Updates from v6 onwards

We have chosen to provide update details in PDF files where appropriate and are no longer updating this page.

Updates from v5.3 to v6
26 May 2004

The major change between 5.3 and 6 are the introduction of a completely new viewing module and the ability to email all template letters and documents (invoices etc.). Additionally, contact reminders has been greatly enhanced to become Task Reminders, a complete overhaul of the wedding contract module and many many other changes. For the digital studio and / or those pro actively marketing their business, TPO 6 is a must have management solution.

New Features

• Viewing Module. A completely new viewing / sales module, fully integrated into the management and accounting modules of TPO. Click here for more details.
• Email Letters. All template (form) letters and all financial documents (invoices, statements etc.) can now be emailed directly to your client. This includes mail shots. No HTML knowledge required. Just create your fancy letter in layout mode as you’ve always done and now simply click ‘email’.
• Waiting area in the diary. A great asset for the larger / busier studios. It’s a place to put people who want to book but can’t just yet. You can then look to see who’s in the waiting room and call them to make last minute appointments.
• Added a facility to track response to specific mail shots. Makes it very easy to then send a second letter or email to those who haven’t yet responded to the first letter or email.
• Contact Reminders have now become “Tasks”. You can create your own categories of tasks in additions to the standard “calls”. Also improved the facilities to search for my tasks by specifying which type of task and for which person - or you could even select all tasks for all people...
• The wedding contract module of TPO has been completely overhauled and now links directly with your products list and allows one click invoice creation. The wedding contract has also been completely redesigned. All the (many) superfluous fields from the wedding module have also been removed.
• Added a “days left until next birthday / anniversary” on the relevant screens.
• Added a facility to search the diary.
• Added a facility to track the links between multiple jobs to improve the navigation through a client’s job history.
• Integrated Google search. You can now launch and search Google for text or images from within TPO.
• Added a VAT EC Sales list report.
• You can now read and create internal emails from the My Day screen.
• Added a new privilege level to differentiate between staff who can enter clients’ credit card numbers and those who can see them on another occasion. Regular staff now see “1234 5678 9012 ****”.
• All printing is now truly cross-platform, enabling TPO to be properly shared in a mixed Windows & Macintosh environment.
• Search for clients with no job history.
• Search for contacts by their job number.
• Added a facility to go from Documents (invoices) to Contacts for all the records in the current set. Useful for financially targeted marketing.

Enhancements

• Improved search facilities for birthday and anniversary promotions.
• When updating a staff name in the diary, this now updates the job record as well, automatically.
• Improved the facility for importing data into TPO (e.g. from Cherubs list). Now also includes fields for ‘position’ and ‘salutation’
• Improved the following reports in Jobs:
• All Appointments (previously called ‘All Bookings’)
• Find Overdue Jobs
• Find Incomplete Jobs
• All Work
• Various enhancements to the My Day screen.
• In Jobs, when clicking the Documents button to create or view an invoice, copies of TPO with large amounts of data, (especially when used with FileMaker Server), could take a long time to present the dialog. This has been resolved.

Small Bugs

• The cheque printing facility was not multi-currency compliant in that it always said "Pounds" and "Pence". Added the flexibility for any currency.

Minor Bugs

• A job record displays the outstanding balance on that job's invoices in the documents issued section (bottom right). However if there were one or more 'unposted' invoices, they displayed as having been paid. This has been fixed.
• Under specific and rare circumstances, the VAT Return may have omitted the final line in the VAT Transaction report. This has been fixed.
• On exiting Contact Reminders by clicking the 'Close' button - if you got there directly from the Menu, TPO did not correctly return you to the Menu. Now it does.

Updates from v5.2x to v5.3
5 January 2004

The major change between 5.2x and 5.3 are the improvements to contact reminders, the ability to update the contact details for an existing job or document, more sophisticated searching facilities in documents, improvements to credit card number validations and improved compatibility for Mac OSX.

New Features

• Add colour to contact reminders to highlight priority (e.g. red = urgent, green = can wait)
• Added a feature that shows how long a go you last called, displayed in weeks & days. So you can now call and say "I spoke to you 3 and a half weeks ago" without having to work it out by yourself.
• Added an "Update Contact Details" option to enable users to update the name, address etc. for an existing job - it copies the current contact details through to the job record.
• Added an "Update Contact Details" option (in the Scripts menu) to enable users to update the name, address etc. for an existing unposted document - it copies the current contact details through to the document.
• Added a more sophisticated search facility in Documents. Now you can find, for example, clients who have spent over £250 but did not buy a wall portrait. This will enable more targeted marketing.
• Changed the way a viewing appointment is booked to avoid the need for an additional job definition of ‘viewing’ (which would adjust the sales analyses to show sales by 'viewing' as opposed to the original job definition).
• Added the ability to print the reconciliation summary
• Add ability to search casebook and / or journal transactions by user entered reference or notes fields.
• Added a facility in the VAT Transaction report (show transactions) to drill down to details of a cash book transaction.
• The cheque number is now displayed in cash book & nominal reports.
• The Job Number has been added to the Production Order.
• The Job Number has been added to the lab Order.
• The Troi Dialog plug-in was not registering correctly under Mac OSX. Also added latest version of Dialog plug-in 3.1 for all current operating systems.

