MemberTies Changelog

What's new in MemberTies 5.3.6.0

Feb 1, 2024

Problems/Issues Fixed:
When setting the expiration behavior for a Status to "Age" or End Date + Days, the "Age" and "Days" field didn't always display, so it couldn't be set.
Basic Search date settings would not reload from a saved query.

New in MemberTies 5.3.5.0 (Jan 19, 2024)

New in MemberTies 5.3.4.0 (Dec 2, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.3.3.0 (Nov 6, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.3.2.2 (Oct 24, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.3.2.1 (Oct 19, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.3.1.0 (Sep 7, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.3.0.0 (Jul 27, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.2.2.0 (Jun 1, 2023)

New in MemberTies 5.2.1.0 (May 3, 2023)

Enhancements:
Activities
A option has been added to the Activity Location and Activity Type fields, to allow new values to be added "on the fly". Note that the Activity Location requires an activity Location Type, so the system will attempt to use the default location type, or the first available if no default is set.
New activity records are correctly sorted into the existing list when saving.
General
System lists that allow new records now automatically sort new or changed rows into the correct position in the list, rather than simply adding to the top or bottom of the list.
Members
The Status History that is recorded every time a member's status changes, is now editable via the Status Change History window. A new icon next to the Status field opens the window, where historical entries can be added, edited, or deleted. Access to the window can be controlled by security settings.
The Birthdate is now part of the Change Data window, enabling the mass update or clearing of birthdate values.
New member records are correctly sorted into the existing list when saving.
Groups
A option has been added to the Group Type fields, to allow new values to be added "on the fly".
New group records are correctly sorted into the existing list when saving.
Reports
On the Advance Criteria edit window, the "This Criteria" box now reads "This Criterion".
Problems/Issues Fixed:
Searching on the Front Desk window for a name containing an apostrophe (i.e., O'Toole) causes an error. Similar searches elsewhere work normally.
When associating a group on the Member record, the default group is selected automatically when adding a new assocation but it isn't recognized as "selected" and doesn't save.
Prevented various errors caused by server incompatibility.
When adding an advanced criterion that displays the value as a dropdown list, nothing should be selected by default.
If you create a new Advanced Criteria entry, but cancel it, you can't immediately press Add to create a new entry because a validation error appears within the disabled fields area.

New in MemberTies 5.1.4 (Feb 1, 2023)

Enhancements:
General:
The Check for Updates preference now includes an option to ignore minor builds. This prevents an update notification when only a minor change was made (i.e., from 5.1.3.X to 5.1.3.Y) because this normally represents a bug fix that has limited scope and may not apply to everyone.
Members:
The ability to select a random set of member records from the current membership list is now available again. This was removed when v5.0 was created under the assumption that nobody used it. Since it was asked about, we've recreated it. The feature is intended to make it easy to select a "winner" for things like monthly drawings or other prizes from a subset of members.
A new "Middle Initial Period" membership preference now controls whether the system automatically appends a period to single-character middle names on member and friend/family records. Punctuation is frowned upon by the postal service, so this enables you to keep addresses clean.
The "Suggested End Date" financial preference has been extended to also allow you to set a specific day/month, or day/month/year for the new End Date suggestion, in addition to the existing option to increment the date by a number of months. If the Day/Month option is used, the suggested date will be the current or following year, depending on whether the date has already passed. If the Day/Month/Year option is used, the suggested date will be exactly what is specified.
Reports:
The settings for the Membership History report now enable you to choose which statuses to include on the report.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
Using two times on the same day when bulk assigning attendance from the Membership List causes an error that the start date must preceed the end date, even when the times are in the correct order.
When applying a new license, an error that another copy of the program is already running sometimes appears when the system restarts with the new license information.
Using certain reserved words as a name when creating a new database causes an error.
A system crash occurs when the program is idle and the monitor it is currently displayed on goes away (i.e., a laptop goes to sleep and loses the monitor connection).
If the Database Toolkit is started and the local database server is not running, the toolkit tools are disabled but the "server not running" message does not appear so you don't know why things are disabled.
An error occurs when some unicode placeholder characters are part of an email message or subject. These typically appear when copied from another word processor. The system now attempts to strip these invalid characters out.
The Add Postings window does not allow posting a zero amount.
When the Forgot Password option is used on the login window, the password was reset even if there wasn't an email address on file. Now the password will not be changed unless there is an email address set to send it to.
When a To Do item is copied, the Created Date should change to the current date, and the Completed flag should be cleared.
When entering comments on a To Do item, the field should allow a carriage return.

New in MemberTies 5.1.3.0 (Jan 3, 2023)

