General

Enhanced: The File Cleanup utility has been rewritten to better handle unexpected errors in your database content (these are rare, but can occur if you had a hardware error when writing a file or created a project by importing an FDA file from a much earlier version). If a serious error occurs during the rebuilding process, FF&EZ will leave all files unchanged. However, if a fixable error occurs, FF&EZ will fix it in your original files prior to starting the main operation.

Added: A new Install Plug-ins command automatically installs and activates optional plug-ins that add extra capabilities.

Enhanced: The "Include support files" option for the Backup utility now includes the most recent workstation installer in the backup set. Using this option along with the "Data files and image files" option will create a compressed archive file that can be used to completely recover your FF&EZ software and data from a hardware failure (as long as the backup file was created on—or moved to—another storage device prior to the failure).

Enhanced: The Update Software utility now recognizes update files where the browser has changed the file extension from ".fdz" to ".zip" without asking (as of version 3.2.61).

Enhanced: The Setup screen's "System Information" tab has been reorganized and includes some new administration options:

• The display of the current Data Set folder (where your data and images are stored) now includes a Change command that allows you to reset the location of where FF&EZ looks for your data. This normally does not need to be changed, however this function can be used if an existing data set has been copied to a different location (like a server) and you want to point to the new location. It can also be used to switch to a different data set if you are doing work as (or for) more than one company (not client).

Note: Changing this only affects the current workstation; all other workstations will continue to point to the data set that is "current" for them. If you are moving a data set to a new location, be sure to change each workstation as needed.

• The folders shown now include the location of the "staging" folder for temporary images that will be attached to project specifications. This is the base folder where FF&EZ "looks" first when you click on the Select button on the Specifications screen. You can now change this location to any location you want (such as a shared network folder) and FF&EZ will look for images in this folder first (or rather, in a project subfolder just beneath it). To select a new folder, use the Change button. Your selection stays in effect until you use the Default button to reset it. This option makes it more convenient for teams working on gathering images for larger projects.

Note: This does not affect the location of the main FF&EZ Image Library, which is always located in the Data Set folder in the subfolder "Images."

Fixed: a bug that caused an "Error 13" error after the user created a query that was used in a report, then subsequently moved to a different major screen. This could occur with almost any screen, but tended to happen after printing an FF&E Worksheet report with a query in effect.

Fixed: Some types of screen elements (such as checkboxes) did not respond to a double-click to start "editing" mode while also keeping focus on that element so you could immediately change it.

Fixed: Some minor bugs that occurred when editing longer query clauses.

Library

Fixed, Import option: The specifications displayed by the Import option on the Add and Edit commands on this screen included those from vendors that had been marked as obsolete. These have been eliminated from the list.

Room List

Enhanced: In the Room List area, the room quantity column uses boldface in the "QTY" column for rooms that are included in the quantity count.  The "Room List by Area" report also shows the quantity for included rooms in boldface to make the source of the room quantity totals more obvious (and make it easier to identify rooms that should be included but are not).

FF&E Worksheet

Enhanced: For pure design projects, more flexible printing of quantities, prices and locations were added to the "Object Illustration Sheet" reports under their individual "Report Options" tab. You can now control the printing of any combination of quantities, locations and object price (or none at all). The printing of component quantities is retained in a separate option as before. [Note: The "Object Illustration Sheet" reports were replaced by the more powerful "Illustration Sheet" format in later versions.]

Enhanced: Before it actually runs, the Setup Check command now displays a list of the conditions that are included in the special query that this command creates. This allows you to exclude tests for problems that are not applicable in your current project and eliminate "false positives." For example, in a purchasing management project, a test for a zero profit amount would not be relevant, nor would each status field need to be tested if you are not using all of them.

New report: The "FF&E Specification Reference by Area" report. It uses the format introduced with the "Materials Reference" report with the report options preset to produce a report that includes FF&E specifications for all object classes except finishes, OS&E and "Other"   (the FIN, OSE  and OTH classes). You can of course adjust the options and/or use a query to produce any combination of content. As a reminder, the object "Class" is set on the Object List screen.

