The next generation of the Info At Hand system (version 5.0) has been released. It includes major enhancements to both its functionality and usability.

The next generation of the Info At Hand system has been released. It includes major enhancements to both its functionality and usability.

Spotted Frog Business Solutions is currently offering a 30 day free trial of the system to the public. To sign up for a free trial, you can enter your details here. 

Some of the features included in the 5.0 release are:

Today Module:

• The whole Today page is new – each user can add ‘dashlets’ containing information from selected modules to their Today page, and arrange them in their preferred order.
• Entire Today page layouts may be saved as named layouts, and administrators can make specific named layouts available to all users.  

Email Module:

• The TO:, CC: and BCC: fields now use AJAX technology to allow the user to type in part of a contact’s first or last name, and then select the intended contact from a dropdown list that is dynamically generated.
• Each user can now specify how many days email will remain in their trash folder before it is permanently deleted, along with any attachments.
• A spelling checker is now available when composing mails. Just click on the spell-check icon within the editing icon bar that can be activated at the top of the text field when editing an email.
• A full text search capability has now been added, to search the text in email bodies.
• Users may now create multiple signature blocks, and choose at any time which to use.  

Calendar Module:

• A new Company Calendar monthly view replaces four previous views – Company Day and Week, plus Resource Day and Week. A drop-down control is used to select whether the monthly view shows regular appointments and tasks, project assignments, or meeting resource availability.
• Recurring meetings may now be defined.

Accounts Module:

• Account detail records have been extended to include sections of summary information for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable.
• Account bulk re-assignment capability has been added to the Mass Update panel, to ease the workload when members of staff are re-assigned, leave, or are terminated.   

Leads Module:

• Lead bulk re-assignment capability has been added to the Mass Update panel for the same reasons as above.   

Quotes & Invoices Modules:

• Quotes and Invoices now offer a button at the top of Detail view that can generate Supported Products from the items on the Quote/Invoice – and optionally link them to a new or existing Project and/or Support Sub-contract.
• Recurring Invoices may now be defined.
• Quotes may now require approval above a certain value.
• An additional layout style has been created for all financial PDF documents - choose the one you prefer for your business.
• Multiple business addresses may now be defined (such as for regional offices) and when creating PDFs, the desired address may be selected for inclusion on the document.
• Standard terms and conditions text may now be defined in Company Info, to be added at the bottom of every Quote or Invoice.
• Telephone and fax numbers have been added to the company address information shown at the top of all printed documents.

Sales Orders Module:

• Sales Orders may now optionally be created as an intermediate step between Quotes and Invoices. Sales orders can be used to track order fulfillment until each order is fully shipped and invoiced.  Packing Slips and Sales Order Confirmations may be printed as well.

Purchase Orders Module:

• In addition to fairly comprehensive facilities on the Sales side of operations, Info At Hand now adds a Purchase Orders module, to track items ordered from suppliers, and outgoing payments made against those orders.

Projects Module:

• Includes new capabilities to record billable hours spent on Project Tasks without going to the Timesheet view. Also includes new links to the invoices module, to ease invoicing of project services work.

Cases Module:

• Includes new capabilities to record billable hours spent on Cases, and link them to the Timesheet module. Also includes new links to the invoices module, to ease invoicing of billable work on Cases.
• New capabilities for notifying users and contacts when information on a service case changes.
• New system for rating skills of technicians, and auto-assigning new cases to technicians based on rated skills of tech vs. skills required by each case.

Timesheets Module:

• Significantly revised for the 5.0 release, users can now associate billable hours to projects and cases without using the timesheets module – and simply use the timesheets module to file timesheets at the end of each timesheet period. It is now also much easier to approve timesheets, one by one, or en masse.

The Studio:

• An all-new Studio has been developed for version 5.0 – including a long-awaited ability to undo changes when the admin makes an error when editing a module’s screen layout.

The HR Module:

• Has now been made a normal module. Access to it is regulated by the system’s normal permission management capabilities.

Usability:

• List view in all modules now offers the ability to design and save searches and layouts. These named views include filters, and specify what columns are shown, and in what order.
• The Spectrum theme has been added, including an optional two-level menu system. This offers users a horizontal tabbed menu system in which tabs are grouped by functional areas such as Sales & Marketing, Customer Service, and Order Management - making the system easier both to understand and to access. Like the Long Reach theme Spectrum offers a selectable colour palette, and now a font size selector as well.
• The entire system has been updated to provide international character support (UTF-8 is the technical specification supported). In particular, the entire PDF sub-system has been replaced, along with every PDF in the system.