This company missed a very good opportunity present itself as an organisation that cares or has compassion for its members. An opportunity to show that their members are precious to them and they are willing to accomodate sensible requests. On the other hand, what they have shown is a cold, ruthless behaviour that their membership contract/rules should be enforced at all costs without regard to their members. For them what is important is the bottom line, of returning value to their investors/shareholders.

It sure gives the impression that their members are seen as ‘cash cows’ who are expected to regularly fork over some of their hard earned cash in exchange for some time in their gyms. I am sure a lot of the people who go to their gyms go there because they want to and do not mind paying. But if I was a member this incident will surely get me thinking along the lines of what if something happens to me and I am not able to pay the monthly dues or I have to quit becaues of some grave personal reason? How many of their current members are now looking closely at their membership contract? I’m sure there are a few.

I was talking about this incident with my wife and we both arrived at the same scenario about someone who is thinking of joining this gym and reads the article. What message is the gym sending across to this prospective member? Instead of being 100% sure there will be some doubts forming in his/her mind.

In 9 out of 10 cases (unless the client is extremely unreasonable) I think it is better to give the benefit of the doubt to the client. A business exists because of its clients not the other way around. Businesses fail because they usually do not make enough sales to make its existence viable. As it has been written (because it is true) it is more difficult to get a new client than retain an existing one.

For example, in my time tracking application, VeriTime Time Tracker, I have a 30-day unconditional money back guarantee. Throughout these years, I’ve had only one request for a refund and this was the result of a wrong purchase. I refunded the exact amount, absorbing the administration cost of my payment processor. I even told buyer to keep the software. Why? Because requests from software vendors to uninstall the product after they have requested for a refund do not really work. For one thing, the software vendor does not have a foolproof way of determining whether or not the buyer really uninstalled the application. Generally, the request will be heeded but the cynic in me thinks that there are some who do not.

Now that I’ve gotten this thing out of my system I can go back to coding :).

• I discovered how to properly align the column headings of the list grids.
• Reduced the amount of code required to right-align numeric values in the list grids.
• I was finally able to implement a suggestion from a user (thanks Mike S.) to represent the timesheet entries in a planner layout and also be able to manipulate (i.e. add, edit, move, etc) the entries therein. See the screenshot below of the planner view.
• Implemented the idea of link labels (similar to hyperlinks in a web page) to perform a specific function.
• I also changed the way the values of the drop down comb boxes are stored and maintained. In the current version they are stored in text files but now I am storing them in a table in a database.
• I moved most SQL-related code to the database i.e. started making use of stored procedures, triggers, and user-defined functions. This alone reduced the amount of code that I have to maintain.

Planner view of timesheet entries.

The other area that I am sure to improve VeriTime in is the reports. I am not entirely happy on how I have implemented the different reports i.e. I felt that the code and other components do not hang well together as it should. I am also going to make use of a much later version of the report engine that I am currently using.

The multi-user version of VeriTime is also another area I am going to have a look at. I am certain that it needs fixing especially from the point of view of user permissions and access.

I know that I can use in misvCRM and in other future products the insights and discoveries that I unearth in this exercise. This alone makes it worthwhile.

The great thing about it is that it comes with a sample file which you can use as a template. The sample file is for the TBS Cover Editor software product. You can open the file within Dr. Explain and find out how it all works and hangs together.

As I’ve mentioned previously the main selling point of the product (at least for me) was its ability to parse a screenshot into its invidual components and automatically assign bulleted lines to them. There is no need to use all the components. Actually, you can delete the ones you do not need and Dr. Explain takes care of the renumbering.

Another thing that I found useful was that you can add a screenshot taken with another screen capture software. I do not have any problem with the screenshot images it creates except that I need to resize some of them. Dr. Explain has an image resize option but what I want to do is to resize the screenshot and enhance it at the same time. Dr. Explain cannot enhance an image. I use FastStone Capture as my image capture utility (works great and has its own editor) and IrfanView to resize and enhance my images.

