Archive for January, 2012

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Ascend Version 2.3 Preview – Part 2

In General,Version Updates on January 29, 2012 by mhoggatt Tagged: , , , ,

Ascend Version 2.2 Critical Update:

An Ascend service release is available now to update our integrated email service.  If you’re on Version 2 you must upgrade by Monday, January 30th. If you don’t, you will not be able to send email messages from Ascend starting Tuesday, January 31st. About a month ago, we had an extended outage of our email service. This update will prevent that from happening again.

Ascend Version 2.3 Preview Continued:

We are in the final weeks of programming for the next major release of Ascend. It will be available to our “early release” dealers in mid-February and available to everyone in mid-March. We started our preview last week and continue with more details today.

More controls when exporting in-store products:

Exporting in-store products (Desktop>File>Export>In-Store Products) is a popular feature for modifying large groups of products with Excel.  Previously your only choice was to export all products for a specific vendor.  If you were dealing with a vendor like Trek or QBP it could take a long time just to create the list and then you were left with a huge spreadsheet of products to work with.

With our new Export In-Store Products form you now have much greater control to create the specific list of products you want to work with.

We’ve given you the same search list available in the Database Explorer Products folder.  You can use the popular Super Search or choose from many other available options (Brand, Color, Description , etc).  In addition, you can also choose from category, vendor and price range to further refine your list.  Finally, you can filter the list to include only those products that are in inventory or are marked for eCommerce export.

There’s much more to show you.  Check in again next week for Part 3 of our preview.

Mark

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Ascend Version 2.3 Preview – Part 1

In Inventory,Version Updates on January 23, 2012 by mhoggatt Tagged: , , , ,

Ascend Version 2.2 Critical Update:

Tonight (1/23) we will be posting an Ascend service release to update our integrated email service.  If you’re on Version 2 you must upgrade by January 30th. If you don’t, you will not be able to send email messages from Ascend after that date. About a month ago, we had an extended outage of our email service. This update will prevent that from happening again.

Ascend Version 2.3 Preview:

We are in the final 3 weeks of programming for the next major release of Ascend. It will be available to our “early release” dealers in mid-February and available to everyone in mid-March. So it’s time to start showing you all the cool stuff you’re going to get. There’s so much to show you that I’ll be devoting my next several blogs to this topic.

More inventory adjustment types:

Inventory accuracy is the foundation of Ascend. Recording inventory adjustments is an important tool to help note where products are going. On our UserVoice forum we heard that you didn’t have enough adjustment types. So we’ve added five new types for you to use. They are Owner’s Draw, Rental Use, Sales/Display Use, Shrink and Sponsorship.

Custom footers by transaction type:

Another long-standing request is to be able to have different text print out at the bottom of your receipts based on the type of transaction. For Version 2.3 we’ve added that option for you. You now have the ability to specify different footers for Sales, Quotes, Layaways, Work Orders and Returns.

QBP 3rd Warehouse:

Last month, QBP opened a 3rd warehouse in Pennsylvania. In Version 2.3, the QBP order screen will show availability in their Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Utah warehouses.

That’s it for now. Check in next week for part 2 of our Version 2.3 Preview.

Mark

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Ascend Inventory Fantasy Camp #1

In Inventory on January 16, 2012 by mhoggatt Tagged: , ,

Last week we hosted 11 bike shop employees from Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Brunswick, Canada for our first ever Ascend Inventory Fantasy Camp. Why on earth would they travel  from all over the country,  in January, to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin for an event dubiously named “Inventory Fantasy Camp”?

Accurate inventory is important

Your inventory is your most valuable business asset. You need the quantity on hand to be accurate so you can maximize your sales by having the products in stock your customers want. You need your inventory value to be accurate so you can properly guage your business’ health.

Maintaining accurate inventory is difficult

Counting every product in your store is a daunting task.  Bikes shops have thousands of products to count.  If you haven’t done it before, it’s hard to know where to start.

You learn best by doing

There’s no substitute for hands on experience.  Getting your hands dirty solidifies your knowledge of a process. And more often than not it takes away the mystery. What once seemed complex is now quite simple.

How it worked

There were two teams with 5 to 6 participants per group.  The first team was assigned the Trek Store of Madison West on Monday and Tuesday.   The second was assigned to the Madison East store on Wednesday and Thursday.   The morning of day 1 for both teams was spent in the classroom reviewing the full count inventory process.  In the afternoon they prepped their stores for inventory.  On Day 2 each team, with Ascend instructors by their side, counted the entire inventory of their respective stores.  This was not a test exercise.  It was  the planned annual count for both stores.  All team members got a chance to perform all the different roles involved in a full store count.  The end result:  all participants left energized and confident, ready to put the practices they learned in place at their shops.

