Email Troubleshooting

I've done some work to help ensure that everyone can send e-mails via their Staff web site. I did troubleshooting of the default email server settings and they should now work for all customers. Please let me know if that is not the case. There are a few new settings added to the Email Setup page in Maintenance to enable more precise control. The Test Email page off of the Email Setup Page gives more setting information as well to aid in getting it working for each customer. I would recommend going with the default settings and a custom "From" address rather than trying to use your own mail sever. Try it out for yourself.

Simplifying Relationship Management Access

The Contact File database allows you to designate a relationship that each contact has with a particular property. The two main relationship types are "Owner" and "Occupant" but you can also add your own creations to the list of possible relationships. Previously, you had to go to Maintenance Options to get to the screen where you could edit the list of possible relationships. Now we have added a shortcut to the Change Relationship screen that lets you edit the list of possible relationships right from there. Look for the new notepad button on the Change Relationship screen.
As a side note, keep in mind that Relationship types have to be 10 characters or less.

Alternate Way to Obtain Module Updates

The Installed Modules screen in ZP SQL provides a way to automatically download all the latest updates for the modules in your installation. Unfortunately, connecting to the FTP server to download these updates is sometimes fraught with problems. Now there is an alternative way to obtain the downloads via your Staff web site. In the Maintenance page of the Staff site, under the System Maintenance section there is a link to a Windows Update page. This page has three sections. First there is a list of all the current modules, their version numbers and their last modified date (Note that this list can be sorted by any of the three columns). You can compare this list with the version numbers you see in the Installed Modules screen of ZP SQL to find out what updates you need. Then there is a section for downloading each of the Base Module pieces and a section for downloading Application Modules. These are the exact same files you would get when using the Installed Modules screen from the Windows program except that here you have to download each one individually and unzip it yourself. It involves more work, but it gets the job done in a pinch. After you download any updates make sure you exit ZP SQL before you attempt to unzip and copy the files into your installation folder.

Referencing Minimum Setbacks From Any Screen

From the Property Screen you can easily reference the minimum setbacks defined for the assigned Zoning District by clicking on the "Zoning" label to display the Zoning District Maintenance Screen. This option may be even more useful on permit screens where you need to compare the desired setbacks of a project with those allowed.I just posted a script in the ZP User Scripts blog that show you how to accomplish this trick.

Notekeeper for Staff Web Site

The Notekeeper feature of ZonePro has been added to the Staff web site. For those who need a refresher: the Notekeeper feature allows you to store pre-defined bits of text for any of the various application screens that can later be easily added to the Notes field of a given record. This features saves you having to retype commonly used phrases, etc. The text segments are defined in Maintenance Options and organized by topic. Special buttons near the Notes fields allow you to paste in these text segments when editing application records. This feature is great for inspections, for example, to pre-define the text that you like to use for common problems. Then instead of having to retype the text each time you come across one of these common infractions, you can simply select the text you want by topic name and have it automatically copied into the inspection Notes field. Give it a try on the web site and let me know what you think.

Maintenance Fee Pages Added to Staff Site

Yesterday I posted a new Staff web site for all ZP SQL customers. There are numerous new features including the addition of Fee definition pages in the Maintenance section. This is a major step forward to providing a full featured web experience. I have devised a way to store and calculate formula based fees from the web site. The web formulas and Windows formulas are stored separately since the code has to be different but translating existing Windows formulas to their web equivalent is relatively straight forward. Any customer that wants help translating their formulas should contact me. As always, I'd love to get some feedback on the new features being added to the Staff web sites!

Staff Site Adds Maintenance Section

A recent major addition to the Staff web site is a series of pages that are the equivalent of the Maintenance Options section in the Windows version of ZonePro. This is the first time I have added any of the Maintenance screens to a web site.Not all of the Maintenance options are available from the web yet (notably most of the screens dealing with fees are still absent) but a great deal of functionality is present. Please try this section out and give me your feedback as again fleshing out the web side of ZonePro is a major emphasis this year. Thanks!

New Local Copy Setting in Global Options

Recently I have a rash of support calls where the culprit of problems turned out to be the "Create Local Copy" button. The "Create Local Copy" option was designed to give users a way to save various Maintenance databases locally so that ZP would not need to make an Internet call to get that data. In theory this would be a time saver but in reality the feature causes more trouble than it is worth. Now there is a new Global Personalization Options on the Two Tab of that screen that says "Allow Local Copy Option in Maintenance Screens." Keeping that option checked means the button will work as it always has. Unchecking that option means the buttons will be disabled for all users. For most customers I would recommend going ahead and turning this feature off. If you have a Maintenance Screen where the "Local Copy" button reads "Delete" instead of "Create", I would go ahead and delete the local copy before disabling the feature system wide.

New Max Rows Setting In Personalization Options

Every report screen in ZP SQL has a Max Rows option that is set at 100 records by default. This means that no matter what report criteria you use, ZP will return no more than 100 records for that query. This is basically a safety feature to prevent users from accidentally requesting a huge data set over the Internet and bogging down their connection. You can manually change this value any time you run a report but some users wanted a way to avoid this limitation all together. So now there is a new setting in the SQL Tab of the Local Personalization Options screen that lets you keep the default setting at 100 or change it to 0 which effectively turns the limitation off. The new option "Set Max Rows to 100 in Report Screens" will be turned on unless you go into the Personalization screen and uncheck it. This new feature affects just about every module in ZP SQL so you will have to download a full complement of upgrades to implement it.

