Shows get an Additional Information Upgrade

Not long ago I blogged about SHOWS.

See | Show Table offers New Reporting Value

Shows just got better, able to save you and your team even more time. With the addition of a new orange button Additional Info, found on the Add/Edit screen for a Show. 

Selecting Additional Info will take the user to a mini-Project Summary screen for the Show displaying several familiar Blue Bars. FACILITY, SHOW MANAGEMENT, GENERAL CONTRACTOR, ADVANCE SHIPPING ADDRESS, MARSHALING YARD and DIRECT SHIPPING ADDRESS.

By populating these data fields, just once, every Project that is created with an association to the Show, will automatically be updated with these values. This is a one way, one time post to the Project on the Create command. Projects created before the data is entered will not receive the data; edits made to the data at the Show level after a Project has been associated will not receive the data updates. If a Project was already Created and later associated to the Show, the data in the Show will not overwrite data already entered in the Project prior to the association with the Show.  Additionally you can edit the individual values of an associated Project without affecting the data for other Projects associated to the Show or the Show’s master data values.

Quick click icons make things easier

Don’t hate me. I could have done this ‘years” ago! I just never asked.

May I present for your clicking amusement two new but familiar icon shortcuts in an entirely new setting. When you use the Select a Project function, in addition to the original hyperlink from the Project Name to the Project Home Page, there are now those familiar icon shortcuts that will take you directly to the Project’s Summary Page or into the Project’ folder directory.

ENJOY!

Show Table offers New Reporting Value

Most of the time we are focused on a single Customer and their Project.  However it is not uncommon that a site will have many Customers going to a single SHOW. Think about sending three clients to CES 2012. (I know that sounds pretty good.)

In the circumstance above, there are real advantages to sharing specific data values across all of these Projects and having the ability to roll-up all of that data; like the Pick-Lists to give to the shop, all of the shipping requirement so you can merge shipments and of course passing all the Packing lists to your EAC set-up partner. 

Here are those new reports I just discussed. They all have the word SHOW in them. They look just like their original Project versions. You will need to add to the appropriate Roles for your site.

On the Create a Project Screen you’ll find two new entries.

You can select an Exiting Show. If you don’t see the Show you want you can use Add/Edit Show to Add a new Show or Edit an existing one.

When you select a Show it will default into the Project’s name. You can edit if you wish.

If you elect to Add a new Show it only takes two required values.

You can choose to add additional information like the Facility and Open and Close dates. This is a version 1 release. Over the coming months more data fields will be added and some additional reporting will be added.

Keep in mind all data copy overs are one time, one way only. If edits are made to a Show, it will not update a Project that is already associated to the Show. You can return to the Project’s edit information screen, deselect the Show and then re-select the Show to update. However if you have made specific edits to any of the values that are copying over it will overwrite those changes as well. There are alert statements to warn you regarding your choices.
Note: And yes in the near future you will be able to Copy Shows forward.

Facility Drop Down Upgrade

You may have noticed or been contacted by your Users about the Facility Drop down that appeared several weeks back on the Create and Edit screens for a Project. It will activate tomorrow.

So what does it do?

On the Create Sequence of a Project you can now select from a drop down of Facilities stored on our database. We have limited the list dramatically from our total number of records. Reasoning that 80% plus of your projects are likely to occur in less than a few hundred different facilities nationwide, we are starting with a limited set of Facility entries. If you have facilities that your site requires, that are not on the list, contact us and we can add them for you.

When selected the system will populate the Create screen and pass the data to the Facility Blue Bar on the Project Summary screen.

In addition on each of the three Shipping Address screens [Advance,  Direct,  Marshaling] you will find a new orange button. Get Facility. This button will call the Facility Address information to the shipping screen where you can edit as required.

After the initial data call, the Facility and Shipping Address information will work independently. i.e. edits to the Facility screen or Project Information screen will not automatically overwrite a Shipping Address nor change an already created shipment. Likewise any edits to one shipping Address will not affect the other two Shipping Address entries.


Note: Do be sure to pass this update along to your user community as there will be little noticeable change except for the orange button and some text on the Shipping Address screens. After all, "We" know that nobody reads the screens, much less updates made to existing copy.

