Happenings July 19, 2024

    In this issue:

• National Day Spotlight
• Customer Spotlight
• ISV Addon Spotlight
• Managed IT Services Tip
• Leadership 101
• Events, Blogs, Movies
• Webinars, Community

The purpose of a newsletter is an opportunity for the ASWi team to provide you and the rest of our clients with information on all the new ASWi an Acumatica related things (or “happenings”) that you may not otherwise be aware of.

Please feel free to share this newsletter with any/ all of your team. Pease let me know if anyone on your team who would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue and removed.

You can always have a look at back issues of Happenings on ASWi’s web- site at: https://aswiblog.wpengine.com/category/customer-newsletters/

“Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” Kay Redfield Jamison

Today is the perfect day to celebrate summer.

It’s time to unleash your inner child, spark your creativity, and learn why play is an important part of living a happy life.

About the picture: Ethan relaxing in his personal swimming pool after some slippin’ & slidin’.

Q: Did you decide to play on the seesaw or not?
A: I’m not sure, it’s still up in the air.

Q: What about teeter-totters? Do you like them?
A: Sorta. They have their ups and downs.

Q: What do you call a Minotaur at a playground?
A: A swing and a myth.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide.

Q: How did the playground set salesman present his products?
A: With a slide show.

Q: What do kids do during recess on rainy days?
A: Play bored games.

Q: What did the pickle say when he sat down at the poker table?
A: Dill me in.

Q: Why do basketball players like cookies?
A: Because they can dunk them!

ASWi is very humbled, privileged, and proud to be able to serve some of the most innovative organizations in the country as their ERP and/or Managed IT Services provider and trusted business advisor. Today, I would like to spotlight and introduce our newest client McCorvey Companies to the rest of the ASWi community.

There are 5 companies within the McCorvey Companies family:

• McCorvey Sheet Metal Works, L.P. was established in 1925, is family owned, and is one of the largest HVAC sheet metal ductwork detailers, fabricators and installers in the country.
• Way Engineering, LTD is a mechanical contractor that specializes in commercial air conditioning, plumbing, piping, and the maintenance of these systems.
• Way Mechanical is a mechanical contractor with offices in Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Nashville, Raleigh, and San Antonio.
• Kirlin-Way Mechanical is an award-winning mechanical contractor.
• Resource Air Products, LLC was established in 2019 as an air distribution solutions provider for multiple vendors.

ADP Workforce Now is the all-in-one software for HR, payroll, time and more, that has been recognized by Acumatica as an Acumatica-Certified Application (ACA), meeting the highest standards set for Acumatica integration and functionality.

ADP Workforce Now® offers:
• Greater insights: Real-time visibility of financial and HR transactions for informed decision-making with user-friendly dashboards and analytics tools.
• Efficiency: Integration enables dynamic updates in both systems with a single user input.
• Peace-of-mind: Proprietary integration technology provides secure, encrypted, real-time data access between applications.

Q: Where did the hamster deposit its paycheck?
A: Its SHAVINGs account!

Q: Why did the IRS audit the chiropractor?
A: They owed back taxes.

Q: Why did HR fire the guy at the orange juice factory?
A: He just couldn’t concentrate.

Q: What did you think about the payroll dad joke I told over Zoom?
A: It wasn’t even remotely funny

A global IT outage has been triggered today by a faulty update from Austin’s own CrowdStrike, which has affected major airlines, healthcare centers, 911
emergency centers, omni-channel retailers and more.

The root cause of the outages has turned out to be a faulty update from CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software application, which caused devices running Microsoft Windows to crash and enter a recovery boot loop. CrowdStrike identified the issue as a software malfunction, not a cyberattack.

The major lesson is that the following key strategies should be implemented by all of us to prevent future IT outages affecting our businesses:

Comprehensive Update Management
Rigorous pre-deployment testing across various environments and configurations should be done for ALL system and application updates (including legacy ERPs, operating systems, endpoint protection, etc.) to detect potential issues early.

Phase Deployment
By rolling out updates in phases to a small group initially, you can monitor and address issues before a full-scale deployment.

Enhanced Monitoring & Incident Response
Advanced monitoring tools should be in place to detect anomalies immediately post-deployment, enabling rapid intervention. Real-time monitoring & alerting systems should be used to catch issues as they occur.

Avoid Single Points of Failure
Implementing redundancy and failover mechanisms ensures that critical systems remain operational even if one component fails. Cloud infrastructure can significantly reduce the risk of a single point of failure by distributing workloads, enhancing redundancy, flexibility, and disaster recovery capabilities.

“Living” BUDR-Infrastructure Resiliency Plan
Regularly testing disaster recovery plans through simulated drills, creating and continually updating your Backup Disaster Recovery (BUDR) and IT Infrastructure Resiliency plan in conjunction with a trusted Managed IT Services provider will further enhance your preparedness and response.

The ASWi Managed IT Services team can help you ensure your infrastructure’s resilience against future disruptions, big & small.

We are ready to help you address, navigate and overcome disruptions like today’s global IT outage. Please let our Customer Success Manager Keith Wood know by emailing him at keithw@aswius.com or call him at (717) 581-1226 if you would like to learn more about implementing the strategies listed above.

By Bri Williams

Magnitude Representation

Magnitude Representation is a grand name for one of my favorite bits of numbers psychology. When it is represented with more characters, we process a number as larger. I don’t only mean only 3,000,000 vs. 3,000. These are different values. I mean when the same value is represented differently, like 3,000.00 vs. 3k.

You can see the difference in this bank’s ad campaign:

On the left, how they displayed the cashback offer in year one. On the right, the same promo in year two, but see how the $3,000 seems more impressive?

The lesson:
When giving money away, make the number seem longer. Add commas and decimals. When charging people, see whether you can truncate the number instead.

I’ll Be Honest

When someone says “I’ll be honest” or “I don’t want to be mean…” before criticizing a product, they’re actually increasing others’ desire to buy it. By using dispreferred markers like these, the reviewer is softening what they are about to say, and increasing how likeable they seem as a result.

It’s a social risk to be negative, so proclaiming their willingness to say it anyway enhances their credibility. But what does it do to the product that’s being reviewed? Strangely, these markers INCREASE the odds others will buy.

Why? It couches the review in affection. It’s a reluctant negative. The likeability and credibility of the reviewer spill over to the product, and people therefore look more favorably on it.

Effortless = Worthless

If it seems effortless, it can seem worthless. When something comes too easily, we don’t seem to value it. I once heard a comedian suggest adding an ‘average Joe’ to every race at the Olympics just so we can appreciate just how exceptional these athletes are.

For you, effortless might be an idea you have that you immediately second guess because it seems too obvious, or a service you provide that customers undervalue. Showing your work, the hours you’ve put in to develop your expertise, the complexity thinking that went into your thinking, can bolster value – the
value you place on yourself and the value others place on you.

Nearly every weekday, a motivational quote is posted on X/Twitter by @ASWiDelivered and on LinkedIn by @ASWi.

• “Know thyself” Socrates
• “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
• “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. Marie Curie
• “I’d rather say whoa than giddyup.” Will Muschamp
• “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” Neil deGrasse Tyson