Release notes: 2014

Release: November 14, 2014

• Link RFI to Phase – Link RFIs to individual Phases to indicate they are affected by the RFI. On the Phase Tab on the Project Form, there is a new tab on the right titled RFI which lists the RFIs linked to the selected Phase. Right click the list of RFIs to add/remove links to RFIs or to Goto the highlighted RFI on the RFI tab. RFIs can also be linked to the Phases from the RFI Tab. On the RFI Tab on the Project Form, right-click an RFI in the list and select “Link to Phase”. A new list of linked Phases is displayed in the lower left of the RFI Tab. Right-click this list to add/remove links to Phases as well as Goto the Phase on the Phase Tab. When one or more RFIs are linked to a Phase, an RFI icon will appear on the far right side of the Description column of the Phase Grid on the Phase Tab.

• Phase UDCs – User Defined Columns, or UDCs are columns on the Phase grid that accept text values and can be defined in Settings > Options on the Phase Tab. Naming the UDC “N/A” will disable the column and hide it from view. In Settings, you can use the Validation column to define a list of acceptable entries for the column. If Validation items are defined then the UDC is displayed as a Link column and when the link is clicked it will allow the user to pick from the list of Validation items for that column.

• Phase Template Improvements – Phase Templates now allow you to set starting values for Phase UDCs and for Task Budget Hours. You can also define the starting Description for a Phase created using the template separately from the name of the actual template.

• Budget Hours on Tasks – Tasks have a new field for entering the hours budgeted. When you click on a Task and open the Task Details, the Hours tab will display the Budgeted Hours as well as hours logged against the Task. On the Hours tab, the Budgeted Hours will be automatically spread out evenly between all Work Days between the Start and Due Date of the task. The dates that have budgeted hours are considered “Capacity Dates” and can be aggregated on the Calendar form.

• Change Order Task Trigger – You can define a list of Tasks to be triggered when a COP is created. Edit the list of tasks in Settings > Options on the Project Tab on the list titled “Tasks Triggered on Added Change Order”. When tasks are first created, they include the ID and Description of the Change Order in the Task Variation.

• Manifest Containers – A new column titled Container is added to the list of Manifest Items on the Manifest Scanner form. The Container is also added to the list of selectable items on the Scanner when an item is scanned. When a Container is selected on the Scanner, the Container column for the scanned item will be changed to match. If the Scanner is set to “Uncheck” and a Container is selected, it will clear the Container column on the scanned item.

• Phase Tab Sorting Additions – The Phase Grid on the Phase Tab of the Project form allows multi-column sorting by clicking on the column headers. When a column header is clicked the grid will be sorted by that column, and a small number will be displayed in the upper right corner of the column header. When subsequent column headers are clicked they will display an incremented number indicating the order in which the columns are sorted. Each time a column header is clicked it will toggle from Ascending to Descending order. To disable sorting on an individual column, click the middle mouse button (commonly the mouse wheel button). To disable sorting on all columns, click the link that appears above the grid titled “Clear Sort Columns”. This link only appears when a column has been sorted. You can also define how the data is originally sorted when the data is loaded under Settings > Options on the Phase Tab. In the field titled “Sort”, enter the name of data columns in sort order separated by commas. Add the string “DESC” without the quotes after a data column name to sort descending (Example Sort: Priority, Date1 DESC, Description). Use the query form to verify the data column names.

• Task Checklist – You can define a checklist for each Task that needs to be checked off completely before the user is allowed to complete the task. On the Task Definition form there is a new tab on the right hand side titled “Checklist”. Add any number of checklist items and use the Sort column to enter integers to control the sort order of the items in the checklist. The checklist items are first sorted by the Sort column, then by the Description. Open the Task Details to see the list of Checklist items. When items are checked, it stores who checked them and when. The list of Checklist items is copied from the Task Definition when the Task is first created. If more items are added to the Task Definition after the Task has been created, they will not appear on the Task. You can also add new custom items to the Task itself without affecting the Task Definition. Right click the list of Checklist items on the Task Details form and use “Add Item” to add a checklist item that only appears on the detailed task.

• Task Details – Right-click tasks and select “Task Details” to open a floating window with more details for the task. There are tabs that display the Checklist items defined for the task, the Budgeted and logged hours on the task, and the Task Explanation as defined in the Task Definition. There is also a button on the upper right that can be clicked to Clock In and Out of the detailed task.

