Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been a growing trend in the last couple of years. Any business owner knows that your sales team is only as good as the tools and the people it employs. Dynamics CRM is the right solution for your unique business needs because your sales team is able to market and sell your goods or services efficiently and effectively.

Sales people need a way to monitor, track and record sales force automation, marketing campaigns and funnel management. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 focuses on 5 aspects of the sales cycle: Sales, customer care, marketing, social and technology.

Here is a list of benefits that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 as to offer:

• Easily configurable
• Powerful tablet applications
• Touch-optimized phone applications
• Communicate with ease (Microsoft Lync, Skype, Yammer)
• Real Time Workflow
• Enhanced business processes

At WebSan Solutions, we offer robust, integrated end-to-end software solutions for managing your business.

Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc., a Canadian Certified Microsoft Partner

WebSan Solutions, largest Canadian Cloud Dynamics GP Partner, has been named a 2013 VAR Star by Bob Scott’s Insights magazine. http://bobscottsinsights.com/

The Top 100 are chosen from organizations specializing in the sale and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning and accounting software.

The selection of mid-market accounting software resellers for Bob Scott’s VAR Stars rest on one basic principal: quality, not revenue, as the deciding factor in picking the 100 businesses that are selected for this honor.

A variety of criteria go into the definition of quality including including awards resellers have received from vendors, such as the Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club and Inner Circle, Million Dollar Club and Chairman’s Club of Sage North America. Other factors involved in the selection include performance, contribution to the industry and reputation.

“We are pleased to be recognized as a Top 100 VAR” said Andrew King, Managing Director. 

Saturday’s ice storm was one of the worst ice storms in Toronto’s history. A utility company described the ice story as‘ far worse than imagined. Forestry crews have been brought in to help cut up and move massive tree limbs littering streets and roadways. Over 225,000 homes and businesses are still without heat and light across the city. The city is currently working to restore power and heat across Toronto. (Source: metronews)

It was business as usual here at WebSan Solutions! We experienced no issues throughout the storm and our backup generating system was on standby if needed. Our Microsoft Dynamics GP Hosted environment was up and running without a hitch. You always have access to your data, through our secure network, in our SAS70/SSAE16 certified data centre!

WebSan Solutions is dedicated to helping all businesses make better business decisions by improving their access to important company data and information, in rain or shine!

Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc., a Channel Elite Awards Winner for 2013

It will surely be!

 Many business owners that are in the process of expanding their company will need a bigger and better ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to handle day-to-day business operations. According to a report called “ERP – The Cuckoo in the Cloud Land”, 84% of respondents said that they used at least one form of ERP. More businesses are moving to the cloud for a number of reasons which can include: Lowering the cost of ownership, becoming eco-friendly and reducing dependence on internal IT personnel.

The report also advocates 2014 will be the year of the ERP cloud. According to survey respondents, 14% have fully migrated an ERP system to the cloud, with the majority (31%) saying they will migrate in the next 12 months. A further 27% said they’d be in by the end of 2015.The report also conducted a survey of critical areas of the organization that were important to business owners and SQL databases got 69% of the vote, followed by ERP (66%) and accounting and finance apps (66%),Business intelligence (48%) and CRM (40%).

At WebSan Solutions, we offer an online (SaaS) hosted-enterprise business software solution, leveraging the vast capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics GP. Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) is one of the top-rated accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solutions on the market today.

Not everybody is convinced about moving to the cloud, but in time that will change. If you have any questions about ERP Cloud or migrating to the cloud, contact us for more information.

WebSan Solutions Inc. has won silver in the Best Small Business Solution category for this year’s CDN Channel Elite Awards. http://www.computerdealernews.com/channel-elite-awards/winners

This award honors the partner that has created the most innovative and problem-solving hardware, networking, cloud or software-based solution for an organization or department with up to 100 seats or less using the solution.

CDN is the voice of Canada's IT channel community for more than 25 years and defines an information technology solution provider as an organization that resells computer hardware, software or peripheral products along with providing IT-related professional services, support services, consulting in a cloud or on-demand environment, on-premise fashion or as managed service.

Congratulations WebSan Solutions! Well done team!

By: Natalie Williams, Application Developer, WebSan Solutions Inc. a Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner and 2013 Canadian Channel Elite Awards Winner.

TSQL doesn't handle multiple transactions very well.  In fact it doesn't handle it at all.  So what do you do when you have nested stored procedures, all which require transaction handling?

