Search Results

Search found 26810 results on 1073 pages for 'fixed point'.

Page 671/1073 | < Previous Page | 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678  | Next Page >

  • VB.net, disable proxy for entire program

    - by Brent
    Ever since upgrading to Visual Studio 2010, I'm running into an issue where the first web request of any type (WebRequest, WebClient, etc.) hangs for about 20 seconds before completing. Subsequent calls work quickly. I've narrowed down the problem to a proxy issue. If I manually disable proxy settings, I don't experience this delay: Dim wrq As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(Url) wrq.Proxy = Nothing What's strange is that there are no proxy settings enabled on this machine in Internet Options. What I'm wondering is if there is a way to disable proxy settings for my entire project in one shot without explicitly disabling as above for every web object. The main reason I want to be able to do this is that I'm trying to use an API (http://code.google.com/p/google-api-for-dotnet/) which uses web requests, but does not provide any way to manually disable proxy settings. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

    Read the article

  • Creating Facebook Apps .. going mad

    - by ArneRie
    Hi, iam trying to create my first Application running inside an Facebook Canvas. Iam using Zend Framework (PHP) for this project. But iam not able to understand all the different ways facebook is offering. There is an PHP SDK wich works so far. There is an Javascript SDK and something called FBJS? Does someone knows a good point to start? The Documentation is not actual most times. I have managed it to login, and show my picture and name inside the app, the basic stuff is working.

    Read the article

  • Should I replace string patterns in asp.net mvc using a custom viewengine?

    - by Roger Rogers
    Have an ASP.NET MVC site that is localized. The localization functionality adds the two digit language ID to the URL, e.g. /es/Page. If no language Id is found in the URL, the site switches to the user's browser culture. All's good. However, the site's hyperlinks, a mixture of hard-coded href tags, actionlinks, etc., don't include the base language ID, so when clicking through the site the set culture is lost, and the site reverts to the user's browser culture. My (lazy) thought is to replace all href values, that don't point to an external site, with the localized URL (e.g. include the /es/). Otherwise, all site links will need to be updated to include the culture code. Is this just plain dumb? Or, reasonable, and should be done using a custom view engine, or some other approach?

    Read the article

  • ObjectContext ConnectionString Sqlite

    - by codegarten
    I need to connect to a database in Sqlite so i downloaded and installed System.Data.SQLite and with the designer dragged all my tables. The designer created a .cs file with public class Entities : ObjectContext and 3 constructors: 1st public Entities() : base("name=Entities", "Entities") this one load the connection string from App.config and works fine. App.config <connectionStrings> <add name="Entities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/Db.TracModel.csdl|res://*/Db.TracModel.ssdl|res://*/Db.TracModel.msl;provider=System.Data.SQLite;provider connection string=&quot;data source=C:\Users\Filipe\Desktop\trac.db&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" /> </connectionStrings> 2nd public Entities(string connectionString) : base(connectionString, "Entities") 3rd public Entities(EntityConnection connection) : base(connection, "Entities") Here is the problem, i already tried n configuration, already used EntityConnectionStringBuilder to make the connection string with no luck. Can you please point me in the right direction!? EDIT(1) How can i construct a valid connection string?!

    Read the article

  • What is an Ontology (Database?) ?

    - by Robert Gould
    I was just reading this article and it mentions that some organization had an Ontology as(?) their database(?) layer, and that the decision to do this was bad. Problem is I hadn't heard about this before, so I can't understand why it's bad. So I tried googling about databases and ontology, and came about quite a few pdfs from 2006 that we're full of incomprehensible content (for my mind). I read a few of these and at this point still have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. My current impression is that it was some crazy fad of 2006 that some academics were trying to sell us, but failed miserably due to the wording of their ideas. But I'm still curious if anyone actually knows what this is actually all about.

    Read the article

  • How can I process command line arguments in Python?

    - by photographer
    What would be an easy expression to process command line arguments if I'm expecting anything like 001 or 999 (let's limit expectations to 001...999 range for this time), and few other arguments passed, and would like to ignore any unexpected? I understand if for example I need to find out if "debug" was passed among parameters it'll be something like that: if 'debug' in argv[1:]: print 'Will be running in debug mode.' How to find out if 009 or 575 was passed? All those are expected calls: python script.py python script.py 011 python script.py 256 debug python script.py 391 xls python script.py 999 debug pdf At this point I don't care about calls like that: python script.py 001 002 245 568 python script.py some unexpected argument python script.py 0001 python script.py 02 ...first one - because of more than one "numeric" argument; second - because of... well, unexpected arguments; third and fourth - because of non-3-digits arguments.

