Conference 7.286::digital

    I'd like to see in the web page a replacement for VTX PRICE that
    would supply the IEG price (I always have to hunt back in my email to
    remember what fraction to multiply what type of item by.)  And I'd
    like it to also describe the item in enough detail so I can tell
    what options (amount of memory, no. and types of free slots, etc.)
    are included in packages.
    
    I'd also like that to have a search facility, so I could ask it,
    say, "Alpha EV5 workstation" and it would show me the likely
    part numbers and descriptions.  Maybe you want to talk to the
    AltaVista folks.
    
    Further config info would be great, but harder to do.  (For example,
    what monitors could go with the system, if I add option foo it uses up
    one PCI slot, etc.)  Some of this could be slurped in from the Sys&Ops
    catalog, which is currently very hard to search in VTX.
    
    How about an order tracking facility, so I could feed in a DEC
    number and get the status. plus some way to track orders with DEC
    numbers not yet assigned.  I'd also like to be able to get a list
    of everything my group has ordered, both shipped and not shipped.
    By "my group", I mean me, so I'm not sure how you'd do that, perhaps
    have to add the ordering person's name as another field.
    
    Also, info about which products are currently on delayed shipping.
    
    

There is VTX ORDER_STATUS for tracking US orders by DEC number.  It works
for IEG orders.

				Steve

    There is also an option within VTX IEG that allows you to track orders
    by DECNumber, CAR number, Cost Center, or employee badge number (Review
    your order status - option 6).  

    Yes, to second the previous couple of notes.  I use VTX IEG to track
    order status and expected delivery dates.  If you someday imagine
    that your web page will replace VTX IEG, you better provide a similar
    facility on the page.
    
    				-John
    

I'd like to see hardware-only part number published to end the maddness of 
internal purchases of NT systems because they are cheeper, then overwriting 
the disk with Unix or OpenVMS.


							-Paul 

    I use VTX IEG and wish I could select on whom the item is to be shipped
    to.  Currently, I have to specify my cost center and then scan through,
    looking for the items that are mine.
    
    Have links to the SOC chapters on the workstations so that I can look
    at the configurations to buy.  I use VTX IR to get the latest and
    greatest of these.  I find I can't trust
    
            http://www.digital.com/info/SOC/
    
    to have the latest and greatest available.  The SOC chapters are the
    best resource I have for determining part numbers and getting a feel
    for what I'm ordering.
    
    Point to http://www2.service.digital.com/DECdirect/index.html
    
    Find some way to point to the PC product descriptions.  Currently, I
    have to borrow someone's paper catalog copy.
    
    Have a list of pointers to various notes conferences about the
    machines.
    
                                            August G. Reinig

    Re:6 "I...wish I could select on whom the item is to be shipped to.
    Currently, I have to specify my cost center and then scan through,
    looking for the items that are mine."
    
    That's part of what I meant in my previous note -- I order for one
    cost center for two geographical locations, but others order for
    that cost center as well.  I would like a way to select for the
    items I have ordered. Ship to would not do it.
    

    Re: How To Track
    
    Sounds like you have multiple shipments to different locations on one
    DEC#/order. I guess it should be just as simple as sending in an order
    form for each individual person/ship location. Simple or am I missing
    something?
    
    George

Here are the fields I can fill out.  The only thing I know for certain
is my Cost Center and Badge number.  But VTX IEG doesn't know my badge
number, so I just enter my Cost Center.
    
        If you know the DEC Number,  TAB  over and fill in this field 
        OR If you do not know the DEC Number  TAB  over and fill in   
        ONLY ONE of the fields below (COST CENTER on the IOF is       
        recommended and press  PF1   ENTER .                          
       
        DEC Number:                        Cost Center: 37a 
                                                                      
        Employee's Badge:   CAR+GL Number:  
                                                                      
        IOF Issue Month-Year: -                                  
                                                                      
        Include Completed and Cancelled Orders? Y                     
       
I get the following screen (after a few nexts)

  21   21 960702350 Active 34880                      954A73442140
  22   22 960702360 Active 34880                      954A73452140
  23   23 960702370 Active 34880                      954A73462140
  24   24 960702380 Active 34880                      954A73472140
  25   25 960702440 Comple 34880                      954A73482140
  26   26 960702450 Comple 34880                      954A73492140
  27   27 960702560 Comple 34880                      954A73502140
  28   28 960702580 Comple 34880                      954A73412140
  29   29 960704330 Active 34880                      954A78652140
  30   30 960704340 Active 34880                      954A78662140

item 21 is:

