Metric Wire
Issues in Service Pack 2

and How to Fix in Service Pack 3

The initial releases of System Integrator 5,
up to Service Pack 2, had a number of critical bugs relating to wire prices and
lengths when using metric units. This document describes those bugs and their
impact when upgrading to Service Pack 3.

Definitions

Finish wire              Finish
wire is defined as wire sold by unit. All prices and installation hours are for
one wire regardless of length. SI determines if a wire is a Finish wire by
which phase it is in and what the wire setting is for that phase. If
“Show Head-End dialog for Wires in Projects” is unchecked, all
wires in that phase are considered Finish and are priced by unit.

Bulk wire                 Bulk
wire is defined as wire sold by length. All prices and installation hours are
per unit length (meter). All wires in a phase with “Show Head-End dialog
for Wires in Projects” will be considered bulk and priced by length.

Product Database     Master
Table of products. Managed via MMPD interface. Bulk wire
prices and lengths are stored in feet (always).

SP2 Project             Project
created in SP2 or earlier and stored as a .DTL file. Bulk wire prices and
lengths are stored in feet. Edited via Text, Visio or AutoCAD interfaces. May
have product data (e.g. pricing) that is different from that found in the
Master Table.

SP3 Project             Project
created in SP3 or later, or older project once opened and saved in SP3. Bulk
wire prices and lengths are stored in meters (feet if project uses US units).

Metric Application     If
the Navigator setup, if your Application
Settings > Project > Measurement Units is set to
“millimeters” (SP2) or “Metric” (SP3), then your
application is configured to show data in metric units. MMPD Product dimensions
will be in millimeters, wire lengths will be in meters, and bulk wire prices
and hours will be per meter. Also, by default all new projects will use metric
units.

Metric Project          In
a project, if your D-Tools > Options
> General > Measurement Units is set to “millimeters”
(SP2) or “Metric” (SP3), your project will show data in metric
units. Product dimensions will be in millimeters, wire lengths will be in
meters, and bulk wire prices and hours will be per meter.

Product Database (MMPD) issues

NOTE: These only apply if
your application settings are metric.

Issue
1: Finish wire price and hours converted on display in MMPD

In SP2, finish wire prices
and hours were being multiplied by a factor of 3.281 when displayed in MMPD.
They were also being divided by a similar factor when saved.

Example 1: User downloads a finish wire with price = $100.00 and
unit labor hours = 1.0. When opened in MMPD, this wire appeared to have a price
of $328.10 and unit labor hours 3.28.

Example 2: User corrects the above product in MMPD by entering
$100.00 for price and 1.0 for labor hours and hits save. Product is stored in
product database with price = $30.48 and labor hours .305.

Impact when upgrading to SP3

SP3 will show finish wire
prices and hours without conversion and all new data will work correctly.
However, because pre-SP3 data may have been saved incorrectly (see Ex. 2
above), users may wish to review pricing
and install hours for all finish wires.

Data affected: finish wire costs, prices, and labor hours for
products opened and edited in SP2 or earlier, including products updated using
“Update to Master Table” from within a project.

Not affected: downloaded, imported or migrated (from SI4) data that
has never been opened for editing in SI5. Also, any new data entered since SP3
was installed.

How to correct

For affected data, you can
either re-enter the data using SP3, or you can multiply these data fields by
3.281 to get them back to their original state: UnitCostA, UnitCostB,
UnitCostC, UnitPriceA, UnitPriceB, UnitPriceC, MSRP, UnitLabor.

The easiest way to do this for
many products at once is by using the MMPD Product Grid, Export to Excel, and
Import Data features.

Begin by going to the MMPD product grid an using
the filter control to select Category=’Wire and Cable’ and
Phase=’Finish’ (and all other phases containing finish wire)

Next, click on the Export to Excel icon  to open these products in Excel.

In Excel, remove any product from this list that
may be unaffected (see above) by deleting the row it is on. Only items
that you are sure are affected should remain.

Use Excel to multiply the following fields by
3.281: UnitCostA, UnitCostB, UnitCostC, UnitPriceA, UnitPriceB,
UnitPriceC, MSRP, UnitLabor. (Hint: you can use a formula like
‘=H2*3.281’ to quickly create a new data column, then copy the
new data and use paste values to overwrite the original data.)

Save this to a CSV file.

In MMPD, go to the Import tab and browse to the
CSV file.

Click on Options… to make sure the field
mappings are set correctly. By default, UnitCostA should map to UnitCostA,
etc.

Click Import to import the corrected data. It is
advised to backup your database before you do this and you will be
prompted to do so.

Issue
2: Bulk wire lengths in packages stored incorrectly in MMPD

In SP2, bulk wire lengths in
packages were being displayed in feet rather than meters.

Example: In a package definition in MMPD, the wire length for
a particular wire is set to 100. This value is stored directly in the database
as 100 feet. However, when this package is added to a metric project, it will
be converted to meters by dividing by 3.281. In this case that means wire
length = 30 meters.

