Introduction

This document summarises the enhancements of iPROsoft Version 2.8 and indicates the direction in which iPROsoft is heading. The related document entitled “ iPROsoft Version 2.8 List of Enhancements and New Programs” will yield detailed program-by-program information.

Much more than a software supplier iPROsoft Pty Ltd is a service company established to provide business services wrapped around one software product, iPROsoft .

Over the past two versions in particular we have been working to make the iPROsoft package more and more configurable so that iPROsoft can be made to fit individual requirements with little or no compromise and with less effort. To configure iPROsoft its system supervisors and / or users have several possible courses of action including:

• Set parameters to alter the behaviour of specific programs. There are almost 500 parameters now available.
  • Set global enterprise settings (E2701).
  • Set the security levels, permissions and access.
  • Establish Private Menus to cater to individual or group needs or to define tasks.
  • Set U-LAUNCH enabled List View programs to display only the data necessary for each user's requirements. This includes which columns, their sequence and headers, filters to restrict the data to display and right click menus.
  • Attach business procedures to menus and explorers to answer the question “How do I do my job?” in relation to the use of iPROsoft .
• Use the related programs to join and group programs together to facilitate the easy completion of tasks.
• Configure the right click menus in each report when viewed in the report viewer.
  • Finally, as a service to you, have iPROsoft Pty Ltd program your particular business rules, processes or reports.

U-LAUNCH technology is the foundation of iPROsoft's flexibility. With iPROsoft Version 2.8 U-LAUNCH technology continues to expand its influence. The design objective of U-LAUNCH is to make it as easy as possible for a person to complete the information management components of his or her job.

For the purposes of this document the Version 2.8 iPROsoft upgrade can be thought of as falling into various main areas of product enhancement. These are:

• U-LAUNCH technology proliferation to provide increased “configurability” and ease of task completion.
• Work Flow – Registers for Enquiries, Proposals and Jobs to let you know at a glance where you are up to.
• Simple, User-Friendly Report Writing attached to each
  U-LAUNCH enabled List View program.
• Business Process Documentation Expansion. Now you can attach documentation and instructions to just about everywhere in the system. This way you assist the new or occasional user to know what to do.
• Estimating – A minor overhaul to accommodate estimating styles and to take advantage of some U-LAUNCH technology.
• Payroll – several payroll enhancements required by the user group including payslip notes and admin jobs not accruing annual and / or sick leave.
• A spread of revisions to streamline function, add functionality and comply with regulations.

U-LAUNCH technology facilitates simple and reliable programming processes. When a program comes up for a revision and it has older style displays, we usually replace those displays at least with U-LAUNCH List Views along with making the program compliant for parameter transmission and receipt. Much more dramatic developments, however, are derived from using U-LAUNCH technology to conjoin the results of integrated but disparate modules.

For example, in Version 2.8, if you have both the Human Resources and the Document modules installed then not only can you raise a person's detail record in the usual way, but also peruse all the documents cross referenced to that person. The documents could include things like their letter of appointment, copies of certificates, incident reports etc. So for Version 2.8 we have added a master detail document management U-LAUNCH Explorer for personnel. We have also added a master detail document management General Ledger Explorer for projects. How do you need your documents sorted and displayed? U-LAUNCH just makes it easier for us to arrange what you want. It makes configuration services more easily achieved.

All Private Menus now have F10 (Run a Program) functionality so that users with adequate security can run any program they want.

All Master/Detail ULAUNCH enabled List Views : The master fields are now passed as parameters for new records.

All U-LAUNCH enabled list view program pull down menus now display the program code after the name of the program.

In Version 2.8 we have released a number of registers to facilitate workflow in a visual way. Specifically the registers include:

• The Enquiry Register is used to list enquiries coming from existing and prospective customers. This register is part of the Customer Relationship Management module. You can use the register to email the sales representative, check the status of an enquiry, establish at a glance when follow-ups are due / overdue, who has been allocated to which enquiry and evaluate the worth of lead sources. This is the information usually demanded for marketing and sales and is now instantly available.
• The Quotation Register is just like the Enquiry Register except it deals with enquiries which have made it to the proposal stage. It's the same kind of management tool for proposals, however for analysis it comes with a cash flow forecasting model for works not yet won. The Quotation Register is part of the Estimating module.
• The Job Register is the Jobs U-LAUNCH Explorer you are all used to. It can now take advantage of the combination of the Milestone Scheduling and Job Streamlining modules to display and group jobs according to status. So now at a glance, as the manager, you can see at a high level where you jobs are up to. People involved in housing, trade services and indeed anyone who has a lot of jobs to manage, will find this workflow tool indispensable.

