Upgrade Time

The time required to upgrade varies on the number of transactions, orders, payment and e-mail blast records. If the database contains many of those, the upgrade might take an hour or more from version 8.09.

Optional Web Page Changes

If you want to implement the 'presales' coupon feature, you can make one change to the TMtickets.html web page that streamlines the process for presales codes. Please download the latest copy of the TMtickets page and compare your TMtickets.html with the new one. There is a bit of code that needs added to the page that starts with

<field>pick(F_PRESALES_ALLOWED,'<!-- comment: based on setting in company preferences')</field>

and ends with

<field>pick(F_PRESALES_ALLOWED,'-->')</field>

Key Changes in Version 8.13.00

The following changes have been made to Theatre Manager since version 8.09

No-Configuration Remote Support

We have built a product right into Theatre Manager for remote support called 'TeamViewer'. From our testing, is zero configuration and secure - and it is right on the Theatre Manager menu bar. If you are talking to support and want to show them what you are seeing, you can invite our support staff to view your screen while you are on the phone. This can be used from any computer within your organization. If you elect to use this feature, you have to provide your randomly generated access code for to the support team, otherwise they cannot connect to your machine. We are very excited about including this support tool right into Theatre Manager.

We will be using this feature for remote training and support in the future, so we urge all users to upgrade

Date Sensitive Alternate Addresss

Future address changes - you can now specify that address and phone information may change at any time in the future. This can be a one-time change, or address flipping between summer and winter addresses, or any number of address changes throughout the year.

This feature includes:

1. The ability to schedule the removal of a phone, fax, email, website or address
2. The ability to schedule setting the primary phone, fax, email, website or address as a one-time occurance
3. The ability to schedule setting the primary phone, fax, email, website or address as a recurring item on a given day every year
4. New menu item under Patron Sales to show all the upcoming changes and allow a user to browse past changes
5. New toolbar and context menu item on the patron list to see changes for a specific patron
6. New icon in the patron list to indicate when a patron has an upcoming phone, fax, email or website change
7. New toolbar item on the contact card to view a patron's upcoming changes
8. New "operations" buttons on the contact card to allow scheduling of changes.  Address operations button also incorporates a previous buttons function for showing a map, the weather and copying it to the clipboard.
9. New description on the address tabs in the contact card to show when a given address is set to be primary or removed.

Course Management

You can now set up courses with multiple class days (such as summer camps) and track attendance at each day of the session. There is an attendance report and a report card feature to accompany this new capability.

Presales via Online Coupons

Coupon codes now support the notion of 'Presales', or early access to tickets for events to select groups of individuals - where those same performances are not available to the general public. It is implemented through coupons - and if the coupon code is entered, then more events will appear in the list that a patron can select from. A further enhancement to coupon codes is that you can now email blast a mail list - and only allow people on the mail list to have early access, or use a discounted coupon. This prevents patrons from handing coupon codes around or posting them on the internet.

Pass and GC Redemption

Passes now allow you to specify the number of tickets to redeem from any one pass. This allows you to:

• use less admissions from the pass than the number of ticket bought - if that is what the patron wishes.
• redemption portions of multiple play passes on the payment screen for any one order.
• Allow anybody in the Household to use a Pass - You can now specify on a pass/gift certificate if the item can be redeemed:
  • only by the purchaser,
  • by anybody in the household,
  • by any other patron.

  This new feature supports GC's or Passes that can be used by a corporation or family such as scholarships, or event passes that may be assigned to one person and used by another.

• Gift certificate name gets truncated in the detail window - The gift certificate internal name now supports up to 50 character descriptions and no longer truncates at 30 characters.
• Allow delete of a Renewed Membership (like version 6) - Changed behavior of deleting memberships to be like TM Version 6.  Deleting a membership will now restore the previously renewed membership back to active status.

Employee Managment has Changed

Employee's and Patrons are now merged - this is a significant (but subtle) change. In the past, the employee record was separate from the patron record and if employees bought tickets, you would need to enter them as a patron as well. Now, you set up a employee in the patron record. Then you assign the patron 'employee' permissions. You will see, on the patron list, a little 'star' beside those people who are current employees. Existing employees in the database will have a new record created for them in the patron file, so you will have to merge the employee and the patron together that have the same name.

Enabling at least one MasterUser Account at Login - We added some features to prevent the master user from dissappearing from the database. These include:

• Fixed an issue where a master user may not be re-created if there is no mater user in the database.
• A master user can no longer remove master user status from themselves. Another master user must do that. This prevents removing of all master users on the database - because there must be at least one
• If you forget your password, you can now have Theatre Manager e-mail it to you by selecting your user-id and clicking the email icon at the bottom of the employee list
• Employee set up in Data tab - Streamlined the behavior of the top level check-boxes in the data tab of the employee detail window.  The top level check-boxes will now only affect the check-boxes in the same column. 

