Once THE Site Company… Always THE Site Company

Recently we have been working with a couple of sites on Work Order Category distribution. 

These sites have Child Site Companies (Divisions) and one has actually made the original Site Company a Child of a younger Site Company.

I have just finished testing as to how all of this impacts the logic behind Site Defaults and their propagation across Child Site Companies and ultimately, Customer Companies who are or are not associated to one of the Child Site Companies. 

Here are some rules to keep in mind

The Original Site Company will always remain THE Site Company no matter what you do. 

Change the Company’s name or make that Company the Child of another Site company it does not matter. The SA Super Administration tabs are always the default values used by any Site level default value propagation. Making edits at a Site Company that has been made the Parent of the Company linked to the SA Administration tab screens will only change the settings for that Site Company alone. It has NO impact on any other Company.

Values that are in the Site level tables for default values are the only values passed to a Company on create. Those values are passed to a new Company regardless of the Company Type. It is a one way one time “insert”. 

Updates to Site Level values do not update a pre-existing Company. As a footnote, when a Project for a Company is created the WO distribution values of that moment are passed to the Project. Subsequent edits will not affect the distribution lists of pre-existing Projects.

You can edit the values for several setting at a Child Site Company Summary, page but those values apply only to the Projects and Assets of that Company and have no influence on the default values of a Customer Company associated to that Child Site Company. Nor will those edits have any impact on the Parent Site Company.

The Parent Site Company values are THE only default values passed down to any Company. There is NO Child Site Company level default value table.

Customer Company's can have their own unique WO distribution lists but they must be managed at the Customer Company level.

It is recommended that you make the configuration of WO distribution lists, when the information is known, a regular part of your Customer Company create sequence.

Note: As always give us a call if you want to discuss.

Celebrating our 200th Blog: “Well…duh!”

 It seems only fitting that our 200^th Blog should be a terrific addition that was the result of one of our User’s direct requests.

During a recent review with one of our long time subscriber sites, we were reviewing current practices and improvement opportunities. One of the daily Users of the Work Order module offered up how difficult it was sometimes to issue an addendum when you could not remember exactly what had been said in earlier releases. Sure you could flip away to another screen and find the information, but frankly that was a pain. Simple solution, display all of the prior releases for a WO category when you call that Category for an additional release. Well… duh!

This suggestion has been added.

Yes... you can Cut & Paste from the text displayed from earlier releases and then edit in the text box. Just be sure you get your cursor to display in the box before trying to Paste.

Note: Keep those wonderful ideas coming. We really enjoy adding features that make our user communities more productive.

Print Work Order / Addendum get Blue Headers

An often over looked Menu Service function gets a new face improving readability.

While generally forgotten by most, Print Work Order / Addendum is truly a wonderful tool when you need to sort through all those many changes to the original Work Order to understand just what you are really supposed to be producing. To make that even easier to read we have added Blue Header breaks like you have seen across the system.

So next time you need to find all the changes made to one item, or want to discuss one part of a larger project; instead of flipping through 30 pages of printed material give this tool a try.

Your Home Page can now be even more colorful!

And... cleaner as well as easier to read with our new icon set.

First, if you are using the G2S Flag. Instead of that unattractive “X” you can now enjoy a cool shopping cart icon for a G2S Project.

In addition if you are using the Work Order Status column on your Home Page, with the unusually clunky text descriptions for the three statuses of a Work Order you can now enjoy a Graphical representation of statuses.

No Work Order

Work Order written but not released

Work Order released


Tip: If you like the really narrow look, like I am showing for the Work Order icons you can use the < ICON_BLANK_ > feature in front of the column name on the first Filter screen. Like the three icons in use for Project navigation.

Sometimes you want to complete...sometimes you don't.

Now you have a choice.

The Task sent when a Work Order or Addendum is released opens a preview of the work order categories to which the User has been included in the distribution list. In the past simply clicking on the link itself would mark the Task complete.

That has been changed and the user is now in control. The Task will no longer immediately close on the selection of the Task. Instead the actual work order information screen now has two buttons.

Mark Complete: Closes the screen, places the User on the Project Home page and marks the Task Complete.
Close: Closes the screen, places the User on the Project Home page leaves the Task Open.

Tip: The Link for the Task which will remain visible on the Project Home page will remain live, even though the Task has been marked complete.