Enhancements:
General:
Fields that include a <New> option will now allow a new value to be entered directly in the field. When leaving the field it will automatically open the New Entry window so you can save it to the list. You can still use CTRL+N or choose the <New> option in the list to add a new entry as well, but it is no longer necessary.
The workspaces section has been removed from the Home ribbon and the button images are now shown on the tabs. The buttons did the same thing as clicking the individual tabs above the ribbon but caused a lot of confusion.
A new "Forgot Password?" option will appear on the Login window if the login fails. Selecting this option enables you to send a new random password to the email address on file for the user trying to log in (See help for maintaining user information.) The user can then log in with the password they receive and change their password.
Date fields on most Basic search windows now allow entry of a Range (from and to date), as well as operators (>, <, >=, etc). This enables you to easily search for records in certain date ranges without resoring to an advanced search. These same date range options are also available on the Advanced search window, which can simplify advanced queries that include a date range component. Help Topic
When exiting to the Database Toolkit or Server Utility from within MemberTies, the system will now check for and/or prompt to delete any records in the (Delete) status, in the same way it would check when exiting normally.
Automatic Update option. The Check for Updates preference now includes an option to turn on automatic updates. On a multi-user system, this enables the administrator to choose to upgrade the server machine, and then when each user logs in, their system will notice that 1) an update is available and 2) the server database is a compatible version. With those prerequisites met, the user will be notified that an upgrade is ready to install, and then it will install as silently as possible. (The Windows UAC prompt may still appear, but no other user intervention is needed.) Note that this feature will really only be useful on releases going forward, since all users need to be on 5.1.3 before this can work. Help Topic
Activities:
A new right-click menu option on the Attendance list of an activity enables you to quickly modify the Role, Status, Check-In Date, Check-Out Date, and append Comments to all selected attendance records.
Importing:
When opening a file for importing, all fields now default to "Ignore Field" rather than blank.
Views:
The maximum number of columns that can be added to a View has been increased to 100 from the default 25.
Reports:
A "Clear Flags" button has been added to the Reports ribbon, next to the existing Clear Receipts button. Clicking this new button will clear the general Flag setting on all membership records in the database. This is different than the "Toggle Flags" button on the other workspaces that reverses the state of the flag and require selecting the target records. Help Topic
Problems/Issues Fixed:
A waiting indicator did not appear when downloading a new version from the Check for Updates window, making it difficult to tell the system was busy downloading.
When creating a user-report, the calculation to see if the columns on a line combine to be too wide for the available space is incorrect. It is including columns marked as Hidden when calculating the width, which leads to an invalid warning.
An error about a missing setting appears when running the Return Address Labels report.
An error about an ambiguous column occurs when running the Membership Data Export report.
Confusing wording when creating a remote profile has been corrected. The "Server Is Secured" label was renamed to "Use Hosting Server", since that's really what it is referring to. The old name made it appear that it needed to be turned on and filled in, which would break connections for in-house multi-user setups. The switch is only needed for database hosted on our servers.
An error occurs when creating a database with a name that starts with a number. This is a server restriction we didn't realize existed. Additional validation has been added to prevent saving names like this.
The success notice on the Restore Database tool in the Database Toolkit has been corrected to say "Restored Successfully" rather than "Created Successfully".
An error occurs when importing member data that contains custom field list values.
"Yes/No" switch columns do not export correctly. They remain blank in the export.
The Default End Date preference setting is not interpreted correctly when the date has past in the current year. The defaulted date should move to the following year.
The Amount column was not right-aligned on the Activity Postings by Attendee report

New in MemberTies 5.1.2 (Dec 1, 2022)

Enhancements
General:
Previews now include a "Select All" right-click option to enable quickly selecting and copying the preview data (such as contact info).
When deleting a value in a dropdown field, the system will try to automatically select the default value (which is frequently "None"). Pressing delete a second time will clear the field completely. This is intended to make it faster to change a dropdown to the "None" entry.
A new right-click "Print Receipt" option is available on the pages that show posting lists (Member dues/donations, Group dues, Activity income/expense) to quickly print a receipt without editing the record and changing the Print on Save setting.
Activities:
A new right-click option on the Attendance page of the Activity window enables you to open the member record.
When adding a new record on the Attendance tab of the activity window, the search button now allows the selection of multiple records. When this is done, all changes to the rest of the new "record" will be duplicated on all selected attendees, and saved as individual attendees. When editing an existing record, the search only allows the selection of a single record. i.e., one attendee cannot be edited into multiple attendees.
Members:
A new Image Editor tool is accessible via a button below the Member or Friend/Family photo. This tool enables you to resize photos as needed.
A new "Check for Duplicates" membership preference controls whether the system will check for potential duplicate members based on first and last name prior to the initial save and display possible matches.
Groups:
A new right-click option on the Membership page of the Group window enables you to open the member record.
Email:
A new right-click option on the Email Queue message list allows starting a new email using the recipients of selected messages. (A similar right-click option on the queue list does the same thing for all unsent recipients for messages in that queue.)
Reports:
A new "Attendance by Activity" report lists attendees and guests under the appropriate activity.

New in MemberTies 5.1.1.4 (Nov 13, 2022)

Enhancements:
General:
The preference to save window settings now also saves and restores window sizes.
When creating a windows service on the Server Utility, the Save is prevented until the Add Service button has been used to add the service to Windows. This prevents saving a service setting when it has not actually been installed yet.
When exporting a list (membership list, group list, etc) to Excel, the system now attempts to set the correct Excel data format type for each column.
Members:
A new associated member can be created from within an existing member by clicking the Add (+) icon next to the existing Search icon when adding or editing an associated member.
An associated member can now be opened from within the Associated page of an existing member via a right-click option on the associated member list.
Reports:
The Title and Author properties of the PDF document are now set when printing a report.
A new report setting option on system Mailing Labels and Post Cards enables you to change the sort to Postal Code rather than the default sort by name.
When clearing the Print Receipt flag, a message now shows how many receipt flags were cleared.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
If the connection to a hosted database fails (i.e., if the profile has the wrong password), an incorrect error says, "the database cannot be upgraded in its current state."
If the same report is printed multiple times, a system error says the file is already in use. Report pdf files are now created as normal windows temporary files with generic names to avoid this.
The Use Alt Name preference for mailing labels is not being applied correctly.
After restoring a database, the system prompts that an upgrade is available when logging in for the first time, even though the database was just upgraded.
When printing a receipt "On Save" from within the member dues page, an error occurs if the member does not have the Include on Reports flag turned on.
The member Summary report is showing the association type for the opposite side of the association. i.e., if "John" has an associated daughter "Mary," John's record shows Mary as "Father", and Mary's record shows John as "Daughter."
An error occurs when sending email if the record has an email address but no name or company name.
The overall Balance on the Account Statement reports does not include the balance forward amount when applicable.
When a database is restored, and the database was already at the current version, an invalid error occurs at the end of the restore process saying the restore failed. Essentially it is saying, "no upgraded needed" but is showing a failure message instead.
An error occurs opening the Server Utility with the initial 5.1.1.0 build due to a configuration not installing correctly.
If a member or group record is created and saved without touching any address fields, the record cannot be retrieved on the member/group list. (5.1.1.3)
In some cases, when first trying to log in after installing over a 4.27 version, an error occurs when the need for an upgrade is noticed. When the same database is restored and upgraded via the Database Toolkit, no error occurs and the upgrade proceeds normally. (5.1.1.4)

