The NAVISION Calgary & Vancouver Experts

21 Years for Open Door Technology

Malcolm Roach — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:40:01 +0000

When April 1st comes around, most people are busy dreaming up gags to play on their friends and family. Here at Open Door Technology the date has special meaning because it is the anniversary of when I left a position twenty one years ago as a Senior Manager with the Information Systems Group of KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne to go into business for myself. Leaving my job while having five children at home was a risk but I believed I could better serve clients by establishing my own operations. While working as professional accountant, I got to see the ins and outs of business operations but had never been able to actively assist clients with their systems and processes. Now I had an opportunity to help organizations run their operations more effectively by providing enterprise software solutions designed to streamline their operations. In 2000 I chose to provide and support Navision to my clients because of its flexibility and ability to customize and the business grew rapidly from that point forward. Open Door Technology became a partner with Microsoft after they purchased Navision, now known as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, in 2002. Twenty one years later, Open Door Technology has two offices, multiple software offerings, and nearly thirty employees supporting clients across Canada and the United States. We have seen great changes and challenges in our market space and as a company we are looking forward to meeting them with integrity, outstanding service, and great product offerings.

Malcolm Roach, CA
President of Open Door Technology

Why switch to Office 365? Attend our demonstration to find out.

Jenn Roach — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:37:13 +0000

Are you curious about what Office 365 is all about? Do you know the difference between Office 2013 and Office 365?

Join us at our information session at our Calgary office on Wednesday, February 27, or via webinar on Thursday, February 28, 2013.

Can you go one day at the office without at least one of the Microsoft Office products? We can’t imagine how our office would run without Outlook, Excel, Word, and Lync.

Office is arguably one of the most essential software packages we know of and a new version always means changes for our staff.  With Office 2013 being released, you and your organization may be asking yourselves the “when will I upgrade” question. We want to introduce another question to you: “HOW will I upgrade”. Your organization has others options other than installing local copies of Office on each machine.

You may want to consider Office 365, an extension of Office 2013 that allows you to:

Significantly lower IT costs by moving to cloud servers where your data is automatically backed up and duplicated to multiple data sites.
Stop worrying about deleting important email messages and experience unlimited archive capacity with your hosted Exchange Server.
Always have the latest version of Office installed on up to five devices you work with.
Communicate with co-workers through Lync Online and make collaborating, instant messaging, checking availability, and calling PC to PC seamless.
And many more…

Christian Roach, of Open Door Technology, is going to be presenting the new features and advantages of Office 365 at two separate sessions. Register today!

Click here to register for: In-person session in Calgary, AB, Wednesday, February 27: 7:30-10 am
Click here to register for: Webinar session, Thursday, February 28: 8:30-9:30 am

Excellent equipment rental software helps with staff retention

Jenn Roach — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:05:28 +0000

It can be easy to take your staff for granted when jobs are hard to come by but those times are changing. Some places in North America are already suffering from skilled labor shortages and as the economy in the United States improves, there is bound to be more pressure on employers to find and retain skilled staff. One by-product of a recovering economy is employers try to put off hiring as long as possible, which typically results in your existing staff having to put in some long hours. There are still many manual processes in many equipment rental business and they create a lot of tiring work and stress for your staff as your business grows. With the equipment rental business expected to grow over fifty percent in the next few years you need a strategy to cope with growth and change. Implementing a new Rental Management system from Open Door Technology will help your business flourish.

Equipment Software Offers Real ROI

Malcolm Roach — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 18:45:30 +0000

How often have you talked to a software salesperson promising astronomical return on investment (ROI) by implementing a new software system? Changes are that if you dig into the “facts” behind the story, you will find most of the of promised ROI is what is referred to as “soft” ROI. The story usually goes something like this. “If you implement this new software system, you are sure to be able to reduce your inventory levels by ten percent.” Unless that number if backed up by some hard evidence for your industry the promised ROI is usually just a wild guess. Genuine ROI is usually only achieved when there is room for substantial improvements in automation of current manual processes. For many companies such as wholesale distribution or manufacturing, systems are often highly automated already and available ROI is minimal. The equipment rental industry in many cases is an exception. There are still so many manual processes that a new system can achieve substantial levels of positive ROI. In areas such as checking equipment availability, invoice generation, pricing optimization, preventative maintenance, and field service, organizations can hope to achieve substantial gains by implementing a new system.

Are you going to the ARA Rental Show, February 11-13, 2013 in Las Vegas? If you are, come see us in booth 129 and don’t forget to enter our pre-show draw for a Microsoft Surface!

