Release History

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Released 12/30/09

  • Added new Supply-Demand Report. Lists by catalog item the total quantities for both supply and demand. Specifically, the stock available and on-hand for the supplies and ordered, allocated and shipped for the ordered items (demand). The report can be found under Report Add.. in the Order Items section. This is just the preliminary version of the report. If you need help customizing the report, we can help.
  • There were also other changes not yet released for the new load reports.
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Released 12/27/09

  • Load factor supports four decimal places of precision. Because the calculation of loads involves thousands of square feet, and many factors are based on some portion of a load = 1.0, most load factors are decimal numbers. Until now, the load factors were limited to two decimal places which made it difficult to scale smaller material accurately. PlantX now supports four decimal places.
  • Better reporting of report error messages. When creating new report templates, you can often encounter errors in the format. PlantX will now clearly display the error messages associated with the reporting problem. This should help diagnose any formatting problems.
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Released 12/22/09

  • Minor bug fixes.
    • Corrected confirmation printing issue. Old report compiler required a reset to correctly run reports.
    • Catalog Availability was not saving all settings.
  • Upgrades to Consignment Edition.
    • Quotes optionally show and print sale price.
    • Add quick search to quote search.
    • Shopping cart calculates a total sale. The total shows on the website shopping cart, cart submission page and submitted email.
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Released 12/21/09

  • Order acknowledgment and confirmation reports print order sales rep. Some of the custom formats were printing the sales rep listed on the customer account instead of the specific sales rep specified on the order.
  • Fixed street address for new customer report listing. Report did not correctly separate the street name from the address. It was including the customer name. It now pulls only the line above the city, state and zip (which is the technique the US Post Office uses too.)
  • Added account number to the new customer report listing.
  • Internal Work
    • First step in a larger effort to split the account used on orders. Currently, the system only supports the use one account for sales orders. The account must act as a source of both billing and shipping information. Although the ability to add any number of addresses to an account has made it possible to bill one address and ship to any number of addresses, it does not make it convenient when organizing orders. By splitting the account into separate roles, billing and shipping, PlantX will give better control over the billing and shipping information. This change makes it much easier to handle broker accounts that can have a large number of customers, each with different needs, yet all invoices go to the broker account.
    • Cleaned up older unused programming code and tables to prepare for the next round of changes.
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Released 12/15/09

  • Patched invoice printing from Invoice Window. Printing invoices was not using the correct custom invoice format after the last upgrade. This has been corrected.
  • Redesigned the inventory transfer feature. When you drag-n-drop supplies in the Inventory Window to a catalog item (on the right), PlantX will open the transfer dialog. This dialog has been redesigned to make it quicker and easier to use. Previously, it asked if you would like to create a new supply or transfer to an existing supply, at which point you had to search the list of applicable supplies. Now when you start a transfer, it assumes you are simply moving the supplies from one catalog item to another (typically a size change). If you need to change the location, you can check the Change Location box and select a different location. Likewise, you can change the crop. If you happen to choose a combination of location and crop that already has a supply, the transfer dialog will prompt if you want to create a new supply or add to the existing one. If there are no existing supplies, the transfer will only allow you to create a new. Therefore, rather than trying to guess at whether you might need to create a new supply or use an existing, you can now just indicate where you would like to transfer the supply and PlantX will prompt you with options.
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Released 12/14/09

  • Overhauled the internal settings system within PlantX! This upgrade completes the transition in the way we store settings for use within PlantX. So your thinking, what does that mean? All of the member settings that describe how PlantX should work for you, your personal settings that control the way PlantX appears, and the report formats all use this underlying storage feature to save these important settings. Since we are adding more reports, user defined views, and custom features the original method of storage was overloaded (we had hit nearly 200 settings).
    • Seamlessly store the settings for new reports.
    • Less programming required for new window features (TTV).
    • MUCH easier for us to add new Member Settings for better control over how PlantX works for you.
  • New Customer Report. This is our first customer report using the new reporting engine. It can create both PDF forms or spreadsheets. It includes A/R aging columns which can be used as an export for credit agency reporting.
  • New aging option. There are typically two different ways to age the balance of a customer's account; from the date of the invoice (balance age) or the due date (past due age). Previously, PlantX calculated the age of documents from their document date and created date ranges Current, 30-59, 60-89, etc. PlantX now supports the ability to age accounts using the due date of the invoices. In effect, the aged balances are in terms of the amounts past due. You should review which balance method will work best for you, your accountant or credit reporting bureau. You will find the option in Action | Maintain | Member Settings | Statements Tab.
    • Aging ranges reflect your selected method aging method.
    • All statement and aging reports show respective ranges.
    • The statement window and customer ledger views show respective ranges.


