03.12.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, QMDfree, QMDpro, QMDlite, QMD update news at 7:24 am by clark
This tool saw a couple of recent tweaks to improve performance. This morning it got tweaked in functionality. The events tab now shows the number of notes on each calendar event. This can be useful when you are trying to see at a glance whether there has been any activity on an uncompleted event.
Also, the event reminders tab in the calendar tool was tweaked to show who sent the reminder and any comments made.
UPDATE
A patch was added to correct a problem updating expenses for insightenterprise users was corrected. The issue arose from work done over the weekend on insightpersonal [beta] and was noted a couple of hours ago by Jeremy Probst.
Permalink
03.09.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, QMDfree, QMDlite, Using QMD, QMD update news at 9:00 pm by clark
This release has three significant components. First, it introduces a global view for insight®pro/enterprise company administrators. The new “changes” tool found in administration > activity monitor is the extension of an idea first posed by Chris LeDuc of JDI Solutions. It’s a tool that lets the managers of a company see the entire flow of data in large sections of QMD - consolidated in a way we’ve never done before.
The first release comprises eight tabs which work to show the following:
- All expense records created in the date range. (Not the date of the expense, but when it was created.) Analysis includes who made the expenses, breakdowns by user and by expense type.
- All expenses dated within the date range. Analysis includes who made the expenses, breakdowns by user and by expense type.
- All checks posted within the date range.
- All credit card charges made within the date range.
- All invoices dated within the date range.
- All payments received within the date range.
- All calendar events which occurred within the date range.
For those of you with larger, high-resolution monitors, there’s a new preference in your account settings that toggles a new wide-screen mode. You can see it in action with a full-size window set to tabs 1, 2 and 4 (screenshots later).
This is also the advent of a new bit of interface. We’re trying a date settings function in the status bar. Comments are welcome.
There are more tabs to come. Chris has already started thinking up new things he wants to see and we welcome your suggestions also.
Customizable fields
We were approached by different clients with the same problem (though this was not clear at first). Jeremy Probst at Technical Prospects needed a notes field that tied to specific part numbers, while JDI Solutions needed a way to map specific fields in inventory for export to a client that is taking an automatic feed of their inventory. The solution we came up with was a set of five fully customizable fields that debuted in 8.8. These fields can be deployed in the inventory items sku policy tab.The fields themselves are set up in administration > company on the inventory tab. You can use any one or all five. Each can be custom-labelled and set up as a selection list, a series of checkboxes, a set of radio buttons, or as a general purpose notes field.
Once you set up a field, it’s available to all items on the sku policy tab. These fields are used to contain information related to the part number - a more global entity than the individual item. In the case of JDIS, it’s being used to set up an OEM field (selection list) and models of equipment that use the part (checkboxes). Technical Prospects will be using it for their requested notepad. Your use is completely up to you.
We should have screenshots and documentation up for this on Monday or Tuesday, but feel free to contact us in advance to help you get started.
Work on insight®personal continues
For those of you who are involved in testing and development of the upcoming personal finance client, there are some changes as well.
- The menus expanded to allow editing of expense types.
- The expense forms became dramatically simpler as we turned off all the options only relevant to insight®pro/enterprise users.
- The expense forms now take many other date forms as input (instead of just the traditional yyyy-mm-dd style).
There’s actually even more in this update, but it’s late on Sunday night and we’re done for the day. Enjoy. And expect more documentation shortly.
Permalink
03.07.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, QMDpro, QMD update news at 1:23 pm by clark
The financial search engine was just updated for all insight®pro/enterprise/personal clients. The tool is available in the finances menu (utilities section). It allows searches of invoices, checks, credit card charges, payments and deposits. You can filter the results by dates, amounts, payees, customers or purchase orders.
The results table also includes the usual rollovers we introduced in version 8.0
Advanced inventory search now supports filtering results by any combination of item status codes. We’ve been asked several times in the last week or two by some of our insight®enterprise clients to add this feature and are pleased to say that it’s now in place.
The ability to manage stocking locations is now set on an individual user basis to satisfy a request from another one of our insight®enterprise clients.
Permalink
03.04.08
Posted in QMDfree, QMDenterprise, QMDpro, QMDlite, Usability and design, Using QMD, QMD update news at 6:57 am by clark
In version 8.6, our lower-end products all received a new tabs based interface update** to bring them to parity with the pro/enterprise clients.In addition, some tweaks were made to QMDcontacts - in particular, the handling of multiple addresses was revamped.
We also changed the “Notes” field to read “Description”, added this information to the rollovers used in search, and installed a new Notes tab that works like the ones that have been in Jobs/Expenses/Inventory, etc. since 8.0.
