The following paragraphs contain information on features added to or changed in Version 1.80 of QuickFill with each build number that was released. You can see further information on a feature or change by clicking on the green underlined text.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 800.
QuickFill now requires a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.
This change was necessary in order to permit the expansion of the tracking code and many other code fields from 6 to 12 characters. Also it allows the addition of several new fields to the customer address record without splitting the address screen up into two screens.
To change the screen resolution in Windows XP, right click in a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose 'Settings' from the menu that appears. The 'Display Properties' window will appear. Select the 'Settings' tab, then adjust the screen resolution slider on the bottom left to a value of 1024 x 768 or greater.
To change the screen resolution in Windows Vista, right click in a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose 'Personalize' from the menu that appears. The 'Personalization' window will appear. Click on 'Display Settings' at the bottom of the window. Adjust the 'Resolution' slider on the bottom left to a value of 1024 x 768 or greater.
To change the screen resolution in Windows 7, right click in a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose 'Screen Resolution' from the menu that appears. Click the 'Resolution' button and choose a resolution of 1024 x 768 or greater.
The number of QuickFill window size choices available has increased from 3 to 5.
In order to accommodate the growing number of screen sizes and shapes that are on the market, QuickFill now supports five different window sizes. You can choose from the available sizes by selecting 'Window Size' on the 'Other' menu. Note that only the small window size will work with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768.
The database file names have changed.
The database version letter has been changed from H to I (e.g. the files are named xxxxx_Inn.QFDAT instead of xxxxx_Hnn.QFDAT). Your database will be automatically updated to match the new version of QuickFill when you open it.
The maximum length of most code fields has increased from 6 to 12 characters.
Increased the lengths of the company code, publication code, tracking code, renewal effort code, channel code, premium code, plan code, list code, package code, form ID code, billing series code, renewal series code, agency code, requalification source code and label split code from 6 to 12 characters. The ID fields on the marketing package, billing package and renewal package screens have increased in length from 4 to 12 characters.
The number of offers on the Tracking Code and Renewal Effort definition screens has increased from 5 to 9.
This should help with some of these situations: (a) stepped pricing with a lot of steps or in combination with multi-year offers; (b) multi-year offers with service codes for print or electronic delivery (or both); (c) complex renewals entered through QuickFill's Internet Extension service. The renewal mail-merge files have been expanded with additional fields for the extra offers. However the standard mail merge templates that we supply do not have room for the additional offers, at least not in all cases. The same goes for the standard Form Designer renewal layouts. Squeezing nine renewal offers onto a seven inch form is an impossible task. If you want to use all nine offers on your renewal notices you will need to use full letter size forms. To compensate, a new field has been added to the preferences screen that shows the maximum number of pricing lines available on the renewal notice. The default is set to 19. When the renewal notice is generated, any offers that overflow the available space will be omitted, from the bottom up.
An optional offer code field has been added to the offer definition screen.
This field is optional. If you enter an offer code it must be unique within its publication. The offer code is used by the QuickFill Internet Extensions when you want to identify a specific offer that is being purchased by a customer.
A "Find" feature has been added to the offer definition screen.
This is similar to the find feature on the tracking code definition screen. You can search for offers using any combination of publication, offer code, term, free issues, minimum quantity, service code and price.
The maximum line length of subscription history comments has increased from 48 to 60 characters.
The maximum length of the name suffix field in the customer record has increased from 5 to 12 characters.
This will be helpful for customers with multiple professional degrees.
Added a second e-mail address to the customer record.
The customer address screen now includes space for a second e-mail address. You might use this for a customer who has separate home and business addresses, or you might use this for the address of the customer's personal assistant who needs to be notified about changes to a subscription or conference registration. Whatever you do, be consistent about what type of e-mail address goes in each of the two fields.
Added a cell phone number field to the customer record.
Added eight selection flag fields to the customer record.