We expect the workflow requirements for a given business to be peculiar to that business. So using U-LAUNCH technology combined with support services, iPROsoft Pty Ltd is setting out to service the individual requirements of customer enterprises. To give some idea of where this is heading we offer the following:

What are Workflows?
According to Dr. Rafael A. Calvo of the University of Sydney School of Electrical Engineering in citing the workflow management consortium, workflows can be defined as follows:

“The automation of a business process, in whole or in part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.”

According to Dr. Rafael, and indeed logically, a participant is a resource and can be a person or a machine.

Using iPROsoft to Control Workflow

iPROsoft modules typically generate statuses. These statuses are available to facilitate the control and automation of business processes. Examples include client and creditor ratings, classifications and bars, job open and close, purchase order commitment, milestone activity completion, progress claim commitment and document commitment.

A significant part of the work-flow story is contingent upon the user permissions and delegations along with the business rules commissioned by each iPROsoft Pty Ltd customer as part of the iPROsoft implementation or as a later development to it.

When procedurally sequenced, the statuses can trigger certain events and e-mail alerts as a function of the established rules. Each current status and related data components are available for display in

iPROsoft U-LAUNCH Explorers for Visual Status Control

A common use of a U-LAUNCH explorer is that of a visual control panel or “digital dash-board” . The U-LAUNCH explorers are tailorable to suit the individual user and the tasks being controlled. People may run a number of U-LAUNCH explorers simultaneously.

Statuses are triggered by various events in iPROsoft . These can be intercepted in the U-LAUNCH explorer along with other key kindred elements of data. Typically the viewer can sequence the data displayed in a U-LAUNCH explorer for example to gather up records in status group order to facilitate the next process. Typically the viewer could re-orient the matrix in, for example, job number or some other sequence just depending on the need.

iPROsoft Version 2.8 for Trade Services

This topic was covered extensively in our December 2004 Newsletter. This newsletter is included on our website. You can download a copy from http://iprosoft.com/Newsletters/Newsletter04Dec.pdf .

If you would prefer a copy by post, please call Christine in the Brisbane Head Office on 07 3004 6100.

At the release of Version 2.7 in February 2004 many people said the U-LAUNCH explorers were great for making tasks more visual and data centric, however, they said it would be better if we could dump a copy of the contents of the explorer to a printer. By using the explorer filter to select the data set and the explorer column editor to determine the display, as a pre-cursor to printing the people knew they had a rudimentary and ultra easy way to use report writer in the making.

Accordingly, in Version 2.8 we are pleased to announce the delivery of that request. We have used Excel as the recipient of the data output. This way if any down the line data manipulation was required prior to printing the operator has the functions of Excel available. When you load any of your Version 2.8 U-LAUNCH explorers you will notice an Excel icon in the title bar.

If you have a version of Excel that is later than Version 97 installed on your system, when you click on the Excel icon, or press F9, the explorer will export the filtered information to a comma separated variable (.csv) file and open the file in Excel. If you don't have Excel or don't want to use it, then you can install the Z parameter ZNOEXCEL and the .csv export file will open with whatever application your windows associates with .csv files.

iPROsoft includes help text with the software. That text describes what iPROsoft does, not how to use it. Of much more use would be a user defined instruction set that could work like help.

With iPROsoft Version 2.8 “How do I do my job?” documents can be attached to U-LAUNCH explorers, Private Menus and Related Program Menus. The documents attached can take many forms – they can be a word document, PDF, Excel File etc. They are yours to create and they can be attached independent of the number of modules you have. Just like the explorers and menus to which they are attached, they are sensitive to the ID of the person using the package. So you can tailor work instructions / business procedures for individuals or, more likely, for groups of people.

For example, say the group of interest is the project administrators. You may attach a summary document spelling out the general processes of the project administrator's job (the works instructions) to the Jobs Explorer. Then to the related programs menu of the job enquiry program E1109 you could attach the specific business processes for capturing forecasts and reporting project performance.

Making business process documentation available in conjunction with systems that are streamlined to be as simple to use as possible has got to aid the optimisation of productivity. It is also an aid in complying with Quality Assurance procedures.

The estimating program can still be used in the traditional ways, however, we have expanded the functionality to accommodate additional estimating styles and to take advantage of U-LAUNCH technology.

