Radenkovich's P(a)lace

Launcher Pro clean home screen

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:41:50 +0000

Clean look leave a lot of space for nice wallpaper:

Ingredients

Launcher Pro
- Status bar hidden
- Transparent dock
- 5 screens
Glass Clock (weather included) from Glass Widgets (full width by default but resized using Launcher Pro widget resize functionality – paid version)
Beautiful wallpaper selected on Zedge

My first Android post

Ivan Radenkovic — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:54:57 +0000

Doc, I’m back (from the future)… again! This time with an Android phone…

Managing successful ERP projects

Ivan Radenkovic — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 11:44:26 +0000

It’s not really matter what ERP you are going to manage, as long as you implement it in a right way. Let’s assume you are going to implement a full scope implementation with “Big Bang” approach. In my opinion this is the worst case scenario you may have. BB approach is about having all modules go live at the same point in time. That mean a lot of things can go the wrong way and since timefame is already a constant you have to introduce a lot of effort on tracking all of the issues you can came along. Not just issues but also deliverables has to be made on time. They have to be delivered “First time right”. Breaching the timeframe almost always mean breaching your project budget. It not just a question of cost raising rapidly but also raise question on further availability of participants from business as same as the project partner. It’s getting worst if support partner (post go-live support) is not the same as project implementation partner. In that scenario project partner will already have scheduled another project and wont be able to commit same or all of it’s resources to your project extension.

As you can imagine, that does not look good at all. You will have to invest additional effort in explaining the reasons which will actually be a pitty excuses. It would be much better if you have invested that effort earlier in the project.

You can try to browse the web as the precausion measure in the search for guidelines for ultimate success. Let’s see what Google have to say about “Managing sucessful ERP projects”. You will find three academical articles, a books “Successful Sap R/3 Implementation: Practical Management of ERP Projects”, “Successful implementation of ERP projects: Evidence from two case studies” and “Risk factors in enterprise-wide/ERP projects”. I think the last one have more than 300 pages. First two does not sound thiner. If you start reading them at beginning of your implementation project you will finish reading just on time to start explaining why project is not on track anymore. I’m sure you will find a fine excuses in them. Next two links on Google list is not academical “ERP Project Management Is Key To A Successful Implementation” and “A guide to successful implementations“. Since they count less than 20 pages they are really focused and I would recommend reading them.

When you got youself familiar with all of those little things you need to trace to assure project success, the question is how to actually do that? You may reach for numbers of project management software systems (like Microsoft Project) or other web oriented systems. Here I would strongly recommend to choose a system will will require minimal training of participants because all of them have to use the same. If you keep this system just for youself it will mean a lot of administration for you in order to keep everything updated since only in that way you can use it for project monitoring. You can use an Excel file to track whole project but I’m strongly against it. Implementation of ERP is not project for you alone, everybody is involved, they need to do their parts. With access to project monitoring system they will fill more involved. Having the people one of the key component of implementation project this approach will help you to secure project success.

SAP automation for end users

Ivan Radenkovic — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:54:09 +0000

Being a end user for six/seven digits worth ERP you most probably experienced a lot of pressure coming from complex maintenance of such system. Consultants and developers are not always forthcoming when it came to fulfilling end user needs. In most cases they are right about it, if complexity is not an issue than cost would be for sure. However it does not change the fact that as end user you may easily end up spending a lot of your time on repetitive tasks like executing test scripts, mass update of hundreds of master data, extract of some master data definitions from SAP into local excel file which are not available in existing reports. It’s a very time consuming but it can be automated. And it can be done by yourself! Technology which is required to achieve that is not restricted only to developers or IT people but it’s actually provided by Microsoft (in Windows) and SAP client (for Windows not other systems) have native support for it. It’s name is VBScript and it’s derived from Visual Basic for Application which has been implemented in Microsoft Office (I think like 20 year ago). VBScript is mainly used by system administrators to automate maintenance tasks of company Windows infrastructure. Since system administrators never (or at least strive to be never because of their job description) came in contact with user applications, gap is created which this post intend to fill.

Since VBScript is technology provided by Microsoft Windows it’s usage is not restricted only to SAP application but to all windows applications.

I spend one day on Googleing for web resources on this subject and I managed to create VBScript which look at first column in specified Excel file. This column contain customer codes. Usually telephone or some other details from customer master is not available in any of reports. If you need them you would have to open master data record in SAP for each customer and copy/paste telephone number back into Excel file.

If you have a lot of customers you can spend a lot of your time doing this.

This is a perfect candidate for automation. Following example show how you can extract street, house number, transportation zone, Telephone and fax nubmers, VAT number from SAP customer master data (transaction XD03). Prerequisite is to have Excel 2007 file named Customer.xlsx at location C:\Scripts and of course SAP client installed.

Content of SCRIPT.VBS file (extension .VBS is automatically recognized by windows as VBScript and right-click will give you and option on drop down menu to execute it with Command Prompt). Ater you start the script SAP client will ask for your permission to allow connection.