New reports: The base "Quote/Contract" reports each have an alternate version "...w/Terms & Conditions" that prints a full sheet of boilerplate terms and conditions at the end of the report. The text is limited to what will fit on one report sheet at 8 pt, which is approximately 6,000 characters or the text that will fit into two pages of a plain-text word-processor document, using Arial 12 pt text with 1" margins on all sides. More info at "Using the Reports."

Note: These new formats share a different boilerplate text to allow flexibility in how you use the original quote formats vs. these variations. If you want to use these with your existing boilerplate, be sure to copy and paste the existing text into the new reports with the Edit Boilerplate command.

Fixed: The "Materials Reference" report was ignoring some queries and printing all specs in the project.  Fixed  "Object Detail Report by Tag" was not displaying all locations correctly (no other reports with locations had this problem).

Object List

Enhanced: The captions that appear in the component area when cloning and editing are more informative.

Enhanced: Before it actually runs, the Setup Check command now displays a list of the conditions that are included in the special query that this command creates. This allows you to exclude conditions that are not applicable in your current project and eliminate "false positives." For example, in a pure design project in which pricing is done by others, a test for a zero cost would not be relevant. Similarly, for a purchasing management project, a test for zero profit amount would produce unnecessary results.

Specification List

A "please note" pop-up was added that appears when a user 1) creates a new spec directly on the Specification List screen and then 2) clicks on the Save button instead of Save/Object. The warning gives you the option to select the "create object" option anyway or to continue and only save the new spec. This was added because some new users tended to start writing specs and not connect them to an object, creating extra work for themselves later.

The warning does not appear if you are adding a spec as part of a larger sequence that would connect it to an object anyway.

Enhanced: More explanatory text was added to the Object command pop-up screen to help new users understand their options.

Enhanced: Before it actually runs, the Status Check command now displays a selectable list of the conditions that are included in the special query that this command creates. This allows you to exclude conditions that are not applicable in your current project and eliminate "false positives." For example, in a pure design project in which pricing is done by others, a test for a zero cost or zero profit amount would not be relevant.  Fixed  Some conditions in the query created by this command were not able to be edited.

Enhanced: The "Specification Status" reports have options to control how quickly it highlights specs with approaching "order by" dates (based on the entered lead time and project installation date) and how quickly it highlights those with quotes that will expire. Additional color-coding was added for "order by" dates that have passed. Please note that no status highlighting will occur if no "Installation" date has been entered on the project screen.

Fixed: After a recent update, the display of the calculated markup amount (not the markup percentage) was "lagging" visually when the user moved from one spec to another while browsing. This was a screen display issue that looked confusing but did not affect the underlying numbers. The proper amount was displayed (and saved) during editing and displayed on all reports. This issue also occurred with the displayed purchasing fee on projects of that type, and was also fixed.

Fixed, Import option: The specifications displayed by the Import option on the Add and Edit commands on this screen included those from vendors that had been marked as obsolete. These have been eliminated from the list to avoid problems with a vendor that could not be displayed on the resulting spec.

If you need to import specs from an obsolete vendor, locate and edit that vendor on the Vendor List screen and de-select the "Obsolete" status (and save it), then select the Specification screen's Import option again. However, you must either then substitute an active vendor or leave the old one active.

Orders

Enhanced, Fixed: The base "Purchase Order" format now includes the contact's email address in the title block, and does a better job of handling long addresses and phone numbers. The dual sets of phone numbers have been eliminated in favor of printing the contact's phone numbers first and, if any are blank, substituting the company phone number(s) from the Setup screen. Each person's phone numbers and email addresses can be entered using the Edit button on the Processing screen or the People button on the Setup screen.

Fixed: When reprinting an order, the original "Authorized by" name did not print unless it was manually selected again. This has been fixed so that reprinted orders always show the original "Authorized by" name unless you select a "Revised by" name for that instance.

Expediting

Fixed: Under certain circumstances where the project Orders view button had been used to display only orders for the active project, using the Expediting view button would cause an error. The project Orders button is the smaller of the two "Orders" button under "Views" on the left.