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August, 2015 | Issue #34
ACEware Systems Newsletter - Information to Run Your Program
ACEware Employee Spotlight: Stein Goering

We thought it would be neat to really show what ACEware Systems is made of: a great staff. This month, we picked Stein Goering to exemplify this.

 

Stein came to ACEware as a software developer consultant 19 years ago. In 2006, we decided to quit renewing his contracts and hire him as a full time employee. His duties focus on developing ACEweb and web customizations. He also supports all the technicians when ACEweb issues come up.

 

Stein holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics.  He has been involved in IT since 1981. He even did a stint teaching Computer Science and doing Network Administration for the University of Wisconsin. He also operated his own consulting service where he developed software for local businesses before getting snatched up by ACEware.

Stein and his wife, Barbara, have one son, Nelson, who is attending graduate school in England. Hosting Nelson's wedding to Erika at the family farm was the big event of 2014 for Stein.

 

Besides developing software, Stein lives on a 90 acre farm in Wisconsin, where he raises beef cattle. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, watching sports (go Packers, Brewers, and Badgers!), traveling, listening to music, and dancing--he goes to Zumba classes twice a week.

 

Stein is in the record book as ACEware's first remote employee. He has worked from day one from his Wisconsin residence.

 

Contributed by Matthew J. Olson and Stein Goering

Coming in September: ACEweb RWD (Responsive Web Design)

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Chances are you're reading this announcement on your mobile device (phone or tablet). The majority of your customers are using their mobile devices to view your website for classes as well.

 

In September, ACEware will release ACEweb Responsive Web Design (RWD) to add to your ACEweb tool kit!  What does that mean? Your customers will have an optimal viewing experience of your courses from their mobile device. The design will recognize the screen size being used by your customer and "respond" to it, adjusting its size accordingly, and eliminating the need for your customer to resize the screen manually for viewing. (We all know how discouraging that process is.)

 

We're super excited about this release and can't wait to share more with you. We're offering a webinar to go over everything you need to know about ACEweb RWD. We'll show you the basics to help you understand how to integrate it into your web site.  Sign up now for the August 11 webinar. We will celebrate ACEweb RWD (and Chuck's birthday)!

 

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Two Number Functions to Pretty Certificates
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Most of the time, ideas for new report functions come from customers with unique reporting needs. But every now and then, we stumble upon something ourselves.

 

As it happens, I was monitoring a help site one day where I occasionally contribute support. One of the posts wasn't asking for help, but was offering a small function. This function turned a number into a fraction. I saw that and realized that people could use that on certificates to pretty up the number of CEUs and other numerical fields.

 

When .021 was released, NUM2FRACTION rolled out with it. You can pass any numeric field as a parameter like num2fraction(coceus). If a course has 1.75 CEUs, then it will show 1 3/4.

 

There is a second parameter to the function that is optional. It adjusts the sensitivity of the fraction generated. By default, the sensitivity is .000001. So if you have 0.333 CEUs, then NUM2FRACTION is going to show it as 333/1000. But if you pass .001 as the sensitivity, like NUM2FRACTION(.333,.001), then you will get 1/3 as the result.

 

Another useful function for prettying up numbers on a certificate is NUM2STR, which was started by Lindsey and Chuck, and was used to spell out numbers between 0 and 20. It was later expanded to numbers as high as one quadrillion.

 

NUM2STR only uses one parameter: Any number or number field that you want to convert. For example:  If you have 20 hours on a course, then NUM2STR(cohours) will display the hours as Twenty. You can also use it with a specified value, like NUM2STR(9999999), which will display Nine Million Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine. Please don't pass numbers above one quadrillion as you will just get a message that the number too large; numbers in the hundreds of trillions or less will work best.

 

As always, ask your tech if you need help adding one of these functions to a report. For more examples, visit our help guide. If you have any other function suggestions, drop me an email at matthew@aceware.com.

 

Contributed by Matthew J. Olson

Extreme Makeover
We enjoyed celebrating Christmas in July, during which we offered customers an additional discounted ACEweb module when they purchased an ACEweb Extreme Makeover. Several customers took us up on this deal and are now anxiously awaiting their site makeover from Lindsey. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are two recent examples of customers who purchased an ACEware Extreme Makeover. And what a difference it made!

 

University of California, Berkeley - Technology Transfer Program

Course listing page before ACEweb makeover
Course listing page after ACEweb makeover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laura Melendy, Director, Technology Transfer Program, shared this:

"After going through a major redesign of our program's informational website, we wanted our registration screens to match seamlessly. Our informational website and our registration system are hosted on two different servers using two different vendors and two very different systems, working completely independently. It was very important to us that our users wouldn't feel like they were leaving our website to view and register for our classes. After completing the website redesign, but before launching it live, we contacted Lindsey for an AceWeb makeover. I was amazed at how quickly and beautifully she implemented the new look and feel on our AceWeb interface. It was the easiest part of a very long process for us. We were able to launch the new website with matching registration screens simultaneously. It all works and looks as seamless as we had hoped."


 National Park College- Community & Corporate Training

 

Home page before ACEweb makeover.
Home page after ACEweb makeover.

 

Course listing page before ACEweb makeover.
Course listing page after ACEweb makeover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melinda Thornton, Continuing Education Specialist for National Park College Community & Corporate Training had this to say:

"Working with the staff at ACEware is always a pleasant experience! Our college recently rebranded and changed our logo, colors, website address, etc. The ACEware team was spot on in getting our ACEweb site updated with the correct path and new look! Thank you Jason Allen and Lindsey Lieberman for making the transition so smooth!" 

 

To see more examples of what your ACEware colleagues are doing with their ACEweb sites, take a few moments to explore other ACEware Extreme Makeover samples. If you want to schedule your makeover, talk with your technician!


Contributed by Sharon Brookshire and Lindsey Lieberman
We hope you summer programs have been a great success! 

Your ACEware team,

- Chuck, Sharon, AJ, Cheryl, Emily, Jason, Lauri, Lindsey, Matthew, Mike, and Stein
Aceware Systems
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We would love to hear from you! If you have questions, comments, or suggestions about this newsletter, please contact sharon@aceware.com

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Aceware Systems
800-925-2493 | matthew@aceware.com | http://www.aceware.com
 


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