Automated In-Store Foot Counter Solution

18 Feb 2013 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The BlueBox Seminar 2012 - United Kingdom

04 May 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

This past week we held the BlueBox Seminar 2012 in the United Kingdom. Below is the deck of slides that Paul de Villiers presented at the Seminar.

We have also uploaded an album of pictures to our Facebook Page. We have inserted one of the pictures below.

Homeboxes & Viewlists

12 Apr 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

This month's articles focus on an incredibly useful section of the system, namely 'Home boxes' and how to build a home dashboard for users that allows them to access the most relevant and important aspects of their system off one neatly organized home page, sorted into different sections or home boxes.

If you would like to learn more about this and see the specific additions we have made to our KM you can visit: Knowledge Management Update 10.

HR, publishing & system data administration knowledge management updates

07 Mar 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We are happy to share with you a large number of updates to various sections of our Knowledge Base. We have added documentation for the following sections: HR - eLearning Module, Publishing - Surveys Module and Data Administration - Removing Duplicate Records in BlueBox2.0

If you would like to learn more about this and see the specific additions we have made to our KM you can visit: Knowledge Management Update 9.

The BlueBox Web-based ERP

27 Feb 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Web-based ERP.

Welcome to our web-based ERP series. We will be covering the following core benefits of running a web-based ERP: No installation on PCs, no special software installation, configuration or setup is required on each users machine. Cross platform compatibility. Seamless updates of the software. It's available anywhere, any time. Less system independent bugs. Social enablement. Data safety. Lower software price entry point. Access to new web assets. Mobile Device Access.

Over the last decade, web based applications have shifted from being an ERP platform viewed with suspicion to a point where web-based ERP is now the preferred scenario over the traditional software based applications. We now see scenarios where traditional ERP vendors are scrambling to migrate their offerings to the web. The reason for this shift in perception is primarily to do with the many benefits of web-based systems being more easily realised as internet connectivity and access has improved.

You can find out more on our Web-based ERP page.

Point of Sale & Human Resources Knowledge Management Updates

02 Feb 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The focus of this week's update is mainly on our Point of Sale Module, as well as our Human Resources Module. All of the common actions performed as a till operator have been updated and clearly detailed in our EPOS section. On the HR side, articles detailing the exact steps to follow in order to setup your Bluebox Payroll system have now been added.

If you would like to learn more about this and see the specific additions we have made to our KM you can visit: Knowledge Management Update 8.

New Deduplication Tool in BlueBox2.0

30 Jan 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

BlueBox2.0 Database Module now includes a new data deduplication tool to assist in scrubbing out annoying duplicate entries.

The new tool can be found in the Database Tools list in Admin->Database.

If you would like to learn more about this you can visit: New Deduplication Tool in BlueBox2.0.

Reading and Writing Data from an Excel File into BlueBox2.0

23 Jan 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

In the post linked below a very simple technique for reading and writing data in Excel files (xls) for use with the BlueBox2.0 platform has been explained, this concept is generically valuable to any PHP/MySQL developer.

Basically a simple web-query is uploaded into a cell in your spreadsheet with a pre-defined query built into it. This query is set up to request a result from your BlueBox2.0 system.

If you would like to learn more about this you can visit: Reading and Writing Data from an Excel File into BlueBox2.0.

Our latest development: Draggable and Resizable Objects

16 Jan 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

This week I want to share a new LGPL library we have used in a few BlueBox2.0 projects, by Angus Turnbull, TwinHelix Designs, http://www.twinhelix.com.

The use of this new function is to allow certain elements in your pages to be draggable and resizeable.

You can read more about this development on our lead technology strategist's blog post: Draggable and Resizable Objects.

BlueBox2.0 Surveys

09 Jan 2012 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Tucked away in the Publishing->WebTools menu is our original BlueBox Surveys module. This has recently been upgraded and includes linking surveys to any data in the BlueBox2.0 System, control of the survey look and feel via custom CSS, a brand new dashboard and reporting.

You can read more about the upgrade on our lead technology strategist's blog post: BlueBox2.0 Surveys.

Hiding NEW buttons with bbsettings

17 Oct 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Our latest bbsettings give you the ability to hide the NEW button:

bbsetting_hide_new_button_on_find_a_person: this bbsetting will hide the NEW button when searching for a person when logged into your system in the RHS "Find a Person:" field.

bbsetting_hide_new_button_on_all_lookups: this bbsetting does exactly as the name describes. It removes the NEW button on all lookups.

The New BlueBoxOnline.com

05 Oct 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you are a regular visitor to our website you will have noticed our brand new design. This website is using the latest HTML5 markup, CSS3 styles and jQuery to give this contemporary design speed and flexibility on the web of today.

Home

The BlueBox prides itself on building robust and sophisticated web-based ERP systems. We can assist you in optimising your business with our suite of ERP modules and vertical solutions either as a dedicated server solution or as Software as a Service (SaaS).

Product Tour

A guided tour of our products/modules that we offer. Featuring summaries, screenshots and key feature lists to get an informative idea of what we can offer you.

Demo

We give you three ways to demo our software with three different levels of engagement. You can either try a preconfigured one click demo, fill in a form for a full system live demo and finaly if you are a geek and keen to get your hands dirty, you can download and install BlueBox2.0 on your own web server.

Pricing

Price point is a main consideration no matter what you are looking to purchase and so we have tried to make it simple and easy to understand how much it will cost your business to run BlueBox2.0. We also offer you more than ten reasons why you should choose BlueBox2.0 and if you are interested you can fill in our quote form so that we can assess your needs and send you an accurate quote.

As for the rest of the new pages and content you will have to explore our website to see what they look like.

How to add a new SO to the system using a foreign currency

19 Sep 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Here is an example of how to add a new SO to the system, with multiple lines, using a foreign currency (i.e. not the base currency):

<?php
//prepare the data
        $data=array();
        $data[do_not_redirect]="true";
        $data[this_class]="bb_sales_orders";
        $data["fields"]["despatch_fromISbb_locationsID"]=1;
        $data["fields"]["customerISbb_usersID_IN_Debtors"]=1;
        $data["fields"]["categoryISbb_sales_orders_categoriesID"]=1;
        $data["fields"]["transaction_date"]=now();
        $data["fields"]["grand_totalCUR_TYPE"]=4;//this line tells the header what currency is being used
        //{add row 1
            $new_row["itemISbb_item_dataID"]=1;
            $new_row["description"]="Some Description 1";
            $new_row["qtyNUM"]=1;
            $new_row["priceCUR"]=10;
            $new_row["priceCUR_TYPE"]=4;
            $new_row = calculate_finance_doc_line_totals($new_row);//this line prepares all the totals and currency values etc
            $data["fields"]["rows"][]=$new_row;
        //}
        //{add row 2
            $new_row["itemISbb_item_dataID"]=1;
            $new_row["description"]="Some Description 2";
            $new_row["qtyNUM"]=2;
            $new_row["priceCUR"]=11;
            $new_row["priceCUR_TYPE"]=4;
            $new_row = calculate_finance_doc_line_totals($new_row);//this line prepares all the totals and currency values etc
            $data["fields"]["rows"][]=$new_row;
        //}
        //{add row 3
            $new_row["itemISbb_item_dataID"]=1;
            $new_row["description"]="Some Description 3";
            $new_row["qtyNUM"]=3;
            $new_row["priceCUR"]=12;
            $new_row["priceCUR_TYPE"]=4;
            $new_row = calculate_finance_doc_line_totals($new_row);//this line prepares all the totals and currency values etc
            $data["fields"]["rows"][]=$new_row;
        
    //{prepare the doc for storage, total all the lines etc
    $data=calculate_finance_doc_header_totals($data);

        //}
        //{store the doc
        $new_so=new bb_sales_orders();
        $new_so=$new_so->add($data);
        //}
        //{view the doc
        $view=new bb_sales_orders();
        $view->view(array("_id"=>$new_so[_id]));
        //}
?>

Content Items now BU Specific

13 Sep 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Just a quick note to say the bb_content (The BB2.0 CMS) is now BU specific, which means that news/content added to each BU stays in each BU

All the usual BU related views apply, so content added at Global will be visible to all BU's, but 2 BU's next to each other will not be able to see each other's content etc.

All previously entered content will be BU=NULL which means it is visible to all, as it was previously.

BlueBox Timezone Management

15 Aug 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Our latest bbsetting controls timezone management.

For a system-wide setting, set the config (admin->config) setting system_default_timezone.

For a user-specific timezone setting there is a field in the bb_users table called timezone.

The value for either of these can be set to one of the standards described in http://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php.

Pulling through a 'xtrafield'

14 Jul 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Pull through a 'xtrafield' from the SALES ORDER to INVOICE.

A new extension on lined variable tags:

< !-- : linkedvariable : despatch_note IS bb_sales_despatch_notes ID | sales_order IS bb_sales_orders ID | customer_order_number : -- >

This has been tested in a debtors invoice, it links to the despatch note, then to the sales order (via the despatch note) and finally returns the customer_order_number.

Please note this requires the latest code to work.

The BlueBox 2011 Seminar - Part 3

12 Jul 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The third and final part of the 2011 BlueBox Seminar.



Blue Box Presentation Part 3 from ACS Cobham Media on Vimeo.

Paul de Villiers shares his thoughts on web culture.

• Blog and blog often
• Tweet til it hurts
• Put people behind it
• Be keen to share
• Don't be afraid of the cloud

The next topic Paul discusses is where do good ideas come from.

Widgets & Dashboards.

• Is it important?
• How can we summarize it?
• Can it be visual?
• Can it be segmented? Who needs it?
• What platform is most relevant?
• Is there a "push" factor?
• Does it need a drilldown?

The next topic Paul discusses is where do good ideas come from.

Biometrics & HR.

• Secugen Hamster
• Specialised BB2.0 Module
• One Central Database of BioData
• Web Authentication vs Desktop
• Standard, Eaqse of roll-out
• Integrates with Attendance
• Integrates with Authentication
• Integrates with your payroll

How to show discounted price in BB2 Forms

06 Jul 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Below is the 'tag' or formula to show the discounted price in BB2.0 forms.

Remember that, because of rounding, this discounted unit price will not always make sense when viewed in a line, hence the fact that we do not show it in the first place. We calculate discount after the price has been multiplied by the qty for accuracy. This process will display the unit price less the discount which, due to rounding, and at very large quantities, will not add up correctly. However, it is an indication of the value.

To display the discounted unit price, simply replace the current < !--:item_display_value:priceCUR:-- > tag in the (module)_items-viewlist_print.template:

<script>
var pricex='';
var discountx='';
var discount_calculatedx=(pricex*1)*((discountx*1)/100);
var new_price=(pricex*1)-(discount_calculatedx*1);
document.write(Curr(new_price));
</script>

The BlueBox 2011 Seminar - Part 2

04 Jul 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The second part of the 2011 BlueBox Seminar.



The BlueBox 2011 Seminar - Part 2 from ACS Cobham Media on Vimeo.

Paul de Villiers starts off the second part of The BlueBox seminar with a video from Mozila labs showing off their Mozilla Seabird concept, you can read more here - http://www.MozillaLabs.com/seabird. The BlueBox is excited about this development because it is going to be browser based. The BlueBox develops custom fit software, we build software that will fit your business.

Why choose The BlueBox?

• Custom-fit to your needs
• Business-ready Platform
• financially Underpinned
• Call-center support
• Plays nicely with others!
• Nothing new to us!
• Always at the edge of the technology revolution
• Motivated International Team

Quality Assurance

"The systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production process."

Knowledge Management

We encourage you to use our Knowledge Management.

Google Apps

Paul chats about Google Apps and how the challenge for The BlueBox is to integrate into all of those products supplied by Google.

Web Culture

Finally Paul talks about the Web Culture of The BlueBox and about the BlueBox Blog Network.

Time, Permissions, CSS, Apps and Postcodes

30 Jun 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under BlueBox Blogs.

In the latest update from BlueBox blog network we look at 6 posts on a wide range of topics.

Take the time..

I have often thought, do it once and do it right, the first time. But it seems there is value in checking your work. When working on a large project requiring weeks of development time a simple thing like an on-event email can be carelessly overlooked.

Read More... by Quin on Focus...

Menu related Permissions

In BB2 users navigate the various modules of the system using the main left-hand menu. Each main menu option then displays a number of different sub-menu links related to that module. Once a user accesses any of these sub-menu links he/she is able to use the top-level menu bar to navigate within and perform functions relating to that section. There are of course also a number of other links and buttons that make-up the various sections, and which appear outside of the top-level menu bar, on the various pages themselves. Together, all these menu options, links and buttons define the visual access level for any given user.

Read More... by James on The Blue Blocks.

The Css Box Model

Today's blog is about The Css Box Model and is aimed at our beloved programmers, who often get confused about css and its elements, how to position div tags etc.

Read More... by Sarah on Fedora Corner.

Keeping a eye!!

Recently I have made use of a SaaS application called Server Density by boxedice.com it is really awesome web based app that monitors your servers in realtime and alerts you on events that you create. For instance I need to know when my Server load reaches 4.00 I get a email and if it gets to 6.00 I get a txt. Pretty handy when you need to manage many servers.

Read More... by Wayne on The BlueBox Geek Guide.

Using Postcodes in BlueBox2.0 via PostCodeAnywhere

Recently we have integrated an excellent UK postcodes library/database/service with BlueBox2.0. This is the PostCodeAnywhere product. The API's have been integrated formally into BlueBox2.0 and offer the following features:

Read More... by Paul on BlueBox2.0 Thoughts.

CSS Frameworks: Make the Right Choice

Even though this video is 2 years old, I still believe it's relevant today.
"SitePoint CTO Kevin Yank presented this talk at Web Directions South 2009 in Sydney, Australia on Friday, October 9th, 2009. With the proliferation and widespread adoption of JavaScript frameworks, smart developers have wondered if a similar approach to smoothing over the rough spots of CSS might work."

Read More... by Tyron on A BlueBox Web Developer.

More new BBsettings

27 Jun 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have another two new bbsettings for you guys:

bbsetting_unique_fields can now take an input where the filed name can be made up of 2 field names, split by a | (pipe) and then the combination of both fields is determined to be unique.

The next bbsetting, bbsetting_ajax_lookup_force_dropdown, will force ajax lookups for a certain module to always be dropdowns.

This only applies to modules where there is not already a bespoke lookup function (ie bb_users).

Our latest BBsettings

24 Jun 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have two new bbsettings to share with you:

These new bbsettings are as a result of our work here in the UK:

bbsetting_module_background_color if set this will throw a background behind all the pages/forms for the specific module.

This allows you to colour-code your various modules so that people don't get confused when working within certain modules.

Secondly to hide the NEW button which appears when doing user lookups, you can set bbsetting_hide_new_button_on_userlookups per module that requires this to be hidden.

Required Field Combinations

10 Jun 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A new feature bbsetting has been added to the system as follows:

<?php
var $bbsetting_required_fields_combinations=array(
            array("leaving_date","reason_for_leavingISbb_carers_dl_reason_for_leavingID"),
            array("referred_date","referred_byISbb_carers_dl_professional_typesID","referred_by_name"),
            );
?>

This is similar to bbsetting_required_fields only that it is made of sub-arrays of field names and checks to see if the combination of fields has been set, so if any of the fields has been set then the others are required.

Safely replacing the standard view in BB2

08 Jun 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A quick tutorial on creating a custom "view" for a bb2 module.

