Yesterday 13,000 cyclists headed out on the two major Toronto highways, Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, in this year’s Becel Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart.

Despite the bad weather, this year the event raised a record of $5.5 million, which is $500,000 more than it did in 2012.

Here at WebSan Solutions Inc., we strongly believe in the value of community and we were thrilled to take part in the Ride for Heart and help towards funding more research that extends and saves lives.

We had a great time and we are proud that we contributed to the eradication of heart disease and stroke.

See you all again next year!

Incrementing an integer in SQL is easy; all you have to do is + 1 to the value. However, incrementing a number that has padded zeros is a little trickier, since it is probably a string value and not a number. Luckily with some type conversions, it becomes just as easy as incrementing an integer.

First thing you want to do is to get the length of the string, so you know how many padded zeros to add. You can do this by using the LEN function:

1. SELECT @Length = LEN(RTRIM(LTRIM(@Num)))

It is also a good idea to trim the value just in case there are extra spaces.

Next we can increment the number.  Now we can't just do a + 1 to the value since it’s a string and doing a + 1 to a string would just concatenate the 1 to the end of the string.  So let’s convert the string to an integer:

Nowadays business professionals have access to a vast variety of technologies and sources of information. Big data is growing fast as organizations devote technology resources to tapping the terabytes of data flowing into their organizations and externally in social media. Thus, a major challenge has come up recently: how to leverage Big Data analytics and improve business performance by using current Business Intelligence (BI) practices?

The current thinking around big data and business intelligence tends to be built around a very simplistic model. You acquire lots of data, in all kind of formats, from a myriad of sources, apply some business intelligence and get your answer to the above question. However, executives thinking that a big data dive is all they need to exploit conclusions are mistaken. While big data might be getting ahead of itself in enterprise promises, you need to think about the skills you have in your company and develop the relevant data skills to adapt to this new model. At the same time, BI kills the need to develop, administer and analyze this huge amount of corporate data. Therefore, big data and BI can be integrated within the business context for better, faster decision making.

Keep in mind, though, big data can make or break a company. Integrating advanced analytics for big data with business intelligence systems is an important step toward gaining full return on investment. That is, BI systems and advanced analytics can be highly complementary; the latter ones can provide the deeper, exploratory perspective on the data, while BI systems provide a more structured user experience. In addition, BI systems’ richness in data visualization and reporting can be vital to making advanced analytics actionable.

The first step to understanding big data is collecting all of your data into powerful, integrated solutions. The second step is to identify correlations with your data to make improvements in your operations and find new opportunities. Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Intelligence (BI) module provides people with the insight they need to take quick action and pursue opportunities. What is more, using a single software solution, like Microsoft Dynamics GP, will make it easier for you to find and use the important business data you need to drive your business forward.  The more efficiently you use this data, the faster you can respond to new opportunities.

At the end of the day, while big data is a hot term, it doesn't mean much unless you can complement them with BI systems and expand their power. Thus, big data can be very helpful if you can wade through it to obtain meaning, i.e. they always have to make sense. It's not enough to gather accurate and timely data. Professionals need powerful and user friendly BI analysis tools to help them understand context and trends. You need to focus on evolving your BI approaches and integrate them with big data analytics to fuel faster and more accurate decision making. In this way, you will be able to gain a competitive advantage by understanding how big data can supplement the outcomes already achieved through “traditional” BI.

Today companies struggle with a volume of information that has the force of a tidal wave. You can either float or sink into that wave, depending on whether or not you can leverage the exponential growth of business data.

The current thinking around big data though, tends to be built around a very simplistic model. According to that, you acquire large amounts of data in lots of formats from various sources. Then apply some business intelligence into that mix and get your solution. However, this data has to make sense and be as simple as possible.

Need access to your Dynamics GP data on the go?  Not able to manage your team while outside the office?  Access your Dynamics GP data from anywhere using the WebSan TEX Portal.  With two layers of security, staff can view GP Reports from anywhere they might be.  Now your staff can have access to the information they need, whenever they need it!

For more information about WebSan's TEX Portal or Dynamics GP services, please contact Adam via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Adam MacIntosh is a Senior Project & Account Manager with WebSan Solutions Inc. A Microsoft Dynamics Silver Partner and a CDN top 100 solution provider for 2012.

