Version 10.00

Version 10 is the official release incorporating PCI PA/DSS 2.0 certification. Visa/Mastercard requires periodic certification of software that processes credit cards to ensure that the software observes their strict controls and recommendations.

Arts Management Systems has enthusiastically participated in the PCI process since 2000. The Visa/Mastercard audit process requires defining the technology requirements for the version and testing many combinations. For venues, this may mean some minor upgrades to Postgres or Apache. However, most venues will already meet the requirements, especially if already running 9.24 or 9.25 as we steadily implemented these technology advances during the past year.

YOU MUST ALREADY BE AT VERSION 9.25 TO UPGRADE TO VERSION 10.

If your database is not at version 9.25, please use Theatre Manager version 9.25 to upgrade the database before installing version 10.

For version 10, the technology audited in the PCI certification process is:
  • Postgres 9.3.4 or later
  • Apache 2.4.9 or later
  • For Macintosh installations (all components):
    • OSX 10.6.8 or later (OSX 10.5 can no longer be used)
  • For Windows Installations:
    • Windows XP or later (PCI tests performed on XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8).
    • Windows 2003 server or later (PCI tests performed on 2003, 2008 & 2012 Server)
  • For Credit Card Authorization Software:
    • Certified and tested against direct processors such as Paymentech Orbital, Bambora, Moneris, Elavon and Authorize.net so that you have the option to keep card information storage out of your network.
Technology no longer included in the audit process are Windows 2000 and prior, or OSX 10.5 and earlier. We are not aware of any venues still using these older operating systems.

Note: Windows 2003 was audited for use yet is no longer supported by Microsoft (unless you have an extended support agreement with Microsoft).

Upgrade Steps - you must be at 9.25 first

Upgrading to version 10.00 requires, at a minimum:

  • Already running version 9.25 and second generation listener.
  • Reading current and prior version release notes for version 9.25 back to the version you are currently using.
  • Selecting a quiet time or a dark day to update.
  • Ensure that postgres is at version 9.3.4 or later.
  • Follow the general upgrade steps and Install TM on a workstation. It will self deploy to other workstations.
  • Read the suggestions for 'Things a venue may need to do' at the bottom of each release.

Key Changes in Version 10.00.00

There are no significant feature changes in this version compared to 9.25. It is simply a PCI Compliance release to ensure minimum technology versions.

You must be running version 9.25 before updating to 10.

Point Release Version History

Point releases are minor version fixes and small enhancements to any particular version.

  • 10.00.00 - Feb 12, 2014
  • 10.00.01 - Mar 3, 2014
  • 10.00.03 - Mar 14, 2014
  • 10.00.04 - Mar 21, 2014
  • 10.00.05 - Apr 5, 2014
  • 10.00.06 - Apr 11, 2014
  • 10.00.09 - May 21, 2014
  • 10.00.10 - May 31, 2014
  • 10.00.11 - June 9, 2014
  • 10.00.12 - June 11, 2014
  • 10.00.14 - June 12, 2014

Form Letters and Eblasts

  • Fix an issue printing labels from the 'Form Letters->Tasks->Mail Labels for Printed Letters. (10.00.01)
  • Fix issue where some eblasts were not being marked as read properly. (10.00.04)
  • Add the membership redemption password as a valid field to the Form Letter merge. This will allow venues to print custom gift certificates complete with the online redemption code. (10.00.05)
  • Add support to print Form Letters based on payments. (10.00.05)
  • The list of emails that have been or will be sent now shows the date opened on the list. (10.00.09)
  • Change the printing of labels from the form letter batch print process so that it now does the same process as all other label printing (10.00.12)
  • Improve the field description for the field 'date letters opened by patron' (10.00.14)

Patron

  • Fix an issue where the primary settings for addresses, emails and phone might not be set correctly when entering a new patron at the box office. The conditions around this are extremely specific and seem to be related to outlet versions, so most venues would not see it. (10.00.05)
  • In addition to the above, some changes were made to the daily automatic verify process to ensure that primary addresses were set up correctly each morning. This process has been running for years and was a contingency to ensure connection to primary records. It will still fix any inconsistent data automatically as before - just catch some more conditions. (10.00.05)
  • On the patron address tab, if you click on an address, TM will now display the distance of the address from the box office at the bottom of the window. (10.00.05)
  • You can now geo-code non primary addresses for the patron from the address tab, as well as display all addresses via google maps. This is in addition to map-quest map display for the primary address. (10.00.05)
  • We determined that the requirement for mandatory marketing fields was not being checked at the box office -- so marking something mandatory did not make it mandatory. Apparently this was in version 6, but never made it beyond that. This version of Theatre Manager now enforces mandatory marketing fields edits. If you really didn't want them as mandatory, you can turn them off in company preferences. (10.00.05)
  • Restore the ability to set the primary address on the address tab on patron window as well as some other functions. (10.00.09)
  • Patron List now has an icon that indicates which patrons have multiple addresses (10.00.10)
  • Right clicking on a patron in the household list at the left of the patron window has an additional option to make set the person as the primary patron (10.00.10)
  • Fixed a longstanding issue where some actions on the patron window would make the address area wider. It should no longer do that (10.00.10)
  • Restore the 'cart' icon in the ticket list when the ticket was purchased online. (10.00.11)

