Upcoming changes in the next SS update

In addition to what has already been done, here is an update on what has been changed/added/planned in the next version of SS. Please review and let me know if you have concerns or questions on any of these. I am working on SS now pretty regularly and hope to have an updated beta version out to the beta group shortly with a lot of these changes already done.

Products

• You will be able to indicate if a product requires shipping or not for those downloadable items that do not require shipping. That way they do not go into the shipping calculation. You can do this now manually but this will allow you to include it in the product list export/import and have it done automatically.
• Release date and Discontinued Date are now real dates. This will allow you to enter a discontinued date in the future and still add it to an order now without a warning.
  •I believe you can already add Discontinued items to an order with a warning (by using the product lookup button) however I will verify this.
• I am eliminating the US and CAN price/cost fields and will have just a single set of price/cost fields. The import specification has changed accordingly and you will need to import a list with the appropriate country's prices.

Vendors

• Down the road the non-demo version of SS will have the ability for stampers to track all the stamps they own and not just SU! stamps. For this purpose I have added a Vendors field to Products. In the mean time Demos will have the convenience of being able to do the same. When you install the update and run the DB upgrade (which should run automatically the first time after an update) SS will assume all products you have entered in your list are SU products and mark them accordingly. As a demo you will only be able to add SU products to orders. New installations will come with the SU Vendor already defined. All new products entered will be assume to be SU unless otherwise indicated.

Order types

• There is no longer a "Supply" order type. Supply items can be added to Demonstrator orders. I am sill working on the calculations and will need your help to do testing to make sure they are accurate after the next beta version is ready.
• "Outside" order type name has been changed to "Customer". All your old orders will be updated to match the new name.
• Other terminology changes will likely occur to become more in-line with SU! wording - if you have suggestions please let me know.

Projects

• The supplies list is now sorted by category and then description both on screen and on report. I think this is already in the version you have but I could be wrong. It is done on my end so you will see it in the next beta at the latest.

Upgrading

• I am planning on updating the next version to Access 2007 to gain the use of new features and make the program a bit more eye appealing.
• I will still be working in the current version of Access for a while - at least until I have the orders changes done.
• I will be using updated installation tools to eliminate any compatibility issues remaining with the latest windows versions.
• I will probably make the next update version 2.0 to delineate between the Access 2002 based version and the 2007 version.
• Starting with the next update you will have to first update to at least 1.0.4 before updating to 2.0.

Localization

• After 2.0 is released I hope to being working on localized versions for those in other countries besides US/CAN