Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups

Britt,

It is the most cost effective way to get the data back into the
Configurator. The only alternative I am aware of involves some rather
expensive tools from Epicor and Custom Programming. By using VB to write to
Excel we can use standard Configurator tools to get the data back. We did
arrange one small Custom Program which takes the input values from the
Configurator screen, sets them into a string and passes the string to VB. In
VB we break the string down again and populate the main fields ready for the
additional inputs etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Britt Moelling [mailto:bmoelling@...]
Sent: Thursday, 10 June 2004 12:01 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups


John


Why are you using a VB program to write to Excel? Is it because that is
the only way to get data into Product Configurator?





Britt Moelling
M&M Manufacturing


-----Original Message-----
From: John Walter [mailto:john.w@...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:53 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups

It sounds like you have what we call a faulty lookup. We use the Call
Program function in the Configurator to call a Visual Basic program
which
deals with our intricacies and writes the results to excel. We then use
excel lookups to pull the results back into the configurator. In
development
we found the 10 minute lookup times were due to either a faulty
calculation
which returned a null to the excel spreadsheet or the lookup address
entered
in the Configurator rule was not correct forcing the lookup to search
every
cell in the sheet before giving up. To identify the problem we run test
rules for the configuration and when the resultant report is open on
screen
go to the vantagework directory and sort files by date. Near the top
your
will see the report you have open in test rules. Open this in notepad
and
search for ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Woods [mailto:gwoods@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 June 2004 9:04 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups


We are developing products in the Product Configurator module and are
sometimes experiencing lengthy lookup times in the Excel spreadsheet
referenced by the configurator. Sometimes we have as much as a 10
minute
delay before the configurator returns a value. Are there any
configurator
gurus out there who have experienced this problem?

Glenn Woods
Systems Support Manager
M&M Manufacturing Co., L.P.
817-348-2210
www.mmmfg.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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We are developing products in the Product Configurator module and are sometimes experiencing lengthy lookup times in the Excel spreadsheet referenced by the configurator. Sometimes we have as much as a 10 minute delay before the configurator returns a value. Are there any configurator gurus out there who have experienced this problem?

Glenn Woods
Systems Support Manager
M&M Manufacturing Co., L.P.
817-348-2210
www.mmmfg.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Glenn,
After the delay, does excel lookup return a valid value? I usually get a delay when the configurator can't find the value in the excel file and presumably tries to go thru all 64K lines available in the worksheet. In this case, the returned value is blank or invalid "?".

Otherwise, the excel lookup feature works like a charm. Helps to avoid a lot of hard coding of data and logic in the configurator itself. One simple configurator we use that has 4 look-up functions executes in 2-3 seconds depending on the load on the server. Even our more complex configurators take no more than a minute or so at the worst.

Ten minutes is a very long time. Your configurator must very complex. There has been discussions about anti-virus systems slowing down Vantage generally. May be worth a look.

HTH,
Gil Amilbangsa
Australian Healthcare Equipment - Murphy Furniture
gil.amilbangsa@...


-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Woods [mailto:gwoods@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 June 2004 9:04 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups



We are developing products in the Product Configurator module and are sometimes experiencing lengthy lookup times in the Excel spreadsheet referenced by the configurator. Sometimes we have as much as a 10 minute delay before the configurator returns a value. Are there any configurator gurus out there who have experienced this problem?

Glenn Woods
Systems Support Manager
M&M Manufacturing Co., L.P.
817-348-2210
www.mmmfg.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
It sounds like you have what we call a faulty lookup. We use the Call
Program function in the Configurator to call a Visual Basic program which
deals with our intricacies and writes the results to excel. We then use
excel lookups to pull the results back into the configurator. In development
we found the 10 minute lookup times were due to either a faulty calculation
which returned a null to the excel spreadsheet or the lookup address entered
in the Configurator rule was not correct forcing the lookup to search every
cell in the sheet before giving up. To identify the problem we run test
rules for the configuration and when the resultant report is open on screen
go to the vantagework directory and sort files by date. Near the top your
will see the report you have open in test rules. Open this in notepad and
search for ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Woods [mailto:gwoods@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 June 2004 9:04 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups


We are developing products in the Product Configurator module and are
sometimes experiencing lengthy lookup times in the Excel spreadsheet
referenced by the configurator. Sometimes we have as much as a 10 minute
delay before the configurator returns a value. Are there any configurator
gurus out there who have experienced this problem?

Glenn Woods
Systems Support Manager
M&M Manufacturing Co., L.P.
817-348-2210
www.mmmfg.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
Yahoo! Groups Links
John


Why are you using a VB program to write to Excel? Is it because that is
the only way to get data into Product Configurator?





Britt Moelling
M&M Manufacturing


-----Original Message-----
From: John Walter [mailto:john.w@...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:53 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups

It sounds like you have what we call a faulty lookup. We use the Call
Program function in the Configurator to call a Visual Basic program
which
deals with our intricacies and writes the results to excel. We then use
excel lookups to pull the results back into the configurator. In
development
we found the 10 minute lookup times were due to either a faulty
calculation
which returned a null to the excel spreadsheet or the lookup address
entered
in the Configurator rule was not correct forcing the lookup to search
every
cell in the sheet before giving up. To identify the problem we run test
rules for the configuration and when the resultant report is open on
screen
go to the vantagework directory and sort files by date. Near the top
your
will see the report you have open in test rules. Open this in notepad
and
search for ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Woods [mailto:gwoods@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 June 2004 9:04 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Product Configurator; slow spreadsheet lookups


We are developing products in the Product Configurator module and are
sometimes experiencing lengthy lookup times in the Excel spreadsheet
referenced by the configurator. Sometimes we have as much as a 10
minute
delay before the configurator returns a value. Are there any
configurator
gurus out there who have experienced this problem?

Glenn Woods
Systems Support Manager
M&M Manufacturing Co., L.P.
817-348-2210
www.mmmfg.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/>
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
Yahoo! Groups Links







Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder
and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/>
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links





Yahoo! Groups Sponsor


ADVERTISEMENT

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ww.netflix.com/Default?mqso=60183350> click here


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]