Special Note: I cannot emphasize how important it was to upgrade the underlying settings feature in PlantX. As we move forward, adding new features, we want to minimize the impact on how you currently use PlantX, and streamline current activities. To do this, we must make the new features optional, and to make them optional required adding more Member Settings, which was no small feat. Just to add a simple check box option to Member Settings required modifying six different parts of PlantX and the server's database. This amounted to about two hours of programming. With the redesign it requires we modify only a single program file and that is it. It only takes a minute! We can now move forward with great ease. Thank you for your patience.

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Released 12/04/09

  • Minor bug fixes.
    • Canceled orders no longer show in Inventory Window demand view.
    • Order Window's Apply button was not activating when you changed the order date.
  • Added more columns to new Tree Table Views (TTV).
    • Added Credit Limit column to Customer Window's customer list.
    • Added Order Status column to the Inventory Window demand view (order items list).
  • Added excel spreadsheet export option to new reporting engine. The last milestone in the upgrading of the overall reporting system, the new reporting library supports the export of excel spreadsheets. This means that the new reports can now export XLS files in addition to the PDF format. The reports affected by this upgrade are:
    • Order Item | Demand Report
    • Allocation | Shipped Report
    • Allocation | Outstanding Shipments Report

Moving forward, all new reports will be built using the new reporting library and over time we will upgrade all of the legacy reports. Short term priorities on upgrading reports are:

  • A/R aging report - needed for credit bureau reporting, better performance
  • Load Reports - better control over format and presentation, fix outstanding issues with longer text fields
  • Lading Report - better control over format
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Released 11/19/09

  • Upgraded Shipped Report and Outstanding Shipments Report. The two reports were updated to use the new reporting programs. Their design can be completely customized by using a spreadsheet program like Excel or OpenOffice. These two reports are complements of each other, the Shipped Report shows allocations that have shipped, whereas the Outstanding Shipments Report shows allocations that have not yet shipped. They are both found in the Allocations section of the Report Add... option.
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Released 11/17/09

  • More customer settings. We have added three more customer settings to improve data entry. See the Customer | Settings Tab.
    • Require PO Number. If this setting is set for the customer, PlantX will prompt for the PO number when you add a new order as a reminder to enter purchase order number. If you edit the order, it too will insist that you supply a PO number.
    • Preferred Shipping Method. You can select the preferred shipping method in the Customer Settings Tab so that it is automatically filled on new orders.
    • Tagging Instructions. Use this new customer setting to describe the type of retail tagging the customer requires. This field will be listed on various reports, but none as of yet.
  • New All option for filtering orders by their status. Simplifies the selection of Order Status filter options when searching for orders. Look for the new check box on the Orders Window.
  • Added customer section to more reports. You can now narrow the Shipped Report and the Outstanding Shipments Report to selected customers. Both are found under Report | Add Report in the Allocation section.
  • New Demand Report. Report | Add report... now supports demand reports. Demand reports show a listing of what customers have ordered. This report uses the new reporting package that we developed over the past two months. It is capable of producing an unlimited amount of output formats that you can modify with any spreadsheet program. For those that have expressed an interest in more reports that detail what customer's have ordered, we will help you create a format, or formats, that will work best for you.

Special Note: The new Demand Report is an extremely import achievement in reporting and the next step in PlantX's evolution. This new report sets the precedence for all future reports, giving you much greater control over the appearance of your reporting.

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Released 11/15/09

  • Server maintenance. From Saturday midnight to Sunday 8am, we made several upgrades to the servers. We have to perform these operations in the late night hours to minimize the impact on our members, and their customers.
    • Replaced the main hard disk drives in the database/image server. The drives had been in use 24x7 for a little over three years, and although they are rated at five years, we don't like to push them too far.
    • Completely overhauled the main PlantX application server. We installed a new drive here too and upgraded the operating system.