Enhancements

• Updated credit card validation to recognise more card types, now including SWITCH cards.
• Changed the way classifications and job definitions are set up. They are now managed through the preferences file in a much more sensible fashion and are much easier to edit.
• Enhanced the date checking feature in Receipts / Payments to double check the date entered is in the current financial period for both automatically and manually entered dates.
• Made an adjustment to the Work in Progress report on the My Day screen to include some forthcoming items (with a green icon).
• Made a change to the way the financial year is calculated and recorded in the nominal ledger. This improved stability when entering transactions in a new financial year if the previous year had not been closed.
• The 'Appointment List' in the Jobs file now automatically excludes cancelled appointments and also gives the user the option to sort the list by staff name or room.
• Allowed easier adjustment of a product group number in the products list.
• When creating a "Close & Follow up" reminder, TPO previously added "Follow up call to 20/11/2003 at 11:00am..." & the notes from the previous call. After a few consecutive follow up calls, this became very messy. This extra text has been removed.
• When clicking on the arrow button to go from a contact reminder direct to the main contact record, the Contacts file displayed the last screen it was on, i.e. the list of WP or Documents for the correct contact. It now displays the main contact screen.
• The Documents button in Contacts should have shown 0.00 when a client had fully settled their outstanding balance but was showing nothing. This has been fixed.

Big Bugs (X Update - this is available as an ‘x’ update to all users of TPO v5.0 or later)

• TPO was able to allocate a full refund to a client if they had a credit on account (e.g. had paid a deposit), but was unable to allocate a full refund if they did not have a credit on account (e.g. had paid in full and then cancelled their order completely).

Small Bugs

• The "Unposted Star" was incorrectly showing on the contact records of clients who had closed uncancelled quotations. The star should only show if the quotation was open (and was not cancelled).

Minor Bugs

• When a user clicked on the 'Book in Diary' button on a job record for a job that already had an appointment date, TPO took the user to that day in the diary and highlighted the time slot. However, if the diary was in the wrong room, it did not change the room being viewed and therefore did not highlight the correct time slot.
• In the Contact History report, the days due column formatted the number of days with 2 decimal places when there should have been none.
• Job with past due dates can experience a problem (in a multi-user situation) where they do not appear in the My Day screen. This has been fixed.
  The "Reminder 4" letter in the Invoices section of the template letters appears to have got deleted at some point. We added it back in.
• Fixed a problem where some PC's running Windows 2000 or XP or OSX, subject to the access privileges set up, may have had experienced problems producing the Trial Balance report.
• In the VAT Transaction Report, the "Type" field was not wide enough to display the full name of some transaction types. The field has now been widened.
• Corrected an error when printing the Trial Balance to Adobe Acrobat (to create a PDF), where the last digit got cut off.
• On Mac only, when entering a receipt or payment that was not balancing posted invoices or purchase orders exactly, the text in the dialog box offering help was too long to all be displayed so the user could not read the full instructions.
• TPO sometimes lost track of the logged on user after exiting the Passwords & Privileges screen.

Technical Improvements

• When entering a past date for a contact reminder, TPO now warns the user of the possible error.
• The aged debtors / creditors report may have included unposted documents which had a zero value. These have now been excluded from the reports.
• Some users reported portrait / landscape printing problems when printing job sheets. This has been fixed.
• When logging on, the cursor now starts in the User Name field, rather than the password field.
• When entering a new receipt, the user may have seen documents with a zero value, if they had been posted, and it was impossible to get rid of them. Zero value documents no longer appear in the New Receipts / New Payments screen.
• Updated logo to 5.3 & updated Copyright year to 2004

Updates from v5.2 to v5.2x

These X updates are required by all versions of TPO 5.0 or later shipped before 20th December 2001. After 20th December 2001 version 5.2x was automatically shipped to all new and upgrade customers.

Small Bugs

• Documents - Under specific circumstances, TPO experienced problems with the financial periods in the 12th period of the financial year. This was reflected by TPO not accepting the date of a financial document (e.g. an invoice) as being in the current financial period, when in fact the date was correct. Users may have not noticed the problem until attempting to post the invoice to the nominal ledger.
• Documents - The Products Sold report was not working properly if the report was on a large set of invoices.
• Documents / Lab Order - When converting an invoice into a lab order, the cost of the lab order (print prices) were not showing and therefore the lab order did not display a total value. (Note: this functionality does work when creating the lab order from the job record, just not when creating it from an invoice.)

