Thank
you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I love your software! You've simplified my job
by 300% and have allowed me to make people happy by scheduling around their schedules.
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Previous
releases
New
in Version 4.1
- Introduces
login-based security for your Smartroster users. This feature implements
levels of authority and allows users to edit and access relevant data
while preventing alteration to data or schedules to which they are
not authorised. This is great for allowing Role or Role-group coordinators
or Event coordinators to create their own schedules while preserving
the integrity of data outside those areas.
New
in Version 4.0
- New PDF report
engine - as a result, PDF report creation is 3 times faster. The default
report save format is now PDF
- New View >
Fullscreen (F11) option to make the most of large screens
- New email backend
for greater compatibility across platforms and operating systems,
with slight speed enhancement
- New WebShare
backend. Now uses Amazon Web Services (S3 service) for greatly improved
security, reliability and speed
- Changed the look
and colors of the main window panels for better contrast and aesthetics
- Tidied up all
fonts to Arial (TT fonts) instead of MS SansSerif and made font sizes
consistent
- EmailQueue is
MUCH faster to initially show old messages (viewing archived messages)
- When sending
the same attachment file to many people, it no longer makes a separate
copy for each individual (since the file is the same for each person
receiving)
-
Right-click menu in schedule timeslots shows a message if a person
exceeds the automatic usage target but still allows them to be used
- Double click
in an empty part of a schedule cell automatically brings up 'add comment'
entry box (like right-click > 'add comment')
- If a person's
name is typed into a comment matching a person in the database then
that person will be scheduled rather than a comment being added
- Can
select to save files compressed or uncompressed. This is useful to
open files saved in version 4.0 in earlier versions of smartroster
(as the compression format in 4.0 is not backwardly compatible)
- Changed People
properties dialog in the report parameters dialog to be a real dialog
instead of a pseudo-dialog
- At startup, automatically
attempts to reopen webshare file from the web (if WebShare file was
the last open)
- Numerous
additional fixes
New
in Version 3.8
- Use + and - keys
(or schedule menu) to enlarge or shrink the schedule grid (fit more
or less on screen)
- Can right-click
"copy cell" in any schedule cell to copy the text of the
cell to the clipboard
- New + and - buttons
in the mail window to add or remove the respective item
- New "Email
Tech-support" under the Help menu (assumes email is configured
and working)
- Word reports
now work with vb script files
- Consistent "+"
and "-" buttons for adding or removing from lists
- Change the to
[Schedule] field code. Can now include the date format in the code,
eg [Schedule:d-mmm-yyyy]
- Hovering the
mouse over a name in the People panel will highlight the person in
the schedule (if in visible area)
- New report "Personal
Profile" allows sending selected details ("on file")
to individuals for review/correction/return
- New Shortcuts:
"e" = hide/show Events panel, "p" = hide/show
People panel,
"r" = hide/show Roles panel, "s" = hide/show Schedules
panel,
New
in Version 3.7
- New
absences entry dialog for entering absences - greatly speeds up data entry
- New
absences summary report
- Send
reminders via SMS/text messages (can still use email reminders or even both) with
settings to determine for each volunteer how they prefer to receive reminders
New
in Version 3.6 - New
main window toolbar icons and modified main window colours
- Supports
exporting and importing of UsageTargets and EnforcedBreak
- Line
wrapping in reports much improved - now wraps long lines to fit so that text is
not hidden
- New
AM or PM indicator when adding single dates - helps add simple half day periods
- New
'change back to default' button to change event or role-groups colour back to
default
- [RoleNames]
field type added - only shows role names without role member usage targets
- Added
additional date format for reports "mmm-dd <Day>"
New
in Version 3.5 - New
Help subsystem - now is Windows Vista (tm) - compatible
- Added
new StartDate field for Person and Role-Member - can be reported, used in filters
and reduces a person's automatically generated target where they start after the
beginning of the current schedule
- StartDate
also affects availability - ie not available before startdate
- Modified
WebShare to make it slightly quicker and require fewer connections, and WebShare
messages are more informative
- Added
new "Secondary" property to role-event; if a role is secondary a person
must be scheduled to primary role first (applies only to compatible roles)
- When
bulk emailing - people not active as role member will not be copied bulk emails
sent to that role
- Improved
"Valid Event" panel to show additional properties
- Can
now report just the Vacant slots
Using the "Master Schedule"
report, if <Master copy> is selected and "Hide non-recipients"
ticked and you turn on show vacant slots (Schedule > Show vacant)
- Can
now send to multiple email addresses for a single person (using semicolon to separate
email addresses)
eg useful to send the same message to a child
and his/her parent - If
colour is used for Events, a pale version of the colour extends across the whole
row
- Was slow
to start when a networked printer was the default printer. This has been improved
New
in Version 3.4 - Role
Compatibility can now be qualified by Event (3.308)
- Added
ability to toggle column and row locks in single menu selection (3.308)
- Allow
one-off delete of pre-assigned timeslots using ALT key (3.310)
- Added
new warning if entering dates that occur in the past (3.313)
- Can
attach separate files for each role/event when sending reminders
- Saves
filter history so you can easily choose from previously used filters
- Does
not send reminder for people working on roles that are not being scheduled
- New
Uni-directional association preference (tick the box in the associations dialog)
- eg. John should
always be scheduled with Jack but Jack can be scheduled independently
- Absences
in the Update Person Details dialog now shows full details
- Now
easily publish ANY report directly to your web site in a single click operation
(3.410)
New
in Version 3.304 - The
sender of email messages is now shown in the email dialog as well as email options
and can be changed in either location
- Field
codes list for right-click in email message are sorted, and "Custom_"
no longer appears on its own.