We will show you how to do this without replacing the "view" method which is a big no-no.

For a new module we are doing with in the UK, we developed a custom "view" method called "view_example" in the relevant module.

This worked well in the custom reports, because we could like to bb_example&method=view_example&global[fields][_id]=1 and it would work fine.

The problem arose when, in normal system use, you ended up clicking on bb_example&method=view&global[fields][_id]=1 then it swung back to the default boring bb2 view. Which is essential as a back-stop, and should never be overwritten.

The answer?

To create a new database template called bb_carers_carers-print.template, in other words a standard print "view" template and put into it a single line:

< !--:class:bb_example:view_example:-- >

This then executes the "print template" when trying to view a content item in this table, and the tag then runs the new bespoke method and renders it beautifully.

This way the standard's based output->system view method still allows us to see the "boring view" if we need to, but the user gets the enhanced view most of the time.

Introducing the BlueBox Blog Network

23 May 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under BlueBox Blogs.

So, what is the BlueBox Blog Network? It is a collection of BlueBox staff blogs. You can find links to the blogs at the bottom of the LHS column. Our staff take part in a weekly blogging process that is supposed to contribute to our internal "sharpening of the axe" process, which is a weekly discipline to put 2-3 hours into "fixing stuff" rather than continuing week after week with a blunter and blunter axe. We are also keen to see it work as a way to share BlueBox knowledge from a personal perspective. Once a week we shall be sharing a summary of the posts here just for you.

Access to and understanding BlueBox2.0 bbsetting_'s

Underlying the BB2.0 framework is a powerful set of settings, known as the bbsettings. These are configurations which allow the system administrator to change the behaviour of BB2.0 modules without needing to apply any code.

Read More... by Paul on BlueBox2.0 Thoughts.

Cloud Busting

The still very fresh IT nightmare of Amazon’s cloud outage, that has pretty much rocked the worlds confidence and, dare I say, hope in cloud computing. Even the IT professionals that I have spoken to that should best understand and support cloud technology seem to be walking around with a stunned expression on their faces having realised that what they had hoped for from the cloud, and how they had hoped it worked have turned out to be a fairytail, and that the reality is that the cloud doesn’t work they way they thought it did.

Read More... by Wayne on The Blue Box Geek Guide.

Awesome Ajax forms in BlueBox2.0

So why are Ajax forms in BlueBox2.0 awesome? Well mainly because you can call Ajax quite easily. This is quite useful on forms if you would like to give the user a response immediately after they have clicked the submit button.

Read More... by Tyron on A BlueBox Web Developer.

To Flash or not to Flash?

Ok lets get down to the glitz and glamour! Personally I believe flash should be your last resort when designing your website, why you may ask?

Read More... by Sarah on Fedora Corner.

Form Validation

At some point as a developer we have to do some sort of form validation, on both user and database side, I generally use JavaScript for checking if the user is inputting data in the correct fields and if formatting is correct, that's all good, but what if you need to check if the user being added to the system is a unique to the system?

Read More... by Kyle on Script Corner.

Publishing: First Principles

In this post I will be focussing on the fundamentals of content management in BB2 using the content system provided with the publishing module.

Read More... by James on The Blue Blocks.

How can you expect someone...

How can you expect someone to get a good day’s work if they are interrupted all day?

Read More... by Quintin on Focus...

New Barcode Type for BlueBox

09 May 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We now have a second "standard" in BB2 for Barcode Printing and Scanning.

'Out the Box' BlueBox2.0 is configured to run code39 barcodes. These are the easiest in the barcode kingdom due to the fact that they do not require and 'extra' processing, what to put in is what you get out.

Recently we have been asked to add ean13 to the supported codes.

Ean13 is a country specific, manufacturer specific coding format.

Each country has a specific prefix (in SA's case it is 600 or 601). Then each product manufacturer gets a code (4 digits). Each manufacturer then gets 5 further digits for their own product codes. Eg:

600 2072 00560

This is an example ean13 barcode string. It is then followed by a check-digit which is calculated to error-check accuracy of scanning and manual capture. eg:

6002072005604

In total the barcode string is 12 characters long and the check-digit is 1 character long.

You can send ANY 12 character digit string to the barcode generator and it will generate a barcode.

You do not need to add the check-digit at the end, the engine does that for you. If do add one, it will be ignored.

When scanning in ean13 codes, the system will only count the first 12 characters of the return string for product matching. If a 13th character is sent through it will be ignored. If the string is greater than 13 or less than 12 characters it will fail.

To switch on ean13 as the system standard, simply set the bbsetting bbsetting_barcode_use_method_2 = 1 in Module Settings.

Barcodes of various types can be generated in method_2 mode.

The 'standard' is ean13, but other options include std25, int25, ean8, ean13, code11, code39, code93, code128, codabar, msi and datamatrix.

A standard barcode tag looks like this:

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | :-- > for dynamic (used most often) or < !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604 :-- > for static/testing.

The full set of configurations for this tag is:

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | , font-size, hide_borderYN, hide_numericYN, exact_width, exact_height, exact_x, exact_y, bar_width, format (std25, int25, ean8, ean13, code11, code39, code93, code128, codabar, msi, datamatrix) :-- >

or, for testing

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604, font_size, hide_borderYN, hide_numericYN, exact_width, exact_height, exact_x, exact_y, bar_width, bar_height, format( std25, int25, ean8, ean13, code11, code39, code93, code128, codabar, msi, datamatrix) :-- >

Some variations of barcode tags:

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604, 6, 0, 0, 140, 90, 70, 40, 1 , 60, ean13 :-- > (small)

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604, 6, 0, 0, 220, 90, 110, 35, 2, 60, ean13 :-- > (medium)

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604, 8, 0, 0, 220, 120, 110, 60, 2, 75, ean13 :-- > (normal)

< !--: class : bb_barcode : view | 6002072005604 :-- > (normal)

If you are running your product codes in ean13 and need to show your document codes in code39, then simply edit the document print template barcode tag to switch it to code39 for that specific document.

< !--: class: bb_barcode : view | ,,,,,,,,,, code39 :-- > (code39 example tag for use when system is in method_2 (ean13) mode).

The BlueBox 2011 Seminar - Part 1

04 May 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The first part of the 2011 BlueBox Seminar.



The BlueBox 2011 Seminar - Part 1 from ACS Cobham Media on Vimeo.

Carl Verster introducing Paul de Villiers who then talks about his ideas, vision and passion for The BlueBox. Paul then discusses apps and mobile solutions and a little bit about why The BlueBox is web-based. Paul believes proprietary apps are the all the buzz now however the future is going to be about writing applications for a browser. Paul review's the past year in the UK and South Africa. The iPad gets mention and Paul shares his business perspective about the browser-based development The BlueBox does and is going to be doing. Carl then shares his thoughts about browsers and tablets, he also mentions how well The BlueBox is positioned from a software technology perspective. He then talks about the you and how they are interacting with technology. Paul poses the question, "Why should my company be in the app store?" and then ends off briefly showing off a website that was built as an app.

Easier Session Management in BB2

03 May 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A small "session refresh" tool into the user management module of BB2.

The highlighted icon shows if you have the latest code and are using the standard bb_secure-logoff-form.template (which 99.99% of systems are).

By clicking on this the system will rebuild the session for that user, and flush their menu cache.

Previously users had to log off and log in again.

A playlist of the 2011 Seminar Videos

20 Apr 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Our MD, Paul de Villiers, loves sharing some new and old video's during his presentations to get his point across and here is his playlist of videos he shared during our 2011 Seminar.
 

A Snapshot of 2011 The BlueBox Semminar

18 Apr 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

A Snapshot of The BlueBox Semminar April 12th 2011 presented by MD Paul de Villers.
 

A Snapshot of 2011 The BlueBox Semminar.

Videographer, Keith Farr from Crosspond, prepared this snapshot.

Whatever your brief, your objective and believe it not your budget, Crosspond can help you create your visual product.

Sports events, public events or corporate productions are all within our scope and expertise. We have specialize in live streaming, quick turn around and easily shareable products that dovetail seamlessly with any social network portal.

The Presentation from the 2011 BlueBox Seminar

13 Apr 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The 2011 BlueBox Seminar was a great success and we would love to share that success with you, below you will find the slides from the keynote that Paul de Villiers gave and shortly we will also be sharing some video from the event.

Is BB2.0 64 Bit compatible?

08 Apr 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Yes BB2.0 is 64 Bit Compatible. However when working with 64 Bit systems two third party downloads are required.

The primary is ioncube to decrypt our encrypted php code. You will need to download the relevant 64 bit loader from http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php and the load them via your web root and php.ini.

The next is chart director we need to http://www.advsofteng.com/download.html select the required loader and then update the engine/3rdparty/chartdir/ directory with the correct loaders.

This and other frequently asked questions are asked and answered on our FAQ page.

Adding Dynamic Lines to Documents

28 Mar 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you ever need to add dynamic multi-line form items we have developed a neat javascript way of doing this, as follows:

This is pretty straightforward stuff, but the key element is letting BB2.0 auto-create the form elements for you using the $global[engine] object, shown highlighted below.

row=0;
function additem(){
    row++;
    var tbody = document.getElementById('tablethatholdstheitems'); 
    var rowobj = document.createElement('TR');
    rowobj.style.background='white';
    rowobj.id='row_'+row;
    //{
        var cell = document.createElement('TD'); 
        cell.align='center';
        cell.width='12px';
        var outputstring= '<span onmouseover=this.style.cursor=\'pointer\'; onclick=\"delete_row('+row+');\" ><img src=engine/images/kill.gif></span>';
        cell.innerHTML=outputstring;
        rowobj.appendChild(cell); 
    //}
    //{
        var cell = document.createElement('TD'); 
        cell.align='right';
        var outputstring= '<input style=font-size:8pt; size=10 name=global[fields][notesISsmallplaintextbox] id=global[fields][notesISsmallplaintextbox]>';
        outputstring=outputstring.replace(/global\[fields\]/g,'global[fields][rows]['+row+']');
        cell.innerHTML=outputstring;
        rowobj.appendChild(cell); 
    //}
    //{
        var cell = document.createElement('TD'); 
        cell.align='center';
        var outputstring= '".(addslashes($global[engine]->get(array("template_contents"=>"<!--:formfield:qtyNUM||1|style=font-size:8pt;:-->"))))."';
        outputstring=outputstring.replace(/global\[fields\]/g,'global[fields][rows]['+row+']');
        cell.innerHTML=outputstring;
        rowobj.appendChild(cell); 
    //}
    tbody.appendChild(rowobj); 
}
function delete_row(id){
    var this_table=document.getElementById('additems');
    this_table.removeChild(document.getElementById('row_'+id));
}

2011 BlueBox Seminar

11 Mar 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Date: 12 April
Venue: KwaZulu-Natal - TBA
Time: 9:00am to 3:30pm
Lunch and Tea will be provided.

The following will be covered:

• Quality Assurance in BlueBox2.0
• Widgets and Dashboards : a BlueBox2.0 Refresher.
• BlueBox2.0 as an integrated Biometric & Human Resources Platform.
• BlueBox2.0 as an App Platform for Mobile Reporting.

More details coming soon,
watch this space!

Keynote by Paul de Villiers,
MD of The BlueBox.

BB2.0 item_display_value query

08 Mar 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Displaying Item Values

The function item_display_value() can be used the following ways:

item_display_value(array("fieldISbb_some_tableID",$value)) where $value can be a numeric ID value, or an array where the KEY is the filed name and the ID is the associated value.

For example: item_display_value(array("customerISbb_usersID
_IN_Debtors",$invoice)) will look in the $invoice variable for "customerISbb_usersID_IN_Debtors"=>33.

The tag for this is

< !--:item_display_value:customerISbb_usersID_IN_Debtors:-- > or

The above examples will show the FULL value of the item which includes a clickable link to the VIEW of that data element as well as the _id in brackets.

To run this in a trimmed view, not clickable and with no _id showing, invoke the "trimmed" extension:

item_display_value(array("customerISbb_usersID
_IN_Debtors",$invoice),"trimmed") or
< !--:item_display_value:customerISbb_usersID_IN_Debtors.

Write your own ajax lookups for BB2.0

02 Mar 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

An override bbsetting for your own ajaxlookups for b2 modules that require more than the "standard lookup".

The bbsetting is called:

bbsetting_ajax_lookup_jsfunction = some_string

For example set this to "testjsfunction".

If this is set you can then include your own js function to handle the lookups, as per this example:

<script>
function testjsfunction(){
   $('div_global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').style.display='block';
   ajax2div('div_global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]','/?class=bb_countries&method=some_custom_ajax_search_function&global[noincludes]=rawtext');
}
</script>

<!--:formfield:countryISbb_countriesID:-->

Remember that your "click back" from the ajax results needs to close the lookup box and pass the following values:

to $('viewer_global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').value pass the NAME of the item.

to $('global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').value pass the VALUE (_id) of the item.

something like:

<span onclick="$('div_global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').style.display='none';$('viewer_global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').value='$country[name]';$('global[fields][countryISbb_countriesID]').value=$country[_id];">$country[name]</span>

The BlueBox Quality Assurance Module

28 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Setting a method's title tag

23 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Short and to the point this morning.

Have you ever wondered if it's possible to set the title for a method? Well it is possible.

You need to update the following bbsetting:
bbsetting_method_titles=array("function_name"=>"special title","etc"=>"etc")

Monitoring sales order backorders from your home page

21 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have given the sales order backorder report a facelift.

You can now select "widget mode" and have it generate a summary of the no of items on backorder in a concise table, complete with a code snippet for embedding the widget into a home page box.

BlueBox2.0 Data Variable Names

18 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Programming.

Naming variables in BB2.0 modules is based on a pre-defined naming syntax.

If you include any of the characters found in the following named standards, the field will automatically inherit the associated data type, and will behave in the required way in forms.

Eg: if you named a field:

var $my_favourite_color;

The string "color" would trigger the "color field_type" and would result in a VARCHAR(10) data type and when viewed in forms will include the embedded color picker to assist in input of data.

Also, the use of IS in the field name allows you to specify the display portion of the name, for forms, vs the field type.

ie:

var $my_codetextbox;

This would result in the form showing the field name as "my codetextbox" to the user. However:

var $my_codeIScodetextbox;;

would result in the form showing "my code", i.e. everything before the IS while still behaving as a "codetextbox"

Not listed below is a special datatype which uses the ISLIST syntax:

var $optionsISLIST_Big_Small_Medium;;

is a handy way to create dropdown select lists without having to create a relational table to link to.

The alternative of an ISLIST would be a variable ending in ID which indicates that it does link back to another table via the key/_id field, eg:

var $userISbb_usersID;;

this will create a "lookup box" which will allow the selection of any user and will ultimately store the user's _id in the field.

This can be extended to allow a group/category definition for more accuracy, by using the IN syntax, eg:

var $userISbb_usersIS_IN_Staff;;

will only show users in the Staff group for selection.

This method an be used for any _id relational link-back. eg:

var $any_field_nameISbb_any_moduleID;;

The resultant "lookup" object created in form is either a dropdown selectbox, or, if there are more than 30 results in the link-to table, then a generic ajax lookup is invoked.

