What’s New Since Elliott V7.5

Elliott 8.0 Overview

There are many significant enhancements in Elliott V8.0:

• A new Microsoft Windows Explorer-like Control Center replaces the V7.5 menu system.
• Three User Interface styles support PCs, Tablets and Mobile devices.
• Each task is launched in a separate window with more intuitive control of fonts.
• A revamped directory structure enhances database security, improves Spooled Reports flexibility and simplifies updates.
• Web-based Help ensures the latest documentation is always available.
• Industry-standard SMTP improves email capabilities.
• Drill-down limitations are removed and capabilities improved.
• Printing improvements include multiple, simultaneous destinations; Deferred Processing improvements; and a new, more powerful Report Viewer.
• A new Spooled Reports architecture removes previous limitations, enhances security of reports and greatly reduces disk space requirements.
• A new Office-like Spooled Reports Manager program improves the access and management of spooled reports.
• A more intuitive eContacts Processor (Mass Email) includes the ability to send HTML content.
• Elliott notes that are not Tickers and do not have labels are treated as continuous notes, with word-wrap, traditional cut/copy and paste, and the ability to see the entire content of the note on a single screen.
• Telephony support is provided for eContacts.
• Right-clicking on a phone number or email address in a legacy screen will provide an option to place a call or send an email.
• The ability to use a barcode scanner for common keystrokes is supported.
• The ability to cycle among open Elliott processes by clicking on a toolbar button or pressing F9.

Areas Requiring Attention When Upgrading to V8.0

Configuration Changes

Before using Elliott V8.0 for the first time after installation, the administrator must run EL800CF.Exe to make the following minimum configuration changes:

            Set Use Elliott Deferred Processing if Deferred Processing will be used.

            Set Email Settings to enable MAPI or SMTP email and provide default values.

            Set Admn Email Name: and Address: (default Email From address).

 

COP Cost Display/Printing Control

In Elliott V7.x, whether or not the user can see the cost depends on two flags in COP Setup:

            12. Display Item Cost At Line Item Entry Time?

            13. Print Cost On Edit Lists?

These two flags affect all users.  That is to say, if flag 12 is set to “N,” then no users can see the cost on the Order Entry Line Item screen.  On the other hand, if this flag is set to “Y,” then all users can see the cost on the Order Entry Line Item screen.

 

In Elliott V8.0, we allow the user to have finer control over seeing the cost in the COP module.  In User Global Security, you can determine user by user and company by company, if they can see cost information with the following two security flags:

            Screen 2, 13. See Item Cost Information

            Screen 2, 14. See Item Cost For Hide Cost Product Category

If flag 13 is set to “N,” it means a user cannot see the cost.  If flag 14 is set to “Y” and flag 14 is set to “N,” it means this user can see an item’s cost as long as that item is not in the “Hide Cost Product Category.”  If both flag 13 and 14 are set to “Y,” that means this user can see the cost of all items. 

 

This cost control feature was applied to the IM module and the limited PO area in Elliott 7.x, but it had never been applied to the COP module due to the legacy control method through COP Setup. Starting with Elliott V8.0, we are now applying this new cost control method to the COP module as well. Therefore, you should review your settings in COP Setup for this area first when you upgrade to Elliott V8.0 and set up the Global Default and User Global Security accordingly.

 

Elliott V8.0 cost implementation is different with regard to screen display and report printing.  For a user that has flag 13 set to “Y” and 14 set to “N,” the screen will either display or not display item by item per Product Category.  However, V8.0 will not display the combined total cost of multiple items unless both flag 13 and 14 are set to “Y.”  The same principle applies to report printing.

 

Event Subscribing

Events with Program name EL700DP were changed to NWSMDFRP.  These are events related to Deferred Processing.  Generally speaking, these are management events that you can manipulate through Global Setup or the Company File setup area.  If you previously subscribed to these types of events, you will have to add your subscription again for the NWSMDFRP program.  In the meantime, the event type for EL700DP is not deleted in order to maintain backward compatibility. The reason for this change is to provide for a more generic name for the event that is not named after the release level of Elliott. 

 

Obsolete Programs

EL700MP.Exe and EL700RW.Exe have not been carried forward into Elliott V8.0.  These programs are for conversions from other software platforms to Elliott.  Use the EL700 version if needed.

Control Center

The Control Center for Elliott V8.0 is an all-new, Microsoft® Office-like, flexible menu system for launching Elliott tasks.  A treeview on the left lists all available companies, and within each company all available modules, and within each module the available types of tasks (Maintenance, Inquiry, etc.).  You can very quickly navigate to any task in any company.  Once a module or type of task is selected in the treeview, all the available tasks for that selection are displayed in a listview on the right.  The risk level, typical run frequency and last launched timestamp are displayed for each task in the listview.

 

Each task is launched in a separate process with its own window.  Multiple tasks may be launched at once, and the window for each task will be displayed at the location when it was last used.  Favorite tasks are tracked automatically and are available in a separate group.

 

The Control Center is fully customizable, subject to certain security restrictions.  For any task, the description, sequence within type, frequency and risk level can be changed.  You may create new groups of tasks and use the mouse to drag and drop tasks from multiple modules and types into the new groups.  Customization may be done at the company level so that all users get the benefit of companywide standards, and each user can further customize his own Control Center.

 

The size of the fonts and icons can be adjusted using the toolbar A+ and A- buttons.  Additionally, SUPERVISOR may change the icons associated with each task.

 

There is a command-line option to start the Control Center at a specific group and an option to start all the tasks in a specific group.