-
Warning "would exceed target" no longer shows for people who do not
have an explicit usage target set
- New
dialog for updating patterns (Event, Absence, Role-absence, Pre-assignment, Role-pattern)
- New
dialog for updating usage targets - makes it much clearer how to do this and what
the fields mean
- New
dialog for updating association preferences
- New
feature allows export and import of the schedule data separate from the rest of
the data
New
in Version 3.3 - New
Event colours
- Allows user to select any colour for the event name
in scheduled grid
New
Event enforced break - Enforces the break you enter after a
person is scheduled in the respective event
New
Role-Group colours - Allows user to select any colour for all the roles
in a role group - These roles show with the respective colour in the schedules
grid
- New
Send Email vCalendar attachments
- Can now attach vCal format file so
people can import their calendar straight into a compatible email/calendar app
- New
usage target option: can now specify x "Days" per
xxx interval
- previously only supported "times" or
"hours"
- New
"Combine events on same date" report option
- for Master
II report, shows a single column (or row) for all events on the same day
- New
"Show Contact List" option for schedule type reports
- appends
phone contacts to any schedule of type Individual, Master, or Calendar
- Event
Roles dialog - now uses the same dialog as when you click in Valid Events
panel for a role for consistency
- All
reports now also show the time as well as the date created
- Changed
Report Parameter dialog to use check LIST box for boolean report options - allows
easier addition of new options, and more consistent layout
- In
the alternate grid format (People by Event) cells are crosshatched for any any
times where a person is absent
- Can
now define the start and end time for adhoc date ranges that span multiple days
- Time
drop-down boxes now show many more rows making it easier to select the time
- Terminology
change: "Fixed Usage" to "Usage Target" which is consistent
now across the program (as this was essentially the same thing)
- Important
fix for usage targets which used the 3rd interpretation "In any
x days" (as opposed to "in every x days" or "avg
over the whole period") which was not working correctly where people
were scheduled on most days
- Can
now email schedule to people who are not actually scheduled or even on a role
- New
Auto Update counter reset button under File > Options
- to force
updating when "Check for Update on startup" or manual "Check for
updates" thinks you are already uptodate
New
in Version 3.207 - New
field type HomePhone which always returns the home phone number (whether or not
a person is in a family)
- EmailQueue
and Email forms show HTML preview pages as proper web pages instead of just text
- Email form
allows editing using new "Edit as text" button for HTML page
- SMTP
(Default) and SMTP (Alternate) both send HTML emails (not available for MAPI mail
protocol)
- New
column into Email Reminders form showing the schedule for each person listed for
the period selected
New
in Version 3.2 New
Custom Personnel fields - Create any number of new user-defined
fields for your personnel records - Use the completely re-designed personnel
inventory report to report on your own fields (see below) - Use the new fields
to define filters - for use in main screen, in reports, or in dynamic groups -
Import directly into the new user-defined fields New
improved method of insertion of field codes into reminders or emails -
Greatly expanded list of possible field codes - virtually any personnel information
can be inserted into emails - Much easier method of inserting field codes into
email - pick from the list to insert (does not rely on your spelling!)