Status is now a required field

We have made Status a required field when you create a Project. This new requirement will help get Project’s into a Site defined Status as it requires a Select One from the Status drop down on create.

This will prove helpful for those Sites who are trying to get their User community to be a bit more compliant with their work flow requirements.

You can select still select NO STATUS from the drop down if you choose, as a default it will still be there along with Canceled. Any other Status options are yours to control.

Your Go2Show Users won’t notice a change as we are defaulting their selection in. You can of course edit a Go2Show project if you want to bring those Projects into your work flow protocol.

Note: Be careful when editing your Status selection options. If you take an existing Status out of the options you run the risk of losing those Projects in that Status for Users who are running customized Filter settings.

If you experience that occurrence, you can always return the Status type to your select options and then edit all existing Projects in that Status to be in one of your new options.

Special Alert ! Update to Permission set.

No good deed goes unpunished.

While we were responding to a site administrator’s inquiry to limit their AEs access to the Project Information Edit screen on the Project Summary (the TOP Blue Bar). We discovered that a Permission, called Edit Project Information was not working correctly.

We have fixed that issue, but …..
YOU MAY GET CALLS FROM USERS WHO CAN NO LONGER EDIT THE PROJECT INFORMATION.

Don't panic if you want that User’s Role to have the permission to Edit the Project Information, just go to the User’s Role and click the one check box “ EDIT” associated with the Permission, EDIT PROJECT INFORMATION.

You’ll find it under the Project grouping on the Services & Permissions screen in Super Administration for each Role.

Sorry for any potential inconvenience but it is likely it was already checked so there will be no change from the User side. It was not so much a question of turning it on as it was one of being able to turn it off. So now if you do want to limit your internal User’s ability to access that EDIT screen you can. The code is functioning correctly.

If you find you want help to do just that, feel free to contact me for a lesson on Groups.


Note: This is the 100th Blog on calan insights.

We are checking on your Dates.

Not the activity in your personal life; the really important ones in the system.

When you create a Project we now validate that the Open Date is Before the Close date.

Note that the system will allow the two dates to be the same.


We have also added a similar validation to our Add/Edit Shipping screens. When you create a shipment we compare Pick Up Date with Delivery Date.

Note that we do not compare either date to the Project’s Open or Close Dates. A shipment TO or FROM a Project could occur anytime before, during or after the Open & Close Dates of the actual Project. And while we allow you to assign Time to these two shipping dates we do not validate Pickup Time against Delivery Time.

Edit a Project’s Associated Company.

Back by popular demand…just be careful what you ask for!!

On the Project Summary screen, under the blue bar Project Information, the system used to allow you the ability to edit the Company associated to a Project. This function was removed several months back due to potential to create errors in your data.

However we have recently received a number of requests asking use to change data and/or restore access to the function. With some reservation we have elected to restore the service. In fact it is on right now.

Starting tomorrow however, you will see the following Alert Statement. As it suggests just be sure of your decision to edit.

Tip: This is all the more reason to be careful to whom you give the permission to edit Project Information  menu service. You may recall we made this a discrete selection recently.

Blogger's Note: I love when other folks software burps!....sorry about that earlier post.

Editing a Project’s Company after Create

Not possible starting tomorrow morning.

If a Project is created for the wrong Company we had, up untill today, allowed a user to change that choice under the blue bar, Project Summary > Project Information.

Now when you arrive on that edit screen you will find that drop down is grayed out and non-editable.

Why the change you might ask? We have discovered several very good reasons, not the least of which is just how unhappy the system becomes when the two companies in question have different customized budget screens, are not “related” and the external Project Owners are not members of any group for the second Company or the second Company does not have G2S and this is a G2S type Project.

This has certainly not been a common occurrence, or I’m sure we would have heard about the potential issues earlier. But it is clearly correct to add this code, given the set of opportunities for bad things to happen with the data; given all the flexibility in customizing one Company’s settings verses another.

Tip: Let your users know they should pay attention and not work for three days on a Project before they realize it was the wrong Company. Their only recourse now, is to ask you to delete the first Project and create a new one for the correct Company.