release notes 0.8

Changes and improvements

Upgrading

Because this is a major update, it is very important that you take a backup before performing this upgrade. It will then take up to 10 minutes (on a slow server) to upgrade your data once you start the new onCourse server before you are able to log in again.

Major new features

New Dashboard

We’ve added a new way to navigate around onCourse and learn about how the various parts fit together.

onCourse Dashboard

Clairvoyance reworked

Clairvoyance (also called autocomplete or type-ahead) has been rewritten from scratch and now allows for faster more streamlined searching on students.

The search works by searching for a last name and then bring a list of matches. You can search for somebody’s full name by adding a space after the last name.

ie. “Smith” by itself will be searching for all people with last name “Smith”. Typing “Smith J” will be searching for people with “Smith” as a first name and last name starting with “J”, and will bring a list of matches.
Clairvoyance

Contacts

Students and tutors are now unified within the concept of contacts. This now allows for contacts who are neither tutors nor students, and tutors who are also students. Companies are also now supported, as are contacts who might just be a lead or other contact and not a student.

Webpages and Subjects

Webpages and Subjects can now appear on your site in an order that you decide with a weighting system. Lower weighted webpages sit higher than heavier weighted pages. Webpages are much more flexible now and can be assigned a short name which is used for menus and links.

Attachments

Images and other attachments have been enhanced in how they can be linked to a web page or to a course. This makes it easier to attach a pdf to a course displayed online for instance.

Concessions and promotional codes

More flexibility has been adding in allowing students of a certain age, with discount cards or who have enrolled recently to be limited to certain discounts.

Web site integration

Substantial work has taken place on how onCourse communicates with the web site, making it even more reliable and faster. Updates to the web site now run in the background every 5 minutes. Quick Enrol shows more feedback about payments which succeed or fail and it provides more choices about what to do with (say) a rejected credit card. The web site rich text syntax has become more powerful, allowing randomly chosen embedded images, linked pdfs, email forms and much more.

The onCourse web site itself now supports a host of new concepts:

• promotional codes may be accepted online
• student login to see past history and edit contact details
• tutor login to see upcoming classes and enrolment counts, as well as editing contact details
• pretty urls (/about/contact rather than /tag?id=123)
• interactive calendars of courses and sessions
• email a friend
• reworked enrolment checkout process taking advantage of Web 2.0 concepts to make it easier and less confusing to add multiple students, enrolments and (soon) other products

User interface

Although the major user interface improvements have been around clairvoyance, other improvements have also been made: such as list views can now have their columns resizes and moved around. These new sizes and positions are saved for that user, along with the window position. Some other work has been required for OSX 10.5 which caused some changes in the layouts.

Sorting on multiple columns has been put in onCourse (hold down shift, and click on another column). This allows a number of useful things, for example: by surname, then by suburb.

Technology

Significant changes have taken place behind the scenes. Updates to the database engine, a move to Java 5 and more minor updates to most libraries we use to improve speed and reliability. Major enhancements to the replication technology were also included at this time. We also performed testing against Windows Vista.

Course search

Replaced “Course code” and “Class code” search. Functionality has now been combined in the “Code” search. Searching on “begins with” will search on the Course code. Searching with “ends with” will search on the class code. Note: As an example “ARC134B-0023” is the full course-class code where “ARC134B” is the course code, and “0023” is the class code.

Reports

We have enhanced and added new reports such as:

• Statement
• Class by Subject
• Class rolls
• Reconcile
• Banking
• Qualifications
• Enrolment confirmation
• Profit and Loss for classes, Profit and Loss for courses

Messaging

We’ve now included the ability to untick message recipients from a list of contacts.

XML exporting

Significant enhancements to the Indesign and XML export. Further details.

