PST Newsletter

    1. Version 10 of ManagePro Releases Thursday April 7th - Please read!

    We are entering our final week of beta testing and Version 10 of ManagePro will be release Thursday morning, April 7th.  If you are on the annual maintenance plan you or your company's contact person will receive an email Wednesday night with instructions for upgrading.

    There are several things to be aware of with the new release, please read carefully, I'll be brief:

     1. If you are using ManagePro Plus or Smart and hosting with us, you must upgrade your copy of ManagePro before accessing our server, as the database structure has changed to accommodate the addition of 20 new picklist fields.

     2. If you are self hosting, we will send you instructions Wednesday night to upgrade your middleware as well as ManagePro licenses, and we will make technical support available to help by reservation on Thursday morning for your organization.  Call Jona at (707) 487-3000 to schedule.

     3. Please note that in addition to new Recurring Events discussed in the next session of the newsletter, there are several new features that effect the look and function of ManagePro, you'll want to be aware of:

          1. There are no longer 3 separate calendar tabs, just one.  You can switch to the work week, weekly or calendar view using the right click "Change View to " option.
         2. You can set the work week view to start on any day of the week - use the right click "Preferences/First day of the Work week" option.
         3. You can set the Gantt chart year and quarter view to a corporate  as opposed to calendar year while in the Gantt chart using the right click "Start of Corporate Year" option.
         4. You can text message up to 160 characters of any record to cell phones using the ManagePro email option and copying and pasting in the text message address(es) you wish to use.  In your existing database they need to be stored in the People & Meetings/TeamUserText2 field.  I would suggest renaming that to Text Messaging Address in the Program button/Preferences/Customization option and set the text type to simple text in your current database, as the upgrade does not automatically change the field name on existing databases.  You'll find more information about text messaging in the help file, search on the word "Text Messaging".   See the screenshot below.
         

    If you are not on the Annual Maintenance program and want to upgrade to Version 10, please contact Jona at (707) 487-3000 and she'll get you set up.

    Text Messaging

     We've provided a separate page with a listing of all the additions and fixes in version 10.  The additions all have screenshots to make it even easier to rapidly understand and put to use.  Click here  to view.


    2. Recurring Events - Getting up to Speed in less than 2 minutes

The really quick tip on setting up events to be recurring in ManagePro, is that it works like Microsoft Outlook.  However, let me go over three quick tips that are the most important and you'll find more information in the link at the bottom of this section.

 1. You can create events lots of places, but you can only create a recurring event from the calendar view.  You can edit recurring events in the Calendar, User List & Record Details views, not to mention most grid views, but you can only create them in the Calendar view. 

 2. To create (or edit) a recurring event, just open or create an event in the calendar and then click on the recurrence icon on the bottom left to set the appropriate recurrence parameters.  And if you were wondering, yes the recurring events synchronize with Outlook.  See screenshot below.

 3. If you click on one event in a series of recurring events, you can change the date and time, but that only effects that one event and takes it out of the recurring series control.  If you want to edit the entire series, highlight any of the recurring events in the calendar, right click and choose the "Edit the Series" option. 

Note:  If you use Outlook on your Blackberry or Android phone and like to get prompts on upcoming appointments and todos in ManagePro on your phone, make sure they are entered as events in ManagePro, synchronize with Outlook and set up Outlook to remind you via Tools/Options/Calendar/Default Reminder option.

Recurring Events Settings

Click this link for more information on Recurring Events


3. Working with Calculated Fields

Several calculated fields are pre-configured when creating new databases using Version 10.  But if you haven't started using Calculated fields in ManagePro you're missing out on a very helpful feature. 

You can create all sorts of calculated fields based upon date and number fields in ManagePro.  For the most part, if it can be constructed as an equation in Excel, it can be used to create a calculated field in ManagePro.

For demonstration purposes, I wanted to show you how to create a calculated field that displays a count-down for the number of days remaining until a due date, and turns color in the process just to give you a bit more heads up.  I've labeled it as Days Remaining. 

Here are the steps to create it (note you must have Administrator rights in ManagePro to create calculated fields and add them to views).

  1. Create a calculated field by clicking on the upper right, round Program button, then Preferences, then Calculated fields.
 2. Click Add, and in the Caption field, type the name to be used for this field "Days Remaining".
 3. For Field 1, select the Due Date, as it is the field we are using in the calculation. 
 4. Skip Field 2 and go right to the Operator field and select "From Today".
 5. Set up the Score Configuration color globes to suit your needs.  In this example I'm setting the calculated field to display in green as long as the due date is 30 days out or more; yellow when the due date is within 2 to 29 days; and to turn red when the due date is within one day or has passed and the task still isn't marked Done.

Creating Days Remaining Calculated Field

Customizing the Look

Customizations:  Please let us know if you need ManagePro customized to better fit your needs.  Sometimes it's a lot less hassle and more economical to have us add customizations, like calculated fields, then to do it yourself.  Call us at (707) 487-3000 and we'll set up a meeting to jump online with you and give you an estimate to customize ManagePro as it best suits you.

 
Call toll free (877) 487-3001

March 2011 Newsletter content:

  1. Version 10 of ManagePro Releases Thursday April 7
  2. Coming up to speed on Recurring Events
  3. Working with Calculated Fields