What's New in MainBoss 3.2

The following lists changes between MainBoss Advanced 3.2 and the previous update.

Major Changes

1. MainBoss now offers security roles which let you control what each user can and can't do in MainBoss. One purpose of these roles is to make it possible for more people to use MainBoss directly.
   
   For example, suppose your database contains information you don't want most employees to see (e.g. the wages of other employees). With previous versions of MainBoss, you couldn't hide this information; therefore, you may have decided that such employees wouldn't be allowed to use MainBoss at all.
   
   With the new security set-up, you have much more control over what information specific people can see and/or modify. Therefore, you have the freedom to let many more people use MainBoss directly, because they'll only be able to see and do things appropriate to their actual jobs.
   
   
2. People can be assigned to requests, work orders and purchase orders. Being assigned to such a record can indicate that you have an interest in that record. For example, workers might be assigned to the work order for any job they're expected to do. Help-desk personnel might assign themselves to any request they create.
   
   To help you keep track of assignments, the MainBoss control panel now has an Assigned to entry which lists requests, work orders and purchase orders to which you have been assigned. This is a quick way to find the records you're most likely to be interested in.
   
   A variety of changes have been added in connection with assignments. For example, requests, work orders and purchase orders all have new Assignees sections to deal with assignments.
   
   Using security roles, you can ensure that specified employees can only see requests, work orders and purchase orders to which they've been assigned. In other words, they can see their own responsibilities without seeing other work.

Lesser Changes

1. In previous versions of MainBoss Advanced, the MainBoss module license placed a limit on the number of MainBoss sessions: essentially the number of people who could simultaneously be using MainBoss. Now, the license places a limit on the number of entries in the Users table: the total number of people licensed to use this MainBoss database.
2. As a result of the new security facilities, MainBoss software has changed in many ways. These include:
   • When creating a new user record, you should assign security roles to the user. (Existing users will automatically be assigned security roles reflecting what the users were able to do in the previous version of MainBoss.)
   • Facilities have been added to allow for the possibility that the person who closes a work order may not have permission to see the costs of labor and/or materials. For example, the closer may be able to say, "Joe worked five hours on the job," but may not have permission to see Joe's hourly wage. Options specified when the work order is created make it possible for MainBoss to calculate the cost of Joe's time even if the person closing the work order can't see what the cost actually is.
   • In many table viewers and editors, the Edit button has been replaced with a drop-down button offering Edit and View. This reflects the possibility that some users may have permission to view a record but not to edit it. (The same drop-down button may have Refresh as another option.)
3. The Resources section of a work order has been reorganized. The new arrangement simplifies the process of making demands and actualizing them; it also improves performance.
4. It is now possible to initiate backups from within MainBoss. It is also possible to restore a database from backup or to create a new one from a backup file.
5. Facilities for creating and managing databases have been improved. For example, when you are adding a new entry to your list of known databases, MainBoss can list all known MainBoss databases available on a specified instance of SQL Server (provided you have appropriate permissions).
6. When you generate PM work orders, you now have the option of specifying the state in which they're created. The two most likely states will be draft (which gives you the most freedom to edit information) or open (which indicates that the work orders are ready to be printed without modification). A similar principle applies to purchase order templates associated with PM work orders.
7. There are several new reports:
   • The Work Order Material History report provides information on the use of spare parts and other materials in work orders.
   • The Work Order Chargebacks History report provides information about chargebacks associated with work orders.
8. All windows for printing reports now have an Export Data button. This exports the data of the report in XML format. This format may be more useful than other export formats, especially when exporting data to Microsoft Excel. (When you export XML data to Excel, you get a format that is optimized for further processing and manipulation. When you use the other method of exporting data to Excel—the one that uses Microsoft Report Viewer—you get a format that is optimized for people to read as is.)
9. A new control panel entry (Administration | Accounting) lets you see the accounting records created by MainBoss.
10. Several tables from Coding Definitions now appear in other sections of the control panel too. For example, the Requestors table appears both in Coding Definitions and in the Requests section. This was done so that the Requests section of the control panel contains all tables that might be changed frequently during day-to-day operations. Similar changes were made to other control panel sections. (Note that the tables are identical no matter where they appear; they're just available in multiple places for the sake of convenience.)
11. Features related to planned maintenance have been reorganized in the control panel. Instead of Generate Planned Maintenance, the control panel has an entry for Unit Maintenance Plans. Generate Planned Maintenance is under the Unit Maintenance Plans entry; there is also an entry for Tasks.
    
    This change was made to encourage the practice of generating day-to-day work orders from tasks and from unit maintenance plans. These facilities make it possible to write up "boilerplate" work descriptions for standard jobs, then to quickly create work orders from these descriptions.
12. Storerooms may now be located inside units. Previously, storerooms could only be located inside locations. The purpose of this change is to encourage you to treat every place in your premises as a unit rather than as a location. (By creating a unit record for every place in your premises, you can create a work order for anyplace—remember that you must create a work order for a unit, not for a location.)
13. When you first create a work order, the work order is considered to be in the Draft state. It stays in that state until you Open the work order. Opening a work order is similar to issuing a purchase order—it means that you've recorded all necessary starting information, so the work order is ready to be printed and given to the worker(s) who'll actually do the job.
14. The Closing section of a work order has been removed. Fields that used to be in this section are now in the Details section. The Closing Comments field has been discontinued. Instead, there's a general Comments field in the Details section that can be used for comments when closing or at any other time during the job. Comments can also be recorded in state history records. There is a new Add Work Order Comment button that lets you add a comment to a work order in the form of a state history record.
    
    Task records have been changed in a corresponding way. There is now a Work Order Comments field in the task to replace the old Closing Comments field.
15. The default Close Work Order button no longer opens a window for you to record a comment; it just closes the work order without a comment. There is a new button Close Work Order (With Comment) which can be used if you want to record a comment. Similarly, the default Open operation for work orders doesn't prompt you for a comment, but Open Work Order (With Comment) does.
    
    Similar changes have been made in requests and purchase orders.
16. To avoid confusion with security roles, the Roles section associated with Contact records has been renamed "Contact Functions".
17. This version of MainBoss can make use of Microsoft's ClickOnce Deployment method. For further information, see the MainBoss Installation and Administration guide.