Faster
AutoFill - Autofill
is up to 200% faster due to improvements to scheduling engine Completely
re-written email dialog - Now all email dialogs
are consistent, whether a reminder, bulk email, personal email, or sending a report
Improved
Roles and Schedule tab of personnel details dialog -
shows much more detail - allows you to manage a person roles in the "Update
Person Details" dialog Completely
re-written Personnel Inventory report - User-selectable columns
to report - including new custom fields - Report Names in rows or columns -
Set your own order of fields to report - Uses the new Properties button in
the report parameters entry dialog New
Calendar format schedule report Great looking
Calendar format especially useful where you have things happening on most days
of the week New
Usage Target type - Previously you could choose
"Average over the schedule" or "Max in each consecutive
<period>" - Now you can select "Max in any <period>",
eg "2 times in any given 2 week
period". - The new option guarantees that for a given person they
will never be scheduled more than so many times in ANY period of the determined
length no matter when the period begins. -
You can use this feature to create enforced breaks that only apply within a group
of roles or events (if 1 time is selected) Dynamic
groups now auto-calculate on file load Dynamic filters can be defined using
any of the new personnel field codes - including new custom fields Dynamic
filters for Events fixed New
option "CC message to Group email" for bulk emails
(new check box "CC message to Group email") - only available if
you select "Each member of selected household[group]" in the drop down
for selecting people
New
Label Templates (button on Report Paramaters form) - allows the user
to customise the content of label reports (eg put email address or Phone numbers
onto the label)
Group
members list now sorts Members by "surname, firstname" Can
now add in household and groups as members of another group using the add button Fixed
problem with MAPI email protocol (error when sent from Outlook "None of your
email accounts were able to send the message") - Numerous
other bugs fixed
New
in Version 3.1 - New
Advanced
Filters
- Now you can easily create advanced filters to restrict the
people you see in the people panel, or the people selected for reports - Filters
can be based on the content of: Address, Age, Email, Events, Fax, Phone (fixed
or mobile), Fullname, Groups, Notes, Postcode, PreferredName, Roles, Sex, State,
Surname, Title, Town, Active, and ScheduledCount. - You can create complex
filters by combining conditions such as "All females with surname starting
with "S" younger than 23 who live in post code 2345" and including
membership of groups, roles, or events which gives unlimited flexibility (this
assumes you have a group called females and added all females into it)
- New
HTML Email
You can now send email in HTML (Web page) format. As long as
the text of the message as the tags <HTML> and </HTML> present then
SmartRoster will treat the message as html
- New
Show Unscheduled Persons
New menu "Schedule > Show unscheduled
persons" displays a new column showing all persons for each event who have
not yet been scheduled for that event
- New
Dynamic groups
Define a group whose membership is based on an advanced
filter. You don't add or delete people manually from these groups but instead
the members are calculated dynamically each time the group is referenced, using
the search filter you have set
New
in Version 3.0 - Announcing
WebShare for file sharing over the internet
-
Seamlessly share data between multiple computers — even in entirely different
locations! - Use our secure high performance FTP servers OR use your
own internet file server, at your option! (FTP protocol required
to use your own server) - three simple new options under the file menu make
it easy to open or save your SmartRoster file to the internet - specify whether
a particular workstation can update webshare files or is read-only
- New
Global Restrictions
Similar to role-event restrictions, you can now set
restrictions that apply to a group of roles rather than just a single role
- New
Schedule Panel format - Personnel on the vertical axis (left) , event date/time
in the horizontal axis (top)
- This new format will suit those where the
majority of personnel serve frequently. The existing format may suit those
with large numbers of serving personnel, where each person serves infrequently. -
A new report has been created - Master II - which mirrors this new layout (choose
whether people are columns or rows) - This new format makes use of Role
Abbreviations, both in the Schedules grid, and on reports
- New
"Show Active Only" option to People menu.
If
selected then all non-active (unticked) persons are hidden
- New
Archive option under the email queue.
This means your can archive
older sent items so that you don't have to scroll down the complete list of all
items ever sent each time you show sent items. Archived items are still available
to browse or even re-send. No information is lost.