New in MemberTies 5.1.0 (Oct 14, 2022)

New in MemberTies 5.0.3 (Oct 5, 2022)

Enhancements:
General:
The Activity Name shown when you select an activity from a dropdown list now includes the start date of the activity, to better distinguish between identically named activities. This affects the activity quick assign window, the front desk, certain basic search windows, and others.
The "Age" display now rounds down rather than up to prevent showing the age as 1 year more than expected. (The default behavior of the database engine is to round up, so at age 20 yrs, 6 mo, 1 day, it would show the age as 21. This modifies that behavior.)
The "Anniversary" display also now rounds down, similar to the Age described above.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
Hosting server connections are automatically refused when attempting to connect to the old version server. This prevents attempted upgrades of databases on a server that cannot support them.
An upgrade error occurs when an orphaned friend/family record exists that is not tied to any actual member.
The reports window showed a composition error when opening in certain situations.
Some monitors display fields with ellipsis (i.e., "First N..." instead of "First Name"). Additional DPI scaling settings were added to help Windows process layouts correctly.
After fixing the DPI issue with monitor scaling, windows refused to draw the separator bar between the upper and lower halves of dual mode windows in the correct place.
The right-half of the Preferences window displays incorrectly on some wide-screen monitors, effectively causing the Current Setting fields to appear "behind" the list of preferences.
The workspace list (membership/group/activity) does not expand the full width of a wide-screen monitor when maximized.
An error occurs when creating documents for members who do not have an email address.
The fields on the workspace Export Data, Assign Group, and Activity Info windows shifted to the background and were not displaying on certain monitors.
Resizing the deposit search window to a large size causes some buttons to move to a location where they are not accessible.
The Liability Waiver report doesn't show any waiver text if more than about 300 characters are entered for the waiver.
The license entry window would use the license number as both name and number if the name block was omitted.

New in MemberTies 5.0.2 (Sep 23, 2022)

Enhancements:
General:
A new "Reset Copied Item Date" Membership preference was added. This controls whether the "Date1" date on an assigned item is set the current date when the item is copied as a new record.
Members
A new "Contact Info (Full)" preview choice was added. This preview includes the name, formatted address, home phone, and email address of the selected record.
The "Current Address (US Format)" preview choice was renamed to "Current Address (Formatted)" and it now displays the address in the correct format for the country of the address.
Reports
A new "Starting Position" report setting has been added for labels and cards, to enable you to specify where the data begins. The order is counted from top to bottom, and left to right. So on a 2x10 sheet of labels, the first position in column 2 is "11".
Problems/Issues Fixed:
An error occurs when searching the Membership List with a value that includes and apostrophe. i.e., searching for a last name of O'Somebody.
A bulk change to the Comments field of member data should add a new line first if the Append checkbox is selected.
Newly created User Reports do not show up in the reports list to be opened, until the Reports workspace is closed and reopened.
After saving settings for the Auto-Login preference, the specified values do not appear on the Login window after a restart.
The save button won't enable when changing the Check for Updates preference preference.
A maximized workspace (i.e., the Membership List) reverts to not-maximized if the program is closed with a different workspace open.
The page layout on a user-defined mailing label report is incorrect when a label isn't fully filled with data because the labels are trying to shrink to fit the data rather than enforcing a fixed amount of space.
The vertical pitch (the gap between rows) on mailing labels was using the horizontal pitch (column spacing) value by mistake in certain situations, causing the horizontal layout to shift incorrectly.
Certain startup values were not being written to the registry due to an expectation that the value was already there and only needed to be updated.
The program would not start if the current user was not the user who was logged in when it was originally installed.

New in MemberTies 5.0.1 (Sep 8, 2022)

New in MemberTies 5.0 (Sep 1, 2022)

Enhancements:
General:
Total rewrite of the entire program code base to ensure compatibility with future versions of windows.
The program and database server are now 64bit, for faster performance and scalability.
User-interface redesign and face-lift to use modern controls and ribbons, and more graphical navigation.
Program is now aware of high-dpi monitors and will appear correctly (i.e., windows will not become smaller on high-dpi displays).
Many usability improvements to reduce the number of windows that are needed to perform different functions. For example, windows that previously would show as a list, and then would open separate windows to edit a row in the list, now display as a dual-view window with the list and editing area all on the same window.
Consolidated and reorganized preferences to avoid having settings scattered around different areas of the program.
The street address portion of an address (i.e., the Address lines) are now a single multi-line address field to be more consistent with industry standards.
Email:
Email is now processed in the "background" from a queue. This means you can choose to send email to a list of people, and the system will queue all the messages and work through them in the background while you do other things. A message will appear when mail has been sent.
Embedded fields are now true merge fields (rather than just "text in brackets" we would evaluate). Any embedded fields must be reselected and inserted so they become active merge fields. Existing embedded fields will still show as [[FieldName]] but will not be recognized.
Email profiles no longer require incoming server settings, and fewer outgoing mail settings are required.
The global email signature has been removed. Email signatures are now part of individual profiles.
Rich Text (HTML) email signatures were stored previously in a format that is no longer supported. Any HTML signatures on email profiles must be recreated.
Database:
Database functions have been moved to a separate Database Toolkit application that is installed alongside the main program. This toolkit consolidates all database maintenance capability (create/restore/backup/etc).
Reports:
The old reporting system was a home-grown system, which was no longer viable. A new reporting system has been implemented, and functions very much like the old system. See help for details.
Some user reports may need to be tweaked to ensure that column widths are correct. This is also caused by trying to convert/use the old reporting settings in a new reporting system. Buttons are available on the report preview window to auto-size and help correct any issues.