    Read the article

  • iPhone tilt direction

    - by Tate Allen
    Hi all, I am making a simple, tilt controlled game using UIKit. So far, when I tilt the device the character moves in the appropriate direction. What I want him to do is to change the direction he is facing when I tilt the device. For example, when I tilt it left, I want the character to face left. Is there a way to detect whether the device was tilted left or right? If so, could you point me in the right direction please. Thanks, Tate

    Read the article

  • How to debug a bundle in XCode?

    - by Paperflyer
    I wrote a nice little program. At some point, it is required to load a bundle with some additional functionality. I, too, am the author of the bundle, so I have the source code and Xcode-projects for both the main application and the bundle. Until now, I simply dragged the bundle into the resources-folder in the main application, which works fine for running it, but I can't debug it (and of course there is an error in it). Is there a way to set up Xcode so that I can debug the bundle?

    Read the article

  • MouseOver Trigger firing on ContextMenu with overridden ControlTemplate. Where is it coming from?

    - by Dabblernl
    I have this very simple ControlTemplate: <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type ContextMenu}"> <Border Name="Border" Background="{StaticResource BlueBackground}" BorderBrush="LightBlue" CornerRadius="10" BorderThickness="1" > <StackPanel IsItemsHost="True"/> </Border> </ControlTemplate> I made it to create a nifty jawdroppingly beautiful rounded corner! However, when I point the mouse over a contextmenu a MouseOver Trigger fires from somewhere that draws a terribly ugly nearly square border on top of my nifty rounded border! Where is it coming from?? EDIT: The most likely cause is that the ContextMenu is an ItemsControl that holds MenuItems, even when my ContextMenu holds a single UserControl. So the UserControl is seen as a MenuItem and highlighted when the IsMouseOver==true! What is the easiest way to disable this behaviour?

    Read the article

  • Javascript won't overwrite CSS display property.

    - by Sorin Buturugeanu
    I have a DIV that is set do display:none from CSS and it's supposed to be made visible (style.display = '';) at some point by javascript. The problem is that if I put the display:none in the CSS file the javascript does not seem to have any effect. I have also tried changing the background color instead of the display property, and that works. I have the code running here (just press the edit link). I really thank you for taking the time to look into this.

    Read the article

  • Subclassing Satchmo's Category model, but then getting the error "'Manager' object has no attribute 'root_categories'"

    - by hellsgate
    I'm using Satchmo as part of a website I'm currently building. At the moment I'm trying add more functions to the Satchmo Category class, but obviously I'm not going to make any changes to the Satchmo files. So, I thought that subclassing the Category class would give me a new class which contains all the Satchmo Category properties and methods while allowing me to add my own. However, either Python subclassing doesn't work like that, or I am doing it wrong. Here is the code I'm using to subclass Category: from product.models import Category class MyCategory(Category): """ additional functions to pull data from the Satchmo store app """ One of the methods I can normally use from the Category class is: Category.objects.root_categories() however, when I try to access MyCategory.objects.root_categories() I get the following error: AttributeError: 'Manager' object has no attribute 'root_categories' Can anyone point me in the right direction for solving this?

    Read the article

  • HTTP status code for "success with errors"?

    - by Richard Levasseur
    I've poked around a bit, but I don't see an HTTP status code for when a request's succeeds, but there is an error after the "point of no return". e.g., Say you process a request, its committed to the database, but while returning the result you run of memory, or encounter a NPE, or what have you. It would have been a 200 response, but now, internally, you aren't able to return the proper, well-formed response. 202 Accepted doesn't seem to fit since we've already processed the request. What status code means "Success, but errors"? Does one even exist?

    Read the article

  • WPF Editable Combobox IsFocused problem

    - by Rey
    I am developing a Watermarked Combobox by modifying Combobox Control template. everything is fine when combo box is not in editable mode. but when i change edit mode to True, isFocused property never set to True. this is because in edit mode, combo box is using a Text Box. This is exact copy of this StackOverflow question: . there are no responces to that question. please drop a line if you know how to solve this. or please point me to links that provide Watermark Combobox implementation. Thanks, Rey.