Mail Lists

  • The mail label window no longer closes after printing. This allows labels to be reprinted if the printer has an issue. (10.00.01)
  • You can now drag an entire mail list onto the "who's in" tab to automatically add all people in the other mail list to the current mail list. This is intended to quickly add small additional lists of key people without needing to create criteria for that purpose. (10.00.01)
  • The Mail List "who's in" window has an additional column that shows the distance of the primary address to the box office for each patron. This can be exported and sorted if you wish. Distances are generally in Miles (USA) or Km (rest of the world) - yet are based on settings in System Preferences for length so they can be changed. (10.00.05)
  • Added an icon to the "who's in" list to show people with multiple addresses in their record. This can be used (perhaps in conjunction with the future address change icon) to eliminate some people from a bulk mailer depending on the future address change status. (10.00.10)

Web Sales

  • Fix a possible password reset error when patron requests their password. (10.00.03)
  • Additional error checking on email addresses to prevent people putting in '..' and more than one '@' for online sales. This should help eliminate some errors encountered during data entry by the patron. (10.00.03)
  • Add 'gifted to' patrons name on the invoice when printing each ticket line on detail invoices only. This supports use of the invoice as tax receipt in Canada for courses (10.00.03)
  • Adapted and tested some French Language web pages to provide as a standard. Many translated pages from from a Montreal Venue and anything not translated was done using Google Translate. (10.00.05)
  • Based on CRTC rules and Canada's Anti-SPAM laws in Bill C-28, a decision was made (temporarily) to make the defaults for new patron addition online to 'Do not mail' and 'Do not Email' for ALL countries other than the USA.

    According to pages 8 and 31 of the CRTC CIO discussion document, the default must be so that the user takes action to opt-in to get marketing email. The default for the USA is that you can assume the person opts in without action. Note that the legislation does not affect items sent by the web listener as a result of buying things or requesting passwords. There are also mitigating factors for not-for-profit organizations; so you may want to read the legislation. (10.00.05)

  • Setting some of the marketing data mandatory will now cause the Web Services to prevent addition or editing of a Patron online unless those fields are in the patron addition form (either as hidden or visible). This means that web requirements for patron data are now explicit and the same as entering a patron at the box office. (10.00.05)
  • After the news about the Heartbleed issue with openSSL, we released a new Apache build to address the issue. Version 10.00.06 of TM was changed to make the latest Apache/Openssl as the default requirement. It does not fix any issue - just adds log entries to inform if you are not at the latest Apache. (10.00.06)
  • The message for required fields for company and/or first name and last name have been altered slightly to make more sense during data entry (10.00.09)
  • Remove the 'Email' button from the web monitor window. It is no longer needed to pause/resume emails because the classic listener is not responsible for that function. The Second Generation listener does all emails. (10.00.09)
  • Added conversion of long month, short month, day and am/pm to french pages on display of cart after checkout (10.00.11)
  • Added display of months in french on the selection of the credit card date for french pages (10.00.11)
  • Added a feature to allow users to get to held reserved tickets held in a partially checked out cart. If a patron encounters a problem while in the process of checking out, TM will always hold those tickets in perpetuity so that what was promised the patron can be given to the patron. However, in the past it has required assistance from support to get those tickets. The user can now do this by themselves by following this process: (10.00.12)
    • Get a list of carts
    • Open the cart that is in the process of being checked out.
    • If it has an order associated with it, click the order button
    • Find the event that the patron was purchasing
    • Click on the 'i' hold seats associated with that cart and internet order
    • TM will now let you purchase them into the cart, even if they were held on the internet
    • Note: you can only do this if you have opened the order that is associated with the cart. You cannot get the tickets any other way
  • Set the minimum recommended version of openssl to 1.0.1h (10.00.12)
  • Allow searching for carts in the cart list by the http user agent. The means, for example, that you can find all carts that might have been created by a firefox browser, or by users with ios or android devices easer (10.00.14)
  • The classic web listener now has the ability to completely recycle itself periodically. The default is weekly, but this can be changed via the WebRestartInterval setting in the TheatreManager.plist preference file. Classic listeners on some Mavericks machines seems to need this refresh for continued operation. (10.00.14)

Second Generation Listener Advances (current version 0.83.01)

The goal of the second generation listener is to lessen the need for the classic listener and eventually retire it. This list shows a summary what has been added to the second generation listener as improvement that are compatible with this release of TM. Note also, that the second generation listener is auto deployed, so you will just have these changes, regardless of the version of Theatre Manager you are running.

