Tracker Suite Version 5.2 Release Notes
September 2018
Tracker Suite Version 5.2 Release Notes
Themes:
Browser Support
Support for current versions of all mainstream browsers Chrome, IE, Edge, Safari, Firefox.
User Interface Improvements:
Ø Search menu choices, pin navigation, create favorites, remember most used choices
Ø Easily create new data forms, split views, and save new links to Desktop
Ø Master Inbox, Outbox, and Workflow improvements
Ø Filter on blank values and search exact or partial values in Views
Ø Better Portal functions, including secure global Folders
Reporting Improvements
Ø Easily and instantly sort columns on reports
Ø Report actual head count usage
Ø New multi-dimensional Tree Graph
Ø Performance improvements
Workflow
Ø Improved Master Inbox and Outbox
Ø New Workflow comments function
Ø More Workflow utilities to re-route, re-send, override approval
New Application Functionality
Ø A new Tracker Suite application, called Vendor Tracker, provides consolidated spend information and Vendor Relationship Management
Ø Better Resource Scheduling and Reporting
Ø New Mass Mail and Word Template capabilities, with templates for vendors and customers
Ø Ability to consolidate holidays, vacation, and company events into a single calendar
Ø Per diem expense reporting in Expense Tracker
Ø New Integration pump to synchronize HR systems with Personnel Tracker
Ø New Time-in/ Time-out Time Sheet
Ø Work Breakdown Structure and Gantt Improvements
Technology Upgrade:
Ø Better memory management that allows for a faster end user experience
Ø Browser support for the latest versions of Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari and Edge
New Desktop Features:
Ø New Desktop allows the user to pin the menu on the left side, which combines the benefits of the Tracker Classic interface and Tracker Desktop interface
Ø New features such as Menu Search, Favorites Menu, and Most Used Menu have been added
New Vendor Tracker Application:
Ø Creation of new Vendor Portal. Now vendors can login to the application to see their purchase orders.
Ø Vendor Folders have been added to the application, allowing a very useful and centralized working area for Vendor management.
Improved Reporting Capabilities:
Ø Sorting option added that allows reports to be sorted on any column with a single click
Ø Reporting framework now allows adding multiple date range filters, where users can define a column for 2nd range filter and its labels
Application Wide / Framework Changes
1. Application is now using the latest version of underlying architecture of Ext JS 6.5.1. Changes have been made to the application so that the whole application is now using one technology stack, Ext JS 6.5.1. This has resulted in improvements to the following:
· Memory management is significantly improved, which enables the application run much faster
· IE11 memory issues fixed
· Improved Performance
· Faster Rendering of Forms and Views
2. New Desktop has been added to the Tracker Suite V5.2 release. This new Desktop significantly improves the usability of the application.
· New Desktop allows users to pin the menu bar. This will leave the menu open/expanded on the left side giving the power of Tracker Classic interface and also providing the benefits of the Tracker Desktop.
· Most used menu options are recorded and displayed to users
· Option to add certain menus to your Favorites list
· Option is provided to search menus similar to windows menu search feature
3. Activity Filing has been added to the system. This now allows a single activity to be linked with multiple documents and that activity will be listed under all of those documents.
4. Email Filing option is also included. This allows a single email to be linked to multiple people and documents, allowing it to list under all of them.
5. Custom buttons can be configured as part of workflow profile. These buttons will appear to certain roles when a document has a certain approval status. This allows calling custom functions by clicking those buttons.
6. Activities can now be linked with Email Templates. These activities will be auto created when the emails are sent out using these templates.
7. View framework has been changed to allow filtering columns on the basis of blank values. This can be particularly useful for analyzing data.
8. Option has been added in the view framework to export views in PDF in both Portrait and Landscape format.
9. Application now allows the ability to add and list events in the Company Calendar. Previously it was used to show leave, holidays, and meetings.
10. There have been updates to the messages displayed to save a document, if the end user has made any changes and tries to close without saving such document.
11. Folder searching capabilities are enhanced which now allows searching in child nodes.
12. New Status Board designer has been added in the application, allowing users to select information/columns that they want to be displayed for each node.
13. Rich text editor is enhanced with a new plugin to add notes. This allows users to add notes with timestamp and the logged in user.
14. Option has been added on Change Name Queues to remove records from the queue.
15. Attachments area has been optimized so that a file is stored once, even if it is linked to multiple documents/emails.