TSQL has a built in function that will return the number of BEGIN TRANSACTION statements that have been called on the current connection.

@@TRANCOUNT

Using this you can choose whether to begin a transaction or not based on the value it returns.  If it returns a number greater than 0 then you are currently in a transaction.

However if it returns a 0 then there were no other transactions and you are free to start one.  The best way to do this is to set a variable that indicates if a transaction is needed, since when you start your new transaction and you try to check again when you need to do a rollback or commit, @@TRANCOUNT will not return 0 since you recently started a transaction.

Our Time and Expense Management System offered by WebSan Solutions Inc. allows the employee to easily include and process any expenses that he or she may incur on a company credit card, along with any expenses that were not processed through the company credit card.

This feature is great for the finance department, as they don’t need to do any additional work on their end to process the expense, or to make sure that the appropriate amounts get paid to the employee and the credit card issuer.  All that work is done by the employee who incurred the expense.

When an employee is set up with a company credit card, all he or she needs to do when entering in an expense, is to select the option in the drop down box that is provided and the system automatically sets up payments in Microsoft Dynamics GP to be paid to the credit card vendor for the marked entries.

By: Matt Locke, Application Developer, WebSan Solutions Inc. a Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner and 2013 Canadian Channel Elite Awards Finalist.

In recent news, there has been an uproar amongst US companies regarding the NSA Prism Program.

It’s been said that the US government had direct access to data stored on servers of well-known companies; this news was leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

"The PRISM disclosures are damaging, and I think I'm prepared to speculate extremely damaging to commercial firms that have offered cloud and related kinds of services, and that do or would benefit from efficient cross-border data flows," says Philip Verveer, the former U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department.

With that being said, we at WebSan Solutions believe that everyone should have a right to have secure data.

WebSan Solutions Inc. has a SAS70/SSAE16 certified data centre, located in Toronto Canada. We can assure our customers our its data center operations meet the higher level of quality. Independent auditors review WebSan's processes, policies, and procedures and validate our security, availability, and operating integrity.

Remember when you had to record your time on a spreadsheet? Then your boss had to approve it and send it to HR in order for you to get paid? Spreadsheets are still an important way to track information; however, tracking your time and expenses on a spreadsheet can become time-consuming and leaves room for more inaccuracy. WebSan Solutions has developed an add-on to eliminate spreadsheets in order to create efficiency within your organization.

The benefits of our system include:

• Seamless integration with Dynamics GP database
• Handle Canadian VAT (value added tax) and US taxes seamlessly
• Track days off, holiday and vacation time
• Internal reporting for timesheet status, expense reports, and history
• Supports attaching receipts and documents to expense and timesheets
• No need to use PDK to approve timesheets, ONE complete integrated solution
• Full browser interoperability, so you can use your favorite browser and not just IE.

We fully integrate with Microsoft Dynamics GP, there are no firewall issues and our solution is 90% easier to setup and use! To find our more information about our Time and Expense Management System, contact us today!

Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc.

Yesterday’s rainfall was the most rain in Toronto’s recorded history. Toronto is still recovering from an unprecedented rainstorm that shattered records and paralyzed the city. Yesterday’s storm dropped more rain in two hours than the city usually receives in the month of July. More than 300,000 residents were without power.

However, WebSan’s Microsoft Dynamics GP hosted environment was up and running full speed. We experienced no issues throughout the storm and our backup generating system was on standby when needed. Our SAS70/SSAE16 certified data centre was not affected by the severe weather; it was business as usual for all our clients. You always have access to your data, through our secure network, in our SAS70/SSAE16 certified data centre!

On June 2^nd 2013, WebSan Solutions took part in Becel’s 26^th annual Ride for Heart. More than 13,000 cyclists rode their bikes across the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway. The event raised a record of $5.5 million, which is $500,000 more than it did in 2012.

We are glad that we could make a positive impact in eradicating heart disease and stroke! It has been a proud moment for all the employees here at the office.

To view our photo and the July edition of Snap North York, click here: http://www.snapnorthyork.com/index.php?option=com_sngevents&id[]=520947

By: Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc.

