Literature Room Organizer

New Offers for the Month

2011-12-18T20:35:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

I just put out an update for the latest offers of the month all the way until May. It looks like I was late in getting the January offer, which is the Bible Teach book. I hope this didn't inconvenience anyone...

I've got a lot going on right now, so please, if I forget to put out an update for the Upcoming Offers in a timely manner, feel free to shoot me a friendly reminder e-mail. Also any recommendations or suggestions for improvement are always welcome. I may actually update LRO in the next month or two... ;-)

Hope all are well!

New Literature Items and Offers

2011-09-19T20:53:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

The following items have been made available in this update for English users:

Watchtower Library--2011 Edition
Watchtower Bound Volume 2011
Awake! Bound Volume 2011
2012 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses--On Compact Disc
2012 Yeartext (for Kingdom Hall use only)
2012 Memorial Invitation
Questions Young People Ask--Answers That Work, Volume 1
Listen to God
Listen to God and Live Forever

New items for Spanish users are as follows:

Watchtower Library - Edición 2011
Volumen Encuadernado de La Atalaya 2011
Volumen Encuadernado de ¡Despertad! 2011

And also the Upcoming Offers has been updated to have the following offers for December:

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived
Learn From the Great Teacher
My Book of Bible Stories (Large)

New Literature available

2011-08-26T13:11:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

The following literature items are now available to download for English users:

2413: Sing to Jehovah--Vocal Renditions--On Compact Disc, Disc 3
2414: Sing to Jehovah--Vocal Renditions--On Compact Disc, Disc 4

For Russian users, the following items have been added:

Библиотека Сторожевой Башни 2011
Ежегодник Свидетелей Иеговы 2011 (на CD)
Ответы на твои вопросы. Том 1
Переплетенный том «Сторожевой башни» за 2011 год
Переплетенный том «Пробудитесь!» за 2011 год
Что Бог говорит нам через Иеремию (крупный шрифт)
Слушайся Бога и живи вечно
Слушайся Бога
Основательно свидетельствуем о Царстве Бога (MP3)
Библия и ее главная тема (шрифт Брайля)
Свидетели Иеговы - вера в действии. Часть 2. Да воссияет свет (на DVD)

And also for Russian users, the following items have been renamed to what you see below:

Прочный мир и счастье: как их найти (для китайцев)
Ежегодник Свидетелей Иеговы 2012
Календарь Свидетелей Иеговы 2012

New Literature Items & Spelling Correction

2011-07-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

The following items are available for download by English, Spanish, and Russian users:

6912 - Examining the Scriptures Daily--2012
7012 - Examining the Scriptures Daily--Large Print--2012
7212 - 2012 Calendar
5912 - 2012 Yearbook

Also for English users, I have made an update to the spelling for item #4115. I put "--On Compact Disc" at the end of it, to match what is on the JW.org site.

Please note: The above items may not be available to order in your area yet, but at least LRO will be ready for when they are.

Literature Updates

2011-07-11T21:08:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

Been a long time since I put any kind of update. Don't worry, all is well with me and LRO. :-) Literature updates are for English and include:

Item #9401 renamed to "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures--MP3"
Item #5108 renamed to "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures--With References"
Item #9240 renamed to "Organized to Share Good News and Whole Association of Brothers--On DVD"
NEW Item: #5810 - "Watch Tower Publications Index 2001-2010"

Also the latest Upcoming Offers are available for download:

September (Primary offer) - What Does the Bible Really Teach?
October (Secondary offer) - Would you Like to Know the Truth?
November (Primary offer) - The Bible - What is its Message?

Version 1.4.1 Released!

2011-05-08T11:15:00.004-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: The threshold for the "Suggestions on Stock Item Orders" report can now be set by the Type of Item, and is NOT limited to be "5, 10, or none". You can now specify any value you'd like.
Added: For all "download update" features, there is now a mirror site for the updates. So if my primary site for deploying updates is down or otherwise unreachable, the mirror site will be used.
Bug Fix: TLA import feature was not working.

Surprise! Got one more update to LRO. I thought it was important to change the "threshold" feature for Suggested Stock Item Orders so that it would be more flexible. You can access this new feature by visiting the "Literature Items List" screen and then going to "Type of Items list".

Here is where you set the threshold for each type of item. What this means, for example, is if you set the threshold for Tracts to 250, then whenever a particular tract in your current inventory quantity is below 250, that tract will show up on the Suggested Stock Item Orders report, regardless of how fast that tract is moving per month.

You will notice some default values there after you upgrade. You can change them as needed by your Kingdom Hall. The default values are based on the branch's recommendation for 1 congregation.

Update for Upcoming Offers (July 2011)

2011-04-12T18:25:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

The latest Upcoming Offers is now available for download. The following offer was added:

6654 - Was Life Created? (offer for July 2011)

I hope all are enjoying the field ministry during this special campaign! I know I am! :-)

Version 1.4.0 Released!

2011-04-02T20:36:00.002-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: On Inventory Management screen, the Inventory Month is now a dropdown so you can easily jump to a particular month/year.
Added: On S-28 Builder screen when Linking Items, the fields "Item Name" and "Type of Item" have been added to assist you.
Changed: Modified Mock S-28 form to have a little more space due to becoming 3 pages with the recent S-28 updates.
Changed: When trying to open the Mock S-28 report, the warning message about "items not linked" is now limited to the range of dates you selected.
Changed: S-28 File Exports are now capable of being imported. So if you make custom changes to the S-28 form, you can export the files with your changes and keep them somewhere safe as a backup. Originally, the Export option was going to just be for you to send your changes to me so I can make adjustments to the S-28 for other languages. But now the Export system can serve as your own backup if you made changes, and it can be easily imported by putting the files in the same directory as LRO, disconnecting from the internet, and then clicking "Download S-28 Updates". NOTE: The files will be DELETED after importing.
Changed: On Inventory Management screen, the "Item Name" combo box now has its items sorted by "Name" first instead of "Item Type".
Changed: On S-28 Builder screen, when pressing Enter on the "Sort Order" field, the focus will move downward instead of to the right.
Changed: On S-28 builder screen, when there is a Sort Order conflict, the item will be INSERTED at that conflicting number rather than SWAPPING with the item that was conflicting.
Fixed: When doing a "Restore" of a LRO backup file, LRO will make sure the backup location is in the trusted zone so you don't get 15 or more "warning" messages (Access 2007 & 2010 ONLY. It is not necessary with previous versions).
Fixed: On S-28 Builder screen, minor cosmetic issue.
Fixed: On S-28 Builder screen, no more error when clicking "Link Items" for a brand new entry.
Fixed: On S-28 Builder screen, I now force a screen refresh after linking an item.
Bug Fix: When changing Congregation name or Publisher name, an error about Annual Item's table occurs (under certain conditions).
Updated English & Spanish S-28 form.

Howdy all! After using LRO to update the S-28 form with the most recent changes, I decided the S-28 Form Builder needed some changes. Now things will be easier for you, the user, to make any custom changes you need. Or if your region uses a different S-28 form (I'm thinking of my UK brothers), then you will definitely need to do some customizing. So these updates should help you out. ;-)

Now...back to focusing on new translations. It seems LRO's next language will be Polish!! At the moment, there is only ONE brother who is working on the translation. As you can imagine, this is a HUGE task for him. If there is anyone out there who speaks Polish natively, and can translate from English to Polish, then please make it a matter of prayer and see if you can fit it in your schedule to help this brother with the translation work. You must also meet these requirements:

Must have Microsoft Excel (or be capable of editing spreadsheets)
Must be detail-oriented
Must appreciate accuracy AND consistency
Must have good organizational skills
Must have lots of patience!! ;-)

If you meet the above requirements, speak Polish natively & can translate, but prefer to wait until AFTER April, then that is perfectly fine. I know April is going to be a busy month for all of us...myself included. And we must make sure to put the more important things first (Philippians 1:10). But you can still e-mail me now and I can have you lined up for work when things calm down.

Updated Spanish S-28 form & New Items available

2011-03-26T23:02:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

Spanish users can now download the latest S-28 form. Also, Spanish users will get two new items:

#6653 - El Camino a la Paz y Felicidad (Para Budistas)
#6656 - Una Fe Real--Su clave para una Vida Feliz (Para Musulmanes)

And one spelling fix:

#2510 - Watchtower Library - Edición 2009 (it should be 2010)

Version 1.4.0 of LRO is scheduled to be released either late Sunday or Monday. Stay tuned!

New S-28 Form & Item

2011-02-26T14:09:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

I just received the updated S-28 form for English, and have made the changes to LRO. They are now available for download (via Inventory Management -> Build Mock S-28 Form -> Download S-28 Updates). Or you can just wait until LRO prompts you to download the updates. ;-)

For Spanish users, I have not received any word on an update for you yet. I will check into it and if one is available, I will make the changes. LRO will inform you when it is available.

For Russian users, I heard there was no update yet for your S-28 form.

Also, I have made the 2011 Memorial Invitations (#7681) available for download for English users.

Version 1.3.9 released!

2011-02-20T21:51:00.002-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: On the Publisher's Orders screen, if the publisher has items in another congregation, you will be notified.
Changed: Suggested Stock Item Orders is now always based off of 9 months of data.
Changed: Moving a publisher to another congregation will no longer move their Pending and Deliverable items, since these must be taken from their original congregation.
Improved: Other Tools - When trying to restore from a backup, if a backup is not found at the path you specified, you will be prompted to locate it and select the actual file.
Improved: Other Tools - When trying to restore from a backup, the backup file is checked to ensure it is actually a LRO backup file. If it isn't, the restore process is halted.
Improved: Other Tools - When importing TLA data, if a failure occurs, LRO will stop the import process rather than trying to continue.
Fixed: "Editing Currently Allowed!" was not being translated on the Deliverable Items screen.
Fixed: When moving a Publisher to another congregation, annual item orders on the annual item gridview are now transfered with them.
Bug Fix: Suggested Stock Item Orders report didn't always "listen" to a minimum threshold of 10.

The bug I had found with the Suggested Stock Item Orders has been fixed. In addition to a couple of other fixes, I've made a few minor adjustments based on common questions & "issues" while working with LRO.

Thank you all for your feedback, as always! :-)

Bugs? Anyone?

2011-02-11T08:40:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

I found one more bug in the Suggested Stock Item Orders report...in some cases, it may ignore the threshold of 10 and use 5 instead. So I will be fixing that, along with improving a couple other things.

If anyone has any bugs to report, or any ideas for improvements, please let me know ASAP.

Thanks!

Literature update for Russian users, new Upcoming Offers, and a new poll

2011-02-03T18:48:00.007-06:00

Howdy all!

Russian users have quite the update! 325 items have been renamed to match what is on the jw.org website. And there are 2 new items for them as well. If any of my Russian users want to see the details, you can download the files here:

The upcoming offers for June are now available for all users to download. They are as follows:

(Primary) What does the Bible Really Teach?
(Secondary) Knowledge that Leads to Everlasting Life
(Secondary) Worship the Only True God.

Finally, I have a new poll for everyone. I have noticed that the suggested stock item orders are NOT accurate for the hardcover Bibles. That is because we didn't start stocking the hardcover Bibles until just recently. Due to the very low movement from the months before this change, the threshold for the hardcover Bibles is very low. To remedy that problem, I believe I should limit the suggestions based on only the past 9 months of data. I think it is enough data for accurate predictions, and yet not too much that it would be influenced by those that used to barely move or move a lot. So the question is...

For the Suggested Stock Item Orders, should the suggestions be based on... This poll is now closed.

ALL historical data (this is how it currently is)
Just the past 9 months
Just the past 1 year
ALL, but with a weighted average for the last year

Using a weighted average is another idea, though I'm not sure if that would be any better. I give it as an option to you since I like choices. Though this method might increase the processing time required to make the suggestions...not much though. :-P

Version 1.3.8 Released!

2011-01-26T20:59:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Export LRO Orders to Excel! You can now export all of the orders in LRO to Excel and make your own custom reports...if you know how to use Microsoft Excel. This is found on the "Other Tools" screen.
Added: Disclaimer when downloading upcoming offers for non-US users.
Changed: Required fields no longer "fuss" when you remove their value. Now they will just put the old value back.
Fixed: A few things that were not being translated.
Bug Fix: Inventory Management did not delete a brand new entry successfully.
Bug Fix: "Order Placed Successfully" would not disappear if you navigated to another screen before it faded away.
Bug Fix: The "Stock" publisher could be accidentally created twice (and would appear twice on publisher selection boxes). Not sure how this could happen, but it will be automatically corrected when it does.
Bug Fix: If you changed your congregation's name, you would "lose" all the Annual Item orders on the grid tool for that congregation.
Bug Fix: If you changed the publisher name, their name would NOT be updated on the Annual Items grid tool.
Minor cosmetic and behind-the-scenes changes.

Mostly bug fixes with this release. However, there is a new feature some of you may appreciate. I've added the ability to export all of your orders to an Excel file. There is NO filtering done on the orders, you get them ALL, including completed ones. Some of you may want to make a special report, which LRO doesn't have, and so you can use this feature to make whatever kind of report you want with the orders. This new feature is found on the "Other Tools" screen.

This is the last planned update at this time. Of course, if anyone finds some bugs, or comes up with a really good idea, then there will be another update. Otherwise, it is time to change focus to translation and a more complete user manual.

Speaking of which...I've only got TWO volunteers so far. Both are for proofreading the manual when it is done. Still a lot of help needed! I hope there are some brothers out there who have the time and ability to help out. If you are interested in volunteering, please see the last post for details...

Thanks!

Help Wanted - Writers, Proofreaders, and Translators

2011-01-17T16:32:00.006-06:00

Howdy all!

As you may or may not know, I am busier nowadays than I used to be. Not only that, but I think I'm overdue for a break...a nice long one. In addition, I have a goal of giving my first public talk soon, and also I have 2 Bible Studies I am trying to conduct. Which in order to do so successfully, I need to take time to properly prepare before I go visit them. So...that means I need some time. ;-)

Which is why I'm appealing to you and looking for the following volunteers:

1 Brother who will write the new FULL manual on using LRO.

Requirements:

Must speak English natively.
Must have Microsoft Word and know how to use it adequately. You might receive a little training as needed...
Must be able to follow instructions.
Must be familiar and comfortable with using LRO, and have been using it for at least a month.
Must be detail-oriented.
Must appreciate accuracy
Must be good and CONSISTENT at making important things Stand Out in Different Ways.
Must know how to take screenshots and effectively utilize them.