Look for the notification system to be added to QMDcontacts as well (in light/personal/pro/enterprise) soon. There’s no plan to put it into QMDfree which is inherently a single-user environment.
*This product is not released yet. Consider this the pre-announcement.
** The 8.6 screenshots shown in the QMD help forum article show the new interface. The Finances menu is part of the upcoming QMDpersonal client.
Permalink
02.28.08
Posted in QMDfree, QMDenterprise, QMDpro, QMDlite, Usability and design, QMD update news at 5:00 pm by clark
This update brings a new search mechanism to the QMDcontacts and QMD letters tool. It also add the tabs-based interface and a slew of interface improvements to the QMDletters tool.
Some new things that are going to appear in other places soon: tag-based searching considers the type of search running (in this case, contacts), shows only tags that have actually been used for this type of information, and shows the number of items that are using each tag.
The changes in QMDletters are mostly in updating the interface and improving the forms layout, but there is one new interface tweak that is going to show up in some other places as well.
As shown here, the letters search mechanism is listing only the people who have actually sent letters - and how many each one has sent. This helps to avoid searching with a user selected that will not return any results.
There are six new articles in the QMD discussion forum about various changes made this release.
Permalink
02.24.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, Using QMD, Upcoming changes, QMD update news at 4:05 pm by clark
Today we are releasing the first in a series of updates that make it easier for QMDenterprise users to interface with their vendors. This version is a redesign of the RMAs interface that sends a questionnaire to the vendor. They can update the status of the RMA, and all associated items as well as the master job are updated for you.
An example of how this works can be found in a new forum article. It’s our intention to introduce more such features soon that let outside entities update your data for you - rather than you having to inquire and import information. Enjoy.
Permalink
02.23.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, QMDpro, Using QMD, Upcoming changes, QMD update news at 10:04 am by clark
Some of our users are starting to make extensive use of the notifications system and asked for better ways to see notices in context. Version 8.3, being released today, is our response. It makes use of the existing Notes tabs and mixes in the notifications on the item being displayed. We’re also deploying the notice icon in more and more places. For more information, please see:
Changes to notes tab
Changes to overview tab
Changes to customer tab
Changes to parts tab
Changes to expenses tab
Another addition made today was the client billing history which was added to the Jobs overview tab. The changes are discussed in detail in this forum article.
Permalink
02.19.08
Posted in General at 6:33 am by clark
Paul Graham has made yet another great post about software development that speaks directly to how insight® is developed.
Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.
The version we use here is:
- Identify a need (either user suggestion or spin-off of an existing tool).
- Throw up a rough version in the beta track of QMD.
- Start using it in The Real World(TM).
- Tweak the design to meet needs we did not understand at step 1.
We’ve so many great things to do and are having a tough time deciding what to start on next. Whatever it is, this is the process. Paul is a very brilliant man and a long-time inspiration to us. You can find the essay here.
Permalink
02.03.08
Posted in Usability and design, General at 7:53 am by clark
In the past couple of weeks since we released insight® 8.0, I have noticed an evolution in our users’ thinking. It seems that some of our pro and enterprise clients are starting to think about - and ask - questions now that were never really discussed before. Questions like “how does a credit memo posting affect my bottom line” or “what factors determine my current cash position”.
The evolution from “How do I manage open service tickets” to “How do I optimize my tax-obligation position through better inventory control” is due, in my opinion, to a couple of trends taking place now.
First, the benefits of transition to the new accounting engine are everywhere in the new generaton of insight®. The rollovers give our users much more informaion on how transactions and events connect to each other. As you get used to seeing the connections, you start to understand (and perhaps even to “feel”) the underlying structure of your business financials.
A second reason is the product of over a year of thinking about how to make financial analysis more understandable. We’ve always limited the number of “reports” generated by insight® - choosing to try to focus on better ways to understand what’s happening rather than voluminous traditional reports that are of little use to most business people. In that vein, we have released the new cash balance analysis tool.
What we think is happening now is an evolution in the thinking of our users as they realize things that were never clear before. Understanding leads to new questions which leads to new understanding. This is fundamentally a growth process, and one which leads to better business decisions. That, at the end of the day, is why we built insight® in the first place.
Permalink
01.23.08
Posted in QMDenterprise, QMDpro, Using QMD at 5:22 pm by clark
Chris L. asked a great question today about the relationship of credit memos to the financial snapshot. After thinking about it for a bit, and fixing the relationships in QMD 8, we published this article in the QMD forum which explains how it works from both an accounting and an analytical point of view.
Forum article
Permalink
« Previous entries