Here are my initial thoughts/observations:

• The client interface customization workbench (Customization Tools Dialog) reminds me allot of FrontOffice/Clientele customizations.  I always like the Clientele way of doing customization as you totally eliminate the manual deployment of customization to every desktop.  Development of customizations can be performed on any client (in most cases) and then simply submitted to the main repository.  A user logs onto their client and voila the customizations are refreshed into their environment.  It couldn’t be easier!
• 

  Properties Editor

  The Customization Tools Dialog is very similar to Visual Studio development environment when it comes to looking at form objects and reviewing/setting their properties.  Documentation is a little light or non-existent on some of the properties of the various object types.

• 

  Script Editor

  The Customization Tools Dialog script editor is one of my least favorite.  NO INTELLISENSE!  If IntelliSense was available it would save us time to having to refer to the object model that we are working with or adding.

• Customizing Reports is quite easy.  In just a few steps you can add new data to any report and of course your company logo.  I really like that the Crystal Report data connection is to an XML file.  Epicor 9.0x generates these XML file when running a report.  If you’ve changed the data model for a report by adding new fields and ran the report, the XML document contains these new fields.  Refresh the data connection in Crystal and the new field is available.  Now I still need to look at report implementations using stored procedures.
• Core BAQs do not exist.  Having to modify certain BAQs require a complete rewrite.

Again these are my first impressions/thoughts.  I have yet to perform extensive customizations/changes.

If anyone has anything to add please let me know.

My next post will be with the ICE 2.x SDK for performing more in-depth customizations and to create new applications.  Sometimes you can use it for simple things too!  Such as, adding a parameter to an existing core report without having to recreate the BAQ manually.

If you allow image/media uploads for content using a WYSIWYG editor, it is not Group aware!  As a result, anyone can view the images/media uploaded by others from other groups even if they do not have access to that group while creating their own content.  All uploads are found in the same area for the site and not separated by groups.

This is a security concern for groups who may be posting charts and graphs that are confidential.  Private groups need to remain private which includes all its’ content.

It is our suggestion to disable the upload capability of any WYSIWYG editor you might be installing. 

Anyone what to make CKEditor uploads Group friendly :)

Social Media Tools: Cooking Up a Collaboration Web Site with Drupal & Open Atrium

While reviewing the Open Atrium issue tracking site on github many users (including myself) have/had issues getting a WYSIWYG editor working.  For me, the first time I tried to install FCKEditor, I could not get it to work.   I then realized that I may have forgotten a step.  When I retried I got it to work.  Since then, I have had it work on various test installation without any issues.

In this video, I go through an installation of Open Atrium and the FCKEditor.  The following is the outline of the video:

• Installation of Open Atrium (1.0 beta 1)
• Installation of Drupal FCKEditor Module (http://drupal.org/project/FCKeditor )
• Installation of  latest FCKeditor (http://www.fckeditor.net)
• Enable Drupal FCKEditor Module
• Set Permissions for FCKEditor module

Open Atrium – Installation and WYSIWYG Editor from iAutomate on Vimeo.

Hope this helps.

The issue came when we tried to launch our custom reports from SharePoint (SSRS was installed as SharePoint Integration mode).  We would get the following system error:

“no connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 443″

SSRS was not configured to use any SSL port and we definitely knew it was security related.  The windows event log pointed us into this direction.  The AD user assigned to the services, application pool, and databases was all good.  We tried many variations and still no success.

After a day of trying new things (everything), searching on Microsoft Sites, Forums and blogs, we could not find a solution.  I left the client having to contact Microsoft for assistance.  After a little over 4 hours on hold, Microsoft was able to assist by going through a series of checks.

All it took was the change of one setting.  In the rsreportserver.config file there is a key titled “SecureConnectionLevel”. The following is from MSDN:

Specifies the degree to which Web service calls must us Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). This setting is used for both the Report Server Web service and Report Manager. This value is set when you configure a URL to use HTTP or HTTPS in the Reporting Services Configuration tool. Valid values range from 0 through 3, where 0 is least secure.

rsreportserver.config

The value we had was set to “2″.  When we changed it to “0″ the system message went away. When we look at the Configuration Manager we do not have anything set for SSL.

So happened?  We are not sure.  It is possible that the SSL setting was provided during initial install but when removed the setting remained.

It only takes one setting to cause so much grief!  The good news, we are up and running.

Thanks Microsoft.

The news of Open Atrium first beta release came just as we needed to get something up and running. We were quick to download and install. It was a very clean and an easy process to install and with a couple days we were up and running with one customer for our own beta testing.

Open Atrium is an intranet in a box that has group spaces to allow different teams to have their own conversations. It comes with six features – a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a to do list, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage it all. This solution is build using Drupal and is easily extended and customizable.

What we liked about the Open Atrium solution was the ability to have groups with their own respective members.  This allows use to create a group for each customer project and allow our managers to add customer members.  Also, our managers can be assigned to multiple groups and get an over view of the activity of their groups on one dashboard.

There are so many other features and options that we like.  Read the rest of this entry to see a demonstration.

We plan on posting again on our implementation of Open Atrium about our successes, challenges, enhancements, and more.

The following is a demonstration video put together by Development Seed.

The current beta is quite stable.  Make sure to visit Open Atrium for more information.

I’m very excited about the opportunity to attend Perspectives 2009, Epicor’s Global User Conference, scheduled for November 8-10, 2009. There will be multiple days of hands-on education, networking with industry peers, and over 500 sessions to choose from. The conference offers content directly applicable to my work on the (insert: project(s) or initiatives you are working on) and will allow me to network with a number of Epicor product experts and over 2000 Epicor users. Many of the technical presentations cover how to reduce costs, increase ROI and deal with compliance issues.

Click here to learn more and hope to see you there.

Our new blog will cover items in our area of expertise.  This may include post related to Epicor’s software products, Microsoft development languages and platforms, web development and content management systems, iAutomate events and activities, and much more.

Hopefully you will find these posts informative and helpful.

We look forward to your comments,

AlAiN
President and Owner of iAutomate Inc.
www.iautomate.ca