    Read the article

  • Android:Where is exactly Android 1.6 SDK download?

    - by user187532
    Hello friends, I want install Android version 1.6 SDK. I already have Android development setup with Eclipse and Android 1.5 SDK. Wherever i search in Google to download Android 1.6 SDK, it finally goes to link: http://developer.android.com/intl/zh-CN/sdk/index.html This link has three setup SDK zip files, but no where mentioned what version of SDK setup are those? Why such confusions in this Android website for showing just version of SDK setup files? Where i can get exactly Android 1.6 SDK setup download? Could someone point out me clearly? Is there any special steps that i need to follow to overwrite 1.6 SDK with my existing setup environment? Thank you.

    Read the article

  • How to get the current project directory or the bin directory and move a few level up?

    - by melaos
    I have an ASP.Net MVC app, and i have some xsl files inside of the Content directory. I've try a few methods to get directory dynamically buy keep on coming short. So how do i get the directory to point to the Content/xsl folder? the closest that i came to was with this: this.GetType().Assembly.CodeBase which only returns the project DLL, but i can't figure out how to move up a few levels from there or what .net library to use to navigate around the path. there's no ../.. :( Basically i want to navigate to the Content/xsl folder which is at the same level of the Bin directory.

    Read the article

  • DOS Batch script loop

    - by Tom J Nowell
    I need to execute a command 100-200 times, so far my research indicates that I would either have to copy paste 100 copies of this command, OR use a FOR loop, but the for loop expects a list of items, hence I would need 200 files to operate on, or a list of 200 items, hence defeating the point. I would really not have to write a C program and go through the length of documenting why I had to write another program to execute my program for test purposes. Modification of my program itself is also no an option. So, given a command how would I execute it times via a DOS batch script?

    Read the article

  • Bamboo Versioning

    - by reddy
    Hello guyz, I have a situation where i need to maintain version information of my builds. By googling i found limited information. one way is to create a version file on source control and keep updating. other is to use the source control revision number. final one is to use bamboo build number. i haven't implemented anyone of this before. colud anyone point out the pros and cons of each method. Thank you, Reddy. Please atleast tell me which method have u used to implement the same. Thnq..

