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Version 5.0 Release – General Enhancements

February 16, 2011 by Arlene 1 Comment

In this last in the series on the Version 5.0 Release, we will highlight a few general enhancements that will be of special benefit to customers. These enhancements include Background Processing for Manual PM/Projection Generation, Extra Password for Delete Confirm and New Recipient Options in the Rules Manager.

Background Processing for Manual PM/Projection Generation

While most customers take advantage of MC’s automated capabilities for the generation of Preventive Maintenance Work Orders, the “manual generation” process is sometimes used to deal with special circumstances or to generate Work Order Projections. This “manual generation” feature has been enhanced to allow for background processing to improve efficiency and eliminate possible “time out” errors when large batches are generated.

A new PM Preference is available to indicate that you wish to generate Manual PM and PM Projection Work Orders in the “background”:

Once the preference for this has been set, requests for generation are put into a queue allowing you to continue to work elsewhere in Maintenance Connection until the process is complete. Once the PMs/Projections have been generated, a brief notification will display in the lower right of your screen.


Extra Password on Delete

The ability to delete records in MC is controlled by permissions and users are always prompted to “confirm” any deletions. However, customers have often asked for an “extra” step to ensure users pause and verify that they wish to delete the identified record. You can now set a new preference that prompts users to enter an additional “delete password” when attempting to delete records. Once your system is set to “require” this new password, the “Yes” option on the “Delete Confirm” will not display until the correct password is entered.

 

New “Recipient” Options for Notification Rules

The Rules Manager now includes an option to send a notification to the “Assigned Labor (Pager)”, which can be used to send a text message to the technician. To use this feature, you must determine the domain that is used by the technician’s wireless carrier. For example, for Verizon Wireless, the domain “@vtext.com” is used. As such, to send an automated text message to a Verizon subscriber with the number 916-555-1212, you would enter 9165551212@vtext.com into the technician’s Pager Email Field.


Notifications can now also be automatically sent to the individual who recorded the work order (“Taken By”).

Version 5.0 Upgrade
Customers with onsite installations of Maintenance Connection will be receiving an email shortly providing instructions for requesting the software upgrade. If you have questions in the meantime, do not hesitate to contact MC Support.

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Version 5.0 Release – Purchase Order Module Enhancements

February 3, 2011 by Arlene 1 Comment

Version 5.0 includes several enhancements to the Purchase Order Module, including a new approval process and additional configuration options for the Purchase Order Report.

Purchase Order Approvals

A new approval process is available that allows you to define required approval levels based on the total amount of the purchase order. You can define up to five different approval levels for each Repair Center. As an example, you could specify that all purchase orders above $100 require Level 1 Approval, all purchase orders over $500 require Level 2 Approval, and all purchase orders over $1000 require Level 3 Approval.

 

With these settings, a purchase order for $1500 would need three levels of approval.  To provide maximum flexibility, approvals can be made in any order. That is, if desired, a Level 2 Approver can process an approval before a Level 1 Approval has been completed. A new “Approval Status” section provides a clear indication of which levels have been approved, and which still need approval.

 

The previous approval process, which bases approval requirements on the “permissions” of the individual creating the purchase order, rather than the amount of the purchase order, continues to be available.

Purchase Order Report Configuration

Extensive new preferences are now available to configure the Purchase Order Report to better reflect the needs of your organization. Some preferences allow you to include additional fields for display, while others allow you to hide data that was previously shown by default.

 For example, new line item columns including “Account,” Sub-Account,” and “Stockroom/Bin” may be displayed, while the existing “Discount” column may now be hidden.  

Next Week….

Stay tuned next week for a preview of additional features included in Version 5.0, such as, the ability to process manually generated PMs and Projections in the background, and a new password protection feature to avoid accidental record deletions!

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Version 5.0 Release – Work Order Enhancements

January 26, 2011 by Arlene 0 Comments

A number of new features in Version 5.0 will enhance the flexibility and capabilities of the Work Order Module. In this blog topic we will summarize enhancements to the Work Order Report and Complete/Close Dialog, as well as the ability to create a follow up work order when tasks are marked as failed.

Customization Options on Work Order Report

Extensive preferences have been added to the Work Order Report to allow you to customize the appearance of the Printed Work Order. You have control over the display of numerous fields, including some that were not previously available, such as work order sub-status, asset address and additional details like model/serial #. You are also given more control over the display of fields, such as the indicators shown in the top section.