Here is the list of standard field names and their associated types:

    $out[$count]["name"]="color";
    $out[$count]["type"]=" VARCHAR(10) ";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="color";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="content";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="codetextbox";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="codetextbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="plaintextbox";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="plaintextbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="smallplaintextbox";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="smallplaintextbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="htmltext";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="xtra_field";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="description";
    $out[$count]["type"]="longtext";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="summary";
    $out[$count]["type"]="text";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="file";
    $out[$count]["type"]=" text ";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="file";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="date";
    $out[$count]["type"]="datetime";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="NUM";
    $out[$count]["type"]="double";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="text";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="YN";
    $out[$count]["type"]="  tinyint not null default '0' ";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="yesno";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_BIT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="BIT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TINYINT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TINYINT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_BOOL";
    $out[$count]["type"]="BOOL";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_SMALLINT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="SMALLINT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_MEDIUMINT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="MEDIUMINT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_INTEGER";
    $out[$count]["type"]="INTEGER";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_BIGINT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="BIGINT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_SERIAL";
    $out[$count]["type"]="SERIAL";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_FLOAT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="FLOAT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_DOUBLE";
    $out[$count]["type"]="DOUBLE";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_DECIMAL";
    $out[$count]["type"]="DECIMAL";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_DATETIME";
    $out[$count]["type"]="DATETIME";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="datetime";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TIMESTAMP";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TIMESTAMP";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TIME";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TIME";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_YEAR";
    $out[$count]["type"]="YEAR";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_DATE";
    $out[$count]["type"]="DATE";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="date";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_CHAR";
    $out[$count]["type"]="CHAR";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_VARCHAR";
    $out[$count]["type"]="VARCHAR(255)";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_BINARY";
    $out[$count]["type"]="BINARY";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_VARBINARY";
    $out[$count]["type"]="VARBINARY";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TINYBLOB";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TINYBLOB";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TINYTEXT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TINYTEXT";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_BLOB";
    $out[$count]["type"]="BLOB";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_TEXT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="TEXT";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_MEDIUMBLOB";
    $out[$count]["type"]="MEDIUMBLOB";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_MEDIUMTEXT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="MEDIUMTEXT";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_LONGBLOB";
    $out[$count]["type"]="LONGBLOB";
    
    $out[$count]["name"]="_LONGTEXT";
    $out[$count]["type"]="LONGTEXT";
    $out[$count]["field_type"]="textbox";

BlueBox2.0 Integration with 3rd party systems

16 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

The BlueBox proudly integrates with the following 3rd Party Systems.

Cardsave specialise in helping businesses to accept credit card payments. Merchant Services, Chip & PIN, Mail, Telephone and Online payments. Visit Cardsave.	A fast, secure checkout process that helps increase sales by bringing you more customers and allowing them to buy from you quickly. Visit Google Checkout.	Commidea are experts in supplying credit card processing solutions. These credit card processing solutions are used by most companies. Visit Commidea.
DPD is an international network for professional parcel shipping. The DPD website offers you information about parcel sercives and the DPD network. Visit DPD.	Maps - OS Explorer and OS Landranger Map, OS OpenData, OS OpenSpace, OS MasterMap - buy, licence or download them from Great Britain's mapping agency. Visit Ordnance Survey.	PayPal lets you send money to anyone with email. PayPal is free for consumers and works seamlessly with your existing credit card and checking account. Visit PayPal.
Postcode Anywhere offers web services and software to lookup UK and international addresses, provide a store locator function, validate bank details, plan routes, cleanse data, profile customers and more. Visit Postcode Anywhere.	Sage Pay (formerly Protx) provides secure payment processing for businesses of all sizes. Accept card payments online, over the phone or via mail order. Visit Sage Pay.	The Post Office for your travel insurance, foreign currency exchange, savings, insurance and postal services. Visit UK Post Office.

An overview of Programming on the BlueBox2.0 Platform

14 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Programming.

The first in a series of posts on Programming on the BlueBox2.0 Platform.
BB2.0 is a PHP/Mysql platform that is developed to be a springboard for browser-based business solutions, hosted online or internally, as required.

BB2.0 offers any aspirant coders an 'out the box' platform which is 'industry grade' and 'business ready'. The platform has a pre-defined structure for modular development and allows for rapid deployment of data- and non-data orientated extensions.

Included on installation, and relevant to coders is:

• A full SQL wrapper that automatically handles changes to the data structure.
• a PHP/text based syntax for defining new classes and their data structures.
• a menu/navigation system that automatically handles the placement of new modules in their relevant places.
• a tag-based template system that runs throughout the entire system, allowing for control of every aspect of screen, form and document layout.
• a secure import/export/integration structure that is CSV/XML based a hash/key security standard that allows secure direct-link into any module at any time, for read-write access, as required.
• a set of settings that are used to define module behaviors without having to write any code. a scalable set of user-definable 'custom fields' that apply to all modules.
• an existing document/module structure that underpins development, removing the requirement for developing 'the basics' (ie General Ledger, Sales, Procurement, Inventory and Manufacturing processes).
• a growing list of standard integration with various 3rd party services for postcode, geolocation, online payment, chip-n-pin solutions.
• communication standards that make data-merged SMS, email and print communication possible using existing. widgets and graphing objects allowing for rapid development of reports and dashboards. database management and backup tools.

There are 3 levels of "coder" on BlueBox2.0:

1. Basic: this is not a coder per-se, but more a System Administrator. Skills here are limited to using the backoffice tools built into the web-interface to define, configure and customise a BB2.0 installation. For example, this person would know how to export data, manipulate it in spreadsheets and re-import it. They would know how to edit the loon and feel of the system using templates and tags, and they would know how to edit module settings to customise module behaviour.
Skills: HTML/CSS/Spreadsheets

2. Intermediate: also not a coder, in the true sense, but they add the 'basic skills' to advanced SQL knowledge. They are able to create advanced SQL queries and reports and manage the database more effectively than the basic user would.
Skills: HTML/CSS/Spreadsheets + SQL

3. Advanced: with all the skills of the previous 2 levels, this is a true coder, who is also able to edit/add PHP files on the server, creating new modules and editing existing ones.
Skills: HTML/CSS/Spreadsheets + SQL + PHP

4 Reasons to choose BlueBox business software

08 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

A short but substantial list of reasons why you should choose BlueBox business software:

1. Full Free Evaluation

We offer a no obligation full free evaluation of our software. With the economy the way it is you should be testing your software before you buy it. Try it here.

2. No Per-User licensing

What makes us unique is that we develop on open-source platforms and price our product per server/site and not per user. View our pricing.

3. Rapid Development

We are able to very rapidly provide customized best-fit mini-modules through the BlueBox 2.0 development platform.

4. Work From Anywhere

Your company can take over the world from anywhere and all you need is an internet connection and you can have full access to your system.

Contact us today to make these points a reality in your business.

Item data

02 Feb 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

When referring to custom forms which require items with both bb_item_data and bb_item_data_options i.e. the top-level codes and their associated size/style sub codes.

Whenever you insert an item data lookup field into bespoke forms for example using <!--:formfield:itemISbb_item_dataID:--> or where the rows are autogeneated extending the fully qualified field id to read as global[fields][rows][1][itemISbb_item_dataID]. You need to make sure you insert the associated options fields as well. So, a sample would look like this:

<tr>
<td>
Item:
</td>
<td>
<!--:formfield:itemISbb_item_dataID:-->
<!--:formfield:option1ISbb_item_data_options1ID:-->
<!--:formfield:option2ISbb_item_data_options2ID:-->
<!--:formfield:option3ISbb_item_data_options3ID:-->
</td>
</tr>

The reason for the extra 3 fields is to create the containers for receiving and storing the data associated with the sub-codes identifying the full product description. Your table should also include these 3 fields if you need this level of data to be stored.

The item lookup object then detects to see if the 3 fields exist and, if so, will auto pouplate the relevant fields with the selected data.

Manipulating system data for import

31 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you ever have had a problem with manipulating system data during an import you can now follow these rules below or visit our Knowledge Management section : System Administration : Importing and Exporting Data : Manipulating System Data For Import for more information.

Note that you will require an editor cable of manipulating .csv files such as excel or open office. The csv files that are generated are comma separated and you will need to set the column type "text" to prevent any built in editor functions from automatically changing the data fields (date fields are often incorrectly changed in order to display according to your machine's local regional settings). Note that the text delimiter needs to be set to double quotation marks "however a file will typically be imported without having to change any options.

Follow these rules:

• Leave the _id field blank for a new row in the table.
• Leave the _id field 'as is' (ie with a number set by the system) to edit the data in the table with that id.
• Never enter a manual _id number unless you really know what you are doing and have a good reason for it.
• Use multiple linktable_ columns to link a single user to multiple groups.

If you are experiencing trouble with your file format, start from scratch:

• Export a clean file from the table.
• Reomve all rows but one.
• Test re-importing it, as is without changes.
• Then delete all the unwanted columns (except _id).
• Now add 01LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link, 02LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link, 03LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link etc columns.
• Remember that the 'values' in these columns can be either the _id of the group, the 'name' of the group or event the 'code' of the group is there is a 'code' field in the table.
• This logic applies to all linktable imports.

Required Fields:
The only required field in an import file a the first column named _id. The header row is required and should not contain any data other than the field names. You can delete any columns from your export file which you do not want to re-import and leave the ones you require (except for the _id field).

The _id Column:
A blank _id field indicates that the data is new and that a new _id should be automatically assigned to it. An existing _id implies that the data for that _id exists and that any changes to that row should be recorded against that id. If an _id is given and the row does not exist in the database, a new row will be created with the _id specified.

DATA/GROUP/LINK Tables:
Don't get confused between 3 types of data tables prolific in the system: data tables (bb_users), group tables (bb_users_groups) and link tables (bb_users_groups_link). To import full user data you would want to import your bb_users_groups data first, i.e. group names, and their relationship with other groups. Then you would import your bb_users data, and lastly you would import the bb_users_groups_link data to link users to groups. A shortcut in this process is adding a LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link column to bb_users import file, which can contain either the ID of the group or the name. For more than one LINKTABLE_ instruction per user line in the import, simply add a number before each column name: eg 1LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link, 2LINKTABLE_bb_users_groups_link.

Referencing ID'S from other tables:
All fields containing ID are numeric ID referenced to other tables. These can be entered as either the relevant numeric ID or the name of the entry assuming it is unique.

The evolution of our home page

21 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Now for those of you who visit our website often you may have noticed some changes to our home page. We would like to formally introduce those changes to you.



We have optimized our header for your viewing pleasure by increasing the breathing room of each of the objects in it. We were able to create more space by moving our Live Help messenger to the left-hand side margin of the page and remember you can you can get live support with just a click of the button, try it out here.

We have eight brand new banners displaying some screenshots of our software that all link to relevant pages where you can find out all you need to know about that specific module.

We have some new copy in our Brilliant Web-based Business Software paragraph to make sure that you don't look any further for an all-in-one system to power your business.

We decided to introduce four points that we are really proud about our software, namely:

• We offer a no obligation full free evaluation of our software.
• There is no per-user licensing.
• We are able to very rapidly provide customized best-fit mini-modules through the BlueBox 2.0 development platform.
• Your company can take over the world from anywhere and all you need is an internet connection and you can have full access to your system.

Finally the page is finished off with a stream of some of the companies we have worked with.

How to add no-print fields to a template

17 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you need to add the user and date/time to an added/modified document for viewing on a couple of templates, but do not want to let it show on the print out, i.e. only for viewing on the screen, you need to do the following.

Set the class of the container to class=no_print. So in the instance where you are dealing with a normal BlueBox 2.0 table which shows a sales order, you would set this in the tr tag.

<tr class=no_print>
<td bgcolor=#EEEEFF width=25% valign=top>Captured:</td><td bgcolor=white valign=top>
By <!--:linkedvariable:_authorid:--> on 
</td>
</tr>

<tr class=no_print>
<td bgcolor=#EEEEFF width=25% valign=top>Modified:</td><td bgcolor=white valign=top>
By <!--:linkedvariable:_modifierid:--> on 
</td>
</tr>

Ability to Re-post GL Entries from Doc View

12 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

You don't need to run doc-map-analysis to re-post gl entries for a specific document anymore.

We have added a "re-post" link in red next to the "view gl entries" link in each document view.

This is only available to Admin.

It deletes the old entries and re-posts the whole lot based on the current document.

This is totally harmless if nothing has changed in the current document, but for checking how allocations are made it has a verbose output explaining each of the overrides and for the odd case where a document date needs to change etc, and we believe this will help you save time.

Custom fields on generic forms

10 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have coded in a "passthru" variable which embeds itself in forms and then passes through in the view/edit/delete links of standard viewlists.

The syntax is as follows:

<a href=/?class=bb_users&method=search_from&global[bb2_passthru][somevar]=someval>Special User Search</a>

You can "pass_thru" single values, arrays and sub-arrays:

&global[bb2_passthru]=someval
&global[bb2_passthru][somevar]=someval
&global[bb2_passthru][somevar][subarrayvar]=someval

This will result in a hidden field being created in the search form/s for each sub-array value.

Finally the value is appended to the "clicks" off the viewlist results.

Our new feature - Table2XLS and Table2CSV

06 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Introducing our latest feature.
We have added a new feature in the codebase for BB2 which take a seres of HTML tables and exports them as XLS sheets in a spreadsheet.

The purpose of this function is to allow PHP developers on BB2 to develop table reports which are instantly exportable as XLS documents with no extra coding. This was our web-front-end and the exportable xls version of each report do not require double coding.

This is a very simple example of how it would be used:

<?php
resp("

".table2xls_export("exportme")." //this will automatically output an xls icon and all the required javascript to generate the XLS

<table id=exportme01 sheetName='Sheet One'> //the id must be the name used above prefixed by 01, 02, 03 up to 99 for the various sheets, the optional sheetName attribute gives the shtee a name

<tr>
<td cellFormat='bold'>Name</td> //the optional cellFormat attribute applies various pre-defined styles to each cell, see full list below.
<td cellFormat='bold'>Email</td>
<td cellFormat='bold'>Score</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='normal'>John</td>
<td cellFormat='normal'>john@domain.com</td>
<td cellFormat='normal_numeric'>12</td> //use numeric format so that number cells justify right
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='normal'>Mary</td>
<td cellFormat='normal'>mary@domain.com</td>
<td cellFormat='normal_numeric'>15</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='bold' colspan=2>Total</td>
<td cellFormat='bold_total'>15</td> //the _total format applies a thin line above and a thick line below the cell
</tr>

</table>

<table id=exportme02 sheetName='Sheet Two'> //and this is how table 2 would be formatted etc

<tr>
<td cellFormat='bold'>Name</td>
<td cellFormat='bold'>Email</td>
<td cellFormat='bold'>Score</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='normal'>John</td>
<td cellFormat='normal'>john@domain.com</td>
<td cellFormat='normal_numeric'>12</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='normal'>Mary</td>
<td cellFormat='normal'>mary@domain.com</td>
<td cellFormat='normal_numeric'>15</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td cellFormat='bold' colspan=2>Total</td>
<td cellFormat='bold_total'>15</td>
</tr>

</table>

");
?>

Pre-set XLS styles are as follows:

title
title_blue
normal
normal_numeric
normal_italic
normal_green
normal_blue
normal_blue_italic
normal_silver
normal_grey
bold
bold_underline
bold_total
bold_blue
bold_green
bold_silver

We can add more styles as required over time.

A simpler version of the above is table2csv_export("exportme") which does as above but only for one table and without any formatting.

Editing BlueBox Menus

05 Jan 2011 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

So what is the easiest way to add/edit/remove menus for everyone in your system?