    Read the article

  • Solaris 11 Live CD alapú telepítés

    - by AndrasF
    Az elozo részben megigért két telepítési eljárás helyett kénytelen vagyok ebben a bejegyzésben kizárólag a Live CD-s változattal foglalkozni. Korábban nem gondoltam, hogy ennek bemutatása is több, mint 50 képernyo kimenetet igényel, ezért változtatnom kellett a korábbi tervezeten. A Solaris 11 Live CD-s telepítés elsosorban az asztali (desktop) felhasználók igényeit veszi figyelembe és kizárólag x86-os architektúrájú gépeken támogatott (annak ellenére, hogy SPARC-os rendszerek is rendelkeznek grafikus kártyával - pl. T4-1).A folyamat két részre bontható: eloször a vendéggép kerül kialakítása VirtualBox környezetben, majd ezt követi a Solaris 11-es telepítése virtuális gépre. HCL és segédprogramok (DDT, DDU) Mielott telepíteni szeretnénk a Solaris operációs rendszert, célszeru tájékozódni fizikai rendszerünk támogatottságáról. Erre jól használható a már említett hardver kompatibilitási (HCL) lista, vagy az alábbi két segédprogram: Device Detection Tool Device Driver Utility Mindkét alkalmazás képes rendszerünk hardver komponenseit feltérképezni és ellenorizni azok meghajtóprogram (driver) ellátottságát. Eltérés köztük abban nyilvánul meg, hogy míg a DDT futtatásához Java szükséges, addig a DDU Solarist igényel. Ez utóbbiról a telepítés során röviden szó fog esni. Telepíto készletek letöltési helye Hálózati installációtól eltekintve (*) telepítokészletre van szükségünk, mely az alábbi oldalról töltheto le. Célszeru letöltenünk mindhárom állományt és a csomagokat tartalmazó ún. repository médiát (a következo felsorolás utolsó eleme) is: sol-11-1111-live-x86.iso sol-11-1111-text-x86.iso sol-11-1111-ai-x86.iso sol-11-1111-repo-full.iso Az elso három változat indítható USB formátumban is rendelkezésre áll - ekkor iso végzodés helyett usb található a fájlnevek végén. Rövid utalást az egyes készletek feladatáról az elozo blog bejegyzés tartalmaz (link). Amennyiben SPARC architektúrájú rendszerre szeretnénk a telepítést végezni, 'x86' helyett a 'sparc' szöveget tartalmazó állományokra lesz szükség. (*) - arra is lehetoség van, hogy AI készletrol történo indítás segítségével végezzük a hálózaton keresztül történo telepítést. Ez akkor fontos, ha célgépünkön nincs PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) boot támogatás. VirtualBox konfigurálás Külön fizikai eszköz felhasználása nélkül virtuális környezetben is használható a Solaris 11, mint vendéggép. A VirtualBox használatával erre kényelmes lehetoség kínálkozik. Gazdagépünknek (Windows, Unix, Linux) megfelelo telepíto program, vagy programcsomag (jelenleg a 4.1.16-os verzió a legfrissebb változat) és az installációt is taglaló felhasználói kézikönyv letöltheto a termék oldaláról. A sikeres telepítést követoen az alábbi lépések során jutunk el az új virtuális gép kialakulásáig: 1. A VBox indítása után a központi ablak megmutatja a már létezo virtuális gépeinket (Sol11demo, Sol11u1b07, Sol11.1B16, Sun_ZFS_Storage_7000) és az aktuálisan kiválasztott egyed (Sol11demo) fobb jellemzoit (megnevezés, memória mérete, virtuális tároló eszközök listája...stb.) 2. A New gombra kattintva elindul a virtuális gépet létrehozó segéd (wizard) 3. Ezt követoen nevet kell adnunk a vendéggépnek és ki kell választanunk az operációs rendszer típusát (beszédes név használata esetén a VirtualBox képes az operációs rendszer családját kiválasztani, nekünk pusztán csak verziót kell beállítanunk): adjuk meg Solaris11-et névként és válasszuk a 64bites változatot (feltéve, hogy gazdagépünk támogatja ezt) 4. Telepítéshez és a kezdeti lépések megtételéhez 1536MB memória tökéletesen megfelel (ez késobb módosítható az elvárások függvényében) 5. Fizikai társaihoz hasonlóan, egyetlen virtuális gép sem létezhet merevlemez (jelen esetben virtuális diszk) nélkül. Használhatunk egy már létezo területet (virtuális lemezt tartalmazó állomány), de létrehozhatunk egy nekünk tetszo új példányt is. Maradjunk ez utóbbinál (Create new hard disk)! 6. A lehetséges formátumok közül - az egyszeruség okán - éljünk a felkínált alaptípussal (VDI - VirtualBox Disk Image). 7. Létrehozás során a virtuális lemez készülhet egyidejuleg (Fixed size), vagy több lépésben dinamikusan (Dynamically allocated). Az elso változat sokkal kevésbé terheli a rendszert, a második elonye pedig a helytakarékosság. Válasszuk a fix méretu változatot. 8. Most már csak egyetlen adat ismeretlen a VirtualBox számára, mégpedig a létrehozásra kerülo virtuális lemez nagysága. 8GB-os terület jelen esetben alkalmas az ismerkedés elkezdéséhez. 9. Amennyiben minden beállítást helyesen adtunk meg, a Create gomb megnyomása után elindul a virtuális lemez létrehozása. 10. Ez a muvelet a megadott adatoktól függoen néhány perc alatt befejezodik. 11. Hasonló megerosítés (Create gomb aktiválása) után elkezdodik a kért virtuális gép létrehozása is. 12. Sikeres végrehajtás után az új vitruális gép közvetlenül megjelenik a központi ablak baloldali listáján a rendelkezésre álló virtuális gépek közt. A blog bejegyzés folyamatosan frissül...a rész fennmaradó tartalma hamarosan felkerül az oldalra.