With the May Long Weekend just a couple days away, many friends and coworkers are taking time-off to be with family.  WebSan has recently release a new Time-Off Request module to our TEX (Time & Expense) Management System for Dynamics GP.

The Time-Off Request module is a new optional add-on allowing staff to request paid or unpaid leave for vacation, jury duty, etc.  Non-working days (typically weekends), holidays (i.e. Christmas, Easter) & time-off reasons are configurable by company.  Employees can then send requests to their manager for approval which automatically integrates into their time sheet submission.  A company-wide calendar is maintain for viewing & enhanced time-off reporting is now available with this added functionality.

For more information about WebSan's TEX Portal or Dynamics GP services, please contact Adam via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Adam MacIntosh is a Senior Project & Account Manager with WebSan Solutions Inc.  A Microsoft Dynamics Silver Partner and a CDN top 100 solution provider for 2012.

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.

Organizations across all industries are increasingly looking to the cloud as a way to help boost their productivity, revenues, returns on technology investments and customer satisfaction. It is important to realize that cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are not easier to implement or use than on-premise systems. However, when implemented properly, cloud ERP system software can save organizations a lot of money. These cost savings come in the form of reduced IT staffing and reduced hardware expenditures. In general, these are the two most common benefits that organizations refer to as reasons for switching to the cloud.

Before your organization decides the transition to the cloud, it is vital to consider the amount of effort required for the implementation. Cloud ERP implementations are not easier than traditional ones. The most common problem is poor cost estimation and is likely related to the lack of an appropriate framework for enterprise-wide prepackaged software maintenance, which of course requires an ongoing relationship with the software vendor. Moreover, you should keep in mind that all typical issues, such as organizational change management, adoption and use of new business processes are always an obstacle, no matter what ERP solution you choose.

Therefore, whether you are implementing an on-premise or cloud-hosted ERP solution, operational improvement is achieved only through guidance from a highly experienced implementation partner, proper resource allocation and executive commitment. To realize cost savings from cloud ERP, organizations should also budget for all essential components, including everything from organizational change management to business process re-engineering (BPR).

Here are 3 tips for maximizing cost savings with cloud ERP software:

1. Know your Requirements – You should gather all the requirements and complete Business process mapping (BPM) before the implementation so that your organization can select the ERP solution that best fits your business.
2. Partner with the Right People – Cloud ERP software requires an IT Partner with unique skill sets. Look for a Vendor who has experience in your industry and has a number of references.
3. Understand the Costs – When evaluating ERP vendors, consider the total cost of ownership (TOC) and not just upfront costs. Remember that TOC is like an iceberg, which means a lot of the costs are usually hidden.

If you incorporate all of the above tips in your strategy, it will not only save money on upfront infrastructure costs but it will most definitely realize cost savings in IT staffing, licensing fees and annual maintenance. These fees only escalate the longer you wait, thus plan to engage in organization change management and business process re-engineering (BPR) early in the project.

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

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 as well as 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: https://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

As Cloud technologies continue to evolve, more and more software buyers are seriously evaluating software as a service (SaaS) solutions against on-premise offerings. While there are many factors that influence which deployment model is best for any particular business (e.g., ability to manage IT internally and speed of deployment) the cost of the system is often a key factor. But comparing the true cost of a Cloud-based system against an on-premise system can be time-consuming and is often a complex undertaking.

For instance, most buyers understand that on-premise licenses are typically purchased with a large, upfront investment and SaaS licenses are purchased for a relatively cheaper subscription price. But many forget to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their investment. That is, they don’t look beyond the licensing costs to consider how other factors such as the need to customize the software and integrate it with existing applications can influence the TCO of their software purchase.

Even then there are intricacies like maintenance and support and training requirements that can make creating an apples-to-apples comparison of the TCO on-premise and Cloud software difficult. If you’re not a seasoned veteran in modeling all these costs, comparing them can become overwhelming.

To help buyers ballpark the true costs of each software model, Software Advice--a research firm that reviews and evaluates enterprise systems--created an interactive TCO calculator that software buyers can use to compare SaaS against on-premise software over a 10-year ownership period.

The calculator models annual and cumulative costs over this time period and shows buyers at which year of ownership the TCO of a SaaS system will equal that of an on-premise solution, based on user inputs. Although the data comes pre-populated with an example case, users can override every value to see the impact that changing any particular value will have on the TCO as a graph at the top of the calculator automatically refreshes after each update.