• Calendar Form Mods – A new checkbox is added to “Include Completed Tasks” so you can include/exclude completed tasks when viewing types that show tasks. When tasks are being aggregated, a new selection for Qty will allow you to show Budget Hours of tasks. Also, a new selection for Date will allow you to total by Capacity Dates instead of Start or Due Dates. A Capacity Date is any date that has been defined to have Budget Hours on it.

• Date Needed and Order By Formulas – You can define customized “Order By” and “Needed By” formulas for specific Parts. You can also define customized formulas on an MR Template. When one of these dates is calculated, it first looks on the PO or MR item for a customized formula, if none is found, it looks to see if a custom formula is defined for the selected Part, if none is found, it then looks to see if a global formula is defined under Settings > Options on the Purchasing tab under the Calculate Dates area.

• MR Templates – MRs can be saved as Templates by right-clicking an MR in the list of MRs on the left side of the MR Tab on the Project Form. When creating an MR or a Pick Ticket, you can import items from an MR Template. There is a link above the list of MRs titled “Add New MR from Template”. Click this link to create a brand new MR based on a defined template. There is also a button above the list of MR Items titled “Import Items from Template”. Use this button to import items from a defined template onto the currently selected MR. When the list of MR Templates is open, you can right click the the list and use “Edit” to open the MR Template editing window. You can define the Description of the Template, the Description of the MR when a new MR is created based on the Template, and a list of MR Items. You can also define a custom Order By or Need By date formula. The formulas can be defined for items that are linked to a Phase, or items that are only linked to the Project.

• New Task Filter Options – On the Task Overview form, there are new options when defining a filter. You can limit the qty of rows returned. You can omit tasks with blank Start or Due dates. The new Phase UDCs are available for sorting and displaying.

• Workdays Defined – Previously when dates were calculated using Workdays, it only eliminated weekends as non-workdays. Now you can define which days of the week you consider a Workday. Under Settings > Options, on the Labor Tab, there is a checked list of days titled “Workdays”. Check the box next to each day of the week that should be considered a workday when calculating dates.

• Inventory Functions – On the Inventory form, functions have been added so you can manually adjust inventory. Right click the Inventory Grid, the Detail Grid, and the Transactions Grid to use manual adjustment functions. On the Materials > Pick Ticket tab on the Project Form, the Import options have been expanded. You can now import items to the pick ticket based on MRs, POs, Templates and external sources. The Print button will list all reports named with a prefix of “CN_PICKTICKET_”.

Release: July 7, 2014

• RFI Need By Date – A new date field has been added to RFIs for displaying a ‘Need By’ date.

• New Options on Calendar Form – The filters have been reorganized onto tabs and new filters have been added. See the blue text at the top of each tab for a description of how it functions. Bugs on the form when viewing Project or Phase Tasks have been fixed.

• Manifest Improvements – The load time of the manifests has been reduced. A column titled ‘Last Scan’ will display the name of the Action that the item was last scanned with an Action State of True (checked). You can now right-click the list of Manifests to Delete a Manifest. Only the Author of the Manifest can delete it. The ‘Weight’ column remains unlocked so it can be edited by users other than the Author of the Manifest.

Release: June 19, 2014

• Photos Tab on Project Form – A new tab titled “Photos” has been added to the Project form. To use this feature, first open Settings > Options and on the Folders tab, and designate which sub folder should be used for photos by right-clicking a subfolder in the Project Sub Folders list and selecting “Set Default Location For” > ”Photos”. Once this has been set, the Photos tab will look for any folders inside the “Photos” folder and load it as an Album. Select an Album from the drop down list and it will load all of the image files into the list on the left hand side of the Photos tab. There is a drop down menu titled View which will let you select the type of display for the list of image files. You can rename and rotate the image files from the right-clicking them and using the popup menu options. The selected image will show in a larger preview window on the right side of the tab. Use the slider in between the list and the preview pane to make make them larger and smaller. You can also add a note to each image. If you use the image Notes, be careful not to rename files outside of the photo tab. If the files are renamed outside of the Photo tab, your notes will be lost the nest time the photo tab is loaded and the file is missing. Clicking on the “Add New Album” link will create a folder in the “Photos” folder and the “Import Photos” button will copy photos into the currently selected Album.

• Disable a Project Date – Right click any of the project dates on the General Tab of the Project form and select “Disable” to make the date show “N/A”. This only affects the General Tab view and is used to indicate that the selected date does not apply to the current project.

• Project Date Note – Right click any of the project dates on the General Tab and use the Note option to store a note next to the selected Project Date.

• Field Size Increases – The Project Description 2 field now accepts up to 1000 characters.

