The Advisory Board Speaks

During each of the last three Septembers, Help/Systems has met with our Advisory Board, a varying group of customers, to discuss product direction. Each year, we've asked this group of customers to share how they use our products and suggest improvements. We’ve received some great ideas as a result of these sessions.

2009

Two years ago, the main request was for a product that could monitor database changes. This fit in well with our PowerTech product line. So, in November of 2010, PowerTech introduced DataThread. DataThread monitors any IBM i database change—it can send notifications, prevent or OK a change, and record what changed and who made the changes.

The other big focus for 2009 was global support. We're continuing to work on this area with features like Online Chat and WebEx with our support groups from the US, UK, and Australia.

2010

Last year’s group was extremely helpful at providing ease-of-use enhancements for the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer (Robot/SCHEDULE’s graphical interface) and other ideas for Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise. As a result, we shipped Robot/SCHEDULE 11 in April 2011. This group also focused on enhancements for resource monitoring in Robot/CONSOLE. We plan to roll out those enhancements over the next few months.

2011

This year, we had 10 customers representing 7 different industries. The big emphasis was on better high availability (HA) solutions (read how Robot/SCHEDULE works with HA). These customers want us to focus on working with Vision Solutions and PowerHA. So, over the next year, our development team will focus on PowerHA. Recently, we spent a week at IBM labs testing our solution and determining what needs to change to run in an IASP. Stay tuned and let me know if you have requirements in this area.

We also had fun. In the evening, the group was entertained watching the Help/Systems team bowl, shoot pool, and play darts. (On second thought, maybe we should stick to developing and supporting software!)