Changes and Improvements in Timekeeper version 0.73
15 November 2000
This document describes the extensive changes to Timekeeper
released as version 0.73 in December 96. Later changes are described
in Version 0.8 Changes and Version
0.81 Changes.
Changes Made to the Program
TDPGM.MDB Version 0.73
Time Keeper for Time Dollar Form
Added a button Make Reports. This gets you to the
new reports interface which replaces all the report forms that
were reachable from the Reports Menu. The Make Reports
form is also reachable from the Action Menu.
Menu Bar
The Reports Menu has been removed. All reports are
accessed through the Make Reports form. Count Members
is now in the Action Menu.
Merge Member has been added to the Action Menu.
Its purpose is to open a special version of the Make Transfer
form. This special version allows you to transfer all transactions
from one Member to another. This is needed to fix the problem
that occurs when there are two Member entrys for one actual person
and Time Dollars have been credited to each. The special Make
Transfer form will not appear if the Make Transfer form
is already open.
Find Member Form
The First and Last names columns have been exchanged. Since
the list is not ordered there is no need for Last name to be the
first column. The list reads more naturally if First name is on
the left.
A Passbook button has been added. This lets you see
a member's Passbook without bringing up the full Member form.
Find Organization Form
A Passbook button has been added. This lets you see
an organization's Passbook without bringing up the full Organization
form.
Make Transfer Form
You can now select a Service. If a service is selected then
the members become Provider and Recipient instead
of Transfer from and Transfer to. There is also
a place to enter date of service. This lets you enter a service
transaction between members without first creating an Assignment.
If the service has been performed already then there is no need
for an Assignment. If you clear the Service then you can again
enter a simple transfer without service.
If you use Merge Member in the Action menu
to open the Make Transfer form then there is an extension
that gives you a Move All Transactions button. This will
allow you to move all existing transactions from the from
member to the to member. Use this button when you have
accidentally created two members that are really the same person
and you want to get all the transactions together. Be careful
because there is no way to undo such a transfer.
Count Members Form
This form is used to select sets of members with special attributes.
The selected set can be counted or used as the source for reports.
The form has been rearranged and expanded.
The Selection Name in the lower left lets you create
and later retrieve named sets. To create a new named set type
a new name into this combo box. The Save button and Delete
button to the right are to save changes to the current named
set or the delete the current named set. They do not apply to
the entry named default.
There are two small unlabelled combo boxes in the lower left.
The upper one lets you choose between Members, Organizations,
or Both members and organizations. The lower one lets you choose
between Active, Inactive, or All of whatever you selected in the
upper combo box.
The Reset button gets you back to the default settings.
This is handy if you wish to return a named selection to the default
before entering new settings.
The Preview button shows you a list of the selected
Members and Organizations.
If you are using this form to set the defaults for use in a
report it is important that you exit by using the OK button
and not by just closing the form.
Make Report Form
The Make Report form is a new and rather complicated
form. It is now the interface to all existing reports and to all
reports we may add in the future.
The controls in the upper left specify the Report. Report
Type gives the list of possible reports. If the report can
have parameters then more controls appear so you can select things
like Year and Month.
In reports that allow a time period you usually choose a month
or a quarter in the Period combo box. If you choose use
dates, the last entry, you can set specific starting and
ending dates. This will even let you create a report for a period
that spans the end of a year.
The Print button and Preview Report button
in the upper right let you see or print the report.
The controls in the center of the form let you specify the
report source. You can choose a source type like members or organizations
and instances of the source type like active or inactive. The
two more interesting choices are one and selection.
When you choose one you get a button that lets you
choose which one. If you save a report which specifies one member
and the one member is the null member then when that
saved report is restored the null will be replaced with the last
member chosen in the Find Member form. This lets you
create a saved report which will be for the current member.
When you choose selection you get a box that lets
you choose a named selection. If you use the default or if you
want to make a small change to the named selection, use the Make
Selection button to bring up the Count Members form.
By Site and By Organization lets you qualify
your choices by Site and Organization. Note that you can use one
here also. The choice of one can only appear once in
What Source, By Site an By Organization.
The choice of null is used if your database contains
Members without a Site or without an Organization.
Preview Source lets you see whether you have made
the choices you intended for the source of the report. Preview
Source also gives you a count of the source.