• Pick Tickets and Inventory – A few more components are in place bringing this closer to being complete. A “Released” checkbox has been added to the Material/Pick Tickets tab on the project form. A Pick Ticket will not show up on the Inventory/Pick Ticket form until it has been checked as “Released”. This will avoid the Pick Ticket queue from being filled by Pick Tickets that are still a work-in-progress. Consuming items on the Inventory/Pick Ticket form will now pull form Inventory. The Inventory Tab on the Inventory form will display quantity of inventory in stock and see a detail of Inventory Transactions and Project Allocation. Still needed are the functions to do manual adjustments for Shrinkage and other anomalies found during a Hand Count Inventory. Also needed is the function to print customized Pick Ticket reports which will work similarly to printing reports from the Manifest form and utilize the ‘CN_TICKET_’ prefix on the custom report name.

• Markup Column added on Bid Tab – A new column titled “Markup” will allow you to store a percentage value on the Bid Tabs table on the Bid tab on the Project Form.

• “Each” Qty on Calendar Form – On the Calendar form, there is a new selection on the “Qty” drop down menu titled “Each”. When “Each” is selected, the sum values on the calendar will display the quantity of matching records found instead of summing the quantities from those records.

• Role Filter on Calendar Form – A new filter on the Calendar Form titled “Role” allows you to filter the records found by a specific Employee in a Project Role. Right-click the Role list to add/remove filters.

Release: April 13, 2014

• Employee Labor Note – A column titled Note has been added to the Timeclock form on both the main Crows Nest client and the Timeclock app. This field lets the user enter up to 255 characters to add a note to the timeclock record.

• Project Latitude/Longitude – A new field on the Project form next to the project description lets you enter GPS coordinates for the project. This is used to calculate distance from the site when clocking in and out through a Crows Nest mobile app on Android or iOS.

• Employee Labor Fields Added – New fields have been added to the Employee_Labor table in the database to store GPS Coordinates, Device IDs and Photos from employees clocking in and out through a Crows Nest mobile app.

• Note Column on SOV – A column titled Note has been added to the SOV grid.

• Project Contacts Revision – On the Project Form, on the Contacts Tab, when a Business is expanded, it no longer lists all of the Contacts linked to the Business. To add specific Contacts from a Business that is already linked to the Project, right-click the Business and select “Add Business Contacts to Project”.

• MR Import MDB Files – A new Import Source Type has been added for selecting a MS Access MDB file. This type does not need a Connection String but does require defining a Query.

Release: March 8, 2014

• Employee Supervisor – You can select an employee’s supervisor on the Employee Form on the Labor Tab. The drop down employee selector at the top of the Timeclock form will load the name of the logged in user and also any employees that they are the supervisor of so they can review their timeclock records without permission to “Edit Labor Hours”. If an employee has permission to Edit Labor Hours then this list loads all employees.

• Employee Timeclock Overview – There is a new tab at the top of the Timeclock form titled “Overview” which lets you see all currently logged in employees and what Project, Phase, Department and Operation they are logging time against. Options at the top of the form let you group the view by Labor Department or by Project.

• Change Order Notifications – Two new Email Trigger Events have been added to the Notification Tab of the Options form titled “Change Order Added” and “Change Order Status Changed”. Enter the email address(es) of any employee who should be receive an email when a new Change Order is created or when the status of a Change Order is changed. Multiple email addresses can be entered separated by commas. Do not add any extra spaces on either side of the comma. These fields will also honor a Role or Employee argument. To use a Role argument, type an “R” with the database id of a Role definition in parenthesis directly following. Any text may be added after the parenthesis to describe the role. Example: R(2): Project Manager. Employees work similarly and use an “E”. Example: E(115): Paul Hitchcock.

• Phase Details Form – Right-click a Phase on the Phase Tab on the Project Form and select “Details” to pop open a form displaying more details for the selected Phase. Currently the form displays each entry into the Project Journal that is linked to the Phase.

• Project Journal Entries for Phases – New Project Journal entries will be made each time a Phase is created, and any time the values of a Phase are modified. Right-click a Phase and open the Details form to see a list of Journal Entries for a selected phase.

• Inventory Form – The Receiving Tab on this form will replace the “Today’s Arrivals”, “Future Arrivals” and “Late Items” tabs on the PO Form. These tabs will be removed from the PO Form in a future release. Use this form to receive PO Items and change ETA dates for PO Items. The Pick Ticket Tab is still under construction. More tabs will be added in a future release to manage Inventory.

Release: February 9, 2014

• New Employee Permission – A new employee permission under “Can Access Forms” named “Projects – Contract Change Order Tab” has been added to allow access to the Change Order tab without granting access to the other data on the Contract tab.

