Change History

This page describes the software change history (most recent releases at the top) for Timetabler 6 and associated applications. Check here if you are unsure whether or not you should download and install an update.

15 November 2005, v6.1.0.48 (BETA)

This update contains bug fixes and new features which will be included in the next release version. This Beta software also contains work-in-progress, and although it has passed abbreviated acceptance tests you should use it in a production environment at your own risk. Changes are listed below:

SAT Register printouts include 'minutes late' column and the marking Key at the bottom of the register can now be shrunk to a specified percentage.

SAT Attendance Reports allow more sophisticated configuration. “Unmarked students count as Absent” checkbox has been enhanced to “Percentage of attendance calculation” radiogroup, with options “Count only marked students”, “Count unmarked students as NOT Absent”, “Count unmarked students as Absent”. The “Percentage of absences calculation” radiogroup (similarly named options) has been enabled (previously the value was hardcoded as NOT Absent). Also, if the ‘Unmarked’ column is excluded from the printout, and the Attendance is configured to “Count unmarked students as Absent”, then those unmarked students augment the figure in the ‘Absent’ column. Finally, the “Number of consecutive absences considered excessive” can now be set to 1, to allow Absence reporting on ALL absence.

SAT Attendance Reports now include an optional Notes column.

When creating records or events, automatically adding the Most Recently Used Department has been made optional (before it was always on). Options now for Records | “Fill in Dept field with recently used Department” are “Never”, “Suggest only if required”, and “Last used”. “Last Used” is the old behaviour, always filling in the last used department; “Suggest only if required” means only suggest a recent department if the field cannot be left blank (because of access restrictions), and “Never” is the new default meaning always leave it blank (access restrictions might prevent the record being posted, in which case the user would be forced to select a Dept themselves before a successful post)

When printing large reports (Stats or SAT reports in particular) the pagination of reports is sometimes undesirable. Very large items appeared truncated with a message in the page footer “truncated to fit page”. This has been fixed, meaning all data for printouts should now appear, spanning as many pages as required. When a ‘resource’ printout spans pages in this way, the resource name may appear at the top and at the bottom of the block for that resource (for clarity).

Changed immediate exclusive access so if there are other users, all users are displayed and you have a choice of 1) booting off all other users now, 2) booking exclusive access for 10mins ahead, 3) booking some other future exclusive access. 1) and 2) require no further forms to be filled in. An icon is now shown next to your own session to distinguish it from the others.

Added exclusive requests to CTClient for Admin users.

Enhanced login security

A Tutee list has been added to the Staff record window.

A ‘Filter by tutor’ fucntion has been added to the student browse list.

The ‘split events’ function has been reconciled with SAT registers. If an event has SAT registers associated with it then it cannot be split in duration. However it can be split by week and the registers will be associated with the appropriate events.

Added a “Combined” checkbox to Office Wizard Timetable output weeks setup.

Added “Set reminder” checkbox to AutoCal config.

11 October 2005, v6.1.0.32

This update fixes the following problems:

• Grid printing of multiple uncombined resources with axes reversed (i.e. days along the horizontal axis) gives an infinite loop.
• The QLS Interface fails with large number of events for export (giving "out of memory" condition)
• The QLS Interface fails to export events properly that have 'segmented' resources (ie those with a subset of event weeks).
• The Notification service does not work where a member of staff has no events in the current week
• Occasional problems with LDAP under SSL
• Grid Timetable prints use incorrect resource names and weeks in situation where weeks are uncombined AND resources run for partial weeks

16 September 2005, v6.1.0.29

'Log Viewer' to examine audit trail of activity (in Timetabler Administrator). This window displays all changes made to the database and provides a search facility to trace changes made to particular resources or events.

SAT (Student Attendance Tracking integrated with Timetabler). This application allows you to record and report student attendance.

Show Access Rights function in Client. This window displays a summary your current access rights in Timetabler Client.

Extended Absence functions in Client. Used to record periods of extended student absence (e.g. for illness or holiday). Can be used in conjunction with SAT to provide automatic pre-marking of some registers.

Browse Update Option in Client. The browse window can now be made to update the underlying record window as you scroll the browse list.

Optional timetable grid hints. Hints display event time and resource names, etc. Useful when the timetable grid is crowded and annotations truncated.

Optional resource tags in grid and list timetable printouts.

Addition of some database Views to make 3rd-party reporting easier. Create your own reports using writing report-tools and our new Database views.

Printing of currently active grid window. If you have a timetable grid on screen just click the print button to print it out.

Enhanced CSV import, including multi-table imports with any ordering between tables.

A new reference resource column in the QLS Interface Events page

LDAP support (include secure server support). Timetabler Login has been enhanced to support LDAP servers including Active Directory.

WebPublisher no longer uses the deprecated HTML tag <EMBED> in PDF publications, but instead use <IFRAME>

Membership options in Timetable printing have been enhanced and rearranged for clarity. The Team Members checkbox has been moved to the Staff line and renamed Members of Teams. The Group Members checkbox now means only sub-group members. A new checkbox Members of Groups has been added to the Students line

A new User Wizard has been included in Timetabler Administrator and is designed to create user accounts en-masse.