Impact when upgrading
to SP3

SP3 will show wire lengths in
meters. Thus, when the above package is opened in SP3, it will show the saved
wire length of 30 meters.

Data affected: bulk wire lengths in packages in MMPD which have been
edited in SP2 or earlier.

Not affected: bulk wire lengths in packages that have never been edited
in SP2 or earlier. Also, any new data entered since SP3 was installed.

How to correct

The easiest way to correct
this is to review the wire lengths for
all packages with bulk wires using MMPD. To return an affected wire length
back to its original state, multiply by 3.281 and save.

Issue
3: Bulk wire prices and hours are rounded in MMPD

Because the product database
stores all values in feet rather than meters, there are some rounding
limitations for bulk wires which occur when using metric units in MMPD.

Example: Unit Price for a bulk wire is set to $1.00/meter in
MMPD. This is converted to feet and stored as $0.30/ft. When re-opened in MMPD,
this is converted back to meters, which displays as $0.98/meter.

Impact when upgrading
to SP3

None. MMPD in SP3 still
stores all data in feet (behind the scenes), so rounding will still occur.
However, since SP3 projects are stored directly in meters, users can use
greater precision (e.g. $1.00/meter) in a project.

Data affected: Bulk wire costs, prices, unit labor hours and
lengths.

Not affected: Non-bulk-wire products.

Project Data (.DTL) Issues

NOTE: These only apply to metric projects.

Issue
4: Finish wire prices not displaying correctly

When a finish wire is added
to an SP2 project, the unit length is set to 1 foot, which appears as 0.30
meters when viewed from within a metric project. This will appear to affect the
overall price and labor hours when viewed from within a project. Changing the
wire length to 1 meter will appear to fix the problem.

However, there is a second
issue. SP2 is actually converting all data to metric units when displaying,
then saving in US units. This means that a product that appears to have unit
price=$1.00/meter, unit hours=1.000 hr/meter and length=1 meter will actually
be saved as price=$0.30, hours=.305, length=3.

Example: Finish wire product is edited in MMPD, with
price=$100.00 and unit hours = 1.0. When saved, this is stored as price=$30.48
and unit hours=.305 (due to issue #1 above). When added to a metric project
will be displayed as unit price=$100.00, unit hours=1.0 and unit length=0.30. This
means total price=$30.00 and total hours=0.30 when viewed from within the
project.

However,
when saved, this is stored as price=$30.48, hours=.305 and length=1.0. This
means that reports, sales orders and the project summary will show total
price=$30.48 and total hours 0.305.

Impact when upgrading
to SP3

SP3 will show the values
stored in the project file without conversion. This means that the total price
and total hours will appear to change, particularly if the wire length was
changed to correct for this issue.

Data affected: Finish wire unit costs, unit prices, and unit labor
hours. Finish wire length will only be affected if corrected by user in SP2.

How to correct

To correct for this issue in
SP3, review all finish wire prices and
wire lengths by filtering the PDM for Category=’Wire and Cable’
and Phase=’Finish’ (and all other finish-wire phases). Then,
correct these one at a time by multiplying prices and hours by 3.281 and
setting wire length=1. Or, correct them all in MMPD first (see issue #1) and
update them using ‘Refresh from Master Table’.

All finish wires must have a
length of 1 for calculations to work. To change the wire length for a finish
wire, follow these steps:

Open the product for editing (within project)

Set the phase to ‘Rough-In’
temporarily and save (or other bulk wire phase)

Re-open the product for editing

Set the wire length to 1

Set the phase back to ‘Finish’ (or
whatever phase it started in)

Save and close the product

Issue
5: Bulk wire lengths not set correctly when added to a metric project

In SP2, bulk wire lengths
were assumed to be feet rather than meters when added to a metric project.

Example: User adds a bulk wire to a metric project and sets
wire length=100m. Product is added as 100ft, which displays as 30.48m. This
causes total wire pricing to be incorrect.

Impact when upgrading
to SP3

No significant impact. If the
wire length is corrected in SP2 or earlier, it will remain corrected when
opened in SP3. However it is advisable to review
all bulk wire lengths if there is any uncertainty.

Data affected: Bulk wire lengths in projects.

How to correct

Wire length is easily changed
using the PDM. Filter for Category=’Wire and Cable’ and
Phase=’Rough-In’ (and all other bulk wire phases), and display the
wire length field for editing.

Issue
6: Reports show data in feet for metric projects

Since SP2 projects store bulk
wire data in feet rather than meters, all reports show data in feet. SP3
projects correct this by storing bulk wire data in meters if it is a metric
project.

Impact when upgrading
to SP3

Projects will be converted
the first time upon opening in SP3. In particular, the data in these fields
will be converted:

Bulk wire unit
costs/prices, unit labor hours and wire lengths

A consequence of this is that
projects opened in SP3 cannot be
reopened in SP2 or earlier.

Note that once a projects is
opened and saved, this will affect data in sales and work orders as well (which
will now display the correct values in metric units.)

How to correct

a)
Install SP3 and
open the project

b)
Save the project

c)
If you are a
LANSync user, you should check in the project so that others who open it will
see the updated version.