Well there are two steps:

Step 1:

In permissions you can deny all users permissions to all classes which end in "_menu" for example "bb_sales_menu". A neat way to do this is to filter by "_menu" in the permission screen. This will effectively strip away all permission access to any top-level menu placeholders. However, this will then result in all the freely accessible publishing menu items that everyone can see flooding the top level menu, where they are normally neatly packed away under the "bb_publishing_menu" placeholder.

Step 2:

To fix this, do not deny the "bb_publishing_menu" class in other words skip this class only, as described in step one, and rather go to "Publishing -> Menu Manager" and ADD an entry whereby the class name is "bb_publishing_menu" and "hide menu item" is set to yes.

Google Checkout Integration

06 Dec 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The BlueBox Aged Debtors Export Facility

02 Dec 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Beginning of PHP plugins for BB2

22 Nov 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The following has been requested on BlueBox2.0, the ability to "plugin" PHP functionality that will override the existing bbsetting functionality.

The requirement is to have a programmatic function that will "calculate" complex user names based on various criteria, and then display them via the standards based bbsetting_display_name_template common to all BB2.0 classes.

So, here is the syntax for doing that:

Create a file in custom_modules called bb_plugins.php that contains:
 

class bb_plugins extends baseclass{
    function bb_sales_orders_bbsetting_field_display_names(){
        global $global;
        return(array("xtra_field01"=>"open_ordersYN"));
    }
}

The following overrider functions can also be placed which fully replace existing BB2.0 functions, without having to copy the "master files". The example below will ALSO run along with the current file-based bb_sales_orders-add_form method.
 

class bb_plugins extends baseclass{
    function bb_sales_orders_post_add_form($conf){
        global $global,$class,$method;
        resp("
            <script>
            function dosome(){
                if(\$('global[fields][delivery_methodISbb_sales_orders_delivery_methodsID]').value=='1'){//dpd
                    \$('global[fields][xtra_field05]').value=1;
                }
                if(\$('global[fields][delivery_methodISbb_sales_orders_delivery_methodsID]').value=='2'){//pallet
                
                }
                if(\$('global[fields][delivery_methodISbb_sales_orders_delivery_methodsID]').value=='3'){//post
                    \$('global[fields][xtra_field05]').value=9;
                }
                if(\$('global[fields][delivery_methodISbb_sales_orders_delivery_methodsID]').value=='4'){//post neil
                    \$('global[fields][xtra_field05]').value=9;
                }
            }
            \$('global[fields][delivery_methodISbb_sales_orders_delivery_methodsID]').addEventListener('change',dosome,true)
            </script>
            ");
        return($conf);
    }
}

7 frequently asked POS questions

25 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Below we have 7 POS questions that are asked frequently.

1. How customisable is the Point of Sale (POS) screen?

• Completely customizable. The POS look and feel is templated to meet your needs.

2. Can a store create a new product or does head office need to complete this task?

• Whichever way you need it done. All users permissions are able to be set according to your needs. i.e. you can set it so that specific store level individuals are able to add/edit/view as much or as little as you need them to. Your key users and management team would all have their own dashboards showing them the core KPI's and functions that they use on an ongoing basis.

3. If a store can create it’s own product, can this data be shared across the other stores?

• Yes, it can be, i.e. they can add it to the item master at group level.

4. The "back office" section is quiet involved and substantial. Can this be simplified for store users?

• Completely! As part of the setup we expect that we would set up role specific dashboards (effectively their landing page). These digital dashboards are stripped to display only the functionality they require. Permissions also take care of a lot of this as they are unable to view the menu items that don't apply to them.

5. Can the system be configured so that each store can only see their own data, whist head office can see everything?

• 100% Correct. Users belong to specific locations and business units. A user can only see as far up the tree as the location and business unit they belong to allows them. Head office users, sitting at the top of the tree can see everything below them (permissions permitting of course).

6. Can customers be issued with barcoded loyalty cards which when swiped during the sale have points accrued to the customer?

• Absolutely! They can either be swiped or scanned. In fact you don't even need cards theoretically, you could use any unique identifier, mobile number, passport number, ID number etc.

7. If I connect a barcode scanner to my PC will it work or does the demo system need further configuration?

• Yes, it will work, as long as the barcode reader i.e. the hardware is set to read the type of barcode you are scanning obviously. Obviously you will need to have added a specific product with that barcode number populated in order for it to find the product. But to answer simply it will work without any further system configuration, a scanner is simply an input device as far as our system is concerned.

BlueBox Friendly URLs

21 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A friendly url can be defined as a web address that is easy for users and search engines to understand and use.

BlueBox Friendly URL's can be turned on by setting bbsetting_use_uid to 1 in the bb_content module. In order to access content items via uid's, the show_category_content method must be used instead of the normal viewlist.

So the following tag

<!--:class:bb_content_categories_link:viewlist|categoryISbb_content_categoriesID=|_id desc:-->

becomes

<!--:class:bb_content_categories_link:show_category_content||_id desc:-->

The above uses the public viewlist template. To call with a custom template, the use_template variable must be set first.

For example:

<!--:set:use_template=bb_content_categories_link-viewlist_event.template:--> <!--:class:bb_content_categories_link:show_category_content|63|_id desc:-->

The show_content method can be used to access a single content item using uid or _id. <!--:class:bb_content:show_content|uid=97-(Development)-BlueBox-Friendly-URLs&_id=97:-->

All of this has been created so that you can have friendly URLs like the one for this blog post:

http://www.blueboxonline.com/?blogs&global[uid]=97-(Development)-BlueBox-Friendly-URLs

How to set variables before BB2 templates load

19 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A small but effective feature has just been added to BB2 for template-based solutions:

Up until now you have been able to set variable values for a BB2 templated page as follows:

Either pass the value through the POST or GET methods ie:

• /?global[myval]=1 or
• set the value at the top of the page using the set tag <!--:set:myval=1:--> or
• relying on the BB2 engine to have harvested the data from the /?class=some_class&method=view&global[fields][_id]=1 which would then pre-populate all the variable values for the specific dataset which could then be used in the template.

These 3 methods would then make data available throughout the templates on a page, and can be called as wherever needed.

A problem with this was that <!--:set: did not allow for complex setting of multiple variable values, so now, the new <!--:set:class|method:--> tag now allows you to set unlimited global[var_name] variables before a page loads.

New BB2.0 PHP Function for Auto Table to XLS Generation

14 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have written a Javascript function into BB2 which allows a coder to instantly add "export as CSV" functionality to any HTML table in BB2.0.

<?php

resp("

This is an example Table:

".table2cvs_export("my_table")."

<table id=my_table>
<tr>
<td>Column A</td>
<td>Column B</td>
<td>Column C</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>100</td>
<td>200</td>
<td>300</td>
</tr>
</table>

");

?>

The new code is in red above, and shows how simply the relevant javascript function and PHP helper script can be inserted into any table.

The effect of the above code would be that an XLS icon would appear at the top-right of the table and the data would then be exported as a download when the user clicks on the icon.

Obviously the example above shows a static table, but this would apply equally to a dynamically rendered table in PHP.

Filtering Permissions Classes

12 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Locking and tracking the history of documents

05 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Locking Certain Documents for User Access and Tracking Document History.
A solution to the problem of users editing quotes when they are not the "author" of the quote, and secondly, tracking the history of edits to the quote.

Locking the module to author:
We have added a new bbsetting called bbsetting_lock_ownership which stores a string for the field in the module that will hold the user_id to be locked to, so normally you would fill this in with _authorid, and this will mean that only the user with _authorid can edit that file. Alternatively, you may choose to set it to sales_representativeISbb_usersID_IN_Staff which would mean that, no matter who added the file, it will be the sales rep who can edit it. This is an either/or option at the moment, you cannot add two fields. Any user with admin permissions for the module will also be able to edit all documents, irrespective if he/she qualifies for that file or not.

So to lock quotes so that only authors can edit their own quotes: set the bbsetting bbsetting_lock_ownership to _authorid for bb_sales_quotes.

Tracking the history:
We have a module-history module which stores every change to a certain module. It stores the data in its raw format, to switch this on, go to admin->module history and then add the module you want to store a history on. Note: this will bloat a system very quickly so be careful when you do this. I suggest for quotes that you do the Header Module (ie bb_sales_quotes) and not the Items module (ie bb_sales_quotes_modules), as the history table will be smaller that way (but the changes to items/qty/price will not be logged in detail, only the totals changed will be logged and who changed the header file and when they did it). To view the history go to admin->module_history and click on History Log in the top menu.

Carl Verster interviewed at 360 IT

01 Oct 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Carl Verster on The BlueBox at 360°IT.
Last week The BlueBox was at 360°IT, The Infrastructure Event, Carl was interviewed, very briefly, by their event team about The BlueBox, what we do, who our customers are and our new UK head office.



A direct link to the video.

Web Based POS Issues

29 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Network Speed and Broadband Dependence Issues.

This is a common concern when POS is business critical.

Network Issues:

This obviously is the risk for any network dependent system. There are two possible routes forward.

1. As you can imagine, catering for "offline" stores is actually rather common. Broadband in SA is not so reliable that one can always function without some form of backup plan in this regard. One way this is dealt with is through slave servers sitting at each branch which then sync with the master server periodically. i.e the slave web server operates in a LAN environment for each branch. This obviously introduces an added complication in that one now has to worry about data replication and so, in our mind is not ideal.
2. Our preferred approach is one of investing in connectivity redundancy rather than multiple servers. Rather have a backup form of connectivity in each store (3G connection for example) in the event that broadband is compromised for some reason. This will allow you to carry on trade until the situation is rectified.

Speed Issues:

With respect to coping with high demand times, (where the question really comes down to transaction speed), we are not, of course, a high speed retail POS suitable for a super retailer FMCG type environment. Our POS does function well as a moderate sales environment boutique type POS offering, but also manages quite capably in, for example, a fast food environment (such as it does in a few KFC's here in South Africa).

Being web based the limitation is queries being passed at the speed of the internet connection (and the processing speed of the server - which is in your control). Expect queries to take as long as say, a google query. We find that adding items for example, will take from 1 to 3 seconds at busy times. Obviously if you elect to have a slave server at each store this would maximise speeds (as you are running over a LAN), but as mentioned this does introduce the necessity for data replication between slave and master servers.

Default FCKeditor Tags

27 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have removed the defualt FCKeditor Tags.
If you have been ever been irritated by the <p> tags that FCKeditor puts around every entry you place in it, do not fear you can change the config file for FCKeditor.



The old setting:

FCKConfig.EnterMode = 'p' ; // p | div | br
FCKConfig.ShiftEnterMode = 'br' ; // p | div | br

New Setting:

FCKConfig.EnterMode = 'br' ; // p | div | br
FCKConfig.ShiftEnterMode = 'p' ; // p | div | br

So this has been made the new default setting. You can simply update the code or change the fckconfig.js file as above if you would like to change it.

Day 1 at 360IT

23 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

A few pictures of The BlueBox at 360IT.

Yesterday was an exciting day at the 360IT Infrastructure Event. Below are a few pics of Paul de Villiers and Carl Verster at the event.


Paul and Carl ready and waiting for the crowds


Paul demonstrating BlueBox 2.0 on a 7" touch screen.


Carl talking to visitors.

360 IT is here

22 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The wait is over, 360°IT is here.

Everything is ready for you at this years 360°IT Infrastructure Event. Paul de Villiers and Carl Verster are excited to see all of you at our stand A52, from 9:30 to 5:30 today and from 9:30 to 5:00 tomorrow, in Earls Court 1, London.

We have set up and configured a mini-loyalty kiosk system which runs on a sexy little Android powered mini-tablet (half the size of an ipad). You definitely need to see how much punch BlueBox2.0 packs into the 7" screen.

For more information visit our 360°IT page.

BlueBox Time Zones

20 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Time zone fields in BB2.0

There are 2 time zone fields in BB2.0 which set the timezone for that specific installation:

In the config file there is a SYSTEM_DEFAULT_TIMEZONE which is blank by default and therefore leaves the time zone to match the server. It takes an override string from the PHP Time zones list found at www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php and will then set the system to use that time zone, if set.

Secondly, each user can then have their own time zone, set in their user profile as well. This overrides the system setting.

Integration for KFC

17 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

One Digital Kiosk / BlueBox Integration for KFC
The BlueBox is one of the select few POS solutions that are integrated with One Digital Media (ODM). In June ODM produced the first self service kiosk for the QSR market in South Africa. This unit enables customers to avoid the queue to order their meal. The kiosk has a 32" interactive touch screen that the customer navigates to choose their meal. The customer can then pay using any credit or debit card and collect their order at a dedicated collective point. The unit prompts customers to upsize and increase the size of their order and thus increases revenue for the store.

This Deploy Anywhere Kiosk with Large Intuitive interface works well in all population demographics. There for the Mobile Broadband Based Kiosk backbone, which can then integrate to any POS or Payment platform via standard Network Topologies such as WIFI / LAN.

The unique selling point comes mainly in the deploy anywhere mentality, the large 32" LCD screen for the interface and the interoperability with different payment and POS systems.

The BlueBox Free Home Dashboard

14 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Session 2 - The BlueBox Free Home Dashboard

BlueBox MD, Paul de Villiers showed us the BlueBox Home dashboard with it's web boxes during the second session of the 2010 BlueBox Conference held earlier this year. Please note that the filming was not professionally recorded, but although the video quality is not great, the message quality is.

A free dashboard is available to all of our customers, it is comprised of completely customisable boxes. Paul defined this home screen during the conference as a mash up.

The first box your see if for user details, it holds all of the current users details, all of this information is pulled from the user module. It includes the ability to view your payslips (If you are running our HR Module). A foundational module that you are not charged for. The really great thing about the dashboard is that it is user specific and can be tailored to fit your users job description. A news box displays the latest company news for example or any news feed you would like, you can give relevant news to your staff via trade news feeds.

There are also private boxes, like the notes box which shows personal notes that a user can make. There is a calendar box showing the current date and time. A currency box that gives you the latest currencies right at your finger tips. These are just a few boxes The BlueBox has rolled out, the possibilities to develop more are only limited by your imagination.

Daily attendance is captured and easily displayed for each user and if they deem a box not relevant they just need to hit the "x" on the top right of the box to remove it. Simple leave is another standard box, where you can view your leave and different leave types, you can even apply for leave from the home dashboard.

Are there widgets out there that will add value to your business? If so you can easily add them as a custom box.

Possibly the most exciting of all is the ability for a box to read a sales figure from your business or an external site and display it as a graph. Which can show individual staff members their own sales figures so that they can see how they are doing according to their sales target.

If you don't have a BlueBox2.0 system setup and would like to play with these boxes you can get a full free demo from our Demo page.

BlueBox PDF Configuration

06 Sep 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A primer on configuring your PDF's
To set up the creation of PDF's in BlueBox2.0 you need to configure how the BlueBox2.0 engine connects to itself from itself. This is done via the bb_pdf -> bb_pdf_url setting. For an internally hosted server this is always the internal IP address (15.0.0.105) or host name and not the external one.


Once this is has been set, then you need to specify the full internal path to all images in all templates ie: <img src=http://15.0.0.105/some_image/location.jpg>. So, in short, the PDF engine always connects from the internal server back to itself, and therefore you need to point the PDF engine as well as each image using the LAN address.