Updates from v5.1 to v5.2

The major change between 5.1 and 5.2 was the addition of a new facility to also allow TPO to be used as a demonstration version. A few enhancements and technical improvements were also added and two small bugs were fixed.

New Features

• Demo version - Added feature to allow TPO to be supplied as a demonstration version with limited functionality (Demo can be used 100 times, maximum of 2 users, 50 contact records, 50 job records, 50 financial documents, 50 contact reminders, no access to layout mode, limited access to menu options).

Enhancements

• Contacts - The Do Not Contact check box on the Contacts main screen was effective when using TPO to do a mail shot in Letters and successfully excluded any contact whose box was checked, However this was not implemented to be effective on bulk emails when clicking on the email button (next to the email address) and selecting 'all records' (It did work if the user clicked on the Do Not Contact button while in Find mode, but this was not intuitive). The system has been adjusted so that it now works with bulk emails as well by default.
• Contacts - The Do Not Contact check box on the Contacts main screen did not warn the user if it was checked when trying to create a one-off letter in the word processor or when sending a one-off birthday / anniversary letter.

 Small Bugs

• Contacts - Users who opened the files without the master password were not permitted to enter a telephone number that already existed in the Contacts database. The warning message that displays should have offered the option to allow the duplicate if they so decided.
• Contacts - The Find facility in Contacts was not always working correctly if the user clicked on Try Again after the first find failed to find any records. It was sometimes saying that no records could be found the second time around when in fact it had found some. Intermittent error. This appears to be linked to the changes to the find function added in version 5.1.

 Technical Improvements

• All files - An enhancement was made to TPO to add further protection against unregistered users and / or illegal copying of TPO.
• Contact Reminders - Contact reminders link back to the place from where they was created e.g. Contacts, Details, Jobs, Invoices or Word Processor. With the exception of the WP, all these places have direct links back to the respective Contact screen enabling the user to get directly to the contacts phone number. However there was no link to go directly from the letter in the WP to the respective contact. The Exit button on the WP menu now goes directly back to the respective contact or job.
• Import Data Facility - When using the Import Data into Contacts facility, there was no cancel or menu button, so if the user wished to cancel he has to close the window manually which left only minimised windows at the bottom of the screen. Added a (gold) Menu button.
• The Troi Dialog plug in is now registered automatically from within TPO so the user does not need to manually install the Troipay.txt (Windows) or Troi Payment Certificate (Mac) file. However, the user still needs to install the actual plug ins.
• Logo - Update logo to show new version 5.2

Updates from v5.0x to v5.1

These updates were mostly new features, enhancements or technical improvements.

 New Features

• Diary - The diary reports called 'Empty Appointment Slots' and 'Attendance Report' reported on all rooms at the same time, the user could not select a specific room to report on. Added new functionality to allow selection of room.
• Docs - Production Order: A new invoice screen has been added to allow the recording of all variables of an order including frame size and moulding, mount size and shade, print tone and much more. This allows a user with a PC in the sales room to enter the entire order directly onto the PC – so no need to take orders on paper. This new feature also produces a 'production report' for the processing / finishing department (which complements the existing lab order).
• Word Processor - When performing a search the user is now presented with a list showing the letters found, prompting the user to select the appropriate one.
• Word Processor - When using the WP to email a letter (clicking on Email instead of Print), Outlook did not by default add the normal text signature at the end of the email as it usually does when creating a new email directly in Outlook. Added new screen to Passwords & Privileges for Email signature for each user.

 Enhancements

• Contacts - One of the many buttons to print the screen was causing an error message if the print job was subsequently cancelled in the print dialog box.
• Contacts - Enhanced the Find button in the Contacts main screen to allow better Find mode control for users without the master password. Users can now hold down the Shift key while clicking on the Find button to enter Find mode in that screen (e.g. to search an address field). Also if already in Find mode and the user clicks the button in then goes to the normal Find screen to allow entering of additional criteria (e.g. a value in the Details or Codes field). So now users can search for users in 'Bedfordshire' who have a Code of 'Very Rich', for example.
• Diary - Moved < and  > buttons around date (day, week, month, year) to tidy it up.
• Preferences - When reregistering, the message now shows the warning that “it will QUIT after reregistration” in upper case to highlight this issue.
• Word Processor - Extend size of compliments slip layout to zoom with extra space on the right and at the bottom.      
• Word Processor - When viewing the WP menu, the grey status bar on the left of left of the screen is now hidden.

 Small Bugs

• Docs - On the Document Analysis screen there is an option to cancel a document (invoice, credit note, quotation or purchase order). However, this did not update the stock values to put the items 'back into stock'.
• Notes - The Menu button (which is normally never used unless the user manually selected the Notes file through the Window menu) was not working.