These on-off selection flags can be used to identify special subsets of your customer records in any fashion you choose. The selection flags appear on all the customer screens and can be changed by the Address Change transaction. They also appear as a single field named SELFLAGS in all of the export and import file formats. In the ODBC driver the field is named CUS_SELFLAGS. The reports that allow selection of customers and the two Change Series updates also contain new filter fields for the selection flags. The issue label split table allows selection of customers based on their selection flags.
Created a new 'Mark Customers' update that can set or clear the customer selection flags.
This update can also be used to set values in the numeric demographic fields. The ability to set the customer selection flags is useful in situations where the existing report filters are insufficient to perform a complex selection. Suppose you want to create a file of customers that subscribe to publication A and also subscribe to either publications B or C. The customer export filter can do the first part or the second part of this selection, but not both. To solve this problem you can run the 'Mark Customers' update once to set customer selection flag 1 for customers that subscribe to publication A, then run it a second time to set flag 2 for customers that subscribe to publications B or C. Finally you can run a customer export that retrieves those customer records that have both flag 1 and flag 2 set.
Added an external ID field to the customer record.
This is an optional field that has a number of uses.
Added an external ID field to the order record.
This is an optional field. If you are converting a publication from some other fulfillment system you might use this field to store the order number from the old system. If you accept orders from subscription agencies you might use this field to store the agency's order number. If you import orders from an external Internet service other than the QuickFill Internet Extensions, you might use this field to store the order number generated by the external system.
The external order ID is an alphanumeric field with a maximum length of 12 characters. It is an indexed field, which means that on the QuickFill Lookup screen you can locate orders using the external order ID. QuickFill does not require that the external ID be unique.
Added support for scheduled address changes.
The address change screen now contains a third tab, named "Scheduled change". On this tab you can enter a new address that is to take effect at some point in the future. Support is provided for permanent one time changes, and both recurring and non-recurring temporary changes. Once an address change has been scheduled the change will take effect when the issue label update, billing update or renewal update is run, provided the effective date of the scheduled change has been reached. Scheduled changes can also be performed by the 'Update Addresses' update.
If you are a former user of the CUSummer custom program we have provided a utility that will create the new scheduled address change records for those customers that were scheduled for address changes using CUSummer. Please call for help with running this utility.
Added support for the OneCode version of the Postal Service's Address Change Service.
Previously QuickFill supported only the "Traditional" flavor of the Address Change Service. It now supports both the "Traditional" and "OneCode" versions of ACS. Implementing the OneCode requirements in your mailings can result in significant cost savings in postal charges.
The Change Billing Series and Change Renewal Series updates have been modernized.
The four filter pages were collapsed into two. The protected F2 fields were replaced with standard filter fields that let you either type in a code or use the F2 key. Multiple publication codes can be entered. Bill-to/Ship-to radio buttons were added to the Customer tab. A "Test run" check box was added. The updates now make entries in the subscription history and in the batch log whenever they change the series code of an order.
Note: if you have saved jobs containing the 'Change Billing Series' or 'Change Renewal Series' updates, you will need to edit those saved jobs. The database upgrade process is unable to completely fix the job filters for these two updates.
The payment transaction screen has been changed to include the current status of the order being paid.
Knowing the status of the order being paid is helpful if you suspended the subscription indefinitely when a payment was bounced or rejected. Please note that QuickFill will automatically offer to reinstate a subscription that is "suspended for nonpayment" when you enter a payment. It will not offer to do so for subscriptions that are "suspended indefinitely".
Several reports now provide the ability to create a dBASE or CSV data file that contains the data underlying that report.
The fields in the data file are those needed to reconstruct the report outside of QuickFill. The file is at the order record level and is unsorted so you can sort and summarize the data as you see fit. The reports that support this feature are:
The issue number filter fields on the Renewal Rate and Renewal Revenue reports have been replaced with date ranges.
The date ranges entered are converted to issue numbers using the calendar date fields in the issue table, rounding to the beginning and end of the corresponding months.
