Introduction So far as we’ve explored the Sage 300 ERP .Net API we’ve either read rather specific records via their key segments or we’ve browsed through all the records in a table. But more generally applications are interested in processing through subsets of the entire table in an efficient manner. For instance to get all invoices for a given customer or all G/L Accounts for a specific region. In this article we are going to look at some of the mechanisms that we provide to do this. Generally you browse through a set of records by calling the View’s Browse method to set a filter on the records and then you call the various methods like Fetch, GoTop, GoNext, etc. to iterate through the records. There are also the FilterSelect and FilterFetch routines to iterate through a selection of records. First we’ll talk about the actual filters, then we’ll return to the methods in the API that use them. Browse Filters Filters are strings that are passed as parameters to various methods in the API to restrict Views according to various criteria. This would be used when a user enters selection criteria to locate data. The format of the string expression is: expression ::= [(...] condition [)...] [Boolean-operator [(...] condition [)...]...] where: condition ::= field-name relational-operator operand Boolean-operator ::= AND | OR operand ::= field-name | constant relational-operator ::= | | = | = | = | != | LIKE An example of an expression is: LASTNAME = "SMITH" AND AGE 30 OR AGE 40 where LASTNAME and AGE are field names within the View. Brackets are allowed. Expressions are evaluated strictly from left to right unless brackets are put in. Thus, in the previous example, the expression is evaluated as: (LASTNAME = "SMITH" AND AGE 30) OR AGE 40 This is true for SMITHs under 30 years of age, and for any person over the age of 40. Put in brackets if you want the other order. For example: LASTNAME = "SMITH" AND (AGE 30 OR AGE 40) returns only SMITHs, under 30 years of age or over 40. All the relational operators work with all the field types in the expected way, except for Boolean fields, where only the = and != operators apply. Note that both operands can be fields. If they are both fields, they must be the same type. When the expression is parsed, if the second operand is a constant, it is converted to the type of the first operand (which is always a field). The filter mechanism handles all the field types, but since filters are strings, you have to know how to represent the various values as strings. Boolean fields are always TRUE or FALSE. Date fields are always formatted as YYYYMMDD. Time fields are formatted as HHMMSSHH (the last HH is hundredths of a second). The use of white space around operators, field names and constants is necessary. If a constant is a string and contains white space then it must be enclosed in quotes. The quote character (") can be embedded by using \" (no other replacements are performed). The LIKE operator is like the = operator, except the second operand can contain the wild cards % and _, where: % matches any group of characters. _ matches any single character. For example, LASTNAME LIKE “SM%” is true for any LASTNAME that begins with SM. LIKE can only be used with string field types. Optimization The internal mechanisms of our API will optimize the processing of filter strings to either convert them to SQL where clauses when processing the requests via a SQL database or will process them based on choosing the best key segment and traversing that key segment if it needs to do record based processing. Note that you should still pay attention of indexes when using SQL, SQL databases aren’t magical and do require good indexes when filtering on large tables, or the query could take quite a long time. Using Filters Sage 300 version 1.0A only ran on Btrieve as a database and the only methods that used filters were Browse and Fetch. You can still use these today and they are very useful methods. As the API evolved and we added more and more SQL support we added to these basic methods to help with performance and to make the API easier to use. The Fetch method behave very much like the Btrieve API behaves. The consequence of this is that it will sometimes do a get greater than equal to and sometimes do a get next. It will do the get GE (or get LE for going backwards) after a browse call or after one of the key segments has its value set. For UI programmers this was annoying since they are often changing the direction frequently and had to handle the case when Fetch would return the current record. To simplify this we added GoTop, GoNext, GoPrev and GoBottom. GoTop will get the first record, GoBottom the last and GoNext will always get the next record, never the current record, similarly for GoPrev. Generally I find these new methods far easier to use, and tend not to use Fetch anymore. Note that these Go methods are part of the COM and .Net APIs and are not part of the regular View API and so may not be available to other API sets, internally the .Net API translates these to the correct Fetch calls to do the job. To aid in SQL performance we added FilterSelect which will actually issue a SQL query to retrieve a results set with the indicated records. Then FilterFetch browses through these records. For Pervasive.SQL these methods work under the covers just like Browse/Fetch. But note that you can’t update records that you retrieve this way. If you want to update such a record you need to call Read first. This is due to