Release notes: 2013

Release: December 22, 2013

• Red and Orange Phase Indicators – On the Project Form, on the Phase Tab, rows phases that have a linked Task that is past due will show a red background on the ID and Description columns. Phases that have a linked task that is due today or tomorrow will show up with an Orange background. This is designed to let you see a glance which phases have Late Tasks or Tasks due very soon. In the list of Tasks to the right of the Phase Grid, the icons correspond with these indicators and will have a Red or Orange exclamation icon.

• Phase Form – There is a new Phase Form which lets you manage Phases from multiple projects at once. Access the Phase Form under the Data drop down menu.

• Unsubmitted MR Item Reminder – If the currently logged in user has unsubmitted MR Items on an MR that they created, they will receive a popup notification when first opening Crows Nest and once every hour after that while there are still unsubmitted MR Items.

• New Employee Permissions – New Permissions have been added to individually lock out each form in CN for each Employee. See the list titled “Can Access Forms” in the Permissions section on the Employee Form.

• Manifest Scanner Form – There is a new form for creating and managing Manifests and using a Barcode Scanner to track items on the manifest. This form can be used for Shipping Manifests or tracking parts through production. Manifests can be linked to Projects and Phases and the dates from either one can be used to manage multiple manifests on the Summary Items tab. Scanners are connected via Serial Ports and as many can be added as you have ports available. Define available actions for scanning and change Actions or Employees either on screen or by scanning a barcode. Create custom reports to print Manifests and Labels. All reports with a prefix of ‘CN_MANIFEST_’ will be available when clicking the Print button on the Manifest. These reports will also be hidden on the main Report form.

Release: November 7, 2013

• Drag-n-Drop on Calendar – On the Calendar Form you can drag items from the detail list below the calendar to a specific date on the calendar to change the date for the dragged items. If the “Type” is set to Project, then the Project Date selected under “Date” will be changed to the date the item was dragged to. If the “Type” is set to Phase, then the Project Phase Date selected under “Date” will be changed. If the dates being changed are based on formulas, they will be modified to a hard date and will no longer be formula based after dragging the items.

• Calendar Form Improvements – The selected “Date” and “Qty” will be highlighted orange in the detail list below the calendar. When multiple items are selected in the detail list a sum total of the qty highlighted orange will be displayed just to the right of the calendar. The columns in the detail list are now sortable. You can double-click or right-click the detail list to automatically jump to the Project or Phase on the Project Form.

• Red Phase Task Indicator – On the Project Form, on the Phase Tab, on the Task Tab to the right of the Phase Grid, the Task Description will show as Red if either the Due Date or Start Date has been overridden. This way you can see if the Phase has Tasks that have overridden dates without having to expand each task to check for an override.

Release: September 25, 2013

• Phase Markers – There are 10 new customizable checkbox columns on the Phase grid named Marker 1 through Marker 10. Rename these on the Phase tab in Options.

• Folder Prefix Options – You can modify the prefix added to auto created folders for Phases, Invoices, Change Orders, RFIs and RFQs. Edit the Prefixes on the Folders tab under Options. The Phase prefix will accept a tag of and will replace it with the current project ID.

• Numerical Folder Sorting – The folders on the Document Tab of the Project Form will now sort the way they do in Windows Explorer so numerical portions of folder names will sort numerically instead of alpha-numerically.

• Date Change Notifications – You can now configure email notifications when Project and Phase dates are changed. Use the “Date Change” area on the Notification Tab in Options to configure who receives emails when specific Project or Phase dates change.

• Mail Method Options and SMTP Form – There are new settings on the Notification tab in Options titled “Email Method” and “Method w/ Attachments”. “Email Method” will be used when initiating emails that don’t initially have an attachment. The “Method w/ Attachments” will be used when you Email files from the Document Tab of the Project form and when you use the “Email PO” button on the Purchase Order form. The “SMTP” option will use the new SMTP Form to send emails. The “Gmail” option will initiate the Gmail browser interface to send emails. The “Outlook” option will initiate MS Outlook to send emails. The “Windows Default” option will use a ‘mailto’ link to initiate the email.

• Sticky Phase Columns – The columns on the Phase grid on the Project Form will retain their location if they are relocated. This is a per user setting.

• Quickbooks Timeclock Transfer Added Fields – The summary now shows a Gross Wage and shows overall totals for RT, OT and Gross Wage.

• Sum Highlighted Fields on Phase Grid – When multiple cells are highlighted on the phase grid, the sum of the selected cells will be displayed just above the grid next to the filter check boxes.

• New Employee Permissions – New Permissions have been added to the Employee form. Options have been added to control who can modify Dates and Quantities. Also the Contract Tab on the Project Form and the Project Cost form can be hidden. If the Contract tab is locked out for an employee, it will also hide the Project Values on the General Tab.

