If you have not heard yet (or read about it), Charlie broke his shoulder over the weekend.  Read all about it.

We really hope he recovers quickly and can get back into the swing of things.

Leave him a comment at his blog and encourage him!

A lot of bloggers are mentioning SalesWorks' appearance at DEMO.  Jim Forbes posted Demo 2007's Tasty Treats-- Another Tour de Force in which he elaborates on why he thinks SalesWorks is great for the market.  He even personalizes it: 

My favorite small business guy is in the motor cycle accessories business. If you live in northern or north Central California and bought a pair of silk glove liners, after market motorcycle grips, replacement mirrors, light bulbs, or a CobraLink locking device, for your bike or scooter, you’ve probably bought one of the products he sells.

This guy, knows his customers and in some instances he’s worked with them since they worked in their parent’s motorcycle dealerships as teens. Customer relationship management?

Hey, he doesn’t need a computer to remember their birthdays, or to inquire about the health of their ubiquitous shop tabby or calico mousers or much  less their last order was.

That’s because he sees his customers at least once a week as he works his way relentlessly along his route. But, after using a complex vertical application that takes up hours of his time without generating sales, he’s slowly coming around to the idea of acquiring an application that helps him become more efficiently on his route and increases his sales. SalesWorks is what I’m going to recommend to him.

Dave and I met with a person a number of weeks ago to discuss SalesWorks.  In the course of the conversation, we could see this person getting excited about SalesWorks and he made statements similar to Jim's about wanting to recommend SalesWorks to small businesses he knows and works with.

I think we all know someone who owns or works for a small business and really could use help to make their business run the best it can...That's why we're so excited about SalesWorks.

Renee Blodgettwrote a great summary of our appearance at DEMO.  She has done a great job covering DEMO and SalesWorks.

The video of the DEMO presentation has been posted to the DEMO '07 site.  Check it out for yourself...

Charles and Mary Pat present SalesWorks at DEMO '07

After our presentation at DEMO '07, we are getting some writeups in blogs about the presentation and SalesWorks.

Gary Bolles provides a nice summary of the DEMO presentation with a few comments too...find it here.

Information Week makes a small reference to Mission Research at DEMO.

InfoWorld has a few things to say too.

Silicon Valley Watcher chimed in also.

Mark Orchant at ZDNet had some great words to say about SalesWorks.  Read it here.

PC Magazine has published a small article about SalesWorks.  The includes some additional information about the product and some quotes from Charlie.

You can find the article here.

We feel privileged be able to launch SalesWorks at the 2007 DEMO conference.  DEMO hosts two conferences a year to showcase up and coming products...

DEMO is the premier launch venue for new products, technologies and companies. For more than 16 years, DEMO has established a reputation for identifying and presenting to an elite audience the products most likely to have a significant impact on the marketplace and market trends in the coming year. (excerpt from DEMO's about page)

Two years ago we presented GiftWorks at DEMO and it served as an amazing launch pad for our first product, GiftWorks.  As we return to DEMO with SalesWorks, we begin the process of bringing our latest product to the market and provide an important solution to the small business owners and operators who have been waiting for the answer.

On January 31, 2007 our company launched our latest product, SalesWorks, at DEMO '07.  It is an exciting time for us as we venture out with our next product and impact the small business market in the same we have done so with the non-profit community.

Until now, the major provider of business solutions have been Salesforce.com, ACT!, and GoldMine.  These companies have provided decent solutions but we have never thought that they truly met the needs of the small business market...hence the need for SalesWorks.

Our first public article about SalesWorks highlighted some differences between SalesWorks and Salesforce.com...a bold comparison, but we'll take it.

Normally, straddling the fence isn't a good thing but SalesWorks, the latest product by Mission Research, straddles the fence between pure web applications and desktop applications.

Until now, online applications like Salesforce.com provided good functionality for businesses but have been limited by the power and features available in the browser.  SalesWorks changes this with a seamless integration between the web and the desktop with what we call The Hybrid Web...the utility of the web with the power of the desktop.  SalesWorks features an intuitive interface, a powerful feature set, and a price that makes SalesWorks affordable to all.

SalesWorks is the second application developed by Mission Research and was launched at demo '07.

Today Mission Research publicly released our newest product, SalesWorks.  SalesWorks is a small business management system for small business owners and operators that helps them easily track sales opportunities, record and track sales, launch powerful and effective marketing campaigns, and easily understand their business activity with easy-to-produce reports and lists.

Two years ago Mission Research released GiftWorks into the non-profit community with overwhelming success.  Non-profits have been empowered with an inexpensive yet powerful product that helps them accomplish their mission by easily tracking their donor and donation information.  In the same way non-profits have been served by GiftWorks, small business owners will now have access to the kind of software that allows them to focus on their objective as a small business and have the tools that will support them every step of the way.

In addition to working with great individuals, I am blessed to be able to work for a great company, Mission Research.  I know that a company is made up of individuals, but when you put them all together, I can't imagine there's a better place to work.