- New
AutoNumber feature (Role-event setting) randomly assigns unique number to
all occupants of same timeslot
- New
"Member availability affects group" option on the Members tab when
updating a person allows you to indicate whether a group's availability during
Auto scheduling is affected by the group-member's availability
- New
Paste menu option on Role Member menus permits easy copy/paste of members
between roles
eg. use Copy in one role and Paste in another role to copy members
across roles
- New
check on file open will disallow opening of a file in a version of SmartRoster
earlier than the file's version
Changes in this release mean that important
data could be lost if this check were not made
- Improved
SmartExplain
now shows the reason why a person cannot be dropped
into a cell as a hint alongside the mouse pointer
- Encrypted
files are now much smaller (the same size as non-encrypted files) and more secure
(not even Davallia Technology can open encrypted files without the password -
so don't forget it!)
- Can
edit absences for multiple role members in a single edit (Shift-select the members
then click on Absences button)
New
in Version 2.5 New
File Sharing protocol (if you purchased multiple licenses)
- Enable the File Sharing protocol under the File > Options menu. This
facilitates multiple users accessing the same SmarRoster file (such as in a LAN
environment) by sharing write access to the file, while still allowing read access -
File sharing can be enabled independently for each separate SmartRoster database.
New
Round Robin scheduling - You can now specify that the members of a
role will be scheduled in a round robin fashion , that is, a strict repeating
sequence. Role members will be scheduled in the order they appear in the role
members panel. NOTE, Round Robin scheduling ignores association preferences but
does consider personal, family, or role-member absences. - Order
role-members. You may also now change the order of members in the role members
panel, useful if you want to use round-robin scheduling. Just Un-tick the sorted
menu choice in the role-members context menu and then change the order by dragging
and dropping role members. New
Fixed Usage Target options You can now decide how usage targets
are interprete:; either as an average for the whole roster, or the maximum in
each contiguous period. eg. "a Maximum of 1 time in each calendar month",
or "an Average of 1 time per month over the whole roster". Also set
targets in counts or hours (eg, "a maximum of 40 hours in each 4 week period
starting on ...") New
Always on Same Role option when adding an association preference.
By using this option, you can easily specify that two people must always be
scheduled in the same role, without adding individual preferences between each
person and each role or role-group.
- New
Create Linked Roles. When defining a Role-Group you can now link the
roles together. This insures that the role members of each role in a role-group
are automatically synchronised. Changes to a member of one role are automatically
replicated to each linked role.
- Auto
Scheduling changes
- New
Optimisation options. Now you may specify which of four different
optimisation variables to optimise, and which variable has priority over which.
You can now optimise for increased volunteer participation (to increase
the total number of people scheduled during the roster period).
- Reporting
changes
- New Distribution
Summary report - Also for both the Distribution Summary and Role Distribution
reports you can select the value to report - count, hours, or target. - New
Absences report - easily see on one page all absence records for selected
people in a selected period
- New
Costing functionality
(Only available in the Commercial (unlimited persons) license)
- Enter hourly
rates and penalty rates and report costs in Role Distribution and Distribution
Summary reports - Optimise the schedule to reduce total cost based on hourly
rates
New
in Version 2.4 Email
changes - New Email Queueing
subsystem to control email sending, view status of emails, review exactly
what the recipient will be getting, and even edit the message prior to sending,
and automatic archival of sent messages. Just select "View message queue"
from the Email menu. Works both for distribution and reminders. Old emails can
be kept indefinitely, or deleted as desired. New "Auto Send" option
allows you to decide whether to send immediately or allow review before sending. -
New Email protocol -
SMTP (Default). This is our most reliable format so far and supports email
authentication where this is required by the server. The old SMTP protocol
has been renamed as SMTP (Alternate) and is still available.
Constraints
modelling - All associations preferences can now specify a role group
as well as a role or event - Household and group associations can now also
specify an Role or Role group, and/or an Event. - Can now add a preference
to a person to work with themselves on another role. This allows for specifying
that a person always work on multiple roles, without making the roles strongly
compatible, which would effect everyone in those roles (although the roles must
still be "not incompatible") - Right-click to select people for manual
scheduling will not show people who have exceeded their targets for the role - Auto
Scheduling changes
- Up to 50% speed improvement
has been achieved by internal changes to the way associations and groups are
handled! - For persons that have a keep-together preference, SmartRoster now
tries to schedule them in the same role before scheduling in different roles for
the same event
Reporting
changes - Preference satisfaction report now reports "%together"
which shows the average number of people in a group with a keep-together preference
that are actually scheduled during the same event - Ability to replace scheduled
groups or households with the individual member names in reports
New
in Version 2.305 -
Role Members list will display Event in grey if a role member can only serve one
event, and it will not let the user enter the Event if only one is possible (avoids
redundant, confusing data entry).
