• Gartner: Fifth Consecutive Year of Double Digit CRM Growth

  August 3, 2009 Dan Burger

  If your company is not using information technology advancements to aid in customer retention and analytics, you might want to know who is responsible for the 12.5 percent hike in spending within the customer relationship management (CRM) market. It could be your competitors. According to Gartner analysts, worldwide CRM revenue swelled to $9.15 billion in 2008, a noteworthy surge from the 2007 revenue of $8.13 billion. In a year when IT spending was generally reeled in, a 12.5 percent gain says a lot about CRM. Companies making the CRM investment are clearly seeing benefits relating to increased revenue, loyalty, and

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• Circumventing Two Limitations of CPYTOIMPF

  July 22, 2009 Ted Holt

  Dear Intelligent Power-on-i Professional: I deem it grand of IBM to give us great tools that relieve us of the need to write programs to accomplish mundane, quotidian tasks. The Copy to Import File (CPYTOIMPF) command is such an animal. However, nothing’s perfect on this planet, and CPYTOIMPF is no exception. Here are two annoyances or problems (depending on your point of view), and how to get around them. Strip Out Unwanted Blanks I’m using CPYTOIMPF to build a CSV file. CPYTOIMPF leaves lots of blank space in the stream file. Is there any way to tell CPYTOIMPF that I

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• Comparing RPG and SQL Functionality

  July 22, 2009 Hey, Mike

  Is there a book on how RPG operation codes and built-in functions translate to SQL? I’m trying to leverage my RPG coding skills to write logic in a DB2 stored procedure. That is, I know exactly what to do in RPG, but I don’t know the SQL equivalent. To determine the length of a city name, I would use RPG code like this: Eval CityLength = %Len(%Trim(City)) How would I do the same in a stored procedure SET statement? I have used the following to find a field length, but my field is an input parameter to the stored procedure.

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• Admin Alert: Treating IFS Objects Like Stream File Objects

  July 22, 2009 Joe Hertvik

  Even though AS/400 Integrated File System (AS/400 IFS) folders can contain the same type of stream file data as network file servers do, many administrators still don’t understand how to perform basic file functions such as checking out and checking in files, and changing properties for an AS/400 IFS Root (/) file object. This week, let’s review some basic but important functions you can perform on IFS stream file objects. Changing IFS File Properties The quickest way to change the attributes of IFS PC and Unix stream files is to use the Properties function IBM offers in iSeries Navigator (OpsNav).

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• IBM Kills Secure Perspectives Tool

  July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week announced the withdrawal from marketing and discontinuance of support for Secure Perspectives, an i OS security tool introduced two years ago with the goal of allowing nontechnical people to define and implement an object-level security policy using nontechnical words and phrases. However, the product will continue to be available as a custom offering, as will updates that allow it to work with future releases of IBM i OS. Unveiled in April 2007 and shipped a month later, IBM introduced Secure Perspectives as a way to get more i5/OS shops to implement object-level security on their System i

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• Bicycle Seller Rolls with Electronic Vaulting Backup and DR from UCG

  July 21, 2009 Robert Gast

  Dealing with daily tape backups is an IT department ritual. Despite the labor-intensive, processes, the risk of media and drive breakdowns, and the archiving and retrieval jumbles, most companies persist with this tradition. Jenson USA, an IBM iSeries user, wanted an option and got it with electronic vaulting. Disaster recovery, security, and concerns about transferred data clogging the network pipeline were each resolved. And, switching the company database to the vault was made in one day. Jenson USA is a marketer of bicycles, parts, accessories and apparel, headquartered in Ontario, California. It has a brick and mortar presence there and

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• JDA Shares Plans for E3 Fulfillment Products

  July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

  The Merchandise Management System is the i OS application that gets the bulk of attention at JDA Software Group. But with 400 loyal customers and a 20-year development history, the E3 collection of inventory management products has become a reliable part of JDA’s business, too. And as a recent briefing by JDA for IT Jungle shows, JDA has plans for the continued development of these products. JDA acquired E3 in September 2001 to further its expansion into the market for collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR) tools. At the time of the acquisition, E3 had about 500 customers, including

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• Quadrant Adds a Slew of Updates to Forms Software

  July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Quadrant Software added a number of new capabilities with Formtastic version 5.4.3, which was recently unveiled. The new release brings close integration with Infor XA (MAPICS) and the capability to automatically e-mail XA-generated spool files as PDF files. This release brings a number of other useful enhancements, including support for the 4-State barcode, new auto-merge functions, better duplex printing, new e-mail APIs, and improvements to the signature capture module. Formtastic is a suite of software products that make spool file output from i OS applications more attractive and more flexible. The suite includes a Windows-based form design tool, templates for

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• Kisco Gives i OS Auditing Tool a Web Makeover

  July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Kisco Information Systems customers can now audit for unauthorized or unexpected changes to i OS data files from the comfort of a Web browser interface with the latest release of iFileAudit . With iFileAudit Release 3, the product is no longer tied to the 5250 interface, a change that will be most helpful in setting up the product’s filtering mechanisms. Also, Kisco recently celebrated its 25th anniversary in the IBM midrange business. iFileAudit is a handy journaling tool launched several years ago by Kisco, a developer and provider of security, reporting, and communications tools based in Upstate New York. iFileAudit

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• CCSS Adds Syslog Support to QMessage Monitor

  July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

  System i shops that rely on the QMessage Monitor from CCSS to automate the handling of System i messages can now export those messages to third-party products as a result of the recently announced support for the Syslog message format. This will give QMM customers the capability to use cross-platform security event and information management (SEIM) products to keep watch over their entire IT environment, among other uses. QMessage Monitor is a message management solution for single- and multi-site OS/400, i5/OS, and IBM i OS implementations. The software constantly watches a variety of system messages, logs, and journals so operators

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