New in MemberTies 4.27 (Feb 13, 2022)

New in MemberTies 4.26b (Jan 3, 2021)

New in MemberTies 4.26a (Nov 9, 2020)

New in MemberTies 4.26 (Apr 22, 2020)

New in MemberTies 4.25b (Jan 27, 2019)

New in MemberTies 4.25a (Jan 27, 2019)

New in MemberTies 4.25 (Nov 11, 2018)

New in MemberTies 4.24 (Nov 12, 2017)

New in MemberTies 4.23a (Apr 12, 2017)

New in MemberTies 4.20j (Nov 21, 2015)

New in MemberTies 4.20i (Nov 21, 2015)

New in MemberTies 4.20g (Nov 21, 2015)

New in MemberTies 4.20f (Nov 21, 2015)

New in MemberTies 4.20e (Nov 21, 2015)

New in MemberTies 4.20d (Jun 4, 2015)

Enhancements
Activities:
A "Clear Check-In Details" preference has been added to control whether the details area of the Front Desk is cleared when the rest of the query fields are cleared
Security:
A "Copy" option has been added to Security Groups. Copying a security group will copy all of it's associated rules and append "(Copy)" to the name
Financial:
New "Last Posting" fields have been added for user defined reports and documents: Dues Last Credit Posting, Dues Last Debit Posting, Donations Last Credit Posting, and Donations Last Debit Posting. When used on a report, these display the posting amount followed by the date recognized. i.e., "50.00 (01/15/2015)"
A new Copy option has been add to member and group Dues and Donations lists, to allow an existing posting to be quickly copied as a new posting
Groups:
A new Yearly Dues field is available for Groups. This is primarily an infomrational field, though it is available for user-defined reports and views, and queries. It was added for use on the new Group Yearly Dues Summary report
Reports:
A new field is available for user defined reports and views, called Membership Length. This field provides the number of whole years and months from the Start Date to the End Date (3y 5m) If the End Date is in the future, the length is from the Start Date to Today. If the member is still in their first month, the number of days is shown (i.e., 4d)
A new field is available for user defined reports and views, called Group Membership Length. This field is similar to the Membership Length field described herin, but applies to the dates that can be set on the Members tab of a Group record
A new Group Yearly Dues Summary report has been added. This report totals the Yearly Dues amount set for a group, plus all associated members (using the yearly dues amount assigned to their status) to provided a total amount owned by the group
Miscellaneous:
Internal development software upgrade for improved compatibility with Windows 8.
Internal database server upgrade to MySQL version 5.6.14. If you are running your own server, you must upgrade to this version as well
Importing of Group Other Phone and Type is now supported
Problems/Issues Fixed:
If any advanced Automatic Postings are defined for an activity, those postings show up for all activities, not just the one where they were created
When the activity is changed on the Front Desk window while a member is selected, any automatic postings that were displayed for the previous activity should change to instead show for the new activity
If a status has an automatic status change set for the End Date, and also has a scheduled dues posting set for the End Date, only the status change occurs because it is processed before scheduled postings
Private Fields display with their original name (i.e., "Private Field 01" instead of their re-labelled name in criteria, email, and document field lists
A phone type marked as "Normal" is supposed to be hidden, but still appears on user-defined reports using a phone type field
An error occurs deleting a member after the upgrade. (4.20a)
An error occurs while upgrading an older v3.45 database when it contains invalid reports. (4.20a)
An error occurs in certain situations when adding an associated member. (4.20b)
A database error about "person_lname" occurs when importing any friend/family data.(4.20b)
An error occurs when the Age field is used in a query or view, and a member birthdate makes them more than 250 years old. (4.20c)
Scheduled postings set for a specific day and month can be triggered the day is reached, regardless of month. (4.20d)

New in MemberTies 4.10 (May 21, 2014)

New in MemberTies 4.09 (Aug 26, 2013)

Enhancements:
Groups:
A Dues tab has been added to Group records. Group dues work similarly to member dues, with the exception that there is no Status on Group records, so there is no link to yearly dues amounts, etc. Group dues are available on deposits, and for mass adding/deleting, and reporting.
Reports:
The Birthday and Anniversary reports have been modified to include a column to show the total years from the member's Birthday or Anniversary date to today. In addition, the reports now include the overall average, total years, min, and max at the bottom of the report.
Added a new label format for "Pin Fed 3.5 x 1.94 3-Across HERMA 9134"
A Dues Postings report has been added for the standard version, to provide a simple listing of dues postings. This report is also available in the pro version, though as the name implies it will only return Dues postings, not donations or activities.
Email:
Using double left/right arrows to identify embedded fields on emails and documents can cause problems when trying to import HTML into an email. To prevent this problem, the style of field identification has been changed to [[field]] notation instead.
Documents:
Using double left/right arrows to identify embedded fields on emails and documents can cause problems when trying to import HTML into an email. To prevent this problem, the style of field identification has been changed to [[field]] notation instead.
Dues:
A new automatic posting (for a status) option has been added to post when the Start Date is reached. This works just like the End Date option, and is intended for organizations that set the Start Date in the future, at which time certain initial fees are charged.
On posting lists (dues, donation, activity) the Cheque Number field is now right-justified.
Miscellaneous:
When a license is going to expire in the next 30 days, a message is displayed that has options to Apply, Renew, or Close. Clicking close just closes the window but it implies that the software itself is going to close. The button now says "Continue" for clarity.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
When printing a receipt from the Mass Post Dues window, no Printer Settings window is displayed. The system just prints to whatever printer is currently selected.