The BlueBox Loyalty System in the UK

30 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

A small change for user permissions

26 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have 3 new bb_users sub_modules for permission micro management:

• edit_debtors
• edit_creditors
• edit_staff

Essentially these permissions do what they say: if you do not have admin permission for bb_users and you do not have edit_all_users permission, then you would need one of the three new abilities to edit a user who fell into any of these 3 standard groupings. This is so that a creditors clerk cannot edit customers. This is a small change but we feel it is a helpful addition to your array of available permissions.

User Deduplication

23 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have built some deduplication controls.
They have been built into the user->add function and are basic, but involve things like same first and last names, same company name, same telephone, same cell, same identity number, same code etc. If a duplication is detected, then the system will exit and give the user the option to go back or to force the duplication.

Mobile Internet Devices as out of the box Loyalty Hardware

20 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

Affordable and effective hardware.
Mobile Internet Devices (MID's) are the emerging technology based loosely on the iPad craze. These are much cheaper "tablet" devices out of China and are basically small touch screen web browsing devices. What we like about them is their affordability (almost at a disposable-after-use level) and the fact that, through there web browsers BlueBox loyalty will run immediately on them without installing any extra software.

We have found suppliers in all of our regions and sourced decent MID's with bluetooth, wifi and USB slots. Some manufacturers we have been looking at run Google Android and we would be able to run a web-interface on them without installing any software. We will be able to secure volume discounts and preferred suppliers very easily, but it would literally be possible to have stores purchase a device from our suppliers and follow 5 easy steps to self installing The BlueBox Loyalty Solution in-store. Obviously if there are any technical limitations we will be happily involved in this process.

So, with regards to supporting the device, we propose the following: we would easily be able to avoid a costly human resource overhead and rather provide a courier-based service to support your business, whereby devices are pre-configured and shipped to the recipients with wireless connections intact. If hardware fails we will deal with the supplier and organise swap-out devices. There will obviously be small time, courier and hardware costs involved in this process but these would be minimal, and could be charged on an ad-hoc basis to avoid inflating the monthly costs. For ultimate redundancy, stores could install 2 devices so that they always have a backup if one device is being swapped out.

Alternatively, due to the open and common nature of the devices, a support contract with a national technical firm is also a possibility and perhaps this could be chosen on a store-by-store basis.

Here is a diagram displaying the process (Click for large version):

The BlueBox Plug-&-play Loyalty with MID's

New and improved permissions tools

18 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

New "view/hide" toggle to make the screen easier to navigate.
If you click on a module name or click on [View] it will ajax-in the relevant methods for granting permissions to. Now you can [Hide] this list and it will still submit them when you push the button at the bottom of the form. Please note: if you choose to [View] the list again before submitting your changes will be lost and you will need to grant/remove perms again for that class.

New "quick links" to apply the basic permissions to a certain class, or across all classes.
This has come about for two reasons. Firstly, we get asked a lot "what methods must I tick to give a user permission to view sales orders" and secondly, it is a headache having to remember to tick very regular and mundane methods like "show" and "enable_menu" and "menu_bar". To solve this I have added 2 levels of javascript quick-links to the permissions dash, which apply [View][Add] [Edit] [Delete] or [Admin] permissions to that class automatically. Please note: you still have to push the button at the bottom of the page, it just auto-selects them for you.



A new pseudo-admin class.
A new class has been added called bb_users_pseudo_admin, if this class is granted with the method "admin" to any user group, then that group automatically get FULL admin rights across the entire system. This is powerful, so beware. but it will stop us handing out "admin" users to customers. So, you can now add a new user group to your systems, called "my pseudo admin group", link key super-users to this group and grant "bb_users_pseudo_admin" > "admin" permission to it, and all those users will be super users.

The BlueBox Vision

16 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Session 2 - The BlueBox Vision
Paul de Villiers shares the vision of The BlueBox at The 2010 conference we held earlier in the year. Please note the filming was not professionally recorded and although the quality is not good, the message is.

The BlueBox believes in scaling business in such a way as to avoid having to scale resources accordingly. Paul, in half jest, describes staff as evil, eliciting a chuckle the BlueBox staff present, alluding to the point that you want a business that will scale with less staff. To that end we believe in engaging value added resellers; partners, who go to market on our behalf, engage customers and become the viable hands and feet on the ground that drive our product out there.

The BlueBox UK Profile

12 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

The BlueBox is a web-technologies company who specialise in the development of database driven websites, extranets and intranets. Our proprietary platform (BlueBox2.0) is built on open source technologies, making it collaborative, easily integrated with 3rd party solutions, rapid and affordable. BlueBox2.0 is the business-ready open-source web platform.

Local to the UK and Europe:
Based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, with partners across the UK and EU, we are able to provide strategy, consulting and development wherever it is required.

Our Modules:
Our specialist areas are ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), ePOS, Loyalty Systems, Sales Force/Order Management, Procurement Controls, Light Manufacturing (MRP), Human Resource Management, Document Management and Inventory Management Systems.

Host Yourself or SaaS:
Our software is able to be installed as a dedicated installation (on Linux/MySQL/PHP) or as a hosted online solution via our SaaS Model (Software as a Service).

Pay as you Go:
Our pricing is extremely competitive, with negligible setup fees and low monthly fees per module used. No large upfront costs and no per-user licensing.

Competitive Partner Program:
The BlueBox is always looking for partners to assist with roll-outs and customer relationship management. If you have experience in systems, a creative business problem solving mind and consider yourself to be 200% customer centric visit our site to sign up!

The BlueBox Overview Infographic

06 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

An overview of The BlueBox
The BlueBox prides itself on building robust and sophisticated web-based ERP systems. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can be defined as helping integrate management, staff, and equipment, combining all aspects of the business into one system in order to facilitate every element of the manufacturing process.

The BlueBox Overview Infographic

As seen featured in The 2010 BlueBox Brochure.

With our comprehensive range of modules we are ready to provide your business with the software it needs and the system it deserves. BlueBox modules are divided into three sections, Transactional modules, Specialised vertical modules and Bespoke development.

Procurement:
The BlueBox system is a comprehensive procurement and price control system, with rigorous controls, supplier file, buyers guide, buying budgets, MRP calculations, project buying, backorder management and stock replenishment.

Sales:
The BlueBox ERP Sales Module provides the core for controlling sales within your business, offering the ability to see what sales staff are doing daily; producing and tracking quotes and converted sales, by product, client, salesman and region.

Inventory:
The BlueBox Inventory module can assist you to pinpoint where every item of stock resides in your business.

Manufacturing:
Integrating seamlessly with the other BlueBox ERP modules, the manufacturing module is a feature packed suit of works order and BOM oriented tools.

Financial Accounting:
When it comes to Financial Accounting this module solves three of the most vital areas; cashbooks, the general ledger and financial exports.

Human Resources:
Although not the newest module offered by The BlueBox, the Human Resources Module has very recently been injected with new energy in the form of the newly launched Payroll module, providing all the core functionality required to install and set up your own payroll system, and, as always, integrates seamlessly with the other BlueBox ERP modules.

Marketing:
The BlueBox Multi Level Marketing Module is a highly comprehensive MLM solution aimed at online oriented MLM businesses; where both the operation and their members recognise the benefits of having a system that is accessible via the internet, both from a front and back-end perspective.

Reservations:
The BlueBox Hospitality Module, sometimes referred to as "Reservations" is a comprehensive hospitality management system, configured to meet a reservations oriented organisation's businesses requirements.

Reporting:
Increased information access and transparency in a business is critical, providing a better launching point for both strategic and day to day decision making. The BlueBox 2.0 Reporting module can convert your data into information you can use!

Integration:
What are you basing your business decisions on? Knowledge is power, and without the RIGHT information your business is dead in the water.

E-commerce & Web Development:
The BlueBox publishing module houses a range of tools, all geared toward facilitating the presentation of information, or publishing it in a web environment.

You may also be interested in our last infogrpahic - ERP Overview

5 ways to improve customer loyalty

04 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Business.

Make sure your customers come back for more.
We believe the best way to look after your bottom line is to look after your customers. More importantly to look after your best customers; after all they are the ones paying your bills and adding to your profit. We have decided to give you a list post to remind you of the important points. We hope you find it useful.

Here are 5 ways you can retain your best customers:
 

1. Discover: Find out the details and demographics of who your best customers are. This is important, find out who specifically is buying your products and what precisely they are buying, either by being on the shop floor and monitoring the sales yourself, or by setting up a Customer Loyalty Solution and letting it do it for you.
2. Listen: Simple idea yet hard to keep up. Find out what platforms your customers air their views on twitter, facebook or hellopeter and pay attention to what they are saying about  either your industry or if you are lucky your brand.
3. Engage: Now that you know who your best customers are and what they are saying engage with them but be sure to make sure yoy have their permission first, there is nothing worse than being spammed. Make sure when you connect you do it with something relevant to that specific customer, something that will add to their day or to their experience with your brand.
4. Learn: Each time you speak to your customers you should be learning more about them, more about what they want and need.
5. Offer: So now that you know your best customers pretty well, make them specific offers, we aren't talking just about Upselling we're talking about remarkable offers that will show them that you have been listening and that you care about them. There are few things better for your business than a happy customer telling their family and friends about the great offer they just received. Thanks to your knowledge of the customers buying habits you are able to not only upsell and cross-sell, but are also able to engage in Direct Marketing to them, giving them information that is specifically meaningful to them!

In the end it comes down to how much you really care about your customers, you don't always have to be the cheapest or the best, let them know that you care and they will come back.

Some thoughts on the iPad and BlueBox Business Culture

02 Aug 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Session 2 - The iPad and BlueBox Business Culture

You will never only hear about the BlueBox at our conferences, you will hear about what's happening in the world around us, what excites us, what motivates us and new ideas. Please note the filming was not professionally recorded and although the quality is not good, the message is.

The iPad has defined a new category of product, it sits in a weird new space, a market that never existed before. Sexy is important in business! There are a lot of businesses out there who don't put in the effort to make the environment they sell in look good. The challenge for The BlueBox and for your business is ask, "How sexy is our business?". The iPad tells us that we need to make a place for people to exist in our business that encourages commerce. You can buy other applications for the iPad, Apple have created an environment for people to spend money with them. Your business needs to make an environment that is conducive to business!



The BlueBox believes that business must be fun, that the platform you take form us must give you value for money and the good feeling that comes along with it. We aim to have excitement at the core of our business. The BlueBox has a mission about what we would like to achieve. We are really trying to build a community. We do believe that your understanding of what we do pulls you closer to what we are trying to achieve as a business and lets you enhance and get the most out of it on that journey.

BlueBox UK update

29 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

The latest update from The BlueBox (UK)

New website design for Adgen Energy (London)

Adgen Energy, and exciting group at the forefront of Anaerobic Digestion Technology, have selected BlueBox to implement their new web development. The new site will include an advanced CMS, embedded web2.0 technologies and a sophisticated back-office project management suite. The project management development includes role based tasking and milestone measurement, inter-team communication and advanced document management.

Group-wide Business Management System implementation for Pepenbury Charity (Tunbridge Wells)

Pepenbury Charity, one of the largest learning disability facilities and domiciliary care organizations in Kent, has begun implementing a broad solution on the BlueBox2.0 platform. Initially key focus areas within the organization are being targeted, namely the Quality Asurance Manuals and Internal Auditing processes, as well as basic Cash/Donations Management and Human Resource Management processes. Over the next few years the system will be adapted and evolved to fit most areas within the organization, including Publishing, Document Management, Volunteer Lifecycle Management and Rotaring Schedules.

The BlueBox at 360'IT

27 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

The BlueBox will be exhibiting later this year at 360°IT (London).
360°IT is the new, ground-breaking event that demonstrates how IT infrastructure solutions can help to achieve key business objectives such as improving service, reducing cost, managing risk and gaining competitive advantage and growth.

The event is happening from the 22-23 September 2010 in Earls Court 1 London. You can register now for FREE entry here. We are on facebook, so you can also view our facebook page event here.

We have an exhibitor page on the 360°IT website. We are very excited about this event and are looking forward to engaging with everyone there. If you need any more information you can visit http://www.360itevent.com/.

Introducing the new SaaS pricing option

21 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

We are proud to announce our new SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing option.
A copy of the software is instantly installed onto on one of our web servers, on your behalf. The code and database is on a shared server with other installations and you do not get full access to it, limiting your control over the database and the code for customizations. No installation required, simply pay-and-go month by month.

Points you should know:

• Suitable for micro & small to medium sized enterprises
• Limited to 1000 users (customers, suppliers and staff)
• No raw database access
• Pay as you go support
• Web hosted by us, on a pre-determined web address
• No bespoke development beyond templating
• Month to month leasing
• Modular
• Only certain modules available

You can find location specific pricing on our pricing page. If you would like to find out more you can enquire here.

The year in review from The BlueBox conference

19 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Session 1 - The year in review.

Paul de Villiers talks about the past year in review, speaking about The BlueBox's latest news and developments. Please note the filming was not professionally recorded and although the quality is not good, the message is.

Demo The BlueBox for free

13 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

An introduction to the 2010 BlueBox Conference

12 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

Session 1 - Introduction: Mash ups, tracking, alerting and lemonade.
Paul de Villiers opening the conference with his thoughts on mash ups, tracking, alerting and lemonade. Please note the filming was not professionally recorded and although the quality is not good, the message is.

Karkloof Spa hosted the first conference of 2010, all of our guests arrived at 9:00 and took a drive through the valley to reach the conference room. The annual conference aims to give BlueBox customers and partners a product overview and to provide some nice drill downs into some of the new features we have developed. According to Paul mash ups mean chaos or rather the ability to take a web interface and to add the things that mean something to you. Paul then spoke about iGoogle and your ability to make your home page anything you want by plugging in different things.

He then spoke about a trend that customers will want to find information about things that interest them and want to track that information. Some questions that were asked, how are you going to push information about your business to your customer base? And how are you going to make that information available to people who are looking for it? Paul then showed us the trailer from Lemonade the movie. A positive perception has kept the BlueBox moving forward and with a "make a plan" attitude we are keen to blast through this tough time. You must take the resources you have and you must do something with them, for example with a business system you could get creative in the way you communicate with people. Paul reiterated that we should all take what we have and make a good go with it!

Hardware Requirements for BlueBox

09 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

Let us help you find the best hardware set up.
Server costs will vary depending on the complexity and size of the installation. The client is expected to provide the hardware, although the BlueBox has strategic alliances with preferred hardware vendors who can offer our customers preferential hardware rates. Now you must also keep in mind that BlueBox is perfectly suited to being a fully hosted solution, so it is not imperative that you need to purchase your own hardware. The BlueBox Business Management System is not a power hungry platform and runs very effectively on most "normal" hardware configurations. Below are some recommended server hardware specifications (or comparative technology) according to the scale of the solution required. However we recommend you talk to us so we can understand your needs and assist you in building the correct server for your requirements.

• An acceptable entry-level business scale server would be a dedicated machine of the following calibre:
  
  • Intel® Pentium® D, Intel® Pentium® 4
  • 2 GB DIMMs for up to 8 GB of total system memory
  • 500GB SATA (Raid 0/1/5)
  • DVD Media Rom


• If the server is intended to serve ERP systems or 50+ users one would consider a machine that is critically designed for such a purpose, with generic server architecture, multiple processors etc:
  
  • Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor
  • 8 GB DIMMs for up to 16 GB of total system memory
  • 500GB SATA (Raid 0/1/5)
  • DVD Media Rom

Securing BlueBox forms

07 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Latest wallpaper winner

06 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

The BlueBox ERP Overview Infographic

01 Jul 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

Developing on BlueBox

30 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Claim your territory now

24 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Partners.

