Hi,

In OE (8.1E 120116) under company profile I set the default file specs for invoicing and emails. When I exit (clicking OK) and then go back in, there are no file specs set. Any ideas? Does file location have anything to do with it (although the spec is available in the drop down list)?

Thanks
Mike

Hi Mike

I think what you want to do is go to File | Workstation Options | Specifications, and set them there. This setting is specific to the workstation you are sitting at (not the user, the actual physical workstation)

Steve

Thanks Steve, that worked. But what if I had a different file spec for email invoices (that`s what I was trying to do - just turns out printed and emailed invoices are the same). I tried setting the spec in the company profile, and then under customers invoicing. Neither worked.

Any ideas?

Mike

Hi Mike,

From the Help on the Invoice Print dialog:

For reference, here is the processing selection order of the specification to use for the three possible dialog
options:

Current Customer-defined Specification
1. On the customer
2. Selected on the form
3. Company profile

Selected Specification
1. Selected on the form

Document Specification
1. Saved on the document
2. Selected on the form
3. Company profile

Thanks Andrew, I missed that part. Still having problems though. I have gone into both the customer file and the company profile to set the default specs but they don`t save i.e. I pick a spec, click OK, and then go back in - no spec. I set the spec again, click OK, exit the module, restart it, go back in to the customer - no spec. Tried it both through AR and OE. I`ve got emailing turned on (I selected the spec I wanted and then emailed the invoice - no problem).

What am I missing?

Mike

Hi Mike,

So to confirm your question, you wanted to edit the Company Profile in OE to assign a default specification. You were able to see the specification from the appropriate drop-down field, but attempting to save the selected spec there isn't working for you. Re-editing the company profile shows a blank field.

I haven't been able to replicate this behaviour using OE 8.1E and sample data. Can you make the same problem happen with one of the sample invoice specs in your data, as a test (say the 'OE ALL codes' spec)? If this saves correctly for you, there may be a problem with the spec file you are trying to select. Ensure that your spec has a unique 'Title' as defined in the File / Specification Options (when editing the spec in the designer program), and perhaps try saving the spec file using no more than 8 characters (ie OE$xxxxx.dat).

The default specs are saved in the data file OEWOPT.dat, so if this file cannot be written to (because of a read-only status on the file, or some sort of rights issue) then that would prevent saving. I don't suspect this is the problem, if you experience the same behaviour when editing AR customers to do the same thing.

You have my question exactly right.

Followed your suggestion and yes, I could save one of the sample specs. You were right in that my file spec was more than eight characters long (don't even think about the old DOS naming conventions anymore). So I changed the name to OE$VIKI4.dat. Still didn't work - grrrrr. Had a look at the sample spec names and then changed the name to OE$INVI4.dat. That worked fine. So you seem to need OE$INV as the first six characters. Could you confirm this please as it isn't mentioned anywhere.

Thanks for the help and setting me on the right track. I would never have thought of needing to follow the 8.3 DOS conventions.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm glad you got something working.

There should be no requirement for using the 8.3 file naming convention, nor requiring the file name to specifically start with OE$INV - I can successfully save OE specs to the company profile defaults with long names and also with different characters than INV following the OE$ required prefix, including the example OE$VIKI4 that you provided.

I'd recommend using the Specification Designer to save specs under a particular file name, rather than using Windows Explorer to name the file. Renaming through Windows will remove the spec from default setups. Also, I recommend not saving a spec file name with spaces (ie use 'OE$EmailInvoice.dat' rather than 'OE$Email Invoice.dat'). Default spec file names are saved in the company profile with 8 characters only (that's all the allocated room in the data file), and when selecting a long named file, it will get linked to from the profile with something like OE$VIK~1.

Ensure the file name doesn't look like OE$VIK.abc.dat - saving with the spec designer will append the file name with the data extension. And from your original post, the spec file must be in the same folder as the data to be recognized.

Mystery solved:
I confirmed Mike's results on his computer (apart from the portion about the file needing to be named "OE$INV"). If he specified a filename longer than 8 characters, it wasn't being saved.

After some testing and with help from Mr. Google, I have an explanation for those results: His Windows operating system was configured to NOT track short filenames.

The first thing to know is that Windows keeps space for 2 names for each file. There's the long filename (ie. "OE$Invoice for European orders.dat") which can be up to 255 characters. It also reserves space for the short filename (ie. "OE$INV~1.dat") which is limited to 11 (8 + 3). If the filename exceeds the 8,3 format, Windows saves the long name and but also creates and saves the short name. If the filename already conforms to the 8,3 model, the short name is left blank.

To see this, go to the DOS prompt (File | Run and enter cmd). Move to a folder with long filenames and type DIR /X. You will see the long filenames on the right and a column just to the left with the short names.

If you don't see the short names, Windows has been configured to not track the 8,3 names. Some people disable that feature with the goal of improving performance, though others dispute the effectiveness. Here's an article from Microsoft on how to edit the registry to enable/disable 8,3 naming: Microsoft Tech Note

The reason this matters is that Adagio stores the short filename. This is more efficient than storing 255 characters which would degrade performance. So when Mike selected an invoice layout with a longer name, Adagio picked up the Windows shortname for that file and saved it. The problem was that Windows had only a blank where the short name would normally be located.

For environments configured like Mike's, filenames must be no longer than 8 characters and must not include a space (except at the end: "OE$PICK.dat" is OK but "OE$ PICK.dat" is not).

Thanks for this post - I had a client contact me today with THIS EXACT ISSUE!