New in MemberTies 4.08 (Jul 6, 2013)

New in MemberTies 4.07b (Apr 2, 2013)

New in MemberTies 4.07a (Apr 2, 2013)

New in MemberTies 4.07 (Mar 9, 2013)

Enhancements:
Activities:
It is now possible to specify up to two custom membership fields to display on the Front Desk window for search purposes.
Email:
The editor for email has been completely rewritten to use a window similar to the Documents window. This means you can bold, italicize, and otherwise format the message on-screen, and it will automatically convert and send as HTML in the background. There is no longer any need to manually enter HTML markup.
The requirement to include at least one name in the TO list when sending email in Single Message mode has been removed. This was a limitation of a previous version of the 3rd party software used to process messages.
A new email setting called "Max Recipients" allows you to control how many addresses are added to a message at a time when sending mail in Single Message mode.
When sending in Single Message (to/cc/bcc) mode, the transmission control settings are now applied to limit the number of messages per minute or connection.
Financial:
It is now possible to mark a posting type as inactive, to prevent it from being available for selection on new posting. Inactive posting types will still display on records that have used them, and will be available for selection on reports, criteria, etc.
Importing:
A new import tool for Friend/Family data has been added. At a minimum, the person's first and last name, and the parent Member ID must be provided for the import.
Reports:
A "Directory Listing (Photo)" report has been added. This is a two-column directory report that includes the member photo on the left side of the information block.
The number of available sorting levels on user-defined reports and views has been increased from 2 (primary and secondary) to 5.
An Anniversary List report has been added, similar to the existing Birthday List report.
A new cross-tab style report, "Postings - Type Grid" has been added. This report shows the member name, posting date, and then a dynamically created column for each posting type specified in your search criteria. Each row and column is totaled.
A new "Balance Forward" option has been added to account statement reports. This enables you to set a Date Recognized date that the system will use to summarize all previous postings (from that date backward) and display it as "Balance Forward". The report then goes on to only include postings after the specified date. For example, the setting can be used to only show details for the current year's postings, and a balance forward as of 31 December.
A new name card format has been added: Name Card 3.00 x 4.00 2-Across 3-Dwn 5284/5392
Miscellaneous:
A new status expiration behavior has been added called Start +Days. The idea is that you can create a probationary status that is valid for X days after their start date, at which time they change to a new status. For example, a Probation status for 30 days, with a next status of Active. After 30 days, assuming you haven't intervened and removed the member or changed them to some other status, they'll automatically become Active without any change to the existing End Date.
A third Preview panel for Membership, Group, and Activity lists has been added, with additional preview options to show the last three emails sent.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
When the start date of a member is changed, the system will sometimes create an additional status-change history record even if the status didn't change.
The "copy" button has been removed from the Photo window. Evidently the image control we use for displaying photos no longer supports copying the image.
An error occurs when using an email attachment whose filename contains an apostrophe.
Blocked built-in behavior that allows a list to zoom by scrolling the mouse wheel with the CTRL key pressed.
When sending email in multipe message mode with embedded fields and a message limit set, then after the first set of messages all further messages contain the same embedded data as the last message of the first set. i.e., if sending 50 messages per connection, the first 50 messages are correct, but all the rest show the embedded field data from message number 50. (4.07a)

New in MemberTies 4.06c (Jan 3, 2013)

New in MemberTies 4.06b (Jan 3, 2013)

New in MemberTies 4.06 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Financial
A new preference has been added to control whether you receive the "Save Changes?" prompt when accessing the dues or donations tab for the first time on a new member record.
Activities
A new Activity Front Desk preference has been added to control whether the Company Name field is displayed on the "Multiple Records" list that is displayed when more than one record matches the search.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
If the country field on a user-defined label is changed to display in uppercase, the country is only hidden if the actual country name in the Country list is also uppercase. The comparison needs to be case-insensitive.
If the Status Name is used as criteria, the bottom part of the scrollbar is cut off when selecting a status from the criteria popup window, preventing you from scrolling down to the last status.
An error occurs when printing mailing labels using the "Generic" address format.
An invalid message about the activity being full to capacity flashes by when a report is run.
Sometimes the Login window displays a "Connected" message even though the attempted remote connection has failed. (4.06a)
When an activity is automatically selected on the front desk window, the icons to view/edit activity info are not enabled until you select a different activity. If only one activity exists, it is impossible to enable the icons. (4.06a)
Using advanced search criteria, you can "tab" into the "Field" field and then use the arrow keys or type to select the desired field (i.e., without opening the field selection window) but the system doesn't recognize that a field was selected when you tab out. (4.06a)
When activity income was processed via the Front Desk check-in, the new activity balance was not reflected on reports. (4.06a)
If a member that was checked-in to an activity had multiple family members who could attend an activity, then the Activity Summary information available from the Front Desk window could show blank rows in the list of attendees checked in or out. (4.06a)
Driver license scanning now supports multi-line data returned by some scanners (as opposed to the single long line of data we normally expect). (4.06a)
When a document 2 is created by opening document 1 and choosing Save As, any criteria tied to document 1 is also tied to document 2 rather than being duplicated for document 2. This causes any changes to criteria made on either document to also affect the other document. (4.06a)

New in MemberTies 4.05 (Oct 13, 2012)