Use Group Reporting Video

The State of Ohio requires building departments to supply subtotals by Use Group of all the building permits they issue. You can easily obtain this information from ZonePro by following a few simple steps to add the "Use Group" field to a report and also add a "Use Group" sorting option to your report screen. A new Training Video shows you how!

Report & Document Backup Option

Your data is stored on the cloud in ZonePro SQL but your documents and reports are stored locally. This means that they are vulnerable to loss if something should happen to your local system. But, since every ZP SQL customer already has an internet account, there is no reason why we can't backup a copy of the \REPORTS folder and store it in the cloud too. This new feature is now available off of the Installed Modules Screen in Maintenance. To avoid clutter I created a new screen that houses several extra installation functions including two new ones. One lets you zip up your \REPORTS folder and upload it to your internet account as backup. The second lets you retrieve the stored REPORTS.ZIP file and unzip on your local machine. These two functions are useful for keeping your files protected and also for pushing changes to the files to users outside the office. You can download the update now and also watch a Training Video on the topic on our web site.

Contact Merging Training Videos

I have recently posted new Training Videos that cover the Contact File merging options discussed in the previous two posts. Check them out.

Auto Merge Option for Contacts

When we install a customer's ZonePro SQL data we separate out all the owner names from the property data and then run a routine to automatically seek out duplicate names and consolidate those Contact File records. Because this process happens without any user intervention we use a very conservative matching method, only merging Contact records that have the same First Name, Last Name, Street Number, and Street Name fields. Now this same function is available within ZonePro itself. From the Contact File Upkeep section in Maintenance you can click on an "Auto Merge" button to get to a new screen that shows you how many records match the strict duplication standard and allows you to merge all of those records with a single click. This is not an option you will run very often but it makes very short work of the process. It is useful to check it anytime you have added a lot of new names to the Contact database, such as after using the Compare Module.

Better Contact Merging

In the Contact File Upkeep option in Maintenance, ZonePro now does a smarter job of merging duplicate Contact names. It now checks all of the fields to see if the record-to-be-deleted has any information that is missing from the record-to-keep and copies those fields over as part of the merge process. It also appends any Notes information from the record-to-be-deleted to the record-to-keep. A new "Browse" button makes it easier to see all of the information available in the duplicate records so that you can make better decisions about which record should be the record-to-keep. The old, simpler, method of merging duplicate records that does not retain any extra information from the records-to-be-deleted is still available by right-clicking on the "Merge Names" button.

Sorting Option for Building Maintenance Screens

The Building Inspection Maintenance Screen and the Building Fee Detail Maintenance Screen now both have a Sort button in them. This means you no longer have to worry about the order in which you enter these list items in the maintenance screens. You can rearrange the list at any time. The order that you choose is then carried forward when you start a new Building permit and the Inspection Details and Fee Details are populated for that record. There has always been a sort option in the permit Inspection Details and Fee Details screens and the new maintenance option uses the same Sort Screen to do it's thing.

Formula Messagebox Function Training Video

I had written about this function before in the Tutorials section but since I did the Inputbox() video it only seemed fair to do one for the Messagebox() function. The Messagebox() function is another way to prompt a user for input in the midst of calculating a permit formula. It is best used for Yes or No prompts. The training video shows how that works.

Formula Training Video on INPUTBOX() Function

I added a new training video to the web site this morning that shows how to use the INPUTBOX() function in a formula if you have a calculation that requires additional input from the user. I was helping a customer set up some fees and they had an oddball permit that required information they don't normally store in the database so I showed them how you could use a special function to prompt for that information inside the formula itself.

Upgrade Alert Option

If you want to stay on top of updates for ZP SQL as they are posted on the web, now there is a really easy way. There is a new Local Personalization Option that lets you turn on an Update Alert. When activated this option checks the web each time you launch ZonePro to see if any new updates have been posted since your last download. I have posted a training video on the Customer Support web site the demonstrates how this feature works.

Understanding Local Copy Options

In several of the Maintenance screens there are "Create Local Copy" button which have led to some confusion among users. The purpose of these button is take maintenance data stored in remote SQL databases and create a local copy on your PC or server. Then when ZonePro later needs access to that data, it will pull it from the local copy rather than make a SQL call across the internet. It's just another way of reducing remote SQL calls and thereby speeding up your system. The problem is that you should only create a local copy if you are completely done editing the relevant Maintenance database. Once the local database is created, changes made in the Maintenance screen will update the SQL database but not the local copy; and since it is the local database that is being pulled by the application screens, etc., it looks like the changes did not take at all. To help alleviate this confusion I have added a new wrinkle to these buttons. Now when you go into a Maintenance screen, if a local copy of the database exists the "Create Local Copy" button will instead read "Delete Local Copy." Deleting the local copy reverts the button back to "Create Local Copy." If you need to edit a Maintenance database you should always be sure to delete the local copy first if one exists. You can always create a new local copy when you finish. Deleting the local copy is always safe because the real copy is the SQL one that is stored remotely. New updates are available for download that implement this change.

Skip the Fee Prompt When Adding Building Permits

When adding a new building permit in ZonePro SQL after you select your desired Permit Type the system prompts you to see if you want to copy in the fee details from Maintenance. This prompt exists to allow users to delay adding fees until later. Yet another way of reducing SQL traffic across the internet. But for users who always want the fees added right away, this prompt is just clutter. Now a new Global Personalization Option has been added so that you can skip the prompt and have the fees added automatically. In the Global screen there is a new item called "Prompt For Fees When Adding New Building Permit." This option is turned on by default. You can turn it off, however, and your fees will henceforth be added automatically.