Two servers remain to be upgraded, which is scheduled for next Friday/Saturday at midnight. To avoid compounding any issues that may come from this hardware upgrade, the next software release was delayed until 11/16/09 (Monday night).

A tech note: for reliability, the database is simultaneously kept on two drives, which is called a RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks). A backup is performed at the top of each hour to two more hard drives (also a RAID). Finally, at the bottom of each hour, a complete backup is made off-site to the backup network on yet two more drives. This means every hour your data is recorded on six different hard drives and kept in two different locations. We also make monthly off-line backups too. You never can be too careful!

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Released 10/28/09

  • Added column to a legacy report. The Harvest Report now shows the catalog item price. This is an older report that has been phased out, but still used by some of the charter members.
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Released 10/22/09

  • Added PO number to the website order submit. Now when a customer goes to submit an order on-line, they can enter a PO number.
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Released 10/15/09

  • Patched new load report. The new Load Report w/Supplies continues to undergo testing and revision. The default report now shows On Hand quantities rather than Available quantities.
  • General changes to saved settings as we prepare to offer more settings that can be stored per user and/or member.
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Released 10/12/09

  • Patch: not all settings were being loaded for availability settings. This patch recovers all settings stored for the availability.
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Released 10/11/09

  • New load report that prints with supplies. This new load report not only prints the allocations that belong in the load (or loads), it will also print all of the potential supplies from which to pull the order. This is for members that leave the pulling of plants to the field managers. The form prints all of the supplies (by location) and the allocated quantity from each, plus blanks where the field staff can write in the amount pulled. The greater aspect of this report is that it is uses an entirely new "reporting engine" that will allow complete customization of the layout, sorting and detail (see next bullet point.)
  • Release of our new Reporting Engine! Over the past four years, we have had ever increasing difficulties with the current program libraries. As we have added more features allowing members to customize their reports through various selections, the current reporting software has become more fragile and too complex to meet our needs. Therefore, over the past couple of months we have spent over 300 hours designing and programming our own reporting engine. What this means to our members is that should you need to customize a report in the future, it will require little to no programming on our part. With this new Reporting Engine, every report starts from a template designed in a spreadsheet, which when uploaded to PlantX, it is filled with data. That means you will have complete control over reporting formats, with as little or as much detail as you require, the fields that you want shown and the order you want it shown. Ultimately, all reports will be replaced with a version that uses this new engine.
  • New Supply Import feature. For those members that broker supplies from other growers, this new feature will help you import their availabilities. PlantX.net can now import availabilities in the form of XLS type spreadsheets. The availability can be imported into a specified crop and/or location. All import settings and "mappings" between the inbound spreadsheet and your catalog are recorded to make future imports with just a few button clicks. The new feature is Action | Import Supplies. Documentation to follow shortly.
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Released 9/13/09

  • Order item entry now automatically calculates customer discount with quantity pricing. The new sales price quantity threshold feature now supports customer discounts. First, the order entry determines the sale price with any applicable quantity discount (from ordered or allocated amounts) and then it applies any customer discount. Previously, it only considered the quantity discounts.
  • Base price pop-up pricing selection. Whereas before the older order item entry had the ability to select a different price from the available price lists, the recent update removed this little used feature. By popular demand, this upgrade restores this feature by making it a right click pop-up menu option. If you right click on the base price, it will give you a pop-up menu of the various price list for the catalog item.
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Released 9/9/09

  • New Catalog Availability spreadsheet report. Although PlantX has had a spreadsheet (XLS) export feature for the Catalog Item | Availability, it lost a bit in the translation converting between PDF-type forms and XLS-type spreadsheets. It had the tendency to create extra phantom columns and rows in order to create the most WYSIWYG translation. It also meant we couldn't take advantage of spreadsheet specific features, like calculations, headers, footers, or frozen rows and columns. As we continue to replace the older reports, we are literally rewriting them from scratch using a new spreadsheet exporter. This report exercises many of these new features, while still retaining the vast options used by the PDF report. As we move forward, we will be able to expose even more features that are exclusive to spreadsheets. The resulting spreadsheets are much smaller and created much faster.
  • Show Retail Price option on order acknowledgement and confirmation reports. Along with the SKU and UPC, the ack. and confirmation reports will now print the retail value for the customer's validation.
  • New member setting for outbound email. This is a port setting for outbound email so that those of you who have cable or Verizon DSL that are blocking the stock port (25) can now route around the problem. (All in the name of spam!)
  • Add the load value to the Truck Report. The Truck Report (TRK) now shows the value of each load.
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Released 8/25/09