Dim CuCo
Dim CuStreet
Dim CuHouseNo
Dim CuTrZone
Dim CuTel
Dim CuFax
Dim CuTaxNo
Dim CuVatNo
If Not IsObject(application) Then
   Set SapGuiAuto  = GetObject("SAPGUI")
   Set application = SapGuiAuto.GetScriptingEngine
End If
If Not IsObject(connection) Then
   Set connection = application.Children(0)
End If
If Not IsObject(session) Then
   Set session    = connection.Children(0)
End If
If IsObject(WScript) Then
   WScript.ConnectObject session,     "on"
   WScript.ConnectObject application, "on"
End If
Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
Set objWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open _
    ("C:\Scripts\Customers.xlsx")
intRow = 2
session.findById("wnd[0]/tbar[0]/okcd").text = "XD03"
session.findById("wnd[0]").sendVKey 0
Do Until objExcel.Cells(intRow,3).Value = ""
   CuCo = objExcel.Cells(intRow, 3).Value
   session.findById("wnd[1]/usr/ctxtRF02D-KUNNR").text = CuCo
   session.findById("wnd[1]/usr/ctxtRF02D-KUNNR").caretPosition = 7
   session.findById("wnd[1]").sendVKey 0
   session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/txtADDR1_DATA-NAME1").setFocus
   CuStreet = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/txtADDR1_DATA-STREET").text
   CuHouseNo = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/txtADDR1_DATA-HOUSE_NUM1").text
   CuTrZone = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/ctxtADDR1_DATA-TRANSPZONE").text
   CuTel = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/txtSZA1_D0100-TEL_NUMBER").text
   CuFax = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB01/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0201/subAREA1:SAPMF02D:7111/subADDRESS:SAPLSZA1:0300/subCOUNTRY_SCREEN:SAPLSZA1:0301/txtSZA1_D0100-FAX_NUMBER").text
   session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB02").select
   CuTaxNo = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB02/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0200/subAREA3:SAPMF02D:7122/txtKNA1-STCD1").text
   CuVatNo = session.findById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/usr/subSUBTAB:SAPLATAB:0100/tabsTABSTRIP100/tabpTAB02/ssubSUBSC:SAPLATAB:0200/subAREA3:SAPMF02D:7122/txtKNA1-STCEG").text
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 10).Value = CuStreet
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 11).Value = CuHouseNo
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 12).Value = CuTrZone
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 13).Value = CuTel
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 14).Value = CuFax
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 15).Value = CuTaxNo
   objExcel.Cells(intRow, 16).Value = CuVatNo
   session.findById("wnd[0]/tbar[0]/btn[12]").press
   intRow = intRow + 1
Loop
session.findById("wnd[1]/tbar[0]/btn[12]").press
objExcel.Quit

After the script is executed you will notice new columns in excel populated with mentioned data. Only first row was left blank (for column labeling purposes).

Making Excel Useful

Ivan Radenkovic — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:45:46 +0000

In too many cases people misuse Excel and they are not even close to realize that. From beginners euphoria about Excel as ultimate tool they end up drowning in Excel hell. At this point they blame Excel for everything: working too hard, loosing themselves, giving the wrong figures – or even worst several different but correct figures… After some time they do not know who to trust and as instinct command they start looking who to blame for their situation.

Let’s face the ultimate truth: Excel cannot be good or bad, only the way you use it can be good or bad.

I believe evolution of every office user starts with Word, after some time user move to Excel, after even more time they (may) move to Access… but they do not do that. They are simply stack at Excel forever. Why is it like that? Do you know that the cheapest MS Office package with Access costs much more money than package without it?

When Excel 2007 broke limit of cca 65000 row per sheet, everybody welcomed it with the same euphoria as described at the beginning of this post. I was quite depressed. I really hoped that people would outgrow Excel, because of that limit at least.

Handling sheet with more rows/columns then can be seen at one screen (without scrolling) is misuse of Excel. For everything more you should move to Access.

You may also choose to the best thing for you and implement business intelligence using MSSQL and Analyses Services.

Look for more details on this site.

Business Intelligence, [Borg] Cubes and Users

Ivan Radenkovic — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:46:54 +0000

I have never thought about myself as a salesman. Simple reason is that person cannot be the best at everything. We have to choose. My choice was technical skills. Not sales ones. I cannot imagine myself selling crap products (if you are a salesman you often cannot afford to choose). I was prefer to be the one making product and assure no crap product will be produced with my participation.

I got business intelligence project now and my manager told me I have to sell it to the management. Ok, I will try to do that, but honestly I’ve never understood sales people. Why to go aggressive on customers and push them to make purchase, why simply not to create demand for your goods and seat back and enjoy? Nevertheless I had to make Power Point presentation for the first time in my life. I hate this application. Such a waste of resources! It represent everything I believe it’s wrong about business people do the business today. Another application from this package is almost completely ignored. I’m talking about MS Access. Every time people start talking about databases I got the feeling there could still be hope for our civilization not to be wasted in 2012. I got disappointed every time – people make databases in Excel! There are no such THINGS as Excell databases Let’s go back to the subject… I made first simple version of presentation (no technical details, not just details but nothing technical I have mentioned at all). He concluded it’s still complicated. Then I spent time creating a brand new from the scratch – this one was that simple that 7 year old children would understand it. You can check it in attachment and tell me what do you think?

