Survey Administer Desktop
Administer Software Limited are pleased to announce that after much deliberation Survey Administer Desktop will enter development in the coming weeks.
There has been interest from companies that have their own office management system but don’t have a tool to assist the surveryor. Survey Administer Desktop will allow the entry of a new customer enquiry and the scheduling of the appointment. This information can then be exported to Survey Administer for use by the surveyor at the time of survey.
Information can then be exported from Survey Administer and back into Survey Administer Desktop where the information can be kept, edited and printed.
Pricing will start at £1,000 + VAT for a single user Survey Administer Desktop complete with a single user Survey Administer, rising to £1,500 + VAT for a multi user Survey Administer Desktop complete with a single user Survey Administer. Additional Survey Administer users are available for £500 + VAT each.
Please keep checking back for updates.
Viliv X70 UMPC
It seems that the Samsung Q1 Ultra has been discontinued by Samsung, so our search for a replacement has lead us to the Viliv X70.
The Viliv X70 features fast SSD (Solid State Drive), GPS, Webcam, sub 700gsm weight, great styling, hi-res LED backlit screen, good accessories and a capable platform that’s giving 5.5 hours of video playback battery life.
The X70 EX Premium 3G 7″ Mobile Internet Device from Viliv is a compact computer that weighs only a pound and a half. The X70 EX‘s 7″ touch-screen display boasts an impressive 1024 x 600 resolution, capable of displaying 720p HD video at near-native resolution. It can operate for up to 5.5 hours on a single battery charge. The computer can sleep for up to 150 hours per charge, and can be ready to use from sleep in as little as five seconds.
The handheld computer features a wealth of wireless connectivity options. Standard 802.11b/g Wi-Fi allows you to get online at Internet hotspots. Integrated 3G broadband, compatible with most network providers in the UK/EU, lets you get online sans Wi-Fi. The Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module supports compatible wireless peripherals, including keyboards, mice, and headphones. An integrated GPS system lets you know exactly where you are in the world. Additionally, you’ll be able to participate in online video chat thanks to the integrated webcam and microphone.
The computer is powered by a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU. It is loaded with 1GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD hard drive. Windows 7 Starter is the installed operating system. You can expand the computer’s storage via the use of SD and SDHC memory cards, which fit into the integrated card reader. The computer’s interface is enhanced by Viliv‘s Cube UI overlay which allows you to launch your favorite programs from easily-accessible bubbles for quick access. You can access up to 180 different applications in this manner.
An on-screen keyboard allows you to type with ease. It features haptic feedback, which provides physical confirmation of a button press via vibration to help you type more accurately. In addition to touch selection of items, a four-way jog wheel and clickable mouse buttons are present for cursor control. The system also provides dedicated OK, function, keyboard, and menu buttons.
Survey Administer Version 1340 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1340 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1336 to 1340)
FIX: Items with a destination of Not To Move are no longer included in sub and grand totals of quantity, volume or valuation on the Inventory Report, unless the Inventory Report is specifically listing items with a destination of Not To Move
ADDITION: A new ‘TLS authentication’ checkbox has been added to the Email tab of the System Defaults Wizard (Tools -> System Defaults) and when checked allows for TLS (Transport Layer Security) connections and authentication when sending emails, ideal when using GoogleMail email accounts
TABLES: SurveyDefaults
Survey Administer Version 1336 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1336 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1332 to 1336)
ADDITION: A new Inventory tab exists on the System Defaults Wizard that enables you to provide a default description of the inventories being taken
CHANGE: The default description of the inventory is now set to the default description set above
FIX: If after updating to this version you can still produce more than one inventory for a customer then let me know urgently as I believe I’ve now fixed this issue
TABLES: SurveyDefaults
Survey Administer Version 1332 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1332 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1319 to 1332)
FIX: Internal URL’s to MSN Mapping have now been updated to use Microsoft Mapping
ADDITION: There is a new checkbox on the General tab of the System Defaults Wizard that when checked uses Google Maps instead of Microsoft Maps for address and journey mapping
ADDITION: When viewing an address or journey map you can now jump between Google Maps and Microsoft Maps from the Actions menu
FIX: Intermittent GPF when opening and finishing an inventory item on an inventory when showing ALL items
TABLES: SurveyDefaults, Country
Survey Administer Version 1319 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1319 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1175 to 1319)
CHANGE: Now when you choose to show ‘Selected (All)’ the ‘Miscellaneous volume for room’ field is now disabled, however it now shows the total miscellaneous volumes for all rooms for the current inventory
FIX: At long last you are now taken back to the exact field that is invalid when you click on the finish/save button on the Wizards, rather than being taken to the first field on the tab
ADDITION: An Insert button on the Survey browse now allows the addition of new surveys! Minimal information such as Customer ID (which must be the same as the customer id given by Move Administer at the time of enquiry), Customer Name, Appointment Date and Time, Address (although not required) and Product. PLEASE NOTE: You can only create one new Survey for a customer
CHANGE: When opening a Survey, if the survey was created within Survey Administer then the Correspondence, Tentative, Origin, Destination, Moving and Miscellaneous tabs are no longer displayed
ADDITION: The Actions menu of the inventory now allows you to change the room for a chosen item that has a quantity assigned to it, moving any materials assigned to the item too!
