Technology

“Waiting to Start Report” message in your Free Purchase Order Software

We’ve had a few support tickets from people who are seeing a message like “Waiting to start report” when printing Purchase Orders or other reports to a PDF file in the free version of SpendMap, or when emailing POs in PDF format.

We think the problem may be a result of a big update to Windows 10 that Microsoft pushed out recently.

Either way, if you ever have trouble creating PDF files in your free SpendMap system, please try removing and then reinstalling SpendMap’s PDF printer driver (you will need Administrator access/rights on PC to do this)…

  1. Exit SpendMap.
  2. In the Windows Control Panel, navigate to “Devices and printers”, and remove the “Palmas PDF printer”.
  3. To reinstall the PDF printer driver, just RIGHT-mouse-click on the shortcut/icon that you use to run SpendMap and select “Run As Administrator”.  As you log in to SpendMap, you will see additional prompts to install the printer driver.

If you are still not able to view or email POs or other reports in PDF format, please let us know on our Support Ticket System.

Thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience.

-FP

World Backup Day and your Free Purchase Order Software

We’re not sure if World Backup Day is really a thing but any excuse to remind you to protect your work in the free version of SpendMap is a good thing.

Remember, unlike the On-Demand/SaaS version of SpendMap, when using the free Windows/desktop application, your database is installed on your own computer, so we’re not backing it up for you.

For details, please see “Backup and Restore Procedures” in the Getting Started Documentation that comes with the software.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

PDF Printer Driver in Windows 10

If you install the free version of SpendMap on a PC with an earlier version of Windows and then later upgrade the PC to Windows 10, you may need to reinstall SpendMap’s PDF printer driver. (more…)

Upgraded e-mail features in your free Purchase Order Software

We made two fairly significant improvements to the e-mail features in the Free Version of SpendMap (including v12.65)…mail-GREEN

1) Encrypted E-Mail

SpendMap now supports encrypted (SSL/TLS) connections to the mail server.  Better security aside, we have been finding that more and more e-mail providers (like Google’s Gmail) no longer support unencrypted connections.  If you previously had trouble getting SpendMap to work with your e-mail system, please try again after upgrading.

Note the new “Secure Connection” setting under the Server Name or IP Address field, in…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > e-mail settings

Please note that to send e-mail, SpendMap now requires the Microsoft .NET Framework v4.0 or above to be installed on the PC (available since 2010).

We normally don’t make changes to published versions of SpendMap but we made an exception in this case due to recent changes at Google and the increasing number of requests for this feature.

2) Free, Built-In E-mail Service

The free version of SpendMap now includes a free, built-in e-mail service, which you can use instead of configuring the system to use your own e-mail server or ISP.

Just enter “SpendMap” in the Server Name or IP Address field in E-mail Settings to use this free service (don’t worry about the other SMTP settings as they will be ignored when using the built-in e-mail service).  The Online Help for the Server Name or IP Address field has additional details.

For new downloads of the free version of SpendMap, the Evaluation Copy is preconfigured to use this new e-mail service.  If you already have SpendMap installed, your settings will not change automatically but you can manually change the Server Name or IP Address field per above if you want to use this free service.

No web-based Shopping Cart in your Free Purchase Order Software

We’ve had a few questions about the new video that we posted, showing how easy it is to enter Requisitions in the e-Series Thin Web Client.

As a web-based component, the e-Series is only available in our paid version.  Sorry folks, our YouTube channel is for both our free and paying customers. However, you can still use (pretty darn easy) Item Requisitions in the free Windows/desktop version…it just uses a slightly different format/UI.

For more details about the various types of Requisitions in the free version of SpendMap, check out this section of the Online Help…
– Requisitions and Approvals > Types of Requisitions and Workflow

Easy Requisition Software System

Virus in SpendMap Free Version was False Alarm

Webroot virus scanning software was showing a “false-positive” on our website last week, saying that our site “Contains malicious content”, when it does not.  Webroot has since updated their database to show that SpendMap.com is totally safe.

Are you worried about viruses or malware in the free version of SpendMap?  These days you can’t be too careful when downloading files from the Internet.

And because of the popularity of the free version of SpendMap, our installation package (SETUP.EXE) has been picked up by many download sites, which we have no control over.