-
When creating a association preference, it checks whether both persons share the
role, if a role is given (to avoid impossible preferences)
- Added
email SMTP authentication method and tidied up the Email Options dialog
-
Fixed problem with Person drop down box when adding association preference
- Fix
problem with changing "Include role in roster" tick box, then changing
to a different schedule period
New
in Version 2.3 User
interface improvements..
- New
Windows
XP look and feel. such as rounded, 3D buttons -
Rosters grid now shows "<Vacant>"
for each timeslot vacancy
(select the option from Rosters menu) - Easily clear old absence records ("People
| Clear absences" menu) - When editing a new Event "Copy From event"
will make all persons available for the copied event available for the new event
- New
Role-Groups / Event-Groups
-
Define Role-groups under the Roles menu and Event-groups under the Events menu -
Use these groups to create usage targets restricted to a subset of roles and/or
events - Use role groups to report a group of roles in a single column (such
as in the Master roster report)
- Auto
Scheduling changes
·
New Usage targets may be restricted
to a subset of roles and/or events (using the new role-/event-groups - Can
now use people groups as a short cut to apply usage targets to multiple individuals
at once - New person pre-assignment
(similar to role member pre-assignment) which takes into account related roles
or persons - Timeslot counting for individuals does not double up for a person
on multiple roles for the same event (which should count as one) - Improved
balancing of role targets for same person across multiple roles - Block-scheduling
a person "Consecutively X Times" for a role in an event (eg "AM
Service") can now be specified as "Consecutively X Days/Weeks/Months".
In this case the person is scheduled for as many events (eg AM Services) as occur
in the specified period, regardless of how many times that is.
- Reporting
changes
- New print
multiple roles in a single column as if they were the same role (with a role abbreviation
suffix) - New "Association
preference satisfaction" report shows which preferences were satisfied and
which were not - New sign-in
sheet -- the "Event-per-page" report has been extensively improved.
The "Show attendance columns" option allows you to show each Attendance
Status flag as a column next to the names for producing a sign-in sheet. -
Also the "Event-per-page"
report exports to Word correctly and does not show roles when a role is not required
by an event - Event comment (under "Show extra" --> "Include
dates" tab) now prints correctly on all reports - "Role Members"
report now also exports to Word
- Email
- Now remembers the last text of bulk emails or any report sent through
email - The Distribution dialog allows easy single click clear-all or select-all
for the "By Email" and "By Post" check boxes - When sending
it automatically un-ticks correctly sent messages making it easy to retry sending
unsent messages
New
in Version 2.2 - New
Role-Event Restrictions by Group membership
- You can now restrict
the numbers of people to assign to each role-event combination (or for a role
and all events) by the group they belong to. For instance, "Kindy
helper" role in the 10:00am service must have "at least one Female"
(assumes you have a Group called "Female"), or, for the "Sound
Tech" role in <All Events> must have no more than one "Trainee
sound tech" (assumes you have a Group called "Trainee sound tech").
- Restrictions types
include "at least..", "exactly", "at most..", and
"all or none". In the latter case, for instance, if you have a "Males"
group then this would allow you to set "must be ALL male or ALL female".
- Multiple restrictions can be set for the same Role-Event pair -
Note: the Trainee flag for Role Members has been superseded by this feature, but
it is retained for backwards compatibility. You can still use the Trainee flag
feature; it will continue to work as expected - New
Role-member pre-assignments
Double-click on a role member to
pre-assign them to the schedule (before manual or automatic assignments). Can
pre-assign according to any pattern such as "every second week", or
"the first and third Sunday of every other month". Pre-assignments show
as green in the rosters grid
- New
"Yearly"
Event pattern recurrence type
Can
specify an event as occurring "Yearly" which is great for those anniversary
type events like Christmas and Boxing day. You don't have to specify the exact
year which means you don't have to change the date every year. While the Monthly
tab could have been used for this, it was not very obvious to many users
- New
Attendance status
Create your own attendance status descriptions
and then apply them to historic schedules to indicate attendance (or lack of)
for people who were supposed to serve. Then run the new "Attendance"
Report which counts for each person's attendance status. A person in the schedules
grid with an attendance status assigned has the red
A flag next to their name. - User
interface improvements..
