I notice that there is a wiki started by a member of Pivotal CRM Forum.
http://www.pivotalcrmforum.com/index.php?topic=490.0
Looking at the thread, it is a wonder that CarlC started it all, with what seems like a lack of support from the rest of the community, with the exception of those that responded to the thread.
If you want to get involved, improve on the poor documentation that Pivotal provides us, and to document how to use Pivotal correctly, please go to
http://pivotal.wikia.com
and add some content, suggest some stuff, and generally help out.
Tuesday 28 October 2008
Friday 17 October 2008
5.9 SP3
I have just finished playing with the latest and greatest hot fix for 5.9, and, after been tipped off by one of the posts on http://forums.pivotal.com, can't believe that the smart portals don't work.
Pivotal have, for all my time working with the product, excelled themselves by breaking bits of the application when fixing another part, and this is something that affects all developers, especially with a complicated application that 5.9 surely is. I have been known to do this myself in the past, and I'm pretty good ;)
The only way to prevent this is to ensure your quality assurance processes and people are up to scratch. There should be a set of simple tests that are done for every release, whether it is a Pivotal release or one of your own, which are conducted in all the release versions you make, before they make it in to production and again as the first thing you do after the production release.
If Pivotal haven't got this process in place, haven't got the staff to do the work, what ever the excuse, then what are we paying our maintenance for? Are we in the wrong to expect a release from them not to break other bits of the application?
I know their concentration must be with Sedna now, but there are a lot of people on the 5.X platform that will be staying with it (and paying their maintenance) up to and beyond the date when support stops, surely we should expect some QA process to assist us going forward? Are they just relying on the likes of you and I in doing the testing for them?
The first thing Pivotal says when I come across any problem is to install the latest hot fix. I won't be doing so in the future unless they can prove my issue has been fixed, and it has been QAd effectively.
P.S. There is a fix for the issue with smartportals, coming in HF2 (SP3 less than a month ago), but if you need SP3 before then, there is a workaround documented here
Pivotal have, for all my time working with the product, excelled themselves by breaking bits of the application when fixing another part, and this is something that affects all developers, especially with a complicated application that 5.9 surely is. I have been known to do this myself in the past, and I'm pretty good ;)
The only way to prevent this is to ensure your quality assurance processes and people are up to scratch. There should be a set of simple tests that are done for every release, whether it is a Pivotal release or one of your own, which are conducted in all the release versions you make, before they make it in to production and again as the first thing you do after the production release.
If Pivotal haven't got this process in place, haven't got the staff to do the work, what ever the excuse, then what are we paying our maintenance for? Are we in the wrong to expect a release from them not to break other bits of the application?
I know their concentration must be with Sedna now, but there are a lot of people on the 5.X platform that will be staying with it (and paying their maintenance) up to and beyond the date when support stops, surely we should expect some QA process to assist us going forward? Are they just relying on the likes of you and I in doing the testing for them?
The first thing Pivotal says when I come across any problem is to install the latest hot fix. I won't be doing so in the future unless they can prove my issue has been fixed, and it has been QAd effectively.
P.S. There is a fix for the issue with smartportals, coming in HF2 (SP3 less than a month ago), but if you need SP3 before then, there is a workaround documented here
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Pivotal CRM Sucks
Whilst you might think this title is a little strange for a blog post by someone who makes a living from Pivotal software, but this is was the fourth highest search phrase used by visitors getting to the blog by a search engine.
Admittedly, this phrase has only been used 5 times by my readers (says something about the number of readers I have, poor me!) but I would generally like to know what makes Pivotal suck. 4 of the searches were from USA and one Australian, well their IP addresses are anyway.
Are those 5 disgruntled users who are stuck with a R99 windows client implementation? Have they been forced into using a badly designed system, or is it a genuine gripe about the functionality that Pivotal provide? Maybe someone will make a comment, that I will publish, which will enlighten me and the handfull of other professionals that read this.
Hopefully none of those searching are using Sedna, but would be interesting to find out.
Admittedly, this phrase has only been used 5 times by my readers (says something about the number of readers I have, poor me!) but I would generally like to know what makes Pivotal suck. 4 of the searches were from USA and one Australian, well their IP addresses are anyway.
Are those 5 disgruntled users who are stuck with a R99 windows client implementation? Have they been forced into using a badly designed system, or is it a genuine gripe about the functionality that Pivotal provide? Maybe someone will make a comment, that I will publish, which will enlighten me and the handfull of other professionals that read this.
Hopefully none of those searching are using Sedna, but would be interesting to find out.
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Sharepoint again
Following on from my previous post on Sharepoint, I thought I would follow up on what the final solution was.
The customer has now implemented sharepoint storage of documents through out their business, relying on web segments linked to various points of the sharepoint document library. I have learned several things on the way, more to do with the complexity of using the Sharepoint webservices and the limitations of Sharepoint than functionality within Pivotal.
Simple one liners to create folders are easy to come across on the web, but it is tricky to ensure you are creating a folder in the correct location and file structure.
I think Sharepoint integration should be a standard feature, instead of storing in the local database, as Sharepoint is free and has version control etc which is not possible (well, probably possible but difficult to implement) with standard documents within Pivotal
The customer has now implemented sharepoint storage of documents through out their business, relying on web segments linked to various points of the sharepoint document library. I have learned several things on the way, more to do with the complexity of using the Sharepoint webservices and the limitations of Sharepoint than functionality within Pivotal.
Simple one liners to create folders are easy to come across on the web, but it is tricky to ensure you are creating a folder in the correct location and file structure.
I think Sharepoint integration should be a standard feature, instead of storing in the local database, as Sharepoint is free and has version control etc which is not possible (well, probably possible but difficult to implement) with standard documents within Pivotal
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