After adding the screenshot you can add a new control (this is just an area you specify which Dr. Explain will treat as a control of the current screenshot). You can change the name of the control as well as adjust the bullet mark’s location and distance from the image. For every control you add you are presented with its own text area where you can write something about the control you added. The image below can best illustrate what I mean:

The other reason why I am using FastStone Capture as my screen capture utility is because you can edit the image and add some text highlights (see above image) as well as have a torn-paper effect on the side of the screenshot. Having this effect is handy when I want show only a portion of the screen. It’s not much but I find it useful. See the following image:

While you are in the middle of writing the contents you can simply click on the HTML Preview or CHM Page Preview button to quickly have an idea how the page looks like once it is exported to one of these formats.

Once I got the hang of adding windows, inserting existing screenshots, creating bullet marks the whole exercise of writing the help file became easier. I think I’ll get the help file done faster than I initially thought. Thanks to Dr. Explain.

• Made the field name display in the history log more friendly i.e. instead of showing CL_LASTNAME it now shows ‘Last Name’ which is definitely more understandable than showing the actual field name.
• Cosmetic changes in terms of making the labels and captions more consistent.
• Completely changed the way the sales were recorded. The sales items are now recorded from within a single window rather than invoking the sale item dialog window each time.
• Labels with drop down boxes are ‘live’ i.e. you can click on them to bring up the Table Item window to add a new table item (if such an item is not in the list). See the screenshot below. Note the Reason and Method labels.
• Converted a lot of the SQL into stored procedures.
• A lot of itsy bitsy changes…

Beta Test

As a result of this code freeze, misvCRM now moves to the beta testing phase (really…not anymore early beta as was mentioned in the download page…or still is until I get to update it). If you wish to participate i.e. receive a full working version with the printing of reports enabled send me an email at pflores at pcfworks dot com (apologies for the non-standard way of representing my email address…as email address harvesters are prowling the Internet this very moment). I’d really appreciate that if you participate in the beta test you will at least send one or more feeback regarding your testing activity.

Download Available

I’ve also updated the download version to reflect that this latest build is now BETA. You can download it from here.

Before:

After:

Comparing the two images you can see that the one with the theme applied looks a bit more ‘modern’.  To implement the theme all you have to do is:

• Get hold of an XP manifest file. The format of the name is usually of the form xxxx.exe.manifest.
• Rename the manifest file to delphi32.exe.manifest.
• Copy the manifest file to the bin folder of Delphi 7.
• Restart Delphi 7.

If you do not want to do the first two steps you can download a copy of the delphi32.exe.manifest file from here.

Now I wonder how my Delphi 7 IDE would look like if I implement a Vista theme? I might just try it. Till next time.

The other thing that was in my mind was being able to record a group sale or when a company orders more than one licence and provides names for the different licence holders. The current version did not cater for this situation which was pointed out by someone who has downloaded the pre-release version of misvCRM a couple of weeks ago.

I know that this decision might impact on the proposed release date at the end of the month and it is something I have to adjust if needed. I think one has to find a balance between being able to release early for the first version and the quality of the product. I already have entries slated for version 2.0 even before I finish version 1.0! I have already given some thought on how to implement this new change and I am confident that the end of the month is still a possibility.

Here is a screenshot on how the Invoice detail page looks like:

At the end of the day I’m actually much happier with this layout than the original one. Now, gotta get back to coding and making sure it works

The other major change that I did during these past days is to develop additional modules relating to making misvCRM multi-user. I did not want to do this during the first 30 days and still did not want to do it until after the first release but I had a long think and finally decided to do it now. What made me decide is the amount of work needed in both the code and database tables in order to make it multi user. If I did this change after misvCRM is released I will end up working with two different versions since I obviously do not want to break the code for the released version. At least now, everything is in place and both single-user and multi-user capabilities are in a single codebase and all I have to do is to indicate in the licence key which capability needs to be active.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is I came across a document from Microsoft entitled UX Guide - User Experience Guidelines which you can download from here. This document specifically refers to designing user interfaces for the Vista operating system but the concepts can be applied to other operating systems as well. It is a treasure trove of tips and hints and I’m glad that I came across it. There is a section called How To Design a Great User Experience. There are eighteen points (18) which describe ways and means how to make an application great. Some are obvious and the others are not. Some of the points are as follows:

1. Nail the basics. It means that one should not lose site why you want people to use your software. Focus on the core functionality and leave the bells and whistles for later. I know it is always tempting to add one more little “nice” feature here and there which sometimes the users will not really use at all.
2. Make the experience like a friendly conversation. I find this point a new way at looking at the user interface. Basically, all it is suggesting is that the UI must be easy and pleasant to use requiring the least amount of work from the user. The UI must guide the user to the usage of your program rather than being a hindrance.
3. Keep it simple. One thing I really like about this point is when it mentions “don’t have three ways to do something when one will do”. I suppose this makes more sense from the user’s point of view. It possibly minimizes the possibility of getting confused or something like that.