multi-user issues as well as the semantics of how SQL result sets work. There are FilterCount which will return a count of the records that match the given filter and FilterDelete that delete’s the records that match the filter. Beware that these two functions will translate into SQL statements for SQL databases and will execute as fast as the database server can process them (which might not be fast if there aren’t indexes to exploit), and that Pervasive will iterate through the records to perform the operation. Typically you call FilterDelete only on header or flat type Views, and leave the header to call FilterDelete on the details for you. Sample Program In the sample program we add a search box where you can type a string and then the program fills the list box with any records where either customer number or customer name contains the string you typed. The sample does the search first using Browse/GoTop/GoNext and then does the same loop using FilterSelect/FilterFetch. Note that this search isn’t scalable, since the database will need to search the entire customer table looking for these substrings. But often SQL Server can do these sort of searches reasonably quickly as long as the data isn’t too big. Note that adding an index won’t help because we are looking for substrings. The more scalable way to do this would be via full text indexing or via a google like search tool. Boolean gotOne; string searchFilter = "IDCUST LIKE %" + SearchBox.Text + "% OR NAMECUST LIKE %" + SearchBox.Text + "%" ; // Fill up the list box using Browse/GoTop/GoNext ResultsList.Items.Clear(); arCus.Browse( searchFilter, true ); gotOne = arCus.GoTop(); while (gotOne) { ResultsList.Items.Add( arCus.Fields.FieldByName( "IDCUST" ).Value + " " + arCus.Fields.FieldByName( "NAMECUST" ).Value ); gotOne = arCus.GoNext(); } // Go through the records using FilterSelect/FilterBrowse but // just print them to the console. arCus.FilterSelect(searchFilter, true , 0, ViewFilterOrigin .FromStart); while (arCus.FilterFetch( false )) { Console .WriteLine(arCus.Fields.FieldByName( "IDCUST" ).Value + " " + arCus.Fields.FieldByName( "NAMECUST" ).Value); } Summary This was a quick introduction to Browse Filters in the Sage 300 ERP API. These form the basis for selecting sets of records and we will be using these extensively in future articles.
Blog Post: Using Browse Filters in the Sage 300 ERP .Net API
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Forum Post: New Report designer
Where can I download this and what advantages and disadvantages are to using this over the regular FR? Thanks for your help.
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Forum Post: Sage Version Upgrades
Hi, I'm engaged in doing two version upgrades for two of my clients. One is from 6.0 to 6.1 and other one is from 5.6 to 6.1. Q1. When I upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1 the only thing I have done was clearing (post or delete) open batches. Test upgrade was successfully completed. Is there anything special that I have to do, other than this? Q2. Do I have to execute the bank reconciliation process when I'm upgrading from 5.6 to 6.1? I'm raising this question because I didn't do any recs when upgrading from 6.0 to 6.1. (As per my experience we to post recs when upgrading from 5.4 or earlier.
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Forum Post: Need help adding add PO number to artbal01.rpt in Crystal reports
I am trying to modify the ARTBAL01 to have the report print out the PO number for each invoice on the report. Customer are always asking for that and it is a pain to look it up all the time. Any help would be appreciated.
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Forum Post: Deleted PO Generated Batch in GL
What causes the PO generated GL batch to be deleted? Client has no IC and OE, just PO. Thanks.
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Forum Post: This is embarrassing but...how do I get Sage300 w/ SQL to a 'normal' DVD
My customer has poor internet connectivity, so I want to download Sage300 with SQL here, port it on a stick to their site, install there. Easy, peasy, no? Except, the file is too big for a standard DVD so how do I do this? I am so embarrassed to even be asking. Thanks.
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Forum Post: Finder fields and defaults in Sage 300 ERP
Hello, I was wondering if anyone has come across these kinds of issues: 1. The finder fields on some of the windows do not work, especially more so in Sage payroll 7.0. When looking for words contained in a columns with auto search it doesn't bring up records you would expect to see. It is also occurring in other modules. (This happens regardless of letter case - our database is case insensitive) 2. The default settings applied to finders and column displays is not always staying in place from what was last selected. If anyone has experienced these problems please reply. Thank you! Info: Sage 300 ERP 2012 PU2, Server 2008 R2 (both MS and SQL)
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Forum Post: Import PO Receipt with Lot Numbers
Sage 300 ERP V 6.0. I am trying to import (CSV or Excel) a receipt against a PO. All items are assigned Lots. I have included the Receipt Line Lots tab and completed a value for each field. When I try to import I get the error 'Internal error. xinv_GetAndValidateFMTLot: Blank item number/lot number is not allowed. (4759 xinv.C)'. Neither the Item Number nor the Lot Number is blank. Any suggestions?