• Phase Priority Column Added – A new column named Priority is added to the Phase table. This column accepts integers 0 through 255 and can be used to indicate a higher priority on items that land on the same date. This column is available for displaying and sorting on the Task Overview form.

• Clear Font Color for Single Project on Task Overview Grid – New option added to right-click menu.

• Mods to Project Material Colors & Parts – On the Project Form, on the Materials Tab, on the Part & Color sub-Tabs, the old interface with the add and delete icon on the upper right corner of the table has been replaced with right-click menus. Also, an option to import Colors from another project has been added. You can now add more than one record with the same color for instances where the same color is used for multiple finish codes on a project.

• Bug Fix – The Machine License was not validating if a user was logged into the machine that was not the same user that Registered the Machine License. After the invalidation it silently rolled back to contacting the license server for a seat. This is fixed so any user on the machine can login and validate the Machine License and also warns the users if the license is invalidated before contacting the license server.

Release: April 8, 2013

• Clock In from Project Form – Clock In option added to right-click menus on the Task Grid, the Phase Grid, and the Phase Task view.

• Bug Fix – A bug on the Documents tab where sub folders were not loading is fixed.

Release: March 31, 2013

• Timeline Printing honors Month Qty – When printing the timeline on the Task Overview form it will consider the setting of Qty of Months to Display.

• Use a Start Date with Accounts Receivable Report – An optional Start Date filter has been added on the Report Form for the Built-in Report “Accounts Receivable”

• Set Font Color for Project Dates on Project Sumary – Right-click the project dates on the General Tab on the Project Form and use the new options to set which font color is used to display empty and filled in project dates.

Release: March 13, 2013

• Bug Fixes: PO Floating Form – Using the button on the navigation bar at the top of the PO Form with the right-arrow to open a floating form of a single PO was throwing an error that prevented the form from opening.

• PO Item QB Account Column – There is a new column on the PO Item table for selecting a Quickbook Account to be used for importing Purchase Orders into Quickbooks.

• Quickbooks PO Transfer Form – A new form has been added to import Purchase Orders into Quickbooks. Open the form from the Accounting drop down menu.

• Print PO without Pricing – A checkbox has been added to the PO Form where the PO is printed which controls whether or not pricing will show up on the Printed PO.

• Contact Addresses – You can now add physical addresses to Contacts.

• Parts Require Category Option – A new option has been added to the Settings form requiring a Category when adding new parts. This will also disable the “Set to None” option in the Category column on the Parts form.

• Set Phase on Multiple MR Items – Use the new right-click short cut menu option “Set Phase” to highlight multiple MR items and associate a Phase.

• PO Item Search Background Loading – Performance has been improved loading the grid on the Search Tab of the PO Form.

• Color Code Projects on Task Overview Grid – New right click options on the Task Grid let you color code specific projects in the Task Grid so tasks are easier to distinguish.

• Part Filter on PO Form – New Filter on the top of the PO Form lets you cycle through POs that contain the selected Part.

Release: January 12, 2013

• Bug Fixes: MS Outlook Preview Pane Freezing – After dragging an email from MS Outlook 2012 and dropping it into a folder in CN, the preview pane would freeze until another folder was selected in Outlook. This is fixed in this release.

• Phase Links Added – There is a new Link tab on the Phase Tab of the Project Form. This works the same way the links work for RFIs and RFQs. There are now right-click menu options on the Document Tab under the Link sub menu to link an item to a Phase and to Set the Folder for a Phase.

• Improved Login Password Encryption – The encryption method used to store remembered passwords during login has been improved.

• Labor Details on Project Cost Form – The Labor tab on the Project Cost form now lets you view a break down of labor per Task, Phase, Category, Department, Operation or Employee.

• Duplicate Employee Screen Name Warning – The employee form will display a warning and prevent saving a Screen Name to an employee if it is already in use.

• New “Contract” Field on Project Form – There is a new field to store the description of the contract for the project. This can be a Contract # or a PO# or other. This field appears in red at the top of the printed standard Invoice.

• Project Status during Add – When adding a new Project, you can change the Status that the project starts with by selecting the status on the Add New Project popup window.

• Part List Current Qty – A new column titled Current lets you store the current qty on hand for an item on a part list. This will be populated by inventory functions in a future version.

• Copy Part on Part Selector – When the Select a Part window pops up, a new option to Copy a part is available. This will copy the selected part to a new part with the prefix “Copy of” on the description and immediately open the Edit window for the new part.

• Add/Edit Part Improvements – The popup window to add/edit parts while selecting parts has added info. You can now edit all part information and also add notes for the selected Category. Use this notes section to remind users proper nomenclature for adding new parts in each category.

• Default First Day of Week – Under Settings > Options, on the Labor tab, set the first day of the work week used to calculate overtime hours when using the timeclock.

• Clock In from My Tasks Window – Right-click a task in the floating My Tasks window to clock into a task.