  • Invoices print order item SKU and UPC. The invoice will now use the new order item SKU and UPC when printing. Before, the values came from the catalog. This completes the flow of the SKU/UPC values from the catalog and customer settings, to the orders, and finally to the invoices.
  • Invoice addresses can be updated on recorded documents. Previously, when a document was set to Recorded it could only be changed by a user with administrative privileges, but now address changes can be made by non-admin users.
  • Consignment Edition: Lead source report is now and Excel format.
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Released 8/19/09

  • Fixed the default value for new order item UPC codes. When you add a new order item, it will fill the SKU and UPC codes from any that you have saved for that customer. If there are no specific customer SKU or UPC, it will pull the values from the catalog. The order window Entry Tab add feature was not pulling the values from the catalog. It should work now.
  • The new Report Designer retail tags supports order item UPC barcodes. Previously the new Report Designer was limited to catalog item UPC barcodes, but it now has an option to use the new order item UPC barcodes.


* Improved UPC entry for order items. Order item UPC codes are now checked for validity. It will make sure they are the correct length, contain only numbers, and confirm that the code is valid. (The last digit of a UPC code is the product of the first 11 digits, which we now cross check during data entry.) Removed from upgrade - Windows/Java was not handling the field length/overflow correctly.

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Released 8/13/09

  • Patched the order item maintenance dialog. When changing an order item, and depending on the percentage rounding, the order item dialog would appear with a sale price that was different from the current sale price when you went to change it. This patch prevents order item changes from making the extra computation, and just show the current sale price.
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Released 8/12/09

  • Order item entry revised. Some fields and options have been removed and others added. It functions exactly as it did before, only the ability to select a different price list and the tax exempt fields have been removed. The changes are mostly cosmetic in an attempt to simplify the display and provide more feedback in the information to the right of each field. As follows:
    • Available quantity is now to the right of the quantity entry.
    • Base price information shows expected catalog price including quantity threshold used.
    • Base price shows in blue if it differs from the expected catalog price and quantity.
    • Discount field now shows the % symbol.
    • Discount information now computes and shows the amount saved.
    • Sale price information shows expected price and quantity threshold used.
    • Sales price shows in blue if it differs from the expected catalog price and quantity.
    • Note field was added to the bottom.
  • New order item note. You can now enter a note for a specific order item. The note prints on the order ack. and confirmation. It will be added to more reports, like load reports in following upgrades.
  • Order acknowledgement and confirmation reports now print the order item's SKU and UPC. Previously, the reports only printed the catalog's SKU and/or UPC. To standardize the source for these values, they now come from the order item. Keeping with the previous use of catalog SKU and UPC, the new order item entry will automatically fill the values from the catalog unless the customer has a specific SKU or UPC.
  • Quantity threshold pricing will determine the sale price. (optional) Until now, entry of the ordered quantity would change the base price depending on what quantity threshold they met. Now there is a member setting that will update the sale price instead of the base price. This way, when a customer orders enough product that they meet the threshold for quantity discount pricing, the sale price is updated and the base price remains unchanged. This way the customer can see the difference between the base catalog price and the sale price, revealing their savings from ordering more.
  • Changing allocated amounts can automatically update the sale price. (optional) In combination with threshold sale pricing, a new member feature can be activated, so that when changes are made to the allocated quantity, the system will automatically adjust the sale price. During allocation, the system will update the sale price to make sure the customer gets the lower price for ordering more. This also corrects a problem where the sale price was not set correctly for substituted items, since the ordered quantity was used to set the price.
  • Order loads drop address now provides a drop-down selection. The order load change window now lets you choose from the addresses associated with the account so you don't have to enter them manually.
  • Copied orders will now have their order status automatically set to 'New'. Previously when an order was copied, all values were copied, including the ordered status. Therefore, when taking an order from last year that was Archived and copying it for this year, it too was archived, whereas now it will automatically be a New order.
  • Fixed order ack. and confirmation to mark non-discountable items. While working on the new order item notes, it was discovered during testing that order items were not being marked as "non-discountable" when the reports printed. Non-discountable order items are ordered items that are declared in the catalog as No Discount which means the item is special and does not qualify for typical customer discounts.
  • Fixed retail price for new label designer. The new label print feature was printing the retail price in cents and not dollars and cents.
  • Added a Net Volume field to retail tag design and printing. This feature was available on the stock formats, but not yet added to the new Report Designer (Label Designer).
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Released 8/03/09

