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Greetings!
In our May newsletter, we announced that the Inbound Logistics Magazine editorial team had selected BGI International as a 2004 Top 100 Logistics IT Provider. Since that time BGI has been recognized by Software Magazine as one of the Top 500 largest software companies. In December, BGI was recognized by Food Logistics Magazine as a Top 100 Technology Solution Provider. Links to each of these articles and awards are on the home page of our web site at www.bgint.com. BGI wishes to thank each of our customers for helping to make these awards a reality.
BGI Logistics - Please join us in welcoming Misty Goldstone to our logistics team. Misty has over 12 years of experience in managing logistics programs and has a strong track record in developing new ones. Misty will work from an office in Corona, California.
SmartDock New enhancements to SmartDock that are available today: (MS SQL Version only)
- Added two user definable load types in addition to Backhaul, Hot and Streamlined
- User controlled settings for SmartTime defaults
- Consignee restricted mismatch alerts to user
- Added a status bar to the F9 Schedule Screen to display last refresh time
- Door group mismatch alerts to user
- Improved unscheduled load recovery
Call Peter Rappe or Tom Walton to schedule a Webex demo of SmartDock.
Web Services Security. In case you were wondering, BGI takes web security very seriously. We employ a highly respected 3rd party provider to host a dedicated server for us. The physical site of the server is a state of the art hardened facility specifically designed to protect against forced physical and electronic entry. This facility has the latest data security firewalls, fire suppression systems, battery and diesel generator power back ups, etc. In January of this year, BGI engaged one of the Midwest’s top firms in Internet security to instigate a hacker attack on our server which did not succeed. This company installs and consults on banking industry security systems throughout North America. What this means to you is that your data hosted on the BGI web server is safeguardedagainst both natural and man-made calamities.
.NET Report Viewer
BGI has released the production version of our .NET Report Viewer. This product allows you to run any TMS-2000 or SmartDock report from anyplace with Internet access to the database. Reports are saved on your local PC for later viewing and analysis. Reports can be produced in Rich Text, CSV, PDF, HTML and Excel Spreadsheet formats. Saved reports can then be emailed or faxed from your PC. The viewer can also be used within a local or wide area network. The advantage to LAN/WAN use is that report requests run in the background eliminating wait times for TMS-2000 or SmartDock reports. Call Peter Rappe or Tom Walton for more information.
My PC won't run. Please help!
We have all heard the horror stories and we've all heard the mantra - BACKUP YOUR DATA! But we don't always listen nor are we aware of what procedures are in place. In the past 4 months BGI worked very hard to help 4 customers restore data from crashed hard drives that had no backups. We were only successful once. The other 3 customers lost many months worth of data that could not be reconstructed. If you have the slightest concern about whether or not you are getting viable backups, please see your network administrator or call BGI support.
Stand alone PC's are most susceptible to data losses because backups are generally stored on the PC's hard drive. This is acceptable if you corrupt a database which can easily be restored, but not acceptable if you lose the hard drive. This situation can be resolved by having your network backup software backup the databases on your PC or by saving the database to a network server from the PC. Servers are typically backed up daily and have redundant hard drive configurations for protection.
Tech Talk
Here are some easy ways to regain more of your time by making TMS-2000 work harder for you.
- Auto routing orders frees up time you can now spend on finding new profitable orders to haul.
- Make sure you are getting allowance numbers for vendor delivered orders. You can’t find potential profitable orders if this data does not exist in TMS-2000.
- Use reports, such as the Loads Due by Estimated Weight, to evaluate how you did last year on utilizing all the available space on a truck. If you are paying full truck prices, fill the truck.
- Create an easy way to collect and input carrier rates utilizing the import feature for carrier rates.
- Make carrier fuel surcharge updates easy by creating a standard import file.
- Review how you currently share data with other systems in your company, there may be an easier way, via data exports, to do this.
- Use Web Services to tender loads via the Internet and email. Carriers will be able to confirm receipt of the tender via the web and confirm pick up date and time at the vendor. Reduces phone bird-dogging time.
Feedback We encourage your comments and suggestions. Your opinions about the logistics software industry hold value and we would like to assist in expressing them. Just Reply or send an e-mail with your comments, questions, or ideas to tbauer@bgiweb.com
We respect your privacy. Your email address will never be used by any other company.
To unsubscribe from BGI Marketing, please reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE as the first word in the subject line. To contact BGI International, please call 913-829-7900. | |
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New Installs/Startups
TMS-2000
- M. J. Kellner
- Blue Line Distributing
- CDI Foodservice
- FPC Foodservice
- W.L. Halsey
- The Merchants Company
SmartDock
- Mattingly Foods
- Cash-Wa
- FPC Foodservice
Links
These are Links to articles and information on our web site that may be of interest to you. Just click on the links and follow your browser there. If you would prefer, we can email you copies of the articles in Adobe PDF or MS Word. Just Reply to this letter and tell us which document you would like us to send and in what format.
10 Tips for buying software - This is a listing of questions we often hear in our presentations. We have addressed each issue in light of what we feel buyers should be asking of their software providers.
Internet Explorer vs. Smart Clients - This document addresses a software architectural design issue. It discusses Application Service Providers (ASP) that use web browsers and their future. This is a good way to educate yourself on the future of Microsoft’s development of the browser and the use of Smart Clients.
Follow this link for a technical dissertation on what .NET is all about and why you'll be hearing more about it.
Conferences - BGI will be attending the Food Shippers of America Conference in Tucson, AZ on February 27 to March 1, 2005. We hope to see you there. | |