Thanks to the founders of Mission Research, Charlie, Dave, and Chris for starting a great company and allowing me the opportunity to be a part of it.

I know that other companies like BlackBaud, DonorPerfect, FundRaiserSoftware, and eTapestry try to do what we do, but I can't imagine they hold a candle to Mission Research.

I have the privilege of working with some other great developers who spur me on to be a better person and a better developer.  Here are a few links to their blogs and some posts which you may find helpful...

Dave Weaver - Dave posted some great information on adding new reports to GiftWorks.  His post can get you started on some customizations to GiftWorks.

Jonathan Leaman - Jonathan is working hard on some GiftWorks -> QuickBooks integration and he posted some great information.

Mike Greineder - Mike let users know about a great tip for creating helpful SmartLists.  He also posted a 2-part series on issues with the GiftWorks -> QuickBooks integration.  Part 1, Part 2

I am back from a two week vacation and feeling refreshed.  It will take a little time to get the mental engines up and running to full capacity, but it is good to be back and facing the new year at Mission Research.

This year, I hope to make great strides in a number of areas for our products and our technical endeavors.  Here are a few things we want to see this year as we continue to grow GiftWorks and other Mission Research technologies:

• Release a documented SoftWare Development Kit that provides sample code and instruction to create GiftWorks add-ins
• Provide a few sample add-ins to help users understand the power of GiftWorks add-ins
• Engage third party developers to empower GiftWorks users with new functionality through creative and useful add-ins

There are a number of other initiatives planned for this year and I look forward to seeing some great strides for Mission Research, GiftWorks, and our customers.

We have been a little delayed in getting labs.missionresearch.com up and running so I thought I would post a little bit of what I have been working on.

The are many aspects that customers find appealing about GiftWorks....the user interface is simple, clean, and intuitive, the features are plentiful, and the price is unbeatable.  Another great aspect of GiftWorks (and virtually unknown to our customers) is the ability to easily add new functionality to GiftWorks.  Over the next year, we hope to generate awareness and excitement about the "add-in" features of GiftWorks so that computer hobbyists, vocational software developers, and technical consultants can add customized and useful functionality to meet the specialized needs of GiftWorks users.

The first step I have taken to introduce you to GiftWorks add-in functionality is an add-in called DonorPics for GiftWorks.  This add-in simply allows you to add pictures to your donors.  I was prompted to develop this add-in after hearing a few customers ask if GiftWorks has this feature.  Well, the basic installation of GiftWorks does not have this feature, but this add-in adds the feature seamlessly.

In this post, I will introduce you to the functionality and the installation...in my next post, I will begin to break down how things work.

Installing DonorPics for GiftWorks

You can download the DonorPics for GiftWorks add-in by clicking here.  Run the installation and then start GiftWorks.

At the signin screen to GiftWorks, click the Help menu and choose Manage GiftWorks Addins...

In the filename box, enter: c:\program files\mission research\DonorPics\module.xml and click the Install button.

You should see DonorPics for GiftWorks

Taking a look

When the add-in is installed, the donor screen looks a little different.  Notice the Picture section at the bottom.

The Add a picture link allows you to browse and look for a picture to associate with this donor.  You can add as many pictures as you like.

If you hover over a picture, you will see additional options: 

The two options are Delete and  Set as donor picture.  Delete simply allows you to delete the picture from this donor.  The Set as donor picture option allows you to set the image in the upper left corner of the screen to be an actual picture.  Here is how it might look:

Some notes

Pictures that are added to GiftWorks are stored in a "DonorPics" folder that is located in the same folder as your GiftWorks database.  The location of your pictures can be changed, along with other options, by going to the Settings area of GiftWorks.

Setting the picture location

Setting picture properties

Wrapping it up

In my next post, I will begin to go into detail about how DonorPics works and how you can build add-ins for GiftWorks too.  Please feel free to leave comments on DonorPics or other add-in functionality.

GiftWorks is a great program.  I don't say that because I am involved with its development, I say that because it helps many organizations (in part) accomplish their mission.

 Even though GiftWorks is a great program, some users experience problems while using GiftWorks which is something that we don't like to hear.  We have a great support department where people like Heather and Lisa try to get every user up and working so they can get back to their mission.

Many of the problems users face have to do with environmental conditions such as:

• Operating system
• Service packs
• Windows updates http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
• Security issues

As much as we like to personally interact with users, we have created other valuable ways of helping users solve problems.  One of the ways we can help is with our new SupportTool for GiftWorks.  This tool allows a user to run a series of test on their own computer to try and determine the cause of the problem they are experiencing.

So you want to run the test?

The first time you go to http://help.missionresearch.com/supporttool you will be prompted to install our Support Tool component.  After the installation of our component, you will see:

Enter a valid email address

The first step in running a test is to provide a valid email address.  This email address is used to track the results of your test (Mission Research will never sell, rent, or use your email for any purposes).