This brother would be provided an outline of what will be required to be written. You will also be tested before hand, to see if your style of documentation writing meets my requirements.

Take note of how I did my documentation by looking at my Quick-start User Guide. If you think you can write directions very similar to that, then you'll do fine. :-)

4 Brothers who will proofread the new manual

Requirements:

Must speak English natively.
Must have Microsoft Word.
Must have time to read the manual THOROUGHLY to proofread it.
Must appreciate accuracy

1 brother will proofread grammar. 1 brother will proofread the consistency of instructions and how certain things stand out. The 3rd and 4th brothers will proofread for understandability. One of them should be Tech savvy, the other should not be "not-so-savvy" with computers. ;-)

4 Brothers who will assist with Translation work

Requirements:

Must speak English natively.
Must have Microsoft Excel.
Must be detail-oriented.
Must have good organizational skills.
Must appreciate accuracy.
Must be good communicators (as you will work with the Translators directly).

These brothers will basically proofread the translations. When they receive the translated text, they will take the text and run it through Google's translation system, to ensure that it is the correct translation and makes sense. It will also help to catch spelling issues.

2 Brothers to translate LRO into Italian

Requirements:

Must speak Italian natively.
Must have Microsoft Excel.
Must be familiar with LRO, or at least capable of running it to see how the text will be used.
Must be detail-oriented.
Must appreciate accuracy AND consistency.
Must have good organizational skills
Must be fairly fluent in English, and be capable of communicating with someone who ONLY speaks English.

I already have 2 brothers who can handle this translation, now I am looking for 2 more. The more hands, the lighter the load. :-)

When taking my request into consideration, please know that these responsibilities will take time. However, there is NO deadline for getting any of these done. But I am hoping that the FULL manual will be done by June, and the Translation to Italian I hope to see by April.

It is my hope that those who volunteer will work in their spare time and will NOT neglect their family or spiritual responsibilities. If anyone wishes to apply to help out with any of the above requests, please send me an email at: literatureroomorganizer@gmail.com

Thanks!!!

New Items available for download

2011-01-15T21:16:00.006-06:00

There are new items available for download:

English

6678 - Charitable Planning To Benefit Kingdom Service Worldwide
7581 - 2011/2012 District Convention Handbill
7481 - 2011/2012 District Convention Handbill (Sign Language)

Spanish

7581 - Hoja Suelta para Asamblea de Distrito 2011/2012
7481 - Hoja Suelta para Asamblea de Distrito 2011/2012 (Lenguaje de Señas)
6678 - Donaciones Planificadas para Favorecer el Servicio del Reino en todo el Mundo (I Just added this one 1/16/2011, please re-download to get it.)

Russian (This was made available 1/16/2011)

7581 - Приглашения на областной конгресс 2011 года
7481 - Приглашения на областной конгресс 2011 года (жестовый)

~~I'm not sure if these are available in Russian. I will check with my Russian translator to see if they are, and if so, my Russian users can expect the same update soon.~~

Version 1.3.7 Released!

2011-01-07T21:27:00.007-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: The ability to keep track of Upcoming Offers and quickly place orders for them! NOTE: This screen can be reached by visiting the Order Form screen and clicking on "Upcoming Offers..."
Added: Ability to edit orders on the "Deliverable Items" screen.
Changed: Inventory Reports screen no longer closes after you run a report. It will stay open.
Changed: Deliverable Items screen's default sort order. Now sorts everything by Publisher Name first.
Fixed: Tab order on Inventory Management and Update Management.
Fixed: Inventory Reports screen now resizes, if you have the window resize setting turned on.
Fixed: Publisher dropdown list on "Pending Items" screen was not sorted alphabetically.
Fixed: Tables for the annual order grid system were not being imported after upgrades or restores.
Fixed: Combo boxes for certain screen (Login & Inventory Reports) would change their background to transparent, thus making them hard to see. Issue for 2007 & 2010 users.
Fixed: "#ERROR" on Detailed reports by Publication, whenever there was an order without a Request Month and the Request Month setting was turned on.
Cosmetic Improvements: Removed background image from several screens, and changed the color of a few screens.

NOTE: If anyone was using the "Preorder" feature...to keep track of orders for literature items that are not yet available...PLEASE look at that screen and write down what you have before upgrading, because the "Preorder" system has been removed with this upgrade.

With the new feature of "Upcoming Offers", you can now be reminded to place orders for the items that will be offered in the upcoming months. It is my hope that this system will not only remind you to order the items, but also help you to decide how much to order of each. But in order for it to do that, you will need to be using the Inventory Management system. If you aren't, then this new feature will just be a good reminder. ;-)

First of all, if you have the same cutoff day each month...in other words, you place orders for literature on the same day every month...then you may want to head over to "Settings" and put that day in the new setting called "Cutoff Day for Upcoming Offers". Then, when you download new offers, it will automatically assign a date 2 months early so that you can be sure to order some of that offer well in advance. In other words, if my cutoff day is the 28th, then the deadline for the offer of May will be 3/28/2011. You can always change the deadline if you wish...

If you do not have the same cutoff date each month, then you should leave this setting alone. When you download literature updates, you will see the deadline as "May '11". This tells you the offer's month & year. You will have to manually assign a deadline for that offer. So use your discernment.

When you download new upcoming offers, they will be added (separately) to each congregation in LRO. However, if you are using the setting "Which congregation handles stock orders?", then only that congregation will receive the upcoming offers that are downloaded.

Also, when looking a the Upcoming Offers screen, you will notice a box before each order, with a "1" or a "2" in it. The "1" represents the Primary offer of the month. The "2" represents the Secondary offer(s) of the month. You can change these numbers as you wish (and even enter others...3, 4, 5, etc.). If you manually add an offer, this field is not required.

Last but not least...do NOT delete offers that you download. Just mark them as "Done" if you don't want to use them, or if you are actually done with them. Otherwise, if they are deleted, they will get re-downloaded with your next update.

This is the final planned update for LRO. I will give it 2 weeks before I shift gears and work on a more detailed user guide and more translations. Of course, if there are bugs, or really good ideas, then there will be more updates. But as of now, there are none scheduled.

Thank you all for your support & feedback!!

A "Nice" New Feature...Coming Soon!

2010-12-31T18:10:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

Thanks for your feedback on the previous poll. I learned that not everyone has a single cutoff date. So the "nice" new feature I had in mind will have to be a little more flexible.

Speaking of which...I think it's time to let y'all in on what it is, because I have another poll with a question regarding it. The new feature I had in mind was "Upcoming Offers of the Month". This would be a new screen that shows you the upcoming offers, as well as REMINDING you to place an order for the items if you haven't done so already. By knowing the date when you place your orders, it can flash at you when the date gets close and you still haven't ordered the items yet. It will also serve as a quick ordering system, just like on the Inventory Management screen.

I can make automatic updates for this system, but in order to do that, everyone has to have the same offers each month. So, my question is:

Are the following monthly offers correct for you?

January - Bible Teach or Knowledge or Worship
February - Is There a Creator? or God's Word or Family Happiness
March - Bible Teach
April - Watchtower and Awake! Also Bible Teach.

This will be a fairly complex system...but not quite as complex as Inventory Management. I am starting on it today, and will probably post some more questions over the course of the next few days. Please check back frequently so you can help me out, and thus help me get done sooner, while I have the free time. ;-)

Thanks!

New Poll: What is your cutoff date for submitting your orders?

2010-12-28T21:36:00.004-06:00

Howdy all!

Thank you for your participation with the previous poll. I was surprised to see how many people wanted to keep the "New Month Detected" message on the Inventory Management. It shall stay! Thanks for your feedback. :-)

As far as the "Preorder" screen, due to the responses and my own inclination, it is still scheduled to be removed. If anyone really wants to keep it, then please leave a comment on this post letting me know how much you use it and any other really good reasons for keeping it. My reasons for removing are:

Less confusion (don't have to explain this feature)
Space saved (on the screen, and regarding LRO's size).
One less thing to maintain.
One less thing to translate.
And the biggest reason: Absolutely no different than pen & paper. In fact, pen & paper is currently superior, unless I would add a printable version of the Preorder items, which would be another thing to maintain & translate.

So yeah...I might still keep it...but I need to be convinced. ;-)

Alright...for the new poll...which is in regard to a new feature I'm trying to add...I need to know:

When is the cutoff date for you submitting your orders to JW.org (or for mailing your orders off)? This poll is now closed.

I don't want to know the date when you usually decide to do it...I want to know the actual cutoff date when must submit your order. Knowing this will affect how I design the new feature.

Please, I would like as many responses as possible. The more I collect, the better I can design the new feature. And I'm hoping to work on it this Friday. So please vote as soon as possible.

Thanks!

A few Polls

2010-12-21T17:48:00.007-06:00

Howdy all!

It looks like I'm going to have another update. How many times have I said "this update will be my last?" I've lost count... :-P

Anyways, with this update, I got some minor tweaking & cleaning up to do. Also, got a pretty nice new feature in mind...if all goes well. In the meantime, here's a few polls:

Should the "Deliverable Items" screen (where you can edit the Deliverable items or mark them off) be sorted by PUBLISHER first? Currently, it is sorted by Request Month (or Date). I find myself using this screen, when at the hall, and sorting by Publisher. That way a quick glance at my screen will tell me if I have something to hand out to the person who's passing by.
Can I remove the "Preorder Items" feature? Personally, I never use it. You turn it on via "Settings", and it appears on the "Order Form" screen. It's suppose to allow you to put in orders for items that aren't in LRO yet, but I don't think it even serves that purpose well.
Can I remove the "New Month Detected" message from the Inventory Management screen? This is displayed when your last inventory entry is one or more months behind the actual month we are in. Does anyone find this useful? I imagine we know when it is time to check in our inventory, without the program telling us "it's time!".

No ETA on the next release, but I'm hoping it will be quick (2-3 weeks).

Thanks!

Version 1.3.6 Released!

2010-12-17T13:52:00.002-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Bug Fix: Orders By Publication (Show Details)...The column headers were not translating.
Bug Fix: Inventory Management...Could not process the month for a new congregation if there was another congregation with inventory data.
Bug Fix: Inventory Management...Could not delete an entire month of inventory if another congregation with inventory data had inventory data for a month beyond the current congregation.
Cosmetic changes for Inventory Month Check-In form. Grey lines and boxes are now lighter, and the header text is now black.

Wow...1.3.6 already? Yeah...had some nasty bugs in the Inventory Management. You could have 2 congs with inventory...but the 2nd one was pretty much worthless. Remember me saying I'm not perfect?

Those who hadn't upgraded to 1.3.5 yet, PLEASE make sure you read the last 2 posts. See what changed with 1.3.5, and also how to prepare for it.

If you find any more bugs, please submit them as soon as possible.

Version 1.3.5 Released!

2010-12-13T20:55:00.005-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: A separate Inventory for each congregation!!!
Added: Help information for two new Inventory Management settings.
Added: Suggested Stock Item Orders report...suggested items that you haven't ordered more of yet are highlighted in bold.
Changed: On Publisher report, you will see "*All Publishers" instead of a blank selection.
Changed: Increased Suggested Stock Item Orders sensitivity...now is 2 (Low), 3 (Normal), or 4 (High) months, instead of 1, 2, or 3.
Changed: On the Inventory Management screen...items now sort by "language" first. This matches the "Month Check-In" form.
Changed: On duplicate order warning, the status names match up with the statuses you see on the Order Form screen. Less confusion...
Changed: On Inventory Management screen, after Processing the month...the filter is cleared.
Changed: On Inventory Management screen, after deleting a whole month...the filter is cleared.
Changed: Deliverable/Completed summary & detailed reports under the "Publication" (formerly "Status") tab. They now are ordered by publications first.
Fixed: Update Management will not prompt again if there were no updates to apply.
Fixed: "Process Month" doesn't return after deleting the last month, if it was invisible.
Fixed: On Inventory Management screen, if a filter is in use that returns 0 results, you cannot process the month or delete the month. Now you can.

**PLEASE MAKE A MANUAL BACKUP BEFORE UPDATING**

With this release comes the new feature of separate Inventories. This is a fairly BIG change. Although everything went well through testing, let us remember that I am NOT perfect, and therefore there is potential for issues.

Also...please make sure you have read the blog post below (regarding preparing for this update) before you do the update!

Alright, now that all the warnings are out of the way...I'd like to say this update has quite a few label changes regarding the reports. If you look at the "Reports" screen, you will notice several changes to the words (such as "Publication" as the tab name instead of "Status"), and the none of the reports say "History" of this and that. It's much simpler now. This has freed up some space for the titles of some of the reports, more friendly for those with long-named congregations.

Also, you will noticed the DETAILED reports for "Deliverable" & "Completed" orders under the "Publication" tab are now grouped by publication. Those that liked the way it was before (grouped by Publisher) need to use the report found under the "Publisher" tab. You will get the same result.

This is the last update...unless someone can show me some bugs. If I don't get any bug submissions in 2 weeks, then I will shift gears to do more translations & more detailed documentation.

Once again, I thank everyone for their feedback! :-)

Preparing for 1.3.5

2010-12-12T19:12:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

Version 1.3.5 is soon to be released. I am just waiting on translations and testing. With this release comes the new ability to have a separate Inventory for each congregation. In order to ensure your current Inventory goes to the right congregation, you will need to visit your "Settings" screen and configure the setting for "Which congregation handles stock orders?".

Whatever congregation you have set here is the congregation that will receive ALL the Inventory. NOTE: You must set this BEFORE upgrading to 1.3.5. If you have multiple congregations and you forget to set this, a congregation will be randomly selected to get the Inventory.

Now if you only have ONE congregation in LRO, then you do not have to worry about this setting. Your congregation will automatically get all the inventory.

Due to the voting in the polls, it looks like I didn't need to provide a way to transfer inventory from congregation to congregation. I hope this holds true 99% of the time. I can easily help someone out to manually move their Inventory over by utilizing a remote support session. It would just take me 5 minutes. But if I happen to get MANY request to move inventory, then I will reconsider building that functionality into LRO.

Thank you all for your feedback! :-)

New Poll: Should I add the ability to transfer inventory between congregations?

2010-12-03T08:29:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

With the upcoming release, you will get the ability to keep a separate inventory for each congregation. I have been debating on whether to add the ability to transfer the entire inventory from one congregation to another congregation.

I can only see this as being needed now...once you get this ability...if you've been keeping track of multiple congregations' inventory in LRO. But I don't know how often, if at all, the coordinating congregation changes. Even so, this would only really become important if LRO was being used by multiple congregations simultaneously. In any case, there are several questions that arise regarding this:

What inventory items get transfered? All? Or separate by language?
What happens if the other congregation has the same item in the same language already? Do they get added together? Or is the user prevented from tranfering the inventory?
If prevented from tranfering the inventory...do I have to build another report to show what items are causing it not to transfer?