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Forum Post: Jamaica Collaboration Site
It was great meeting all of you at the Inspire Tour on November 7th, 2013. As promised I have started this discussion forum for you to collaborate and ask questions that may be specific to your region. Enjoy! Lori Maloof, Product Manager Sage Business Care
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Blog Post: The Architecture of Sage 300 ERP Integration with Sage CRM
Back in February of this year, our Sage CRM Support Specialist discussed the Sage 300 ERP Integration with Sage CRM and the specific functionalities of the Quotes/Orders Screen in our monthly partner call. We will be going over what he discussed in the next two blogs. This is a great opportunity to learn some of the integration functionalities. To gain a better understanding of how Sage 300 ERP interacts with the CRM Quotes/Orders screen, let’s start with the basic architecture of the integration. This blog will show you how Sage 300 ERP and Sage CRM work with each other and what is required to make this connection. We will focus on the two important portions needed - the Sage CRM Integration Module installed in the Sage 300 ERP side and the Sage 300 ERP Accounting Integration for Sage CRM installed in the CRM side . The diagram below shows you the first portion – the module where the communication occurs from 300 ERP to CRM. In this diagram example, the applications are installed on the same machine but 300 ERP and CRM could either be installed on separate servers and still integrate together. This module runs in 300 ERP which connects 300 ERP to the CRM install using CRM Web Services (SOAP), CRM Integration Component & CRM Synchronization Component. The CRM Web Services allows 300 ERP to talk to the CRM database. The Integration Component is installed on the 300 ERP side and plays the big role of updating information from 300 ERP to CRM. And finally, the CRM Synchronization component is used in the Web Services to communicate to CRM. Now let’s take a look at other way around. This diagram shows you what occurs when CRM is communicating with 300 ERP. This component is installed in CRM. This creates custom ASP pages that run in CRM to load 300 ERP UI screens. It connects and synchronizes data to 300 ERP using .NET Remoting and the 300 ERP Web Deployment. It also loads 300 ERP screens inside CRM using the 300 ERP Portal. If you are experiencing any problems with updating and synchronizing from CRM to 300 ERP or having a issues launching a Sage 300 ERP UI from CRM, take a look at the Web Deployment to see if it is functional or not. If it is not functional, the CRM integration is most likely going to fail as well as the CRM side. Take a look at the ASP pages in CRM, scripts written in JS files and XML portal as well. And that concludes our blog on the architecture of Sage 300 ERP integration with Sage CRM. We hope this blog has been helpful in showing you how the integration works. If you have any questions or concerns regarding integration, please let us know in the comments section. Join us next week as we take a look at the Quotes to Orders Screen in detail. For the latest support news and updates, follow us on...
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Forum Post: Issue with Hot Fix Read Me Instructions
The read-me file for hotfix 210-1002820 indicates there are 5 files to copy into the runtime directory but the extracted zip folder only contains 4 files. The file referenced in the read-me that is missing in the extract is a4wapi.dll. Has anyone used this hotfix and there is an issue with this file missing? I have confirmed this hotfix was not included in either PU1 or PU2.
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Forum Post: Exporting a List of Disbursements for a given Period
Hello everyone. I was wondering if someone could help. I need to obtain a simple list of all disbursements made within a given period and have it exported to Excel, or at least a flat file I could load into Excel. I need the report to include various basic info - vendor name, vendor number, date, amount, GL account, any description fields, etc. I havent had much luck with our internal team. I am an Accpac Novice and any help would be appreciated. Thanks
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Blog Post: Coming soon: Your new Sage Knowledgebase
We’re excited to announce that we’ll soon be putting the finishing touches on the Sage Support Knowledgebase! In late November, you will have access to our improved Knowledgebase and self-service experience. New features include the following: Easier information access. We’ve made it easier to find the topics you’re looking for quickly so you can get back to doing what you love. Logon access for a more personalized experience based on the products you use. Create an easily accessible “My Products” list, bookmark favorite articles, and save common searches. ”Guided search”—Answer questions based on common scenarios to find your solution. An expanded Sage product list—Browse through the complete Sage product list to research articles on any Sage product by version. Don’t forget that with a single search you’ll be able to access product documentation and other resources to help you get the most out of your Sage products. You can also use the Knowledgebase 24/7 to access additional support features, such as: Tax update links. Support resources, including featured and most popular Knowledgebase articles, which you can also share by email or social media. Article ratings as created by you, our customers. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the new Knowledgebase, let us know in the comments and we will try our best to answer them. For the latest support news and updates... Follow us on...
