Well, summer is nearly upon us, the flowers are bursting forth
and the sun is shining. We are also blooming, and are all really
looking forward to those long summer days (and evenings). Aline
is growing by the day, and has taken a distinct liking to bananas
and pizza, though luckily she hasn't yet discovered the ‘yum
fund emergency biscuit box’!
Among this year’s new clients we are particularly pleased to welcome Dorling Kindersley Ltd back into the R.E.D. fold. Their history with R.E.D. goes back a long way, their royalty system being originally supplied in 1987. The latest R.A.C. has now been installed and was used for the last royalty period.
The different nature of book and circulation publishers is
very marked. We appear at to have far fewer royalty clients at
first glance, but some are very large, and incorporate many different
divisions within one company.
Just a quick reminder to our subscriptions users that Austria,
Finland and Sweden joined the EEC, with effect from January 1st
this year. This affects the airmail postage costs in some circumstances
(downwards!), so it's worth changing your settings accordingly.
Your European VAT Reports will also need to include these countries
now.
Many of you include telephone and fax numbers in your data. It would be possible for us to write a routine to change the old codes to the new. The question is - is there anybody out there interested in this?
We had intended to suggest this earlier, but things have been
very busy here at R.E.D. as you can see from the rest of this
News.
This module has now gone out to three sites, and will be available
for general release very shortly. There has been much interest
in the BPA generally, especially since they set up their UK office
and have been actively marketing their services. There certainly
seems to be a flurry of activity on the BPA front.
Great news for R.A.C. users! A report generator will soon be
available for this program. A report generator is for users to
specify and design their own reports. Basically you can print
anything about anybody, any book or any contract! It is a major
step in the evolution of the R.A.C. Have a word with Helen if
you're interested in more details.
For those of you who have taken the advance training, further
new developments with form letters and the report generator means
that, among other things, It is possible to print personalised
letters onto carrier sheets in Presstream order. Technically speaking,
the program will be calling one form letter from inside another
one, and this has other useful implications.
As promised, this is now available. The tutorial itself is
much simplified, and is suitable for the newer user. The accompanying
reference manual, more appropriate for managerial activity, is
updated and clearer. It has been issued to selected clients, and
appears to be most successful. Any of you longer term users who
would like a copy of this new tutorial should let us know.
The Post Office has a video called ‘Successful Subscriptions
Promotion’ which was passed on to us by a client and which
we thought was very interesting viewing. Do get in touch with
your PO if you would be interested in a copy of your own,
The first Thursday of every month has been allocated as the
R.E.D. social evening for this summer, with a regular venue at
a local free-house called ‘Woodies’. As usual all are
welcome to join us, just turn up between 6 and 8 pm (see over
for map). We shall also be there most other Thursdays too!
Computer theft is widespread. Please make sure that your OFF-SITE backups are reliable, and don't forget that you may have valuable data on local drives that s not backed up by your network tape drive !