Sunday 29 September 2019

More on Frinton > Wessex

A bit extra to the previous post , which describes how to change over Frinton mouldings to Wessex.

There is an (initially) perplexing problem where it seems that some Frinton mouldings have been marked as "discontinued" incorrectly.
"Oh dear!" I thought (or something close) when this turned up on my work computer.
As always it's wise to be like Corporal Jones and "Don't Panic".
After little sober reflection I realised that the problem lies with mouldings that were sold by both Wessex and Frinton and had a Wessex reference and a (different) Frinton reference.

So, to clarify - the moulding which showed as "discontinued" for me was (in my moulding records) Frinton M03021. Now Wessex also have this listed, and their reference is "C2105" and this is the reference used in the update file.

How to sort this out? I have come up with 2 scenarios.

The first is if you use the supplier's reference as the moulding ID. Simply change the label on your chevron to the Wessex number.

The second is if you use a different ID from the supplier number (for me that moulding was "117"), then you can edit the record to change the Supplier & Supplier Number.

The good thing about the second method is that all the job records which have used that moulding are changed too. Whereas in the first method they will still have the original ID, so it's probably best to edit the record and put the Wessex reference in the Notes section.

The records that start "WF", "PW" & "POL" are not affected, but if you come across an odd "Discontinued" best to give Wessex a ring just to check.

Friday 6 September 2019

Wessex & Frinton moulding changes

As you have probably seen Frinton Mouldings are now being merged with Wessex Pictures.
This means that in future the mouldings that used to be listed under Frinton will now be listed under Wessex.
Only one update file will be issued (WessexMouldings.xls).

So, how can we get the program (WPP4) to sort this out?
Fortunately it is quite simple.

  • Make sure your version of the program is at least 4.4.7 (To find out which version you have click on "Help", then "About").
  • Preferably before you run the update mouldings routine you need to change the name of the supplier from "Frinton" to "Wessex". 
      Do this by going to -
  1. "Setup" > "Options" and choose the "Database" tab. 
  2. The top left frame is Database Utilities - click the "OK...." button.
  3. Take a copy of the Database "just-in-case".
  4. Go to the third frame down and select "Change Supplier Name".
  5. Select "Frinton" from the list of suppliers, and click "OK". You'll will be prompted to enter the new name (in this case it is "Wessex"). Click "OK".
  6. All the Frinton records in your database now have Wessex as the supplier.  - Job done!
  • Now you can run the update mouldings routine using the latest WessexMouldings update file. 
  • NB. If you have tried to run the update before changing the supplier name, you will find that a lot of mouldings have "failed to be added". This is because the Id (which must be unique) of those mouldings is used under the Frinton supplier name. Simply run the update again after you have changed the supplier name from Frinton to Wessex.
Now you are upto date.