-
"Applies to Events" box in the Roles panel now shows all info at a glance
- "Compatible Roles"
box in the Roles panel now shows both roles and compatibility strength at a glance
- The Events panel now shows information about the Event in the main panel
- When editing events can now
select "Copy From" to copy settings from another event - Can re-order
Roles when shown in List format by dragging role up or down the list - Double
click on a role when in the List format to rename the role - Reporting
changes
- New
option - "Hide non-recipients" will only show the recipient's name
on a roster report, rather than everyone, which makes it easier for them to see
where they are scheduled - Increased the size of the Recipients name in the
header of roster reports to make it more visible - Email
fixes
- Minor
fixes to SMTP emailing to work better from within a LAN environment - Added
utility ("ClickYes", by ContextMagic.com) to fix an issue with the new
Outlook security features introduced in Outlook 2000 (SR2 and newer) which causes
a popup message when you use the MAPI method of sending mail New
in Version 2.1 - New!
Role Member absences - distinct from person absences, apply only to a person
in a role (and also in a specific event if that is given).
- New!
"Trainee"
role members. Trainees are always assigned with at least one non-trainee to
a given role
- New!
"Role Members" report -
lists contact details for people with separate page for each role/event combination
- New!
drag and drop handling automatically assigns always keep together persons,
and a person to mandatory roles
- New!
Role > Display As menu - can now display roles as tabs OR as a list in
a list box - great for when you have many roles
- New!
"Treat group as one" check box in theRole Event properties dialog.
Will allocate a group as if it was a single person
- Improved
comment handling - A person's name entered as a comment is automatically converted,
and unused comments are automatically deleted. Also can now manage comments from
the Comment tab of the people panel.
- Removed
option 'Interpret "Always
keep together" preference literally'. "Always together"
is now always enforced. Please use "Strongly prefer together" if you
do not want the relationship strictly enforced.
- All
reports exported to MS Word have tables set so that single rows do not span multiple
pages.
-
The "role inventory" report now only includes the actual roster period
(not look back period) in count of actual usage.
- Changed
the way role members who do NOT have a fixed usage target are allocated - makes
the actual usage much more even in some instances.
- Fixed
problems with allocating role members "consecutive" times (>1). Was
sometimes not working, or ignoring other constraints.
- Fixed
compatible roles handling - not always allocating a person to "Mandatory"
compatible roles.
- Fixed
"...TEMP" events! Those occasional events with "TEMP" suffixed
are history.
- Fixed
export to Word for reports with horizontal dates.
New
in Version 2.03 - Autoscale
all fonts in all reports - New "Multiply all font sizes" field in report
parameters entry window allow you to scale the fonts in any report compared to
the page size. Either expand or shrink the fonts by any amount
- Can now enter
a person's home phone details without needing to create a separate household
record for them - great if you aren't using household (family) records
- Smartroster
now shows the number of active (ticked) people in the current file - useful for
customers with limited-person licenses
- Fix
for "Always keep apart" - two people could still be scheduled together
if on different but overlapping events
New
in Version 2.02 (encorporating 2.01)
- New!
Role Distribution report - great for analysing who is being scheduled most
or least often
- New!
Auto Web Update feature - look under menu Options | Organisation
This feature allows you to never miss an update! If you have online access,
this will (optionally) check for updates and download and install them fully automatically.
- New!
"Copy to clipboard" button in the SmartRoster Viewer
Run any
report in SmartRoster, and just click on the "Copy to clipboard" button
in the viewer to transfer the text in convenient tab-delimited format into the
clipboard, where you can paste it into any application you like for formatting
or analysis - New!
tiered license structure makes Smartroster more affordable for
smaller organisations!
By accepting a limit on the number of people that can be entered,
all the scheduling, reporting and email features of SmartRoster are
made available at a reduced price. Great for smaller churches. See
here for pricing details.
- New
"Clear all" and "Select all" buttons into the Events tab of
the “Update person details” dialog, and in the Events panel
- "Copy
to clipboard" menu option added to the People menu (puts all personnel details
into the clipboard in tab-delimited format)
- New
options for controlling how non-fixed usage is allocated
New
in Version 2.0 - new!
full context-sensitive online help
- just hit F1 or the Help button in
any screen - User
interface improvements
- new!
Windows XP-like open/save dialogs - new!
Role Notes - new!