FIX: Inventory items set ‘Not to move’ are no longer included in the calculation of total items, total cubic feet and total cubic metres
CHANGE: The System Information window now provides more detail on the hardware setup on which Survey Administer is running upon
CHANGE: Survey Administer will no longer allow multiple instances of itself to run
TECHNICAL: Survey Administer has now been bound to run on a single processor when in a multi processor environment. Tests have shown that this has vastly improved system freezes and instances of the application just disappearing
Survey Administer Version 1175 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1175 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1156 to 1175)
ADDITION: You can now turn the theming of window controls on and off from the Actions menu of System Information (Help -> System Information)
CHANGE: The Item, Material and Equipment browses on the Inventory Window have had their incremental locators removed and are now step based, which means that you can no longer type in chair (for example) into the yellow Item locator and find chair, you now press C and if the first item found is not chair then you press C again and again until chair is found. What this now means is that the alphabetical buttons across the top of the browses are step locators and now react much faster that before when pressed – enjoy
CHANGE: The Quotation Product Type now defaults to the Enquiry Product Type by default unless the Enquiry Product Type is Part Load, Storage or Self Storage, where it will then default to Inland
CHANGE: When importing materials into an event in Move Administer they are now imported as a total rather than on a room by room basis
Move Administer Version 1045 Released
Move Administer version 0.0.0.1045 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1033 to 1045)
Move Administer
Accounts
CHANGE: When entering a payment the Import Outstanding Balance is now controlled within the Security of User Administer
Correspondence
CHANGE: When emailing a Standing Order Mandate or a Card Mandate, should a link exist to a Storage/Self Storage job then the monthly rates are automatically calculated from the linked Storage/Self Storage job and displayed on the criteria window
Options
ADDITION: Self Storage has been added as a product to the Survey options
ADDITION: Self Storage Cover Offered has been added to the Cover tab of the Insurance Defaults Wizard
Other
CHANGE: Query menu has been reorganised and split into sections (Tools -> Query)
ADDITION: A new Comments tab has been added to the Inventory Wizard that allows Inventory Comments to be entered
ADDITION: When printing an Inventory, Comments is now a checkbox option on the Inventory Criteria Window
ADDITION: Inventory Comments are now imported from Survey Administer
CHANGE: Worksheet Wizard reformatted to fit 800×600 screen resolution
ADDITION: When opening up a Follow-Up Reminder you can now choose to snooze the reminder by 5/10/15/30 minutes, 1/2/4/8 hours, 0.5/1/2/3/4 days, ½ weeks; or dismiss the reminder altogether
ADDITION: Snooze options together with Snooze and Dismiss buttons have been added to the Follow-Up Reminders browse
ADDITION: When running a Mass Rejection on any of the Query Quotation Browses, you can now choose to add a note to the Customer’s notepad
Technical
TABLES: InsuranceDefaults, StorageDefaults, Inventory
SECURITY: New Import Outstanding Balance option within Accounts
Additional Modules
Self Storage Administer
FIX: Wizard tabs showing Weekly Rates have now been changed to Monthly Rates
ADDITION: Quotation tab has been added to the Self Storage Quotation Wizard, allowing included and excluded options to be typed and/or imported
ADDITION: Monthly Rates report (Reports -> Self Storage -> Monthly Rates)
ADDITION: Valuation of Goods report (Reports -> Self Storage -> Valuation of Goods)
ADDITION: Unoccupied Units report (Reports -> Self Storage -> Unoccupied Units)
ADDITION: An Import button has been added to the Identification tab of the Self Storage Wizard that imports the most common Identification Methods set in Options (Tools -> Options -> Self Storage -> Identification Methods)
Shipping Administer
ADDITION: VAT Code has been added to Quotation tab of the Trade Quotation Wizard
CHANGE: Trade Quotations only print + VAT next to the charge if the VAT code is set to the default VAT code
ADDITION: VAT Code, Description of VAT Code and VAT Rate (%) columns have been added to the Query Trade Browse
ADDITION: On the Consignments tab of the Manifest Wizard you can now assign the Master Shipper for the Manifest Bill of Laden by pressing the BOL Master button when the correct Consignment is highlighted
CHANGE: When printing a Manifest Bill of Laden, should a Master Shipper be assigned for the Manifest, then the Origin Agent is the Name of the Master Shipper with a C/O the Origin Agent
Survey Administer
FIX: MSN Mapping now works again
CHANGE: The ‘Extended cover’ checkbox on the Quotation tab of the Survey Wizard has been replaced with ‘Cover offered’, providing a choice of Limited, Standard and Extended
ADDITION: A new Comments tab has been added to the Survey Wizard that allows Inventory Comments to be entered
ADDITION: When printing an Inventory, Comments is now a checkbox option on the Inventory Criteria Window
ADDITION: Inventory Comments are now exported to Move Administer
Technical
TABLES: SurveyAdminister, Manifest, Consignment, Trade, SelfStorageDefaults
Survey Administer Goes UMPC!
