Release notes: 2016

Owned by Timothy Hitchcock
May 19, 2020
9 min read

Release: August 8, 2016

  • Budget Quantities – Right-click a Quantity on the Project summary on the General tab to enter Budget Quantities. The Project summary will display the Budget Quantity followed by the Sum Total Quantity for all Phases, followed by a Delta between the two.

  • Project Folder Changes – When using two Project Folders, subfolders from both Projects are merged in the Documents view. Folders that they current user does not have read permissions to are not displayed. Also in this release, the Files list hides Hidden and System files.

  • Finish Formulas – Finish formulas can now be defined separately for each Sample on the Transmittals tab. Finish formulas can also be entered at the Color level on the Color form and on the Project Colors list. When adding new components to a formula, right-click a component on the Select a Component popup window and you can set a default UOM for each component that will automatically be filled in when adding a component to a formula. If you select or remove the UOM for a Component Type it will affect all of the components under that Type. You can also insert components from another formula by right-clicking the components list and selecting one of the “Insert From” menu items. The canned report for printing color formulas has been revised to work with formulas entered at the Color level. The canned reports are installed with the client and can be found in the installation directory in a subfolder named Reports. Use the ‘Custom Reports’ form to load or reload reports.

  • Discounts on Invoices – Discount is a new type of item that can be added to Invoices. Discounts are applied to the Receivable amount of the Invoice after Retention is applied. The canned reports for printed Invoices have been updated to include Discounts. The canned reports are installed with the client and can be found in the installation directory in a subfolder named Reports.

  • Edit Contact Addresses – Edit Contact popup window now supports editing Addresses.

  • Auto Logoff – On the General tab under Settings > Options you can set the Auto Logoff Interval in minutes. If this value is greater than zero, the current user will be automatically logged out of Crows Nest after the PC has been idle for a period of time greater than the entered value. To only have this value apply to specific PCs, add one or more PC names to the list below and only those PCs will honor this setting.

  • Estimate, Customize Product – Right click a Product on the Group table and select Customize Product to add customized labor or material records that only apply to the selected item.

  • % Done on SOV – A new column has been added to the SOV titled ‘% Done’. This is currently a manual entry column, but in a future version we will tie it to the ‘% Done’ column to the Phases and add options to have this value auto-populate. The column accepts a value between 0 and 100 or 0.00 and 1.00. This column can be used to determine what portion of the item should be invoiced.

  • % Done for Phases – A new column has been added titled % Done on the Phase tables. This is a manual entry column and accepts values between 0 and 100 or 0.00 and 1.00.

  • SOV Links to Invoices and Change Orders – You can now link multiple Invoices and Change Orders to each line item on the SOV. When linking Invoice items to an SOV Item, the percentage of the SOV Item to include on the invoice item is calculated by subtracting the percentage included on previous invoices from the % Done column for the SOV item.

  • Require Password Re-Entry – On the General tab under Settings > Options, there is a region titled ‘Require Password Re-Entry’ and a checkbox titled ‘Employee Form’. When this box is checked, opening the Employee form requires the user to re-enter their password. If this setting is enabled, the Employee form will close itself after 5 minutes of idle time on the PC.

  • Task Scheduler – On the Task Definition form there is a new tab named Schedule. You can define a date and time when tasks will be automatically added. This can be used to create repeating tasks such as machine maintenance or running payroll. The Crows Nest Email Server must be updated for the tasks to be added.

  • Import Notes Column on Pick Ticket – There is a new Option on the Options > Purchasing tab to allow you designate which of the 3 Note columns on a MR/PO Item will be copied over to the Note column on a Pick Ticket item when using the Import from MR/PO functions.

Release: February 9, 2016

  • Quickbooks Timeclock Export Mods – New options have been added to the Quickbooks Timeclock Transfer form. “Include Project in Export” controls whether or not Projects will be included as Job on the Time Tracking entry. If this option is unchecked, it will skip all of the Project validation steps. “Clear Old Records First” if checked will delete any existing Time Tracking entries in the Quickbooks file that fall in the specified time period for the specified employees and then start exporting new entries. “Save a Log File” if checked will offer to save a log file when the export is completed. If any errors occurred, it will offer to print a log regardless if this option is checked or not. “Process Lunch Periods” if checked will prompt the user to process lunch periods prior to exporting. Processing Lunch Periods is only needed if an employee’s time has been manually modified. Clocking in and out by the employee should automatically process lunch periods as they occur. When “Only Export Selected Employees” is checked, it will only export the employees that have been selected in the list below instead of exporting the entire list. When exporting, Crows Nest will check to see if the employee has the “Use time data to create paychecks” option checked in Quickbooks. If Crows Nest has been granted permission to access personal data, then it will check this option automatically for you. If it has not been granted this permission, then it can only warn you after exporting and the export has failed for that employee. To control access to personal data from applications, in Quickbooks go to Edit > Preferences > Integrated Applications > Company Preferences > then select the application in the list (i.e. Crows Nest) and click Properties to change settings.