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Forum Post: Crystal Reports Viewer in 2012
Back in version 5.6 we could do the following: 1. When exporting to Excel there was a page range choice - now in 2012 it is no longer there. 2. When using the binocular search tool on the report preview page, you could have the finder box up at the same time you move from page to page (ex: it would act like the find box does in excel). Now in 2012 you have to close the finder window to move page to page and then re-open it again. So it seems to me the report preview tool in 5.6 had a lot more functionality then it does in 2012. Why? Can Sage go back to the more functional tool?
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Forum Post: Contract Pricing by Quantity
Hello - Is there any way to enter contract pricing for a specific item with different pricing for larger quanties ? I have several customers who get diffent pricing if they order 1-10 of the same item, 10-20, etc. Thanks in advance.
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Comment on Export
Stephen - from your first screen print, this looks like customer data. How could I do the same with vendor data, say all payments made to all vendors over a given timeframe? Thanks.
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Blog Post: Product Update 3 for Sage 300 ERP 2012
Product Update 3 for 2012 will be available late January. This Product Update will include important Hot Fixes. Most importantly it will include Service Pack 7 from Crystal. This Service Pack resolves the slow printing performance that many customers experienced in 2012. We sincerley apologize for the disruption this has caused to our customers. I will update this blog post with more details once the final date is known.
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Forum Post: Customizing SWT Order entry screen from CRM
Hi Guys, I am running into a problem and I hope somebody out here can help me out. I am working on Sage CRM 7.1 integrated with Sage 300 ERP and I have 3 specific requirements regarding Web order UI which I am not able to figure out. 1. Editable Tax Groups You all might know that in ACCPAC, on Order entry process we can specify the Tax Group. However in CRM Order entry screen this field becomes read-only as the information comes from customer promote screen. I want these Tax groups to be editable so that user can select. 2. Category field in Line items There is finder field named Category in ACCPAC line items on Order entry screen. Somehow this field is missing from the available list of fields in CRM. I was successful to add the field by changing UI definition and mapping files. However I am not able to get the finder on the field. Any suggestions for this? 3. Item level taxes In ACCPAC we can use Item Taxes while creating order. Why is this process missing in CRM. If I want to achieve similar functionality, what would be the workaround. Regards, Dinesh -------------------------------------- Greytrix It's time to think outside the box. ** Need to Integrate your solution with Sage ERP X3 : Email - x3@greytrix.com** GUMU - Migration and Integration Solutions for Sage CRM, Sage CRM Cloud, Sage Pro, Sage 100/300/500 & ACT/SalesLogix by Swiftpage Follow us : YouTube | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook blogs: SageCRM | Sage 300 ERP | Sage ERP X3 | Sage 100 & ACT E-mail: accpac@greytrix.com | web: www.greytrix.com | Support : Live Help --------------------------------------
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Forum Post: "manual" integration to UPS/FedEx
A customer moving from Sage PRO to Sage300 wants to stick with their Clippership UPS/FedEx integration product instead of going to SmartLinc or other products. There is no previously written integration to Sage300, apparently. The customer have asked us to provide the database information for the Clippership folks to write an integration. I don't know whst they would want or need, and don't have the bandwidth to figure it out right now (they need this done "NOW", of course). I'm sure someone out here has knowledge/experience doing this. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we'd probably contract with someone to help this process. Please contact me if you have expertise in this area. Email is best (mary.clark@waccg.com) as I am out of the office pretty much all day, every day right now. Thanks.
