What's New in MainBoss 3.0

MainBoss Advanced 3.0 is an entirely new version of MainBoss, with a very different look and feel from MainBoss Basic 2.9. MainBoss Advanced should be considered a new and separate product from MainBoss Basic; it's the start of a new product line that we intend to keep improving for many years.

Much of MainBoss Advanced is similar to MainBoss Basic. Here's a quick overview of differences:

1. MainBoss Basic was a standalone product that used its own proprietary database. MainBoss Advanced maintains its database with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The difference is that SQL Server can efficiently manage much larger databases; it's also a "known quantity" to IT departments. MainBoss Basic is suitable for smaller maintenance operations, but for larger ones, we recommend MainBoss Advanced.
2. The initial release of MainBoss Advanced does not have facilities for creating purchase orders. However, it does have other facilities for managing material inventory.
3. MainBoss Advanced can be licensed as a set of separate modules. For example, if you don't intend to track inventory, you can save money by not licensing that module. If you change your mind later on, you can activate the Inventory module just by entering an appropriate license key.
4. MainBoss Advanced has better facilities for organizing locations and units. In particular, a building might be a main location that is broken into a sublocation for each floor, and each floor might then be broken into further sublocations (one for each room on each floor). Similarly units may have subunits, so that an assembly line unit might be subdivided into a number of separate machine units.
5. MainBoss Advanced has a unified Contacts list for all people you may wish to contact, including employees, suppliers, contractors, and anyone else whose contact information you wish to record.
6. Unlike MainBoss Basic, you can have multiple "labor cost" records for the same worker. For example, you can have one record for a worker's normal pay, and another record for time-and-a-half overtime pay. This makes it easier to track labor expenses correctly.
7. @Requests can now be managed through the usual MainBoss program, rather than a separate program.
8. Work requests can be marked as "In Progress". If you have the @Requests module, this will automatically send email to the requestor indicating that work on the request has begun.
9. You can now track inventory in temporary storage locations. For example, if you transport materials to a work site, you can specify that the site is now a temporary storage location for the materials. This is useful for jobs that might last several days; you can keep track of what has and hasn't been moved to the work site yet.
10. It's now easy to keep a set of standard tasks that can be used to make "boiler-plate" work orders. For example, you might create a task for a muffler change on a vehicle. Whenever a vehicle needs a muffler change, you can quickly create a full order from the existing task, thereby saving you the trouble of typing out full work instructions. Create a task for every job you do frequently, then use those tasks to create full work orders quickly.
11. In addition to the major differences just noted, MainBoss Advanced has many small changes designed to improve on MainBoss Basic and in response to customer requests.