Cloud computing has become a huge trend in the last five years; IDC has predicted a 130% increase in cloud computing by 2016. There are so many benefits to moving to the cloud that companies cannot resist anymore. For example, companies prefer a subscription payment model because they only pay for how much data they need. Cloud computing recovery services have been a cost-effective way to back up your whole company. Also, security is improving all the time; there is continuous effort to provide cloud computing companies with top quality safety structure. Here are three interesting cloud trends to watch which could help boost cloud computing in the long-term:

1. In a study done by Gartner, they predict the size of the cloud computing market could reach $150 billion in 2013.This is not a surprising number due to the excitement and benefits that cloud computing can offer businesses in the long run. An on-premise solution looks less appealing as the cloud computing market thrives.
2. Mimecast did a statistic based study and found that 7/10 companies using cloud services will move new applications to the cloud. Only 70%? Have you heard the saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”? This means some businesses are still skeptical about moving to the cloud. However, based on trends, they will probably move their applications to the cloud sooner or later.
3. Gartner also predicted that 60% of server workloads will be virtualized by 2014.This was not news to me because of the number of benefits you get in return. You don’t need to purchase hardware; you can reduce your carbon footprint and lower your energy costs. This is a great way to save money in the long run. At WebSan Solutions, you have access to your data, through our secure network, in our SAS70/SSAE16 certified data centre.

To see what our business accounting software can offer you visit our website.

To read more about different cloud computing statistics click here.

Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator,WebSan Solutions Inc., a Canadian Certified Microsoft Partner

Business owners have many decisions that they have to make. From hiring employees to how the business should operate. Choosing the most efficient technology is not always priority number one. With the rise of software-as-a-service (SaaS), business owners have taken advantage of what SaaS has to offer. If you are still on the fence about switching to a cloud-based solution, make sure you take the following reasons into consideration.

The software is affordable

Business owners sometimes don’t have the extra funds to deploy a new system. The cloud is a fantastic solution because it’s less expensive than any on-premise system. You pay a lower subscription and maintenance cost and don’t require additional software and infrastructure.  For instance, Cloud hosted Dynamics GP is a robust, cost-effective business software that could meet your business needs.

Do you wonder how much it  would cost? Try our three step quote generator for instant results!

You can get started right away

According to Webopedia, BYOD (Bring your own device ) refers to employees who bring their own computing devices – such as smartphones, laptops and PDAs – to the workplace for use and connectivity on the corporate network.

Employees want to have the ability to work anywhere using their own device. Work flexibility is one of the key elements required in order to recruit good talent and increase employee retention.

Companies are reporting a reduction in employee turnover because BYOD and work shifting are able to bring more employee satisfaction, compared to any other motivational strategies that companies have traditionally implemented.

Employees prefer close workplace proximity and people generally choose their work based on commuting time and convenience, so working from home or anywhere else other than the office can lead to a tremendous boost in satisfaction.

A particularly good way to protect your company’s data is to implement a virtual environment within the device.  Employees can work and access all relevant data, but no data is ever actually saved within the device; both applications and data are cloud based, with the device simply serving as a portal.

Each week, the Globe and Mail seeks out expert advice to help a small or medium-sized company overcome a key issue. WebSan’s challenge was: How can WebSan persuade its clients to take training and implementation more seriously while preserving good business relationships?

We had three experts give us advice, and they came up with the following:

Make a case

Spend time with the senior management of its clients to press the importance of both sides adhering to the original training schedule.

A different financial solution

When creating a user interface, you always want it to feel smooth and fast as you can, and any time that the user is left waiting on the system decreases the appearance of how fast your system is. Delays on web applications can be caused from things such as processing lots of data, to constantly requesting new data from the server. It’s the latter case that I’m going to look at today and show a method that can reduce the amount of times you request data from the server.

For a working example, say we have a registration screen that is asking for the user’s country and province/state that they live in. Both fields could be simple text boxes, but it’s a little bit nicer if you provide combo boxes that give the user a list of options to choose from.

You probably want the list of provinces/states that you show to be dynamic based upon what country they select. So your province/state combo box will likely have an event listener that looks like this:

Above is a simple listener that listens for when the combo box expands (when the user opens the combo box to view the choices), and when it does that, it gets what the country combo box is set to, sets it as a parameter, and then retrieves the list of provinces/states from the server based on the selected country.

So if they select a country, and then open the combo box for the province/state, it will load up the list properly. The problem is that if they open the combo box for the province/state again, it will request the list from the server again, even if the country selection hasn’t changed.

WebSan Solutions Inc., a cloud Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner and IT consulting and solutions provider,  has been recognized as one of Canada’s top 100 Solution Providers in 2012 by Computer Dealer News (CDN). WebSan has over a decade of experience in Enterprise Software solutions, business and financial accounting software.

