Re: BPCS Docs -- BPCS-L

Thanx to you guys, I knew I would get info here. trying to get help from
SSA is like pulling teeth.
Thanx again.

MacWheel99@aol.com wrote:
> 
> >From Al Macintyre ... I have 2 years experience with BPCS 405 CD & 10 years
> with BPCS/36 before that ... so perhaps I know a lot of stuff about BPCS
> documentation that has escaped your company implementation or your personal
> education in BPCS.
> 
> Just like when you buy PC software, and it comes with some documentation,
> often on CD Rom, you can also go to any book store & get 3rd party
> documentation to help you learn that proprietory software.  Likewise with
> BPCS, there is a wealth of 3rd party companies publishing documentation to
> help BPCS users become productive in understanding anything you might like to
> know about BPCS.
> 
> I will grant you that if BPCS consultant company-A helped you implement BPCS,
> they might not have been eager to let you know about the documentation &
> other resources available from companies BCDEFGHI to infinity, when they are
> also in the business of making money selling BPCS documentation that your
> company might not have decided to buy.  I suspect that there is a lot of that
> going around.
> 
> Also the customer base of BPCS - 20,000 manufacturers world wide times
> however many employees they collectively have - this is not enough to justify
> these BPCS manuals being on the shelves of easily accessible book stores.
> 
> In this e-mail I am not exhaustively listing the names of the companies that
> offer BPCS documentation etc. just trying to give the big picture, since what
> you are looking for might be details on only a small part of this picture.
> Also, we are only using a small part of the total documentation available
> ourselves, so I do not have the precise URLs handy ... e.g. one of the next
> ones I want to get is David Slicker's Programmer's Reference Guide to BPCS.
> ... I know stuff that exists, I just do not have all of it.
> 
> BPCS does come with docs - lots of them - enough to eat up multiple cartons
> of paper if they are all printed.  I am not well pleased with the degree to
> which they are cross-indexed.  The run instructions tend to be aimed at
> people who want information on one particular program, or administrators of
> an application.  They are not real swift for researching questions of gaining
> understanding why some application has some flawed data ... what are we doing
> wrong ... is our end-of-month check list complete ... what do all these codes
> MEAN ... the answers are there, but getting to the answers is time consuming,
> if you rely exclusively on the docs that came from SSA, which of course we do
> not.
> 
> When I call SSA Tech Support, I use the FAX approach to deliver my story,
> then let them call me back to give the answer & I also say that if the answer
> can be given by FAX then that is fine with me & I often get it that way ...
> this avoids any phone tag or waiting on hold.  Several companies offer Help
> Desk & other Tech Support in competition with SSA.
> 
> If BPCS documentation is being denied you, administrators & users at your
> company, then it is because of choices that have been made at your company,
> not to spend money on BPCS educatiion & the distribution of the documentation.
> 
> Do you know about the "F1" help key ... does it connect you to any of the
> BPCS on-line documentation?  Our users know about it, they seldom use it ...
> it is cursor sensitive - now granted on some screens there is no info, but
> there is help more places than there is not.  Our users use "F4" more often
> than "F1" because at the little plus sign they can get at a reference list of
> what all the codes are & what they all MEAN.
> 
> Do you know how to operate the "DOC" on-line BPCS documentation repository?
> 
> I assume you are able to get into the programmer areas of source code on
> BPCS, although if you are on Version Six, you are denied a lot of resources
> available to those of us on Version Four.  In fact, we also hung onto the
> Documentation which came with BPCS/36 because it includes some reference
> material that SSA dropped from the AS/400 versions.
> 
> Many companies offer extensive education in BPCS in which the students take
> home very detailed guides to the operation & administration of BPCS.  This
> includes SSA & several other companies - some affiliated with SSA & some not.
>  This education can be provided at their offices, or they can send someone to
> your company to provide it.
> 
> I believe that if a company does not offer any BPCS education to its
> employees, that is the same as telling the users to do their job with their
> hands tied behind their backs.