  • Use same rounding of prices that are set at 3 digits when tax is added, so that it matches the price at the box office.
  • Second generation now handles adding a gift certificate to the shopping cart.
  • If patron is browsing anonymously and has any item in the cart that where the price would be affected by logging in, then the user will be taken to the cart window (instead of the checkout window) to see the revised prices.
  • Improved the auto update of the second generation listener.
  • Added a feature so that a venue may turn off the auto update if they really wish. You will see a message in the director (http://127.0.0.1:3012) indicating that there is a new version and you would need to release it manually. Turning off auto update is not suggested.

Ticket Sales Process

  • Fix an issue when adding a payment to an existing order that could, under certain circumstances, set the balance due incorrectly. (10.00.03)
  • Fix a case where redeeming a pass in the box office for multiple tickets at one time could cause a missing TEF transaction on the second and subsequent tickets. This would cause an end of day imbalance. (10.00.03)
  • Improved the payment window to better handle EFT style transactions where the patron's bank/branch information is entered. At the same time, added more specific error codes so that the edit reports printed to do the actual EFT entry to the bank has more accurate info. (10.00.05)
  • Fixed a small issue when issuing a void on the payment window when doing so from the membership detail. (10.00.05)
  • Add capability of printing invoices when the language setup in the Employee Preferences is French. TM is still not a multi-lingual application per-se. This enables those that are using some parts of it in French to print invoies and some other reports. (10.00.05)
  • Fix an issue where maximum redemptions of a coupon was not working at the box office properly. (10.00.05)
  • The default payment origin for anything taken at the box office for payments to existing orders is now 'phone sales' unless changed. This fixes a small problem when people had a default payment method and were paying for a previously existing order that was created online. (10.00.05)
  • Some features have been added when exchanging tickets when 'gifted to' another patron to make it easier. (10.00.09)
    • If the exchange or quick exchange is done under the person who the tickets were gifted to, the gifted to patron will remain associated with the ticket and any new ones added.
    • If the exchange or quick exchange is done under the person who originally purchased the tickets AND all the tickets are gifted to the same person, then the new tickets will be associated with the same gifted to patron.
    • On modification of an order (add to order, exchange, quick exchange, or refund), the ticket review window is a little smarter and shows all patrons that had tickets gifted to them in addition to previous versions which only showed people in the household. This makes it easy to exchange an entire order containing many gifted tickets - and assign them amongst the same group of people without looking them up.
  • There is a significant edit rule change to selling Dollar Value gift certificates and Passes. These items are clearly marked tax exempt because the taxes on tickets are calculated at time of redemption (not at time of sale). However, if somebody used a tax rate on them, Theatre Manager would add the tax per the tax rate (but this is incorrect). Now, if this occurs for any sales , Theatre Manager will indicate that tax was charged as part of the gift certificate and reject it. Online sales will not add the tax either. (10.00.09)
  • Rules around gift certificate redemption in outlet versions have been relaxed a little. Theatre Manager will now allow a:
    • Gift certificate to be used for any order, regardless if there are tickets for other outlets in the order.
    • Pass to be used for tickets that belong to the outlet, but not for tickets that belong to another outlet.
    • Free voucher to be used for tickets belonging to the outlet, but not for tickets belonging to another outlet. (10.00.09)
  • Improved performance opening the list of events for sale during the ticket buying process when the user's time was not the same as the server time (10.00.10)
  • Subscription icons on orders and ticket lists have been separated into those tickets or order for subscriptions that need work and those that are complete. This is consistent with the icons on the patron list and on the subscription list with the purpose of more easily identifying which subscriptions need work done to make them complete and ready for the following years rollover. (10.00.10)
  • Fixed an important issue redeeming passes at the box office if they have a sales rule list associated with them. Anybody using sales rules and Dollar Average Passes will need to upgrade ASAP (10.00.10)

Subscriptions

  • Added some more icons to the subscription window lists (on patron window, manage favourite seats, and order window) to more clearly indicate which patrons need action to complete their subscription (10.00.10)

