• Updates mostly relating to shipments and costs handling. An automated flow for both costs and notifications to customers has been added.

  Categories and main categories

  • Maintenance of these has been simplified. No longer is it necessary to input a translation for every language just enter whatevery it should be called and that is it.

• Order actions

  • Actions that have been done a service are now listed in the service. Example: “Customer was contacted about delay from workshop”

• Auto-notifications

  • Possible to automate most of the behaviour in certain follow up views and other places by automatically trigger SMS/Email messages to customers to stores
  • The possible autonotifications are for: delayed services in workshop, services ready in store, unansweredd estimates and track-and-trace info
  • These settings can be modified from within Maintenance->General->Order settings or within the connected follow up view

• Loan items

  • If a loan item is manually returned the service status will properly reflect this.
  • For closed orders for which the loan item has not been returned it is now possible to send automated reminders. Relevant templates must be created if this feature is to be used.

• Type of service partner

  • There is a new setting on the service partner (end customer communication) controlling wheter info received electronically
    from the workshop should be manually screened before published to the end-customer. At the moment, this only concerns cost
    estimates. The three levels are: ‘Screen’, ‘Pass-through’ and ‘Workshop responsible’
  • Screen: The estimates must be screened (no automatic update of debit account/customer notification on incoming estimates).
  • Pass-through: The estimates are automatically ok’d: debit account is updated to “customer pays” + customer is notified.
  • Workshop responsible: Debit account is updated to “customer pays”, but it’s the responsibility of the workshop to handle customer contact (no notifications is sent). As a consequence, customer web login info is supplied to the workshop in the order message.

• Shipments

  • Incoming shipments are now handled via searching. The relevant incoming shipment is search by entering a package-/seal-/order-number, workshop-name.
  • It is now possible to view shipments for other organisations to enable Contact Centers to view its associated organisations shipments and for customers to overview shipments on Customer Access

• Printing

  • For accounts in Germany and Norway the print header has been inverted. The horisontal positioning has also been adjusted to make the customers address appear in the window of envelopes.

• Workshop access

  • Customer number and SSN/VAT has been added to the customer information.

• Service

  • When creating a MTR based on a service where a replacement IMEI or serial has been specified (i.e. a replacement object was handed out), the new values will be used.
  • Fixed a minor bug that caused the quick-edit fields for customer email and mobile phone number to be reset if a service validation error occured.

• Barcode scanning

  • Since some barcode scanners in Germany seem to send “ß” instead of “-” that character is automatically replaced in the quicksearch and transport fields.

• New country tag, FO

  • A country tag for Faroe Islands (FO) has been added.

Minor UI tweaks and server upgrades. Lots of behind the scenes modifications to optimize the code and make the environment run more smoothly. Mainly minor UI changes are listed below.

• Search export

  • Possible to export search results to Excel XML (2003) and/or CSV. This feature has been available for some time but has now been spread to more users and integrated tighter with the normal usage of the application

• Service edit

  • Possible to more quickly update a customer email or SMS directly from the service edit view.
  • Transport numbers are displayed and linked to the transport view.

• Workshop statuses

  • Renamed the workshop statuses, the “from/in workshop” was redundant.

• SelfService

  • If pre-defined error codes (symptoms) are enabled for the selected article, either symptoms *or* fault description is mandatory. Only the symptoms have the mandatory-dot however.

• Cost handling

  • When a new cost (estimate or final) is created the status is reset to ‘No response’.
  • When setting a response the change is logged in the order history as well as the sum.

• Workshop access

  • Rearranged order of sections.

• New calendar

  • Fixes a positioning bug for Internet Explorer.

• RMA follow up

  • More explaination and help added to views.

• Encoding error

  • The encoding error page was removed as it served no purpose.

• Service prepopulation

  • The transport related stuff in the service prepopulation interface was removed.

