Published May 4th, 2016

USPS-R Upcoming Release Highlights

An overview of the next USPS-R release coming soon to an ITC near you!

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By the time you read this article (or shortly thereafter), your ITC should have the next preview release of USPS-R in their hands. This release is officially known as v0.14.1. 

It is technically a hotfix release of v0.14.0 (preview release #2), though we stretched the definition of "hotfix" on this one. Normally a hotfix release would only include bug fixes that were exposed in the previous version of the software. Version 0.14.1 certainly has a lot of bug fixes including some fairly substantial corrections dealing with future payments (UPDCAL_FUT) and the payroll process. However, we also included several new improvements in this version. Many of these changes were driven by your feedback, so please keep it coming!

I will highlight a few of the more substantial things you will see in the new version below:

Account Search: there is now a much more robust account code searching service in USPS-R, which will allow for a quicker lookup of accounts. 

Outstanding Payables: Whether a payment should be check or electronic transfer will now be auto-detected by the software. The payee configuration will determine whether the payee receives a check or an electronic transfer payment. Previously the user had to select this. 

Employee Info in Grids: There were several grids where the employee name and/or number were not displayed. This made it difficult to tell which employee the information pertained to without manually adding these columns to the grid. We believe we now have this information displayed by default in the applicable grids. 

Address Blocks: Previous to v0.14.1 the address information was not well formatted. We have modified this, so that the address is more logically displayed. 

Employee Dashboard: Employees' pay distribution information will now be displayed on the employee dashboard. 

Payroll Status Indicators: While a payroll or its included pay groups are being processed a new spinner icon will be displayed. This will make it clearer that the payroll and pay groups are still being processed. Previously this was represented by a yellow icon, but feedback we received stated this was confusing. 

Those are the items that will be most visible to you as an end user when the next release is installed. However, there were many more bug fixes and improvements included in v0.14.1. A full listing of these can be found here.

USAS-R Upcoming Release Highlights

An overview of the next USAS-R release coming soon to an ITC near you.

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Later this month your ITC should have the next preview release of USAS-R in their hands. This release is officially known as v0.16.0.

Here are some of the changes you will see in this latest release:

Reports:  this menu option offers some exciting enhancements.  The Detail Report option has been rewritten to be more user-friendly in the new Vaadin style.  You can now save report definitions and share them among other users.  A new addition to the Report menu, Saved Reports, offers a grid that displays all saved report definitions.  From here you can view, delete and download report definitions.  

Purchase Orders:  the ability to clone has been added and the quantity field is now selected when entering items so you can easily enter the desired value.  

Payables:  the purchase order number and invoice number are now available on the Payables grid and are filterable.

Distributions:  the Total Distributed has been added to the grid.

Disbursements:  you can now sort and filter by physical check number.

Accounts:  Appropriation accounts will now be automatically created when a Budget is created.  Default values for account descriptions will be populated if left blank when new accounts are created.  GAAP Original Budget/Revenue Estimate fields have been implemented.

Some notable bug fixes this release:

•    Additions/Deductions calculations have been corrected

•    VendorTaxId rule now checks the Type1099 property

•    Custom Field Definition grid now includes the More and Reset buttons

•    Code Custom Fields now display a larger portion of the description

•    Corrected problem with "Access Denied" error when generating a Budget report

Those are the items that will be most visible to you as an end user when the next release is installed. However, there were many more bug fixes and improvements included in v0.16.0. A full listing of these can be found here.

BIOSCN, DEMSCN, BRWSCN.. Oh My!

Classic USXS Program Terminology and their Replacements in USXS-R

When first learning the Classic software programs, you would have clearly guessed at what the program acronyms stood for.  With the redesign, we made a conscious effort to update the program names to more conventional, user-friendly terminology.  However, just when you mastered the “six-character acronyms” of classic state software, you now have to find its counterpart in the redesign.   No problem!  In the tables below, we have provided a listing of the Classic USXS program acronyms and their newly translated names in USXS-R. 

I have a feeling you’ll find these much easier to memorize.  

I have to CTRL+SHIFT what?

No need to panic! We aren’t bringing back the old function keys from Classic.  With the redesign, you can point and click to your heart’s content.  But, for those of you who appreciate tips on navigating via the keyboard instead of having to reach for your mouse, we have provided a table of keyboard shortcuts.  As in the classic programs, you still can use the TAB key to tab through the fields when entering your data as well as SHIFT+TAB to back up to a prior field.  Your arm will thank you. 

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Useful links:

• USPS-R Demonstration Videos

• USAS-R Demonstration Videos

• USPS Documentation

• USAS Documentation

• SSDT Public Wiki