These questions make me wonder if it is worth the time/effort to make a "transfer" function, especially since it may only be used once. What do you think? The poll is:

Should I include the ability to transfer the inventory from one congregation to another?

This poll is now closed.

As far as who gets your current inventory, that will be determined by your "Which congregation handles stock orders?" setting. So you can control that by changing the setting before upgrading to 1.3.5. Of course, if you only have 1 congregation, that congregation will get it...

Literature Item Updates

2010-11-26T15:53:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

I have put out some literature updates as follows (for ENGLISH users only):

Added Symbol for:

7074 - Would you like to know the Truth?
9215 - Noah Walked With God - David Trusted in God
9422 - Sing to Jehovah - Piano Accompaniment

Changed Name for:

9239 - FROM: Faithful Under Trials and Purple Triangles
9239 - TO: Jehovah's Witnesses--Faithful Under Trials and Purple Triangles--On DVD
9238 - FROM: Young People Ask-How Can I Make Real Friends?
9238 - TO: Young People Ask--How Can I Make Real Friends?--On DVD
9225 - FROM: Young People Ask - What Will I Do With My Life?
9225 - TO: Young People Ask--What Will I Do With My Life?--On DVD

The name changes are to reflect what the society has on their website. So they will match up perfectly on the reports that are sorted by name.

ATTENTION NEW USERS (if you started with 1.3.4):

It appears that I made these changes already with 1.3.4. Though I'm not 100% sure. If you get prompted to download the updates, and then it says "There were no updates to apply", then please click on "Ignore" on the Update Management screen. Otherwise it will keep prompting you.

I will have this fixed with the next release...so if there are no updates, it won't prompt again.

New Poll - Change the Suggested Stock Orders algorithm

2010-11-11T08:42:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

I don't know about you, but when using the Suggested Stock Item Orders report (in the Inventory Management system), I find myself setting the Sensitivity to "High" all the time. I rather see the alert too soon than not soon enough. In fact, the S-28 form recommends you stock up for a 3-month supply...which the "High" sensitivity basically shows you what you will run out of in 3 months.

Personally, I want to bump up the algorithm. Right now, it is:

Low - 1 month
Normal - 2 months
High - 3 months

I would like to make it:

Low - 2 months
Normal - 3 months
High - 4 months

I would NOT change the Standard Deviation calculation...it seems fine for now. But I think this change would be beneficial.

What do you think? Please vote in the poll. This poll is now closed.

PS - ETA of 1.3.5 is unknown at this time. I had a Bible Highlights part Tuesday, and I have 4 more parts over the next 2 months. So I've been quite busy. ;-)

Version 1.3.4 Released!

2010-10-31T18:18:00.004-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Inventory Automation...when you mark an item as ordered, it will add it to Inventory with all values at 0. This will help because now the item will appear on the Month Check-In form, so you don't have to enter it in manually.
New Feature: Setting for a minimum threshold on the Suggested Stock Item Orders report.
New Feature: Setting to Highlight negative values on the Mock S-28 Form.
Added: Extra warning if refusing to do import of data on LRO upgrade.
Added: Inventory Management...a "delete whole month" button. Looks like a trash can.
Added: Help information for the Annual Items ordering screen.
Added: "*All Languages" and "*All Congregations" selections on Report filters...instead of just being blank selections. Less confusing.
Added: Reports...Publisher(tab)...the ability to filter by the "Stock" publisher.
Added: Reports...Publisher(tab)...the ability to show ALL of a publisher's activity, regardless of Status.
Added: Quick view date if Request Month is turned on. On all Order Management screens...hold down SHIFT on your keyboard and double-click on the Request Month field to see the Order Placed Date.
Changed: If there is no "LRO_Backup.mdb", LRO will now always make a backup on close, regardless of if you went anywhere in the system.
Changed: Wording on Mock S-28 Form's disclaimer to say "unless you are given permission to do so."
Changed: Settings that are applied to all congregations are saved immediately...this will prevent any issues that may occur if LRO were to crash or exit improperly when you are on the Settings screen.
Fixed: "Reset Filter" on Reports...Publisher(tab) did not reset the Order Status to a valid entry.
Fixed: Annual Items grid entry no longer allows negative numbers.
Fixed: Annual Items grid entry no longer submits orders for '0' quantity.
Fixed: English languages show up on Suggested Stock Item Orders report, regardless of your language settings.
Bug Fix: Access 2010 doesn't hide ribbon on load. Need to check registry for ribbon.
Bug Fix: Error when exiting LRO while viewing any one of the Inventory Management reports.
Bug Fix: Issues on Inventory Management when deleting an entire month (next/prev buttons not needed, no process month, can't go to last month after deleting latest when there are 2 left).
Bug Fix: Bug with Reports...Request Month(tab)...the report was always looking for "Stock" publisher in calculation.
Bug Fix: Inventory Automation issue with storing items as their Visible language...instead of the LanguageID.

With 2 new settings, the Settings screen changes again. There is a new "Inventory Management" section, and the inventory management automation moved over there along with the 2 new settings. Regarding the "Threshold" setting...from my testing, you may get many suggestions to order items you no longer keep in stock. If that is the case, you have 2 options. You can either turn OFF the Threshold option, or you can deactivate the items that you don't want to show up as suggested orders.

To Spanish & Russian users:

If you use the Inventory Management Automation setting...you may have encountered a bug that was fixed with this release. This bug was only evident on the Inventory Management screen. If you see "Español" or "Русский" being highlighted in blue, as if it wasn't your default language, then you have experienced this bug. Or if you see "Español" or "Русский" as a choice of language twice, then you will have experienced this bug. In this case, please send me an e-mail since you will need specific instructions on how to fix this bug. Once fixed, you won't see it again because the cause of the bug has been fixed with 1.3.4. Sorry for any inconveniences.

Thanks to all who submitted bugs & new feature requests. I have had a few requests regarding separating Inventory Management by congregation. This makes sense to me and will be done. So...looks like 1.3.4 isn't the last update just yet. I will have another release before I switch focus to more translations.

Thanks again for your support! :-)

Regarding the poll...

2010-10-27T20:39:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

Regarding the last poll, about setting a minimum threshold for the Suggestion report, I decided to make it a Setting that you can configure. It was quick and easy, and judging by the votes (and from what I experienced by turning it on), it looks like it might be a feature my users will want to select for themselves. ;-)

So you can set it to 5, 10, or not at all.

Thanks for the feedback! :-)

New Poll - Minimum threshold for suggested stock orders

2010-10-26T12:38:00.005-05:00

Got a quick poll for everyone. With the Suggested Stock Item Orders report, I believe that there should be a minimum threshold...that way items that you might move 1 a month, or even 1 every other month, would be caught in time to resupply. Usually, such an item must not be that critical, if you are barely moving any of it. But I'm thinking along the lines of Reasoning books, Organized books, or Benefit from the TMS books. You usually want to keep 5-10 of them around, but they don't move a lot.

So the poll is:

Should I establish a minimum threshold for the Suggested Stock Item Orders report? If so, is 5 enough? Or 10?

This poll is now closed.

In other words...if the average movement of Reasoning books is 1/month, then the suggested threshold (with a sensitivity of Normal) would be 2. Obviously, you don't want to wait until it gets that low. So I can artifically make it 5 instead (or 10). It will never have a lower threshold.

In addition, there's no reason to make it different for Tracts, booklets, etc. If they're barely moving so that you're only moving about 1/month...then this will catch it. Otherwise, their average movement will be plenty. ;-)

Thanks!

PS - Version 1.3.4 on schedule for release this weekend! If anyone has any more suggestions (or found any bugs) please submit them soon!

The History of LRO

2010-10-23T23:09:00.005-05:00

Were you there when LRO was started? Did you watch it as it grew up? If not, I invite you to take a trip down memory lane! I created a page dedicated to the History of LRO:

The History of LRO page

Personally, I find seeing the changes (and how crazy it used to look) quite interesting! Yes...that's right...I have screenshots!

Enjoy! :-)

Watchtower Library as "Annual Item"

2010-10-23T21:27:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

There was a good suggestion about the Watchtower Library CDs being categorized as "Annual Items". This is a good idea!

Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to push out this change through updates. In addition, remember that YOUR literature list is preserved over updates. So I can make this change on an update, but YOUR version of the CDs (which are categorized as "Computer Programs") will be what is preserved.

So if you would like to setup your WT Library CDs as "Annual Items", follow these directions:

Log into your congregation.
Visit the "Literature Items List" screen.
Filter for "Watchtower Library". You will then see all of the WT Library CDs.
Under "Type of Item", switch them all to "Annual Items".

Simple as pie! But if anyone has any issue, let me know. I can provide screenshots if needed.

NOTE: I made this change to LRO on one of the past few updates. I just forgot to announce this good suggestion. So some new users will notice this is already how their CDs are set.

Version 1.3.3 Released!

2010-10-19T22:10:00.006-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: "Pending" field to Suggested Stock orders report. Also changed the "Order Placed" field to either be a blank checkbox, or show how much you actually ordered if you placed an order already for one of the suggested items.
Changed: The detailed Pending Items report now sorts by "Type of Item" first, and then item number.
Changed: Reports screen...Status dropdown now says "*All Active Orders" instead of just being blank.
Changed: Inventory Management screen...you will now stay on same item when going to another month.
Removed: Extraneous Report buttons.
Fixed: Length of progress bar for Russian users.
Fixed: After deleting a whole month from Inventory, if you click on "Prev. Month", it now successfully goes to the previous month, instead of jumping 2 months over.
Fixed: Some of the font appears as cursive on Run-time only editions of Access.
Fixed: Missing translated version of language "English" for Spanish & Russian users.
Bug Fix: "Request Month" field was showing up on Unordered Items screen when "Date Placed" field was suppose to.
Bug Fix: The filter for "Date Placed" on the Publisher Order Search screen was not working.
Bug Fix: View All Orders screen...if you filter for a language & also are showing completed orders, then when you try to return to the Main Menu, an error occurs.
Bug Fix: SendKeys "Permission Denied" issue on UAC enabled computers. SendKeys are used to hide the Ribbon (for Access 2007 & 2010 users), which simply fails. But when using the "Find" button on Inventory Management, it gives an "Permission Denied" error. Some users may still experience this under very specific circumstances.
Bug Fix: "Invalid use of null" if there is an S-28 form update available after reloading data.
Bug Fix: Inventory Management screen...error when trying to add a quick order for a new item (blank line). Now does nothing at all (instead of throwing up an error).
Bug Fix: "Date Placed" filter would not work on all order screens if the user's computer had a system date for another region.
Minor cosmetic changes.

LOTS of bug fixes on this one! I had no idea I had so many bugs crawling around! O_o

I hope y'all like the improvements to the Suggested Stock Item Orders report. Instead of just showing a checkbox, which is checked when you placed an order for one of the suggested items already, it now shows the QUANTITY of how much you actually ordered. But if you haven't ordered one of the suggested items yet, an empty checkbox is there (in case you want to print it out and check it off when you get around to ordering it). Also added a "Pending" field...so you can see if you have any of the suggested item on the way already too!

As was mentioned in a previous post & poll, the "extra" report buttons found on the Order Form screen and the View All Orders screen have been removed. The same reports can be found on the Reports screen by using the "Status" tab, selecting the appropriate status, and then checking off "Show Details".

**ATTENTION**

There is only ONE more update planned for LRO. That being a fact, please submit any and all bugs you may find with this new release. Any special requests should also be submitted as soon as possible.

After the release of 1.3.4, a more detailed instruction manual will be worked on...and more translations of LRO may also be developed, if there is interest. English volunteers will be needed to supervise and "proofread" the translations. More details will be provided later.

Of course...literature updates will always continue. And new versions will be released as needed. I'm not stopping my work with LRO...just changing focus from new features to more translations. ;-)

Much thanks to everyone who has helped with this project!

Quick Poll - Change sorting of Detailed Pending report

2010-10-16T11:27:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

I have a quick poll in response to a comment from my previous post.

Currently, the detailed Pending items report is sorted purely by Item Number. Personally, I don't see the usefulness in that. A comment was made that when Annual Items remain pending, then paper is wasted by printing them out again and again. So to solve that, I can make the detailed Pending Items report sort by the Item Type first, and then all the Annual Items will be together. Then you could just leave out the pages with the annual items (to do this, go to "File" -> "Print" instead of using the Print button on the toolbar), thus saving paper.

Note how I emphasized only the detailed Pending Items report. The summary one (where similar items are added together) will remain sorted by Symbol so it will match the Packing List that comes with a shipment.

So the poll is...

~~Do you want me to change the sorting of the detailed Pending Items report?~~

This poll is now closed.

I don't expect any objections...but you never know. ;-) If anyone does disagree, please voice your concern in the comments as well.

Thanks!

Progress...or a change of direction

2010-10-11T12:54:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

Since I've had quite a bit of free time the past few days, I've been working on the Report enhancements. I'm at the point where this is turning out to be not only a major task for me, but also I see it as being a huge confusion for the end user.

For example:

Everything is driven by the Status of the orders. As you change the status, certain fields that you can group or sort by are disabled/enabled, since not all fields are on the report. And then, even the Start Date & End Date/Request Month fields are disabled in certain situations (why would you want to see Unordered items for a certain date range??).

To me, this is going to turn out to be a mess. Not only programmatically, but also from the perspective of understanding how it works by the end user. And based on the comment of a couple of users, I think the current design is plenty enough (where the Tabs are understood to be what you want the focus of your report to be based on).

If desired, I can add the ability to change the sort order to the existing design much more easily. Though I question if this is necessary. Is there anyone who would currently benefit from changing the sort order at this time? Because if the only reason for the feature is to keep up with the Society's changes, I can do that pretty quickly. ;-)

Please...use the comments section on this blog post to discuss this. I think this needs to be more than just a simple poll. Remember, you can submit comments annonymously...

Thanks!

New Items

2010-10-02T20:55:00.001-05:00

Howdy all!

I got a couple of new items for English users:

6653: The Pathway to Peace and Happiness (for Buddhists)
9268: The Bible--What Is Its Message?--On DVD

Item #9268 is for American Sign Language only.

Version 1.3.2 has been released!