Changes

Beta 1

* Save column sizes and positions from session to session
* Fix: on new enrolment screen can add same student twice
* Cal: cell highlighting
* SOAP SSL/Encryption fixed
* Login screen - find server did nt work in some situations
* Concessions - inclusions/exclusions
* Room/site selection
* Duplicate classes screen --> earliest start date
* Cancel & refund enhancements
* printing dialog on windows has fields poking through from underlying window
* Send message to tutor(s) from class(es)
* Tutor: classes filtering
* Class rollover - clear tutor/date confirmed
* Promotion add course name as option for input.
* Tutor unconfirmed list
* Dates: Day of week
* Updated to use Java5 
* Server - logged in stats incorrectly displayed
* Tutor confirmed field redundant
* Embedded Derby connector - speed improved
* Enrolments - default list view should be current and future classes
* Improved error reporting dialog
* Move to Jetty 6
* Improved timezone handling
* Fixed problem when choosing 'save as pdf' from print filenames are blank, and need to be manually entered
* Fixed custom report not printing from mac
* Class edit: cancelled checkbox
* Add tags doesn't mark record for updating
* Website validates from email address
* Add student tags for enrolment confirmation email
* Web page name uniqueness
* client disconnect session screen
* Welcome page renamed to home page, now undeletable
* Subject tag group is now undeletable
* Weighting system for webpages/Nodes in onCourse
* Nodes/Webpages now allow images to be attached in a more graceful manner
* Class - resize web tab stretches contents correctly
* Invoice customer reference
* Course: isShownOnWeb --> gui checkbox
* Layout issues
* Merging students both enrolled in the same class, one active, one cancelled fail
* Allow sorting on multiple columns hold down shift to sort on secondary columns
* Reorder columns
* Layout problem in class view
* All contacts page missing entries in name column
* Payment/Enrolment statuses lockdown
* Webpages missing ability to attach images fixed
* Sessions created can be set to overlap timewise
* Sessions dragged from one day to another have their times changed
* Double click on message in tutor view is safely disabled
* Prevent database directories with  : or space from being created
* Validation for changes to is mandatory, allow one and removing tag group relatio
* Dealing with $0 payments in QE, so the enrolments are processed against website.
* Classes find on code broken
* Ensure that onCourse does not start unless java 1.5 is detected
* The opening of the list view failed
* Column auto-resizing broken
* QE enrol student popup
* isCompany warning
* Set gender not working
* Icons to help distinguish students, tutors and companies
* Zeroconf deadlock
* Indesign export fails
* AVETMISS export class selection
* Notes not printed on invoices
* QE: showing tutor
* Deposit banking: choose account
* Deposit banking headings
* Banked view, reconciliation view should not be opened twice.
* List view buttons (New, Find) key accelerators stopped working
* Fix printing preferences problems
* Actions (print, find etc) invoked multiple times
* Discount update - new gui, new fields
* Promotion/discount allows to set negative discount values
* New database not created properly on remote file server
* onCourse server sometimes does not quit on windows 
* The toggle button background on windows gets displayed when the button is select
* QE class list shows past classes
* QE student alert spacing
* Prevent downgrade
* Zeroconf broken
* Fixed Welcome Screen: Session button does nothing
* Waiting List clarity.
* Duplicate class operation never completes after creation of an discount
* Welcome screen enable/disable option
* Tags: weight popup removal
* TagGroup 'Show on the website' checkbox removal
* Tag groups broken / find not happening.
* Web pages: abbreviated name
* deDuplicate student broken for payment relationships
* Student list action button bug
* Det export does not work.
* Opening list view fails
* Mail preference bug with screenshot
* Tutor - messages bug
* Finds on tags - error fetching records
* Promocodes/discounts allow saving even validation had been failed
* ABN for college added, this is required for tax invoices
* Backup preference tab layout
* Find popup drawing issue
* List window checkboxes galore -
* Concessions in class edit fail
* Tutor edit on class view fails
* Sheets inside sheets
* QE promotion code entry validation
* Fixed sorting throwing exception if null encountered
* Waiting list site sheet
* Attachment can not be added.
* Room can not be added
* Web Pages not showing
* onCourse client performance improved
* Could not create quick enrol.
* Fixed a problem with contact deduping
* Deduplicate fails for some classes
* QE clairvoyance throws Exception
* The company can now be added to the class as a tutor in a nicer way
* Sessions from cancelled class should not be visible on timetables
* Add the date of cancelation to the class notes
* New report: Enrolment confirmation
* Sheet drawing issues
* onCourse 0.8 Web pages: Abbreviated name
* Quick enrol icon added
* Binary infos for sites and rooms
* Duplicate class date bug
* Printing student details fixed
* QE bug with screenshot
* dragging pictures over QE
* Problems entering data
* Tag group assigned to record
* PDF attachment preview
* Start/end times not populated for classes
* Merging Students after class finished
* Password issue
* Clairvoyance tab twice
* A cancel button on db create splash screen
* Replicated dequeueing debug de-deplicate queued records.
* SSL problems
* icon added for Companies
* Lifecycle callback error
* Student list shows companies
* Server user list GUI
* Concession list columns
* Validation for VET courses
* Tutor replication
* Classes on web site
* Fixed tag bug - show abbreviated name, replaces the shortname each time it's opened
* Sort on classes count
* Concession not showing in QE
* Clairvoyance not allowing removal
* Failed to perform action
* New user cannot login fixed
* Site dragging problem
* Windows XP - When clicking on the tool bar default window sizes are very large 
* Resume - actually change the label text!
* Contacts - change logic of hide to show
* Backup preferences bug
* Tried to open Student list threw exception
* Timetable problem - site filled in, room not selected
* Contact edit first name field size
* Find contacts are now missing fields relevant for tutor
* QE clairvoyance problem
* Student replication - password set in web enrolment does not come across
* Clairvoyance completion Class-> tutor bug
* Deletion sheet drawing issue
* Contact missing for student
* Daylight Savings
* Copy and paste email addresses
* Clairvoyance backspace highlight
* QE: enrolments invalid class assignment
* QE: the student clairvoyance fields can not set student record properly
* Sort on student number broken
* starting a new sample data file
* Duplicate class with mandatory tag groups
* Class cast error in Discounts
* Discount value field
* QE creates new student
* Waiting list error
* Enrolment Fields
* Mailing list errors
* Find student using student number
* No transaction incomplete msg when didn't include credit card number in quick enrolment
* Cannot open reconcile statement
* Enrolments against Contacts
* No field 'anzsic' is defined in class Qualification
* Find students based on the date of enrolment
* Places available incorrect.

