FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
help@albaspectrum.com, USA: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918,
Europe: +44 20 8123 2580, +45 36 96 55 20,
LATAM: México DF: 52-55-535-04027, São Paulo: 55-11-3444-4949
Alba Spectrum Technologies
To see Oracle Financials or SAP Business One FAQ - please visit our SAP and Oracle pages
Q Why your hourly rates are so competitive?
A We do not have full time sales people, our website is our "fulltime 24X7" Marketing Director
Q Do you have Dexterity developers in staff?
A We do currently have 2 Dexterity developers in our Chicago suburb locations, one Dexterity developer in East Coast in our network, 2 in Sao Paulo, Brazil plus 10 in Manila
Q Our current VAR have just eliminated its Dexterity development group and we depend upon their customization which is not functioning according to specs yet and has many bugs in it. Would you be willing to take over and finish this project for us?
A Sure. We specialize in such recovery projects. We currently have 5 Dexterity developers. Click on our marketing director icon on the right side above.
Q We have multiple offices in several countries. How do you serve to companies, like us?
A We specialize in remote support, including installations, training and upgrade. We do 75% of our support via remote connection. Plus we specialize in international projects - multicurrency, country specific reporting, subsidiaries consolidation, etc.
Q How many Microsoft CRM projects have you implemented so far?
A Twelve (05/23/04). We do .Net C# (Microsoft CRM SDK language of choice) development since 2001 and we do MS CRM SDK development since its beta releases back to Autumn 2002. We have two MS CRM consultants/developers in Chicago and we have several C#, .Net, MS CRM SDK developers overseas in our offshore development team, so we can help with both small scope as well as big MS CRM projects
Q What is your Crystal Reports expertise?
A We have complete knowledge of Great Plains and MS CRM tables/views and we had produced the most ever possible complex reports, based on MS SQL views and Stored Procedures as well as based on Crystal Queries (analog of SQL Views for Pervasive SQL and Ctree). All of our consultants have maximum of Crystal Reports expertise.
Q Do you do migration from Great Plains Accounting to Microsoft Great Plains?
A We do following migrations:
* GPA->Great Plains (6 done)
* Great Plains on Pervasive SQL -> Great Plains on MS SQL Server/MSDE (10 done)
* Intellisol APOP -> Great Plains POP (1 done)
* Third Party Products for Great Plains from Pervasive SQL/Ctree to Great Plains on MS SQL Server/MSDE (even if Third Party doesn't have migration tool)
* Fixed Assets from legacy system -> Great Plains Fixed Assets
* All the migrations from Legacy Systems to Great Plains via Integration Manager
* All the migrations from Legacy Systems to Great Plains via SQL DTS/Stored Procs/Custom Queries, when Integration Manager doesn't cover
* You name it
Q Can you integrate our legacy asp web pages into MS CRM web environment?
A We have such project done. We've kept the legacy asp hosting IIS server and transfer data to MS CRM via custom http handler, calling web service with MS CRM SDK logic.
Q We have tons of Great Plains ReportWriter reports which we could not upgrade to new version. We can not redo all these reports, because they have all the graphics and custom calculated fields
A We specialize in conversion of ReportWriter reports without redoing them from scratch, even if MBS specifies that these reports are not upgradeable.
Q Do you have any barcode experience?
A We've implemented several barcode projects for third party applications (see case studies), we do provide barcode solutions for Great Plains, deploying Great Plains third party bar code modules. We also have all the expertise to provide you with Dexterity or Microsoft SQL Server DTS package customization to address unique barcode needs.
Q Do you have warehouse management expertise?
A Yes, see our case studies.
Q What is your expertise in Microsoft Retail Management (RMS)?
A We have several clients with RMS Store Operations and RM Headquarters (5 clients: 01/01/04). We also participated in RMS Headquarters - Great Plains Accounts Receivable integration. You can order this integration from Focal Solutions: www.focalsolutions.com. If you are small merchant and need quick and inexpensive RMS implementation - we will be happy to help you, however you may find RMS consulting companies, who do this on the daily basis. If your RMS system needs tight integration with Great Plains, CRM, other application plus you need some customization - then we are really excellent fit here.
Q Do you do Great Plains Manufacturing?
A We subcontract it or recommend our client/prospect the best VARS who specialize in Great Plains Manufacturing projects. We however do specialize in Bill of Materials projects. So feel free to check with us, before going with full-size manufacturing solution in case if you have light manufacturing only. Bill of Materials with light customization and Crystal Reports may be very cost efficient solution. In fact - we have a case when client asked us to move them from third party manufacturing to Great Plains Bill of Materials, see our case studies.
Q Do you have any Solomon expertise?
A We had couple of Solomon projects in the past. So, we could be good fit in case of migration from Solomon to Great Plains. Give us a call to get recent news from Microsoft, regarding market niches of Great Plains, Solomon and Navision.
Q Can you provide us independent SQL Server performance analysis?
A Yes, we have Microsoft Certified Database Administrator and Microsoft Certified System Engineer in staff. We do provide such service on regular basis. Plus we had several cases when we have optimized rebuilding of Microsoft Data Warehouse. If you have Great Plains or Microsoft CRM - consider us to be your Microsoft Business Solutions VAR to address SQL issues with third party applications.
Q Do you have Lotus developers in US?
A Yes and no. They are traveling in US and staying in our Naperville office, but they are based primarily in our Moscow office. We prefer remote support, however in some cases they have to go onsite, mostly for complex recovery. The same should be said about JSP developers. Having Lotus/JSP and Great Plains programmers we do integrations of these systems and this is rare expertise on the market.
Q Who hosts your website? Who is your web designer?
A We do self-hosting of our website and it is our in-house development. You can use our cascading menus for free by looking the source code of HTML publishing - it is client side JavaScript. The buttons from the left are .Net custom web control, inherited from radiobutton group. Let us know if you like to deploy them for your website - we would be happy to provide you with source code and help your developers to deploy it. We can provide your web designer with support procedure which will require her/him to use Front Page for nominal fee. If you wish to modify buttons - MS Visual Studio.Net is required. We can create web site for you with data publishing on .Net or JSP platform.
Alba Spectrum Technologies
USA: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Deutschland (0177) 8349 806, help@albaspectrum.com
Great Plains Dexterity Customizations Dynamics eEnterprise Microsoft CRM Microsoft RMS Crystal Reports SQL .Net C# International