Leasing vs purchasing BlueBox software

22 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

An answer to this frequently asked question.
The standard BlueBox payment model involves leasing the software modules you require on a month to month basis however if you are not interested in that you can choose to "own" the software you use. Please note that code ownership is not possible. All BlueBox clients use the same software base platform, and although individual modules may be configured or customised to suit a clients specific requirements, the vast majority of the software is standard BlueBox code and the software thus remains BlueBox's intellectual property.

Although the software or code remains the property of the BlueBox, and cannot be "sold" to our customers, we do offer the the option for customers to purchase, in advance, a 99 year license, which in effect gives the client the level of system ownership they require. The BlueBox calculates the value of this purchase at a rate of three years rental of the module price.

A table showing the implications of each option.

jsFunction trigger for ajax lookups

18 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

How to extend form elements in BB2.0 forms where you need to trigger a javascript process after an ajax lookup has been selected:

The BB2.0 forms engine will automatically trigger an ajax lookup object when the rowcount in the lookup table is greater than 30 (this is a variable in the conf file and therefore can e changed if you wish).

So, less than 30 items forms a standard select list, where the element is "named" global[fields][bomISbb_manufacturing_bill_of_materialsID], for example.

If there are greater than 30 items in the lookup table, the system reverts to the ajax lookup, and the jsFunction attribute can then be called for any post-click events.

The trick was finding an elegant way to load the correct method, and so this solution was proposed, which can be loaded into the pst_add_form php method:

if(document.getElementById('viewer_global[fields][bomISbb_manufacturing_bill_of_materialsID]')){
                    document.getElementById('viewer_global[fields][bomISbb_manufacturing_bill_of_materialsID]').setAttribute('jsfunction', 'test_js_function()');
                }else{
                    document.getElementById('global[fields][bomISbb_manufacturing_bill_of_materialsID]').onchange=test_js_function;
                }

Deletion of Linked Item Data Tables

08 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The latest BB2 Update module

07 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Our first youtube winner announced

04 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

We have a winner!
Would you like to win $100 worth of vouchers? Find out how you can here.

Report of all credits

03 Jun 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Our latest report
The Unallocated Credits/Payments Report is accessed via the debtors and creditors dashboards as follows:


and



Currently it lists, grouped by customer/date, the following:

• Unallocated Payments
• Unallocated direct credit notes
• Overpaid Invoices (ie unallocated credits)

Time to make a youtube video

17 May 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

This is you're chance to win.
Our monthly competition is still live, you can win $100 worth of Amazon voucher this month. All you have to do is create an advert, no longer than a minute long, featuring at very least, the BlueBox logo and slogan, "Simple, Brilliant and Effective Web-based Business Software" somewhere in video, you are more than welcome to use any content from our website as well. Once it's complete upload it to Youtube and send us a link via this form. Entries close at the end of this month and the winner will be announced on the 31st of May.

Over Credit Limit Switch

14 May 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

How The BlueBox handles Size, Style and Colour

13 May 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Sales Orders Upgrade

05 May 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have our first wallpaper winner

03 May 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

New Features Added to Financial Documents Access Controls

28 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Scanning Multiple Serialized Items to a GRN

26 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Recently completed is a new feature which allows the scanning of multiple serialized items to a GRN receipting list.

It's main purpose is to allow for speedy bulk capture of large quanties of items, as well as the splitting of GRN lines into individual serialized lines.

This is accessed via the purchase order view screen. Next to the older Capture GRN button, you will now see a Scan2GRN button as well.

This new screen basically lists all the items on the purchase order available for receipting, and then takes a scan-and-tab instruction to list multiple lines each with the newly added serial number applicable to it.

Once all items are scanned in quantities can be adjusted per line and then the final process populates the add GRN screen with the new serialized items. This will surely speed up your GRN capturing process.

WIN with The BlueBox every month

19 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

2010 Brochure and Scribd

15 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

The 2010 BlueBox Brochure is now available on our site.

Yesterday we put up our 2010 brochure onto our site which is full of information about us. Like our profile as a South African company with an increasingly global footprint and how we pride ourselves on building robust and sophisticated web-based ERP systems. You can also learn about our commited team, partners and our virtual office culture.

Inside the brochure we highlight the following modules:

• Sales
• Publishing
• Procurement
• Manufacturing
• Financial Accounting
• Human Resources
• Bespoke Systems
• Inventroy

There is a full ERP Overview which is finished off nicely with 10 reasons why you should choose The BlueBox as your business system solutions provider.

The 2010 BlueBox Brochure

P.S. You might find this useful, we did.

You will notice that our brochure is embeded into our site, we found and are using Scribd, it's free, awesome, loads fast and is customizable. In our opinion the best option for embeded pdf's into web pages.

6 Key features that make BlueBox great software

14 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

Why should you become a BlueBox Partner?

13 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

Join a proven network:
The BlueBox Partner Programme is designed to create and support a business partnership with those individuals and organisations that actively promote our products. We are here and ready to support our partners. The BlueBox relies on it's partners as our sales force is nonexistent, our turnover grows through our partnerships! We build relationships to provide the best possible solutions for managing businesses.

Claim your territory now:
Their are opportunities wherever businesses are and we are currently looking for partners in these specific areas:

• United Kingdom (Preferred & Standard Partners)
• Australia (Preferred & Standard Partners)
• New Zealand (Preferred & Standard Partners)
• North America (Preferred & Standard Partners)
• South Africa (Standard Partners)

What's in it for you?

• A proven business opportunity.
• Annuity income. (Our revenue model revolves around a philosophy geared to benefit the Client and the Partner as well as ourselves. The client leases our solutions, at an affordable rate, on a monthly (or predefined) period, providing you with monthly annuity income for as long as you maintain your relationship with the client.)
• Free priority telephonic and email support for sales and technical and support related enquiries.
• Qualified leads and Potential customers we receive are passed on to our partners.
• Access to our Partner relationship manager.
• Free BlueBox Business System keys for your own internal and demonstration uses.
• Regular newsletters and product and update communications.
• Networking access to our other partners.
• Invitations to our periodic partner conferences.

Are you ready?
If you would like to learn more or if you think you're ready to join a winning team then you can apply to become a partner in our partner portal.

Archiving Data in BlueBox

09 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have got a requirement for generic archiving for businesses where large table sizes are slowing down system performance. This has been written as a standard tool in the database toolbox.

Go to admin->database and click on 'simple data archive'

This tool allows you to 'dump' rows of data from a live table in the system to an _archive table so as to fee up table space when the system begins to be slowed down in certain areas.

You are able to select:

• whether to archive or unarchive the data
• which table to select the data from
• which data to archive/unarchive based on date range, specifically _dateadded, _datemodified or transaction_date
• to run in test_mode which will not add or delete any data, but will simply indicate how many rows would have been affected had the script run in live mode

If a table is selected for archiving the system checks whether the table exists, and if not, it creates a shadow table with an _archive extension (ie bb_users will create a new identical table called bb_users_archive).

Data is then copied into the _archive table and deleted from the live table, preserving _id's.

The opposite is true if an unarchive method is run.

Forced columns in viewlists

07 Apr 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

You now have the ability to select and force which columns display in BlueBox2.0 viewlists.

Select which columns to show in viewlists:

The tradional methods for hiding or showing columns in the system list viewer were done via bbsettings, namely: bbsetting_hide_columns_in_lists=array() and bbsetting_show_columns_in_lists=array(). The drawback of these methods was that one could not determine which columns to display on a need by need basis. A new variable, force_columns, allows you to specify exactly which columns to show in your listings.

It is used as follows:

<?php
$users=new bb_users();
$users->viewlist(array("force_columns"=>array("name","first_name","last_name")));
?>

or in the system_list_viewer function as follows:

<?php
$users=new bb_users();
$users=$users->getlist(array("where"=>" name like '%smith%' "));
system_list_viewer(array("force_columns"=>array("_id","last_name","email"),"data"=>$users));
?>

Easily find and release stock attached to a Sales Order

30 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We wanted to add a nice feature which will help neaten the process of moving stock off a sales order that is unwanted. The scenario is that various stock items have been assigned to a sales order through allocations and pick slips. At the end of the project some of the items are seen to be in excess and need to be returned to stock.

So what is the neatest way to handle this?

Essentially one needs to view the stock items so that you can select the various ones you wish to release from the sales order, and primarily one would go to the inventory dash and filter for stock assigned currently to the sales order.

This is a bit tedious, though, and so a quick-link to view all stock assigned to a sales order was created at the bottom of the sales order item analysis block.

By clicking on this link you will instantly be taken to the filtered green lines inventory detail report and will then be able to select and transfer the correct items away from the sales order.

Credit settings between a quote and invoice

26 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Do you need control over creating documents for customers who have passed there credit limit?
If a customer is over their credit limit or is set as on-hold then no NEW sales docs can be captured in their name. If an existing sales doc is already captured and then the customer later becomes over limit or on hold, a warning pops up to alert the operator, but currently it does not stop the creation of the document.

A setting bb_finance->bbsetting_over_credit_stop_sales needs to be set to 1 to force these downstream docs from being created if you want the system to force them not to be created.

How to create a PDF in BlueBox

24 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

There are various methods to create PDF's in BlueBox2.0 using the DOMPdf library:

By passing HTML to it:

$pdf=new pdf();
$pdf->create_from_html(array("html"=>"some <b>html</b> here....","file"=>"file_name.pdf"));

or as a tag:

<!--:class:bb_pdf:create_from_html|some <b>html</b> here...:-->

or by passing a URL to it:

<!--:class:bb_pdf:create|url:-->

$pdf=new pdf();
$pdf->create(array("url"=>"http://some_url","file"=>"output_file_name"));

Volume and Promotional Pricing

23 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Our item_data module has been extended with two new modules, for volume_pricing and promotional_pricing.

Volume pricing very simply stipulates alternative price OR discount for a sales volume over a certain quantity, whereas promotional pricing is DATE sensitive, and will apply EITHER a price/dicount OR will add a 'free item' to the items list automatically.

This info then 'pops up' in the sales price field when doing item lookups:

Finally, this data then changes the price/dicount for the specific line you are adding to a sales document, OR, in the case of promotional items, it will automatically add a new line to the sales document with the correct details (fields which have been auto-updated are bordered in red):

New User Access Locking for Sales Report

17 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We have just implemented a user access lock for the Basic Sales Report.
Essentially this means that if a Sales Rep (any one of the three types of sales rep) tries to access the report they will be locked down to only see their data.

How it works is as follows (see screenshot below):

• If you access the report with 'admin' permission for the bb_sales module, you will see a 'click here to manage user access' link at the top of the page.
• Here you get to select three user groups (or any one of the three) in which you have your sales reps of that 'type' linked.
• The minute one of these groups is 'selected' then the report will challenge any new user who tries to access it as follows:
  
  • if the rep has bb_sales->admin permission then they will be able to view all reps data
  • if they do NOT have the above permission, then the report looks in each of the three specified user groups for their _id
  • if their _id IS found in any of the three specified groups, then their _id is locked into the appropriate 'rep field' in the filter
  • essentially locking them down to only see sales data which pertains to them

Adding show_values to bar graphs in BB2.0

16 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A quick and easy way to make the information you are sharing easier to interpret.
If you would like to display bar graphs in some of your custom dashboards, and have the need to display the 'bar values' at the top of each bar, there is a simple variable to pass through whether you are using the TAG method or the PHP method.

TAG method:

<!--:class:bb_widgets:draw_widget|
                widget type(bar,line,table,dial etc)~
                Widget Title Goes Here~
                width~
                height~
                dial zone values eg 0,33,66,100~
                dial zone colors eg green,orange,red~
                Yaxis Title~
                Xaxis Title~
                bar line color eg green~
                use trend line? 1 for yes~
                use curve line? 1 for yes~
                bottom buffer~
                side buffer~
                sql query eg:
                select
                round(sum(grand_totalCUR_BASE),-1) as data,
                DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b') AS labels
                from
                bb_sales_orders
                where
                transaction_date >= DATE_FORMAT(DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 1 YEAR), '%Y-%m-01') AND transaction_date <= CURDATE()
                group by
                DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b')
                order by
                DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b') asc
                ~ //this extra tilda is required after the sql statement
                show_values // you would set this to 1 if required
                :-->

PHP method:

<?php
$chart=new bb_charts();
                $chart=$chart->draw(array(
                "type"=>"", //bar,line,dial,pie
                "width"=>"",
                "height"=>"",
                "show_values"=>"", //set this to 1 if required
                "data"=>"", //also: data1,data2,data3
                "labels"=>"",
                "labels_font_size"=>"",
                "titles"=>"",
                "xaxis_title"=>"",
                "yaxis_title"=>"",
                "legend"=>"",
                "bar_line_color"=>"",
                "trend_line_color"=>"",
                "curve_line_color"=>"",
                "zones"=>"",
                "zone_colors"=>"",
                "bottom_buffer"=>"",
                "side_buffer"=>"",
                ));
?>

The getcommalist function in BB2.0

12 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Short and sweet helpful post for a friday afternoon.
The getcommalist PHP function in BB2.0 is used to build a comma seperated list of a certian field within an array listing.

getcommalist(array("array"=>$rebate_types,"field"=>"_id"))

This will loop through the array $rebate_types and put all the _id values in a comma separated list.

This is useful when doing SQL IN() statements.

Financial Document Access Controls

11 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you're a Financial Director we have something that will make you smile.



We have just upgraded a very attractive feature for our financial controls. It's purpose is to allow the "signing off" of certain document types which meet certain criteria.

This translates to a massive amount of control being allowed in terms of transactional process management. Businesses can now manage approval processes in a systematic way without stepping out of workflow. Think of some of the applications: sales reps restricted from discounting products below say, 10% margin without authorisation from management; buyers limited to buying stock below a, for example $10 000 value unless signed off by the Financial Director, who has insight into the cashflow impact of such a procurement decision; or what about forcing authorisation on creation of sales orders for customers with certain debtors aging statuses? This truly allows businesses to leverage off their system to control segments of their business that put them at risk.

How does it work? In the event that a "trigger" is set off, an alert is emailed to up to two signatory user groups (each group can have unlimited users in it, but a signatory will be required from either one or both groups, depending on how the alert was set up).

The users then go to the "FinDoc Acc.Ctrl" menu (found under admin), and on the dashboard they will see all the alerts that pertain to them: either they have LOGGED the request, or they are in the primary or secondary signatories group.

They can then "preview", "approve" or "reject" requests. On Rejection or Approval, an email is sent to all parties.

Finally, the requesting party can "re-post" their original request, and this time, because it is approved, it will pass through and create the document.

All in all, this is a powerful feature and worth applying in any business where control is paramount.

The makeclickable function in BB2.0

09 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A useful PHP function in BB2.0 is the makeclickable function.

It turns a table row into a rollover effect with a clickable destination.