Role Members list can be shown as list view or detail view, the latter giving
additional information - new!
Set the name format as "Firsname", "Firsname Lastname",
or "Lastname, Firsname" (Role list and Rosters grid) - Re-order
the events in the events list by drag-and-drop - When dragging group/household
from people panel to role members, can now select to add individuals from the
group as role members instead of just the group itself - Repainting of the
rosters grid is now much smoother - Right-click menu over the grid loads faster
- Previous/Next period buttons work correctly over month boundaries when selecting
the roster period - <Ctrl>-dbl-click on a role member displays the person's
record rather than the role member record - People and Role-Member lists maintain
their current position when editing a person or role member - New "Copy"
menu in the RoleMember, Event, and Rosters grid popup menus allows you to easily
copy a list of Role Members, Events or the Schedule grid respectively, to paste
into your word processor or spreadsheet. - Reporting
improvements
- new! Role Inventory
report, which can also be published to Word (2000 or higher) - new!
Personnel Inventory report, which can also be published to Word (2000 or higher)
- One-line Directory report can now also be published to Word (2000 or higher)
- SmartRoster print document format now stores the page settings
correctly - AutoFill
improvements
-
new! Workload balancing algorithm -
totally rewritten - intelligently balances workload (usage) target across
multiple events -
Contraint score calculation is now updates immediately on any grid change, manual
or automatic - Email
- Add field
codes to messages (subject and body) for substituting with actual values -
Cancel buttons works correctly for SMTP email - History
retention
-
Now keeps full history of previous schedules in the same file. Previous schedules
are only deleted when you use the "Clear" function. - Fixed
- Fixed the import form, which was too large in lower resolutions - Role
Patterns now work correctly -
Timer problem fixed which caused AutoFill timer to immediately time out
New
in Version 1.42 - Import
people's events
Added ability to import and export of people's valid
events. It automatically creates the events if they don't exist, but you still
need to configure the events (the event properties are not imported) - Improved
import from native SmartRoster (.ros) file
-
It loads all personnel and absences from the import file but NOT preferences -
useful for maintaining a central personnel .ros file with different SmartRoster
users autoloading the peronnel data into their own SmartRoster file - AutoImport
also gives feedback when auto-import occurs when you open a SmartRoster file with
AutoImport enabled - Reporting
improvements
- "Role per page" report implemented - Can
now report on events that are disabled in the main screen without first enabling
them - Selecting "On Roster" now correctly reflects the Roles and
Events selected, and the reporting date range - The "Select Events"
panel in the report setup window can be re-sized to show more events - The
"Export to Word" function now additionally works for the "Mailing
Labels" and "Reminder Labels" reports - Reports now remember
the date range for the report, if different to the Roster Period in the main window
- Working
in the rosters grid..
- The context popup menu over a timeslot now sorts names alphabetically -
Locked CELLS now indicated by a lock icon in top right of cell - Fixed a problem
of Cell locks being lost after Autofill - "Always
Keep Together" preference handling
- A new option 'Interpret "Always
keep together" preference literally' now exists under File | Options
| Autofill. If ticked then SmartRoster will NOT schedule anyone grouped by an
"Always keep together" preference to a certain date/time unless unless
EVERYONE in the group can be scheduled on the same date/time - New
"Enforced Break Applies between members" checkbox
If ticked then the Enforced Break set for a group (or household) not only applies
to each individual in the group(as if set for each person individually) but also
BETWEEN each of the individuals in the group - Roles
only show role members available for the selected events
Now it is easier to see who is available for events. Only those people available
for the active events are visible in the role members panel - New
SMTP Email
The
SMTP email functionality has been re-written from the ground up for reliability
and speed. It also gives instant feedback as to the progress for each message
sent, and allows multiple simultaneous connections for faster message sending
(especially useful for broadband connections) - Fixed
Numerous fixes have been addressed in this version. In particular, a Role | Pattern
bug that caused Role names to appear as Events in the Events list, and problems
that caused smartroster files to take very long time to load, or caused the Rosters
grid to appear blank event though the timeslots were not empty. Also a bug that
caused Always Keep Apart" preferences to be ignored. New
in Version 1.40 - Add
Comments into any timeslot
Right-click in any timeslot and select "add
comment" to add an arbitrary comment, or select from previous comments
- EnforcedBreak for
RoleMembers
Now you can specify an EnforcedBreak that applies only to