Manage Equipment Rental Companies and Increase Profit

Jenn Roach — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 19:04:35 +0000

Do you find your costs can outweigh your profits? Attend our webinar to learn how a complete rental management solution can increase your company’s profits.

Low profitability is not something any company likes to admit, but when there’s a solution out there that can make a difference, then it’s time to fess up.

Join us for 30 minutes at 11:00 am MT on Wednesday, August 29 OR at 11:00 am MT on Thursday, September 6 to learn how Open Door Technology’s Rental Management Solution accomplishes the following:

Easy Fixed Asset management for rentals
Complete rental order processing from start to finish
Full ERP integration, providing real-time access to information
Enhanced reporting and business intelligence
Faster invoicing to ensure increased cash flow
Advanced capabilities in the field with mobile features

Register now for one of the two webcasts to learn how you can increase profitability for your rental company!

If you have any questions, please call (877.777.7764) or email us anytime.

I survived the crash of ’97

Malcolm Roach — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:54:11 +0000

1997 seems so long ago now but the lesson from one of our client experiences is still relevant today. One day I received a call from one of our ERP software clients who found themselves in a desperate situation. Their redundant backup system had failed them and they were looking for help. The company had invested in a server with RAID 5 architecture that also had each drive mirrored. As many of you probably know, if one of the RAID 5 drives failed, they should have just been able to replace the drive and it would be automatically re-built. With the drive mirroring, it should also have been possible for the backup mirrored drive to take over from the original drive. In this situation, one of the drives still functioned but was writing garbage, which was then duplicated on the mirrored drive. Both hardware backups were rendered useless. Next the company went back to their tape backup, which was faithfully run every night with a complete backup and verified by someone in the accounting department who inspected the backup logs each morning. Unfortunately, the tape backup was useless. About the same time the person responsible for IT had left the firm about eighteen months previously and not been replaced because of downsizing in that department, the tape backup itself had come back from repair. The repair obviously hadn’t worked as the tape heads were wandering up and down randomly across the tape. Although the backup logs said the backup had worked, the tapes were useless. We tried sending them to a data recovery specialist but they were unable to recover any information. This was a rather complex business involving service, inventory, and manufacturing and we really had no idea what we were doing to do next at that point. We were able to find a close to two year old CD backup that we had created as a test for a reporting solution and happened to still be in my desk drawer. This gave us a head start on populating master files such as customers and inventory items and gave us historical financial information up to that point in time. Everything else had to be re-created manually from paperwork and took months to do. Fortunately, the company was in a relatively strong financial position and was able to survive, unlike many companies. A recent article that I read suggested that the majority of companies who go through something such as this shut their doors an average of six years after the accident.

After everything was done, we had a celebration and t-shirts were handed out with the phrase “I survived the crash of ’97″ printed on the front. I could go into numerous details here about what could have been done differently but I will keep it short. Make sure you test your backups on a regular basis, ideally on a backup duplicate server and backup system that you keep offsite. You should be able to take your offsite backup information and restore your system within twenty-four hours. And make sure you talk to someone who knows what they are doing so you can devise a proper disaster recovery strategy. That same article, by the way, said that companies that had gone through this type of experience were willing to pay almost anything to make sure they did not find themselves in this situation again.

Number of smartphone users in Canada – July 2012

Malcolm Roach — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 21:40:47 +0000

Number of smartphone users in Canada – July 2012

Organizations continue to sign up smartphones to utilize mobile solutions in Canada

Since our last article in June 2011, the number of Smartphone users in Canada continues to rise dramatically. Smartphone ownership in Canada has increased by 50% to 10,353.400 users across the country from June 2011 to April 2012, which follows a previous increase of 50% from spring 2010 to spring 2011 when there were 6.6 million users.

The mix of smartphones continues to change with Blackberry dropping by 9% down to 33%. Apple increased by 4% to 30% and Samsung increased by 4% to 13%. The average monthly airtime contract continues to be nearly $70 per month.

The top smartphone application is now social networking at 34% with weather coming in second at 33.7%. Maps show up in third at 26.6% and search engines at 16.0%.

Canadians are using smartphones daily in every aspect of their lives. The phrase “there’s an app for that” rings true as functionality continues to increase.

What does this level of user adoptability mean for organizations? With the highest percentage of smartphone ownership being amongst Canadians aged 18 to 34, the logical connection is to anticipate future employees as being not only capable of utilizing mobile technology but anticipating it in their place of work.