    Read the article

  • Error while running jar file

    - by Manu
    Hi, I have created jar file which includes my .class , manifest file and dependency jar files like jar cfmv custadvicejar.jar mymanifest.txt Gchreportsautomation Bean Utils jxl.jar ojdbc14.jar where custadvicejar.jar - is my jar file name mymanifest.txt contains Main-Class: Gchreportsautomation.GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_DAO "Gchreportsautomation" is the package name contains "GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_DAO.class" [This class is my starting point of my application] Gchreportsautomation/ GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_DAO.class "Bean" is the package name contains "GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_Bean.class" Bean/ GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_Bean.class "Utils" is the package name contains "Utils.class" Utils/ Utils.class and jxl.jar and ojdbc14.jar are jar files required for my application which i kept in parent directory of the .class files like D:\Excalcreation /Gchreportsautomation/ GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_DAO.class /Bean/ GCH_Home_Loan_Data_Cust_Advice_Bean.class /Utils/ Utils.class /jxl.jar /ojdbc.jar while running the application i got error like Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: jxl.format.CellFormat i know this is because of class-path error. how to rectify it. If i click my jar file ,the application has to run. please provide solution.

    Read the article

  • How to get elastic table next to a image?

    - by Pavel Chuchuva
    This is what I want: This is the best I could come up with: CSS img { background: red; float: left; } table { background: yellow; width: 90%; } HTML <img src="image.jpg" width="40" height="40" /> <table> <tr><td>Table</td></tr> </table> There is a problem with this approach. If you resize browser window at some point the table jumps below the image: click to view demo. What is the better way of achieving this layout?

    Read the article

  • How to deploy and register a VSPackage supporting multiple versions of Visual Studio (2005, 2008, 20

    - by Steve Cadwallader
    I have an open source VSPackage that I would like to release with support for Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008, and Visual Studio 2010. I'm trying to figure out how to create the installer and how to perform the package registration with each edition of Visual Studio. The deployment research I've done indicates my best bet for an installer is a VSIX inside an MSI. The registration research I've done is a lot less clear. VSPackage registration seems to differ for every edition (VS2005 uses regpkg, VS2008 uses pkgdef, VS2010 uses VSIX). Can anyone share their experiences and/or point me towards any information about the best approach for targeting multiple versions of Visual Studio? I'm looking for the easiest implementation and preferably keeping it in a single installer if reasonably feasible. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Read the article

  • Adding a Network Loopback Adapter to Windows 8

    - by Greg Low
    I have to say that I continue to be frustrated with finding out how to do things in Windows 8. Here's another one and it's recorded so it might help someone else. I've also documented what I tried so that if anyone from the product group ever reads this, they'll understand how I searched for it and might try to make it easier.I wanted to add a network loopback adapter, to have a fixed IP address to work with when using an "internal" network with Hyper-V. (The fact that I even need to do this is also painful. I don't know why Hyper-V can't make it easy to work with host system folders, etc. as easily as I can with VirtualPC, VirtualBox, etc. but that's a topic for another day).In the end, what I needed was a known IP address on the same network that my guest OS was using, via the internal network (which allows connectivity from the host OS to/from guest OS's).I started by looking in the network adapters areas but there is no "add" functionality there. Realising that this was likely to be another unexpected challenge, I resorted to searching for info on doing this. I found KB article 2777200 entitled "Installing the Microsoft Loopback Adapter in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012". Aha, I thought that's what I'd need. It describes the symptom as "You are trying to install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, but are unable to find it." and that certainly sounded like me. There's a certain irony in documenting that something's hard to find instead of making it easier to find. Anyway, you'd hope that in that article, they'd then provide a step by step example of how to do it, but what they supply is this: The Microsoft Loopback Adapter was renamed in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The new name is "Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter". When using the Add Hardware Wizard to manually add a network adapter, choose Manufacturer "Microsoft" and choose network adapter "Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter".The trick with this of course is finding the "Add Hardware Wizard". In Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound, there are options to "Add a device" and for "Device Manager". I tried the "Add a device" wizard (seemed logical to me) but after that wizard tries it's best, it just tells you that there isn't any hardware that it thinks it needs to install. It offers a link for when you can't find what you're looking for, but that leads to a generic help page that tells you how to do things like turning on your printer.In Device Manager, I checked the options in the program menus, and nothing useful was present. I even tried right-clicking "Network adapters", hoping that would lead to an option to add one, also to no avail.So back to the search engine I went, to try to find out where the "Add Hardware Wizard" is. Turns out I was in the right place in Device Manager, but I needed to right-click the computer's name, and choose "Add Legacy Hardware". No doubt that hasn't changed location lately but it's a while since I needed to add one so I'd forgotten. Regardless, I'm left wondering why it couldn't be in the menu as well.Anyway, for a step by step list, you need to do the following:1. From Control Panel, select "Device Manager" under the "Devices and Printers" section of the "Hardware and Sound" tab.2. Right-click the name of the computer at the top of the tree, and choose "Add Legacy Hardware".3. In the "Welcome to the Add Hardware Wizard" window, click Next.4. In the "The wizard can help you install other hardware" window, choose "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list" option and click Next.5. In the "The wizard did not find any new hardware on your computer" window, click Next.6. In the "From the list below, select the type of hardware you are installing" window, select "Network Adapters" from the list, and click Next.7. In the "Select Network Adapter" window, from the Manufacturer list, choose Microsoft, then in the Network Adapter window, choose "Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter", then click Next.8. In the "The wizard is ready to install your hardware" window, click Next.9. In the "Completing the Add Hardware Wizard" window, click Finish.Then you need to continue to set the IP address, etc.10. Back in Control Panel, select the "Network and Internet" tab, click "View Network Status and Tasks".11. In the "View your basic network information and set up connections" window, click "Change adapter settings".12. Right-click the new adapter that has been added (find it in the list by checking the device name of "Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter"), and click Properties.   

