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.

Special Script Allows for Time Box Customization

In several of the screens that track inspection you can launch a Time Clock box that lets you fill in the Inspection Time field by selecting a pre-defined value from a list. Recently a customer asked if there was a way to customize the time options offered in the Time Box list. Now you can by using a special script file. You can read more about this in our User Scripts Blog. You can also download the starter script (along with scripts to customize the Application Buttons on the Property Screen) by getting the Time_Clock_Script file and copying the script to your main installation folder. You can then edit the Time Clock list in the User Defined Scripts Screen.

Photo Scrpt Training Video

Yesterday I posted a new Training Video to our web site that shows how you can easily create a directory of folders for storing photos and documents by street address. Then you can use a script to automatically open the correct folder from any Property Screen record to look through the contents for that address. This technique does not require the use of the Photo Module; it uses ZonePro's scripting feature instead. It is the fastest way to organize and store large amounts of files by address, while still providing a way to access those files from within ZonePro.

Contractor Reset Button

Unlike the permit databases in ZP the Contractor database does not retain one record per transaction. Instead, when a new year rolls around (and a new round of license fee collections), the Contractor Screen uses the Reset button to copy the existing fee information into the Notes field to make way for the new information. I fixed a bug in the Reset button today and while I was at it added the option to substitute a customized script in place of our code when the Reset option executes. In other words, if you aren't satisfied with the fields that are copied into the Notes field by the default Reset option, you can add a script to your system that will copy information exactly the way you want it done. The button now looks for the existence of a script file called "script_contractor_reset.txt" before it runs the default code. You'll need our help to get started with a script option but then you'll be able to refine it in the User Script screen in Maintenance like you can with other ZP scripts.

Checking For Blank Dates

In report expressions, advanced filters, etc. customers often want to check for blank dates an take an action. Only do this if the date is filled, for example. In ZP 32 part of the expression to check dates might look like this:

NOT EMPTY(insp_date)

That expression does not have the same results in ZP SQL because the databases handle dates differently. In SQL there never is a "blank" or empty date field. Rather it is set to "null" to show that it does not have a specific value yet. You can still get the same results in your expressions by  adding an extra function to convert nulls to blanks. The new expression would look like this:

NOT EMPTY(NVL(insp_date,""))

There are several other ways to do this as well but this approach works well when converting from ZP 32.

Special Pick Box Feature Aids in Variable Fees

This past week I converted the City of Fostoria from ZP 32 to ZP SQL. As it turns out they are the first case I have converted that had used the variable fees option for Zoning permits in ZP 32. That feature was dropped in ZP SQL because I reasoned that formula scripts could handle those fees just as well, and as far as the fee calculation that is true. What I didn't account for, however, was the way the old variable fee feature let you pick fee choices from a list of options. I wanted that same ease of use in ZP SQL. The solution I came up with is to add a Special Pick Box feature to ZP SQL. This is a Pick Box screen that can be called from any script. You simply add a line of code to the script that calls the Pick Box and passed it the list to use as choices. It returns the selected item which you can then copy to any available field. I have added a new tutorial to the ZP SQL Documents section of the Tutorial page in our web site that shows how I used this feature in Fostoria's case. The newest version of the ZP SQL demo also uses this option for the "Sewer" Zoning permit type.

Sliding Expire Date Tutorial

I just added a second "Sliding Expiration Date" tutorial to our web site (on the Tutorial page, of course). Although the process is exactly the same in both ZP 32 and ZP SQL, the scripts are different. This will true anytime you have a script that pulls data from some database other than the currently active one. For the main Sliding Expiration Date script data is pulled from the inspection database to compare the latest inspection date with the Expire Date. As a side note, I'm mulling over several options that would build the Sliding Expiration Date option into ZP SQL so that you wouldn't need scripts at all. We'll see...