Re: BPCS Y2K -- BPCS-L

Charlie,

In a message dated 97-11-21 19:35:05 EST, you write:

> I was asked by a seminar attendee about a potential Y2K approach for which
I
>  would appreciate some feedback.  The customer is currently running BPCS
>  version 4.4 which is not Y2K enabled.  The have written their own software
>  which maniupulates data extraced from BPCS.  They want to leave BPCS as is
>  and address any Y2K problems in their own add on software.  They do no
>  forecasting in BPCS.  They don't care about sort order of dates on
reports.
>  They will plug in due dates for invoices.  They never select data across
>  multiple years.

First, have them subscribe to BPCS-L (subscription instructions are the same
as MIDRANGE-L, except BPCS-L replaces MIDRANGE-L).  OK, _THAT_ was
self-serving enough ;-).  As usual, "it depends".  An answer would be more
precise if I knew which BPCS modules they _ARE_ running, and what they get
out of them.

>  To test this methodology, they plan to rent or purchase a new machine to
>  which they will load a copy of their software.  They will go through a
1999
>  year end close, process transactions in for several months in 2000 doing a
>  month end close for each month, wrapping up with a year end close for
2000.

BPCS _will not_ run on a different machine unless your client pays for it or
has a multi-site license.  Unless you know how to circumvent SSA's security
(which I will not publish for obvious reasons), your client will have to
license their software on the rented or purchased machine -- SSA _may_
provide some accommodation in this instance.  On a primitive standpoint, your
methodology is sound.  BUT, concentrate on _BOTH_ 2000 and 2001, as 2000 is a
leap year.

>  For those of you who know BPCS, is this approach even possible?  Again,
the
>  customer understands they will have to modify programs which they have
>  written themselves to perform such date dependent functions as
forecasting.
>  The question is what will fail in BPCS, as opposed to not sort properly? 

Again, the license is probably your biggest "up front" issue.  If the former
is resolved, then you need to concentrate on the BPCS date API (SYS902? B?
Don't remember as I've been working with release 5 and 6 sites for the last 4
years that use SYS902B and replace it with SYS903B in V6).  You probably have
other issues as well, but my V4 experience is so old I wouldn't attempt to
offer suggestions.  Your "alternate system" path sounds valid for pinpointing
these issues, _IF_ you can straighten out the licensing issues...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please
everybody." -- Bill Cosby
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