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TroopManager Plus
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Version 1.4a is a moderately significant update to TroopManager Plus. Existing users can download the update for FREE.
 | New FEATURES: Automated bridging, better support for multiple troops, data export, more. |
| New REPORTS: You'll find four totally new reports and handy changes to six others. |
| Bug FIXES: Bugs and problems you've reported since version 1.3 have been fixed. |
Troop Bridging
Automated bridging of scouts to a new program level. You can bridge scouts back into the troop they're presently in, or bridge them into a different troop. If you bridge them into a different troop you have the option of deleting them from the original troop, in the event you want to hang on to historical details like meeting attendance.
The new bridging feature is accessed from the Troop Information window. Details about the process will be shown and you'll have ample opportunity to change your mind before the process starts.
Troop SELECTION
For those of you with multiple troops, we've made it much easier to switch between troops. There's a List button on the main menu, next to Troop Information. Also, in the heading on the main menu, there'll be a combo-box control if TM+ sees you have more than one troop. You can rapidly switch between troops.
Meeting and Event/Trip Outcomes
The meeting and event/trip attendance screens have long sported an Outcomes button for assigning badge activities and service hours to the scouts who attended. However, we really blew it regarding program levels. In version 1.4 you'll find a program level control the filters the list of badges, and more importantly, filters the scouts who receive the badge activity! For example, in a mixed troop of brownies and juniors, the brownies will not be assigned an activity for a junior badge and vice-versa.
Financial Transactions, Sort Options
The troop's Financial Transactions screen now offers to sort the transactions by date (ascending or descending), document number, description or category.
Permission Slips
Slips can now be printed for scouts marked as "attending". There's also a note about how the preview option only shows the first scout since all the slips look the same.
Save Reports to NotePad, Word, Excel, E-Mail
By popular demand we've added the report output options back into the product, and then added even more options. These were removed from version 1.3 because of constant technical support questions. Seemed the feature worked about half the time. After removing it, the volume of support questions stayed the same as the people who liked the feature started asking where it went. Sigh.
So...you will find hopefully better-working export options for text files, Excel spreadsheets and Word documents (RTF format, which can be converted to DOC through Word). Also you'll see an icon for creating an e-mail message. Select the export option desired and if we're all lucky an e-mail message will be created with a file attachment.
New Reports
| Event/Trip Attendance Grid |
This report is identical to the meeting attendance grid, except it shows (surprise surprise) who attended which events and trips. A bit complicated in that you need more than just the date to identify events/trips so we added a numbered legend at the bottom.
Also, both the original meeting grid and this new grid display a warning message when you select a range of dates larger than can fit in one report.
| Meeting Dues Paid Grid |
This report is identical to the meeting attendance grid, except it shows (another surprise) the dollar amount received from the scout on that date. This report supplements the other scout-related financial reports, it is not supposed to be a replacement for them. The idea is you can see at a glance who's been paying what, over time. Easier to spot trends.
| Scout Dues/Fees Receipt Printed receipts for money received from scouts. Select one or all scouts, specify a date range, indicate whether or not you want meeting dues and/or event fees. |
| Database Summary |
This report was developed for technical support and internal testing purposes. We've made it visible to everyone because it might be useful. Unlike the other reports, this one does not filter by the selected troop. It always shows all troops. The report lists raw record counts for all of the tables in the database. Handy for getting a sense of how much information is being stored for each troop.
For example, when you test the new troop copy feature, this report is a very quick and concise way to see what happened. Same goes for the new bridging feature. You can quickly verify that scout records were transferred between troops (or not, depending on how you configured the bridge).
This is also very handy when comparing a backup copy of TROOP.MDB with your current copy. Run the report for the current copy, switch to the backup copy, and run again. You'll be able to tell at a glance if the numbers are way off or not. For example, if the backup copy of TROOP.MDB is a year old you'll see lower numbers for meetings, badge activities and so on.
Changes to Existing Reports
| Troop Financial Statement: Summary and Detail
reports now offer a date range option. (The running balance column
in the Detail report is only shown when the All Dates option is
selected.) |
| BadgeManager Scout In-Progress report now offers
Summary versus Detailed
options. Detailed = includes all activities, as before.
Summary = only completed activities. |
| Scout and Adult Mailing Labels now sort
by last name, first name. |
| Troop at a Glance, Registrar report now shows scout ID and adult/scout years of scouting. |
| Permission Slips can now be printed using a
filter for scouts marked "attending". |
| Leader Expenses report can now be printed for expenses associated with a single troop. |
Troop COPY
You will see a new option to COPY a troop on the Troop Selection screen. The copy does not extend to scouts, adults and so on. Only basic configuration information is copied: financial transaction categories, list of skills, list of types of training, and service accounts.
Troop Data EXPORT
There's an Export button next to Backup Data on the main menu. You can export commonly-requested data to one of three formats: NotePad, Word and Excel. Of the three, Excel is arguably the most useful.
Or, if the pre-defined list of data sets isn't quite right and you are handy with SQL SELECT statements you can export the results of any query. Entering queries directly like this is very challenging! This feature is here primarily so FSC technical support can send you a query via e-mail based on your specific needs.
The Advanced Export option is intended to help you create better text file dumps of key information. This option is complex but very powerful. Follow these steps to get started. This example creates a comma-delimited list of basic scout information.
- Click the Advanced Export button.
- Select Text (Delimited) and click OK.
- Change the View to Queries and select Export Scout Details, then click OK.
- Select a location and give the export file a name, then click OK.
- On the Export Options screen click Options and note the many options you have for formatting the output. Click OK.
- The resulting file is created as specified.
You are not limited to the "export" queries. You can select any table or query found in the database. Many won't be terribly useful unless you're an advanced database user, but they're available nonetheless. You cannot hurt anything so feel free to experiment.
Bug Fixes
| Added insurance carrier and policy to scout data entry form and grid.
These are printed on the Scout Details report but always show up blank
because there was no way to enter data. Oops. |
| The Scout History report has numerous fixes: it now filters events
according to the selected date range instead of printing all events no matter
what. Previous troop history is filtered properly. A runtime
error involving date ranges was fixed as well. |
| The Meeting Attendance Grid now handles the
"all dates" filter option intelligently. |
| Scout Badges In-Progress report now shows only
badges for scout's current program level. |
| Fixed obscure internal error that on rare occasions caused problems in numerous places. Briefly, names and descriptions with apostrophe characters ( ' ), as in Old McDonald's Farm and O'Malley, would cause an error. |