    Read the article

  • PPP connection with RAS dialer in C++

    - by user312054
    I have a windows mobile application that is using Windows CE 5.0. I have been informed by the people supplying the hardware for the unit that I need to create a socket, which I have done successfully, and then dial out to the internet with a PPP connection with a RAS dialer connection. Our old code uses an APN to dial out so I need to create the above connection with an APN. I am having trouble finding examples of this. Can someone point me to some examples of this situation?

    Read the article

  • Will ExtJS die?

    - by Stefan Kendall
    I look at ExtJS, and it appears to provide many of the RIA features that more bulky suites such as Flex provide, without the flash requirement. However, as Open-source initiatiatives such as jQuery-UI continue, will ExtJS simply die at some point? Furthermore, since flash penetration only continues to increase, why put stock in a javascript library? That said, JavaScript libraries such as jQuery have made gigantic leaps in providing easy-to-use APIs with great functionality, so maybe there's some merit in that. Thoughts? Opinions? ExtJS has a price tag, so I have to ask this question.

    Read the article

  • Project Management Helps AmeriCares Deliver International Aid

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss Handle with Care Sound project management helps AmeriCares bring international aid to those in need. The stakes are always high for AmeriCares. On a mission to restore health and save lives during times of disaster, the nonprofit international relief and humanitarian aid organization delivers donated medicines, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid to people in the U.S. and around the globe. Founded in 1982 with the express mission of responding as quickly and efficiently as possible to help people in need, the Stamford, Connecticut-based AmeriCares has delivered more than US$10.5 billion in aid to 147 countries over the past three decades. Launch the Slideshow “It’s critically important to us that we steward all the donations and that the medical supplies and medicines get to people as quickly as possible with no loss,” says Kate Sears, senior vice president for finance and technology at AmeriCares. “Whether we’re shipping IV solutions to victims of cholera in Haiti or antibiotics to Somali famine victims, we need to get the medicines there sooner because it means more people will be helped and lives improved or even saved.” Ten years ago, the tracking systems used by AmeriCares associates were paper-based. In recent years, staff started using spreadsheets, but the tracking processes were not standardized between teams. “Every team was tracking completely different information,” says Megan McDermott, senior associate, Sub-Saharan Africa partnerships, at AmeriCares. “It was just a few key things. For example, we tracked the date a shipment was supposed to arrive and the date we got reports from our partner that a hospital received aid on their end.” While the data was accurate, much detail was being lost in the process. AmeriCares management knew it could do a better job of tracking this enterprise data and in 2011 took a significant step by implementing Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management. “It’s a comprehensive solution that has helped us improve the monitoring and controlling processes. It has allowed us to do our distribution better,” says Sears. In addition, the implementation effort has been a change agent, helping AmeriCares leadership rethink project management across the entire organization. Initially, much of the focus was on standardizing processes, but staff members also learned the importance of thinking proactively to prevent possible problems and evaluating results to determine if goals and objectives are truly being met. Such data about process efficiency and overall results is critical not only to AmeriCares staff but also to the donors supporting the organization’s life-saving missions. Efficiency Saves Lives One of AmeriCares’ core operations is to gather product donations from the private sector, establish where the most-urgent needs are, and solicit monetary support to send the aid via ocean cargo or airlift to welfare- and health-oriented nongovernmental organizations, hospitals, health networks, and government ministries based in areas in need. In 2011 alone, AmeriCares sent more than 3,500 shipments to 95 countries in response to both ongoing humanitarian needs and more than two dozen emergencies, including deadly tornadoes and storms in the U.S. and the devastating tsunami in Japan. When it comes to nonprofits in general, donors want to know that the charitable organizations they support are using funds wisely. Typically, nonprofits are evaluated by donors in terms of efficiency, an area where AmeriCares has an excellent reputation: 98 percent of expenses go directly to supporting programs and less than 2 percent represent administrative and fundraising costs. Donors, however, should look at more than simple efficiency, says Peter York, senior partner and chief research and learning officer at TCC Group, a nonprofit consultancy headquartered in New York, New York. They should also look at whether organizations have the systems in place to sustain their missions and continue to thrive. An expert on nonprofit organizational management, York has spent years studying sustainable