• New Manifest Scanner Sounds – Two new alert sounds have been added to the Manifests tab in Options to configure an alert sound when an Item is scanned but no Action or Employee is selected. An item will not scan unless both an Action and Employee are selected.

• Manifest Form – There is a new column on the Scan History log for each item indicating if the scan was done manually on screen with a mouse instead of with a scanner. Also various bugs in the forms functionality have been fixed.

• New Notifications for RFIs – Two new Email Trigger Events have been added to the Notifications tab in Options titled “RFI Added” and “RFI Status Changed”. Enter the email address of any employee who should receive an email when a new RFI is created for a project (RFI Added) or when somebody modifies the “Conclusion” field (RFI Status Changed). Multiple email addresses can be entered separated by commas. Do not add any extra spaces on either side of the comma. These fields will also honor a Role or Employee argument. To use a Role argument, type an “R” with the database id of a Role definition in parenthesis directly following. Any text may be added after the parenthesis to describe the role. Example: R(2): Project Manager. Employees work similarly and use an “E”. Example: E(115): Paul Hitchcock. There is also a checkbox titled ”RFI Status Change – Notify Owner” to indicate if the creator of the RFI should be notified if the Conclusion is edited.

• New Notification Options – On the Notifications tab in Options, use the checkbox “Task Added” to control if a notification should be sent to the assigned employee when a new task is added. Use the “day(s) out” field directly following the check box to indicate if a notification should only be sent if the due date of the new task is within the qty entered. The checkbox “Task Due Date Changed” works similarly and also has a “day(s) out” option. You can leave the “day(s) out” field blank to always send a notification. Tasks with a blank due date will not trigger a notification if the “day(s) out” option is used.

• New Notification for PO Partial Receive – A new Email Trigger Event titled “PO Item Partial Receive” can be configured to send a notification when a PO Item has been received and the qty received is not the full amount remaining to be received. Any text entered in the “Note” field on the “Receive PO Item” popup window will be included in the email notification.

• “Back Order” and “Stock Order” PO Status – Set which of the user-defined PO Statuses indicates a “Back Order” PO and a “Stock Order” PO. When a PO Item has been received and the qty received is not the entire qty remaining to be received, the status of the PO will automatically be changed to “Back Order” status unless the current status is set to the “Stock Order” status. Leave this option blank if you do not want the status to change automatically. Set a PO Status to the “Stock Order” status and when items on the PO are received, they will not be added to the transaction based Inventory system.

• Task Definition Marker Trigger – You can add a Phase Marker to a Phase Task Definition to have the Marker automatically checked when the Task is marked as Completed.

Release: January 25, 2014

• Security Bug Fixes – Links from some of the forms would allow a user to open a form that they did not have permission to. The “Home Form” for users would open even if they did not have permission to open the form. These are all fixed in this release.

• Manifest Scanner Sounds – On the new Manifest Tab in Settings->Options you can browse to .WAV files to play when specific scan types occur.

• Manifest Scanner Bug Fix – When manually adding rows to a Manifest, they would not show up until the Manifest was reloaded. This is fixed in this release.

• Changes to Employee Form – The form was rearranged to make room for added data fields. New data fields include Emergency Contact information, External ID, PIN, SSN and Tax Classifications. Also included is a Wage History table. Each time the wage is changed, it will add a record to this table. The ‘Effective Date’ and ‘Note’ for each record can be edited by clicking on the link in the column. To delete a record, highlight the record by clicking the row header on the left of the row and press Delete on your keyboard.

• Crows Nest Marker Application – There is a new application installed in the same folder as Crows Nest called Crows Nest Markers (CrowsNestMarker.exe). This is a small windows application with limited functionality designed for employees on the shop floor to be able to complete Phase Markers. Employees must first enter their External ID, their PIN, a Project ID and a Phase number, then they will see a list of the Markers for the selected Phase which they can check as completed. They cannot uncheck a box from this application. To uncheck a box, you must use the full Crows Nest client. Also displayed in the list is the last person to check/uncheck the Marker and the date it was last checked/unchecked. A separate installer is available on the Crows Nest web site for installing this app on a PC without installing the full Crows Nest client.

Release: January 7, 2014

• Project Status Filter on Phase Form – Use the new filter on the Phase Form to only show projects with a specific project status.

• Project Journal Entries – The first entries into Project Journal are active. Any change to a Project Status or Description will be logged in the Project Journal. Currently you can use the query form to view entries into the Project_Journal table. In future versions, more events will be logged and a UI will be created for reviewing and searching the Project Journal.