2010-09-26T18:27:00.004-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: The "Order Placed" field to the Suggested Stock Item Orders report. This shows if you already placed an order for a suggested item.
Changed: Inventory Month Check-In form was only using Initial Quantity to display your current inventory quantity. Now it is using Initial Quantity + Received.
Changed: LRO's default backup system doesn't make a new backup when all you did was just open LRO. You must navigate to the Main Menu or go to the Congregation List screen before LRO will do a backup.
Fixed: Suggested Stock Item Orders was not handling items in multiple languages correctly.
Fixed: Suggested Stock Item Orders was using the "Moved" column to calculate your current Stock Quantity. That might work for some people...however using Initial Quantity + Received will work even better, which is what it is now using.
Fixed: If you just turned the automatic update checking system back on, and the last check was a failure, LRO will say that the update check has failed for the last month. Now...turning the auto-update check system on/off will reset the month calculation.
Fixed: Manually doing an update (outside of the Update Management screen) will now be recorded so LRO won't prompt you again that there is an update available.

This update is mainly about some fixes. There is a new field on the Suggested Stock Item Orders report. This field is a box that you can use to check off (if you print out the report). Otherwise...it will check it off automatically if you already have an order for the item that is suggested. If you have an order that is either Unordered or Pending, then you will see that LRO will check off this field for you. This is to help you see that you've already taken the suggestion and placed an order.

Also, if you noticed, I was using the "Moved" column to calculate your current Stock Quantity for the Suggested Stock Item Orders report. Yeah I know...what was I thinking? Well, "Moved" always accurately showed the total we have in stock (until I update the Stock EOM)...but I wasn't thinking about my users who might have automatic inventory management turned on. Their numbers would be different. So...it has been adjusted. ;-)

Improvements to reports are next...unless someone can point out a few bugs I missed. ETA is 2 months. Yeah...time for a break.

New Items

2010-09-18T22:59:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

Got some new items for English and Russian users. Russian users will get the following:

4410 - Ежегодник Свидетелей Иеговы 2010 (CD)
5232 - Божье слово к нам через Иеремию
6653 - Путь к миру и счастью (для буддистов)
6654 - Была ли жизнь создана?
6655 - У истоков жизни. Пять вопросов, которые требуют ответа
9263 - Свидетели Иеговы — вера в действии. Часть 1. Из тьмы (DVD)
9416 - Христианские Греческие Писания - перевод нового мира (MP3)
9510 - Ежегодник Свидетелей Иеговы 2010 (MP3)

English users will get the following:

2412 - Sing to Jehovah--Vocal Renditions--On Compact Disc, Disc 2

Also, you will see 1 spelling fix. Item 2411 will be renamed to match the wording of the new item above.

Version 1.3.2 should be released next week, if all goes well. I have a few minor improvements I want to roll out quickly, as well as fix an issue with the new Suggested Stock Item Orders system. It is not handling items that are in multiple languages properly.

You may also notice that the Update Management system will throw a few errors when it opens. However, if you use the "Download Now" button, it will work just fine. It appears that when I corrected the wording to say "S-28" instead of "S-14", I didn't quite change it everywhere. So the auto-update for the S-28 form is broke, but that's the only piece of that is. Yet another thing that I want to quickly fix for 1.3.2. ;-)

Version 1.3.1 Released!

2010-09-11T13:26:00.004-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: When opening the mock S-28 form, LRO checks to make sure there are no "erroneous" links.
New Feature: When opening the mock S-28 form, LRO checks to make sure all inventory items have a link to one of the S-28 fields.
New Feature: Inventory Management has a new report called "Suggested Stock Item Orders". Based on your monthly movement of literature, LRO will try to predict what you will run out of soon, and how much you should order of it.
Added: Inventory Management...unavailable items are now highlighted in yellow.
Added: "Search for Literature" (accessed via the Order Form screen) now has the ability to show "inactive" items. If you select an "inactive" item, you can actually re-activate it from this screen too!
Added: Mock S-28 Form Builder...new button to clear everything in the Mock S-28 Builder.
Added: Mock S-28 Form Builder...new button to export all of the Mock S-28 Builder settings.
Added: Mock S-28 Form Builder...new report to show all of the current links
Added: Duplicate order warning now shows you the status of the duplicated order.
Changed: Mock S-28 Form Builder...will now clean up "orphaned" links upon opening, even though such "orphaned" links should never happen.
Changed: Mock S-28 Form Builder...doesn't clear a NEW entry if there is a conflicting sort order.
Changed: Mock S-28 Form Builder...Missing links report now groups by item type.
Changed: Inventory Management...sort order. New sort order is 1.Item Type, 2.S-28 Sort Order, 3.Item Number. This 100% matches the "Inventory Month Check-in" form and will allow you to easily go down the list with that form.
Changed: "Search for Literature" (accessed via the Order Form screen) now maximizes.
Changed: Duplicate order warning now shows the Request Month, if you are using the Request Month.
Fixed: Inventory Management...can no longer place a quick order for an item that is unavailable.
Fixed: Inventory Check-In form did not include "Item Number" when sorting. Now it does.
Fixed: Less flickering when moving from maximized screens to non-maximized screens.
Fixed: Inventory Management "Find" button did not work correctly for non-English users. Changed SendKey commands to use tabbing instead of shortcut keys.
Fixed: LRO's Update Management mislabeled S-28 form as "S-14" form.
Bug Fix: The computer's Num Lock turns off due to SendKeys commands.
Minor cosmetic changes (removed background pictures for some screens to reduce flickering).

Wow, a lot of changes again! Inventory Management really got an overhaul...lots of improvements to help you ensure you are getting an accurate report of all your inventory. And then, with the new "Suggested Stock Item Orders" report, hopefully LRO will help you to ensure you never run out of your stock literature!! :-)

NOTE: The report for suggested stock orders will ignore "inactive" literature, as well as any literature that belongs to an S-28 field with an asterisk (*) in the name. This should filter out special request items.

Also, English users got 3 new items:

6656: Real Faith - Your Key to a Happy Life
4116: 'Bearing Thorough Witness' About God's Kingdom--On Compact Disc
4411: 2011 Yearbook - On CD

If you do not upgrade to 1.3.1, you can still use the "Download Updates" button on the Literature Items List and get these new items.

New Algorithm (again)

2010-09-10T15:23:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

Once again, I've changed the algorithm of the new feature (soon to be released) that will predict what you need to order for inventory. After further testing, I determined that it could be influenced by a mass movement way too much.

I now focus mainly on the Average movement. However, I do still take Standard Deviation into account. If there is a huge standard deviation (most likely a mass movement of literature), LRO will scale down the calculation of the average. So it will not be thrown way off. For those interested, here is the actual formula simplified:

Threshold = Avg * Calc

Calc =

If StDev > Avg Then

-----If Avg/StDev < .7 Then

----------Calc = Avg/StDev

-----Else

----------Calc = 1

-----End If

Else

-----Calc = 1

End If

StDev will be greater than the Avg on mass movements. Avg/StDev will determine just how large of a deviation it was. The closer to .5 it is, the larger the deviation from the average. If it is below .7, then the Avg is multiplied by it, thus reducing the Avg accoring to how large of a deviation it was.

Average is muliplied by the sensitivity (Low=1, Normal=2, High=3) so it can be used to look ahead up to 3 months. Sensitivity also changes the .7 value (Low) to .65 (normal) and .6 (High). This means that higher sensitivity will allow the deviation to affect the average more (it will be less likely to reduce the avg due to Standard Deviation). From my tests, this algorithm is even more accurate.

I hope I didn't hurt anyone's head with all this! ;-)

PS - Testing is going well!

New EULA (End User License Agreement)

2010-09-10T08:49:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

With the new release of 1.3.1 (hopefully this Sunday), LRO will fall under a new EULA. The previous one was a generic EULA from Microsoft. This new EULA covers more, and more accurately describes my position & feelings regarding my product.

You can read the entire EULA here, or it can be found in the link in the navigation menu to the right.

To summarize:

LRO is 100% free and shall always remain so.
You are free to copy & distribute LRO, but only in its original form
LRO shall never be reverse-engineered, unless explicit written consent is given by me.
Parts of LRO's code shall never be distributed, unless explicit written consent is given by me.
I offer no guarantees and am not liable for any damages caused by LRO. It is provided "as is". NOTE: This is just a "safety" for me. I will always do thorough testing before releasing an update for LRO. :-)

It's always better to err on the side of caution, hence the stronger wording & restrictions of the new EULA. If there are any questions about this change, please let me know.

Delays

2010-09-06T11:00:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

During my testing, I discovered a few issues and worked with a brother to get them resolved. There is still some testing left to do, and one more fix left to work on.

In addition, I have a talk I need to work on for this Thursday. So the release of 1.3.1 has been delayed until next weekend.

Thank you for your understanding.

Changes to algorithm of new feature

2010-09-01T08:13:00.004-05:00

After futher testing of the new feature that predicts what you need to order, I've made changes to the algorithm. I think the default calculation needed to be 2 months in advance, because of the order of events. I don't know how it is for everyone, but for us, we wait for last month's shipment to come in first before taking a count of our inventory, which is usually after we must place our orders.

I've updated my previous post to reflect the changes I made.

Change of Plans

2010-08-31T06:26:00.010-05:00

Howdy all!

I've been working on the new report system, and just now realized that the custom sorting is not working right. The 1st custom sort works, but LRO isn't picking up the 2nd custom sort. In addition, I'm only about 30% done with it. Therefore I have decided that the new report system can wait until 1.3.2. I want to do some more thinking and make sure I'm designing the new system in the best way possible. Also, there are too many other good changes (mainly with regards to the S-28 form) that I really want to get out there soon.

One of the new features will help detect erroneous S-28 links. For example, S-14 item 5334 clearly should be linked to S-28 field 5334. Since there's a direct relation, I can detect (and warn you) when this is not the case. LRO will also detect missing links now too. If you have item number 5306 in your inventory, but don't have any links at all on the S-28 builder, LRO will warn you. Because without the links, this inventory item would not be counted! And finally, there is a new report that will show you all of your current links. With all these improvements, LRO is really going to help you make sure your S-28 form is correct! :-)

Remember back then when I said I would consider Inventory Thresholds? Where you could set a minimum # of an item, and LRO would warn you when you get that low? Well, I've determined that this is not the best way to go. It would require much maintenance, and just add to the bells and whistles that are already going off for other things. So...I've decided the best course of action would be to create a report that uses an algorithm to predict what you need to order based on your previous movements of literature. No maintenance on your part! Just keep good inventory records, and LRO will try to help you out with suggestions on what to order. How cool is that??? ^_^

Here's what I have in mind:

You will get to choose between 3 "sensitivities": Low, Normal, or High. Based on your sensitivity, an algorithm involving the Average movement of literature and the Standard Deviation will be used. If the number of stock of an item is LOWER THAN the calculated number, than you will see LRO suggests you order more of an item. Here's the algorithms:

Low: The threshold will be the Average movement per month.
Normal: The threshold will be the Average movement multiplied by 2.
High: The threshold will be the Average movement multiplied by 3.

All three sensitivities take into account Standard Deviation. If there is a mass movement of literature, the calculated average is reduced proportionally so you don't get a huge threshold. The Standard Deviation must reach a certain threshold for itself before the Average is reduced. The higher the sensitivity, the higher the threshold for Standard Deviation. And so the Average will be more likely to be affected by mass movements.

Let's look at a simple example. Let's say over the course of 4 months, you move the following amount of Knowledge books: 10, 10, 50, 10. Based on these numbers, the Average would be "20" and the Standard Deviation would be "20". So the thresholds would be:

Low: 20
Normal: 40
High: 60

If your current quantity of an item is below that threshold, then that item will show up on LRO's report. LRO will also suggest a quantity to order, while showing you your current quantity.

Other notes on this new feature:

When calculating averages and standard deviations, decimals are always rounded up.
If an item had a negative movement for a month, that month is calculated as "0". This might happen if someone returned an item to stock, and you didn't mark it down as "received".
If an item is marked as "inactive", LRO will not make suggestions on it.
If an item is part of an S-28 field with an asterisk in the name (*), then LRO will not make suggestions for it. Since these items (with the asterisk) should be special request items only.

Of course, you shouldn't 100% rely on LRO to tell you what you need to re-stock, but hopefully this will help you catch something you missed (or didn't think of). You might have a "good" stock of a particular item, but based on previous movement, it might be a good idea to stock up again. And that is what this will hopefully catch. As we test this new feature (and I get some feedback), the algorithms may be adjusted. But I think this will do fine.

So...version 1.3.1 is scheduled for this weekend, provided all goes well of course. :-)

New Report Screen concept idea

2010-08-26T13:05:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

Version 1.3.1 is moving along quickly! I've gotten a lot fixed up already. I'm about ready to start on the Report improvements. But before I do, I just wanted to show y'all and get your thoughts on it:

Click image to enlarge:

Notice the "Quick Reports" at the top...which will select all the right options below to give you exactly the report you need. If you have any ideas for "Quick Reports", let me know ASAP via either the Support Forum or the comments here.

If none of the "Quick Reports" will do it for you, you will have the ability to customize the report in almost any way you need with the options below. Change the grouping, the sorting, or filter what is displayed. :-)

Once again...if there are any ideas, let me know SOON. Also...keep in mind the screenshot is a rough-draft. There will be a few changes.

Thanks!

New Poll & Updated S-28 Form for Russian users

2010-08-25T12:38:00.006-05:00

Howdy All!

I have a new poll available. Remember how I said the next release would have major improvements to the Reports? Well right now, I have some report buttons outside of the "Reports" screen. One can be found on the "View All Orders" screen and 3 are on the "Order Form & Mgmt" screen. These are NOT unique! You can run the same exact reports on the "Reports" screen by using the "Status" tab and checking off "Show Details".

That being the case...

~~Can I remove these "extra" report buttons, in order to save space & avoid confusion?~~

Please use the poll to the right to vote.

This poll is now closed.

Thanks!

Also...Russian users have an updated S-28 form available for download. Download the update if you are ready for it. :-)

PS - I also just realized that the "Update Management" screen is mislabeled...it says it is the S-14 form that has an update, but in fact it is the S-28 form. So don't be confused by this...I will correct the wording to say "S-28" in version 1.3.1.

New Items available

2010-08-18T21:19:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

New items are available for download:

9263: Jehovah's Witnesses--Faith in Action, Part 1: Out of Darkness--On DVD
5232: God's Word for Us Through Jeremiah
6654: Was Life Created?
6655: The Origin of Life--Five Questions Worth Asking

Also, I've received an updated S-28 form for Russian users. I should have this update ready by this weekend.

Version 1.3.0 has been released!