Note: if you have saved Renewal Rate or Renewal Revenue reports in any of your job lists you will need to edit those saved report filters so that they have the correct date ranges.
On the Foreign Country definition screen there are new options to control the placement of the postal code.
These options are: "above the city", "below the city" and "country does not use postal codes". These are in addition to the previously existing options of "to the left of the city" and "to the right of the city".
These options will be observed when formatting the address label for a foreign customer. The first two options require special handling if there is not room to print the postal code on a line by itself since we are constrained by a six line limit for addresses. In that case QuickFill will print the postal code to the left of the city instead of above the city, or to the right of the city instead of below the city.
New filter options were added to several reports and updates.
The filters for the Promotional Labels report, Customer Directory report, Subscription Statistics report, Customer export and Subscription export now include an order channel field on the Order tab and a cancel date range on the Subscription 2 tab. The Fix Orders update now includes the ability to select customers that have (or do not have) an e-mail address.
The time required to open the 'Print Saved Reports' screen has been greatly reduced.
In our tests with 10,000 saved report names accessed over the network on a file server it took 75 seconds to display the Print Saved Reports screen in version 1.7, but it took only 2 seconds in version 1.8.
The limit on the maximum number of saved report files has been removed.
There is a new scheme for naming report, label, bill and renewal files.
The file names follow the pattern:
Rnnnnnnn_Report description.qfrpt for reports
Lnnnnnnn_Label file description.qflab for labels
Fnnnnnnn_Bill/Renewal description.xml for bills renewals and acknowledgments
The sequence numbers (the nnnnnnn part of the file name) start at 0000001 and run to 9999999. Numbers are assigned by scanning for the highest existing number and adding one. Numbers are not reused. Obviously there is a theoretical limit of ten million report files, but it would take you an extremely long time to get to that point (about 25 years if you consumed a thousand file numbers every day, including holidays and weekends).
The issue label update has been changed to check for issue dates that are out of sequence.
If the calendar date of the current issue is out of sequence the issue label update will not run. If the calendar date of any other issue is out of sequence the update will run but you will get a warning in the report.
The following change applies only to newly created databases. Existing databases are not affected.
The default list of country names and country codes has been updated.
The list includes several new countries that have come into existence in the last few years. The country codes have been changed to match the ISO standard two character codes, except for the U.S.A. and Canada which for backwards compatibility reasons kept their old codes of USA and CAN.
To guard against inadvertent use of the codes US and CA instead of USA and CAN, the subscription importer, transaction importer, customer data importer and the QFConvert address conversion utility all silently change US to USA and CA to CAN.
Please note that because the ISO standard codes do not always begin with the same letter as the actual country name, the country list is displayed sorted by country name instead of by country code. Examples: GB = United Kingdom, DE = Germany, ES = Spain.
The pivot year used when interpreting dates with two digit years has changed.
When dealing with dates with two digit years that are entered on the screen, or imported from a file, QuickFill will assume that years less than 70 are in the current century. Two digit years that are greater than or equal to 70 will be assumed to be in the previous century. Previously the pivot point was 50 instead of 70.
When working with dBASE (DBF) files containing date fields please be aware that date fields marked as type 'D' always contain four digit years, although in some applications they display on the screen with a two digit year. Also, dBASE files containing date fields that are marked as character fields (type 'C') are displayed as is— what you see on the screen is what is in the file.
The following change applies only to systems with the transaction import add-on feature.
More information is available on the screen that is displayed when there is no match for an imported transaction.
New columns include Single/Two-party/Group, Bill-to/Ship-to and Gift.
The following change applies only to systems with the auditing feature.
A phone number field has been added the galley data file.