• GUI modifications

  • Lots of small visual effects have been added. Fade and roll up effects on windows and similar widgets.
  • The inbox has been moved to the menu bar instead of the main front page
  • The logout box has been moved to the menu bar instead of the top right corner
  • The logo in the header can be folded away by clicking the border around the logo. It can be folded back by click the border of the menu bar.
  • The menu items have been slightly updated and polished
  • New clearer icons for ?-boxes and i-boxes are used
  • The taskbar has been removed
  • URLs entered in an article description are now clickable

• Statistics

  • Performance has been optimized to reassure that it gets generated quicker.

• Follow up

  • The look has been modified to display more of a ‘flow’ of how services and RMA should be handled.
  • The names of the view have been updated (and shortended) and more info-boxes have been added to assists the user with how these work.
  • RMA views have been optimized to make them displayed faster
  • A new view listing unreturned loan items has been added.

• Inbox

  • Multiple links to orders are possible
  • The messages uses a page switcher so not all messages get displayed at once

• Shipments

  • The incoming delivery handling was redone in the style of outgoing delivery.
  • Incoming shipments electronically communicated by the workshop shows up as prepared shipments.
  • It’s now possible to search for shipments (on comm_id) in the quicksearch field.
  • Transport number (comm_id) has been added to the printout of outgoing deliveries.
  • Package and seal numbers have been added to the shipment sent screen.

• Orders (both service and RMA)

  • Attachments are appended to comments
  • Comments are added when the user saved a service. Not by first clicking add comment or similar

• Service

  • Services only auto-close when recieving the ‘cancel’-answer to cost estimates if the workshop can electronically communicate with the store.
  • The way a user chooses to perform printouts is stored and reused accessing the printouts the next time.
  • New cost type ‘replacemen unit’ has been added.
  • Order comments can be turned off via ‘Service partner’-view.
  • A reminder will popup if the user forgets to print out a loan/rental agreement if loan or rental items have been added to the service.
  • Customer can respond to comments from Customer Access
  • The customer will recieve an email with info about the order comment if an email has been specified
  • Once a workshop has been choosen it isn’t possible to unset it once the service has been saved
  • Cost centre, insurance number, purchase place and rma number can now be made mandatory.
  • Fields that are mandatory or contain an error should not be hidden when “show all” is un-checked.
  • Cost estimate/proposal notes has been replaced by a normal comment which will be displayed next to the cost estimate.

• RMA

  • The amount of comments are listed in the tab for comments
  • Modification to agreements no longer requires a modification to the agreement text. Thus smaller changes can be made without the applicant having to re-accept agreements over and over.

• Batch close via IMEI

  • When batch-closing is performed the concerned stores/contact centers will be notified via a message with links to all orders

• New widgets for order-history, customer-info, article-info…

  • A new widget system is used for a lot of the popups which means less popup-windows appear from Emrox. Less clutter on the users workspace.

• Customer information

  • Customer number can now be made mandatory.
  • Social security number/organisation number can now be made mandatory.
  • Mobile phone number can now be made mandatory.
  • Email address can now be made mandatory.

• SelfService

  • SelfService now has support for category based symptoms.
  • When registering a new order a warning is displayed if an existing order is found with matching IMEI or serial number. It does not prevent the user from creating the order however.
  • Contact/user information is always mandatory when registering an order for an organisation.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some mandatory checks to be ignored.
  • Links to change the language of the interface have been added.

• Customer access

  • When accessed from within a service (using the link) it is not possible to make changes.

• Contact Center update

  • A contact center (CC) used to be forced to add the store-license which meant that they had a lot of functionality that wasn’t really necessary for a CC. This has been fixed by extending what a CC can do and thus it should (for most CC) be possible to remove the store-license and the CC will get a better GUI.
  • Since most CC don’t usually don’t need the outgoing/incoming delivery list these have been removed from this license.
  • A CC that creates order will get them default set to “Return to customer” this means that they will be automatically closed when the workshop sends the “Finished at workshop” status.

• Statistics

  • Symptom codes are included in the statistics. Single column, comma separated.
  • Social security number/organisation number is included in the statistics.