The future of Inventory Fantasy Camp

All the participants told us this was worth their time and we should keep doing it for more dealers.  So that’s what we’re going to do.  We’re targeting 3 locations for next year’s inventory season; two in October and one in January.  We’re looking for dealers that can host.  To be considered as a host site, you must have well established and proven inventory practices.  In return for being a host site you’ll get a crew of people eager to count your stuff, MC1000′s to help count, an Ascend inventory expert on location, and breakfast and lunch on us.  This is a great way to help yourselves and other bike shops from around the country.  Think about it and contact us if you’re interested.

Mark

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Introducing Ascend Online Reports (again)

In General on January 10, 2012 by mhoggatt Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Back in September we introduced Ascend Online Reports; a realtime reporting system you can access from anywhere with a web browser. Based on the number of dealers we’ve talked to recently that didn’t know about them, we figured it would be a good time to tell you about them again.

Get connected:

It’s easy to get set-up. Click here to get to our set-up instructions. Once you’ve completed them, contact the Ascend Support Team for your web address. Each dealership has their own unique address.

Get answers:

  • How are sales doing today? This month? This Year? For all of your locations?
  • What do I currently have in stock for <fill in your category name here> at all of my locations?
  • What is Mark’s complete buying history at all of my stores? He said he bought this bike at my downtown location yesterday. Did he really?
  • What products am I running low on at all of my locations? What do I need to re-order?

These are just a few of the many questions that you can get answers for with our online reports.  Click here, for a complete description of all the available reports.

We’re introducing a lot of new features on a regular basis. Make sure to stay in touch and on top of all the new things that are available. Our next release, Version 2.3, is due out in March. Watch here for previews, plan to attend our new release webinar and read our release notes.

And in other news……

Pearl Izumi product list update:

If you need the latest Pearl Izumi/Shimano product list for soft goods please contact the Ascend Support Team at 877-875-8663 to make sure that you have run all the queries to fix previous data errors.

Have a great week!

Mark

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Ascend’s Day of Autonomy #1

In General on January 4, 2012 by mhoggatt Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last April Steve Novoselac, our Development Team Manager, introduced us to the “Day of Autonomy”. It was a takeaway from an RSA Animate short he watched entitled “Drive:  The surprising truth about what motivates us”. Click here to read his blog post and watch the video. The idea is simple:  Give our development team one day to program anything they want. The only requirement is that at the end of the day it is workable and can be demonstrated. 

As the Ascend Product Owner I was open to the idea but reluctant to do it. In our Agile environment we have a fixed number of points that we can program in any two-week sprint. We also have a large number of points in our backlog to program new features for you. So points are precious. This last sprint we found the ideal time to try it out. On the afternoon of December 21st we kicked off our first Day of Autonomy with a deadline of 2pm the following day. We met at 2pm on the 22nd to view the results. They were, in short, awesome.

Chad, Damon, Jason and focussed on improvements to Ascend. Chad created an Android prototype of AscendScan (in 1 day!?). It gave us a glimpse of what we will be able to do for mobile apps in the not too distant future. Earlier in December, Damon helped me fill in for our cashiers in the Trek cafe where they use Ascend. He noted several inefficiencies and devoted his Day of Autonomy time to them. He created a “cashier mode” in the Sales screen. When you enable it, Ascend will return to the Sales screen immediately after you complete a sale and will continue to do so until you turn it off. He also created a hot key for the Gift Card payment type (Ctrl+G) and set the credit card number field to blank out after an invalid card swipe. Jason noticed that the links to our on-line help were lacking. He created a button on each screen to link to our on-line help website. When you click the button you can choose to go to our table of contents or to specific topics that pertain to the screen you’re in.

Adam, Gregg, Jamie and Jeff focussed on improvements to streamline our daily work. Adam created an automated workflow to streamline our release process at the end of every two-week sprint. Gregg created a utility to easily and quickly switch between our 3 different country environments (Germany, North America and U.K). Jamie created a utility to detect any problems with connections in their test environments with the ability to click and correct any problem connections. Jeff created a web utility to help us more easily post software updates to our different dealer groups. 

It was clear to me that the Day of Autonomy was worth doing.  It was worth the time we gave up working on other items.  The work done will provide immediate and long-term benefits to all of us.  The developers had a great time doing it. The entire team had fun seeing their results and applauding their efforts.  Moving forward, we will plan to have a Day of Autonomy once a quarter.

My advice to any business manager is to try this.   We all have more to do than we can possibly get done in the time we have to do it.  But, from my experience, this is a win/win proposition.  You will get valuable improvements for your business.  Your employees will appreciate the chance to do it and to show you what they’re capable of doing.

Let me know how the Day of Autonomy works for you.  Have fun!

Mark

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