2010-08-10T19:12:00.009-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Gridview for adding annual items. This tool is located under "Other Tools"
New Feature: Translation of Languages selection!! Spanish and Russian users will now see the list of languages in their own language!
Added: A "Find" button to Inventory Management. Will jump to a record instead of filtering the entire list.
Added: A button (with a green plus) on Inventory Management to allow for placing an order right there.
Added "different language highlight" to 2 history of orders reports.
Changed: Inventory Management's "Single Month" report is now a fillable form. Renamed to "Inventory Check-in form".
Changed: History of Orders for "Deliverable" and "Completed" statuses should have been showing the publisher name as the grouping & showing language instead of item number.
Fixed: Order Form "Reset" button CLEARED the Request Month instead of resetting it.
Fixed: Improved speed of inventory management report screen opening. Noticeably slow on older computers with a lot of inventory items.
Fixed: Error when trying to view the orders of a publisher who had an apostrophe (') in their name.
Fixed: Error when opening View All Orders report with Request Month turned on and with an order that has no Request Month.
Fixed: Issue with calulation of Access version. May have caused non-English users to get an error when trying to print a report to PDF.

Wow, lots of good changes! Most notably the translation of the list of languages into the native tongues of Spanish and Russian users. And also the grid view tool for a mass entering of orders Annual Items. This tool is located under "Other Tools". I want to thank all the brothers who gave feedback for this upgrade! It is always appreciated! :-)

Also, I noticed that I was forgot the annual item "Watch Tower Publications Index, 2010". This annual item has been included with the update, as well is available as a literature update for those who aren't ready to upgrade LRO yet.

I have not made Help information for the new gridview tool yet. I think it is fairly understandable, but in case someone needs it, here are the instructions:

Go to "Other Tools" and click on the "Annual Items - Gridview Entry" button.

You will then see a list of the Annual Items. LRO will take a guess at which year the annual items are for. If it is January - July, it will guess for the CURRENT year. If it is August - December, LRO will guess for the NEXT year. Please verify the item number (by clicking on the dropdowns and looking at the selection) before continuing.

You will then see a list of publishers in a grid format. Enter in the publisher's order for each Annual Item. You do NOT have to enter "0" for items they don't want. It is recommended that you leave it blank instead of entering "0". You will not hurt LRO if you enter "0", it is just easier to read if you leave it blank.

Finally, select the Request Month (if you have it turned on) and then click on "Submit". It will submit all the orders (and give you a message how many were added). You can then go and look at them on your Unordered Items screen.

I hope all enjoy this new version! The next upgrade will focus on improving reports. :-)

New Items available

2010-08-07T17:23:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

I've made the annual items available for download. This includes the daily text, bound volumes, yearbook, etc. Please get them at your earliest convenience.

English users should get 7 new items.
Russian users should get 4 new items. (some were already added a couple months ago)
Spanish users should get 7 new items.

Also, I'm still working on the next release. Not sure if I will have it done by this weekend, or if it will be a mid-week release. The new annual items gridview tool is taking longer than expected. Everything is going well though...but I haven't tested it on other versions of Access yet. There may be another version that throws a wrench into my release date.

TWO New Polls & Updated Items

2010-07-26T20:53:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

Per your responses in the last poll, the annual items are going to be adjusted to match what is on the Society's website. When you run this update, you should see 135 Spelling Corrections (WOW!) This affects all Watchtower & Awake bound volumes and Examining the Scriptures Daily. The year will now be at the end to match what is on the Society's website, which will make verifying your order a bit easier. I also noticed a few items that have quotes (") in the title, which also changes the way they are sorted. I will let you all know when I have a solution for these (since quotes cannot be allowed in a literature item name in LRO).

Spanish Users: You've already had your literature items (bound volumes & Daily text) in the correct order!

Russian Users: You should see the new update popup on your computer now. You will also have 135 spelling corrections.

New Polls

There are 2 new polls:

1. It has been requested that I have a form that you can print out to take to the Hall and write down the S-28 (Inventory) items and bring back to enter into LRO. There is currently a report on the Inventory Management screen called "Single Month report". This report was made BEFORE I designed the mock S-28 form, and now that I have the mock S-28 form, I don't think anyone is using the "Single Month" report anymore.

I'm thinking about re-designing this report so you can print it out (and it will have your list of inventory items) and use it to fill out when taking your inventory at the Hall. Then you can bring it back home, and it will match up with the Inventory Management screen, allowing you to quickly fill in your inventory. So the question is...

Is this Single Month ~~report being used? If not, can I replace it with this new function?~~

This poll is now closed.

2. Currently, duplicate orders are detected REGARDLESS if the past order is completed or not. It has been suggested that this is confusing. Rather, if an order is complete, if you submit another order like it, the new order should NOT be detected as a duplicate. So the question is...

~~Do you agree with this change in behavior?~~

This poll is now closed.

Thank you for your feedback! It is always welcome! :-)

New Poll & New Item available

2010-07-17T14:30:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

I am now the Literature Coordinator for our congregation. And as such, I can now login and see how the ordering & literature system works. So...will probably have some good improvements with the next update!

In the meantime, I've got a poll. I noticed that the Awake & Watchtower bound volumes have the year at the end (ie. Awake! Bound Volume 2009), whereas in LRO I have it as "2009 Awake Bound Volume". I figured that having the year first would make it easier to select, but by doing this, the item does NOT line up with the society's list when you are ready to place your order, thus making it a little difficult to verify your order before you submit it.

So the question is...

Should I put the year for Watchtower and Awake bound volumes on the end, so it matches up with the society's website when verifying your order? Or should I leave it like it is, so it is easier to select the right year (when typing your selection) of volume in LRO?

The poll seems to be broken for Internet Explorer. I will report this to blogger.com and hope to get it fixed soon. In the meantime, you can leave a comment on this blog to submit your response. You don't need to signup to leave a comment, you can do so anonymously.

Also, there is a new item available for ordering. The "Bearing Thorough Witness About God's Kingdom" book is now available in Large Print. If you have automatic updating turned on in LRO, you should see a message alerting you to this on the 2nd time you run LRO.

After running the update, check and make sure you have item #6216. This is the first "official" test of my new automatic update notification system. ;-)

If you have any issues with the update system, let me know.

Version 1.2.9 Released!

2010-06-26T19:56:00.003-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Update notifications! You will be automatically notified about new LRO updates if you have this feature turned on. Turn On/Off via "Settings".
Added: Row highlight feature to Inventory Management.
Added: "Symbol" field to Inventory Management.
Changed: In Inventory Management, when you are on "Init'l Qty", "Rec'd", or "Stock EOM", if you press ENTER on your keyboard, it will move DOWN to the next item.
Changed: View All Orders report is now in portrait mode.
Removed: Print to PDF feature in Access 2010 only (was not working...cannot get it to work since it is not my code).
Fixed: Horrible flickering when scrolling on the Inventory Management screen.
Fixed: LRO will be added to the Trusted Zone of Access 2007 & 2010 automatically. The tool to do this has been improved greately, so if you move LRO to another location, move the tool there and run it and it will work fine.
Fixed: Thick dividing line issue with Access 2007 & 2010.
Fixed: LRO will now work with Access 2010!
Cosmetic improvements to the Inventory Management screen.

Lots of good improvements here. Most notably is the Automatic Update notification feature. It should be turned on by default. This will alert you when there is a new version of LRO, updates to the Literature List, or a new version of the S-14 form. An Internet connection is required of course. If you don't have this, you can turn off the Automatic Update notification feature by visiting "Settings". Otherwise, it will bug you after the update check has failed for over a month.

Inventory Management got a lot of improvements. I've added "Symbol" to the list...figured it might be handy. Added the row highlight feature...very much needed when you're updating your inventory. Changed the behavior of pressing ENTER on your keyboard, so it will go DOWN to the next item. I thought this would also be quite useful, and per the voting, y'all seem to agree. Note that you can still move to the RIGHT if you press TAB on your keyboard. And I also improved it cosmetically.

And last but not least...LRO will automatically add itself to the Trusted Location list for Access 2007 & 2010 users. It will specifically add only it's folder to the trusted zone. And it does this automatically upon install. If you move LRO to another folder, you will need to add this new folder to the Trusted Location list. You can use the tool to do this automatically...you just have to find the tool and copy it to LRO's new location, and then run it.

More improvements on the way. Stay tuned! :-)

New Poll - behavior of ENTER on Inventory Management

2010-06-23T18:34:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

Thanks for your responses to my last poll. Looks like it is unanimous that the S-28 form should have "0" quantities be blank on the report. I can easily make this adjustment to the report for 1.2.9, though I might have to leave the "0s" in the actual Inventory Management system. I'll investigate if I can change this for 1.3.0.

Next poll is regarding Inventory Management again...

When entering the quantities for an existing item (Received & Stock EOM quantities only) and you press ENTER on your keyboard, do you want the system to...

- Move RIGHT to the next field (this is what it is doing currently)
- Move DOWN to the next item

I think that moving DOWN would be better because you will be entering all of the "Stock EOM" values at once, and so by pressing Enter, you would go DOWN the list to each item. Thus eliminating the need to click on the next one. New items would still move to the RIGHT when you press enter.

Then again...maybe you collect all the values over time, and then enter them ALL in at once. Then maybe you'd like it like it is now...

Let me hear your thoughts! Please vote. :-)

Thanks!

PS - the release of 1.2.9 is on time for this Saturday afternoon, pending no major issues during testing of course. ;-)

New Poll - 0's or blanks on S-28 form?

2010-06-18T13:34:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

I've got a new poll available. I was informed that it is easier (and is encouraged by the society) to read the S-28 form when any item that has quantity of "0" is left blank instead. So...the poll is:

~~Should items that have a quantity of "0" be left blank? Or keep the "0"?~~

Use the poll to the right to vote.

This poll is now closed.

REMINDER: Visitors on Literaturesoft.org will need to come visit My Site in order to see and participate in the poll.

Thanks!

PS - Next version of LRO will come with automatic update notifications!!! An Internet connection will be required, of course. ;-)

Version 1.2.8 Released!

2010-05-29T22:47:00.002-05:00

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").

Updated S-28 Form and New Items

2010-05-21T15:14:00.003-05:00

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.

Version 1.2.7 Released!

2010-04-24T14:07:00.007-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: Ability to print to PDF, without actually having a PDF printer installed!
Changed: Sort order for Unordered Items report (ONLY the Unordered status). Now sorts by Item Name first instead of Symbol.
Changed: Code for sorting, and now header labels will turn light blue instead of underlined when you sort by that column.
Changed: Code for filtering system, more efficient (behind the scenes)
Fixed: Other language items on Inventory Management now highlight blue, like on the order management screens.
Fixed: Improved detection of "Stock" publisher in other languages when adding to the Publisher List. LRO will not allow "Stock" publishers from any language.
Fixed: Installer cleans up LRO's folder before installing, thus removing old legacy or renamed files.

NOTE: The "Other Languages" link has been removed (details below).

All language versions are now in 1 single file. During the installation...where you normally see the option to create a Desktop Icon...you will now also see the option for which language of LRO to use. Please remember to look for this when installing LRO from this point on. It should remember your language choice for upgrades in the future, but only if you have 1.2.7+ installed already.

Also, all of the User Guides for other languages are now under the "LRO Quick-Start Guide" link, along with the English guide.

Regarding the print to PDF feature, you will see it on the toolbar for reports, like in the image below:

For Access 2007 users, you will need to click on the "Add-Ins" tab first:

My To-Do list has grown significantly. I've got a couple of busy weeks coming up, but afterwards I plan to tackle the To-Do list hard and fast. In the meantime, I have some more polls on the way.

Any questions, comments, or issues, please use the support forum.

New Poll - Sort order of History of Orders

2010-04-21T18:27:00.005-05:00

Howdy all!

Our Literature Coordinator went to place the order for the month, and noticed that the Society changed the sort order in which the items are displayed when reviewing your order. Rather than sorting by symbol, they now sort by the Item Name. So, to match the Society's sorting, I would adjust ALL reports that are currently using Symbol as the sort order.

My question is...have you noticed this change as well? Or is your sorting still the same?

Please use the poll to the right to respond to this question. If you have more details to share, then please leave a comment on this blog post.

PS - Regarding the password masking for secure PDFs, I liked the idea submitted by brother Russell in our forums. He suggested to have it masked by default, but put a little checkbox where you could quickly unhide/hide the characters. So that will be the solution. Great idea! :-)

Thanks!

New Poll - Mask password for PDF & Literature Update

2010-04-15T17:02:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

I've got a new poll available. This one is in regards to the new Print to PDF feature that will be in the next release. When making a secure PDF, I have 2 choices: Either use an InputBox (which does NOT hide the characters you type), or design a small form and use some code to hide the input.

It's no problem to design a small form to do this, but perhaps those who use it would like to see the password they are typing, rather than doing it twice and possibly messing up and starting over. Personally I see this security measure as being important for transmitting the data over the Internet, not to protect it from the person hovering over your shoulder. But anyways, I'll let you decide. Here's the question (and please use the poll on the right to vote):

When making a password for your secure PDF, do you want the password to be masked (ex: *********)?

Also on the agenda: I've updated the code for filtering the order management screens. It is more efficient (behind the scenes). You probably won't notice a difference...maybe really old machines will be slightly faster. But this change has introduced a potential problem: if there is a literature item with quotes (") in the name...LRO will crash when you apply a filter for that item. This change to the filter system is absolutely necessary and must be done, so these literature items (1 in English, 0 in Spanish, 23 in Russian) must be fixed. What will happen is their quotes (") will be changed to apostrophes (').

Please visit the Literature Items List screen and click on the "Download Literature Updates" button to get this update to your literature items.

Thanks!

Progress report

2010-04-04T16:42:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

Just wanted to remind everyone that I've been taking a break from LRO. Things are good and stable, so there has not been a need to work on the next version. But don't worry, I've got plans for at least a few more updates. Just know that version 1.2.7 will not be ready for at least 4 weeks. ;-)

In the meantime, here's a new poll for you. Remember that visitors on Literaturesoft.org will need to come visit My Site in order to see and participate in the poll, which will be found on the right side.

I have acquired code for putting a report straight into PDF format. No need to have a PDF printer or knowledge on how to use one. I can even generate an encrypted PDF, which would require a password to open, in case you want to e-mail a report (such as what needs to be ordered) to another brother and would like for it to be protected.

So...the poll is...would you like (or see any use for) this kind of feature?

Russian S-28 form available for download

2010-03-23T07:53:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

Russian users may now update their S-28 builder so the report will match the actual S-28 form. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Go to "Учет Литературы"
2. Click on "Макет Бланка S-28"
3. Click on "Загрузить обновление S-28"
4. Say "Yes" (or "Да") to both messages that popup.