16. Tooltip added in the taskbar to show full names of opened windows which make it easier for users, in case of long names.
17. Security changes on form profiles are now logged to track the user for auditing purposes.
18. While creating public and private views, users are given the option to add a shortcut for newly created view on their Desktop.
19. View URL option is added when you right click on a view.
20. Log tabs across application are improved to use new international date format that display dates in generic format which can work across locales.
21. Email tab rendering and data loading is centralized across the application, making the user interface and various functions available on the Email Tab, including New Email, Email from Template, Reply and Delete, etc. consistent across the application.
22. Exact keyword search has been added in the view framework. You can encapsulate search string in quotes to perform an exact search. For example searching “Active” in quotes will only return People with Active status and list will not contain InActive people.
23. Workflow comments are added and displayed on forms, Approver Table and Choose Approver dialogs.
24. System now provides an option to select roles that are allowed to impersonate as other users. Only Administrators and Gurus are allowed to impersonate.
25. Failover SMTP configuration is added on company setup. System now allows user to configure multiple failover SMTP servers. Application will try to use all the failover servers if it is unable to send a message using primary SMTP server.
26. System now supports an email queue. If for some reason, emails are not delivered on first attempt, a job will keep trying to send email after configured interval.
27. Master Inbox and Outbox have been improved as part of this release. This functionality has been made configurable, allowing Administrators to open the form profile (for example, the timesheet) and check/uncheck whether they would like users to have the option to create the timesheet from the Master Inbox/Outbox. This will then show/hide new document creation option on Master Inbox/Outbox.
28. Window Titles have been improved to add more meaningful information, assisting with improved navigation.
Customer Tracker Module
1. A new configuration area is provided on Customer Tracker setup where users can define custom nodes that will appear on Customer Folders. This configurations allows users to:
· Define web services that will provide data to be listed under these nodes
· Define context menus and actions for each menu
· Double Click URL that will open the selected record
2. Parent and child company relationship has been added to the Customer Tracker module. It allows users to choose a parent company on a child record. On a parent company record, you have the option to see all linked child companies.
3. Customer Folder technology has been enhanced to allow searching data on child nodes, such as Contacts etc.
4. Activities can now be filed with multiple parent documents. That activity will be listed on the Activity tab of all parent documents.
5. New Form Profile has been added to the system for Last/Next activity. This allows users to show/hide and relabel different fields, based upon their preference.
6. Option is provided to delete activities form Customer, Contact, Opportunity and other activities embedded views.
7. Customer and Contact list reports are enhanced to provide additional columns and custom fields that can be reported on.
8. US States had been hardcoded into the system. These are moved to keywords now, so that users will be able to customize and relabel as needed.
9. New email from template option provided on Agency Folders for Contacts.
10. Open and Closed/Archived nodes added for Support Tickets, Projects and Activities on Customer Folders. This allows data to be better grouped and users can easily work on open projects or tickets without having to go through all of the closed/archived data.
11. Push address functionality has been added to Customer Tracker. It allows company mailing address to be pushed to all of its contact to keep them in sync. It also allows individual contacts to opt out of receiving company address push, in case they have their own different mailing address.
12. Option is provided on Company and Contact form to email a word template as a PDF or word document.
Expense Tracker Module
1. Trip Wizard has been added on the Expense report which allows the end user to add entries for an entire trip. This allows the user to select project, origination, destination, departure, and return date/time etc. It will automatically calculate and add all of the expense codes such as meals, lodging, mileage etc. for this trip using the trip template chosen on the dialog in the Expense report.
2. Expense Tracker now allows users to define and configure trip mileage charts. The end user can define Origination and Destination cities and mileage between these cities.
3. Trip templates can now be configured where the end user can define various expense codes, their default amount and configure various rules related to when meals will be available, and if this template requires attachments or amount validation.
4. Mileage wizard user interface changed and enhanced. It allows the option to use mileage from Chart (predefined Origin and Destination), Odometer and Type in values.
5. Configurations have been added to the Expense Tracker setup to allow/disallow creating Expense reports against projects with certain Status (es) and Approval Status (es).
6. System now allows selecting multiple rows on expense grid and deleting all of them with one click.
7. Headers for Expense report emails and print preview tables are shown in bold to improve usability and readability.
8. Resend and Reroute options added on Administration Dashboard for Expense Tracker that allows the use of this feature for a single expense report, or in bulk.