The list was announced April 16th, 2013 at the Top 100 Solution Providers Awards Gala. CDN is the voice of Canada's IT channel community for more than 25 years and defines an information technology solution provider as an organization that resells computer hardware, software or peripheral products along with providing IT related professional services, support services, consulting in a cloud or on-demand environment, on-premise fashion or as managed service.

“WebSan Solutions Inc. of Toronto makes the CDN Top 100 Solution Providers list this year and with that they join an exclusive club of the best technology minds in the country. WebSan really made a name for itself this year by offering cloud services based on Dynamics GP. They are part of a group of young and up-and-coming cloud specialists that CDN has noticed on the Top 100 list over the last few years,” said Paolo Del Nibletto, editor and associate publisher of CDN – Computer Dealer News, Canada’s No. 1 IT Channel Publication and Web site.

“We are very pleased to have made the list this year.” says Andrew King, Managing Director, WebSan Solutions Inc. “Our relentless focus on customer service and growth has enabled us to reach this milestone. More and more small to medium businesses our choosing our Cloud Dynamics GP Accounting solution for ease of use and cost every day.”

To view the list of the top 100 Solution Provider click here: http://www.computerdealernews.com/top-100-solution-providers/top-100

The last release of Microsoft Office was in 2010, now three years later Microsoft unveils their new “sleek appearance” and features with Office 2013. The new appearance coincides with the Windows 8 look; they’ve added better functional improvement and links to SharePoint and SkyDrive.

There is the option of purchasing the software separately or getting Office 365 for your business. Still questioning if it’s time to upgrade? Here are some features that I’ve done research on that might change your mind.

Do you find that your desktop applications are taking up too much space on your hard drive? Microsoft has introduced SkyDrive Integration with Office 2013. Office 2013 is designed to integrate with the cloud using SkyDrive and SharePoint. That’s a big benefit to SMB if you prefer to store your documents in the cloud. If you're still skeptic about the cloud, you still have the option of saving files on your local drive.

Do you find that you are always on the go and can’t bring your laptop with you all the time? When business is booming you might find yourself all over the place, with no time to sit at a desk. But using Office 2013/Office 365 you will be able to view your documents online using a PC, tablet or WebApps. This feature makes it easier to pick up where you left off working, even if you open the file on a different device than you last used.

Do you have trouble using Excel? Do you need to use Excel to create charts and monitor sales? Excel 2013 has a new feature called Recommended Chart which you select the data to chart and click Insert > Recommended Chart to see options such as line, bar, and pie charts that the program recommends for your data. Click each chart to preview what your data will look like in that form.

When there’s a question that needs an answer, we are quick to Google it to find a solution. If you wanted to inform your boss about the benefits of moving to Cloud ERP, how would you go about it? Just remember your trying to convince someone that might need more convincing than your average person because of the magnitude of the move. So make sure you clear up some of the perceptions they might have beforehand to ensure the best results.

Here are a few perceptions that you might come across:

1. Cloud ERP Software is only for small businesses

Cloud ERP Software is for all types of businesses from small to large companies. Moving to the cloud was more popular for SMBs because it was easier to convince them of the value and impact that it could have on their business. With larger businesses, there were more hurdles to overcome and more people to see before they were convinced. Some benefits of Cloud ERP for any type of business include:

• The cloud is everywhere. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a Multi-National company or a mom and pop shop. Cloud software can serve remote offices without the addition of more servers and IT staff.
• Cloud security has advanced greatly. Companies can guarantee your data is always secure. Here at WebSan Solutions we have a secure network, in our SAS70/SSAE16 certified data center.

2.“Cloud” and “Hosted” are the same thing

Three common ways of making a payment using Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains are cash, credit and cheque payments. I’m not a pro-Dynamics GP user; I’ve always paid vendors using cash and cheque payments. I came across Victoria Yudin’s blog “Using credit cards to pay vendors in Dynamics GP”. I found her blog to be straightforward and informational.

She shows you how to set up a payables vendor for the credit card which is quick and easy to do.  With The three scenarios that were given, scenario 1 was the most common for me. “Scenario 1: You purchased non-inventory items from a vendor want to track and pay them with a credit card. You have not posted the invoice yet.”

She provides lots of pictures and a simple step by step process of how to complete each scenario.

To read “My interview with Victoria Yudin about Dynamics GP” click here.

Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc., a Canadian Certified Microsoft Dynamics Partner