4th Quarter 2007


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Click Here for our Current Hardware and Software Specifications for
La Crosse Nextgen

In this Issue:
Seminars and Conferences

Casino Night Once Again a Hit at the Fall 2007 La Crosse Customer Conference

Fall 2007 La Crosse Customer Conference The Fall 2007 La Crosse Customer Conference had some new guests this year. To open up the first day, we had the new CEO of La Crosse Management Systems Don Weary give a presentation on the new direction of our company. We were also glad to have 2 other guests with us, Brian Morabito from NET1 Payment Solutions and Darrell Leven from SalesChain.

With three education tracks to choose from, attendees were kept plenty busy for the 4-day conference. Each spring and fall, there are 3 tracks provided for different users of the system: La Crosse Nextgen, Raptor products, and Data Mining/Script Writing. The Nextgen Rev It Up sessions were packed with new information about the latest software enhancements and many new useful features. According to one of our instructors, this was the best year we've had so far for the Best Practices session, as it was great seeing customers provide their own solutions to common user issues while discussing everyday Nextgen use in their own offices.

Fall 2007 La Crosse Customer Conference We sincerely thank all of those who attended for taking the time out of your busy schedules to participate in this year's conference. We certainly hope you will be back next spring (April 2008) for a whole new round of sessions. We will continue to provide quality training to you and your staff. Thanks to those who completed their customer surveys and gave us some very nice comments and suggestions.

 Fall 2007 La Crosse Customer Conference
"Thank you for all your help with the user conference. I thought the event was very well planned and organized. We had great results. I look forward to working with you and your customers. "
Darrell Leven
VP Sales and Marketing
SalesChain LLC, Kansas City





"The opportunity to informally discuss concepts is most helpful."
Peter Mariahazy
Director of Technology and Human Resources
Modern Business Machines, Appleton, WI

"I picked up several valuable tips on linking common tables through primary and secondary keys, as well as learned more efficient summing formulas in Excel sheets with queries. Your explanations of e-commerce and credit card processing were excellent."
Gary Feucht
Banker's Equipment Services, Inc., Burnsville, MN



La Crosse Seminar and Conference Schedule for 2008

2008 La Crosse Seminar Calendar Be on the lookout for our 2008 La Crosse seminar calendar. Seminar and conference dates are now being scheduled and will be posted on our website soon. Thank you very much to all those who attended our 2007 seminars and conferences. We look forward to seeing you again soon. Your continued support of our software products is much appreciated!

For all of you early starters, the first seminar of 2008 is tentatively set for Tuesday through Friday, January 15-18, 2008. The topic of discussion will be Crystal Reports/Microsoft Excel. Our online registration page will be up and running soon. Hope to see you in January 2008! Check out http://www.lacrossesoftware.com soon for updated information.


Current News

New Advertising Agreement with ENX Magazine

ENX Magazine La Crosse Management Systems has recently agreed to advertise with ENX Magazine. This move is just another step in our journey to tap into the print management market, as well as the printer supply and toner refilling/recharging market. ENX Magazine is a monthly sourcing trade publication dedicated to the document imaging equipment and supplies industry. More than 40,000 copies are sent to the dealers, wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers and resellers to facilitate locating, buying and selling of equipment, parts, supplies and services. ENX Magazine provides business profiles, business and service management articles and technical tips, and is a prime source to locate wholesale equipment, parts, supplies and services and the most cost effective medium to promote your business. They can be seen at annual trade shows which include ITEX at the Las Vegas Convention Center and World Expo at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Learn more about ENX Magazine



A Message from Brian at NET1 Payment Solutions

NET1 Payment Solutions Dear La Crosse Customer Conference Attendees:

It was nice to see you at the conference! I had a wonderful time meeting everyone. I hope you learned more about credit card processing and the new credit card module while you were there. Please keep in mind that at the end of Fall 2007, La Crosse and NET1 will be rolling out the new credit card processing module that will be a part of your software. Not only will this help automate your phone and fax credit card orders, it is also very easy to set up and learn.

With the new credit card processing module from NET1 Payment Solutions:
  • You can process level 2 and level 3 to reduce your rates even further.
  • Cut cost by eliminating phone lines by using a web based virtual terminal.
  • You can save process more credit cards in less time
  • You can save time by eliminating the need to re-key card information in your stand-alone terminal.
If you would like further information on how to take advantage of the program, please contact me or fax your most recent merchant statement to 571-222-0042. Thanks again!