• Printing

  • For accounts in Germany and Norway the print header has been inverted. This should make the customers address appear in the window of envelopes.

• ECC/SOMOS

  • Version 1.3.2 of the SOMOS documentation exists for third-party developers see here for more information: somos.sf.net.

Here is a PDF presentation of the upcoming release 2.1.8

Brief release info 2009-12-04

Version 2.1.7

• New main/entry web-site

  • The site has been slimmed down a little and now focuses more
    on news items and tips and tricks for our users. Please
    subscribe to this sites RSS-feed to get this
    information.
  • Visit www.emrox.net for further information.

• Order settings

  • Possible to deactivate certain RMA views/functions (in the
    follow up) via order settings. Was patched into 2.1.6.

• Messages/Inbox

  • Moved message functionality into the inbox since it was more
    intuitive then from the menu. Now all message functionality
    is accessible from the inbox and not spread out across so many
    locations as before.

• Follow up

  • Possible to deactivate RMA follow up views from ‘order
    settings’ (only RMA Assignments at the moment).
  • More info boxes explaining how “Handling cost estimates” works
    have been added.
  • Centrally Initiated RMAs (CIR) are now accessible if available
    to the Applicants.
  • Applicants can get a printout of their RMAs from the CIR and it
    is also possible to get this from old already handled CIRs.
  • When examining a RMA (visible to the Dispatcher and Verifier)
    and it is set to a “Valid shipment” the RMA is autoset to
    “Valid RMA” to streamline the handling a little.
  • A icon is visible next CIR RMAs in Classify.
  • Bug that set the status of a RMA to finished when setting it
    to finished at verifier has been fixed.
  • All active orders with unanswered estimates are now listed,
    regardless of debit account.

• Pre-reg Service/RMA

  • The frontend when searching and registering new customer has
    been updated.
  • Feedback during both the customer and article part to the user
    has been made a little simpler to understand.

• Service

  • Product comment is now displayed better to the user.
  • Track and trace info is now accessible from both the service
    and the “Shipment browser”.
  • It is now possible to add a new contact to an existing (organisation)
    customer when registering an order.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented searching for un-answered cost estimates
    if they were not created by the searching organisation.
  • The article comment is nolonger displayed to the right. Instead a
    label is added in the article fieldset. The first 15 (or so) letters
    are displayed there along with a “show more”-link.
  • References to MTR occurs in multiple locations (history and print outs)

• Customer handling

  • Possible to add a new contact person/employee on the fly when
    registring a company customer on a service.
  • Search for customer info at external system should now return data better

• Support page

  • Possible to brand the support page like a template which will
    be used by children in a chain.
  • Bluefront support info should not look as much as the normal
    store support info.

• Outgoing delivery

  • Added timestamps for when a transport was sent or received.
  • If a shipments hasn’t yet received any status on its services
    from the workshop it is now possible to cancel the shipment.
    Thus it is possible to create a new shipment for the
    services in the cancelled shipment from the outgoing delivery.

• Cost communication and handling

  • Some workshops always used to register costs at their store
    even when it wasn’t so relevant. This doesn’t happen anymore.
  • All costs are now shown in the “Unanswered cost estimates”
    view, no matter what debit account has been choosen.

• SelfService

  • Step 4 uses radio buttons instead of checkboxes, forcing the
    user to make an active choise. This was patched into 2.1.6.
  • Added an alert if no hits were found when searching for customer
    information via the internet.
  • Fixed a bug where some customer information-fields weren’t cleared
    when searching for customer information via the internet.
  • Services registered via SelfService should nolonger show up in
    outgoing delivery if they are sent directly to the workshop.

• Customer Access

  • Costs are displayed both including and excluding VAT.

We will publish any news related to the Emrox network and its various products on these pages.

There will be tips and tricks published here as well so please keep track of any news that gets posted here either by subscribing to the RSS-feed or similar.

Kind regards

The BlueFront team.