• We have added a U-LAUNCH explorer for bills of quantities. The explorer can launch BOQ item editing via E412 – Quotes / Estimates and can sort items by Item Reference (outside of dissection), by dissection, by element, by resource and by period.
• Elements : In addition to the old method of classifying items into elements by item coding you can now apply a defined elemental break down. So for example you can get a bill of quantities floor by floor with a costing for each floor.
• Resources : We have added a definable set of resources for each estimate. An output may now be displayed in columns according to resource. A typical example will be a BOQ with columns set out as Materials, Labour, Subcontract and Other with a subtotal for each column and each cost dissection.
• Periods : An arbitrary project period can now be attached to each BOQ item indicating when that item is going to be needed. The BOQ can then be sorted and sub totalled by period to provide a project cash flow.
• Future Pricing : The price file has future pricing added. This means where price file items have been included in estimates they can optionally be made to bear costs anticipated at the time of construction.
• It is now possible to update an estimate cost for:
  Current listed cost.
  • Cheapest supplier.
  • Preferred supplier.
  • Supplier in defined location.
  • Future cost and date applicable
• Utilities are now available to:
  • Set the future prices in the price book as a function of a percentage increase or decrease of the current price book item prices.
  • Set the future date when the future prices will become effective.

This module provides the means of imposing system business rules. Jobs may be categorised and, as a function of job categories, sales accounts can be limited, as can the trade dissection accounts. One may also apply special job and regional on-costs.

The addition of the Milestone Schedule linkage permits the storage of a proforma schedule against each job profile. If a job of a given classification is set-up, behind the scenes the milestone schedule for the job is established. This is particularly useful for those companies handling a large number of jobs. The job and schedule are established with minimum effort, the business rules ensure nothing is incorrectly booked and the Milestone Schedule monitors the workflow.

The Human Resources module has been the beneficiary of cross integration with the Document Module to make it easy for authorized people to find and display the documentation pertaining to personnel. It has also acquired additional functionality in the form of Personnel and Qualification Tracking eg expiry dates of First Aid etc.

This is just like the existing Job, Client, Supplier and Document Tracking facilities. The objective is to input notes and append actions to be completed by someone, sometime in the future. An accompanying report will enable you to list the actions pending and distinguish them from those already completed.

As with the other tracking programs the earliest incomplete action due date can be displayed in the Personnel U-LAUNCH Explorer.

For those with Customer Relationship and Supplier Relationship modules, Version 2.8 includes:

• The ability to display the last incomplete action date from the tracking programs on the U-LAUNCH Explorer so at a glance you can zero in on actions pending.
• Look-ups for definable rating of clients, suppliers and contacts.

No matter the nature of the project and service organisations, there are documents critical to every job. Version 2.8 users of the Document and the Milestone Scheduling modules will be able to include the receipt or dispatch of key documents as elements of monitorable workflow. The housing sector is an obvious beneficiary, particularly with long pre-construction periods. Just the same, every project has documents which are pivotal to project activities.

Documents can now be flagged as private. The contents of such documents can only be viewed by the author and those users whose level of access allows them the right to view all documents, private or not.

The last incomplete action due date of a document can be viewed on any document explorer thus making it easy to intercept from the explorer those documents requiring action.

Published documents can be dispatched via email. All that is required is to point and click at the required document and it is dispatched to the recipients as an attachment.

As before you can allocate the members of a job or project team. In Version 2.8 it is now possible to dedicate these personnel to a job for a period.

In allocating personnel to jobs it is now possible to indicate client preference or indeed rejection of certain personnel. The objective is to give a service coordinator the best chance of not sending the wrong person for the job.

A library of site addresses may now be established for each client. Companies who undertake service works routinely for their customers can access stored site information or more likely just copy the site address into the job register when setting up the job.

A new Service Scheduling Board has been created to aid decision making in allocating personnel or indeed plant to a job. The board shows who is allocated to which service job as a function of the time of day and also shows who is dedicated to a project on a day by day basis.

The payroll has been enhanced in a number of areas all due to requests from our user group. The long awaited payslip notes is now available and it includes general as well as individualised notes that can be printed on payslips.

Other popular requests were the ability to have administration jobs that do not accrue annual and / or sick leave, and to rename “Leisure Leave” to “RDO”. These have been included in Version 2.8.