> 
> Many companies publish BPCS manuals - dead tree editions & on-line versions
> ... there have been many threads on BPCS_L sharing info on how to access one
> or another & folks talking about which of the many BPCS documentation
> resources they personally prefer.  We have several of the Unbeaten Path
> manuals ... I am disappointed that they are sitting in one person's office
> not in general circulation.  I had asked for one library of general user BPCS
> Manuals in a public place in each of our facilities.
> 
> Many companies publish BPCS newsletters with tips & ideas on how best to
> utilize various applications.  I like Nex Gen's the best, and Crowe Chizek's
> is my next favorite.  I would love to get any more BPCS newsletters that
> anyone publishes & cares to send me (hint hint) ... my street address is down
> at sig line end of e-mail.
> 
> Many consultants have newsletters letting their customers / prospects /
> suspects know about modifications they have recently made on BPCS, so that if
> we are interested in something similar, these ideas might strike a nerve.
> 
> Many of the AS/400 internet forums have threads where BPCS users have asked
> questions & got help much like that which is offered here.
> 
> Many of the companies that offer 3rd party add-ons to BPCS also have freely
> available downloadable docs to help us manage our BPCS more productively.
> 
> There is also very inexpensively priced 3rd party shareware that enhances
> your BPCS.
> 
> So, bottom line ... BPCS has a wealth of documentation available from many
> sources & this leads to recurring threads on BPCS_L to discuss the merits of
> what all is available, sometimes when we get a poster here who is new enough
> in BPCS_L to not have seen an earlier thread on this.
> 
> If this documentation is being denied to people at your company it is either
> due to policy at your company, or because when BPCS was originally installed
> there, the implementation process managed to neglect this very important
> ingredient.
> 
> A lot of the good documentation is not for free, so that might partially
> explain why you do not have it.
> 
> Al Macintyre  ���
> Central Industries of Indiana Inc.
> 1325 East Virginia Street
> Evansville In 47711
> 
> http://www.cen-elec.com
> 
> Y2K is not the end of my universe, but a re-boot of that old Chinese curse.
> The road to success is always under construction.
> Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
> When in doubt, read the manual, if you can find it.
> 
> > Subj:  BPCS Docs
> >  From:    leslier@datrek.com (L. S. Russell)
> 
> >  I am very new to BPCS, only been involved with it for about a year.
> >  I don't hate BPCS anymore than the next ERP, but I do hate the fact
> >  that documentation is withheld from - not only users but administrators
> >  as well.
> >  There have been many, many cases over the past year where I would never
> >  have
> >  had to call the practically worthless OGS if I had had the docs within
> >  reach.
> >
> >  The reason I write this is that I noticed a post from someone at iWorks,
> >  formerly SSA Southeast. The people at iWorks claim to be more interested
> >  in helping BPCS users get things done than their previous incarnation.
> >  That being the case I was wondering if there is still a BAN on providing
> >  users with DOCUMENTATION.
> >  The reason this lack of information gripes me is that I have spent
> >  untold hours waiting either on hold or for a call back, when with even
> >  the amount of documentation provided by Microsoft might just have saved
> >  me a call.
> >  I mean, Daffron comes with docs, Optimum Solutions HR comes with docs,
> >  Extol, comes with docs, HMS Monitor comes with (award winning) docs,
> >  Infinium comes with docs!
> >  Why can't BPCS come with docs?
> >  If I can go to Egghead and by a copy of Windows for $98 and get
> >  documentation
> >  why can't I expect the same from an infinitely more expensive software?
> >
> >  So can one of you guys there at iWorks comment on my ranting post?
> >
> >  --
> >  L. S. Russell Programmer/Analyst
> >  Datrek Professional Bags, Inc.
> >  2413 Industrial Drive
> >  Springfield, TN. 37172
> >  mailto:leslier@datrek.com
> >  http://www.datrek.com
> 
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--
L. S. Russell Programmer/Analyst
Datrek Professional Bags, Inc.
2413 Industrial Drive
Springfield, TN. 37172
mailto:leslier@datrek.com
http://www.datrek.com
--
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