 Technical Improvements

• BAP - Technical improvement, has no effect on the user.
• Contacts - A change was made to the way the Delete button works on the main screen of the Contacts file. This has no effect on the user.
• Contacts - Technical improvement has no effect on the user.
• Docs - A relationship name was incorrect. This had no effect on the user.
• Docs / Contacts - A lookup field needed revising. This had no effect on the user.
• GPS - GPS did not include Details_LI arrow. This had no effect on the user.
• Jobs - Technical improvement has no effect on the user.
• Preferences - There was an extremely minor security loophole, which has been fixed.
• Logo - Update logo to show new version 5.1

Updates from v5.0 to v5.0x

• These X updates were mostly small bug fixes, one big bug fix plus some enhancements and technical improvements. This update is available free of charge to all users of TPO version 5.0 (please call for details).
• What are X updates?

 Enhancements

• Contacts - When clicking on the blue telephone icon for Contact Reminders, you were presented with a list to view historical items - but only if there was one or more incomplete call reminders. You should have been presented with the option to view historical call items if there were any call reminder entries.
• Details - In the pop up box with details, codes etc, the user name on the VIP screen often displays in too large a size for the space allowed. Resized type to fit.
• Jobs - Tab order on Find screen in Jobs had not been set and it wandered all over the place.
• Jobs - In Jobs Find screen, added pop up menu to classification & Job definition fields.
• Jobs - The 'Appointment List' was not sorting into order by time of appointment.
• Print - When printing an invoice, credit note or quotation, an additional zero displayed at the bottom underneath the total amount. This additional zero is the position to display the total in another currency, if so selected by the user in the Document Analysis screen. However it should not have displayed zero unless selected.
• Weddings & Functions - The field on the wedding contact that should have displayed the business name (where the customer and photographer sign the contract) displayed <field missing>.

 Big Bugs

• Docs - If you are not registered for VAT, TPO did not add VAT to purchase orders.

 Small Bugs

• Codes - When creating a new product group (for sale / purchase products), the fields / check boxes “Product is Sale Item”, “Products is Purchase Item”, “Product is Lab Item” got auto-filled with a Yes - so they were also displayed (as empty records) when viewing Sale Items only or Purchase Items only or Lab items Only. If the user were to then delete these thinking they were blank, they would in fact be deleting the product group.
• Contacts - When clicking on the blue telephone icon Contact Reminder button, it showed the option to view current contact reminders even if there were none. This has now been fixed so it only shows that option if current (incomplete) calls exist.
• Contacts - The name of the logged on user was not being entered into its fields when a new record was created in the Contacts file
• Docs - When clicking on the Find a Product button in the document entry screen a warning should have displayed if the user had not yet selected the line for which the product was to be found. This message did not display.
• Jobs - The date of appointment was not showing correctly on the job record.
• Jobs - The Delete button in jobs, which allowed the deletion of a single job record, was not working. This was only a problem for users with lower level passwords who did not have access to the Delete item in the Records menu.
• Jobs - A change has been made to the limit FileMaker menus available to users with lower level passwords.
• Menu - Unable to edit the Menu Preferences of new of existing users in the Menu Options screen of Passwords & Privileges.
• Nominal - Unable to close to first financial period.
• Picture Library - The letter header was showing the wrong field in the Picture Library. Also some old buttons to do with invoice setup had not been removed from the Setup layout.
• Preferences - When setting Mutli-User mode or when reregistering TPO, an error message was displayed when an old file called 'Job to Invoice Transfer' was sought and could not be found. TPO should not have been looking for this old file.
• Weddings & Functions - When printing a wedding (or function) contract, TPO was not updating the list of printed items in the 'Printed' box (accessed by clicking on the Printed button on the main screen of the Contacts file).
• Docs - There was a problem with VAT calculations under very specific. If you are in the EC and you client is in the EC but in another country and is not VAT registered, TPO should charge VAT, but it wasn't.
• Under very specific and limited circumstances, the financial year of certain transaction types may have been set incorrectly.

 Technical Improvements

• Contacts - In the Account Options screen, the field Factoring Number had a pop up menu when it should have been a normal field. The pop up menu has been removed.
• Jobs - A few of the print scripts in Jobs were causing an error message if the print job was subsequently cancelled in the print dialog box.
• Jobs - An old field, which is no longer used, was still displayed in the printed job docket. This has been removed.
• Nominal - The VAT return attempted to print on a vertical page but should have attempted to print on a horizontal page. This could have been manually overridden during printing, but has now been fixed by default.  
• Nominal - Minor adjustment to the Trial balance layout. This does not affect the functionality of the program.
• Logo - Update logo to show new version 5.0x

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