User Tips

Dealing with Speed Issues in Nextgen

Dealing with speed issues on your system can be a trying and time-consuming experience at your company site. It is the job of the IT staff to make sure that system users are able to work efficiently and that your system performs at a reasonable speed for the hardware and software that you have available. Here are some questions to ask yourself as the on-site IT or Network Support Specialist in order to get a good idea of what a speed issue is really about and how to get a good handle on the situation:

Before Discovery of any Causes to Speed Issues:
  1. Has a baseline analysis been performed for the environment? If so, how long ago was it performed?
  2. What is slow? Is it the entire system or just certain applications or reports?
  3. Is it slow for everyone or just certain users?
  4. Is it slow all the time or only during certain times of the day?
Upon Discovery of a Speed Issue:
  1. Where is the bottleneck specifically?
  2. Does it occur in an application or in the database?
Diagnostic Tools and Possible Solutions
  1. Use Windows Performance monitor or various other monitoring tools to discover how current system activity differs from the baseline.
  2. Use Network Monitor or various other monitoring tools to discover how current network activity differs from baseline.
  3. Once the bottleneck has been identified, the next step is to discover the event or activity that is responsible. Possible causes may be external factors on the server or network, an application that is processing an unusually high number of records, an SQL script that is being run, or a crystal report accessing the database and slowing the system down.
If you are having problems with Microsoft SQL Server specifically, you may find this resource very helpful:

How to Troubleshoot Slow-Running Queries on SQL Server 7.0 or on Later Versions


Work with States
  • This is a new grid as of the 20070601.00 update that will store the 2 character state abbreviation. It will be shipped with the default list. For non US customers or people who do business outside the states, additional codes can be entered up to a length of 50 alpha characters. During the update, the default list of state abbreviations are entered in this list along with any abbreviations currently used in the State field (this also means International customers will have their currently used codes added to the list).
  • This is currently used in the Customer Wizard and Vendor Wizard only. It will be expanded to other areas of the system in the future.
  • This can be found in File Maintenance > Order Entry > Work with States.

Call Back Update in Night Auditor
  • A stored procedure can be run in Night Auditor that will look at calls completed before the end of each day and re-evaluate the call type based on days and copies. Both days and copies must indicate that it is for calls other than CB type service calls.
  • The program will only look at the primary meter of metered items.
  • This can be found in Night Auditor.

Invoice Printing
  • As of the 20070601.00 update, an option (check box) was added to "Always Print" in Invoice Printing (Select Transactions for Printing panel). When this option is selected, it does not check if the Bill To customer on the invoice is set to Receive Invoices by email. If this is not selected, and the Bill To customer on the invoice has an email address at the entity data level, an email is sent which contains a website link to view all invoices.
  • This can be found in Daily Activities> Order Entry> Invoice Printing.

Work with Dormancy Reasons
  • This is a new grid in Telesales that allows you to set up and define reasons to be used which indicate why sales for a particular customer have been dormant.
  • This can be found in File Maintenance > Telesales > Work with Dormancy Reasons.

Work with Profile (Prospect Profile)
  • This is a new panel and grid that allows you to store additional prospect information. This data is informational only at this time.
  • This can be found in File Maintenance > Telesales > Work with Telesales Prospects: Process or Right Click > Prospect Profile.

Contact Information

La Crosse Management Systems, Inc.
La Crosse International, Inc.
200 Main Street
Suite 220
La Crosse, WI 54601
Phone: 608-784-8400
Fax: 608-791-5660
Email: info@lacrossesoftware.com
Website: http://www.lacrossesoftware.com
  • CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUPPORT: For questions or concerns regarding software or technical support issues, please send an email to LMS Support at support@lacrossesoftware.com.
  • TRAINING SEMINARS/ON-SITE TRAINING: For questions or concerns regarding seminars, conferences, product orders, or on-site training, please send an email to LMS Sales at sales@lacrossesoftware.com.
  • FACILITIES: For questions or concerns regarding a hotel or other facility, please see our Travel Tips page http://www.lacrossesoftware.com/traveltips.html.
  • GENERAL INFORMATION: For all other inquiries, please send an email to info@lacrossesoftware.com.
  • WEBMASTER: If you are experiencing difficulty viewing this page or accessing the La Crosse Management Systems website, please send an email to nickl@lacrossesoftware.com.
Copyright © 2007. La Crosse Management Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
All trademarks and trade names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.