Be aware that if you made any custom changes to the S-28 builder screen, your changes will be replaced with this update that has been put together for you. I doubt this will be an issue for anyone though.

If anyone has any questions/issues, please let me know either via a comment here or via our Support Forum.

Version 1.2.6 Released!

2010-03-15T21:02:00.004-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: User-guide is now included with the installer.
Fixed: reports no longer show blue highlight when report is blank.
Fixed: S-28 date range on Inventory Report is now being translated.
Fixed: "Stock" publisher is now being translated.
Changed: Location of LRO's "behind-the-scenes" backups are now the same location as where LRO is run from.
Changed: "Behind-the-scenes" backups will not grow more than 10 total. Was 46 total before.
Changed: LRO will open maximized (when using the Installer's shortcut).
Changed: Can now have blank Request Month setting...in case you want to make yourself select a Request Month for each order (if Request Month is turned on).
Changed: Item Number no longer has strict format requirements (such as ####). Only limitation is it must be no longer than 12 characters, however certain special characters are still restricted.
Minor improvements to code that may improve speed on slower machines.

As I mentioned before, LRO is now Installer only. There will no longer be a stand-alone version. Ironically, however, the change to the "behind-the-scenes" backups has actually made LRO 100% portable now...because the backups necessary to "survive" an upgrade are now being stored in the same location where LRO is being run. After installing LRO, you can find & copy the folder to a flash drive and run it from there if you want to. If you do this, LRO will NOT leave any data on your computer anymore, so if you have security concerns, they can now be 100% resolved. And if you use this ability, don't neglect making backups on another drive!!

I still don't recommend using LRO on a flash drive, simply because it will operate slower, and there's the danger of disconnecting the drive without stopping LRO, thus resulting in a loss of data. Also know that LRO could easily use up to 80 - 110 MB of your flash drive's space due to the backups it automatically keeps. But if you would like help in running LRO on a flash drive, please post a request in the support forum.

Last but not least, the user-guides for Spanish & Russian users have been updated. Still don't have the S-28 form setup for Russian users yet, but I'll get it soon.

In the meantime, I'm taking a break. You'll see some more polls to vote on soon...got some more ideas and would like some feedback. ;-)

New Poll: Use LRO on flash drive?

2010-03-13T21:24:00.005-06:00

As I mentioned before, LRO will become Installer Only for the next update. This is not going to change. However, there are other things that could be affected based on your response to this new poll. The question is...

Do you use LRO on a flash drive? In other words, when you operate LRO (open it and put orders into it), are you running it from the flash drive?

Use the poll to the right to vote. Please do NOT vote if you are NOT using LRO, of course.

NOTE: Visitors on Literaturesoft.org will need to come visit My Site in order to see and participate in the poll.

Thanks!

Version 1.2.5 Released!

2010-03-09T22:36:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: New Setting, "Show text box for Notes" on the Order Form screen. Turn it on to use it, if you want it.
Added: Orders that are for a language other than your default language are highlighted in light blue. (I decided against yellow, I wanted it to stand out more)
Improved: Changing the language of LRO changes the text instantly. Before, you wouldn't notice the change until you exited Settings.
Russian translation has been added!

After MUCH work, and with the help of brother Vladislav, I am happy to announce that LRO is now available in Russian! :-) It can be downloaded from the Other Languages link.

Anyone downloading the Russian version, PLEASE READ THESE DIRECTION CAREFULLY!!

If you are a CURRENT user of LRO, you will need to follow these directions BEFORE YOU UPGRADE in order to successfully get the Russian Literature Items List:

Log into your congregation.
Go to the Literature Items List screen.
Click on "Edit Item Types"
DELETE everything there. When you go back to the Literature Items List screen, you will notice it is empty. This will allow you to successfully get the Russian list of items.
Now you can download the Russian version.

New LRO users will not have to do this.

There were a few cosmetic changes needed in order to fit all the Russian text. Not much, but you may notice a little bit. Also, the Russian mock S-28 form is not available yet. Work needs to be done on it first. When it is ready, I will announce it and you will be able to simply update your mock S-28 form by using the "Download" button on the Mock S-28 Form Builder screen.

English and Spanish users...if you have not made any changes to the Mock S-28 Form's design, you are encouraged to "Download S-28 Updates" from the S-28 form builder screen. I've added item #5805 and linked it where it belongs (under Indexes - multiple years).

Last but not least...the next version of LRO will be INSTALLER ONLY. Yes, I'm sorry...no more stand-alone version. Things are getting complicated having to maintain 6 different versions (2 in each language), and things really would be much easier in several different ways if I just had the installer version. Will give more details about this later on.

New Poll - Highlight Language on orders?

2010-03-01T12:40:00.003-06:00

Howdy all!

I'm still working on the Russian version of LRO. Translation is a LOT of work (as I'm sure the Spanish translators know). ;-) Also still working on our Kingdom Hall remodel project. It's coming along well, and we should be done soon.

In the meantime, I've got a new poll regarding an idea for a new feature. When looking at the list of orders on the various screens, or when looking at reports, if the language of a particular order is different than your default language, then highlight the language of the order (just the language part) so it stands out as different. That way it grabs your attention. ;-)

Please use the new poll (to the right) to vote!

Thanks!

Version 1.2.4 Released!

2010-02-15T19:08:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: Language to top of Mock S-28 form
Added: "Reset Filter" on all new filter screens.
Updated: Help info for Publisher Search asterisk
Changed: Request Month is no longer editable by default. Must click on "Allow Editing" to be able to change it.
Fixed: Item Name choices are populated after changing Item Number (if visible)
Fixed: Tab order on View All Orders, Pending Items, Orders by Publisher
Fixed: LRO adjusts date of order (if needed) when changing Request Month. Only orders for previous years are updated to be current year when Request Month is changed.
Fixed: Marking all orders as Received/Delivered when Inventory Automation is on will go faster and no longer flash/scroll through all records. Will now see an hourglass (or Vista/7 busy mouse) symbol and screen will refresh ONLY when it is finished.

I realized something about Request Month now that we are in a new year. If you take an old order (perhaps because you ran out of that item) and re-submit it for the current order (simply by changing the Request Month date, and removing the mark from Ordered), it will show up as an order from last year on the month you selected. So I put a fix that will update the date attached to an order if you change the Request Month on an older order. It will prompt you before making the change to the date though, of course.

I also turned off the ability to change the Request Month by default. When I first introduced the feature, I had it editable all the time so everyone could update the orders with a Request Month. Now it is uneditable by default, but you can click "Allow Editing" to edit it, just like everything else.

Last but not least...we are remodeling our Kingdom Hall. This means that I've got a VERY BUSY month coming up, as I take care of more than the usual congregational responsibilities. Therefore the next update, which will be the addition of the Russian language, will be the last for about a month. I hope to have this update by this weekend. If anyone discovers any bugs, or has a QUICK change request, please submit it soon.

Thanks! :-)

PS - Screenshots are updated and available!

New site design!

2010-02-13T19:51:00.002-06:00

Hope you all like the new site design and colors! There's a new poll (on the right) where you can voice your opinion.

Seems that FreeWebHosts deletes accounts that have inactive websites...my Screenshots are gone! Will try to get them back up (along with v1.2.4) tomorrow! They needed to be updated anyways...

S-28 Form for Spanish users

2010-02-10T12:49:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

I have received a copy of the S-28 form in Spanish. Spanish users can now download it and update their Mock S-28 Form. To do this, please go to "Manejo del Inventario" -> "Constr. Form.
Simula. S-28" -> "Descargar Actualizaciones al S-28".

NOTE: This does NOT affect English users, only those who downloaded the Spanish version of LRO.

Thanks to brother Gus for providing the form, and thanks to brother Jorge for putting together the text into the spreadsheet for me! :-)

On a different note...English users, you may want to delete items #9826 & 9830 from the "Literature Items List" screen. During our Spanish translation, these items were discovered to be extraneous. I could not find them in the Watchtower Publications listing either. I'm not going to write a "delete" routine...I don't want to be deleting things out of your data. So I'm telling you here that these two "sample" items don't appear to exist anymore and can be deleted.

Version 1.2.3 Released!

2010-02-06T19:35:00.003-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Improved Feature: Filtering ability on all order management screen can now filter multiple columns at the same time. See the new blue bar above the orders.
Added: "Total Items Shown", on all order management screens, you will see a sum of all the items in the orders displayed.
Added: "Type of Item" to the View All Orders screen.
Improved: LRO now closes MUCH faster! Rather than exporting your data (the tables) in order to "survive" updates, LRO now just makes a copy of itself (the entire program). Amazingly, that works MUCH faster than exporting each table. Go figure! :-P
Improved: Deliverable Items report is now in portrait mode.
Changed: LRO now shows you the whole publisher list on the Order Form screen, regardless whether the publisher has an order or not. The asterisk next to their name means they are waiting on an order.
Fixed: Inventory management will start at the beginning of the last inventory period...if there is no data for Inventory Management yet. So if there is no data, you will see the Inventory Management start in September or March, whichever was the last.
Fixed: Mock S-28 form now separates items by language instead of adding all the languages together.
Fixed: LRO will only Compact & Repair when it reaches 10 MB in size. Thus speeding up exiting on slower machines or when run from a flash drive. Theoretically, it should not reach this size until after 1-2 years of usage.
BUG FIX: Automatic & Manual backups would report a failure, even though it was actually successful.

Yes indeed, LRO closes MUCH faster now! It is amazing the difference...depending on the speed of your computer, it may even be less than a second. For those who have slower computers, or are running it off of a flash drive, it may still be slow, possibly around 8 seconds. So you will notice the progress bar still appears, but on the super-fast computers...it just appears & then disappears. This is normal...as long as you don't get any error messages, everything is fine. :-)

I have received a copy of the S-28 form in Spanish. I will be working on this, and will hopefully have an update available to the Spanish users in a few days. Will let you all know when it is available.

I hope you all enjoy the new filter system & the new "Total Items Shown" counter at the bottom. I know I could have used both of these when I was checking in our last shipment (it was my first experience)! ;-)

Calling all Spanish brothers - Need S-28 form

2010-02-05T14:53:00.004-06:00

Howdy all!

I am still searching for a Spanish version of the S-28 form. Spanish users will notice that the mock S-28 form still has all the items in English. While we could translate each item individually, if the S-28 form in Spanish has a different order of its categories and items, it would not be as easy to transfer the data from the Mock form onto the real form. Therefore it is necessary to get a Spanish S-28 form to accurately recreate how it looks.

If any of you Spanish brothers can get a hold of the S-28 form, please send it to me via e-mail (literatureroomorganizer@gmail.com) so I can update the Mock S-28 form for Spanish users. :-)

Also, I was informed that the S-28 form should only display a single language, not combine literature from other languages. So the next update will allow you to select the language to display on the report, based on the languages of the items you've entered. I will allow you to leave this option blank in order to combine the languages, just in case it is applicable to you situation.

Thanks!

Literature Update available - New Items added

2010-01-30T12:01:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

There is a Literature Update available for download. To receive it, you must have an internet connection on the computer you are using LRO on. Go to the "Literature Items List" screen and click on the "Download Literature Updates" button.

For English, the following items were added:

8397 (km insert) - How Do I View Blood Fractions and Medical Procedures Involving My Own Blood?
8020 (form) - Volunteer Letter

For Spanish, the following items were added:

6652 (Folletos grandes) - La Biblia y su mensaje
9261 (DVDs) - Las maravillas de la creación revelan la Gloria de Dios
5416 (Libros) - Testimonio Cabal del Reino de Dios

Also, I was informed (and confirmed) there is a bug with the Backup system. You may receive a "failure" message, even when the backup really was successful. This is happening because I added a condition to check for: ensure the date & time of the both files match (which would catch RARE failures where you can read your backup, but not write to the location). This error will show up if the backup copy is off even by 1 second, which could happen on a slower computer or if using a flash drive as a backup. I will adjust the condition so it still checks the date & time, but won't be so strict, that way I can still catch this rare situation. ;-)

I should have this bug fixed, as well as some more enhancements, this Sunday evening. Provided all goes well of course.

Version 1.2.2 Released!

2010-01-24T18:01:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Show Notes on Reports...turn it on from the Settings screen. Any notes you have attached to an Order will now appear on your detailed reports. Note: Current users will need to turn this ON under Settings. New users will have it ON by default.
Added: Ability to edit orders on the Pending Items screen.
Fixed: Text that was not translated is now being translated.
Fixed: LRO backup system was not displaying custom error message if an error occurred. It was a very vague & generic message.
BUG FIX: Marking an item as "Delivered" when inventory management automation is turned on caused an application error.
BUG FIX: "Mark all as Received" & "Mark all as Delivered" didn't work if inventory management automation was turned on.

Spanish users...I believe I have gotten every text in LRO translated into Spanish, with the exception of the S-28 items and the "Sept-Feb" & "Mar-Aug" text on the S-28 report. If you notice any more text that hasn't been translated, please let me know.

New Poll - Change behavior of Publisher Search?

2010-01-23T17:36:00.004-06:00

Howdy all!

Quick question...should I change the behavior of the combo box for "Search for Publisher's Orders" on the Order Form screen?

Currently, it only shows the names of publisher's who have orders. I was thinking it might be better to just show everyone...that way you can easily check someone's previous (delivered) orders if needed from this screen.

What do you think? (Please use the new poll on the right to vote!)

Version 1.2.1b Released!

2010-01-18T20:31:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Fixed: Inventory Items will be updated to the Spanish language if you download the Spanish version of LRO.
Fixed: Weird "boxes" in certain messages & help info on Access 2003.
Fixed: Some misspellings.
Updated: Help info on Settings.
BUG FIX: Download S-28 Updates did not work with the Spanish version of LRO.
BUG FIX: Restoring a backup would fail, and would leave LRO empty.

Howdy all!

The issue with the S-28 download has been fixed for the Spanish download. However...English users must download this new version for theirs to continue working.

Also, you will notice one of the bug fixes is with regards to restoring a backup of LRO. I'm not sure which version this bug was introduced in, but I would imagine it was one of the past 3. Please update your version so this bug will be fixed for you, otherwise if you have one of the affected versions, you will not be able to restore a backup successfully.

The following literature items have been added:

Bearing Thorough Witness About God's Kingdom
The Bible - What is its Message?
The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory

Please run a Literature Update from the Literature Items List screen, because apparently I misspelled "Witness". And as soon as I get the Spanish version of these items, I will announce it and the Spanish users will be able to download them. Spanish users should also run the Literature Update, because ''Isaías'' was mispelled on Item #5429. New users will not need to do this.