charitable organizations. He defines them as nonprofits that are able to achieve the ongoing financial support to stay relevant and continue doing core mission work. In his analysis of well over 2,500 larger nonprofits, York has found that many are not sustaining, and are actually scaling back in size. “One of the biggest challenges of nonprofit sustainability is the general public’s perception that every dollar donated has to go only to the delivery of service,” says York. “What our data shows is that there are some fundamental capacities that have to be there in order for organizations to sustain and grow.” York’s research highlights the importance of data-driven leadership at successful nonprofits. “You’ve got to have the tools, the systems, and the technologies to get objective information on what you do, the people you serve, and the results you’re achieving,” says York. “If leaders don’t have the knowledge and the data, they can’t make the strategic decisions about programs to take organizations to the next level.” Historically, AmeriCares associates have used time-tested and cost-effective strategies to ship and then track supplies from donation to delivery to their destinations in designated time frames. When disaster strikes, AmeriCares ships by air and generally pulls out all the stops to deliver the most urgently needed aid within the first few days and weeks. Then, as situations stabilize, AmeriCares turns to delivering sea containers for the postemergency and ongoing aid so often needed over the long term. According to McDermott, getting a shipment out the door is fairly complicated, requiring as many as five different AmeriCares teams collaborating together. The entire process can take months—from when products are received in the warehouse and deciding which recipients to allocate supplies to, to getting customs and governmental approvals in place, actually shipping products, and finally ensuring that the products are received in-country. Delivering that aid is no small affair. “Our volume exceeds half a billion dollars a year worth of donated medicines and medical supplies, so it’s a sizable logistical operation to bring these products in and get them out to the right place quickly to have the most impact,” says Sears. “We really pride ourselves on our controls and efficiencies.” Adding to that complexity is the fact that the longer it takes to deliver aid, the more dire the human need can be. Any time AmeriCares associates can shave off the complicated aid delivery process can translate into lives saved. “It’s really being able to track information consistently that will help us to see where are the bottlenecks and where can we work on improving our processes,” says McDermott. Setting a Standard Productivity and information management improvements were key objectives for AmeriCares when staff began the process of implementing Oracle’s Primavera solution. But before configuring the software, the staff needed to take the time to analyze the systems already in place. According to Greg Loop, manager of database systems at AmeriCares, the organization received guidance from several consultants, including Rich D’Addario, consulting project manager in the Primavera Global Business Unit at Oracle, who was instrumental in shepherding the critical requirements-gathering phase. D’Addario encouraged staff to begin documenting shipping processes by considering the order in which activities occur and which ones are dependent on others to get accomplished. This exercise helped everyone realize that to be more efficient, they needed to keep track of shipments in a more standard way. “The staff didn’t recognize formal project management methodology,” says D’Addario. “But they did understand what the most important things are and that if they go wrong, an entire project can go off course.” Before, if a boatload of supplies was being sent to Haiti and there was a problem somewhere, a lot of time was taken up finding out where the problem was—because staff was not tracking things in a standard way. As a result, even more time was needed to find possible solutions to the problem and alert recipients that the aid might be delayed. “For everyone to put on the project manager hat and standardize the way every single thing is done means that now the whole organization is on the same page as to what needs to occur from the time a hurricane hits Haiti and when a boat pulls in to unload supplies,” says D’Addario. With so much care taken to put a process foundation firmly in place, configuring the Primavera solution was actually quite simple. Specific templates were set up for different types of shipments, and dashboards were implemented to provide executives with clear overviews of every project in the system. AmeriCares’ Loop reports that system planning, refining, and testing, followed by writing up documentation and training, took approximately four months. The system went live in spring 2011 at AmeriCares’ Connecticut headquarters. While the nonprofit has an international presence, with warehouses in Europe and offices in Haiti, India, Japan, and Sri Lanka, most donated medicines come from U.S. entities and are shipped from the U.S. out to the rest of the world. In addition, all shipments are tracked from the U.S. office. AmeriCares doesn’t expect the Primavera system to take months off the shipping time, especially for sea containers. However, any time saved is still important because it will allow