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Blog Post: The Sage Visions and Sage Connect 2013 Conferences
Introduction I’ve just returned from attending first the Sage Visions 2013 conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and then a couple of weeks later the Sage Connect 2013 conference in Sydney Australia. In this blog posting I thought I’d provide a few highlights from these conferences and a few points of interest from my trips. Ho Chi Minh City Ho Chi Minh City is a city of 9 million people and 5.5 million motorbikes. There aren’t many traffic lights and traffic tends to be a continuous stream of motorcycles. Crossing the street is an adventure, since traffic never stops and there are never any breaks in the traffic. You have to just start crossing the street walking slowly and steadily, then all the motorbikes just flow around you. This is a bit un-nerving at first, but by the time you are ready to leave, you start to get used to it. It’s interesting to visit all the historical sites that were famous from the Vietnam war like the Presidential Palace , the CIA headquarters (now an apartment building) and the Chu Chi Tunnel Complex . Generally Ho Chi Minh City is quite in-expensive to visit and has some interesting attractions, it is a very vibrant and bustling city that feels it is moving in the right direction. They are building a subway system that is half finished and are starting to build a bullet train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Below is a picture of yours truly with Ho Chi Minh in front of city hall. Sydney I’ve visited Sydney a few times now, so I find it a relaxing place to visit since I know my way around and I’ve already seen most of the tourist attractions. The Connect conference was held in the InterContinental Hotel which is about a block from the Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House . Sydney has some great restaurants and things to do. I like jogging along the seawall past the Royal Botanical Gardens and swimming in the Andrew Charlton Pool . Below is a picture I took out of a helicopter on a tour of the harbor. Roadmap In both conferences we presented the current roadmap for Sage 300 ERP. As always with forward looking slides, they are subject to change. The dates in this version are for North America. The release of the various cloud products varies a bit from region to region. For instance in Australia they have had Sage Inventory Advisor for over a year and are just introducing Sage Payment Processing. The roadmap shows the four main streams that we are working on, namely the Sage 300 ERP core product, the forthcoming Sage 300 Online 1.0, all the connected services and then the Sage 300 Online 2.0. As we are moving to operate more as a cloud company, we will introducing features into the market quicker. For the Sage 300 Online we will be deploying new features into the cloud as they are ready. Then bundling them up for product updates to release for on premise customers. The arrows for the product updates are just meant to be frequent rather than commitments to specific dates. Lots of Feedback As always, it’s great to get lots of feedback on the product from all the partners and customers. I always bring this all back to the R&D and Product Management teams in Vancouver. But remember, everyone can provide feedback at any time using our feedback website at: https://www11.v1ideas.com/Sage300ERP/Accpac . At this site you can see all the suggestions we implemented and those we plan to implement. You can also vote on the suggestions and see which suggestions are getting the most votes. Both R&D and Product Management watch this list and choose items to implement from the top of the list. So the best way to get changes implemented is to enter them here and get your friends to vote for them. The Cloud It was fun demo’ing our various cloud products including Sage 300 Online , Sage Mobile Sales , Sage Billing and Payments and Sage Mobile Service . I only managed to demo one of these at each conference, but they were all well received. The main question being when they would be available in these regions. There was a lot of interest in Sage 300 Online since a lot of customers are looking for ways to avoid managing their own servers, especially in regions that can be hit by typhoons and other natural disasters. Having someone else install new versions and update data for you is also a big draw. Fortunately there are Microsoft Azure data centers in Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong and Melbourne to serve these markets. Economic Outlooks At the Sage Visions conference the top awards were taken by Thai business partners as growth in Thailand has been on an upswing after a period of suffering the global economic slump, political problems and a major flood. Then the other South Eastern Asian countries are a bit of a mixed bag with some doing ok and some still suffering. In Australia, they are suffering a bit from a high Australian dollar, but the housing and construction industries seem to be well into a recovery. Partners appear to have had a good year and are hopeful that the global economic downturn is behind them. Their growth is currently running at 2.6% and interest rates seem lower than previously. Their big worry is what is happening in China and what demand will be for their natural resources. Summary Attending international Sage conferences is always fun. I enjoy meeting up with all the partners in a region and meeting with a number of customers. Providing new information on Sage 300 and getting feedback on the various concerns in these regions. Plus the great opportunity to play corporate tourist and see some parts of the world that I wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to visit (otherwise known as playing in the Amazing Race, Corporate Edition).
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