9. Validation has been added on the person form under the Expense Tracker section for submitting multiple expenses per pay period validation added on person level.
10. New summary by Trip Print Preview has been added.
11. New trip specific validations have been added to the expense report.
12. New trip level expense template validations (amount, overnight, require attachments)
13. Validation has been added to the person form under Expense Tracker section for submitting multiple expenses per pay period validation added on person level.
Invoice Tracker Module
1. New configuration has been added to the Invoice Tracker setup page that allows users to configure whether multi project billing is allowed or not.
2. Quick Mark Billed process has been added to Invoice Tracker which makes it possible for administrators and accounting people to immediately create and process invoices. Roles that can perform this functionality are configurable.
3. New Invoice Forecast views have been added to the system which allows users to view forecast for Active / Archived / All Projects.
4. New Billing Milestones view has been added to the system.
5. Project Code, Project Sponsor, OBS, Program and Project custom fields added on Invoice Forecast and All Invoices views.
6. Activity Code and Accrued Billing (Total) fields have been added to the drill down view which opens from the Invoice Forecast view.
7. Reroute, Resend, Approve and Disapprove options have been added to the Invoice Tracker Administration Inbox.
Payment Tracker Module
1. Payment Tracker has been upgraded to be compatible with latest browser technologies, with focus on performance improvement and better memory management.
2. The Payment Form is pre-populated with Vendor information if created from Vendor Form or Vendor Folders.
3. Grid layout is consistent with the Purchase Request Form to improve usability.
4. Type Ahead has been added on the cost center column on grid.
5. Default workflow, workflow keyword list, cost center list, and account code list can be configured in person documents for payment.
Personnel Tracker Module
1. A new person import utility has been added to the system which allows data to be synchronized with a File. It uses all of the features of Active Directory import and allows users to configure if they want to Auto Add, Archive, Update, or Rename people. They can also opt to do this manually after reviewing data.
2. “Don’t Synchronize” flag is provided as a column on People and People Utilities view.
3. A new feature has been added to the People utilities view which allows to set/unset “Don’t Synchronize” flag in bulk for selected list of people.
4. Updated rich text control and added new attachment control that supports drag and drop on Personnel Tracker document configuration page.
5. New configuration added to the Personnel Tracker setup page that allows users to configure and call custom actions upon saving a person record.
6. Performance of person form is improved significantly especially the delays that users were facing while typing data in the person form.
Project Tracker Module
1. Income and Expense numbers are added on Project Folders. This is a configurable column allowing users to choose income, expense. and hours data from:
· Baseline
· Budget
· Actual
· Committed
· GL Actual
2. Project Name/Code change failure will send an error email to email address profiled in the company setup area.
3. Project Name/Code change is improved to speed up performance and fail over added to improve data integrity.
4. Actual hours are rolled up for summary task on Status Reports and Widgets.
5. PBS security has been implemented to secure Projects.
6. Option has been added to mark projects private. It allows managers to expose a project to a selected list of team members and other people, based upon their requirement.
7. CPI, SPI and Earned Value columns are added on Project Dashboard View and Gantt.
8. On Task Template form, a new Gantt display has been added to replace the old style Sub Task tab. This improves both usability and consistency of the application.
9. Task status form has been updated to use form profiles, allowing users to relabel and hide fields.
10. MS Project import has been updated so that Predecessor data is imported at the end of all other tasks to fix predecessor linking issues.
11. Status Board designer has been added with drag and drop features, which has been implemented on all project boards.
12. Filters and manage status options have been moved to a new board designer for improved usability.
13. User interface of Project Status Report has been improved. Sub tabs on the main tab of status report have been moved to the main tab area, rendering space to each tab.
14. Project Group option has been added to the task scheduler
15. Cross browser support for importing project data from MS Project has been added to the system. This new option allows importing XML data and is supported in all browsers (previously, it had only been supported in IE).
16. Project export issues have been improved to help it work seamlessly with the latest versions of MS Project.
17. Predecessor and Successor linking between tasks in now preserved when making a copy of a project.
18. Certain important field changes, such as start/end dates, status, and budget values are logged in the log tab for auditing purposes.
19. Interface to link customers with project has been changed. An end user can now select the customer on the project form itself, rather than opening a separate dialog. This also allows making customer field mandatory, if needed.