New in MemberTies 4.04 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Categories/Items
Item Comments are now available for user-defined reports. (These are comments stored with the item definition itself, rather than those stored when an item is actually assigned.)
More fields are now available when assigning an item to a member or group record. Previously, only a Date and a Comment were available. Now, there are two date fields, two text fields, and two numeric fields available. Using the Item/Category setup window, the labels for these fields can be changed to suit your needs.
Reports/Views
Support has been added for Avery label formats: 5310, 5311, 5314, 5332, 5334, 5351, and 5352. Note that several formats have the same settings, and were just added for clarity.
An additional header option on user-defined directory reports allows the full field text to be used, rather than just the first letter.
Receipt reports now show the amount as a positive number, regardless of whether it was a debit or credit.
Miscellaneous
The Auto Logoff preference is now a System preference rather than a user preference. If user settings existed, the system preference will be set to the largest value stored for any user.
When a backup fails due to a timeout, a more descriptive message is now displayed indicating what the problem was and how to correct it, rather than just indicating the timeout problem in the on-screen message log.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
The Help button on the maintenance window for Custom Fields goes to the Welcome to MemberTies help topic rather than custom fields help.
An error occurs when exporting the Event Log to a text file.
When a text custom field value is cleared on a member record, the field doesn't work properly with a pretext value on a user-defined report. The system thinks there is something in the custom field, and concatenates the pretext value to "nothing", resulting in just the pretext value.
If you enable the second date field for assigned item entry, and then use that as report criteria, the criteria window doesn't open with the normal date options. (4.04a)
When a new checkbox-style custom field is created, the default setting is not stored unless you reopen the custom field setting, and set the default again. (4.04a)
Help doesn't open on Edit User Report list window. (4.04a)
The help system still refers to Relationship Types, but the name has changed to Association Types. (4.04a)
When an attendance status is saved as search criteria, it reverts to "Please Choose" or some unrelated value when the saved criteria is reloaded. (4.04a)

New in MemberTies 4.03 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Membership
When creating a new Associated member record, if you choose the option to copy data from the existing member to the new record, the email and website are included.
Dues
A new Scheduled Posting type has been added to post dues upon "New Record Creation". This enables the automatic posting of initiation fees, new member fees, etc., immediately when the record is first saved, based on the status the record is set to.
Snapshots
A snapshot for Anniversary Date has been added. It works just like the member Birthday snapshot. (4.03a)
Reports/Views
Assigned Item and Category fields are now available on user-defined reports and views.
Reports and views will now include records even if part of the data to be shown is missing for those records. For example, a membership report that includes posting or family information would normally only show records that included at least one record of that additional type. Now it would leave those fields blank if no data was available.
Certain types of reports or views will return multiple records (semi-duplicates) when some of the data occurs multiple times. i.e., if a report includes a Dues Amount Posted, you would see a member record repeated for every dues amount, even though only the amount changes on each row. You now have the ability to mark certain fields to be suppressed if the preceding row contains the same value.
It is now possible to mark certain fields as part of a Group Header on a standard user-defined report. A header would contain data that would otherwise be repeated on every row, allowing it to display once above the grouped data. For example, a report showing the member name and attended activities could be grouped by member name, showing all the activities underneath.
The Use Alt Name report preference has been expanded to allow you to better control when the Alt Name is applied. Currently the Alt Name replaces the first/last name on standard mailing labels, cards, and certain other reports with address blocks, and user-defined mailing labels and cards. The new preference lets you turn these on individually, and also includes an option for documents. Note that for user-defined reports and documents, you still must be using one of the "Smart Fields" for names for the replacement to occur. If you use the first name and last name fields on their own, they will not be affected.
A new report, "Sent Mail by Member" has been added. This shows the sender, subject line, sent date/time, and priority of messages sent to each member.
The "Year Begin" organization preference has been renamed to "Fiscal Year" for clarity, and several new date criteria options have been added: Current Fiscal Year, Last Fiscal Year, Current Fiscal Quarter, Last Fiscal Quarter, Fiscal Year to Date, and Rest of Fiscal Year.
Support has been added for Avery label formats: 5310, 5311, 5314, 5332, 5334, 5351, and 5352. Note that several formats have the same settings, and were just added for clarity. (4.03b)
Documents
A new field is available for Documents and Emails called "Today (long format)" which uses the long date format from your computer's Control Panel - Regional Settings. Typically this is a format like: "January 15, 2011" or "Thursday, January 15, 2011" but can be adjusted via control panel.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
When importing member records, if a Prefix is set to be added to new Member IDs, it will now be applied if no Member ID is imported directly.
A membership preference allows you to set the flag when adding new records. The option is set to Active and works correctly when adding a record directly but when you add records using the Import Data feature then the flag is not set.
When checking in to an activity from the Front Desk or the Membershiop List, the activity capacity is checked and it stops you from exceeding it. If you check in from the member record itself (on the activity tab) it doesn't stop you.
When the default Attendance Status is changed to a different existing value, the system continues to use the old default until a restart.
Some users are unable to use the mouse scroll wheel to scroll the Membership List. We cannot reproduce this, but we did remove some old code that tried to prevent scrolling on non-list windows. Hopefully that will take care of it.
Combining an "any" posting field with a dues/donation/activity posting field on a user-report causes an error. This combination should not be allowed, because the "any" fields automatically include dues/donation/activity posting fields in the first place.
Field labels did not print on membership cards when the starting row/column was set to something other than 1/1
A database error occurs when using criteria to search for a member when adding an activity attendee from the activity window. (4.03a)
When printing a large document (multiple batches), if you aren't using the default printer, the system tries to change back to the default printer after a batch completes. (4.03a)
If the selected label format is changed on a report that has custom margins set for a previous label, the new label's margins are not applied until the Margins window is opened and "Default" is clicked.(4.03b)
User defined reports that include posting data run very slowly when a large amount of posting data exists in the database.(4.03b)
After one document is open and data is retrieved, if you change to a different document without closing the documents window, the search always returns No Data Found. (4.03d)
An error occurs when using a family member field on a search. (4.03e)
A database error occurs when using Dues Posting Type on a user-defined report. (4.03e)
The activity balance report is displaying an activity once for every posting it contains. (4.03e)
Some internet service providers drop a connection after a short period of inactivity, causing remote database connections to be lost. Additional code has been added to try to keep the connection alive when using a remote database. (4.03e)
The front desk search is returning all family members of all members, rather than just ones matching the member searched. (4.03f)
The Activity x by Member reports are grouping incorrectly when only family members are attendees. (4.03f)
If a family member checks in to an activity, the Activity tab of the primary member record displays two entries in the attendance section. (4.03f)
When creating a new user, the password fields appear with asterisks before anything is entered. (4.03f)
If an activity or posting report is run using Basic criteria, members appear on the report regardless of the Include on Reports setting. (4.03g)
The Include on Reports and Include in Mailings checkboxes are cleared if a mass dues posting is done with a specific combination of settings. The bug appears if you make the following settings: 1) clear the "Use Status from Member Record"; 2) choose a different status; 3) select the "Update" checkbox, 4) under "Records to Include" choose "All records with a status of"; and, 5)choose a different status. (4.03g)
The Credit or Debit type of posting types is being ignored when postings are made automatically at "New Record Save" based on the automatic postings settings for a status. (4.03g)
An error occurs when using the Email window options to remove duplicates, or validate addresses, when an email address contains an apostrophe. (4.03h)
The Include on Reports flag is being checked when an advanced search is run on the Membership List. The flat should only apply to reports, not list queries. (4.03h)