a person in a specific role. Good for enforcing breaks for single roles instead
of for a single person or globally - "Next
Event" in Role member dialog
Within a Role, specify for a person the Event to schedule following another
event eg. Always schedule John into the next available "Event B" timeslot
after scheduling him into a "Event A" timeslot - New
"Spare" role members
Set a role member to "spare"
will cause them to only be scheduled when no one else is available. You can still
give a spare person a maximum usage so that they won't be scheduled too often
- New "Scheduled"
tab in the People update dialog
This new tab shows all scheduled timeslots
for a person, similar to the email reminder format, great for reviewing where
a person is scheudled when the roster period is too large to fit on the display
at once - Different
Events with same start time
You can now define as many Events as you wish
with the same start time - Increased
resolution of EnforcedBreak
Enter EnforcedBreak as minutes, hours or days
- New Import
option
After an Import (delimited text file) specify whether or not to
delete existing records that were not added or updated - New
date-time formats in Report dialog
For reports show event <Day>
and <Time>, together or separately, without the date, or no date/day/time
at all - AutoFill
improvements -
Randomize
Role Order - letting AutoFill use random role order when scheduling may find a
better solution Fill all
required slots - AutoFill first priority is now to fill all required slots before
optimising usage or preference satisfaction Advanced settings - gives you
more control over how AutoFill chooses people for the schedule
Accounting for availability - Takes better account of user absences when allocating
timeslots - Fixed
in 1.4
Prevent recursive groups putting smartroster into hard CPU loop;
Grid re-sizes correctly on "clear grid"; Fixed the "Find"
box; AutoFill fix when using lookback period; Lookback days ignores prior events
with no one assigned; Click-and-hold on Event in "Applies to events"
panel temporarily displays role members valid for that event; Fixed printing multiple
names per timeslot - some names did not print, and other fixes too. New
in Version 1.3 - Restrict
role member usage by event
A person can be assigned to Role1 for EventA
and Role2 for EventB. They can also have a usage preference of "once a month"
for Role1 in EventA and "fortnightly" for Role1 in EventB. - User
Interface improvments
The rosters grid now highlights successive Days
as white or gray, not successive rows. Makes it easier to see which day you are
working with. Also, timeslots are cross-hatched where the role is not required
for the event. - Better
control over Availability cascading
Specify for each group or household
whether its availability will apply to each member of the group or household (yes,
by default). - SmartExplain
technology
When manually allocating people to a schedule and the cursor
indicates the person cannot be "dropped", the status bar will now explain
the reason (most of the time). - New
"Label" reports
Try out the new "Mailing Labels" and
"Reminder Labels" reports. Just choose Labels from the Report
menu and select a report type. Use the Paper settings (Cols, Rows, Margins) to
define your label layout. - Hide
rows in reports
Hide rows (dates) where the report recipient does not
participate in the event. - Improved
email reminders
Added "Ignore previous reminders" and select
between dates, in email reminders New
in Version 1.2 - Enforced
Breaks - Now you can guarantee a minimum number of hours or days between scheduled
timeslots for any person, household or group. Global enforced breaks also available.
- Export Rosters
- Easily export your rosters, exactly as shown in the main rosters panel, in tab-delimited
format or as an html table, for importing into other programs.
- Notes
- SmartRoster now allows the storage of notes on any person, household or group,
to keep track of information they may have given you, or preferences that you
need to keep in mind.
- Fixed
in 1.2 - Deleting blank events, printing with many columns, left column width
corrected in reports, "undo" function, highlighting of names for households
and groups, Individual roster report blanks role selection, "Individual"
report type only shows roles relevant to Events, Event-per-page report with multiple
columns.
New
in Version 1.1 - MAPI
support - Now you can use the MAPI mail protocol which provdes full integration
with Microsoft Outlook or other MAPI-compatible email services. For example,
this provides a full email "sent items" history for items sent via SmartRoster.
- Personal
Preference Restriction - Personal Preferences can now be restricted by Event
and/or Role. This means that a preference (Keep together or Keep apart) between
two people can be restricted so that it only applies to a certain event (such
as AM service) or role.
- AutoFill
Order. Previously
the AutoFill function would fill rosters in the display order in which roles were
presented in the Roster grid. To change the AutoFill order you had to change the
display order (which also effected the printouts). Now the AutoFill order can
be set independently of the display/printout order.
- Improved
stability - a number of important bugs have been fixed in this release.
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