NxTrend / Progress / PHP

[jamestoast]

I just talked my company into purchasing NxTrend. We're starting implementation in the very near future. I'll be trying to build a web front-end for it using php. Just curious- has anyone been through an implementation like this?

I'm sticking with PHP because for web applications, in my experience, PHP is the best of any web app language. There isn't much that you can't do with it.

I've come to the conclusion that I'll have to build a separate MySQL database to store additional information about our products- I was disappointed to discover that the description field for products in NxTrend are limited to 24 characters, and that the 'notes' field is broken into a series of pages (so that a moderately long description may span several records). So my plan is to keep a separate database with more flexible product name, description, and file attachment information. (I was so hoping to avoid two databases. Oh, well.)

 

[kirsch59]

I wrote a web front end to NxTrend's database using WebSpeed. I developed the following functions using the web:

Adding, deleting, maintaining stock and catalog products. Updating product cost i.e. supplier link. Adding vendor notes and images to their products.

Setup and update customer product prices. Create and maintain customers, ship-to(s). Generate sales and trend analysis reports that are in HTML, PDF and EXCEL formats.

Setup up a web site where our vendor's can download their products and update cost.

Created a robust product query.

E-mail Monthly A/R statements to our customers.

I customized and enhanced so many of the NxTrend functions that the majority of our employees use my web applications instead of NxTrend GUI application.

I would stay away from using a second database. You may be better off adding your own custom Progress tables. This way you do not need a new backup/recovery plan and solving performance issues maybe easier.