Version 8.24

Upgrade Time

The upgrade time from version 8.23 should be relatively short.

There are 3 MANDATORY web page changes that must be done when upgrading. If you do not do this, new patrons may not be able to add themselves on the web

If you are at 8.23.00, this should self deploy, otherwise it is walk around.

Key Changes in Version 8.24.00

The following changes have been made to Theatre Manager since version 8.23

Miscellaneous Changes

  • Fix on the startup routines to allow venues running postgres 8.3.10 to run theatre manager. TM was complaining that postgres 8.3.10 was too old - even though it was just released.
  • The subscribe to mail list feature has been replaced with a link to take you to our RSS feed so that you can sign up via your browser. The RSS feed replaces the notification feature for new versions.
  • Changed icons in the menu 'Patron Sales'->'Subscriptions' to be consistent with toolbar.
  • Updated the web interface to allow patrons to add new household members to an existing patron via the web
  • Fixed a bug that prevented new patrons from adding themselves online that was introduced in 8.23.02
  • You can no longer print post dated payments on donation receipts
  • Only show reports in the EOD wizard that a user has access to by other means in other parts of TM.
  • Fix to allow Mac OSX users who are using the network log in feature to be able to connect to a database. This affects only one venue.
  • Workflow notifications now link the notification to the employee's 'letters' tab so that they can go back and view them later if they delete the emails.
  • Workflow notifications can now use the patron full address on them instead of having to put in each address line an the city/state province
  • Workflow notifications will now retrieve the marketing record information when sending out a notification. This means you can set up a notification for something like a current donation - and include statistics like total donated in the past 7 years, or what you wish.
  • Fix to allow web sales to search for tickets by date/year/venue /event again. This was broken in 8.23.00
  • Fix issue where user pre-enters the authorization code for a credit card (known as a post-auth) in theatre manager. The advisory message now displays properly
  • Checks can now be used in post dated payments again
  • Allow people with appropriate permissions to help do other people's till balance
  • Fix a problem when subscriptions are booked or renewed online, they could not be edited afterwards in the season package detail.

Specific Unicode version changes

This version of Theatre Manager is in limited release at this current time - and will become the default version of Theatre Manager in a month or so

  • Email blast now sends things out correctly
  • The popup list to select fields for a form letter now works in the unicode version
  • Notifications now tracks the data sent in the letters list properly.
  • Theatre Manager help and email links now open properly on windows platform. Some changes to the calls to windows were required. Opening 'Mail' or links in OSX always worked.

      • 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'
      • Compare the new standard web pages and make the required changes as per below in the htdocs folder

          • Changes to Web Pages

          Make a copy of the WebPages folder and name it WebPagesEN. Do this and make ALL changes below in the WebPagesEN folder before upgrading Theatre Manager to version 8.24.00. Please download the web page updates and compare the web pages in the WebPagesEN folder with with the template files in this mini archive. If you have not made any changes from prior versions, you may need to get the full set of standard web pages and compare them.

          Note: on PC Apache servers, please find all files called '.ds_store' and delete those for PCI compliance.

          Files in the main WebPagesEN directory
          TMpatronUpdate.html compare old page to new
          tmError.txt additional error message number 10154
          tmTemplates
          rowPatronEmail.htmlcompare old page to new. Fixes a mistake that prevented new patrons adding themselves in version 8.23.02 or later.

For Immediate Action: Fair and Accurate Credit Card Transaction Act - USA

We would like to bring this to everybody's immediate attention. It concerns a story on a web site called Performink Online. After reading it, you may wish to take corrective action and edit the ticket faces for your venue.

Background

Apparently, Harris Theatre in Chicago (they are NOT a Theatre Manager customer) is being sued because their credit card receipts printed the expiry date and their insurance settled out of court - even though no actual damages occurred to the customer. The article talks about how some lawyers have used this same law to target restaurants and other consumer outlets.

This is a US specific law is called FACTA - the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (non-authoritative link for more info) which has a subsection repeated below. There does not appear to be a similar Canadian counterpart.

C. Truncation: Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Social Security Numbers

Credit card receipts that include full account numbers and expiration dates are a gold mine for identity thieves. FACTA says credit and debit card receipts may not include more than the last five digits of the card number. Nor may the card's expiration date be printed on the cardholder's receipt. However, this does not apply to receipts for which the sole means of recording a credit or debt card number is by handwriting or by an imprint or copy of the card.

Possible Implications

During Theatre Manager training, we always recommend against printing credit card receipts because we do not feel that the ticket business requires separate receipts - and that the ticket is your receipt. If that is your practice, there are probably few historical ramifications. However, we do recommend following the recommended action below immediately.

Recommended Actions to take

There is enough in my searching of the internet that leads me to believe that this possible threat to your venue is credible (even if it is a sad statement on the legal system). We strongly encourage you to make your own investigation on the matter if you need more information.

Regardless, we suggest that you edit all your 'payment' ticket faces. Look for any lines that have the field called PAY_CARD_EXPIRY and remove that line from the ticket face immediately.

Also, on your web page confirmations, look for the same field and remove that. We will remove from our standard pages and information will be in the next release notes.

Note: Version 8.25 will automatically remove this field from all ticket faces and due to be released early next week. You may wish to have and advanced read of the release notes.

Theatre Manager 8.24.00 Released

There is an update release for all venues running version 8 of Theatre Manager.

See the full notes about Version 8.24 or read on for a summary.

Key Changes in Version 8.24

Version 8.24 is primarily a bug fix release that addresses a number of issues found and change requests to the recent enhancements for facility management, Paymentech Orbital, online course sales, and online management of household patrons.

We recommend that those using versions 8.10 and later upgrade when possible to obtain the bug fixes.

Those at 8.09 and earlier should also upgrade - but at their leisure in order to obtain the new functionality.

There are 3 web page updates for this version that correct earlier functionality.