Welcome to AVAwire!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of AVAwire - our periodic newsletter created to maintain a constant flow of information to our customers. New editions of AVAwire will be published as we update and release products, announce upcoming events, report on developments, etc. We want to keep everyone informed through both this newsletter and our website, www.AVAware.com.

DHI Chicago 2010

The Door and Hardware Institute annual conference and exposition takes place in Chicago this year, and we are excited to be there demonstrating our applications, discussing upcoming product releases and interacting with our customers.

As well, we will be holding "An Introduction to AVAproject" at the Industry Marketplace on Wednesday, September 22nd.

Join us inside the Navy Pier, Level 3 at either 9:30am or 10:45am. "An Introduction to AVAproject" is a live demonstration of AVA-project and AVAcad, our indu-stry leading project management

system, and will detail new features in AVAproject 2010.

Also, please visit us during the DHI Expo on September 22nd and 23rd at Booth #2215. 

New AVAware Offices

2010 has been a year of unpre-cedented change at AVAware Technologies. We began the year by opening the doors to our new headquarters, a newly reno-vated 15,000 square foot facility located in Oakville, Ontario. Our spacious new locale, located in one of Toronto's most beautiful and affluent suburbs, allows us to realize a number of our long anticipated goals.

We’ve always worked toward establishing a reputation for pro-viding a level of customer service that exceeds any expectations. We always want to be available when our customers need us. We have made a significant investment in our internal tech-nological infrastructure. By emp-loying state of the art wireless connectivity we’ve been able to ensure that even if every physical cable connection to the

building were severed simultan-eously, we would maintain all phone, internet and conferencing capabilities for the remainder of the business day.

Many components of this new infrastructure are truly innovative and fascinating in their own right. As such, we will be pub-lishing articles over the next few months detailing the technical nuances of these new systems.

AVAproject 2010 Release

July 1st marked the release of AVAproject Suite 2010, the latest update to our industry leading software for the architectural openings industry. This is by far the largest update we have made to AVAproject to date. Some noteworthy new features and enhancements are:

Openings Tab in Hardware Groups

A new Openings Tab is located in the Hardware Groups screen. All openings associated with the selected hardware group will be displayed in the "Openings" tab, listed in a miniaturized Openings Schedule. Openings can be added, edited or removed in the same manner as the native Openings Schedule. This is one of many new features developed as a result of user suggestions.
              ____________

AVAproject Exports

AVAproject 2010 also boasts a new generic XML export, which can be used to integrate AVAproject with other applications. XML is an increasingly popular file format for data exchange. Our generic export makes the process of integrating with AVAproject straightforward and familiar for developers.

Also, working with Access IT, we have developed a brand new export from AVAproject to ContractERP which dramatically improves the integration bet-ween the two applications. For more information about AVA-project Exports, see our Data Connectivity Document.
             ____________

64-bit Compatibility 

AVAproject is now compatible with 64bit operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7. This allows AVAproject to take full advantage of increased memory and processing power, which translates to an even faster user experience.
              ____________

The AVAware Repository

The AVAware Rep-ository is a new method of storage for AVAproject system files, necessitated by the intro-duction of User Account Control (UAC) and the "Virtual Store" in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

UAC provides several levels of protection against unsafe mod-ifications to the system by malicious software. UAC creates a safety net of confirmation windows and limitations by user role.

The AVAware Repository overcomes all challenges

associated with UAC and the "Virtual Store". For a more detailed description of UAC, the "Virtual Store" and the AVAware Repository see the AVAware Repository document.
              ____________

File Locking

File Locking prevents more than one user from opening and modifying the same project file at once. Enabled through the Preferences window, File Locking will notify a user if the file being opened is currently in use. If so, the user may choose to close the file or continue opening the file in a read only state.
              ____________

New Frame Support

Communicating Frames are now supported in AVAproject 2010. Additionally, three new frame component types have been introduced: Hinge/Strike Jambs, Double Hinge Jambs and Double Strike Jambs.

AVAproject Tips: Preventing Data Loss with AutoSave

Losing data due to an unexpected restart or power outage is frustrating, and can cause time to be wasted re-entering information. By using AVAproject ’s AutoSave feature, you can set up an automatic save interval to help avoid the unexpected loss of data.

In the Program Preferences window, enable the AutoSave feature by selecting the "Auto-Save files to local 'Temp' directory" check box. Change the time between automatic saves by entering a new value in the text box below.

To restore an auto-saved file, select "Help" -> "Open From TEMP Directory" and choose the appropriate file.

The greatest challenge any software company faces is the temptation to rest on their laurels and be content with the products they offer. Our dev-elopers are always innovating, providing technologically superior products to market.

AVAproject Fusion

Later this year we anticipate the official release of AVApro-ject Fusion. Fusion is an exciting new database technology that not only brings powerful new features to AVAproject, but also to anyone who uses complex database structures in their organization.

At its core, Fusion offers a new approach to data mining, allowing users to build complex queries using near English syntax. Data can be examined in almost

any way imaginable, drawn from nearly any source, including AVAproject files or custom data sources (databases, files, etc).

Simply put, Fusion gives every-day users the ability to query databases like an IT professional.

              ____________

AVAware EDI

Also in the near future, we will unveil a new business commu-nication platform, AVAware EDI. Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) is the transmission of information bet-ween organizations, facilitated by software installed on both manufacturer and distributor systems. AVAware EDI brings our powerful catalog technology to hardware manufacturers in any industry, creating a seamless product ordering system from factory floor to distributor

warehouse. Our Product Builder makes product ordering simple for distributors while still offering the depth necessary to provide all possible variations of each product. Both of these key technologies create the back-bone of AVAware EDI, so users of AVAproject will feel right at home navigating within the software.

Once both manufacturer and distributor have installed the AVAware EDI software, a connection between them is created automatically through an EDI server. AVAware EDI is a turn-key product, solving the problems commonly associated with EDI systems and offering extremely powerful software based solution.

Stay tuned for our AVAware EDI Theory of Operations document.