Choose one or both tests

Basic System Test - this will test many environmental issues that could cause GiftWorks to encounter problems.  This test includes security checks, necessary prerequisites, operating system settings, Internet settings, etc.

Database Check - this will test many of the conditions that can cause a problem while trying to access a GiftWorks database.  To run this test, you must enter the path to a GiftWorks database.

Run the test

When you are ready, you can click the "Start testing now" link to begin running the test.  As the test runs you will see a progress bar that keeps you informed of the test progress.

View the results

When the test completes, hopefully you will see a screen like the one here that has no errors:

Some of you may get errors (below).  By clicking on the row with the error, you will see helpful information to help you better understand the error.

The Support Tool also may report warnings (marked in yellow).  These warnings are typically not serious and are intended to alert you to a item that is noteworthy.  The warning information will help you understand the issue.

I found errors, now what?

You may be able to figure out what is going on with the help of the error information.  Not all the features of the Support Tool are fully developed so you may get stuck at some point and need additional help.  If you do, contact us at support@missionresearch.com and we'll help.

As more organizations start using GiftWorks, the need for additional functionality will grow also.  As a smaller company, we will not be able to deliver customized solutions for all the customers that need it, but it is important to us that users are able to add functionality as they need it.

Over the next few days, we will be launching our laboratory site which will be a great resource for users and developers who wish to add cool and useful functionality to GiftWorks.  Coming soon.

The mailing section of GiftWorks is certainly a popular feature that gets used by many GiftWorks users to produce printed letters, labels, and envelopes.  Recently a number of users have been complaining that their mailing process is "freezing-up" or moving extremely slow.  While there are many possible causes for this undesireable behavior, I think there are two main causes for these issues.

A lot of recipients

When you produce a mailing, all the recipients that are included in the mailing need to be processed to determine the proper addressing, collect the necessary information for the mailing, and to perform the correct sorting, etc.  If you have a large number of recipients, then the data collection process may take some time (> 1000 recipients).  The speed of your computer and the location of your GiftWorks database (network folder or on the user's machine) will affect the speed at which mailings are produced.  You may need to demonstrate and greater amount of patience if their list of recipients is large.  In a future release, we will work on improving your experience by showing the progress of the mailing process in greater detail.

(A lot of recipients)

The Big Picture

When you create a letter in the Manage Letter Library, you can insert pictures into the letter by clicking on the Insert Picture icon:

You may be tempted to pick any picture that you can find on your computer and simply insert it into your letter.  It is easy to insert a picture, but you need to be aware of the size of the image.  One of the biggest misconceptions that exists is that if you resize the picture in the letter by grabbing the picture handles and making it visibly smaller that it makes the picture a smaller size.  The reality is that it makes it visibly smaller but it doesn't make the picture smaller in terms of how much storage is needed to hold the picture.  If you insert a 1 megabyte picture into a letter and resize the picture to be 1 inch by 1 inch big in the letter, the picture itself still requires 1 megabyte to store.

When GiftWorks attempts to produce all the letters for a mailing, it will be drastically affected (negatively) if you have inserted large images in your letter.

If you insert pictures into a letter, you should try to keep the images at about 100k or less in size.  When you insert your image, you can view the size of the picture by viewing the details in the file-open window (you may need to change your view to the "Details" view in the view menu):

If you have an image that is greater than 100k in size and you want to use it in your letter, you can reduce the size of your images using a program like Adobe Photoshop or even Microsoft Paint (which comes with most versions of Windows).  There are a few other tricks to shrink pictures to be able to use them in your letters.  Microsoft even has an image resizer in their Power Toys pack that they'll give you for free.  Download it here

I can't image everyone isn't getting tired of me railing against Norton Anything.  I promise I'll lay off...soon...be here is another gem I discovered while working with a customer.

A has a customer who could not email from GiftWorks.  Every time they tried to use the emailing function within GiftWorks, they got the message, "You must have Microsoft Outlook installed to use this feature" even though they had Microsoft Outlook 2003 installed and seemingly working fine.

I created a quick .vbs file and tried to simply create an instance of the Outlook.Application object.

Dim oOutlook

Set oOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")

Set oOutlook = Nothing

Run-time error '-2147024770 (8007007e)':

Automation error
The specified module could not be found.

GiftWorks could not use the Microsoft Outlook features because there was something preventing it from being used.  The customer used to have Norton Antivirus installed but had removed it weeks ago.  The problem was that before they uninstalled it, Script Blocking was enabled and unfortunately when Norton is uninstalled, it DOES NOT remove all of it's Script Blocking code, registry entries, etc.

If you have Norton Antivirus installed and want to remove it, be sure you disable Script Blocking before uninstalling Norton Antivirus.  If you have already uninstalled it, you can look for scrblock.dll in your registry to see what it is affecting (be careful in your registry...you can really do some damage if you're not careful).

If you need to know how to fix it, leave a comment.