It's syntax is makeclickable('url',[optional:flag to open in a new window])

Here is an example of pulling a data list in BB2.0, with the makeclickable function illustrated:

<?php
$list=$this->getlist(array("order"=>"name"));
            if($list){
                resp("
                     <table align=center bgcolor=".COLOR2." cellspacing=1 cellpadding=3>
                     <tr bgcolor=".COLOR1.">
                     <td align=center nowrap>Row</td>
                     <td align=center nowrap>Name</td>
                     <td align=center nowrap>Class</td>
                     <td align=center nowrap>Parent Class</td>
                     <td align=center nowrap>Primary Signatory</td>
                     <td align=center nowrap>Secondary Signatory</td>
                     </tr>
                     ");
                foreach($list as $item){
                    $row++;
                    resp("
                         <tr bgcolor=white
                         ".makeclickable("/?class=bb_findoc_access_controls&method=view&global[fields][_id]=$item[_id]",1)."
                         >
                         <td align=left nowrap>$row</td>
                         <td align=left nowrap>$item[name]</td>
                         <td align=left nowrap>$item[new_doc_system_class_name]</td>
                         <td align=left nowrap>$item[parent_doc_system_class_name]</td>
                         <td align=left nowrap>".item_display_value(array("primary_signatory_in_groupISbb_users_groupsID",$item))."</td>
                         <td align=left nowrap>".item_display_value(array("secondary_signatory_in_groupISbb_users_groupsID",$item))."</td>
                         </tr>
                         ");
                }
                resp("</table>");
            } else {
                resp("No controls exist.");
            }
?>

Important FIFO & LIFO config file settings with comments

04 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Setting the system transaction costing method:

$system_transaction_costing_method="LIFO"; //FIFO, LIFO, AVERAGE or STANDARD
    //Note on Costing Method: - this gets cost of goods for quote/sales order values and any other cost lookup when there is not actual stock being implied (ie the stock is theoretical)
    //On GRN: all 4 methods place the actual cost of goods into the inventory value, but STANDARD also places the variance into the StandardCostVariance GL Category
    //On Despatch: LIFO and FIFO use the literal stock value of goods despatched, while AVERAGE uses the current average cost of the goods and STANDARD uses the current standard cost of goods despatched

Setting the system transaction stock allocation method:

$system_transaction_stock_allocation_method="FIFO"; //FIFO,LIFO
    //Note on Stock Allocation Method: - this is purely used when the system tries to AUTO allocate stock to sales orders for shipping
    //If LIFO costing method is used with FIFO allocation menthod, you will see a discrepency in the margins on sales orders vs the final actual margins on despatch/invoice
    //The same is true for FIFO/LIFO combination. This scenario is most obvious when the goods shipped have a long shelf life or a rapidly changing price

Displaying selling price on printed documents even when its zero

03 Mar 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

If you would like to ensure that when you print one of the following documents (Sales Orders, Despatch Notes, Invoices, Returns, and Credit Notes) even with a selling price of zero for a line item it will display.

By default this is set not to display and you will notice in the the view mode the item is grey, which is a hint that it will not print.

This is very easily changed by editing the print templates, using database templates, search for the _items table in each specific classes template.

eg: in bb_sales_orders_items-viewlist_print.template

On the first line it says:

<tr bgcolor=<!--:ifnot:priceCUR:{print:#eeeeee class=no_print}:--><!--:if:priceCUR:{print:white}:--> >

If you remove the ifnot and if statements, and change it to 'white' for the bgcolor tag it will print (and display as white) rows with zero selling price.

<tr bgcolor=<!--:ifnot:priceCUR:{print:#eeeeee class=no_print}:--><!--:if:priceCUR:{print:white}:--> >

becomes:

<tr bgcolor=white >

Now when you print documents with Selling price items at zero that will display.

Attaching POD's to invoices.

26 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

All the relevant information you need in one place.
An exciting little enhancement has been made to both the debtors and creditors modules. A Proof Of Delivery sub-module has been introduced to allow multiple scanned/pdf POD's to be attached to invoices in each module. This simple addition is in line with our strategy to simplify things for our users and we trust that this ability will help streamline your activities.

BB2.0 Bug Emailer

25 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Would you like to know immediately when one of your users is having a permission error on your system? BB2.0 can give you that power to solve those headaches you are having regarding permissions. Our system allows you to receive an email whenever there is a permission error, you just need to enable it.

//debug{
    $debug=0; //0=off, 1=on
    $enable_bug_emailer=0; //0=off, 1=on //enable this to send your system bugs to bb2bugs@bluebox.co.za for quick support
    $debug_logging=0; //0=off, 1=on
    $custom_debugger=1; //0=off, 1=on
//}

This will email all error messages in the system to the email address for system admin. The area where you edit the 'send to' email address is found in this section of the same file, show below.

//email settings{
    $system_email_address="email@domain.com"; //this address receives system generated emails, including the contact form
    $system_email_name="System Administrator"; //name of the above recipient
    $system_smtp_server="localhost"; //address of your SMTP server
    $system_smtp_port=25;
    $system_smtp_username="";
    $system_smtp_password="";
//}

Just another way the BlueBox is making your business better and easier to run with our simple, brilliant and effective solution.

How Business Unit and Location allow segregation of business data at General Ledger level

24 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The use of a Business Unit and Location combination for all financial documents created in BlueBox2.0 is a powerful way of channeling data into the General Ledger at a Business Unit/Branch/Division level.

Business Units are created in the form of a tree, starting at the highest level, namely 'Global', and working into divisions and sub-divisions from there. For example, a holding company called 'ABC Corp' would appear under Global, and then three subdivisions 'Spares Division', 'Servicing Division' and 'New Equipment Division' would appear under that.

Locations work the same way, with the 'Global' location at the top of the tree, and subdivisions working down from there. These can be as detailed as 'country'->'province'->'city'->'warehouse'->'sub-warehouse'->'bin' or as simple as 'branch a' and 'branch b', depending on your requirements. Locations should be left as is for most installations, as the standard locations tree is more than adequate for all business units to use. The system rolls out with a standardised set of locations and sub locations which comply with all the standard requirements. While locations are an important part of the unique pairing (BU/LOC) as described here, they also provide a place for stock to exist within, and this can be described as 'warehouse' or 'bin level' depending on the requirements.

Each user in the BB2.0 system logs into their secure account with a specific Business Unit (BU) and Location (LOC) combination, as defined in their user profile when they were originally created.

All documents in the BB2.0 system are created with a snapshot of the author's BU/LOC combination. So, if a sales rep was created under the BU/LOC of 'Spares Division'/'New York' then their quotes will be created under the same combination. It follows that the flow of documents coming from the original quote will therefore also be stamped with the same combination. So, Quote links to Sales Order, Sales Order links to Despatch Note, Despatch Note links to Debtors Invoice will all be stamped as owned by 'Spares Division'/'New York'.

The General Ledger comprises multiple GL Entries per transaction. GL Entries are automatically created when a document (ie Debtors Invoice) which has a link in the GL Document Map table, is created. The GL Document Map table carries within it a set of instructions for each document that is intended to 'talk to the GL' and these instructions are combinations of DR's and CR's into one of four possible GL Account Categories, namely Assets, Liabilities, Income and Expenses. GL Entries are also stamped with the same BU/LOC as their originating document (Despatch Note, Invoice, Payment etc), which ensures that the GL stores information automatically segregated into the various Business Units and Location combinations.

When a user logs into their secure account, they can only view documents/data which falls in their 'downline' for both the Business Unit and Location Trees. So a user who is set as 'Spares Division'/'New York' will not be able to see quotes which were created in 'Spares Division'/'Washinton', but a user who logs in as 'Spares Division'/'USA' would. This filtering method allows one to view the General Ledger in division slices, so the user who logs into 'Spares Division'/'New York' will only see GL Entries which were created for that division. The group accountant would log into 'Spares Division'/'USA' to see the total GL summary for both divisions.

For more information related to this post please
visit our Documents & tutorials page:

• 3.System Administration > Location Management > Locations Manager
• 3.System Administration > Business Units

Skimming Cash from a BB2.0 POS

15 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

"Skimming" can be defined as removing excess cash from the till during busy periods.

If you would like to enable Skimming you need to authorize it which is bb_setting bb_sales_point_of_sale::permission_skim_excess_cash this will allow a supervisor to do the skim, you set skim 'on' by setting the skim_level in the till_definition for default_till or a specific till.

There are two skim_levels... the 'warning' level is there to warn the teller that a skim is close at hand. The 'skim level' is the actual point at which a skim is required. If 'force skim' is set to on, then one has to skim to proceed, else it is optional.

All your supervisor needs to do is select the Extra button which is directly below our account and discount buttons and they can find the skim excess cash button on the menu that appears of the left hand side.

With this activated you won't have to worry about having too much cash in your till/s when your shop is at it's busiest, just another reason to have a BlueBox 2.0 powered POS.

Our Latest System Updates

04 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Just a short summary of some of our latest updates regarding the Stocking Location Reference and the Debtors and Creditors Payment Screen.

• Stocking Location Refence: this text field in the item_data table can be used to specify an 'informal bin location' which, if present, shows on pick/pack slips and stocktake sheets.
• The Debtors and Creditors Payment Screen now: has sub-totals for the amount allocated and the amount unallocated between the 'paid' column and the 'discounted' column.
• The Debtors and Creditors Payment Screen now: has a 'dynamic balance owing' for invoices. As you type into the amount paid field or the discount field it auto calculates the balance remaining.
• The Debtors and Creditors Payment Screen now: shows the name of the company being paid on the 'results page', so that when processing lots of payments you do not forget which was the last entity paid.

Would you like to hear more of our latest updates and product enhancements? Then you need to be at our first conference of the year, you can find out more details on our events page.

BB2.0 Graph Tag

02 Feb 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Need to draw a graph in BB2.0, here is a tag that will allow you to do so. It is completely customizable so you can make it look exactly how you would like it.

<!--:class:bb_widgets:draw_widget|
widget type(bar,line,table,dial etc)~
Widget Title Goes Here~
width ie 600~
height ie 300~
dial zone values eg 0,33,66,100~
dial zone colors eg green,orange,red~
Yaxis Title~
Xaxis Title~
bar line color eg green~
use trend line? 1 for yes~
use curve line? 1 for yes~
bottom buffer ie 20~
side buffer ie 20~
sql query eg:
select
round(sum(grand_totalCUR_BASE),-1) as data,
DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b') AS labels
from
bb_sales_orders
where
transaction_date >= DATE_FORMAT(DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 1 YEAR), '%Y-%m-01') AND transaction_date <= CURDATE()
group by
DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b')
order by
DATE_FORMAT(transaction_date, '%Y-%b') asc
:-->

Price and why the BlueBox is competitive

28 Jan 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

We all know that price is one of the defining factors when choosing an ERP system and I would like to discuss this and how competitive our product is; with regards to the competitiveness of our product in relation to other solutions offering the same features, I must say that I firmly believe that BlueBox is unmatched for value for money. This is why:

• Big system features for the price of small system competitors:The BlueBox system offers big system features for the price of small system competitors (100% web based, fully integrated modules, end-to-end business process management, customisable platform, multi user, multi business unit and multi currency). Often we are compared with smaller packages, but these do not offer the features or the flexibility we offer. Find out more reason why you should choose BlueBox2.0 as your business platform here. At the same time, these other packages also include various hidden costs which are often overlooked (see below).
• Fully modular solution: The BlueBox offers a fully modular solution which can be trimmed to fit the budget of our customers (ie features can be added or removed, like Sales, Inventory, Finance, Procurement etc). Modules can be added and removed on a month-by-month basis, which is unmatched flexibility in the market. You can view all of our modules on our Product Tour
• No hidden costs: The hidden cost with all our competitors is support and consultation. BlueBox believes in our all-in-one pricing model, whereby you pay the monthly fee and this includes the monthly consultation process (as required) as well as unlimited call-center support. I remember recently that I heard of a company that was delighted to hear that they could get a *big brand* ERP system for R1mil approx. Their shock was the accumulated consulting costs that amounted to another few million Rand by the time the solution was implemented.
• The BlueBox never charges for upgrades: Other companies charge annual per-seat license renewal fees, often not taken into account in the intial purchase price, and charge for every upgrade as they are released. BlueBox never charges for upgrades and includes unlimited users, thereby allowing you to scale your business without increasing the cost of your system.

This is why the BlueBox is very competitively priced for what we offer. If you are unhappy with your current system or would like a quote to find out exactly how much our system will cost you please enquire here. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us here.

New Feature To Sort Financial Doc Items by SKU CODE

19 Jan 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

This new feature sorts items by SKU_CODE in financial documents.

It will be available on the latest code from tonight, initially only on the Quote Template, but it is generically invocable using the following syntax:

<!--:class:bb_sales_quotes_items:viewlist_print|sales_quoteIS
bb_sales_quotesID=15 and bb_sales_quotes_items._id>= and bb_sales_quotes_items._id<=|bb_item_data.sku_code asc:-->

For any viewlist tag, when the second | (pipe) is called it allows you to specify the 'ordering' of the list. Up until now it was not possible to order by extended data from the item table. The new code automatically loads the item data as part of the record set and therefore you can sort by bb_item_data.any_field... the trigger being bb_item_data. in the string.

How to create quick BB2.0 tabular reports in PHP

15 Jan 2010 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A quick primer on tabular reports in BB2 written in PHP:

Using a combination of the $global[database]->sqlQuery("") and system_list_viewer you can quickly produce a BB2 tabular report.

Sample code:

<?php
$data=$global[database]->sqlQuery("
select
last_name,
first_name
from
bb_users
where
last_name>" and first_name>"
order by
last_name asc
;
");
system_list_viewer(array("show_all_columns"=>"1","data"=>$data));
?>

2010 Customer and Partner Conference

08 Dec 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

As the year winds down to a close, we thought we'd take this opportunity to announce that BlueBox will be hosting our first major South African conference of 2010, in Kwa Zulu Natal on the 17th and 18th of February next year.

BlueBox conferences are used as an opportunity for, informing the BlueBox community of new developments and enhancements to our software; providing additional insight into the functionality and flexibility of the platform, and; networking and sharing knowledge, skills and experience with other BlueBox users, partners and developers.

Invitations to existing customers, partners and developers will be sent out later this month confirming the agenda, times and venue; but please note that attendance is also open to prospective partners, customers and developers too.

Should you be interested in attending and wish to receive an invitation, please e-mail your interest to carlv@bluebox.co.za or visit our events page

Auto-Running Alerts and Functions in BB2.0

03 Dec 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Just a quick primier on the Communication->Alerts class.
This class has the ability to run a sql query, and then email or sms the results to specified recipients on an automated basis.

The class is invoked by adding the following tag to a 'frequently requestd page' in your system (probably page.template). (Note that the person requesting this page (ie a staffmember) will need permissions to run this class/method.)

<!--:class:bb_alerts:check_alerts-->

This then triggers a loop-through of all the registered alerts you have set up.

