As a reminder to everyone - PLEASE DO YOUR DAILY BACKUPS. One never knows
when mother nature will place a lightning bolt in proxmity of your server!
When we sold you your system we most likely incorporated RAID (Redundant
Array of Disks). Your may also have redundant power supplies or NICS.
WHEN DID LAST CHECK YOUR HARDWARE? We have found that folks become
complacent when they are protected with redundant hardware. The danger is
that you CAN experience multiple device failure. RAID for example can
tolerate a SINGLE drive failure without data loss. If you fail to replace
that single failed drive and another disk fails you WILL loose data and
will have to reconstruct from your backups.
We implore you to periodically check that server for device failure. Get
familar with indicator lights on devices and on the server annunciator
panel. It will alert you to trouble which can be easily cured by replacing
the failed redundant device. Most of the equipment we sell has hot swap
devices. Even if not hot swappable it's still a simple matter to shut it
down and cold replace that failed device.
To summarize, there is NO substitute for a backup and please check your
redundant devices.
Most of you are aware that CRI software now supports insertion of your logo
into the print stream for use on plain paper customer documents. This is a
good way to improve appearance of your documents and save the cost of
expensive pre-printed forms. All that is required is a graphic file with
address info and gray scaled. We will convert it to print stream format
and install it on your machine for about 1 hour of your support time. The
maximum print area is about 1.7 inches high by 4.2 inches wide. Keep this
aspect ration in mind as your add your address info to your logo graphic.
Most of your are aware that we have a PDF ADD-ON utility which allows for
simultaneous delivery of customer and file copy documents. This does
require purchase of the PDF ADD-ON as well as our latest software
supporting simultaneous delivery. Just imagine - one customer gets email
another gets a FAX and third gets hard copy all in a single print run!
We have now extended the use of our PDF ADD-ON to include preparation of
FAX documents WITH your logo! Prior FAX documents did not work with high
resolution logo images. By using the PDF conversion ADD-ON we can now FAX
high resolution graphic images as well.
NOTE: We now require the PDF ADD-ON to be installed for FAX or email
delivery of customer documents.
Periodically we are faced with a new version which we all must purchase.
It is CRI's policy to slowly implement any new version while the bugs are
being removed. Once we are satisfied that it is a good product we will
start using the new features. Once we do that we have committed our
customers to a purchase of the new version in order to receive any
application enhancements based on the new version.
The current version is 5.6 and the new one will be 5.7. We can continue to
update you with minor revisions such as 5.6.10 for no charge other than
labor to install. The database vendor bases their upgrade price on the
version jump involved. For example 5.6 to 5.7 is one hop while 5.0 to 5.7
would be 2 jumps. It is possible to have a 3 version jump (5.0 to 5.7)
would be a three version jump. After that, one essentially pays full price.
I believe we can still purchase 5.6 so it is recommended that you move from
5.0 to 5.6 and later from 5.6 to 5.7 as the cost is only slightly more than
that of a two version jump from 5.0 to 5.7. We encourage you to do this as
it will be some time before we start to use 5.7 features and feel
comfortable enough to recommend it to you, our customers.
This news article was entered into a database record and published
automatically to our WEB site. We believe this will give everyone within
your company with WEB001 authorization to contribute to your news without
the need to involve your webmaster or complex web publishing software.
User access is controlled with our normal security access level scheme for
the WEB module. Users with WEB001 access can add, edit, and delete their
own news articles. To publish the news the operator must have WEB003
access level.
If you are not familiar with our WEB module it gives your customers the
ability to view their account, change their password, contact your support,
change their primary email address, view or print invoice detail, and
request a WEB account. This WEB service is by invitation only! You must
grant your customers a web account and login before they can have full
access. The ability to request a WEB account and to read public news is
open to everyone and no WEB account is required.
Our WEB module should be enhanced with our PDF offering. Adding the PDF
software allows you to archive original document images for retrieval via
our WEB module. The PDF add-on also gives you the ability to deliver
emailed PDF images of original documents eliminating printing. We now
REQUIRE that you have the PDF software to implement electronic customer
document delivery. We strongly recommend anyone getting our WEB module
also get our PDF software so that original document images can be presented
to customers using the WEB module.
CRI has this service fully implemented and we urge all of our customers to
obtain a WEB account for access to your information. There is no charge
for this service. If you choose to receive documents from us via email or
fax please advise us of your delivery method and we will implement your
selected delivery method.