Friday 24 June 2011

Auto-recon enhancements: infrastructure upgrade to .Net Framework 4

As part of the Auto recon performance enhancements, we are upgrading Bank Recon to .Net Framework 4. You will need to have .Net Framework 4 installed on your Bank Recon Application server if you want to install the version once it is released and take advantage of the performance improvements.

.Net Framework 4 can be installed on Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and supports both x86 and x64 bit architecture. More information  and the downloads can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=17718 (standalone installer) and
here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851 (web installer)

Support for the .Net Framework 3.5 versions will be limited to bug fixes going forward.

Please let me know if any of this is an issue for you so we can manage the releases and support accordingly.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Suggest Release

I am very excited to present the new Suggest functionality. I truly believe it is going to add value to Bank Recon and make it a more dynamic product.


Thank you to Anand, Ameet and Amol for the fantastic development work done; and to Franz and Carien for the usability guidance and design input. A special thanks to all the users who made themselves available for the prototype testings and provided the feedback to ensure we are delivering what you need.


Please download Version 4.1.298.1661 from http://www.twenty57.com/twenty57/BankRecon/Download.aspx?product=BankRecon


What is Suggest?
Users are presented with possible matches based on common words, date ranges and amounts which they can either reconcile or ignore.  Matching words are highlighted and the user can decide whether words give useful matches and should be used for future suggestions or not.


Franz's post gives more information on how Suggest works and the usablity testing and the Bank Recon webhelp also includes information on using the Suggest functionality.


Installation Notes:
If you are upgrading from a previous version '4.1.xxx' of Bank Recon, the following needs to be added to the config files:
    appSettings section of web.config:
        <add key="ConfigManagerURL" value="tcp://localhost:8087/ConfigManager"/>
    service secion of App.config of ProcessService:
        <wellknown type="Twenty57.BankRecon.API.ManualReconSuggestions.ConfigManagerProxy, Twenty57.BankRecon.API" mode="SingleCall"objectUri="ConfigManager" />


Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator must be installed on the application server and the Database server.


Setup Notes:
You need to have Site Administrator rights to access the Suggest Configuration Setup screens. The default settings applied when the version is installed are optimised for most environments. Simply make the process active. You may want to add additional match criteria according to the business needs.


I recommend running the process for the 1st time outside of core business hours because a large dictionary of keywords is loaded and the initial run may process a large number of unreconciled transactions. Thereafter it will run in the background continually while activated.


If you experience performance degradation, adjust the config settings as described in the webhelp. Additional setup information is also available on the page.


The 'Suggest Reconciliation' Menu right will need to be given to the appropriate user groups so that they can see the screens.


I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences using Suggest and all ideas on extending the functionality. Please let me know about any issues you experience and thoughts you have 

Friday 17 June 2011

BankRecon Suggest Usability Testing

We have just come back from an awesome usability session for BankRecon’s new Suggest functionality at a client. Now I feel compelled to tell you more about it.

Suggest finds matching transactions by looking at the amount, date and all reference fields to find amounts and dates that tie up and words that are the same. This works really well when client or account reference numbers are available, but suggest can also pick up matches where there are names or other unique values in the transactions. It looks like this:





The matching words are highlighted and provide users with an easy way to understand the quality of the match by evaluating the uniqueness of the words that match across the transactions. As users currently use these words to find matches in the manual recon screen, this task is quite simple for the current BankRecon users.



Some comments from our users:



“It will make it (my work) a lot quicker and much easier”



“That will be very useful”



“That will make my work less, so thank you!” (she guessed that it is about 20%)



“I don’t need to search any more as it just delivers the recons to me”



“Now there is no need to define profiles any longer”



“Wow, that is so cool.”