  • Contact Editing Window – The ‘Add/Edit Contact’ popup window has added areas to add phone numbers, email address and businesses all in the same window, avoiding the need to go back and add these items after the contact has been added.

Release: January 31, 2016

  • Transmittal Status Notifications – A new email event has been added to the Events table on the Notifications tab under Settings > Options. The event is titled Transmittal Status Changed. Any time a Transmittal item the Approved or Rejected checkboxes change on a transmittal item, and email notification will be sent to the recipients listed in this new event.

  • Notification Event Grid Enhancement – You can now use the right-click button on the mouse to insert Employees or Roles on instead of manually typing them in for events on the Events table on the Notifications tab under Settings > Options.

  • Project MR Form Enhancements – New fields have been added to top of the MR form for selecting global options that affect all records on the MR. The fields are Phase (Phase may be renamed), Vendor, Payment Terms and Shipping Terms. If a value is selected in one of these fields, they will automatically be selected for each item on the MR. The corresponding column to each field will be hidden as well to save real estate on the Items. To clear any of these fields, right-click them.

  • Project MR Status w/ Notifications – A new field titled Status has been added to the top of the MR Form. Click on the link to open the list of available statuses. The list can be customized by right-clicking it. Statuses can be color coded. If the color has been defined for a status, the Status field at the top of the MR will be displayed in the selected color. Email notifications can be sent to notify employees of a status change. The employee who created the MR will be notified whenever somebody else changes the status. There are two places on the Options page where other employees can be configured to receive these notifications. First, there is a new event on the Events table on the Notifications tab titled “Project MR Status Change”. Enter one or more employees, roles or email addresses in this field and they will be notified any time any MR status changes. To configure notifications only for specific status changes, see the “Specific Status Change” section on the Notifications tab. Select one of the MR Statuses in the “Select Status” drop down menu. The MR Statuses will have a prefix of “MR: “. Once a status is selected, right-click one of the two lists below the status to specify an employee, role or email address to receive a notification when the status changes to or from the selected status.

Release: January 13, 2016

  • Business Links – A new Links tab has been added to the Business form. This works the same as Links in other forms and can store a link to a file, folder or web link.

  • Click to Call – A new tab has been added to Settings > Options titled “Phone”. If you have a phone dialer on your PC that uses “tel” hyperlinks, you can check the Option titled “Show ‘Call’ Menu Option” to add a right-click menu option titled “Call” where you see phone numbers under Contacts, Businesses or Projects. If the setting “Phone Log Topic” is filled out, when you start a call from the Project or Business form it will open up a window to enter a call log. When the call log is closed it will create a Topic named as the value of the “Phone Log Topic” in the Notes section of the Business or Project, and will save the call log as a Note under that topic. If you need to enter a Long Distance prefix, enter the prefix in the “Long Distance Prefix” setting. Enter one or more area code separated by comma in the Local Prefixes setting and any number in that area code will not include the Long Distance Prefix.

  • Email Notification when Task Complete/Incomplete – When a Task is marked as Complete or Incomplete by someone other than the person assigned, the person to whom the the task is assigned will receive an email notification. On the Task Definition form on the Notify tab you can configure other people to be notified when a Task is marked as Complete/Incomplete. When this email notification is triggered, a popup window will offer a chance to add a note that will be included in the email.

  • Email Documents to Project Email – When you right-click files on the Document tab of the Project form, there is a new option under “Email to” titled “Project Email”. Any Email addresses entered for the Project on the Contacts form will be listed here.

  • Customizable Reports Added – The Invoice and RFQ Reports are now customizable similar to other areas. Add one or more reports with a prefix of “CN_INVOICE_” or “CN_RFQ_” and they will be available when printing Invoices or RFQs. Canned reports to match the previously hard-coded reports are included and will automatically be installed.

  • Import CustomSQL in Report Definition – Select a Dataset in the Available Values property for a report Parameter and it will import the SQL query from the selected Dataset as the CustomSQL argument for the report parameter. The Value field must be named “ID” and the Label field must be named “Description”

  • Changes to Reports – The layout of the report form has changed. Reports are now loaded in a treeview on the left-hand side of the form instead of a dropdown menu at the top of the form. All of the original hard-coded reports have been removed so that only customizable reports are present. Copies of the removed hard-coded reports are included in the ‘Canned Reports’ folder in the Crows Nest installation folder (typically “C:\Program Files (x86)\Crows Nest\Canned Reports\”) and can be imported on the Custom Reports form under the Settings menu.

  • Report Restrictions – Reports can now be restricted to selected employees. On the Custom Report form, right-click a report and use ‘Add Employee Restriction’ to select employees who are allowed to view the report. If no employees are added, anybody can view the report. If one or more employees are added, only the employees added can view the report. Added employees can be removed by right-clicking their name and selecting ‘Remove Employee’.