Volunteer Management

• Volunteer Report Allowing A Summary of Hours Worked - Created new report "Volunteer Hours Summary", which allows a quick view of the hours a volunteer has worked as well as an assortment of marketing and volunteer fields.
• Volunteer Awards Detail Report - Created new report "Volunteer Award Detail" which shows the awards and activities that a volunteer has worked in more detail.
• Add Personnel button on the Mail List window - Added the ability to open the volunteer detail window and the patron contact card window from the mail list 'Whos In' tab. This action can be initiated using context menus. You need to see the list of people in the 'Whos In' and right click on a patron to see the additional options.
• Time of class needs transferred to personel detail wen assigning volunteer - Added ability to optionally set the duration of associated volunteer activities, when the duration of the event they belong to is changed.

Donations

• Allow Soft Credits for Internet Donations - In the original design of the donation subsystem, it was presumed that people who gave on the internet would have done so on their own free will. Based on a recent request for a change, it make sense that they could have been prompted to do so and thus a soft credit might need to be created for that donation.
• Soft credits can now be entered for internet donations, gifts with tickets, and regular donations.
• Add Donations to Mail List Telemarketing Report - Added donation history to the Mail List Telemarketing report (rMailListTelemarket).  It is displayed only if the user has view access to the security item, "Donation information for any Donor record"
• Added 'Do Not Solicit by Email' - Added a field to the donor tab on the patron window for 'do not solicit by email' in addition to the existing 'do not solicit by phone' and 'do not solicit by mail'.
• Corrected Fiscal  & Program Year validation for Donations - Fixed issue where the fiscal and program year validation was being based off the current data rather than the donation date.  This affected looking at donations 10+ years old.
• Donation totals on patron record do not place past donations properly - Resolve issue where past donations would be totaled in the future donations category when displayed on the patron window.

Ticket Sales Processes

• Change Control House in Subscription Package (if no performances) - Allow user to change the performance for a subscription as many times as desired if there are no seats in the package.
• Add 'Reservation Only' indicator to Order Detail Report
• Added an indicator to the Order Detail - by Patron (Ticket, Membership, Donation, Fee & Payment) report for Order Reservation status to match up with other Order Detail reports.
• Add Order Notes to Batch Ticket Print Window - Added order notes to the batch ticket print window to allow a user to view any special notes about the order that merit some extra action. This data is on the ticket preview list window where after all tickets to be printed in the batch have been found. A good way to use this feature is to run the batch ticket print and then sort by this column on the pre-print ticket list.
• Entering a Payment on A/R window Update Balance - You can now enter a payment to any order on the accounting->Receivables->AR listing window and the list  of orders will get updated as the payment is entered.

  This also works on the end of day wizard copy of the receivables list and adjusts the various calculations to show balancing status

• Add 'Payment' to the List of Options from the 'Ticket' Button - On the patron widow, if you click on the ticket tab to sell tickets (the normal action), we have added the capability to take a payment when a ticket is selected, rather than having to go to the order window.
• Add Order Lookup to Payment Transfer Window - Added an order lookup button on the patron payment transfer window to make it easier to find the order to transfer the payment to.
• Transferring a Payment Ensures Patron Balance is Correct - Resolved an issue where the displayed balance of an order may be incorrect after transferring a payment.
• Net QTY Calculated Incorrectly for Daily Sales Summary on Fees - Fixed issue where the quantity in the daily sales summary would not be correct.
  • During the upgrade, Theatre Manager will clear and recalculate all the daily sales summary data except for those events that were archived in version 6 and the transactions removed.
  • If there are version 7/8 events that have been archived and have incorrect counts in the quantity column in the daily sales, users may wish to restore them to non-archived status prior to the upgrade.
• Patron Credit on Patron List Shows As Red Instead of Blue - Fixed issue where a patron credit would show up as red on the patron list rather than blue
• Columns can disappear on the order window's promotions list in ticket sales - Fixed issue where lists could occasionally have columns disappear.  This was initially located in the ticket selling window for the percent discount column.
• Suppress Patron Balance on Title Bar - If a user does not have permission to see donations, the total on the title bar no longer reflects anything that pertains to the donation balance - and just shows any ticket balance.

Web Sales

• Resolve Stats issue because of Apache Time-Zone - Apache module 1.4.4 fixes an issue where Theatre Manager cannot collect statistics if the web listener is in a different time zone than the apache server and it is not set for the proper offset from GMT. If you have a Mac Apache server, please refer to this link to see update instructions.
• Online Coupon Code Doesn't exclude Price Code - Fixed issue where a coupon code would not respect the valid price codes on a promotion.
• Web Listener NULL parameter in best seats -- SQL Error - Resolve issue where web listeners produce a SQL error when retrieving best seats due to an unknown client ID.
• Formal Name now updates correctly for web updates - The formal name and greeting name are now updated when a user changes their profile on the web using the same rules as the box office.