 

In the subsequent sections of the report, you now have more control over the columns that should display, as well as the report line height of the “fill in blank” lines. In addition, there are new options to include sections for approvals and signatures, as well as one to control the number of entry lines displayed for the Labor Report:

 

Enhanced Complete/Close Changes

A significantly faster and more flexible method for adding parts to the Enhanced Complete/Close Dialog is available. You can now search for material by entering any characters or numbers that exist in the Part ID or Name. MC will dynamically (and rapidly) display the records that correspond, narrowing the results as you enter more characters for the search.

 

In addition, you can now update the actual quantity for estimated material populated from a PM/Procedure and can even require that tasks are marked as complete (or failed) before a work order can be completed by a technician. Lastly, you can set the default value for the “Split Labor Hours” indicator for grouped work orders.

 

Follow Up Work Orders on Failed Tasks

There is also a new feature that allows you to create a follow up work order for failed tasks (or separate work orders for each failed task) from the Complete/Close Dialog. This feature is available for customers that use both the Standard and Enhanced Complete/Close Dialog. A new preference is available to set the default value for the control.

 

Next Week….

In next week’s blog previewing Version 5.0 features, we will take a peek at enhancements to the Purchase Order Module, including the ability to set approval requirements based on the amount of the purchase order.

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Version 5.0 Release – Reporter Enhancements

January 8, 2011 by Arlene 0 Comments

In this second blog in the series summarizing new features in Version 5.0, we will review several valuable enhancements to the MC Reporter, including the ability to export reports to a PDF, new multi-series charting capabilities and a new “save all” feature for editable smart reports.

Export to PDF

Reports displayed in the Report Preview Window can now be exported to a PDF.

 

The exported PDF is automatically opened in a browser, allowing you to “Save” or “Print”.

 

Multi-Series Charting

New options are also available to create multi-series charts:

 

In the following example, a multi-series bar chart was created displaying work order count, target hours and actual hours for different work order types:

 

In this example, a stacked bar chart was created summarizing labor and material costs for different work order types:

 

Save As Function in Smart Reports

A “Save All” Button has been added to “Editable” Smart Reports to allow changes made to multiple rows to be saved in a single step. After saving, the page refreshes showing the records that updated correctly in “green” and highlighting rows with errors in “red”:

 

Next Week….

In next week’s blog previewing Version 5.0 features, we will preview enhancements to the Work Order Module.

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Version 5.0 Release – Project Plans

January 8, 2011 by Arlene 0 Comments

We are quickly approaching the release of Version 5.0.  As soon as the release dates are finalized,  you will receive an announcement with the Release Notes and specifics about how to upgrade.

Over the next several weeks we will be posting blog topics that highlight the new features and enhancements. This first blog in the series will highlight Project Plans, a completely new module that will be available to all customers. In the upcoming blogs, we will provide a preview of enhancements to the Reporter, Work Order Module and Purchase Order Module, as well as a general overview of new capabilities.

Project Plan Module

The Project Plan Module is a powerful new feature that automates the generation and scheduling of a group of associated work orders defined for a common project, allowing you to define dependencies between the work orders if required. This module allows your organization to define a “project template” for recurring projects and simply “regenerate” the project plan whenever needed to create a new “project”.

As an example, cities often have a set of procedures that they follow each time a street is paved. (i.e., Survey Area, Dig Street, Inspect Pipes, CCTV, Pave Street, Inspect Pavement). Using the new module, the city could create a project plan that includes each of these procedures, which would have predefined estimated labor (crews, contractors) and parts. Using the dependency feature, they could specify that the work order to “Pave Street” shouldn’t be issued until the work orders to “Inspect Pipes” and “CCTV” are complete:

 

When the project plan is generated, a project is created along with individual work orders to “Survey”, “Dig”, etc. These work orders can then be scheduled on the new “Scheduling Calendar” available from the Project Module:

 

Work orders created by the project plan can be selected and edited like any other work order. If the work order is dependent on another work order, this will be shown in the header bar. If multiple dependencies exist, this will also be shown:


 

Defined project plans can be “generated” whenever needed, and can even be “scheduled” for generation using available features in the Preventive Maintenance Module. That is, a project plan can be specified to generate at a given PM interval, just like an individual procedure. This allows you to generate a predefined “set” of work orders with defined procedures for a specified asset, rather than just the single work order typically generated in the PM process.

Next Week….

In next week’s blog previewing Version 5.0 features, we will preview enhancements to the Reporter.

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