Re: System management software

Have been administering TurnOver with SET/TURN (the AS/SET interface) in 
a large BPCS 5.1 environment for the last 2 years; they have both worked 
very well and the support has been great. The really nice thing about it 
is the integration of the various tools, and as Dean said the 
flexibility. If there's something you need that it doesn't do out of the 
box, it has the hooks so that you can code something to enhance it in 
most all cases. And the support staff is very willing to help you with 
any how-tos you'll need.

With Change Management, planning is key, and you need thick skin to 
support programmers as users. Politically, CMSs tend to bring your 
methodology problems to the surface, and some shops are happier in 
denial. People that don't like change then tend to point at the CMS as 
the problem. 

When programmers start to say that a CMS "slows them down," you must 
point out that problems caused by their speed slow the organization down, 
and that the CMS is there to speed the organization up. The ones that 
complain are typically the ones that don't play well with others.

Be sure you have real management buy-in on Change Management, not just 
approval to purchase, or you may become the messenger.

Dean, what sorts of problems are you having with SET/TURN? Or have they 
been cleared up? It runs well for us. Let me know about specific 
problems, will be glad to take a stab at them...

HTH, Jerome

Dean wrote...

>> Is there someone who has experience with system management software,
>>  especially the software Turnover. We probably gonna use Turnover, is
>>  there someone who knows Turnover and can tell me their experience.

>I don't know that I'd call Turnover "system management" software (I reserve
>that for Robot and others).  SoftLanding's Turnover is Change Management
>software, and I am quite familiar with it.  It has its quirks, but in a
>native environment it should work GREAT!  Turnover has fantasitic
>distribution, security, and project management features built in, as well as
>help desk facilities.

>Our problems have stemmed from the AS/Set (CASE tool) interface portion of
>Turnover, and well, AS/Set presents problems of its own to everyone.  One
>thing you'll need to be careful of is that the latest version of Turnover
>adds 4 (and up to 5) libraries into your library list.  This causes us
>problems from time to time because BPCS adds in its own libraries, thus
>causing Turnover to fail because it can't add the appropriate library but
>tries to perform the (unlocatable) function anyhow.  SoftLanding apparently
>hasn't heard of the "product library" function on commands, or qualifying
>calls and OVRDBF's.

>Overall, you should be happy with Turnover.  Without the CASE interface, it
>functions well and is very intuitive.  It is extremely flexible, and will
>even allow you to use third-party compilers based upon object type code.  We
>replaced Aldon with it at my previous client site, and I found Turnover to
be
>FAR more intuitive and CUA compliant, although I understand that Aldon has
>made signifcant enhancements in these areas since.


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