aid to be delivered to people more quickly at a lower overall cost. “If we can trim a day or two here or there, that can translate into lives that we’re saving, especially in emergency situations,” says Sears. A Cultural Change Beyond the measurable benefits that come with IT-driven process improvement, AmeriCares management is seeing a change in culture as a result of the Primavera project. One change has been treating every shipment of aid as a project, and everyone involved with facilitating shipments as a project manager. “This is a revolutionary concept for us,” says McDermott. “Before, we were used to thinking we were doing logistics—getting a container from point A to point B without looking at it as one project and really understanding what it meant to manage it.” AmeriCares staff is also happy to report that collaboration within the organization is much more efficient. When someone creates a shipment in the Primavera system, the same shared template is used, which means anyone can log in to the system to see the status of a shipment. Knowledgeable staff can access a shipment project to help troubleshoot a problem. Management can easily check the status of projects across the organization. “Dashboards are really useful,” says McDermott. “Instead of going into the details of each project, you can just see the high-level real-time information at a glance.” The new system is helping team members focus on proactively managing shipments rather than simply reacting when problems occur. For example, when a container is shipped, documents must be included for customs clearance. Now, the shipping template has built-in reminders to prompt team members to ask for copies of these documents from freight forwarders and to follow up with partners to discover if a shipment is on time. In the past, staff may not have worked on securing these documents until they’d been notified a shipment had arrived in-country. Another benefit of capturing and adopting best practices within the Primavera system is that staff training is easier. “Capturing the processes in documented steps and milestones allows us to teach new staff members how to do their jobs faster,” says Sears. “It provides them with the knowledge of their predecessors so they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel.” With the Primavera system already generating positive results, management is eager to take advantage of advanced capabilities. Loop is working on integrating the company’s proprietary inventory management system with the Primavera system so that when logistics or warehousing operators input data, the information will automatically go into the Primavera system. In the past, this information had to be manually keyed into spreadsheets, often leading to errors. Mining Historical Data Another feature on the horizon for AmeriCares is utilizing Primavera P6 Professional Project Management reporting capabilities. As the system begins to include more historical data, management soon will be able to draw on this information to conduct analysis that has not been possible before and create customized reports. For example, at the beginning of the shipment process, staff will be able to use historical data to more accurately estimate how long the approval process should take for a particular country. This could help ensure that food and medicine with limited shelf lives do not get stuck in customs or used beyond their expiration dates. The historical data in the Primavera system will also help AmeriCares with better planning year to year. The nonprofit’s staff has always put together a plan at the beginning of the year, but this has been very challenging simply because it is impossible to predict disasters. Now, management will be able to look at historical data and see trends and statistics as they set current objectives and prepare for future need. In addition, this historical data will provide AmeriCares management with the ability to review year-end data and compare actual project results with goals set at the beginning of the year—to see if desired outcomes were achieved and if there are areas that need improvement. It’s this type of information that is so valuable to donors. And, according to York, project management software can play a critical role in generating the data to help nonprofits sustain and grow. “It is important to invest in systems to help replicate, expand, and deliver services,” says York. “Project management software can help because it encourages nonprofits to examine program or service changes and how to manage moving forward.” Sears believes that AmeriCares donors will support the return on investment the organization will achieve with the Primavera solution. “It won’t be financial returns, but rather how many more people we can help for a given dollar or how much more quickly we can respond to a need,” says Sears. “I think donors are receptive to such arguments.” And for AmeriCares, it is all about the future and increasing results. The project management environment currently may be quite simple, but IT staff plans to expand the complexity and functionality as the organization grows in its knowledge of project management and the goals it wants to achieve. “As we use the system over time, we’ll continue to refine our best practices and accumulate more data,” says Sears. “It will advance our ability to make better data-driven decisions.”

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678  | Next Page >