What's New in MainBoss 2.8

The following lists differences between MainBoss 2.8 and the previous release.

• An Activate button has been added to the Obsolete Equipment browser. This button reactivates a piece of equipment that was previously declared obsolete.
• When a work order was generated from a preventive maintenance task, the work order editor now contains a "Task" field that shows the identifier code for the task and the assigned unit. The same identifier codes appear on the printed work order.
• The window for specifying attachments now has a New button that lets you create a new attachment file.
• The Inventory Status and Inventory Value reports may now be restricted to just inventory items or just non-inventory items.
• MainBoss backups and restores can now be initiated from the MainBoss command line.
• Several new fields have been added to let you record more information in a Vendor record (for example, your account number with the vendor and the vendor's email address).
• A new Contacts table lets you record contact information for people not covered by other tables. In particular, this table is used to record information on people who submit work requests. Therefore, the "Requested By" field in work orders and work requests is now a drop-down list showing the Contacts table. If a particular requestor does not appear in the Contacts table, there is a New Requestor button to add someone to the table.
• A new Quick Outside feature has been added to work orders so that you can quickly create a simple purchase order to cover the costs of labor or materials from outside contractors.
• Chargebacks are now recorded in a separate section of work orders. This allows for multiple chargebacks.
• "Comments" fields have been added to records in the Personnel table and the Service Contracts table, so that you can record any useful information not covered by other fields in these tables.
• The work request history report now offers various options for sorting the work request information.
• The Maintenance Status report is a new report that shows the most recent preventive maintenance work on a set of units and the next expected preventive maintenance on those same units.
• Unit costs are now displayed to four decimal places in reports and purchase orders.
• When you print purchase orders, there is now an option that lets you add a line identifying any purchase orders that are linked to work orders.
• You may now specify different currency formats for MainBoss to use. For example, you may express currencies in euros or yen instead of dollars.
• When you create new custom messages, the resulting message files are now stored in the database directory with names of the form ovr####.txt. These message files are called override files because they override messages in the standard msg####.txt files.
• You may now customize preformatted parts of printed work orders and purchase orders (for example, the authorization line at the end of a purchase order).
• New options have been added for printing work orders, including the ability to prevent costs from being printed on the work order and to include details from template specifications.
• You may now use double quote (") and single quote (') characters in text fields.
• Several reports have new formats to take into account additional information that may be printed.
• When a work order applies to a piece of equipment, the printed work order will show readings for all meters associated with that equipment. The "Last Reading" field on the work order shows the last meter reading taken before the work order start date.
• If an item appears in the materials list for a work order, and if the quantity of that item on hand is less than the quantity required by the work order, the work order will contain a line warning you about the problem. Note that this warning is based on inventory counts at the time the work order is actually printed (not when the work order was created or when the work is scheduled to begin).
• In previous versions of MainBoss, you could type a few characters into a drop-down box and MainBoss would display the first entry that begins with those characters. If there was no such entry, MainBoss would display the closest match. For example, if you typed ABC and there was nothing in the drop-down list that started with those letters, MainBoss might show an entry that started with ABD. In this version of MainBoss, if there is no entry beginning with the characters you've typed, MainBoss just displays a message saying no appropriate entry was found.
• In previous versions of MainBoss database files were stored in subdirectories under the main database directory. For example, a subdirectory named EQUIP stored files related to equipment. In this version of MainBoss, the subdirectories have been eliminated and all database files are stored directly under the main database directory. In addition, the format of some individual database files has been changed to support enhancements to the software.

  These changes won't make any difference in how you work with MainBoss itself. However, if you have written programs to read database files directly, you will have to change those programs.