Legacy Screens

Most of the tasks in Elliott V8.0 have appearances similar to the corresponding tasks in V7.5.  These tasks operate in Legacy Screens that have some improvements from V7.5.  Changing the font size can be accomplished simply by resizing the window or pressing a button to increase or decrease the font.  The drop-down list of fonts has been shortened to just the names of the available fonts.  The location of each task is saved and reused whenever the same task is launched.

 

There are three flavors for the User Interface for legacy screens:  The PC style is for traditional desktop devices.  The Tablet style is optimized for touch interface on smaller screens.  The Mobile style is optimized for small screens like the Apple® iPhone and Android® devices.

 

Common keystrokes, like function keys, Escape, Enter, etc., can be entered using a barcode scanner.

 

Just as each task is launched with its own window, opening a Note or eContact or Attribute can be configured to open in a new process with its own window.

Continuous Notes

The Notes functionality in Elliott version 8.0 has been enhanced to allow for continuous, free-format notes.  Any notes that is not a tickler and does not have a Note Type with labels will be treated as a continuous note, with normal word wrap, cut/copy/paste, find-and-replace, etc. capabilities.  In V7.5, continuous notes that are more than 10 lines will be treated as multiple notes, just as they currently are in V7.5

Optional Security Enhancements

There are several changes on how Elliott V8.0 organizes its directory structure to make it easier to configure security: (1) Elliott V8.0 no longer reads and executes from the Elliott root directory.  In addition, it no longer creates temporary files in the root directory.  Therefore, non-admin users only need minimum rights to the Elliott root directory (we suggest giving the traverse right to the root directory and subdirectory); (2) Elliott V8.0 no longer saves spooled reports to the DATA directory.  All spooled reports are now saved in the REPORTS folder and subfolders. All log files are saved in the LOG folders and subfolders. These changes present an opportunity to make it easier to organize Elliott directories with NTFS security. For more details, please refer to the document NTFSV8.PDF in the DOC folder.

 

Additionally, all outgoing SMTP emails are logged centrally for auditing purposes.

Web-Based Help

Help files are no longer installed with Elliott software.  Pressing Shift F1 or using context menus for help will result in launching a process to get help information from the Web.  Because help files are centrally maintained, they can be updated on a timelier basis.

SMTP Email

Elliott V8.0 supports industry-standard SMTP protocol in addition to MAPI for email launched by Elliott.  Default SMTP settings are centrally located in EL800.Cfg, but can be overridden by the individual user.  With SMTP email, you no longer have to deal with outgoing email safety dialogs.

 

Additional features include the ability to use HTML in the body of the message, a user option to automatically BCC the sender (except event and mass emails) and a central log of all Elliott-generated SMTP emails.

Drill-Down Capabilities

Limitations on drilling down from one level of information to another have been removed.  Now, you no longer will be stopped when you want to drill down to a screen that has already been drilled down to.  Where a drill down would cause a recursion error, Elliott will automatically start the drill down in a new process.  Optionally, pressing the Control key with the drill-down key will also launch a new process.  This is especially useful for side-by-side comparisons.

Printing Improvements

Multiple Report Destinations

Elliott printing now supports multiple report destinations.  The Print Options screen has a new tabbed dialog where you may specify any combination of simultaneous report outputs (Printer, Screen, Disk, Deferred and Email).

 

Deferred Reports and Run Now Option

Deferred Reports now has an option to specify an email to be sent with the report attached when completed.  There is a new Run Now option that spools the report to disk immediately.  It runs the report on the Deferred Reports machine for fastest throughput, freeing the user to continue working while the report is processing.  The user can request that he be notified when the report is completed.

 

Elliott Report Viewer

When you print to screen and the report is complete, Elliott will launch a new, read-only Report Viewer program to view the report.  (You may override this and use another program if desired.)  The Report Viewer includes the ability to save the report to the Spooled Reports folder, print it using Elliott printing features, or email the report.

Spooled Reports

Spooled Reports has a new architecture and user interface that makes managing spooled reports much easier.  New file-naming and cataloging conventions eliminate the need for archiving.  A new, Office-like Spooled Reports Manager program includes easy access to the reports of all authorized companies and modules from a single screen.  The list of reports can be easily grouped, sorted and filtered to help find the desired reports.  A drag-and-drop interface allows for easily moving reports among directories.  V7.5 spooled and archived reports are also available through this interface and, optionally, they can be converted into the new architecture.  Reports are stored in encrypted, compressed .Zip file format, protecting reports from unauthorized access and reducing storage requirements by 80% or more.  Deleted files can be recovered easily.  Reports can be archived, if desired, using drag-and-drop capabilities.

eContacts Processor

This program, also known as Mass Email, has been redesigned to make the user interface more intuitive.  It is now template-centric, with the expected Open, Save and Save As…functionality.  In addition, the Email From name and address can be customized with Elliott variables to provide more personalized email.  HTML can be pasted into the body of the message, allowing richer email content for your customers.

Directory Changes

Elliott V8.0 can be installed stand-alone or on top of V7.5.  The following new directories have been added:

 

<Root>\bin                                          V8.0 object code and executables

<Root>\Reports\<co>\<pkg>             Spooled reports for specified company and package

<Root>\Reports\<co>\Deleted           Deleted files until permanently deleted

<Root>\Reports\<co>\<UserDef>      Archived reports under user-defined subdirectories

<Root>\Log\<co>                               Log files (IOErrors.Log, RTErrors.Log, etc.)

 

Generally speaking, you only need to assign “Read & Execute” rights to the <Root>\bin folder.  An exception to that is if you are using the Elliott online credit card processing, it will update <Root>\bin\simevent.log file. This is an exception to using the <Root>\Log\<co> convention above.  You will need to give all credit card processing users the update right to <Root>\bin\simevent.log file.