20. Inline editing has been added for Project Start and End Dates on the Project Dashboard view.
21. Project Finish Date shows in different colors to indicate if project is past its finish date or is about to reach the finish date.
22. New smart tags have been added for Email Templates for projects, allowing users to configure and use Budget values.
23. Resource planning can be done by adding planned hours against tasks from resource availability view, without having to open each task and adding hours against that.
24. When adding planned hours for resources against tasks, the system shows the current week instead of the week of task start date to make it easier for user.
25. Predecessor tasks are shown on the Task Dashboard view.
26. Changing the task progress to 100% sets the task status to “Complete” automatically, on both the Task Form as well as Gantt.
27. Option has been added to the system to lock the WBS on the project from Gantt. Users can enter the amount of time they would like to lock the tasks for. Other users will then get a prompt if they try to open the WBS or any task associated, letting them know that it is locked for x minutes and the user who has them locked. If the end user wants to unlock them early, then press the Restrict button again and enter” 0” minutes and this will unlock the task(s) before the time is actually up.
28. “On Time” column has been added on the Project View and Project List report. Also, the Project End date will be highlighted in Red if the Project was not on time.
29. Headcount values have been added to the Project Folders. Users have the configuration options to select counts they would like to see.
30. Project Category grouping option has been added to Project Folders.
31. Actual head count and Team head count options added on Project Tree Map (Project Graph). Previously this graph was drawing for Planned, Actual and Budgeted hours.
32. Tasks without assignments are shown on Task scheduler.
33. Workflow comments are added for project documents.
34. Option is added to view Tasks without grouping on Task Scheduler.
35. Predecessors are now being copied as part of copy task function where possible.
Purchase Tracker Module
1. Purchase Tracker reports have been optimized for performance and scalability, allowing efficient reporting supporting larger sets of data.
2. Added and implemented configuration for allowing only the configured roles to allow editing the PO.
3. New configuration is added for “Open for Edit” for Purchase request and Vendor Invoice.
4. Purchase form gets pre-populated with vendor information if created from vendor form or vendor folders.
5. Added functionality to move purchase request form fields between sections.
6. Original PO amount, Change amount and current PO amount information provided on Change order form and approval email.
Support Tracker Module
1. Support Tracker has been upgraded to be compatible with latest browser technologies, with focus on performance improvement and better memory management.
2. Ticket assignment process has been improved on the Support Form and Support Views for unassigned tickets in a way that it checks that if someone else has already assigned that ticket to someone in the background before the current user completes the assignment process.
3. Added a configuration on the Support Setup Page that allows a user to configure if they want to overwrite field values when a particular category is selected. Previously, the system would only overwrite fields if fields were empty.
4. Added option to send New Email and Status notes from Support Folder.
5. Layout of Support Folder has been improved.
Time Tracker Module
1. Add entries wizard has been added to the Time In / Time out timesheet that allows users to select Project, Start /End Dates and From/To time slots for each day. It then automatically adds times for those slots on the timesheet for all days, excluding vacations and weekends.
2. Biweekly reminder emails added for Time Tracker.
3. System now allows selecting multiple rows on timesheet grid and deleting all of them with one click.
4. A new copy row button has been added to each row that will make a copy of the row and retain values for all columns, such as Project, Hours and Description etc.
5. Semi-monthly time compliance views have been added.
6. Time Activities are linked with form profile allowing users to configure custom fields and change labels for fields.
7. New splash column has been added on the timesheet form and views which shows the total hours and absence hours.
8. Relabeled column wise timesheet format to Dates On Columns and row wise timesheet format to Dates On Rows.
9. Added a new person based validation for Task required if Project is selected on timesheet.
10. Option to restrict project selection on timesheet by project approval status.
11. Populate start and end time for auto loaded holidays and leaves on time in/time out timesheets.
12. Blank rows are removed from Timesheet when it is submitted.
13. Rows with zero hours are not posted to data warehouse for reporting.
14. Pay period validation added for biweekly timesheet.
15. Added hyperlink to open timesheet in timesheet approval emails.
16. Reroute and resend features added on timesheet for accounting and admin roles.
17. Added status column on timesheet form.
18. Added daily summaries for Dates On Columns timesheet.
19. Added weekly summaries for Biweekly timesheets.
20. Added sort by date/time button to timesheets
21. Custom 1 and Custom 2 columns in timesheet grid can now be configured as keywords.
22. Time picker increment is now configurable.
23. Configuration for description to default from activity
24. Time Compliances view opens a dialog with multiple timesheets for the period if multiple timesheets found for a pay period. Also fixed the legend to show saved in the beginning.