Report Name at the bottom of the form lets you create
and later retrieve named reports. When you bring up a named report
you are setting all the other fields on the form to the values
you saved. If you wish to make a small change, like setting a
new month, you do not need to save the report again. You can just
make the change and print a report. To create a new named report
type a new name into this combo box. The Save button
and Delete button let you save the current report specification
and delete a Named report. You can not delete the default but
you can save it. This means that the default will be whatever
report you want.
Passbook Form
Added a Print button to print a Passbook report for
the past 3 months.
Added a Recorded column to the data shown. Since the
recorded date is used for creating reports it is less confusing
to be able to see the recorded date.
Added a way to change and delete transactions. Each line shown
has a record selector. That is the little gray square at the left
of each line. When you click in the square it turns black with
a white arrow. That indicates the selected line. Right above the
selectors is a square, unlabelled button. When you click this
button you get the selected line and other controls.
You can either enter a correction or make an unconditional
change. Let us take the case of Delete. The correction method
will not delete the transaction but will instead enter another
transaction which will negate the transaction you want to delete.
This line will have a service of correction and a service
date which will be the date entered for the transaction being
deleted. The unconditional change method will just delete the
transaction.
The advantages of the correction method is that you have a
record of the change to the members passbook and if you went back
an ran a Passbook report for the month that has the deleted transaction
you will get the same report as before. Also, both parties for
the transaction will realize that something was changed when they
get their passbooks for the current month. Transactions that have
just been entered can certainly be fixed using the unconditional
method. Transactions that have been entered some time before are
probably best fixed using the correction method.
The correction method is activated when the Enter Correction
button is down and its label appears in red.
The date of service and the amount can be changed by entering
the changes in the Date or Amount fields and
clicking the Change button. If the Correcton method is
chosen a correction transaction is entered and then the changed
transaction is entered as if it was a new transaction. If the
unconditional change method is used the changes are made in the
transaction record and its entered date is also changed to be
the current date. Any other changes must be done by deleting the
transaction and then entering it again using the Make Transfer
form.
The Cancel button just gets you back to the regular
layout of the Passbook form.
Changes Made to the Utility
TDUTIL.MDB Version 0.73
Custom Maintenance Form
The Copy Backup to Data button was removed. This was
hard to use and not needed because there are other combination
of Backup and Resore which do the same thing.
A Remove Deleted Members and Sites button was added.
This lets you remove Members and Organizations and Sites from
the data. A Member or Organization to be removed must have the
last name of %deleted%, it must be inactive, there must be no
transactions that refer to it and there must be no sites that
refer to it. A Site To be removed must be named %deleted%, it
must be inactive, and there must be no members or organizations
that refer to it.
Fix Data form
This form is only reachable from the Actions Menu.
Its purpose is to fix problems that have occurred in the database.
All of these functions must be used with great care. They make
changes in the data that are impossible to reverse.
Edit System Information lets you see and change basic
system constants. A similar button appears on the other forms.
Member Identifiers and Site Identifiers lets
you see a list of Members or Sites with their assigned Identifiers
and their internal sequence numbers.
Fix Identifiers repairs damage that has occurred when
the program that changes the database version did not work quite
right. The mistakes have caused the prefix to be changed and the
next number to be reset to the starting number. The method is
to find where the original sequence goes wrong and to change the
remaining Identifiers to fit with the original sequence. This
problem probably only happened for Timekeeper databases that existed
before the end of 1995.
Change Prefix lets you change the prefix part of identifiers.
This will be needed if we try to use the identifiers to merge
data from multiple machines. To do so the system prefix on the
machines need to be different and most probably now have XXXX
or DEMO or TEST.
Fix Balances will regenerate member balances from
the transaction records.
Remove Deleted is the same function that is also on
the Custom Maintenance form.
Changes to the Database Version
The database version has been changed to 0.7 because several
changes have occurred in the database. Tables have been added
for saving the named reports and the named sets. Temporary tables
have been moved to the program so that users over a network will
not conflict when changing the temporary tables. The transaction
table has been changed to allow for correction transactions.
Because of the extensive changes to the database use caution
when going to the new version. Make sure your data is properly
backed up and look for unexpected changes in your data. The change
in the transaction records caused many changes in reports having
to do with member balances so make sure these look OK.
Note that the database changes mean that you must have TDSTRUC.MDB
Version 0.7 in order to do the update.