New Poll - Notes on Reports!

2010-01-12T19:37:00.003-06:00

Greetings all!

I started a new poll. You will find it here on this blog on the right.

You know the notes you can attach to orders? I want to include them on the detailed reports of Unordered Items, Pending Items, and Deliverable Items. The question is how should I do it...always show them, let you turn them on/off, or do you think this is unnecessary?

Remember, only ONE vote per user please.

Thanks!

Version 1.2.1a Released!

2010-01-10T21:29:00.004-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Grouping of Publisher report was improved to group by language after grouping by status.
Fixed mispelling on message
Help messages now open in a form instead of a message box. This will allow for longer Help messages if needed.
Spanish translation has been added! You can change back and forth between languages using the new field on the Settings screen.

Good evening everyone! The much anticipated release of the Spanish version of LRO has arrived! It can be downloaded from the Other Languages link.

Anyone downloading the Spanish version, PLEASE READ THESE DIRECTION CAREFULLY!!

If you are a CURRENT user of LRO, you will need to follow these directions BEFORE YOU UPGRADE in order to successfully get the Spanish Literature Items List:

Log into your congregation.
Go to the Literature Items List screen.
Click on "Edit Item Types"
DELETE everything there. When you go back to the Literature Items List screen, you will notice it is empty. This will allow you to successfully get the Spanish list of items.
Now you can download the Spanish version.

New LRO users will not have to do this.

Also very important!!

Anyone using the Spanish version please do NOT use the S-28 form's download update feature. I repeat...do NOT use the button "Descargar Actualizaciones al S-28". It will empty out your S-28 form. I will work on getting the mock S-28 form translated, as well as fix this for the 1.2.1b release.

You may also notice a few things that weren't translated, such as "Link Items", "Notes", and the statuses on the Reports screen. These need to be handled differently, and I shall take care of them for 1.2.1b. If you notice anything else, or find any mispellings or phrases that are not understandable, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Much thanks to the 3 brothers who assisted with this translation project! :-)

Progress Report and Poll

2010-01-05T21:21:00.003-06:00

Greetings everyone!

Unfortunately, I did not meet my deadline for deploying a Spanish version of LRO last Sunday. I still am working on it along with 3 other brothers, and we are making GREAT progress! We have completed the translation of all the interface (buttons & labels), as you can see in the sample image below:

You may notice one of the buttons has its text being cut off. There are a couple tweaks still needed for the interface text, but for the most part it is done.

Next up is the Message Boxes, which I'm about halfway through checking. After I've done my own checking, I submit it to one or more of the brothers who have volunteered, and they check into any concerns or questions I might have, as well as do their own proofreading. So it is a rather lengthy process, but in the end, it should be VERY accurate and consistent. :-)

Last but not least will be the Tool Tips to translate, but they should be the quickest to do. I have a tentative deadline for this Sunday. I'm confident I will make it this time. ;-)

In the meantime, I had a little uncertainty on how to implement the new language. Should I...

Have different versions of LRO dedicated to a single language?
Allow you to change the language dynamically? If so, should it be done under the current Default Language setting (which is currently used to pre-select the language for orders and Inventory Items)
Or, if dynamically, should I make a completely separate setting? Because you may be the one who handles the orders for multiple congregations, and they may be in other languages, but you don't want to have LRO's text switch languages on you when you change the Default Language setting for orders and Inventory Items.

You will notice a small poll on this blog to the right directly under "Other Resources". I put it here so everyone could vote. If I would have put it in the forums, only those who registered could vote. Please participate and vote, and PLEASE...only vote once. Thanks!

And also much thanks to all those who are helping with this translation! :-)

Version 1.2.1 Released!

2009-12-28T18:58:00.005-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Check for Mock S-28 Form updates. If there is a change to the S-28 form, I can make it available for all to download now. It can also be used to reset your S-28 form if you made changes to it that didn't work out.
Added: Warn on deletion of a literature item (S-14 item) if you have orders and/or inventory items that are using that S-14 number. Deleting one that is being used can cause issues in the future when I improve the structure of the data.
Removed: "Old Request Month" warning. Deemed too confusing & not designed well enough to accomplish what it was intended to do. May re-visit this on a later date...
Changed: No longer use "N/A" to mark orders when changing a literature item to inactive. The S-14 number is left alone, and the order is simply highlighted. I found another way to highlight without changing the S-14 number, and this is much preferable.
Changed: Design of Unordered Items & Pending Items detailed report. It is now in a portrait design.
Fixed: When managing orders, they will automatically sort by Request Month first if this setting is turned on. Originally, they ALWAYS sorted by the date stamp first.
Fixed: Changing a literature item number (S-14) did NOT update the orders & inventory numbers.
Fixed: Changing congregation name did not change the stock handling congregation name.
Fixed: Deleting items under "Orders by Publisher" that were Received & with Inventory Management Automation turned on did NOT subtract them from inventory.
Fixed: "Search for Publisher's Orders" now only shows your congregation (previously, Stock orders would show up, no matter what congregation submitted them). Unless you're using the Stock Handling feature, then you'll still see all Stock (if you're the Stock handler).
Fixed: If you tried to remove the check mark from a Delivered item that was also an inactive S-14 item, you could do it successfully. But then you couldn't put it back. Now it doesn't let you remove it in the first place (because it is inactive...can't be processed).
BUG FIX: Access 2007 (Run-time only) did not always successfully transfer the S-28 tables over an upgrade. Thus causing run-time errors when doing anything with the S-28 forms & report. This has been fixed.
Updates & improvements to Help information everywhere.
Message boxes everywhere have been standardized and improved.
Visual changes here and there, most noticeably on the Settings screen.

In addition to all these changes/fixes, LRO has also been upgraded to be capable of handling multiple languages. This doesn't mean anything yet...you can't change the language of LRO yet. But it is equipped to handle this now.

I am still working with a couple brothers to complete the Spanish translation of LRO. We are nearly there, and hopefully will have it by the end of Sunday, if not sooner. When we are finished, and I release it, you will see a mini update (1.2.1a) which will contain the Spanish language pack, along with a "Full" Spanish version in the Other Languages link. The "Full" version will also have the S-14 and S-28 items in Spanish. I can only include one language of the S-14 and S-28 items, but the text throughout LRO can be dynamically changed between languages and will be included in all language versions.

Progress Report

2009-12-13T17:48:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

I'm still working on the next version. It is coming along nicely, and the ability to translate will be much easier than I originally thought, thanks to some code I found in TLA (The Literature Assistant, an alternative to LRO). It is taking quite a bit of time, approximately an hour per screen on average. As you know, LRO has quite a few screens! I'm not even half-way done, but that's due to working on the other fixes and experimenting with an idea I might implement much later.

For those who volunteered, expect some stuff to translate a bit early from me. What I've completed so far will not change, so why not start early? ;-)

Version 1.2.0 Released!

2009-12-06T18:51:00.003-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: TLA import. For those who use The Literature Assistant, you can now import your data from TLA to LRO. Found on the "Other Tools" screen.
New Feature: Which congregation handles stock orders? Found on the "Settings" screen. Select a congregation (if you have more than one) to assign stock orders to this congregation. Any congregation can submit one, but it will ONLY show up on the REPORTS for the congregation that is suppose to handle them. If this is too confusing, just leave it blank, you don't have to use it.
New Feature: You can process a month (in Inventory Management) ahead of time. In other words, you don't have to wait until the next month before you can process it. This only allows 1 month in the future.
Added: "Make Folder" on the browse dialog box for the "Other Tools" backup locations.
Added: "Show Details" on Status type report. This shows the same information as the reports found on the "Order Form" screen and the "View All Orders" screen (depending on your selection for the filter).
Added: Can now filter Publisher report by the status of orders.
Changed: Publisher report shows the actual status.
Changed: Months are shown in the user's native language (based on the computer's settings).
Changed: LRO now prompts to overwrite Manual backups.
BUG FIX: Inventory Management did not operate correctly at all when the computer's date was not set to a "mm/dd/yyyy" format.
BUG FIX: Restoring a backup failed if Microsoft Access was in another language.
BUG FIX: Downloading Literature updates failed...I'm not entirely sure why. I believe it had to do with the computer being in another language.
Many minor improvements and a few visual changes.

To my foreign language users: I'm sorry for any issues you may have experience with LRO. I'm more than willing to work with you to make sure everything is working fine. The 3 bugs I mentioned in my last post have been successfully squashed! If any of you discover any more issues, please let me know as soon as possible. Thanks!

NOTE: If you had issues with Inventory Management, you MAY have to clear out all the inventory data before you can use it correctly.

I had a few more ideas come to mind, but these are going to be put aside until later. It is time to finalize LRO and make it ready for translation. After 1.2.1 is released, I will contact those of you who volunteered for translating. After the translation is done, I will be taking a long break. But don't worry, LRO has more coming its way, it just will be a while.

Problems - For other languages

2009-11-29T21:58:00.003-06:00

I have just discovered 3 issues with LRO on a Spanish brother's computer:

1. Inventory Management is very weird. It does not work right due to the way the dates are arranged in Spanish. Instead of mm/dd/yyyy, it is dd/mm/yyyy. This is breaking inventory management, and should have the same effect for anyone whose dates are not set like that...which I think is everyone except the USA.

2. Other Tools...when Restoring, it appears to be broke. If your computer is any language besides English, PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO RESTORE FROM BACKUP. The backups are being created successfully, but they are not able to be Restored successfully.

3. Download Literature Updates is failing.

I will look into all of these issues and get a resolution ASAP. It look like version 1.2.0 will NOT be the final version. These need to be fixed and re-tested before LRO can be finalized.

Sorry for any inconveniences!

New Poll - I need your input!

2009-11-27T21:02:00.001-06:00

Howdy everyone!

I've started a new poll in my support forum. I'm working on that new feature...the "Which congregation handles stock orders" feature, and I need some advice on how it should behave. I believe the first two choices will be right, but I want to make sure that is not confusing.

Please vote and/or share your thoughts on the matter in that topic (linked below):

http://literatureroomorganizer.freeforums.org/post77.html

Version 1.1.9 Released!

2009-11-24T15:22:00.003-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Inventory Management can navigate to previous months.
Added: New Report...by Status.
Added: Filter on Publisher Search screen.
Added: Date range label on Mock S28 report.
Added: Year can be selected for Mock S28 report.
Added: On Mock S28 report, the month that falls under the selected date range is highlighted in blue.
Added: Year on single Inventory Month report's header.
Added: Blank choices to Report filters. In case you didn't know, you could select nothing for a filter and it shows you all instead of filtering.
Improved: All reports were improved to have as much useful information as possible, and sorted in a logical manner. The Packing List form (S-74a) inspired most of these changes.
Improved: Reports by Request Month accurately show only the choices available, based on other choices. For example, if 2009 is selected, it will only show Request Months that were made in 2009.
Improved: "Download New Items" changed to "Download Literature Updates". It is now possible for me to push out spelling corrections and item symbols as I discover them.
Improved: When marking an order as "Ordered", if you have Request Month turned on, it checks to see if the order is the correct Request Month, and prompts you if it isn't the most recent. The thought behind this is you mark an Order as "Ordered" on the month it is requested, so it should match the most recent ones.
Fixed: Datatype mismatch error on Request Month report when switching years.
Fixed: Brand new publisher can be moved to another congregation successfully.
Removed: Inventory Management setting...it is now always on. Inventory Management is now mature enough to be reliably used by everyone.

Please use the improved "Download Literature Updates" on the Literature Items List screen to update your literature list. Everyone should see 4 symbols added & 4 spelling corrections, unless you discovered and fixed these on your own...

The "Items to Order from All Congregations" on the Login screen will be REMOVED on the next update. Due to the changes in how each congregation will handle orders, this feature will be worthless. If anyone still uses it (maybe your method of ordering hasn't changed), you can use the new Report by Status to collect the same information. Simply blank out the Congregation before running the report, and ensure "Unordered" is selected (it is by default) and you will achieve the same report.

NOTE: THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SUBMIT FEATURE REQUESTS!

If anyone has any ideas for improvement, or found a bug...PLEASE let me know now. Either email me or, preferably, use the Support forum and let me know what's on your mind. After 1.2.0 is released, the only updates will be bug fixes, if any are discovered. It will be a long time before new features are implemented. After LRO reaches 1.2.0, focus will be set on translation, and afterwards, I get a nice long break. ;-)

Still on the to-do list:

Inventory Management threshold (alert you when running low on stock items)
TLA Import ability
Which congregation handles stock orders?
General consistency and cosmetic improvements.

New Link: Other Languages

2009-11-18T22:00:00.004-06:00

Howdy all!

There is a new link in the navigation menu to the right, entitled "Other Languages". Thanks to the efforts of 3 different brothers and a sister, we now have a Spanish edition of LRO's user guide! Soon, LRO itself will be translated into Spanish. While I think a team of 4 people is plenty enough for the job, if anyone else would like to volunteer their help, please do not hesitate to contact me.

If anyone would like to see LRO translated into another language besides Spanish, and you have the time and resources (a brother or sister who can translate) to do so, then please let me know. I would be more than happy to coordinate a translation effort. All I need are volunteer translators. :-)

Thanks!

Version 1.1.8 released!

2009-11-15T18:47:00.001-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

Added: "Show Completed Orders" on the Publisher Search screen.
Fixed: "Download New Items" link on "Literature Items List" screen.
Improved: Request Month report. Now prints in Portrait mode, with more info per page.
Improved: Deliverable Items report. Now has grouping by Publisher, and sorts by publisher first.
Improved: Minor costmetic enhancements on nearly all reports.
Improved: All order management screens, including Inventory Management, now maximize to take advantage of the available space.

Got an idea? Let's hear it!

2009-11-11T21:42:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

As the last week of November (and LRO 1.2.0) approaches, the current features will be finalized, and a few more modifications and enhancements. I will be taking that last week of November off of my secular work, and will use that time to go through all the code and optimize it and improve consistency all around. Afterwards, LRO will be ready for translation to other languages. At this time, only Spanish has been requested and has enough volunteers to accomplish.

What that means is once LRO reaches 1.2.0, there will be NO MORE big changes or features, unless it is absolutely necessary because of a change in the way the literature room works. At least, not for a good while. Of course LRO will more than likely undergo more changes down the road, but it might be FAR down the road.

So let's hear it! Got an idea? Wanna see something added? Speak now, or you might have to wait a while... ;-)

Please sign up in the Support Forum to post your ideas. Or, if you prefer, e-mail me instead.