Other payroll enhancements include :

• Printing of termination Break Down
• No need to go in E353 – Timesheets & Pays for each recurring pay if there are recurring deductions
• Option to include in the annual leave loading calculation the first daily and first weekly allowances
• Option to post payroll transactions for overhead jobs less than 101 to the Home Office Branch of the employee as opposed to the admin job's default branch (Z251902)
  
• During Pay Makeup :
  • Display only active employee deductions and check against deduction limit
  • Allow overwriting of fields in Termination Pay screens
  • Ability to enter job hours from Monday to Sunday (Z35304) instead of Saturday to Friday
  • Ability to pay RDO at the rates it was accrued (Z35306)
  • Ability to only accrue RDOs on OH jobs that are flagged to accrue RDO
  • Allow general and/or individualised payslip notes
  • Cater for Admin jobs flagged as not accruing annual and/or sick leave
  • Ability to allow more than one pay to be processed in a calendar month (Z35307) for monthly employees
    
• Job worksheets entry program E1244
  • New button to uncommit a worksheet so that it can be edited
  • Save the RDO accrual when committing a timesheet and adjust when uncommitting
    
• Programs E251 – Standard Schedule of Deductions and E241 – Schedule of Employee Deductions have been rewritten to conform to the ULAUNCH framework. E251U and E241U are ULAUNCH enabled list view programs that in turn display all standard deductions and deductions for an employee. E251 has been enhanced to include a default deduction limit that can be used for group deductions like social club memberships. E241 has been enhanced to:
  • Include a deduction limit for the employee's specific deduction.
  • Display the deduction to date.
  • Include an indicator to show if the deduction is active or not. This indicator is automatically set to “N” when the deduction reaches its limit but can be also set manually to “N” to discontinue a deduction temporarily or permanently.
    
• Ability to print leave liability by Home Office.

The purchase orders scan available from F8 in E2261 – Creditor Invoices has been revamped for both ease of use and flexibility in sorting. E2258 – Purchase Order Scan can now be run from the creditor invoice program or can be run standalone. This is now an invaluable tool for finding out orders on a job and / or creditor.

Users are now able to define their own terms of payments for both the creditors and debtors modules. Now you can enter a creditor invoice for a supplier set to 60 days and, with Z5102 Default Terms to Next Period End installed, the due date will default to the last day of the month in which the 60 days falls. Where Z5102 is not installed, the due date will simply be 60 days from the invoice date.

When setting up bank account details for creditors paid by EFT, you can set a default Lodgement Reference to appear on the creditors bank statement. You also have the opportunity to overwrite this at the payment level should the need arise.

The GST on creditor invoices is now recalculated if the original invoice value is changed.

We have also expanded R22611 – Creditor Retentions to display Claim, Retention and Invoice values inclusive and exclusive of GST to assist in reconciling retentions on creditors.

The BAS Lodgement Assistant (E20001) has now been opened up to run either from the commencement of GST or start up of iPROsoft . The program has also been modified for cash basis clients to pick up zero value creditor payments where there is a GST component.

You now have the ability to constrain the entry of creditor invoices only to the current period where users have security levels less than that of Z parameter Z226123.

Generally the tracking notes all now advance the earliest incomplete action date to the subject table, e.g. Job Tracking to Jobs. Personnel Tracking is new and is attached to the Human Resources module.

Jobs
Program E1192 – Job Tracking posts its earliest incomplete action date to the job. That date is visible on Job Explorers E11018U and E11020U.

Purchase Orders
Program E1193 – Job Tracking for Orders posts its earliest incomplete action date to an Order. That date is visible on the Procurement Explorer E2257U.

Personnel
Program E3041 – Personnel Tracking posts its earliest incomplete action date to an Employee. That date is visible on the Personnel Explorer E309U.

Documents
Program E741 – Document Tracking posts its earliest incomplete action date to the Document Header record. That date is visible on the Document Explorer E713U.

Users are now able to view within a purchase order the specific pricing for the supplier on the order via the F8 Scan button. This program E22003U is also available standalone so it is easy to see the specific pricing for each supplier.

Users can specify an Immediate Write-Down Value Limit. For new fixed assets, the system will prompt the user with a depreciation method W below this value.

Low Value Pool : Users are now able to set up and maintain a Low Value Pool for any (or all) of their depreciation types. The system tracks low cost and low value items through their full life cycle of acquisition, depreciation and final sale or disposal.

To assist project managers to view the status of all variations, pc sums or rise and fall items entered against a nominated job, the Master Detail / List View explorers now include a matrix of totals providing a summary breakdown as a footer.

The purchase order scan E2258 is now available to be run standalone as well as from F8 in E2251 – Purchase Orders to allow greater flexibility in searching for orders on jobs and / or creditors.

Two new features allow the user to enter the expected delivery date for each line item on a purchase order where the Expediting Module and Z224122 are installed and secondly to increase the PC Sum or add extra line items on published purchase orders where Z225123 is installed.