25. Replacing rows and columns total values that sum up to zero with blank.
26. Disapprove selected option added on time tracker admin dashboard.
Vendor Tracker Module
Themes:
Ø A new Vendor Tracker module has been added to the Tracker Suite application stack.
Ø Vendor Folders have been added to the application, allowing a very useful and centralized working area for Vendor management.
Ø Creation of a new Vendor Portal. Now, vendors can login into the application to see their Purchase Orders.
1. Vendor Folder has been added in the system that lists all of the vendors. If the user expands each vendor, they will see all the linked entities to that vendor including:
· Contacts
· Activities
· Purchase Orders
· Purchase Requests
· Payments
· Items
· Emails
Users have the option to add information, such as Vendors, Contacts, Activities, Items and Emails from the tree view. Intuitive context menus have also been added at each level to create a very user friendly experience.
2. Vendor folders also support full text search for searching data in all child nodes.
3. Vendor Contacts have also been added to the application. This allows the creation of multiple contacts under a Vendor, allowing for better communication and coordination.
4. Activities can be linked with Vendor contacts which allows for planning for future communication and action items.
5. A new Email Tab has been added to the Vendor, allowing end users to keep track of all emails against purchase orders where a particular vendor is associated.
6. A new Vendor management feature provides the ability to move a contact from one Vendor to a different Vendor, keeping the contact’s previous history intact.
7. New Vendor List and Vendor Contact List reports have been added to the application, which in combination with our powerful reporting engine provides excellent reporting capabilities.
8. Smart tags have been added to Vendor emails, allowing users to define custom email templates with smart tags which will automatically be replaced with actual values when emails are sent out.
9. Option is added in the system to send out Mass emails based on templates from Vendor and Vendor Contact views.
10. Word templates have been added for Vendor tracker which allows using smart tags. It also allows mass export to word templates using views.
11. New Vendor roles have been added on the Vendor form, against which people can be linked and security can managed against these roles.
12. Parent and child vendor functionality added in Vendor tracker, allowing this relationship to be defined. An end user can see a list of all the child vendors on a Parent vendor record.
13. Auto Generate Vendor Code option is provided on the Vendor Tracker setup area. Vendor codes will be auto generated using prefix/suffix and other configuration defined on setup.
14. Manager roles have been added on the Vendor form, and row level security has been implemented for these roles on Parts and other forms.
15. Splash columns have been added on new Vendor Folder that will list PO totals and balances. System also allows users to sort data based upon these amounts.
16. Vendor and Vendor Contact status columns have been added to the views.
17. Archive and unarchive options added for Vendors and Vendor Contacts.
18. Option is provided on Vendor and Vendor Contact form to email a word template as a PDF or word document.
Reporting
Themes:
The Reporting framework has been greatly improved in Tracker Suite Version 5.2. Some key improvements include:
Ø Report Sorting.
Ø Option to add configurable 2nd date range filter.
Ø Scalable reports.
Ø Significant improvement to the Excel export.
1. Reporting framework has been optimized to design reports that are more scalable and are able to display much larger datasets.
2. Report sorting feature has been added in the reporting framework which allows the sorting report data with a single click.
3. Reporting framework allows an end user to add a 2nd level of date filters. This 2nd date filter is configurable and the user can decide on which column this 2nd date filter should be applied. Users can also specify labels for this 2nd date range.
4. Report columns are linked with Form profiles now. This means that users will see the same column headers as they see on their forms. This makes it easier to manage reports and show data consistently across the application.
5. Filters are included in the report when it is printed to PDF.
6. Report name and filters are exported as a part of the Excel export now, which makes it more logical for users to interpret these exports and analyze data.
7. Exact keyword search has been added to the report framework. A user can encapsulate search string in quotes to perform exact search. For example searching “Billable” in quotes will only return Projects with Billable time billing flag and report will not contain Projects that have NonBillable flag set.
8. Report filters are exported and sent with scheduled reports.
COPYRIGHT© 2018. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.