Donations

  • Fix redraw of the donation list on the patron window if the 'set donor name' function used to change multiple lines of donations publications names at one time. (10.00.11)
  • Fix a small issue on the donation window for setting many donation records in the patron donation list with the same donor name (10.00.12)

End of Day and CC Processing

  • Made a change in the Authorize.net End of Day comparison to ignore 'general errors' in the batch process. These are items sent to Authorize.net that they don't like for some reason (like invalid card or expiry), and cannot be compared to Theatre Manager -- so best to just ignore them. (10.00.05)
  • Add support for Elavon VirtualMerchant as a credit card processing option. (10.00.06)
  • Added support for IP fraud detection to Elavon and corrected it in Authorize.net. (10.00.08)
  • Corrected small issue with sending IP address for fraud detection in Authorize.net. (10.00.08)
  • Added support for sending track II data in Elavon. (10.00.08)
  • The G/L posting date of new resources added to the existing order is now the current date instead of the original date of the order. TM was creating some G/L entries for past dates for often modified Facility Management orders. (10.00.09)
  • Lowered the minimum acceptable authorization and settlement timeouts. The previous edit checks were designed for dialup era and that is no longer the case since all authorizations are now internet based and generally under 2 seconds (10.00.10)
  • Fixed an issue where refunding a pass could put the end of day out of balance by indicating the pass was for another outlet in the GL entry that was created (10.00.14)

Transactions

  • Added a transaction (ACU) that tracks those patrons who have been split out of a house hold and which household they came from (10.00.10)
  • Added a transaction (ACM) that tracks when patrons were merged into a household and the household that they came from (10.00.10)
  • Improved the visual display of the transaction detail window to more clearly indicate who an order or ticket is being transferred to or from. (10.00.10)
  • Add discount accounts and order fee accounts for TTT, TTF, OTT and OTF transfer transactions -- to make interpreting financial effect of transaction easier. Note that these are non-financial transactions, so adding account numbers to the display is just for assistance - but have not practical effect other than for viewing (10.00.10)

Reports

  • Improved the accuracy of the record count by distance report. Historically, it has been based on approximate centre of the postal code are to the primary address. If the addresses are geocode by google to the street level, the accuracy will be greater because the venue location is also geo-coded to give more accurate data. (10.00.05)
  • Added a Course Roster report under the 'course' category that shows registrants in a course and any relationships to other people in the database. The purpose of this is to print a 'contact' report for students in a course, including the relationships such as parents, etc. There is an ability to pick some of the fields that can go on this report. (10.00.05)
  • Export of performance date and time field now shows the full date and time of the performance. The data was previously formatted to only show time (10.00.10)

Miscellaneous

  • Make the notification window a little larger so that it is easier to see. (10.00.01)
  • Fix an SQL error opening the calendar. (10.00.03)
  • Changed the spelling of the country 'Columbia' to 'Colombia' in the country lookup. If you are upgrading from an earlier version, you will see this change. If you are currently at version 10, it will appear in the next 10.01 update automatically. (10.00.05)
  • Added 3 character ISO Country code to the code tables for Elavon processing. (10.00.05)
  • Changed company preference email settings and the 'TEST EMAIL BUTTON'. Now, if you click the 'test email' it will reset the condition where email setup has issues, if the email sends successfully. If it fails to test send, then the email settings will be marked in error -- all from the 'TEST' button. (10.00.05)
  • Fixed a small issue with entry of the G/L accounts for tax rates. The was an issue typing in the G/L code introduced lat in version 9.25 that has been fixed. (10.00.05)
  • Address an odd circumstance where data pasted into some data fields that contained embedded tabs could result in a tab in the middle of the data field. All tabs, CR's and LF's are now removed when pasting data into single line entry fields. (10.00.09)
  • Added some more helpers and edit checks when setting the email parameters for a particular user. It now uses similar functionality to the company email and should help identify problems easier (10.00.10)
  • The database statistics window (setup->Data Utilities) now supports export of the data in the window to tab or excel format. As an example, this could be used to compare record counts from older databases to why a backup size decreased (10.00.10)
  • Changed the notification of a new version to always show up in each login if one exists (10.00.11)
  • Altered the notification triggers so that they are only on 3 small tables. This should improve performance of the database for all the other tables when deleting or updating very large numbers or records at one time. i.e. if deleting 5,000 - 10,000 or more records at one go, you should see a performance improvement and less contention on some databases. (10.00.12)

Things a venue may need to do:

  • Read all prior release notes back to the version you upgraded from and follow any instructions for each version under the subject 'Things a venue may need to do'.
  • If you are using Mavericks, please make sure to turn off APP NAP for Theatre Manager. Click on Theatre Manager, get info, and check 'Prevent App Nap'.
  • For reference, the latest web page link for version 10 provides the exact same web pages as version 9.