This was done to assist in the auditing of publication that make use of telephone requalification for controlled subscriptions. New galley data files will include the phone numbers of subscribers, if available. Existing galley data files will be automatically modified to include space for the phone number, but the contents of the field will be blank. This was done because not everyone is interested in having the phone number in the galley data file, and filling in the phone numbers by looking up the customer records in the database is quite time consuming. If you want to have phone numbers filled in for pre-existing galley data files then you should regenerate your galley data file.
The standard "Promotional Labels" filter now includes the ability to select customers by subscription classification and request type.
The "Promotional Labels" filter is used by many reports, including the 'Promotional Label' report, 'Customer Directory' report, 'Trial Subscriptions' update, and the 'Customer Data' and 'Subscriptions' exports. This ability was previously only included in the "Qualification" version of this filter.
The "Code Description for Web" field on the qualification form definition screen has been expanded from 40 to 80 characters.
Changes to the mail-merge output file format for renewal notices and blanket renewal notices.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Added fields for four more offers, making a total of nine offers.
Changes to the mail-merge output file format for bills and order acknowledgements.
Added the EMAIL2
(secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Changes to the customer export file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Changes to the subscription export file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Added the EXTORDID1, EXTORDID2, EXTORDID3 (external order ID) fields.
Changes to the issue label data file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Added the EXTORDERID (external order ID) field.
Added the ONECODEID (OneCode ACS mail piece identifier) field.
Changes to the gift recipient notification file format for order acknowledgements.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Changes to the prospect import file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Changes to the subscription import file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Added the EXTORDID1, EXTORDID2, EXTORDID3 (external order ID) fields.
Changes to the customer data import file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the CELLPHONE (cell phone number) field.
Added the SELFLAGS (selection flags) field.
Added the EXTCUSTID (external customer ID) field.
Changes to the transaction import file format.
Added the AEMAIL2 and BEMAIL2 (secondary email address) fields.
Added the ASELFLAGS and BSELFLAGS (selection flags) fields.
Added the AEXTCUSTID and BEXTCUSTID (external customer ID) fields.
Added the ASELFLAGS and BSELFLAGS (selection flags) fields.
Added the EXTORDID (external order ID) field.
Changes to the requalification import file format.
Added the EXTORDID (external order ID) field.
Changes to the audit galley data file format.
Added the EMAIL2 (secondary email address) field.
Added the PHONE (telephone number) field.
Added the CUS_EMAIL2 field to the CUS table.
Added the CUS_CELLPHONE field to the CUS table.
Added the CUS_SELFLAGS field to the CUS table.
Added the CUS_EXTID field to the CUS table.
Added the SHP_EMAIL2 field to the SHP table.
Added the SHP_CELLPHONE field to the SHP table.
Added the SHP_SELFLAGS field to the SHP table.
Added the SHP_EXTID field to the SHP table.
Added the ORD_EXTID field to the ORD table.
Added the OFF_CODE field to the OFF table.
Added the TRK_DBAOFF6 through TRK_DBAOFF9 fields to the TRK table.
Added the REF_DBAOFF6 through REF_DBAOFF9 fields to the REF table.
Added the SPR_SELECTION field to the SPR table.
Added the SCA (Scheduled Address Change) table.
Build 801 was a bug-fix release. It contained no new features.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 801.
The QuickFill Internet Extension service (QFIE) is now compatible with version 1.8 of QuickFill.
The following change applies only to systems with the QuickFill Internet Extensions.
The Internet transaction import can now be "run later" without causing the job list to pause.
When "run later" (i.e. on a job list) the QuickFill Internet Extension transaction import will no longer stop the job queue. Transactions that require user intervention, such as when a possible duplicate customer address exists, are skipped. A record of skipped transactions is kept in the QuickFill database so that they can be processed the next time the Internet transaction import is run in "Run Now" mode.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 804.
Bills and order acknowledgments can now include the start date in addition to the expire date of the order.
In the Form Designer the field EXPDATE (the
issue description of the expire issue)
has been renamed to EXPISS and three new fields have been added
EXPDATE - calendar date of the expire issue.
