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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Version 1.2.8 Released!

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

  • Added: The row you click on (in Order Management) will highlight grey.
  • Added: Ability to flag a Type of Item as Active/Inactive...thus hidding it from being a choice when placing an order.
  • Improved: Sorting by Request Month now includes the year, so oldest orders will ALWAYS appear first like they should. And two orders of the same month but different years will now be separated properly.
  • Improved: Behind the scenes code...ItemName and TypeofItem are linked to the Orders table, rather than storing the actual ItemName & TypeofItem. This saves space and no longer requires code to update the tables if you change an Item Name or the Type of the Item.
  • Improved: Blank Order form has better spacing.
  • Improved: Inventory items are now sorted to match the S-28 fields...for quick and easy entry. If you have items listed that are NOT S-28 fields, they will come first.
  • Fixed: Removed date input mask from Date field on the Publisher's Order Search screen.
  • Fixed: Expanded the grouping header for all of the reports that used it. I noticed it was being cut off, depending on the length of what it was grouping by.
  • Fixed: The "Language" label on the "Deliverable" and "Completed Orders" reports (the summary version). This label should actually have said "Item No." instead of "Language".
  • Fixed: Changing the sort order on Inventory Mangement doesn't work after you move to the next/previous month, or after you've processed the month.
  • Fixed: All fonts that are used in LRO are now included in the installer.
  • Fixed: If the Current Request Month setting was set to blank, it would be adjusted to "January" after an upgrade or a Restore job. It will now remain blank.
  • Fixed: Minor translation/spelling errors.

Lots of good updates!  The most major change is the behind the scenes code change, so the "Item Name" and "Type of Item" are linked to the orders rather than actually stored with them.  This was a very logical move, which should have been done from the very beginning, but I didn't know all about relational data when I started.  Although I put LRO through some very thorough testing...I highly recommend you make a backup before doing this upgrade.  After all, I'm not perfect.  ;-)

Also, with this new design, if you delete an item from the Literature Items List...and you have an order or an inventory entry for this item...it will show up as blank.  This is because after deleting it, there is no item to relate to the order/inventory item.  So heed the warning (LRO warns you if you try to delete an item that you have an order/inventory entry for) and don't delete items you are currently using.  Really...you should only use Delete if you added a new item yourself and messed up with it or something.  It is much better to mark an item inactive (remove the check from "Active) rather than deleting it.

To all ENGLISH users:

Note that Items #6648 & #7074 are NOT active.  In reality, they SHOULD be active.  So please visit your Literature Items List screen and mark these two items as active (put a check under "Active").

Friday, May 21, 2010

Updated S-28 Form and New Items

Howdy all!

Our congregation is finally going to use the Inventory Management system that I built into LRO! Which means there may be good changes or new features in store for it as we start to use it more and more.

Already I've realized that the Mock S-28 form is out-of-date. I've also realized for the S-28 fields that have multiple items (such as "All Large print books"), it would be nice to have a single corresponding S-14 item to link to it...rather than putting every single Large book individually on the Inventory Management screen. So I've put "new" special items, that are just for these particular S-28 inventory fields, so you can use them if you find that method easier. You can still list every large book, every CD, MP3, etc. individually if you would like...this method will still work correctly.


S-28 Form Updates
This applies to United States (UK uses a different S-28 form) and Spanish users.

You will get the new songbooks, "Bearing Witness", and "Bible's Message" added to your S-28 form. The linking will also be updated as needed.

To get the update, visit the "Inventory Management" screen, click on "Build Mock S-28 Form", and then click "Download S-28 Updates".


New "Special" Items
This applies to English and Spanish users.

You should get 17 new items. They should all fall under the category "Inventory Only Items". I'm not sure if UK users will be able to use these items on their S-28 form. If not, please just deactivate them (remove the checkmark from "Active")

To get the update, visit the "Literature Items List" screen, and then click on "Download Literature Updates". After you have downloaded the updates, click on "Edit Item Types" and add "Inventory Only Items" as a type (Spanish will be "Inventario Sólo Artículos").


The Russian S-28 form should be up-to-date already. But I will add the "Special" items for Russian as well, as soon as I get the translation.

I've got a few nice things coming in 1.2.8. I hope to have it ready by next weekend. If there are any questions about the updates above, please let me know in our Support Forum.