New in MemberTies 4.02 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Miscellaneous
When importing attendance, the activity can end up with more attendees than the capacity allows (the Overbook setting is intentionally ignored during an import). The results displayed at the end of the import now indicate any activities that now exceed their capacity.
Activities
A Sponsor may now be set for any activity attendee. This is available on the Front Desk window, as well as the main activity window. Two corresponding reports have also been added. See below.
When using the Activity Front Desk, the mouse focus now automatically moves to the Check In button after a successful search. In addition, a new preference, "Reset on Check-In" now controls whether the cursor automatically clears the results and returns to the Favorite search field after a successful Check-In.
Reporting/Search Criteria
The company name is now displayed as well as the member name on the Data list for the Documents window.
Two sponsor reports have been added: "Activity by Sponsor", and "Activity Sponsorship Counts". The attendance sponsor is also available as report criteria and user-defined reports.
The Membership by Reference, by Post Code, and by Country reports now include a Grand Total line at the bottom that sums all counts.
Two new "Friend/Family" reports have been added, mimicing the existing Contact List and Birthday List reports. "Contact List (+Family)" is the existing Contact List report with Friend/Family members included, indented under the corresponding member name. "Birthday List (+Family)" is just like the existing Birthday List report, but includes Friend/Family members in the list as well as members. Friend/Family records are indicated with an asterisk and a corresponding footnote.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
System sometimes incorrectly calculated batches when printing a multi-page document.
After deleting an attendance record from the Activity tab on the member record, the activity headcount isn't updated until the activity is opened again.
A user-defined roster/directory report should look more like the system roster, where each "block" of data takes a unique amount of space. Currently, every block is the same size even when there is no data to display. This wastes space and paper.
If the Country Name field is used on a user-defined report, and a new width is set for it, the width refuses to save. This seems to be the only field affected.

New in MemberTies 4.01 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Miscellaneous
New import options have been added to allow Activities and Attendance to be imported. Only new activities and new attendance records are created (i.e., no updating existing records). With the standard version, only activities can be imported. With the professional, attendance (including postings) can be imported as well.
Postings
A new preference called "Negative in Red" has been added. When turned on, negative numbers on dues, donation, activity, and deposit posting windows will show in red text instead of black.
Reporting/Search Criteria
A "basic criteria" option has been added to Reports and Documents. Previously, reports and documents only provided the "Advanced" criteria style of search criteria, while the membership, group, and activity lists all provided an optional basic version. The basic version includes some common search criteria, like dues balance, start/end date ranges, etc., as appropriate to the type of report.
If a new End Date is provided when saving a Dues Posting, it will show on the receipt even when the receipt is printed on save. Previously, the date didn't change until the save was complete, so a receipt printed immediately would show the existing End Date.
The list of available font sizes has been extended to 96 points for user defined reports. Note that large sizes will only work in very limited situations, like name cards or post cards. Generally, any font size over 10 will potentially overflow fields and display poorly.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
Occupation Names used to allow entry of 50 characters, but changed to 25 by accident when it became a dropdown list. Need to change it back to 50.
When a date is entered in a comment field by clicking the Date Stamp icon, it starts on a new line. But when a stored comment is entered by clicking the Comment icon and a Date Stamp is included, it doesn't start on a new line. There should be a new line whenever the date stamp is used.
When sending an email, the From Address in the message is being set to the Reply-To address by mistake.
When saving an address list from the email window, The system reports that it was unable to save the address list file, but the file was actually saved correctly.
Importing dues or donation data causes an error or forces MemberTies to close. (4.01a)