In the past, there have been low adoptability rates in the workplace because employees used manual processes and weren’t accustomed to utilizing mobile technology. Brad Pawlak of Microsoft has seen a recent shift in organizations views of mobility solutions.

“The workplace perception was that they wouldn’t use it, but now workers are starting to ask for it because they are using the technology in their (personal) lives,” Pawlak said.

Steve Reynolds of TBS Enterprise Mobility has been working in the mobility sector for twenty years and describes the recent growth of smartphone technology as “meteoric”. Last year the worldwide growth was in the region of one thousand percent according to Reynolds.

“The opportunity is here because people expect more from their technology,” Reynolds said.

With the growth of mobile technology expected to increase even more, Reynolds encourages organizations to start developing a strategy to take advantage of mobility solutions.

Utilizing a field mobility solution allows workforce of all sizes and industry types to lower operating costs, improve productivity, reduce the burden of paperwork, increase customer satisfaction, and keep track of field workers.

What is the difference between Dynamics AX and Dynamics NAV?

Malcolm Roach — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:11:18 +0000

Probably not as much as you might think. While Microsoft Dynamics AX likes to play in the Tier One space with SAP and Oracle, Dynamics NAV provides a very credible alternative for many companies including those at the lower end of the enterprise level. Tier One products tend to have more extensive functionality and work better for international organizations. The offset to those benefits is a much higher price tag, especially in terms of implementation services. It truly is the Tier One products that result in the room of consultants who never go away because of the effort required to implement the solution. Some Tier Two products, including Dynamics NAV, typically have very comprehensive features and offer advantages in flexibility, speed of implementation, ease of use, and the ongoing effort and cost to maintain the system. Both Dynamics AX and Dynamics NAV are excellent products. While Dynamics AX is rapidly gaining acceptance in the Tier One space, Dynamics NAV continues to be the most popular mid-market system in the world. As an avid fan of Dynamics NAV and its impressive resume, I believe Dynamics NAV will work for companies up to and potentially over two hundred concurrent users. Companies do have to confirm a functionality match but that is true even for Dynamics AX. If you are interested in a product that truly offers “rapid time to value” and would like to discuss this with us, please feel free to contact Malcolm at 877-777-7764.

Jet Reports Training for Beginner and Advanced Users

Jenn Roach — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:44:52 +0000

Back by popular demand. We are offering Jet Reports training for beginner and advanced designers all from the comfort of your own desk.

Jet Reports Basic Training Webinar

This 2 day, 3 hours per day web training is intended as a overview for those new to Jet Reports or as a refresher for those who want to brush up on the basics of designing reports for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

When: Monday, July 9th, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM MT & Tuesday, July 10th, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM MT

Cost: $450 per person

Where: Your own desk

Instructor: Christian Roach, Jet Certified Trainer and Professional

View the Beginner Course Outline & Register

Watch this video to see what you will learn in the Beginner Training session.

Jet Reports Advanced Training Webinar

This 3 hour web training will expand the fundamentals of Jet Essentials which is taught in the basic course. In this class, you will learn techniques to develop more complex, dynamic and efficient reports. Training will be presented on the latest version of Jet Reports 2012 and will highlight new features available for designing reports.

When: Wednesday, July 11th, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM MT

Cost: $325 per person

Where: Your own desk

Instructor: Christian Roach, Jet Certified Trainer and Professional

View the Advanced Course Outline & Register

Watch this video to see what you will learn in the Beginner Training session.

Please reserve your seat by clicking here to register and you can now pay online! if you have any questions regarding the training please contact Jenn at jroach@opendoor.ca.

Learn how your rental profits can outweigh your costs

Jenn Roach — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:12:41 +0000

Do Your Costs Outweigh Your Profits? Balance it out with a Complete Rental Management Solution.

Low profitability is not something any company likes to admit, but when there’s a solution out there that can make a difference, then it’s time to fess up.

Join us for 30 minutes at 11:00 am on Thursday, May 10 or at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, May 16 to learn how Open Door Technology’s Rental Management Solution accomplishes the following:

Easy Fixed Asset management for rentals
Complete rental order processing from start to finish
Full ERP integration, providing real-time access to information
Enhanced reporting and business intelligence
Faster invoicing to ensure increased cash flow
Advanced capabilities in the field with mobile features

Register now for one the two webcasts to learn how you can increase profitability for your rental company!

If you have any questions, please call (877.777.7764) or email us anytime.