What's New in MainBoss 4.0

Report Viewer 2015 and .NET 4.6 are available for free from Microsoft. The web page for downloading and installing the latest version of MainBoss also provides instructions for downloading and installing the correct versions of the supporting software.

Every report now lets you save custom settings. When you save the settings, MainBoss will record all the options you have specified for the report: grouping, sorting, filters, and any advanced options. This makes it easy to set up a number of custom reports based on the options you use most frequently.

You may now create your own customized versions of table viewers. Custom settings may also be used in a limited way with editors. They can't be used to set data values, but they can be used to specify settings for most checkboxes and option buttons.

As an example of customizing table viewers, suppose your organization manages several different properties, and each property has its own maintenance supervisor. If you're the supervisor of a property, you could set up the Units table viewer so that it only showed units in your property; these settings could be given a name like "My Property". You could then tell MainBoss that from this point on, you want these to be your default settings—the Units table viewer would always be restricted to your property alone. Similarly, you could restrict the Work Orders table viewer so that it only showed work orders for units in the property you care about.

A table viewer may have multiple customizations available, with each customization identified by a name. For example, suppose you're a supervisor in charge of two properties, A and B. You could set up the Units table with settings named "A", "B" and "A&B". That way, you could quickly switch between seeing just the units in A, just the units in B, or the units in both properties together.

Customized settings can be personal or global. Global settings are available to everyone who uses MainBoss. For example, if there's a whole team of people who only work in a particular property, you could create a customized setting that everyone on the team could use. This makes it easy to share any customizations that you find useful. You can also create personal customizations that are adapted to jobs you do frequently.

You can now instruct MainBoss to omit various fields and other data items from table viewers and editors. For example, if you never use a particular column in a table viewer, you can tell MainBoss to omit that column, leaving more space on the screen for other columns. Similarly, you can optimize editor windows by telling MainBoss that you never want to see certain fields. (You won't be allowed to omit mandatory fields.)

Report filters: The Filters section of reports now has a new format When you go to the section, you'll see a single drop-down box that lets you choose an information field on which you want to filter. Once you choose a field, more options open up to let you specify which records you want to select.

For example, suppose you want to look at all work orders created after a certain date. You'd go to the Filters section in the appropriate report window and you'd click the drop-down box's arrow. From the list, you'd choose to filter on Created Date. Once you specify this field, MainBoss will open another drop-down box with options like "is on or after" and "is in the range". Once you select "is on or after", MainBoss will open a calendar for you to specify the date you want. You'll then see a line with "Created Date" "is on or after" the date you choose.

When you specify a filter, MainBoss opens a new drop-down box below it. You can use this drop-down box to specify another filter. You can specify as many filters as you need. To get rid of an existing filter, click the red X button beside the filter.

The section organizes its checkboxes according to the records that contain the information fields. For example, suppose you're creating a work report about work orders. Field Selection will have a Work Orders area that lists all the information fields that may be obtained from a work order. You can use checkboxes to choose which fields you do and don't want.

For a list of what has changed, see What's New in MainBoss 4.0 Reports and Charts.

Work order table viewers have a new button: New Task from Work Order. This lets you create new task records from an existing work order.

For example, suppose you write up a work order to do a specific job and then you decide you want to do that same job every month. You can use New Task from Work Order to create a task record containing the work order's description and other relevant fields. You can then use the new task to create unit maintenance plans that will schedule the job on a regular basis.

If a New or "In Progress" request has no one currently assigned to it, new facilities let you assign yourself to the request (provided you have the appropriate security role). For example, suppose a request arrives on the weekend or during the off-shift. A worker with appropriate security permissions could claim that request without needing a supervisor to make an explicit assignment.

Assigning yourself to a request can be done using either the MainBoss web interface (Web Access/Web Request) or the Windows MainBoss program. On the web, authorized users can get a list of requests that currently have no one assigned to them. They can then click a "Self Assign" button to assign themselves to a selected request. In the Windows program, there is an Unassigned Requests table under Current User Assignment Status; again, authorized users can assign themselves to any of the unassigned requests.

When you assign yourself to a request, it is automatically put into the "In Progress" state if it wasn't already. From that point on, the request is just like one that was assigned to you by someone else. It is removed from the Unassigned Requests table and added to the list of requests assigned to you.

In order to assign yourself to a request, you need the RequestAssignSelf security role. You also have to be listed in the Request Assignees table.

There are similar features that allow you to assign yourself to a work order or to a purchase order, provided you have the WorkOrderAssignSelf or PurchaseOrderAssignSelf security role.

For example, all buttons that used to say Print now have an icon of a printer. Similar changes have been made with several other standard buttons.

In addition, icons now appear on the title bars of windows. This means they will also appear on window tabs in the Windows task bar. If you have multiple MainBoss windows open, the icons should make it easier to distinguish which window is which when you look at the task bar.

Requests are often linked to work orders. In particular, when you create a work order from a request, the request is linked to the work order. The same is true when you explicitly use Link to Work Order to link a request to a work order.

When a request is linked to a work order, you often would like changes in the work order's state to affect the state of the request. For example, when you close a work order, you might want MainBoss to automatically close the request too.

MainBoss now makes it possible for you to specify such automatic changes. You do this by setting up rules saying, "If a request is in state A and it's linked to a work order that goes into state B, then automatically put the request into state C." So you could say, "If a request is In Progress and it's linked to a work order that gets closed, then automatically close the request too." As another example, you could say, "If a request is Closed and it's linked to a work order that changes to Open (i.e. the work order is reopened), then automatically change the request to In Progress" (i.e. reopen the request too).

You specify rules of this kind in "Close Preferences", found in the Defaults for Requests section of the Requests table viewer.

MainBoss can now initialize and update Contact records with information obtained from the Windows Active Directory . MainBoss Service can also obtain Active Directory information when creating new Requestor records. For more information, see the Installation and Administration Guide.

You can also use the mbutility program to update user-related and requestor-related information from Active Directory . This includes getting rid of users and/or requestors who are no longer in your Active Directory. This will be useful for organizations like educational institutions, where there may be large turnovers in your requestor base over time.

The Web Access module can draw on Active Directory information to validate requestor email addresses. In this way, appropriate requestor records can be created "on the fly" for anyone in your organization's Active Directory. You may never have to create requestor records in advance for people in your Active Directory; Web Access will automatically create appropriate requestor records if and when someone in your Active Directory tries to submit a request. By running mbutility occasionally, you can remove any requestors who are no longer in your Active Directory.

MainBoss provides the ability to control this automatic creation of requestors. In particular, you can specify "Accept" and "Reject" pattern strings. An "Accept" pattern tells MainBoss to accept all requestors whose email addresses match a particular pattern, while a "Reject" pattern string tells MainBoss to reject requests from requestors whose email addresses match a different pattern. For example, you might only accept email addresses within your own organization, or you might reject specific email addresses associated with people who have previously made unacceptable requests.

For a complete list, see Minor Changes in MainBoss Advanced 4.0.