  DEC Number: 960702350 - Active       Requestor: 34880
  IOF Issued: 24-Oct-95                    Phone:
 Order Entry: 24-Oct-95            CAR+GL Number: 954A73442140
 Last Change: 06-Nov-95              Cost Center: 37A
  CIC Update:
       Today: 16-Feb-96                  Ship To: DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP
                                                  ASSETS/T.LAVIGNE(37A-605)23LAB
 IEG Contact: RUONALA, CHRISTINE                  110 SPIT BROOK RD
       Phone: DTN:381-1905                        NASHUA NH 03062


Item 24 is:

  DEC Number: 960702380 - Active       Requestor: 34880
  IOF Issued: 24-Oct-95                    Phone:
 Order Entry: 24-Oct-95            CAR+GL Number: 954A73472140
 Last Change: 02-Nov-95              Cost Center: 37A
  CIC Update:
       Today: 16-Feb-96                  Ship To: DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP
                                                  ASSETS/A.REINIG(37A-610)23LAB
 IEG Contact: RUONALA, CHRISTINE                  110 SPIT BROOK RD
       Phone: DTN:381-1905                        NASHUA NH 03062


I want to choose those items shipped to A.REINIG.  I don't need to see
items shipped to T.LAVIGNE or others in my cost center

                                    august

In this context, the BADGE NUMBER is intended to mean "who placed the order",
not necessarily WHO ARE YOU or WHO TO SHIP TO.  If your name and badge number
were at the top of the IEG order form:


 +-------------+TM      IEG - Internal Equipment Group
 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l|     ***** DIGITAL INTERNAL USE ONLY *****
 +-------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
 DEC NUMBER:                    |IEG USE ONLY|            BOOKING CENTER:
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                  REQUESTED BY:  your name
                  BADGE NUMBER:  your_badge
  
	
and the order is entered correctly, you should always be able to see "your
stuff". There are times when errors are made entering the data but they are 
the exception, not the rule.

/mj

    If I ask via the DEC number, I of course see that item.  But there is
    currently no way for me to get a list of everything on order for
    Palo Alto and Austin Digital Semiconductor because 1.  other people
    order under the same cost center for other sites, 2.  VTX IEG never
    has anything for my personal badge number, instead these orders are a
    subset of the orders entered under someone in IEG's badge number,
    as I understand it.
    

RE:    <<< Note 4426.10 by NPSS::JOHNSON "Mike J., Network Products Support" >>>

Some sites have a single point of focus that can also assign dec numbers and
do direct entry into the manufacturing system. That leaves all orders being
requested by a single person. It also means that site has faster access to
manufacturing. ZKO is one such site. There may be others.

That said:

I'd prefer a way to pull a group of cost centers without jumping through a 
lot of hoops. Give it to me in a flat file that could be sucked into a local
server so that local analysis could be done.
 Such as - How many dollars to ship this quarter, next quarter?
                    (Called redbook forecasting)
         - What type of line items are slipping?
                    Alcor's are the hot one right now. I believe that the 
                    committed ship dates for these are changing on a weekly 
                    basis. See redbook. Especially important when you start
	            considering the volume a segment may have.
         - So I could do local tracking. Perhaps write a little interface
                    that would send the end user a note when a date changes,
                    or when it ships, or when it doesn't ship.

                   You know the little orders that still have January 96
                   ship dates, and it's now 16 Feb.

         - So I could group orders to just my particular group. Especially
                  wanted when you are part of a much larger CC (Like 37A 
                  example a few back).

For overall web services: I'd like a mail message that told me when something
had changed on the server with a one sentence synopsis, and a pointer in case
it was nested down a few levels. This nonsense of log in often to look over 
every detail in case something did change is a huge time sink. See the way
that the Sales Update notification is coming out or the way that Jeff Harlow
does  "the Rapidly Changing Face of Computing" newsletter for two good pubs.

Internal hardware only part numbers would be a real nice service. Since 3 out of
five (note 1.) of the top operating systems used have  zero cost to obtain it
would be nice to not capitalize the sw lic., which is what we do today. 
 [exercise for finance community: go figure the expense to DEC caused by  the
  current practice, figure savings if only those sw lic we had to buy were
  expensed. ]

Others?
/jon

Note 1. OpenVMS, Digital UNIX, LINUX have $0 lic cost. WindowsNT and DOS/WFW
systems have real dollar acquisition expense.

