Re: BPCS Documentation

We need to review intellectual property issues related to documentation tools 
provided to BPCS customers by consultants, presumably built into the price 
for their services, and what contractual obligations are imposed on customers 
not to share with other BPCS customers.  As BPCS versions march forwards, 
there is a need for these tools to also get updated, and their availability 
to not be kept so secret.

>  From:        DMunro@badgerminingcorp.com (Dennis Munro)

>  Sure is interesting where my question has led us to. 

I agree

>  George (Sagen), if you get the poster and need some help with the Visio 
part
>  of it, I would be willing to volunteer.  I have the  5.0 Professional
>  version.

I am now leaning towards shipping our poster on loan to George, after 
cleaning off our scribbles - I will check with my boss, but do not expect any 
opposition.  I would love to get an updated form that reflects V405 reality, 
and have some web site some place with V6 reality for intermittent reference. 
 Remember what Richard said - don't place too much expectation from any one 
documentation aid.

> http://members.tripod.co.uk/BPCS/index.html

I was visitor # 146 to this BPCS index - I can see that the place has great 
potential - unfortunately I have had to block HOT MAIL domain in my e-mail 
filter since it is so popular among the pornographic spammers.

SSA has lovely illustrations in their annual reports, which do have copy 
protection ... which I got thanks to the stock market (my IBM stock has been 
healthier) ... but most are very generic, equivalent to OSG & SSA's sales 
promotions.

We have handouts from BPCS education ... much duplicates DOC, while some is 
unique.  SSA charges an arm & a leg to reprint the whole package, when 
perhaps all you need is a toe nail worth.  Tell your account rep what you 
need ... perhaps a deal is doable.

>  Al, I did find the DOC* programs you referenced.  I end up with an error in
>  the call to DOC200DI if I have BPCSPTF ahead of BPCSO in the library list
>  and if I remove BPCSPTF  I get a "validation check failed, contact BPCS 
rep"
>  message and it signs me off my session.  
> The program I am running is DOC130C to change documentation.  
> Like you said, the rebuild had to be run before they were visible. 
> Talk about doing something blind.

This sounds like a question for SSA help support, but in another BPCS_L 
thread there was talk & advice regarding using different library list 
sequences for different testing & developmental processes - have you tried 
BPCSO ahead of BPCSPTF just when trying call that fails, so that PTF is in 
the list for anything it needs that is uniquely there?  We have BPCSFIX for 
copies of older versions of some programs that some BMR or PTF-1 broke ---- 
95% of the upgrade worked fine & was needed, but 5% had problems, so we 
copied the old versions into BPCSFIX ahead of BPCSPTF in the library list & 
no problem until SSA fixes original problems on some of them & we have to 
rethink library list.  There is a BMR out there for the security check 
failure - it seems to be a recurring problem.

>  Al, your comment about "this documentation should be used as a reference
>  tool " is exactly what I want it for.  We also want to know what "codes" do
>  and what they mean and what are available - to be used as a teaching and
>  testing tool.

The quality of the documentation varies greatly between modules --- there are 
areas in which there are explanations of what the "codes" are for, and some 
detail on various fields, then for other modules it is blah no good.  Check 
out the contemporary thread on conversions - knowing significance of some 
fields has a special importance there.

You need to look at ALL the DOCs, not just scan a few & say "Oh I see what 
this is ... not of interest to us" because some categories are 90% bland 
useless with hidden wonderful gems, that you won't find if you don't look 
through the whole thing.

>  From:        trevorp@orangenet.co.uk (Trevor Pascall)

>  Hi All
>  
>  I have an Excel spreadsheet with a list of all of the major Files and 
Fields 
> in BPCS. Would this be of any use.

Oh, this sounds great - what version of BPCS is it for?  Did you create it 
for just the applications you are using it for, or did you get it from some 
source that tried to make it complete for a version?

> From: gsagen@primesourcetech.com (George Sagen)
  
>  I have an MS Access database with all the BPCS V6.0.02 tables, logicals and
>  fields. It has a menu with some buttons that call up different views of the
>  tables and reports on them. Very handy for report writing. Zipped up it's
>  1.2 MB. If you want it, E-mail me direct for a copy so I don't have to 
flood
>  the Internet.

> From: asingh@kode.net (Ashok Singh)
  
>  Hi All:
>  I have a C utility using the access database I got from SSA consultant
>  called BPCS Data Base Viewer. Features include
>  1. List of all BPCS Files
>  2. List of all the program.
>  3. Click on the file name to get all the field attributes for the program
>  4. Excellent Search capability by File Name, File Description, Field name,
>  Field Description, Program description.
>  5. Ability to print or convert to any PC format all physical and logical
>  file definitions.
>  
>  The Program is 7.4MB Zipped, So if anyone is interested please contact me
>  directly.

Thankyou Dennis for starting this thread. 
And thanks to Joe for the question that helped us focus on what we need. 
What wonderful ideas & tools it has brought forth for our review.

> Check out BPCS documentation offered by
>http://www.unbeatenpathintl.com/bpcsconsulting.html

>David Slicker
>DS Solutions - BPCS V6 documentation
>(414) 251-6010 - phone
>(414) 251-6011 - fax
>dslic@aol.com

> From: gsagen@primesourcetech.com (George Sagen)
  
>  I have a full set of "BPCS Reference Manuals" for v6.02. They are in MS 
Word
>  format and seem to correspond to the old Run Docs that shipped with v4. I
>  have one manual for each subsystem. They are copyrighted.

Dennis - it might be simpler for you to get a set from George than fool 
around with making SSA's version intelligible.  Does anyone know how current 
SSA keeps up with DOC* vs. new versions?

Al

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