Beta 2

* Improved merging of students.
* Fixes to the reconcile screen: the checkboxes are appearing and the payments can be selected.
* Set date banked for on payments in performed through the credit card gateway.
* Fixed problem with concession not being applied.
* Added further validation for student AVETMISS fields
* Set default paper size to A4
* Enrolment list shows status, better formatted name
* Fixed printing exception when select multi line classes to print class roll or schedule by printer.
* Fixed the banking view: contact name displays correctly, report is printed
* Cancelling class now allows you to refund enrolments automatically
* Assuring the daylight savings does not affect the times of sessions/classes when:
** creating session across daylight savings
** duplicating classes with sessions
** duplicating classes without sessions
* When using "message students for class" action only currently enrolled students should receive the message.
* Added ability to traverse the records while printing: allows to print the student reports from courseclass list
* Discount combobox and field is only editable when class is selected (QE screen)
* Allocating money to paymentin fixed  there was a bug when allocating big credit notes
* Validation messages and rules updated for payment out 
* Changes in paymentIn status cause all the invoices for this payment to update calculated field "amountOwing"
* Changes in paymentIn status cause all the invoices for this payer to update calculated field "amountOwing"
* Allowing users to search for the cc transaction number with or without prefix "W" 
* Enrolment cancellation dialog improved: strings more meaningful, layout cleaned up, default button highlighted.
* When cancelling the enrolment the "refund" is now ticked by default

Beta 3

* Improved memory usage and caching which reduces memory footprint of the server considerably. This has proved very successful for a college with 150,000 records in their database.
* The upgrade process in beta 2 was sometimes failing when upgrading from 0.7
* Each system user now has a email field which will tie into future features and notifications. This can be set by going to Preferences -> User
* When viewing a tutor record where list of classes being taught by the tutor were not displaying correctly
* Improvements to default views to improve performance with large numbers of records
** Student window: lists currently enrolled students
** Tutor window: lists tutors currently teaching classes
* Currency symbol ignored the locale settings and always used $ in emails
* Deleted sessions were still appearing in the calendar
* Enrolment confirmation emails sometimes not sent out
* Improved visibility split pane on Sessions on Windows platform - this split pane separates the timetable view from the list of sessions on the bottom. Prior to this fix, the split pane icon could not be seen easily.
* Further improvements to importing from external systems via xml
* Opening invoice window or creating a new invoice could hang the onCourse client
* Improved the appearance of printed certificates
* Profit and Loss reports for classes were not displaying balances correctly

0.8 final

* Added phone field to 'Class Roll' report 
* 'Enrolment Confirmation' report now consistantly displays the web description
added fields to reports to meet AQF standards - set field blank when RTO code is null in title subreport 
* Allowing search on course web visible
* Export classes now saves output as UTF-8 rather than just pretending it is UTF-8.
* Enrolment confirmations are now only sent once to each one student enrolling.
* Payment types and statuses in Payment view once again display as strings instead of numbers.
* Server icon should have server cog wheel in dock (MAC OS X fix)
* Fixed the issue where if the payment (in or out) was $0 and not matching two (or more) invoices which added up to zero would not be accepted by validation
* Fixed minimum size of the sheet when editing/creating Certifcate which prevented it from being usable 
* When a contact is a company, the full name is derived from the company name, not first/last name. This change fixes a bug in the Indesign export.
* Fixed problem with node short name when upgrading from oncourse 0.7
* Newly created taxonomies are allowing multiple tags and are not required. 
* Fixed enrolment confirmation report header showing 'null' when address line1 is empty in Avetmiss Preferences
* Tag groups: "Next" and "Previous" button now work correctly
* Allowing search on invoice customer reference in Invoice list
* PaymentIn and PaymentOut validation added: the assigned amount must equal to the payment amount.
* Fixed a problem which preventing printing class rolls when the site's suburb was not set.
* Updated calendar to deal with daylight savings information.
* Fixed a bug which was causing newly created or updated records to not display correctly, until client was restarted.
* Fixed a problem which prevent contacts from being merged.