So if you’re worried about viruses and malware (as everyone should be these days), make sure to avoid these other download sites and get the installation package directly from our website.

Before posting our installation file, we always scan it for viruses, malware, etc. using the latest version of Symantec’s Antivirus Software and then we sign it with a digital signature so you can tell if something happens to it on the way to you.  To check the status of the digital signature, you can RIGHT-mouse click on the SETUP.EXE file, select “Properties” from the menu, then click the [Digital Signatures] tab…

No Virus in SpendMap

Of course, you should scan any EXE files for viruses, etc. before running them, and you should follow your company’s security protocols when installing any software.

QuickBooks Integration for your Free Purchase Order Software

QuickBooks is the most popular Accounting system in use by the Free-Procurement community, so we thought we’d give you a little bonus gift with the 2014 release of SpendMap.

We’ve built direct integration with QuickBooks to push approved invoices (bills) and expense reimbursement transactions directly into your QuickBooks database, without the need for batch file exports and imports.

So, for example, once you have approved a supplier’s invoice for payment, SpendMap will create a pending Bill in QuickBooks, so you can cut a check to the supplier and post the transaction to your G/L, with no duplicate data entry.

Direct QuickBooks integration is coming soon, along with 20 or so other new features and capabilities, in the 2014 release of the free version of SpendMap.

SM_qb_logo

Uninstalling your free Purchase Order Software will delete your data

BadDayToday was a bad day.  We had to tell a friend that his data/history was deleted when he uninstalled the system (which was installed on his local C: drive, rather than on a network server).

To make things worse, he also didn’t have a backup of his system, so now he has to start over.  That’s no fun.

😦

So here are a few important things to keep in mind…

  • Per the note under “Uninstalling/Removing the System” in the Getting Started Documentation that comes with the software, if the software is installed on your C: drive, uninstalling the system will remove the software AND delete all your data/history.
  • Please consider moving the database to a network server (even if you only need a single-user system).  That way, your data will be backed up with everything else on the server.  For details, please see “Network Installation Instructions” in the Getting Started Documentation.
  • Please, please, please back up your system on a regular basis.  Details are under “Backup and Restore Procedures” in the Getting Started Documentation.

If this is too much work for you, please consider upgrading to the On-Demand (hosted/SaaS) version of SpendMap.  It’s not free like the Windows/desktop version, but with SpendMap On-Demand we do the backups, upgrades and other system maintenance for you as part of the monthly service.

Tomorrow is another day…

Screen Resolution Settings and your Free Purchase Order Software

We’ve had a few support tickets from people who are using the free version of SpendMap on Microsoft’s new Surface Pro Tablets, with the setting “Make text and other items larger or smaller” set pretty high (e.g. 150%).

Settings like this can affect SpendMap’s minimum screen resolution test, resulting in an error message that you don’t have the required minimum 1024×768 screen size.

If you get this error message, try adjusting that setting to 125% (or until you stop getting the message).

TIP: The higher your screen resolution, the smaller SpendMap (and other software applications) will appear on your screen.  Instead of adjusting your computer’s overall screen settings, you might also consider adjusting the “Font/screen scaling factor” in SpendMap, using setting #10 in Workstation Configuration Settings (PURCHASING > Setup system > Workstation configuration settings).  This will make SpendMap appear bigger on your screen, without affecting other apps on your PC.

screen resolution

Don’t forget to reindex your free Purchase Order Software

The embedded database that comes with the free version of SpendMap is ideal for a free PO System like this because it’s super easy to install (the database actually installs itself when you install SpendMap).

But unlike SQL Server and Oracle databases used in our paid version, there’s nothing running on the server to do any behind-the-scenes database maintenance.

So it’s important to reindex the embedded database once in a while.  For details, please see this section of the Online Help…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Database Maintenance > Reindex all tables

If you would like the system to remind you to run the reindex utility from time to time, just enable the first setting in the [Permissions] tab of the User Master File.

And remember, you can also run the reindex operation automatically (unattended) from a task scheduler.  Here’s the Help section…
– System-Wide Features and Information > System Admin and Maintenance > Unattended Mode

FYI – We just finished a new scripting option to make it faster and easier to configure unattended operations…no more need to preconfigure pop-up options for a user account.  One less thing.