column sizes for each column, simply drag the column handles at the end of each column to the position where you would like to see it in the lookup.  SmartFill by Rockton Software will remember these settings.  In older versions of SmartFill, you would have entered the percentage of the width of the list that you wanted to use for each field.  The new method is not only much more intuitive, but it is easier because you no longer have to do the math to make sure your columns all add up to 100%.

The Default Sort Column determines the column by which the Make a Selection window (SmartFill’s lookup window) will be sorted when first displayed.  To set the Default Sort Column, choose the column that you want to use by clicking on it, and then click the Save Default Sort Column button.  Clicking on the same column multiple times will switch between ascending and descending order, which is also saved.

An Important Note
Remember that you can make any changes you want and preview them all from this window.  If you don’t like what you have done, click the Cancel button at the top of the window and everything you have changed on the SmartFill Object Maintenance Details window will be put back to the way it was.  However, an important thing to consider is that if you have made any changes to Filters, Access, or the Repository, these changes will not be undone by clicking the Cancel button.  You will need to undo those manually on their respective windows.

Wanting to learn more about Rockton Software’s SmartFill—watch a YouTube demo!

Sign Up NOW for a GPUG Webinar Featuring Rockton Software!

Written By Nicole Sexton, Social
Media Coordinator at Rockton Software

Rockton Software is presenting at a GPUG Webinar—don’t miss out! 

February 26, 2013 at 1:00PM - 2:00PM (ET)

Beyond Fraud: Why Auditing is So Important
For the most part, customers view auditing in Microsoft Dynamics GP as FBI-style interrogators, however, that is not the case. Fraud prevention and detection may be viable concerns when purchasing auditing software; but, have you considered your other business needs you might solve with just one auditing product?

Rockton Software’s Auditor Provides Many Tangible Benefits:
• Data Backup
• Procedural Clarification
• Performance Evaluation
• Troubleshooting

So sign up for this GPUG Webinar, Beyond Fraud: Why Auditing is So Important! You will learn more about Auditor, and how well it works in your Microsoft Dynamics GP system.

Web Services

Written by Gary Rasmussen,
Developer at Rockton Software

What are Web Services?
Wikipedia defines a web Service as a method of communication between two electronic devices over the World Wide Web.  In the traditional model, you would write a 2 tier application where you would write the server side component and the client side component to be distributed as a single product to be installed by the customer.  When you need to make an update to your product, the update has to be rolled out to each and every customer where they need to update their individual product in their environment.

There are a couple of benefits to using Web Services rather than the traditional model, but the single most important benefit is interoperability.  They allow the developer the freedom to write code in their favorite programming language regardless of platform  while at the same time making it easier to distribute enhancements and bug fixes because the updates  only have to happen in one place and all clients are therefore theoretically all updated as well at the same time.

For this example, we will create 3 files that will allow us to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius.  The files are:

• The class file: this file contains the web methods you want to expose.
• The asmx file: this is the file your client application will point to in order to call the web methods.
• The client file: this file contains code that will consume the Web Service making it possible to call the web methods.

In Visual Studio, create a new website and add a new web service item to it.  Call it “Conversions.”  This will automatically create the Conversions.asmx file with a single line that points to a Conversions class file in the App_Code folder of your website for you.

Conversions.asmx

 
App_Code/Conversions.cs

 
This Web Service exposes two web methods for converting between Fahrenheit and Celsius.  At this point you are done with your web service project.  Build the project and close.

Next, you need to expose the Web Service so your client application will be able to see it.  To keep things simple for this example, just create a new website in IIS on your local machine and point it to the folder that contains the website that you just created.

Your client application can be pretty much anything you want as long as it is able to consume a Web Service.  For this example I am going to create a simple console application using Visual Studio and I will name it “MyWebServiceTester”.

Next we need to add a reference to our Web Service.  Right-mouse click the “MyWebServiceTester” project in your console application and click “Add Service Reference.”  Click “Advanced,” and then “Add Web Reference.” In the URL textbox at the top, enter the path to your asmx file then click the green arrow.  Once it resolves, give the web reference a name and click “Add Reference.”

Now that we have a reference to our Web Service, we can write some code to test it.  Open the Program.cs file inside your console application and add the following code to the Main.

App_Code/Conversions.cs

Running your console application should yield the following results.

I hope this basic example gives you the information you need to start writing your own Web Services.


Want more information about Rockton Software? Head to our website www.rocktonsoftware.com!

& don't forget to follow Rockton Software on twitter!

Before Convergence 2013, Meet the Rockton Team featuring Kelli Sexton!

Written By Kelli Sexton,
CEO of Rockton Software

Why do you love attending Convergence?

Attending Convergence is similar to attending an annual family reunion; it is an opportunity to catch up with customers and VARs, as well as meet the people who have helped fuel Rockton Software’s success over the years. I also find it very rewarding to hear new and existing customers engage with our technical support team to troubleshoot preexisting errors or learn how to optimize our products to improve their system. But by far my favorite time at Convergence is when we meet a prospective customer for the first time—there is a light bulb moment where they see how our software modernizes their Microsoft Dynamics GP experience!

Of course, Convergence is also a great time to see what is new with Microsoft, other vendors, and the Dynamics Channel. This will be our seventh year cosponsoring The SpOt Party, a great event meant to celebrate all of our relationships within the Microsoft Dynamics Channel; it is always a fun night full of music, drinks, and hanging out with new and established friends!

Don’t forget to stop by Rockton Software’s Booth #1851 and say hi!

Meet more of the Rockton Team before Convergence 2013!