    Yes, we do the order an NT system, turn it into another system
    once it gets here.  It saves our cost center money and costs Digital
    money.  Lunacy...
    

    Since I'm not the person who submits the order but I am the person to
    whom the item is shipped I would like to be able to get information
    based on the shipped to field.  This way I wouldn't have to wade
    through 60 orders for 37A to find the 6 that I care about.
    
    I too have played the game of ordering NT machine and converting them
    immediately to UNIX machines.  I wish, when ordering workstations I
    could order the monitors separately, so that I could get the PC price
    for the monitor, instead of the marked up workstation price.  It's the
    same hardware.
    
    Given that the first thing we do when any machine comes in is to load
    on the desired version of the OS, I'd like to be able to buy a machine
    with no OS on it.  The preinstalled OS is typically the wrong one, or
    the wrong version.  
    
                                            August G. Reinig

    Re: .14
    
    We always order our monitors as separate items.
    

    We try but for Alcors (PB621-AC or BC) monitors are mandatory options.
    
                                                August

Re: .14
    
>CXXC::REINIG "This too shall change"                 17 lines  16-FEB-1996 16:08
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>    Since I'm not the person who submits the order but I am the person to
>    whom the item is shipped I would like to be able to get information
>    based on the shipped to field.  This way I wouldn't have to wade
>    through 60 orders for 37A to find the 6 that I care about.
    
Not necessarily. That one order may contain material that is to be RECEIVED
by 5 people. In this case the person who submits is the shipped too. You can't
have multiple ship sites for one DEC#. You would have had to create/submit
a seperate DEC# for each individual ship site/person.
    
/George
    
             

    Maybe it wouldn't work for other people but it would work for me.  If
    you choose not to provide the feature, that is your choice but it is a
    feature I would like to see.
    
                                                August

Hi,

All the ideas mentioned so far are good.  I support them.  Excuse me if I may repeat
some of them in this message.  I'm excited to see IEG looking at offering these
services again.

It's hard to tell what is pie in the sky type requests and what could really
happen in a reasonable timeframe.  I have had mixed success with web pages.  
I find most are too slow and many are not kept current. Yes, they are fancy 
and the possibilities abound but right now, I can't depend on them to get my 
work done.  But, maybe the glass is half full and I should keep at it, so here 
we go....

1.  The first pre-requisite is to have the IEG Web site FAST, UP TO DATE and 
    RELIABLE!  Computers are like cars....they are great....when they work.  
    When they don't and you've grown dependent, they make life impossible. 
 
2. Pointers to ALL the databases needed to configure equipment plans/requests
   (CEO, PRICE, IR, APPIX, tech specs (DECPC_ENG NOTEsfile type stuff).  I don't
   know how more useful just pointers will be, I can probably get what I need 
   from opening a slew of windows and starting all the programs at once, and it
   would be faster.  If there was an interface that gave me all the stuff at
   once (if I needed it) and a way to capture it in a meaningful fashion, and it
   was QUICK, then it would be useful. 
 
3. New/unannounced product information - This is a touchy subject due to the 
   confidentiality of this info but could there be a 'members only' page that 
   allow those folks the VP approved 'need to know' privledges.

4. Mock orders tools.  Right now, we depend on a bulky process to get orders 
   configured, priced and ready to order via the EOF.  It would be great to have
   a mock order tool to prepare capital budgets as well as EOFs.

   Ex....users types in part number or other info (see previous NOTES re: type in
   EV5 Alphastation and get available parts), users see pop up fields that help
   them choose the right configuration.  For ex. one pop up could say, 'You have 
   a choice of the following memory options for this system' and list part numbers.
   The user double-clicks and it's selected to be on the mock order.  Once all 
   steps to the configuration are entered, the information is cost calculated and 
   reported in 'EOF fashion' and can be saved/mailed to the users. 

5. Order status reports, OUTSTANDING and COMPLETE sorted by any number of fields
   presently maintained in the FOCUS database (see many of the previous NOTES).

    Thanks for the constructive feedback, both in this string and those        
    notes sent directly to IEG.  We will now meet with the necessary
    technical and management resources and determine how best to address your
    concerns on the WWW.  I would guess that the initial homepage would
    contain, at minimum, a number of hyper-links to useful information
    on pricing, availability and configurations, as it is clear that many
    folks have understandable difficulty in locating and using this basic
    information.  Future iterations are likely to focus on some of the more 
    complex tracking and reporting issues needed by some of the heavier IEG
    users.