Business Intelligence Presentation

I’m back again! (2)

Ivan Radenkovic — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:55:20 +0000

Guys, I’m terrible sorry for my absence on my blog. Last two years were extremely busy for me – I started to work as Business Information Manager for one of major company in beer industry worldwide. In year and a half I’ve participated in two SAP implementation projects in Serbia. Both was successful and recognized as fastest implementations ever. At this moment no big project left for me in this company+country so I’m busy with much smaller IT projects… This mean I would have more time for my blog… But again, even I do not have big projects on professional plan, my private life is under major undertaking – very soon I’m going to be a father! And I need to get married of course…

Use Zip/Postal code to organize distribution & routes

Ivan Radenkovic — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:55:22 +0000

I’ve been witness for the second time how people like to be creative on the wrong way. Instead of inventing a new fragmentation, why don’t use existing one? What I have on my mind is to copy country post office route organization. It’s very simple, since all what we need is available to everyone. You do not need anything else but ZIP/Postal code of the cities!

If you take a look at the codes itself you can noticed some coding rules was applied. It is not like for every new office post assign next availabladee number (autoincrement). At least in Serbia and I believe in other countries is the same since distribution of letters and packages existed long before computers and SQL databases. If you take a look at postal code structure it looks more or less similar to

11000 Belgrade
11070 New Belgrade (5km from Belgrade)
19000 Zajecar (250km from Belgrade)
19210 Bor (30km from Zajecar)
18000 Nish (260km from Belgrade)
…

It become quite obvious that first 2 digits can be used to group geographically closest location/cities. It can be possible to create geographical zones to organize distribution in country in relatively simple and error proof way.

FOX 2.6 DOS consume your resources?

Ivan Radenkovic — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:47:52 +0000

Couple of years ago I’ve faced with unpleasantness when I’ve upgraded couple of Windows 98 workstation to Windows XP: FoxPro 2.6 applications simple consumed so many system resources that everything is hit: printing takes longer than usual, network traffic throughput is reduced since processor does not have free time to deal with these issues, it’s mainly occupied with currently running MSDOS session with foxpro application within. Some recommendation was to adjust idle sensitivity settings on shortcut but it does not solve the problem: depend of settings you can choose between two extremes: to confess all resources to foxpro process, or to take them from it (in which case foxpro application is running very slow – almost useless).

My doubts are there is related to different kind of multitasking provided with Windows XP comparing to older in Windows 98 which suit FoxPro applications better then new one. If you start more than one foxpro process on one machine – it will be good as dead.

I’ve found a solution on this site:

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~Fpd26OnWin2000

It is small utility which you need to start before foxpro appliaction and no more Windows hang up!

However, later I was checking this site and download link was broken, so I will provide you with version I’ve previously downloaded: click here for download. (I’m not providing you warranty of any kind for this download, take it on your own risk)

Convert FAT to NTFS using CONVERT.EXE

Ivan Radenkovic — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:53:48 +0000

Several months have passed since I’ve become a proud owner od Western Digital My Book 750Gb External HDD which came in blue carton box (this version shipped with eSata, 2xFirewire and 1xUSB ports). Initially it was or I choosed to format with FAT32 file system since there were no requirements for some security issues and that was reason to discard NTFS option. After two months I’ve realised what mistaqes it was. Due to 2Gb file size limit I was unavaiable to store my several vmware virtual machines on this drive, they required more additional work (to split virtual hdd into files of 2gb) and after this there were no problem with my virtual machines.

However, situation with DVD images (ISO, NRG and other formats) never cames to solution (other than split image using winrar into segments less that 2Gb and integrate them on target machine – this clearly is not within top 10 solution). Due to lack of judgement in small moment of time I choosed to use Microsoft Windows XP Command Prompt Tool CONVERT.EXE.

Here is command prompt capture:

c:\>convert g: /fs:ntfs

The type of the file system is FAT32.

Enter current volume label for drive G: my book

Volume My Book created 3/21/2003 11:59 AM

Volume Serial Number is 071A-3DEC

Windows is verifying files and folders...

File and folder verification is complete.

Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

  732.393.152 KB total disk space.

     372.736 KB in 789 hidden files.

      77.248 KB in 2.410 folders.

 528.984.032 KB in 22.849 files.

  202.959.104 KB are available.

       32.768 bytes in each allocation unit.

   22.887.286 total allocation units on disk.

6.342.472 allocation units available on disk.

Determining disk space required for file system conversion...

Total disk space:              732572001 KB

Free space on volume:          202959104 KB

Space required for conversion:  1009711 KB

Converting file system

Conversion complete

…and that’s it! Phew this was close… I didn’t know what time consumption to expect, and there were no information of what percentage is completed during this process. For my 750Gb it took 5-10 minutes to complete process successfully. My Book was attached to IBM T43 notebook with Windows XP and 1Gb RAM memory.