Have you ever wanted to share a report between several different people or companies, but wanted the report to only display data for that specific person or company?  This can be tricky with a multi company or multi person database.  However there is an easy way to do this, and it's not coping and pasting the report for each company/user.

There are 2 steps to do this.

The first step is easy.  When creating the SRS report, create a person or company parameter, just a normal text field parameter.  This will be the parameter be used to set which specific person/company the report will be for.  It would probably be a good idea to use a different naming convention for this parameter, to specify that it as a default parameter, like default_user.  Then finish creating the report and onto the next step!

The second step is to change your code where you set/send the report parameters to the SSRSPHP library.  All you have to do is check if the parameter name is equal to one of the default parameters and hide the parameter from the user when setting the parameter.  Then when the report is being submitted, all you have to do is set the parameter before sending it to the SSRSPHP library to retrieve the report.

Now the user won't be able to change or even see the parameter.  This is pretty good, but if we want to add more default parameters this isn't a very elegant solution.  Instead we can put all the default parameters into an array and check if the default parameter exists in the array.  This way in order to add more parameters, all we have to do is change an array.

As of April 1, 2013, the Government of Prince Edward Island is implementing the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). The combined HST rate in PEI will be 14%, of which 5% will represent the federal part and 9% the provincial part. Further, the Government of British Columbia will be eliminating the HST and reinstating PST and GST on taxable services provided in British Columbia. As of April 1, 2013, you will be taxed GST at a rate of 5% and PST at a rate of 7%.

To create the ability to track these changes in Dynamics GP, one must utilize Tax Details and
Tax Schedules.  Tax Details identify specific taxes and their rate of taxation.  These are then assigned to & grouped on Tax Schedules for processing transactions in GP.  Tax Schedules can be assigned to Customers, Vendors, Items, etc.

Setting up Tax Details

• Enter a Tax Detail ID and a Description.
• It is important to set the Type properly as Tax Details can apply to either Sales (to a Customer) or Purchases (from a Vendor) exclusively.
• Set a default GL Account to distribute tax transactions to in order to capture values in the general ledger.
• Set both the Based On & Round values depending on the tax.  For HST & PST, these should be set to Percent of Sale / Purchase & To the Nearest Currency Decimal Digit respectively.
• Set the Percentage for the Tax Detail.  For HST PEI, this is 14%.  For PST BC, this is 7%.

Setting up Tax Schedules

The Tax Schedule Maintenance window contains two list boxes:

Save Money by Switching to a Cloud Hosted Solution

Do you manage your financial accounting using an on-premise solution? Are you spending a lot of money on licensing?

WebSan Solutions offers business the option of switching to a cloud hosting solution.  They offer faster deployment options when compared to on-premise.  You can save on licensing because you have access to your data through the web. No need to purchase hardware or software. You need to pay a low monthly fee, which helps you manage cash flow.

Frequently Asked Questions

WebSan Solutions Inc. is a cloud Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner and IT consulting and solutions provider. In their web-based time and expense management system, they have added the FAQ page to tackle commonly asked client inquiries. This new enhancement will reduce their IT costs and create more productivity amongst their clients. This system is very easy to use because of its simple design and user-friendly navigation.

In 2012, the Canadian government announced in their Economic Action Plan that they would phase out the penny due to the cost of producing the penny, relative to their face value. February 4, 2013, was the last day that the penny would be made. One thing to note is that this change does not affect cheques or electronic transactions (e.g. Interac). With this change in effect, it’s estimated that it will save taxpayers $11 million each year.

On Microsoft’s Community Dynamics website, I came across a blog Angela Melhus wrote which is called “Phasing out the Penny in Canada”. For a B2B business, this might not be much of a worry because they would normally deal with cheques and EFT payments. But for some B2C business that have a store and accept cash that might be a problem.

In Angela’s blog, she gives you a step by step process to phase out the penny in your Dynamics GP system. Her instructions are very clear and she provides screenshots of the whole process. By the end of the last step, you should have written off of the penny.

Angel Melhus blog post:

https://community.dynamics.com/gp/b/dynamicsgp/archive/2013/02/26/phasing-out-the-penny-in-canada.aspx