I suggest that you download the document and have a read through. The message that I get is that make the application or program user centric where all the elements of the application are geared towards making sure that the user uses the application to solve a problem which is the main reason why he or she has your software in the first place. That’s all for now, hopefully next time I can share something more related to misvCRM.

One thing I can say though is that suddenly the pressure has lessened considerably, although the next deadline is set for the end of this month (July 2008). I envision that by the end of this month I shall be able to release version 1.0 of misvCRM.

One feature that I implemented is the history log. This is a table where the entries are the changes in the values of the different fields of the other tables. From this table you can follow the values that a specific field has assumed e.g. email address. Using the history log, you can track the changes in email address that a client may have had which you can then use to retrieve previous communication records.

In order to be able to establish the chronological order of the changes, each record has its own timestamp.  From the image above you can see that the email address has been changes twice as well as the address details.

This log can also come in handy when looking at the pricing history for a product. In the network version the userid of the person who did the update will also be shown so that if there are issues you know the person to go to.

If you have any other idea on how to improve the history logging feel free to tell me. Till next time.

First of all, I’ve uploaded a new set of screenshots. These screenshots represent all the windows that one may encounter when using the application. I’ve also uploaded a new build for download. There is also a new page outlining bug fixes and new features for quick reference.

Finally, the 30th day of the challenge has arrived.  With its coming two (2) things stand out: the satisfaction of having built an application in 30 days and also the realization that it is not at a stage where I wanted it to be i.e. there are still some functions missing that might give a negative impression to prospective users if it is released in its current state.

In hindsight, reasons CAN always be given as to why an objective has not been realised. Some of these reasons may be legitimate enough while others can simply be viewed as an excuse for not achieving the goal. At the end of the day, at least for me, the objective was to come up with an application that I can eventually sell and possibly serve as the beginning of my journey away from the office cubicle. I can honestly say I’ve moved in the right direction with misvCRM and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and no, it is not a train coming towards me

As Scott has mentioned in his blog post of not releasing his application at the end of 30 days, I’ve also taken the decision of not releasing it at the end of the challenge. The core functionalities of the application are in place but the helper functions such as record filtering, enquiry, and reports are still in the process of being developed. In short, misvCRM is not yet ready. There, I’ve said what really needs to be said. I’d rather release it late but feature complete for version 1.0. I envision that the final release will be sometime in July. The 30 day challenge just got longer.

To the other 30 dayers who will be able to release their product after 30 days I offer my congratulations and praise for being able to face up to the challenge and achieve a major objective. To the others who decided to delay their product release I also offer my congratulations for what you have achieved and for taking the decision (for whatever reason) not to release it now but maybe for later.

I shall still continue blogging the progress of misvCRM’s development effort. So, stay tuned. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, you can download a usable version for testing and evaluation.

The journey continues…

With the end of the 30-day challenge in sight and products almost ready to go out the door statements like “still have to write the help file…” or “help file still needs to be written” are starting to get mentioned. I am also in the same boat but I think I found a very good application that can make the writing of the help file a breeze. I am talking about the product called Dr. Explain. What impressed me most about it is that it can parse a screenshot into its individual controls and automatically create callouts for each of them. See the image below:

I think in the preparation of help files the most dofficult part is the preparation of the images that you want to include since images can convey a lot of information faster compared to pure text. With the screenshot editor of Dr. Explain this task becomes very easy. You can remove some of the callouts if you feel you do not need them. Also, each of these callouts has a link in the help page where you can type the appropriate text.

The help file can be exported in a variety of formats e.g. CHM, HTML, and RTF. The generated HTML help can be customised to appear as part of your website. This means that you can have a link to the help file in your site. I haven’t really gone deep into it but I shall talk more about it when I have. I just wanted to tell my fellow 30-dayers about this product.