CASL: Anti Spam Legislation (CRTC-Canada)

Please read Canada's Anti-SPAM laws in Bill C-28 and get your own legal advice on this Act. The interpretations below are our understanding of the Act and are not to be construed as a legal opinion, nor should they be interpreted as providing any protection from the proposed remedies in the Act.

Business processes and web forms in Theatre Manager should be configured to favour explicit OPT-IN under bill C-28, to provide as much protection to a venue and its Board of Directors as possible.

Consent falls under two basic categories that are described further below:
  • Explicit Consent
    • you must get the patrons permission to email them for a specific purpose.
    • This is best tracked using one or more mail lists (with opt-in or double opt-in feature set).
  • Implied consent
    • This occurs for all client initiated activities (such as a purchase of tickets, donations, gift certificates, rentals, etc at box office, or online)
    • Any activity automatically gives you the right for up to two years to contact them via email regarding that activity.
    • You can use the purchase data to build an internal mail list (i.e. not public), and then email the client

 

Adherence to Proposed Legislation - May 2014

There is legislation pending in Canada (Jul 1, 2014), the key parts of which are addressed (specifically OPT-IN) in the release notes for version 10.00.05:

  • Based on CRTC rules and Canada's Anti-SPAM laws in Bill C-28, a decision was made to make the defaults for new patron addition online Do not Email for ALL countries other than the USA.
  • According to pages 8 and 31 of the CRTC CIO discussion document, the default for a venue MUST be so that the user takes explicit action to opt-in to get marketing email. The default for the USA is that you can assume the person opts in without action.

    Note that the legislation does not affect items sent by the web listener as a result of buying tickets or requesting passwords. There are also mitigating factors for compliance for not-for-profit organizations; so you may want to read the legislation.

Theatre Manager complies with the legislation's requirement of EXPLICIT OPT-IN for all new patrons for marketing purposes.

The current process is:

  • If a Patron buys something online or makes a change to their personal settings on the web site, then an email is sent confirming their purchase or account change. This does not put them on a future list for email purposes. A direct business action online is consent to receive an immediate email confirmation for their own safety.
  • The default web page settings for Canadian clients REMOVES the 'do not email' flag from the web pages.

    Instead please:

    • use at least one mail list for this purpose -and-
    • in all criteria used for e-blasting, include, at a minimum 'belongs to mail list (xxxx)'
  • You can allow people to add themselves to multiple specific mail lists if you wish (opt in).

 

Setting up a Granular Opt-in/Opt Out

The opt-in process using one checkbox is a bit of a 'one checkbox kills all emails' to patrons. A feature has existed for a long time in the web sales process to allow patrons to add (or remove) themselves from any mail lists that you have allowed them to manage online. In all cases, this is an explicit opt in (and out) and the date that the patron added themselves can be viewed on the mail list tab on the patron window.

The SecondGeneration listener is being enhanced to make the process more versatile for you (the venue).

The process of a patron adding or updating their personal information online will become:

  • A patron can add themselves or update their account as before
  • The web sales will be designed to show a list of mail lists that the user can sign up to on the account pages.
  • The Patron will be able to add (or remove) themselves from any mail lists that you have allowed them to manage online. In all cases, this is an explicit opt in (and out).
  • and you will need to put a link at the bottom of all correspondence to tell people how to opt out of marketing emails by going to your web site to manage the opt-in/opt-out process (section 11 of the act).

These existing mail list features in TM to provide a flexible way for patrons to tailor how they wish to be reached. For example, you can have multiple email lists that effectively mean:

  • Email me about opera
  • Email me about special events
  • Send me a brochure each year
  • Email me about youth programs
  • Tell me about auditions
  • Etc.

 

Explicit Double Opt-in

You can

  • choose to have the mail lists set as a simple 'they click and get added' (per the above).
  • Use the more recommended Double-Opt-in setting. If it is set to 'double-opt-in' the patron will:
    • receive an email after they add themselves on the web -and-
    • they will need to confirm that email to get truly added to the notification list.
      If they do not confirm within 24 hours, they will be taken off the mail list. If they confirm after that, they will be restored to the mail list.
In both cases, the subscription type is recorded in the mail list along with the date. The double opt in has the benefit of also verifying the email address due to a round trip to the customer.

 

Implicit Permission

There appears to be provisions in the act for implicit right to email people

  • if they have purchased in the past two years under part 10 of this page of the Act
  • For warranty work
  • For ongoing subscription or membership purposes for a period of two years after the subscription or membership expired (article 14 of above page)