Nonprofit and school district clients will find Serenic Explorations an excellent opportunity to build on there skill and technical knowledge of their solution. Explorations 2009 takes place in St.Louis from May 3rd through the 5th and provides the perfect opportunity to explore in-depth strategies, hands-on practicality, and resource sharing.

From now until February 28th, Serenic is offering an early bird registration discount on tickets to the conference. Tickets purchased before Feburary 28th cost just $695, so register now to ensure you get the best rate!

In addition to the early bird rate, Serenic is also offering the following group and advanced registration discounts:

Group Discount Available until April 3, 2009
As a special offer, if three people from the same organization each register and purchase a conference registration, the fourth person from you organization is half-price!

Companion Fee
Companions must be 18 years of age or older. The $175 per person companion fee includes Sunday's Welcome Reception, the General Session and Keynote, and Tuesday evening's event at the Arch.

For more information on Explorations 2009 visit Serenic's Website or register here to purchase your tickets.

AVF's IT team specializes in optimizing IT infrastructures to ensure that Microsoft Dynamics NAV works smoothly, is backed up, and is secure.   Whether you have an entire IT department or one staff member handling all your IT needs, AVF can be your expert resource for handling IT needs as they relate to NAV.  Some of the services that we currently perform for many AVF customers include NAV security (password management, virus protection, IT audits, firewalls), recurring services (backups, SQL optimization), hardware (hardware specs and procurement), SharePoint Server and portal technologies and much more. 

By working with AVF's IT specialists, you'll actually save money and time because we'll get the job done right the first time. AVF Consulting's IT Department already has a familiarity with your system, so why not leverage our expertise? 

Contact us today.  We'll ask you about your current set-up, any problems or vulnerabilities you think exist in your system, and what your goals are for your system.  We can work with your budget and your needs.  Contact Rob Waples, IT Manager, at 443-279-1020.

AVF Consulting's IT Staff can also provide a wide range of services to your organization in support of your IT Department, including:

Network Infrastructure:

• Microsoft Server 2000, 2003, and 2008 Active Directory
• LAN/WAN systems management and optimization
• HP, IBM, and Intel Hardware Solutions

Server Solutions:

• NAV/SQL 2009 and 2009 Server Configurations
• Terminal Server 2003 and 2008, Exchange 2003 and 2007
• SharePoint Server 2007 and Portal Technologies
• File Serve and Storage Area Network

Security Solutions:

• Cisco and SonicWall Security Appliances
• Symantec Endpoint Protection
• Acronis True Image Server and Disaster Recovery

Microsoft Productivity:

• SharePoint Portal Services
• Project Server 2007 and Live Communications Server
• Office 2007 Product Suites and Open Licensing

To discuss how our IT Department can assist you, contact Rob Waples at 443-279-1020

Many of our clients originally deployed Microsoft Dynamics NAV on the standard NAV Database. As your organization has grown in size and complexity, we recommend you consider upgrading your database to Microsoft SQL Server.  SQL Server comes in two different formats, Standard and Enterprise.   Enterprise edition is designed to allow larger organizations to run their server in a clustered environment.

How do I decide if it's time for my organization to upgrade to SQL server?  If you answer yes to any of the questions below, you may want to consider upgrading to SQL.

• We want to automate the process of backing up our database because Hot Copy and other methods of backing up NAV have become tedious and time consuming.
• We want to reduce downtime in the event that we need to restore our NAV database.
• We plan to upgrade to a new version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
• We currently run SQL server operations.
• We have experienced much growth and feel it is time to investigate the benefits of SQL Server.
• We want to move to a cluster server environment.

What are the benefits of SQL Server?

• Utilize the latest, industry-leading technology from Microsoft to gain greater insight from business data.
• Improve operational efficiency with easier integration to third-party products and applications and other Microsoft products.
• Automated backup functionality enables hourly backup of transactions.
• Reduce downtime when restoring the database, performing maintenance and creating backups.
• Empower your employees and IT department with comprehensive and reliable data management.
• Automate maintenance tasks keep the data clean and accurate.
• Automate maintenance procedures such as error checking. 
• Enable E-mail notification of maintenance errors.

I'd like to consider moving to SQL.  How do I get started?

Contact AVF's IT team to set up a meeting to discuss your specific situation.  If you don't have a dedicated IT department in-house, our IT staff is available to setup and maintain your SQL server. Typically, an upgrade to SQL Standard requires one to two days of services for the initial set up and one day of services each month for server maintenance.  If you have an internal IT staff, our team can work with them on set up, training and maintenance as well.

Click here for more about SQL Server...

On February 26th at 11:00am join Jet Reports for a free, one-hour Excel training course dedicated to showing you very useful features within Excel that make your everyday tasks easier and faster. Topics discussed will not be specific to Jet Reports so anyone interested in improving on their Excel skills is welcome to attend.

Topics covered by an Excel Certified expert at Jet Reports include:

• Relative Cell Referencing
• Data Validation
• IF Statements
• Date formatting
• and more 
  

Interactive exercises will be included and practice material will also be delivered. We hope you are able to take advantage of this valuable opportunity for reviewing and learning functionality within the Microsoft Office application you rely on most.

Click here to register for the training session.

Return to Top

***

Microsoft Convergence 2009 is the premier event for Microsoft Dynamics users. Convergence brings customers, partners, and industry experts together to discuss solutions and business needs, while providing attendees with a community of resources that can be leveraged throughout the year. We recommend Convergence 2009 for all customers who are looking to increase their knowledge and stay current with the information regarding their Microsoft Dynamics NAV software.

Convergence 2009 takes place on March 10-13th in New Orleans.

Event Details:

For more information please visit Microsoft's Convergence page.

Return to Top

***

We are providing our customers with two options to address this issue: 

1) Upgrade to the newest version of ChargeLogic available as of January 1, 2009 to get access to the Buypass platform (see details below)

2) Change to a different merchant service provider supported by ChargeLogic for the version of ChargeLogic that your organization is currently using (see attached matrix).
 
Because of the EFSnet change, ChargeLogic has certified for the Buypass platform, which is the platform that the EFSnet gateway currently uses. Certifying for the Buypass platform allows ChargeLogic customers to directly access Buypass; however, ChargeLogic customers will need to upgrade to the most current version of ChargeLogic and have their ChargeLogic systems reconfigured to access the Buypass platform. 

For more information please contact Jon Cooper at 443-279-1025.