Thanks!

Version 1.1.7 Released!

2009-11-08T00:35:00.006-06:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Ability to choose how long to keep orders & inventory data.
New Feature: Request Month Setting. Set what month it is and it will automatically be selected for you when placing an order. Very useful when used directly at a hall & especially with multiple congregations.
Added: "Non-linked Items" button on S-28 builder screen. This shows you the S-14 items that are NOT linked to any S-28 field. Inactive items are not displayed on this list.
Improved: Historical reports are now standardized. I make a change on one, all others are affected. This prevents duplication of work (on my part) when fixing/adding something.
Improved: Request Month report more closely reflects the S-74 form. This will make separating orders by congregation very easy!
Improved: Request Month is now the first tab on the "Reports" screen, if Request Month is turned on of course.
Fixed: Request Month report now includes the year. NOTE: LRO tries to help: if you are in December, but put a request month for January, it assumes it is in the following year (which should be the case all the time). Vise versa is true too...you are in Jan, but mark as Dec, LRO assumes the request was for the previous year.
Fixed: Request Month could be removed from an order. Now it cannot.
Fixed: Request Month can now be used as a filter (on all the management screens that have a filter).
Fixed: S-28 Builder...when deleting a field, linked items were NOT deleted. They were left alone, causing issues.
Fixed: Progress bar when closing LRO with Automatic Backups on...the progressbar jumped backwards when it made the Automatic backup.
Fixed: On Access 2007 machines, the ability to change sorting on the Inventory Management screen was broke.

I plan on taking the last week of November off of work. During that time, I plan to finalize LRO (do some code cleanup & optimization) and therefore get it ready to be translated. Spanish will be the first, since there is significant interest in it. Will give more details on this later...

If it wasn't 12:39 in the morning, I'd say more. But I think it's time to say "Good night!"

Progress Report

2009-11-01T20:58:00.002-06:00

Howdy all!

I got to help out our Literature Coordinator yesterday with separating the two congregation's orders. I didn't realize how much of a headache it was, even LRO didn't help much. If we had been using the Request Month feature, it would have helped a little, but it needs work. The Report for the Request Month has all the orders separate: with each publisher's name. It would be more useful to combine the similar orders, like the "Items to Order for all Congregations" report.

So I have some work to do on the Request Month feature, and want to have this on the next release. Changes that I have in mind are:

Request month is on by default. Really, I think all congregations would want to use this feature.
Request month should be a system-wide setting, not per-cong.
The current Request month should be able to be set under Settings. That way if LRO is used directly at a Hall (like in our case), it will not be a burden to the users to remember what Request Month we are on. They will not have to select it.
Request month report needs to combine similar orders, per congregation.
Request month needs to "recognize" the year. Currently it does not.

I want to work on these features before releasing the next version. I feel this is important to take care of sooner than later. I hope to have it by next weekend, pending no issues or personal requests for computer repairs. It seems when computers break, they all break at the same time. On the bright side, I get a little more spending money. ;-)

Stay tuned!

1.1.7 Delayed

2009-10-25T16:58:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

The hard drive of my computer crashed a couple days ago! So for the past few days, I've been struggling to repair the drive, save my data, and get myself back into a working condition. Unfortunately, this means a delay for the next release. Don't worry, I was able to backup everything important! :-)

In the meantime, I thought y'all might be interested in this. The following image represents the visitors of this website and where they are located. Pretty cool eh?

I don't think the map is including every single visit from the beginning, since my stat counter only records the last 500 visits. So no doubt in reality it should look a bit more crowded than this shows.

Thanks to all who have helped spread the word about LRO! :-D

Version 1.1.6 Released!

2009-10-17T22:06:00.003-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Mark all. On each of the 3 status screens, there is a new button that says "Mark All as (Ordered, Received, or Delivered, on their respective screens)" This will mark all the orders that are currently visible (the new filter on each screen can be used to specify a group of orders to mark)
Added: Filtering ability on all of the Order management screens.
Added: More "behind the scenes" backups! Made a horrible mistake? Deleted something you shouldn't have? 30 "extra" backups of LRO are automatically kept, each being created when you start LRO.
Changed: Duplicate order check now says EXACTLY when the last duplicate order was, and the amount that was ordered.
Changed: Other Tools backup, both Manual and Automatic, now rename the backup file (if one exists) before making the backup. This ensures 100% accuracy...if it says the backup was sucessful, you can bet it is!
Fixed: Error message when starting to fill out an order, and then you exit LRO using the X in the upper-right corner.
Fixed: Blank Annual Items form now includes an "Index" column for Watchtower Publications Index orders.
Fixed: Request month is always retained on the next order, so you don't have to select it again.
Fixed: Mock S-28 form font. Now looks good on XP!
Minor code & cosmetic improvements.

If you haven't read the last blog about preparing for this upgrade, I suggest you do so. I doubt any of you will be affected, but I just want to cover all my bases.

I have a few more improvements in mind for the S-28 builder screens, and perhaps improve the download of new items ability, but after that I'm pretty much out of ideas. Any of you can think of something you'd like to see done? If so, please head over to the Support Forum and suggest it. :-D

Preparing for LRO 1.1.6

2009-10-17T18:27:00.003-05:00

Howdy All!

When I released 1.1.5 with the new mock S-28 form, I didn't add anything to backup any changes to the design of the mock S-28 form. So if anyone has made changes to it, which I doubt, you will need to take special measures to preserve your changes over to the new 1.1.6 version soon to be released.

If this does apply to any of you, or if anyone has any questions about this, please use the Support Forum for your question(s) or to request assistance with preserving your changes to the mock S-28 form.

Version 1.1.6 will make the proper backups of any changes to the S-28 form design. It also has quite a few nice new features.

Stay tuned!

Mistakes and corrections

2009-10-10T12:33:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

During my work on the mock S-28 form, I noticed some mistakes on the Literature List. Please review the list below and make the changes on your copy of LRO. NOTE: New users (who started with version 1.1.5) will not have to worry about this.

6005ASL marked as brochure (change to Annual Items)
6006ASL marked as brochure (change to Annual Items)
6226 misspelled (correct the spelling of "Knowledge")

I also realized the mock S-28 font on XP computers is messed up for the headers. Will have that fixed in the next release.

Version 1.1.5 released!

2009-10-04T21:47:00.002-05:00

After nearly a month of work, I am happy to announce the release of version 1.1.5, with the ability to take Inventory items and put them into a mock S-28 form!!

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Mock S-28 form
New Screen: S-28 Builder
Fixed: Error on "All Orders" report when request month is turned on.
Fixed: Item name choices remain after order is placed on Order Form (and rapid ordering is turned off).
Fixed: Error# on most reports when no data is available. Replaced it with an understandable message.
Fixed: "Items to order from all congregations" report footer length.

Now that my biggest hurdle is out of the way, it's time to work on some more goodies. One feature I plan to add will be a TLA import. Brothers who used the TLA program (The Literature Assistant) from Literaturesoft.org will be able to import their data into LRO...resulting in a smooth transition from TLA to LRO.

I hope to have the next update in 2 weeks, if all goes well.

Stay tuned!

Progress report

2009-09-30T07:50:00.004-05:00

Howdy all!

I'm still working on the next update. The biggest change is the addition of the mock S-28 form. This addition has taken MUCH longer than I expected, but in the end, it should be well worth it. You will be able to track your inventory items on LRO...and then print out a completely filled out S-28 form. Wouldn't that be sweet? :-)

Here's how it's looking so far. I've added a new button on the Inventory Management screen:

That new button takes you to the S-28 builder, where I have already built the S-28 for you. However you can use this screen to adjust the S-28 form when an update is needed (and I haven't gotten to it yet) or if your country's S-28 looks different. It's fully customizable!

Because the S-28 form has some "oddball" numbers, ones that combine S-14 items, each S-28 field will need S-14 items linked to it. So then you click on the Link Items button and link the S-14 items to the S-28 field. As many as you need!

Then, finally, the S-28 form will be designed and ready to go. Here's what I have so far (and there's MUCH work to be done on the report!!).

Yes, I still have MUCH work to do on the report. I'm confident I can get it looking 90% like the S-28 form. And then of course cleanup the new screens, steamline the process, error checking, and all that good stuff.

It will definately be nice when it is done! Stay tuned!

Still working...

2009-09-20T15:18:00.005-05:00

Howdy all!

I know it's been a while since the last LRO update. The reason why is because I've been researching cars, test driving, and finally yesterday made a purchase! So for the past couple weeks, my mind has been preoccupied with cars, cars, and more cars. I couldn't focus on programming, among other things, and so I couldn't work on an update.

Now that that's behind me, I can continue my work on LRO, and will hopefully have an update by next weekend.

Stay tuned!

PS - Why not take a few minutes to sign up in the Support Forum and leave some feedback on LRO. Got a suggestion? Found a bug? Or simply like the program? I'd love to hear from ya!

Support forum back! No ads either!

2009-09-11T17:52:00.006-05:00

Howdy all!

Due to the large increase of new LRO users, I decided to bite the bullet and pay $5/month for a nice forum with no ads. It is my hope that it will prove useful in teaching new users how to use LRO and also discuss new ideas or ways of doing things.

However...I will not pay for a "dead" forum. So let's see some activity!!! Sign up today and leave some feedback, ask questions, or make suggestions. Please...I'd love to hear from LRO's users! :-)

Thanks!

Screenshots now available

2009-09-09T21:41:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

Screenshots of the LRO program are now available for those who are interested in seeing it before downloading it. You can find it on the menu to the right under "Other Resources".

Quick-Start user guide finished!

2009-09-08T22:42:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

Sorry for the delay in getting the Quick-Start user guide finished. Had to iron out a few details. Note that the Navigation Menu on the right has been divided into two sections: Downloads and Other Resources. I felt it was necessary to split up the Navigation Menu like that. As LRO & its resources grow, this organization will become more useful. :-)

To download the User Guide, click on the link entitled "LRO Quick-Start Guide"

Even if you've explored LRO already, you might still benefit from the instructions in here. Especially if you have problems with Access giving you security warnings, there are detailed instructions on how to fix Access's security settings to work with LRO. A more detailed user guide will come later.

Next up...screenshots!

Version 1.1.4 Released!

2009-09-06T19:45:00.003-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: The ability to move a publisher and all their CURRENT orders to another congregation.
Added: Delete button on Publisher Search screen.
Added: A Reset button on the Order Form screen.
Added: The ability to view completed orders via the "View All Orders" screen.
Renamed: "View All Active Orders" to "View All Orders" due to the change above.
Renamed: "Order Form" to "Order Form & Mgmt". Makes more sense, because you manage your orders on that screen as well.
Fixed: Tab order settings on the Settings screen.
Fixed: Updated Help on Settings & Publisher search screen.
Fixed: When placing an order, the value in the Quantity field is checked when clicking the "Place Order" button instead of immediately when leaving the field. This caused some confusion.
Fixed: All reports with congregation names use concatenation instead of 2 separate labels, this will eliminate any "floating" effect with the congregation names on reports.
Changed: History report titles...made them slightly smaller to fit longer named congregations.
Changed: Speed of "Order Placed Successfully" notification. Stays solid .5 seconds longer, but fades away 2x faster.

Our Circuit Assembly was this weekend, and since we drove back and forth (a 1.75 hour trip one direction), I brought my Asus EEE netbook with me and worked on LRO in the car. And so, I was able to get this release ready.

I'm still working on the User Guide. It's about 50% done. Perhaps I will have it by tomorrow evening. No promises though. And I also plan to add screenshots of LRO here for those who want to see it before even downloading it.

Last but not least...Inventory Management is going to get a face-lift. I have an excellent idea for how to re-design it that will make converting it to a mock S-28 form much easier. I'm fairly confident I can preserve any existing Inventory data with this face-lift, but no promises in this regard. I will warn all of you if I am unable to do this. If I can successfully accomplish this face-lift, I will make the Inventory Management display at all time (no more on/off setting) because it will then be everything it needs to be to accomplish its purpose.

Version 1.1.3 Released!

2009-08-28T23:00:00.002-05:00

Changes to Literature Room Organizer include:

New Feature: Duplicate order check. This will check the previous orders (up to 12 months ago, based on your settings) and will warn on duplicate orders. Current LRO users will need to turn this on under Settings.
New Feature: Notes on orders. You can add a note on an order if needed.
Added: You can now edit orders on the Publisher Search screen (the one you see when looking up a specific publisher's orders)
Added: Any order highlighted in yellow now appears in yellow on reports as well.
Fixed: Pre-order allowed exiting when incomplete. It will now warn if you forgot to complete an entry and try to exit.
Fixed: Literature List allowed exiting when incomplete. It will now warn if you forgot to complete an entry and try to exit.
Fixed: Automatic backup to a removable drive that had no media entered did NOT give an error. Now it does.
Fixed: Backup settings did not carry over after an upgrade or restoration. Now they do.
Fixed: Changing a publisher's name will now update all of their orders to reflect their new name.
Fixed: Clearer error message if you remove the Date Placed data when editing an order.
Fixed: Quantity allowed less than 0 values on the Unordered Items screen when editing.

Alrighty all...this is the last major update. I'm officially out of ideas for improvement, and so all further releases will be bug fixes or minor adjustments. I still want to recreate the S-14 & S-28 form, but I don't think that will happen until 2010. It is going to take a LOT of work, and I don't want to put forth the effort only to have it used for a few months.

So...relax a bit...I know I will. It may be a while for the next LRO release (this time I'm serious! lol) unless bugs are discovered, or someone sends me another cool idea. Now that LRO's changes (cosmetically & functionally) have reached their peak, it's time to write a user guide. I'll bet several of you will appreciate this...and will learn things you didn't know LRO could do...or better ways of using it.

Till next time. ;-)

Support Site down

2009-08-25T17:14:00.003-05:00

Howdy all!

I don't know what happened to my support site...but it disappeared! No sign of it at all...and what's worse...there is absolutely NO WAY I can get in touch with any of the support personnel at the phpbb3now.com site. So...no more support forum.

Considering I only have a small audience at the moment, I'm not gonna sweat over finding a new one. Mr. El Cheapo here doesn't want to pay for a nice ad-free one...at least not until I get a larger audience.

So...I've included my contact information in the menu to the right (literatureroomorganizer@gmail.com). And if you would like to have a discussion about a release or any of my blogs here...feel free to leave a comment! You do NOT have to sign up to leave a comment...it can be totally anonymous or you can enter your name (or whatever). I think this will be sufficient until I get more LRO users.

Sorry for any inconveniences.