Each alert is checked for the following:

• has it's optional interval in hours passed since the last time it ran
• is the current time between the span_from and the span_to for this alert
• lastly, does the sql query yield any results

If these three conditions are met, then it processes the alert:

• it will send an email with subject and body containing possible bb2 tags which extract results from the data
• it can optionally send a formatted CSV file with the data results in csv format as an attachement
• it can also send an sms whereby the contents can contain results from the sql query as bb2 tags
• finally it logs that the alert was sent, so that it does not re-send until applicable again

Here are the fields and descriptions for the bb_alerts class:

<?php
var $name;
The name of the alert

var $name;
The name of the alert

var $alert_interval_hoursNUM;
Optional hour-span between re-sending this alert

var $alert_hour_span_fromNUM;
Optional from_hour when this alert may send communications

var $alert_hour_span_toNUM;
Optional to_hour when this alert may send communications

var $alert_sql_queryISplaintextbox;
Required: the sql query which will populate the email/sms (for alerts which do not require a query - ie alerts which run system functions - use 'select 1;'

var $from_email_detailsISsmallplaintextbox;
The from email address

var $to_email_detailsISsmallplaintextbox;
The to email address

var $cc_email_detailsISsmallplaintextbox;
Self explanatory

var $bcc_email_detailsISsmallplaintextbox;
Self explanatory

var $to_cellphone_detailsISsmallplaintextbox;
The to cell number

var $alert_email_subjectISsmallplaintextbox;
The subject of the email

var $alert_messageISplaintextbox;
The email or sms message

var $alert_csv_docnameISsmallplaintextbox;
The attached csv file doc name

var $alert_csv_layoutISplaintextbox;
The layout of the attached csv file

var $alert_run_class;
Aclass to run when this alert is run

var $alert_run_method;
The method to run for the above class

var $alert_run_variablesISsmallplaintextbox;
Optional variables for the class/method running above

var $run_silentlyYN;
No output will show if this is set

var $archiveYN;
The alert will not run if this is set
?>

Livedata function update

03 Dec 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

What happens when we run the livedata function?
The /?livedata function has recently been enhanced (latest code 1 Dec) to include a flush mechanism for the 2 system cache's which speed up system response times.

The two cache's are:

• The Menu Cache (also manually flushable via the Publishing->Menu Manager)
• The Tree Cache (which auto flushes each time a node is added to a particular tree-set ie: business units or locations)

So now, /?livedata runs through all bb2 classes, confirming that the data structure matches the codebase, and it also flushes both these cache sets.

Why would I need to run the livedata function?
The function self-heals database changes that have been introduced by any new code placed into "engine" or the "custom_modules" folders.

How do I run the livedata function?
Surf to the following url of your site - http://www.yoursite.com/?livedata - after the database has been updated you will be redirected back to your previous page.

How to draw a chart within PHP in BB2.0

13 Nov 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Here is a barchart example:

<?php
$chart=new bb_charts();
$chart=$chart->get(array(
"type"=>"bar", ⁄⁄or 'line'
"data"=>"10,20,30,40,50", ⁄⁄data is provided in comma seperated format
"data1"=>"5,10,15,20,25", ⁄⁄data1 and data2 are OPTIONAL extra comma
seperated lists for line sets 2 & 3
"labels"=>"Mon,Tue,Wed,Thur,Fri", ⁄⁄labels are provided in comma
seperated format
"legend"=>"", ⁄⁄optional
"titles"=>"Sales : ".date("d M",strtotime($week_start))." - ".date
("d M",strtotime($week_end)), ⁄⁄the title of the chart
"xaxis_title"=>"Day",
"yaxis_title"=>"R's",
"width"=>192,
"height"=>180,
"bottom_buffer"=>15, ⁄⁄optional
"side_buffer"=>0, ⁄⁄optional
));
?>

Here is a 'dial example':

<?php
$chart=new bb_charts();
$chart=$chart->get(array(
"type"=>"dial",
"data"=>round(($tot_sales_figure_for_the_week/($last_year_week_figures
["total_sales_exvatNUM"]?$last_year_week_figures
["total_sales_exvatNUM"]:1))*100),
"labels"=>"labels",
"legend"=>"",
"titles"=>"Sales vs Budget : ".date("d M",strtotime($week_start))." - ".
date("d M",strtotime($week_end)),
"xaxis_title"=>"Day",
"yaxis_title"=>"R's",
"width"=>192,
"height"=>180,
"bottom_buffer"=>15,
"side_buffer"=>0,
"zones"=>"0,80,100,113,200",
"zone_colors"=>"red,orange,yellow,green",
));
resp($chart);
?>

Here is a piechart example:

<?php
$chart=new bb_charts();
$chart=$chart->get(array(
"type"=>"pie",
"data"=>"10,20,30,40,50,60,70",
"labels"=>"Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul",
"legend"=>"",
"titles"=>"Product Mix : ".date("d M",strtotime($week_start))." - ".date("d M",strtotime($week_end)),
"xaxis_title"=>"Month",
"yaxis_title"=>"R's",
"width"=>192,
"height"=>180,
"bottom_buffer"=>15,
"side_buffer"=>0,
));
resp($chart);
?>

How to use progress buffering in BB2.0

13 Nov 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The 'progress bar' is best run in a pop-up window, so what I often do is launch it from a form:

<form enctype='multipart/form-data' action=/?xyz&global[noincludes]=rawtext method=post target=_blank>

Then in the xyz method: run this at the start:

<?php
progress_bar_start("Processing ".count($array)." entries..");
?>

then do your loop, for a POSITIVE event in the loop, use:

<?php
progress_bar_middle("Successfully added entry $count...","green",1);
?>

<- this method will create coloured o's on the buffer screen with rollover messages. For the thinner grey bars use:
 

<?php
progress_bar_middle("Successfully added entry $count...");
?>

for a negative event use:

<?php
progress_bar_middle("Failed to add entry $count...","red",1);
?>

at the end of the process use something like:

<?php
resp("Import finished.");
exit;
?>

Inventory Snapshots in BB2.0

11 Nov 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

We now have a 'snapshot' module in the inventory suite which allows for daily snapshots (or occasional snapshots) of the inventory table.

This is a summary snapshot, recording:

• location
• item/code/options
• qty on hand
• total value

It is not storing extra details(ie serial_numbers etc) (in order to keep snapshots to as small a size as possible).

To get to the snapshot module, go to Inventory->Inventory Snapshot (remember to log in freshly to get a refreshed menu).

To capture a manual snapshot simply push the 'Take a new snapshot for today' button on the snapshots dashboard.

If a second/third snapshot for any day is requested, the system flushes the old data and creates a new snapshot.

It is possible to 'autorun' snapshots after each stock take sheet is processed (but this will slow down the completion of any stocktake sheet considerably, so needs to be done with caution).

(To do this set the bbsetting_autorun_snapshots=1 for bb_inventory_stock_take)

Another 'auto' option is to run the following php script via linux system cron-job on the last day of each month:

php.exe index.php?class=bb_inventory_snapshot&method=snap&global[silent]=1&global[user_apikey]=(insert valid apikey here)

for the coders, a snapshot can be invoked silently as follows:

<?php
$snap=new bb_inventory_snapshot();
$snap->snap(array("silent"=>1));
?>

Easily embed images in emails

11 Nov 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

A little improvement to the BB2 mailer:
The ability to embed images in an email, and then refer to them by their CID within the body of the mail is now available within the BlueBox.
 

<?php
$mail[embedded_images][0]["filename"]=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].
"/portal/pertec/custom_modules/images/rhsalogoandtext.jpg";
$mail[embedded_images][0]["cid"]="rhsalogoandtext.jpg";
$mail[embedded_images][1]["filename"]=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].
"/portal/pertec/custom_modules/images/imtechlogo.jpg";
$mail[embedded_images][1]["cid"]="imtechlogo.jpg";
$mail[embedded_images][2]["filename"]=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].
"/portal/pertec/custom_modules/images/lloyds.jpg";
$mail[embedded_images][2]["cid"]="lloyds.jpg";
?>

So in the body of your email the img tag would look like:

<img src="cid:rhsalogoandtext.jpg">

BlueBox Rolls Out Satellite / Mobile Billing System

28 Aug 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Working in conjunction with one of our longstanding international communications clients, we have developed an integrated aggregation billing solution for them, resulting in a dedicated portal solution suitable for the aggregated billing of either cellular or satellite customers. BlueBox Worldwide's Managing Director, Paul de Villiers, who personally project managed this solution to conclusion, views this project as further evidence of BlueBox 2.0.'s ability to provide a solid transactional foundation for vertical solutions.

What the system does:

The principal reason behind the development of the solution was to provide a means for our client, who provides a premium time billed sattelite communications network service to their customers which is capable of monitoring and verifying resource usage by terminals in the network, to import and consolidate the time usage of their various customers, by terminal, simcard and by account, and then, using that aggregated data, generate and deliver consolidated invoices for them. The BlueBox interface enables the customer to integrate with their own applications, and, using the integration tools provided audit the success, accuracy and summary data on the import before producing the consolidated invoices and thereafter send the invoices directly off the system.

The web based system features all one would expect from a comprehensive billing system with General Ledger backing and sophisticated financial reports, including of course, the usual accounts receivable functionality such as:

> Creation of Invoices

> Issuing Credit Notes

> Capturing Payments

> View Age-Analysis

> View Account Transaction Details

> Pull Statements for view/print/email

> Print Bulk Invoices

The real-world application of this solution can, of course be extended to use in any similar business or indeed any business needing to track and consolidate unit based data for billing purposes.  BlueBox has a proud history of providing integrated solutions to a variety of businesses ranging from banks through to best brand manufacturers.

The Mobile Billing System provides more solid evidence that the BlueBox 2.0 platform scales nicely into providing solutions for verticals.

Why You Should Implement A Loyalty Kiosk

09 Nov 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

BlueBox Worldwide's Managing Director, Paul de Villiers, will be exhibiting at London's "In Store Show"  at the London Olympia from the 30th June to the 1st July, in participation with our newest UK VAR Partners, Corporate Rewards.  BlueBox's Customer Loyalty solution will be on display and the team will be available for questions and discussion.  In light of that we thought we would share Corporate Reward's answers to some of the questions about Customer Loyalty.

What Is A Loyalty Store Kiosk?

"A Loyalty Store Kiosk is a stand-alone internet based ‘Touch Screen’ branded unit , which can be placed in any retail environment with the aim to attract customers in-store to take advantage of offers and discounts.

Users simply have to pre-register their details, in-store, to become a loyalty club member. They will then receive a loyalty card which they ‘swipe’ at the kiosk to access the offers that are relevant to them.

The platform uses a points based system that allows customers to earn points for answering a call to action, spending in-store or online. They are then able to print coupons / vouchers at the kiosk that can be redeemed at the checkout via simply scanning the printed barcode.

On returning to the store, customers simply login to their personal loyalty account by swiping their loyalty card at the kiosk. Each time they login they can also earn points which encourages customers to frequently revisit a store. The amount of times a user can login in a 24hr period can be limited.

Each kiosk is free standing, can be branded, and is independent of in-store POS systems, no integration is required. The kiosk simply requires an internet connection by ether cable.

Why Should I Implement A Loyalty Kiosk Into My Stores?

In this ever increasing competitive marketplace customers are constantly bombarded with fragmented and irrelevant offers and too many mixed or unclear marketing messages. Time is a precious commodity and is a key factor in the purchasing decision process for consumers. Consumers want to make purchases quickly and efficiently based on informed decisions. For high value purchases consumers often go to great lengths to choose the right product for them, however for everyday low value purchases research shows that over 70% of purchasing decisions are made in-store. This is where a Loyalty Kiosk gives you the competitive advantage, over in-store TV, POS advertising, posters, flyers, signage and rafts of paper money off coupons.

By going directly to and interacting with a Loyalty Kiosk shoppers can immediately see what current offers are available to them. These offers can be tailored to individuals preferences through pre-survey, spend patterns and demographic data. Saving time and increasing per basket spend.

The kiosk does not necessarily replace traditional marketing it merely acts to enhance, streamline and simplify the offering, making the marketing more pertinent to the consumer and increasing higher return on marketing investment.

BlueBox to Participate in "In Store" Show in London

02 Jun 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under News.

BlueBox Worldwide's Managing Director, Paul de Villiers, will be exhibiting at London's "In Store Show"  at the London Olympia from the 30th June to the 1st July, in participation with our newest UK Partners, Corporate Rewards.  BlueBox's Customer Loyalty solution will be on display and the team will be available for questions and discussion.

Paul de Villiers will be available for meetings with any interested UK parties for the week after the show.

Should you be interested in meeting with a BlueBox representative over that time, please e-mail carlv@bluebox.co.za to book time and arrange a meeting.

BlueBox May Conference Invitation

11 May 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Events.

BlueBox will be hosting a small conference in Randburg, Johannesburg on Wednesday, 27th May 9:00am-12:00pm. 
Please consider yourself invited.

The agenda for the conference will be as follows:

Session 1: (9:00am-10:15)

1.BlueBox Mobile ERP

2.Manufacturing Costing Methods (& adding indirect costs to manufacturing items)

Session 2: (10:30am-12:00)

1.Introducing BlueBox Payroll

2.Software as a Service

Please Note: 
The conference is free to attend for anyone interested.  Should you wish to attend please e-mail Carl Verster at carl@bluebox.co.za . Carl will confirm your attendance and e-mail the conference details and directions through to you.

We look forward to seeing you.

Time Keeper Module

04 May 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

The latest module addition to BlueBox2.0 stable is the 'TimeKeeper Module' which can be found under "Tasks" section of the BlueBox System.

The main aim of this neat little module is to provide a useful visual 'report' on the live progress of each productive staff member who is responsible for producing 'billable hours' in an organization, allowing both staff members and their managers to track daily progress of billable, costed or productive time against daily targets over a monthly time period.

In essence this module allows for the capture of 'time stubs' against sales orders and eventually works orders which are, in turn calculated and summed up against the staff member's billable time target. As seen in the screenshot above "time stubs" can quickly be added by the staffmember who assigns the work done to the applicable Sales Order, along with the Date and the appropriate number of hours. The small plus link allows the capture of any additional notes. 

The manager view displays all their own staff on one dashboard and shows billable time versus the allocated target.

Any organisation needing to track the productivity of staff whose time is costed or billed for would be well advised to consider using this module to manage that time.

Mobile ERP Tools

16 Apr 2009 - Posted by The BlueBox under Development.

Hi All,

For a while I have wanted to introduce a standards-based 'thin' mobile module for BB2.0, and this last week had an opportunity to sink my teeth into this.

Essentially what the new bb_mobile module introduces is a simple method for developing mobile phone browser compatible 'screens' on top of the wealth of BB2.0 data.

See attached demo screenshots for your info.

As a kick-off module within this sub-set, I have developed a simple Sales Survey tool, which works like this:

• Setting Up the Backoffice Functions:
   
  • To Set up the Mobile Sales Surveys module, surf to Communication->Mobile Tools->Mobile Sales Surveys
  • From here you will be asked to link your salesforce with an itinerary of customers for them each to cycle through
  • You will also be able to define questions for them to answer after each sales call
• Using the Phone Browser:
   
  • All mobile screens/modules will be found by surfing your phone to http://www.yourdomain/?mobile
  • From there you will be challenged to enter a password, which is used for user lookup
  • Once authenticated, you can then select the module you wish to use (in this case there is only one -> Surveys)
  • Within the surveys module, the rep can then select the customer they have just visited (which comes from their pre-defined itinerary) and enter sundry info in a 'Notes' box about the visit.
  • By 'logging their visit' the system then looks to see if any Survey Questions require answering. If so, these are listed and textboxes provided for each answer.
  • Finally the rep can cycle back to the main page where they can start the process again for their next customer, or edit their answers from the past visit.

This module will no doubt go through the usual learning-curve of changes, and I welcome any feedback.

It is my intention to quite quickly (based on demand) expand the set of mobile sub-modules to include a powerful suite of out-of-the-box value-adds for BB2, like:

• summary sales reporting
• summary debtors reporting
• summary cashflow reporting
• stock item lookup and price verification
• stock allocation