STARTISS - issue description of the order's starting issue.
STARTDATE - calendar date plus one of the issue prior to the starting issue.
The order items element for combo bills has been enhanced to allow control over the content of the order item list. Click here for details.
The EXPDATE and EXPISS fields are available for bills and renewals while the STARTDATE and STARTISS fields are only for bills. The new fields are not available in the bill and renewal mail merge files.
You do not need to do anything regarding the renaming of the EXPDATE field to EXPISS. QuickFill will accept old form designer layouts with the old names and will internally compensate. The Form Designer will make the name change automatically if you load an old layout file.
The following change applies only to multi-user systems.
The Netbios lock manager has been replaced by a TCP/IP lock manager.
The TCP/IP lock manager is automatically installed as a service on the "server" (that is the computer where the main QuickFill installer was run) and on every workstation. The separate lock manager installer no longer exists. The desktop application version of the lock manager is no longer available.
When QuickFill opens a database it will connect to the lock manager service that is on the same computer as the database files. For situations where the database files reside on a non-Windows server, or where you are unable or unwilling to run the installer on the server, it is possible to force QuickFill to look for the lock manager in an alternate location by placing a "LockManager.ini" file in the database directory. This file should contain a single line of text with the name of any computer that is running the lock manager service.
The lock manager service requires that TCP port 8908 be opened in the firewall. Both the main installer and the workstation installer open this port in the Windows firewall on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. For other non-Microsoft firewalls it may be necessary to open port 8908 manually.
Click here for more information on the TCP/IP lock manager.
Build 805 was a bug-fix release. It contained no new features.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 805.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 806.
Added the option to override the default handling of imported new orders.
The "New orders" area of the Transaction Import screen has two new options that let you override the default handling of new orders where the customer already has an active or recently expired subscription. Usually imported new orders are rejected in that situation, but now you can choose to accept the new order regardless. Please note that these options only apply to transaction type "N", not to transaction type "NR", where you are stating that a duplicate new order should be treated as a renewal.
Build 807 was
a bug-fix release. It contained no new features.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 807.
Made it clear on the lookup screen that complimentary subscriptions do not expire.
For complimentary subs, the expiration issue on the lookup screen has been replaced with text that states that the subscription is a non-expiring complimentary subscription. This was done in three places: on the "Lookup (Subs)" screen, on the "Lookup (Orders)" screen and on the "Lookup (Order Details)" screen.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 808.
Build 809 was a bug-fix release. It contained no new features.
Click here for a list of bugs that were fixed in Build 809.
The Address Change Service Importer now supports nine digit mailer IDs.
The ACS importer now supports publishers who were assigned nine digit OneCode ACS mailer IDs and thus can only use six digit mail piece IDs.
The issue label files now contain two OneCode fields where there used to be one:
ONECODE9 which is renamed from the former ONECODEID field and contains the customer number stripped of its check digit and preceded by either a 1, 2 or 3. The ONECODE9 field should be used by publishers that were assigned six digit mailer IDs by the USPS and thus can use nine digit mail piece IDs.
ONECODE6 which contains the customer number stripped of its check digit and with the top one or two digits removed if needed to fit within the six digit limit. The ONECODE6 field should be used by publishers that were assigned nine digit mailer IDs by the USPS and thus are restricted to six digit mail piece IDs. Six digit mail piece IDs can be ambiguous if the database contains eight digit customer numbers. They are unique if the largest customer number is 9999999 (including the check digit). If the incoming file contains six digit mail piece IDs and the database has eight digit customer numbers then the ACS importer checks all of the possibilities when trying to match the mail piece ID against the customer numbers in the database. For example, if the incoming mail piece ID is 001234 then the importer will try customers 1234x, 1001234x, 2001234x and so on until it reaches the largest customer number in the database. For each trial it compares the zip code in the incoming record against the zip code in the database. If there is exactly one match then the record is processed. If there is more than one match then the record is rejected.