New in MemberTies 4.00 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Email
An "@" symbol can be added in front of an embedded field (i.e., @) to cause the system to remove the field and preceeding space if the field is empty. When used as the only thing on a line, this causes the "blank line" to be removed when a field is empty.
Documents
Added a full-featured word processor for creating form letters with embedded database fields. The new "Documents" window includes the ability to format text, add images and tables, create paragraph and font styles, and more.
Groups
The Company Name is now displayed on the Membership tab of the Group Details window.
Membership
The Title field has been added to the Change Data (Bulk) window so it's value can be set or cleared for multiple records.
Reporting/Search Criteria
The Yearly Dues amount associated with a member's status is now available for user-defined reports, documents, and email.
The Address Type field on addresses now functions more like other dropdown lists. The list is no longer editable, but instead has a option to allow adding a new type quickly. The entire list of available types can be managed via Tools, Dropdown Lists > Address > Address Types.
A new field for Donation Balance is available on user-defined reports, and views, as well as criteria and email embedded fields.
A new report preference has been added called Receipt Tag Line. This preference controls whether the Tag Line used on reports will also apply to receipts. This preference is off by default.
A "Code" value has been added to the Payment Method description, for use on existing Posting reports. The code is essentially an abbreviation, i.e., "AMX" for American Express, or "V" for Visa.
The Report Font preference has been modified to allow setting of the font face used for the Organization Name. This setting affects all reports (standard and user-defined).
A "Postings - Statement" report has been added. This is a generic posting report that looks like the existing Dues Account Statement report, but it will include both Activity and Dues postings.
Additional address fields have been added to combine data for user-reports and views: "County/Post Code", "City/County/Post Code", and "City/State if found else County/Post Code". These are similar to the system combinations used on international address formats.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
When a receipt is printed from outside the Reports window, the logo isn't displayed.
If you set the paper size report preference to only show US or only A4 sizes, the card printer card sizes are hidden as well (because they aren't US or A4). These should always show.
When a custom field has been used as criteria or on a user-defined report or view, and the field is deleted, an error can occur the next time the report or view is opened.
If you open Member A, then from the Associated tab, open Member B and make a change, then save and close B, then save and close A, the Membership List only reflects the change on Member A until you press F5 to refresh.
If custom list colors (alternating row colors) have been set in preferences, the colors sometimes don't appear until the first time the list is refreshed.
Photos did not always resize automatically when the photo window was resized.
If the ToDo list report is printed from the ToDo list window itself, the actual organization name isn't displaying. Instead, the default "Your Club" displays. The report displays correctly when printed from the Reports window. (4.00a)
If no return address has been set in preferences, a database error occurs. (4.00a)
The Count of Associations, Family, and Attendance fields cause an error when used as criteria, but work correctly for display. (4.00a)
The Payment Method was removed from the Totals by Year/Month reports. Since the method is specific to each posting, it doesn't apply. (4.00a)
On some computers, nothing happens after you click the Log icon on the Settings tab of the email window and choose a file. We believe this was caused by a bug that caused the full path to the file to occasionally be left off, so if the system path didn't include the target folder, nothing happeneds. (4.00a)
If a new End Date is provided when saving a Dues Posting, it will show on the receipt even when the receipt is printed on save. Previously, the date didn't change until the save was complete, so a receipt printed immediately would show the existing End Date. (4.00a)
Opening an associated record from the Associated tab sometimes causes the current record to open instead. This happens in this situation: if you open John's record and associate it to Jill, and then later open John's record from Jill's, it tries to open Jill again. (4.00b)
The system says the occupation is not found when trying to import an occupation value, even if the occupation does exist already. (4.00b)
The "renew license" button doesn't always open the browser to the store website. (4.00b)
Saving a document with large images embedded (not linked) can cause a database error. (4.00c)
Using the bulk update feature on a large membership list is very slow. (4.00c)
When sending email using the BCC list, sometimes only the first or last address in the BCC list is used. (4.00c)

New in MemberTies 3.52 (Oct 13, 2012)

Enhancements:
Activities
A new Unattended Mode (activity front desk) setup option enables you to allow the Activity to be changed directly from the unattended mode window. For situations where members are checking in to one of a number of possible activities, this enables the member to choose which activity they want to check in to.
Email
The email signature text fields have been expanded to allow 1000 characters rather than 250.
Financial
A "payment method" field has been added to posting windows. Options are provided by the Payment Method list, which may be modified like any other list. Default options include Cheque, Cash, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. This field is not displayed on system reports, but is available for user-defined reports.
Reporting/Search Criteria
New criteria/user-report fields have been added to break out the components of the Anniversary date. i.e., Anniversary (Day), Anniversary (Month), and Anniversary (Year).
A new "Activity by Group" report has been added. This report is similar to the Member Activity by Group report, but it also shows groups that have had no attendance.
A "Postings - Statement" report has been added. This is a generic posting report that looks like the existing Dues Account Statement report, but it will include both Activity and Dues postings.
Uncategorized/Miscellaneous
Added help topic for creating bar-coded membership cards.
Upgraded development software to better support some features and displays in Windows 7.
Problems/Issues Fixed:
The Front Desk check-in uses the time off the database server when the "Use Current Time" option is selected. It needs to use the PC time, since the server could be in another time zone.
If the "Suggest New End Date" financial preference is set to zero, it should be considered "off". Currently the system tries to suggest an end date equal to the current end date, which does nothing and looks odd.
An error occurs when the Activity Name criteria field is used on an activity receipt. (Attendance fields work normally.)
Private data imports to existing member records do not work if the member record has never had any private data entered.
The logo doesn't display when receipts are printed outside the reports window (i.e., from a member record)
The ToDo list sometimes does not display on startup even when the Login preference is set and there are outstanding ToDo items.
In Unattended Mode check-in, the first scan or typed ID works, then subsequent IDs are ignored. (3.52a)
Certain incorrect SSL email configurations could trigger an Windows API error, which was not displayed correctly. (3.52a)
If an association has not been given an association type, it will not appear on the associated members report(s).(3.52b)
When an email profile is available to all users, any user other than the original creator who uses it receives a blank error message. (3.52b)
Stopped using an installation feature that caused a crash on some versions of Windows XP (3.52c)
If an email is open with a list of attachments, and a new email is loaded that also contains attachments, the list of attachments retains those of the previous email as well as the new. If this email is then saved again, it retains the extra attachments in its list. (3.52c)
If an item has a sort order set, and you change its name (via Tools > Dropdown Lists > Categories and Items), you receive an invalid message that the sort must be unique because the system finds the record currently being edited by mistake. (x.52d)
If the user-defined report set to print automatically for a member at Check-In contains an activity field, you get one report per activity the person has ever attended, rather than just the current activity. (3.52e)
Usability issue: When a new status is created, the Include on Reports and Include in Mailings options default to Off/No. These check boxes now start as Yes to avoid confusion, especially for new users. (3.52f)
After choosing a record to associate with - two blank records/lines are returned on the Associated Membership Records screen. (3.52f)