Major improvements in AutoCal. Duplication of appointments now fixed.

Group and Team Filters added to relevant Browse Lists

11 July 2005, v6.0.0.98

Enhanced Office Wizard to process additional template fields and allow for use of Timetable output to CSV. Also provided is a filter to exclude specified event categories.

Changes to QLS Interface:

• Register IDs entered before a newly-inserted record is first saved are correctly written to the database.
• Use of the QLS Interface is restricted to Administrator users only.
• A new option has been added. “Enable QLS Support”. This option controls the display of events with a valid QLS registers ID, from within the plug-in. So now, events are displayed in the plug-in regardless of the state of the “Auto generate register ID” option.
• Convert 5.6 data routines. On the Tools menu, there is a new window that enables data imported using the 5.6 import plug-in to be converted to be compatible with the QLS plug-in. It ensures that all original id fields are updated, and rearranges the record’s name and unique name fields to the new format used by the plug-in.

28 June 2005, v6.0.0.96

Fixed “Error accessing OLE registry” on client startup when user does not have write access to HKLM

Fixes to QLS Interface:

• Sessional AOS description is now imported
• Department, and Room Layout descriptions are now imported
• Events can be exported to QLS, regardless of whether the Export parameters are set to CPD, or CP for the Module name
• A blank DOB for a student no longer causes an error
• The "Auto generate register ID" option would toggle itself, when OK button was pressed on the Options form.

Changes to CSV Import Plugin:

• Relax origins
• Notes fields imported

Changes to Timetabler v5 impot Plugin:

• Relax origins
• Notes fields imported
• Handles special QLS notes by importing them into the origin values

Changes to CSV Export Plugin:

• Export notes fields (optional default=off=current behaviour)

27 May 2005, v6.0.0.91

Note that this release requires a database upgrade which is performed by the Timetabler Administrator application - simply select the database and select Timetables | Upgrade Timetable. Here is a list of changes in the new release:

Office Wizard to export timetables and statistics to Excel and Word documents

QLS Interface (formally known as SoftSync) provides integration with Distinction Systems QLS student management system

Enhanced resource wizard

Enhanced events wizard

Enhanced Timetable Grid display and navigation of events

Auto-browse facility in record windows optionally displays a browse window when the record is first opened

Popup menus on the events form include the ability to jump to record windows for resources allocated to the event

Dates in timetables where only a single week is displayed

Compatibility with fast (>3GHz) Hyperthreaded systems and SMP systems

AutoCal compatibility with Exchange Server 2003

Web Publisher allows optional colouring and underlining of PDF hyperlinks

Client users can change their own passwords

Charge indication is displayed on events, with a breakdown by resource

Comprehensive access rights, including user-settable timateble-wide defaults

Smart grid fill printing is now optional

Advisers all have their own options

Staff/rooms found by the advisers can be added to existing event resources as an alternative to replacing them

Bug Fixes

8 Feb 2005, v6.0.0.63

Added Stats Chart to Clipboard command

Timetable Grid event display and navigation improved:

• multiple events in a cell are now ordered by time, rather than event id
• colouring and demarkation of overlapping event segments corrected
• event selectors now only appear when events overlap, in the first cell of each event
• annotations appear for non-overlapping events in a multi-event cell
• use + and - on keypad to navigate between events in a multi-event cell
• CTRL+RightMouseClick to popup event selection menu in any multi-event cell
• single click on event to select it specifically in a multi-event cell
• double-click on day name to create day long event
• grid cursor follows copied or moved event to allow further editing
• event stretching and dragging uses red text to indicate new time
• event dragging is now quicker to evaluate a valid drop target

Event window single week event shows the event date

Added RETURN key processing of SMS, Email and Web buttons in record windows

Added RETURN key processing of some lookup controls (eg category, dept etc)

Fixes for the following bugs:

• AutoCal that occasionally prevented service operation
• Event window event numbering incorrect for events in a multi-event cell
• Access restrictions enforced on Grid, List and Stats printouts
• Installation didn't properly 'share' system files. This meant that if you uninstalled one product it may remove common BPLs etc that were required by other parts of the software.
• Web server prevented modification of some secondary data (secondarySplit.html was omitted from distribution)
• CTServer type library was unregistered on uninstall of products
• Total Hours displayed in Timetable grid window corrected

10 Dec 2004, v6.0.0.54

Fixes for the following bugs:

• Room adviser confused when assigning the same room to an event, but with different layout).
• Times adviser performed gratuitous target calculation for NULL target hours.
• Event window alignment and layer ordering occasionally inappropriate.
• Usage Chart mis-handles event window.
• Some access rights ignored for event deletion.
• Unable to add global events in some circumstances.
• Toolbar buttons inappropriate state for some contexts (global timetable grid and event window).
• Problems when minimizing timetable grid and Usage Chart when event window docked.
• Problems with Usage Chart popup menu when event window docked.

29 Nov 2004, v6.0.0.49

Initial release