support

Need help with your free Purchase Order Software?

We’ve had a few requests for additional assistance to implement the free version of SpendMap. 

While we’ve had pretty much unanimously positive feedback on the video tutorials, the online help system and the other free implementation resources that we’ve provided, free or not there’s still some work that needs to be done to get a new Purchasing System up and running, and who has time these days?

We understand and we’re happy to help.

So we’re now offering “a-la-carte” professional services.  You can buy a block of hours for…

  • phone or web-based training
  • implementation consulting
  • system configuration
  • technical support

…or anything else that you might need help with.  We can help you set up your user accounts and Master Files, import your items and suppliers, or maybe just spend some time discussing your current purchasing processes and how best to improve things with SpendMap.

You can learn more about these stand-alone services, as well as the yearly Service Plan, on this page.

And don’t forget, we also offer a free Setup Session, to point you in the right direction.  Not a replacement for formal training or implementation consulting, but hey, it’s free!

Hope that helps.

Important update for your free Purchase Order Software

If you have successfully installed the free version of SpendMap and the system is able to check for updates when starting up, you can ignore this blog post.
 
As you may know, the free version of SpendMap checks for updates/patches automatically.  When an update is available, it is downloaded automatically and you will receive a message to re-launch the system.  This ability to automatically update/patch the system is absolutely mandatory for a project like this, due to the large number of free systems in use.
 
Unfortunately, we’ve had a few support tickets from people who are not able to activate and/or update the software due to restrictions on their firewalls or proxy servers, so we have redesigned the auto-update utility in the hopes of making it more “firewall friendly”.
 
Like all updates/patches, the updated version will be downloaded and installed automatically the next time you run SpendMap.  However, if you are having trouble connecting to our update server, obviously you won’t get the update.
 
So, if you have SpendMap running but are not able to apply auto-updates, you can download the new version manually with this file…
http://www.spendmap-updates.com/updates/free1164/patch.zip 
 
TIP: If you are not sure if your SpendMap system is able to auto-update, you can test this by selecting the menu option Help > Check for updates – If it is unable to check for updates, you will receive an error message.

Instructions for IT person or System Administrator:  After backing up the system, just unzip the patch.zip file into the root folder of each of your SpendMap systems.  For example, if you’re using both the Evaluation and Live systems, you’ll need to unzip this twice, into both of these folders (the example below assumes that you installed SpendMap into the default folder of C:\FREEPROCUREMENT)…
 
C:\FREEPROCUREMENT\Eval
C:\FREEPROCUREMENT\Live
 
If, however, you were not able to get SpendMap going in the first place, you can just download a new SETUP.EXE (which has the new auto-update feature built-in) and install the system from scratch…
http://www.spendmap.com/Register_Download 
 
For clarity, if you are installing from scratch, there is no need to download and apply the patch.zip file, as its contents are already included in the SETUP.EXE.
 
Finally, if the new update utility does not improve things for you and SpendMap is still not able to check for updates due to restrictions on your firewall or proxy server, as a last resort you can manually download and install the patch.zip file from time to time.  Any new or updated files will be added to the ZIP file accumulatively, so you can download and install the files as often as you like, perhaps once a month, or if we make a post like this in the future about an important update.  To make sure that you are notified about important updates, please follow our blog.

Free setup assistance for your free Purchase Order Software

We’ve had a few requests to help new users of the free Purchase Order Software with the setup (configuration) of the system.

Sure, we’re happy to help.

SpendMap includes an easy-to-use Setup Wizard and detailed online help, but if you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to read it, we would be happy to walk you through it.  Just send us a note at free-procurement@spendmap.com and we’ll set up a short meeting.  It should only take 15 or 20 minutes to get you set up and processing Purchase Orders.

We may not be able to provide this free service forever but we’ll try as long as we can until the user community gets too big.  Mind you, by then we’ll likely have a user forum in place, so you’ll be able to help each other at that point.

Hope to hear from you soon…

Support System Now Online

The new support system is now online, so you can get free support for your free software.

I know, I know, you need the software before you need support.  We’re almost there.  Just working through a couple issues with the installer program, to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get the system up and running.

So in the meantime, while our developers are putting the bow on the package, the rest of us have had an opportunity to tie up some loose ends, like the new support system, finishing up a couple sections of the Online Help, and so on.

So the whole package will be a bit more polished, which I think you’ll all appreciate.

Hang in there everyone…we’re very close.