Reporting Subsytem

• End Time Criteria Calculates Correctly - When entering criteria that do date/time from and date/time to, the final time on the date to now calculates to be 23:59.
• Fix Export Criteria from Saved Criteria - Restoring saved criteria for an export no longer duplicates the field names on the export tab.
• Sort options for Event Price Code Report - Resolve issue in the Play Price Codes report that would incorrectly group events with the same title together on the same page.
• Queued and Saved Report options dont save under the Group tab of Employee Setup - Resolved issue where the Queued & Saved Reports security check boxes would not save.
• Batch printing of passes produces no printed passes - Fixed issue where batch printing of passes printed no passes.
• New Seat Assigned in Mail List Criteria - Fixed issue where the subscription status 'New-Seat Assigned' may show up as 'Value Missing' in mail list and report criteria.
• Report Criteria Address, Sort, Titles tabs are not Saving/Restoring Correctly - Resolve issue where saved sort criteria was not always being re-applied to a report.
• Ticket Held Seat Report Prints Sold Seats Too - Resolved issue where the Ticket Held Seat Detail report might show sold seats as well as hold seats.

Form Letters

• Fix fill color in a Text Box on Form Letters - Resolved issue where the background color a text box would always be set to gray regardless of what colour was set in the window
• Print unprinted letters has some icon status issues and will mark emails done unintentionally - Fixed an issue in the print unprinted letter process where selecting both an email and a letter at the same time could cause the item to get marked done inadvertently.

  The print process now only considers printable documents and the email process now only considers those that are marked as email.

Events and Performances

• Fix Issue Changing from General Admission to Reserved Seating Performance - Fix issue changing from general admission performance, then if user sells seats and refunds seats so that none are sold... then if user changes the sales method to reserved seating, TM will now grab the graphic map seats so that there are the right holds and the right seats sold string.
• Amount column in the Sales tab calculates incorrectly - Resolve issue where the Amount column in the Sales tab of the Plays window was calculated incorrectly.

Accounting Related

• Incorrect G/L account being used for transfer of Deferred to Earned on Taxes - Fixed issue where the transfer of deferred to earned income for taxes was being transferred from deferred back to the deferred account, rather than to the earned account.
• Prevent the A/R account to be used as the Account # for Gift-in-Kind - Every area in Theatre Manager that accepts account numbers now checks for any one of the special account numbers such as the A/R account, the bank account, etc.

  If one of those are encountered, TM will warn the user.  If it is the A/R account, TM will display a dialog that warns the user about potential end of day balancing issues if they are not careful with that they are doing.

• Add 'Active' Flag to tax rates - The tas rate table now has an active flag so that old tax rates can be hidden when entering new events, gift certificates, etc.

Patron Management

• Add company to the Patron Relationship List - Added company to the relationship window list to make it easier to see relationships that might be only with organizations.
• Changing the Country during Insert of a New Patron did not Reformat the Phone - If the country is changed on the insert of a new patron, the phone number is now re-edited and reformatted to suit the new country before the insert of the record is completed.  This provides visual feedback to the user prior to insert.
• Area Code now Mandatory - With the onset of 10 digit dialing in most areas of North America, the capability to allow the area code to be optional has been removed. All phone numbers are now 10 digits.
• Entering international addresses does a zip code lookup and should not - International addresses continue to do a zip code lookup but the sort order in the lookup has been removed to make sure the SQL lookup is faster.  There should no longer be a lag.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Save Window Sort Order - The last sort used on lists is now saved in the window preferences.  Whatever sort is used when the list closed is what will be used again when the list opens.
• Save window views when window closed - when ever a windows is closed that allow multiple views, the state of the window is now saved so that it can be reopened in the same position and layout. These are windows such as the patron window which can show just the list or just the patron information and the order window which can show a calendar instead of a list for purchasing tickets.
• Remove 'do you want to save' when clicking the close box on insert - We streamlined the insert new record process by removing some dialog boxes.
• Changing List Preferences Messes up Order Selling Window - All lists on the select a seat window in the sell process now support their columns being changed and will save those positions for each users convenience.
• When clicking the close box theatre manager will try and save and close the window, if it can't save then it will keep the window open and display an error.
• When clicking the Cancel button(previously called Delete) the window will close immediately
• A new button "Cancel" has been added when inserting a new record, it takes the place of the "Delete" button on the toolbar.  After a record is saved the "Delete" button is re-added and the "Cancel" button is removed.
• Custom Field Names only Updated on First Save - Fixed issue where clicking Save on the Company Preferences window would create the new company descriptions, but clicking it a second time would not make the changes take effect.
• Duplicating Course Level entry becomes "Payment Methods" - Resolved issue where duplicating a code table from a code table detail window would result in an incorrect title for the window.
• Fix Access to Enable/Disable Promotions - The ability to globally enable and disable sales promotions from the sales promotion window was using the incorrect permission to check for capability - it now uses the right one.

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:
• Find existing employees in the patron list and merge them with any pre-existing patron records. (Any employee record was created as a patron record)
• Update the web pages as per the beginning of the release note