With newer, faster, smaller, more adventurous UMPC’s (Ultra-Mobile PC) coming on the market today with greater screen resolutions and more gizmos at your fingertips, we’re proud to announce that Survey Administer is now compatible with such devices.
We recently purchase two UMPC’s, the Sony Vaio VGN-UX1XN and the Samsung Q1 Ultra. Both cost around the £750 mark, but you will find some good deals if you shop around the internet.
Samsung Q1 Ultra
Pre-installed with Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition, the Samsung come with its own QWERTY keyboard which is split into two, which is difficult at first but easily masters, although don’t ever think that you will touch type on it! The 7-inch touch screen is incredibly bright and clear, and easy to read. Powering the Samsung is an Intel A110 low-voltage processor. Memory is a decent 1024MB.
Also built into this Samsung are twin cameras, one at the front and the other at the rear, so you can take 1.3 mega pixel photographs or use it for video conferencing. There is Bluetooth, Wi-fi, and an SD card reader.
Sony Vaio VGN-UX1XN
Pre-installed with Microsoft Vista the Sony weighs in at an incredible 480g! The 4.5-inch touch screen display shows off incredible detail, and the zoom controls allow you to zoom in and out where necessary. Hidden away is a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the touch screen. Powering the Sony is an Intel Core Solo U1500 (1.33GHZ) processor, that runs at an ultra-low voltage. The Sony comes with 1024MB of memory and a Solid State Disk (SSD) with 32GB of Flash memory on-board, with means there are no moving parts in this device, allowing battery life to be more efficient.
Also built into this Sony is a 1.3 mega pixel camera, which can be used as a still or movie camera, or simply a web cam. There is Bluetooth, Wi-fi and a MemoryStick Pro slot, and a fingerprint scanner to help keep things secure.
Flybook V33i
On a separate note, Tablet PC’s are becoming smaller and more lightweight, and one that we have recently purchased to play with is the Flybook V33i, with 3.5G mobile connection. With a price of around £1,000 its more expensive than UMPC’s, but it really does depend on what you’re after at the end of the day.
The Flybook, which is A5 in size, comes with an 8.9-inch 16:9 high resolution touch screen LCD, 1024MB memory, 40GB hard drive and is powered by an Intel Pentium Mobility (1.1GHZ) processor. This is a really slick and stylish Tablet, and comes in various colours too!
Survey Administer Version 1127 Released
Survey Administer version 0.0.0.1127 is officially released today.
History of Changes (1119 to 1127)
ADDITION: New fields added to the SurveyAdminister table (SurveyAdminister table changed)
CHANGE: When importing surveys from Move Administer, ‘Other email’ and ‘Skype’ fields are now imported too
CHANGE: When exporting surveys to Move Administer, ‘Other email’ and ‘Skype’ fields are now exported too
CHANGE: The default height of the handwriting recognition window has been resized to accommodate UMPC resolution of 600 pixels high
CHANGE: The default height of the photograph form has been resized to accommodate UMPC resolution of 600 pixels high
ADDITION: ‘Other Email’ and ‘Skype’ fields have been added to the Correspondence tab of the Survey Wizard
CHANGE: Business 1 and 2 now only display on the Correspondence tab of the Survey Wizard if the customer has a company name
CHANGE: The default height of the Inventory Browse has been resized to accommodate UMPC resolution of 600 pixels high