  • Statements view pop-up hint has been made optional. The statement window has a special waive-over pop-up feature that gives further statement details. Since not everyone liked that feature, it was made optional. Use the view menu options to activate it again if you need it.
  • Catalog Pricing reports upgraded. They were completely rewritten since the export tool did not work well exporting as a spreadsheet. We are now using a completely different, and more direct means of creating spreadsheets, which gives us precise control over both content and format of spreadsheets. It also produces them faster, smaller and much more compatible!
  • Beginning to phase out old Supply Availability reports. They are now labeled "old", as they will no longer be supported. They are being replaced by the catalog item availability, which has many more options to control formatting. If you still run either of the two availabilities, call us and we can help you tailor the catalog item availability report to match either of the two it replaces.
  • Removed picture smoothing option, since it is really no longer necessary.
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Released 7/27/09

  • Bug fix for web settings. It only had an impact if you had not yet set a picture for your branding of photos. PlantX.net would not open the web settings until a brand picture was set. Of course, how can you set the picture if you can't open the web settings. All better now.
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Released 7/26/09

  • Added more features to the Lading Report. The Lading Report is run from the Trucks Window. Letterhead like text can be added to the report header along with the logo. Trailer text, like terms and other legalese can be added to the footer. Graphics, like shipping seals, can be added to the footer too. Any Notes/Directions added to each stop are printed in the header section.
  • Better SKU and UPC code defaults. When entering a new order item, the system will automatically fill the SKU and UPC, first from the customer specific settings and second from the catalog. If the current customer has a saved SKU/UPC, then it is used when entering order items. If not, then the general SKU/UPC is pulled from the Catalog Misc. Tab.
  • Load Location Report can now print allocations with zero quantity. Previously, only the Load Report had an option to print allocations without quantities. Now both reports have the option. Eventually, these two reports will be the same report, where you can change the sorting options and column choices.
  • Allocation Shipped Report now allows for the selection of archived crops. Previously, only current crops could be selected for reporting shipped quantities.
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Released 7/10/09

  • Added customer SKU and UPC to order entry. As we work to improve the retail tag printing, we have made it so you can now assign customer specified SKU numbers and UPC codes to each order item. Any values you enter can also be saved, which speeds up future order entry and increases accuracy. We will be releasing an upgrade to our new label designer which will include retail tag printing and include these two values.
  • Member defined flag colors. Flag colors can come in a wide variety and be time consuming to type in on each order, like 'pink w/purple dots'. We have added a new member setting (under the Shipping Tab) where you can enter a list of all of the flag colors that you use. The flag colors appear in a drop down list on the Order Info Tab. You still have the option of entering a unique color on the order if it is not in the list.
  • Consignment Edition: Retrograded consignment order entry to use the prior margin/markup computations.
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Released 7/06/09

  • Extended the maximum length of purchase order numbers to 25 characters. The previous maximum was 15 characters. It has been extended for both orders and invoices. Not all order and invoice reports have been updated to support the longer numbers. The remaining reports, including custom reports, will follow in subsequent upgrades.
  • Website compatibility updates. Microsoft has been releasing newer versions of Internet Explorer, and we have made some changes to correct some issues with the websites.
  • Consignment Edition: Removed old, unused features from the consignment order item entry. Removed unused rounding feature, and replaced the markup feature with a margin feature, which calculates a percentage increase, eg. sale price x 1.15 = retail price.
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Released 6/29/09

  • Correct long standing issue with trademark (™) symbols shown on website. Special symbols, like the trademark (™) and registered (®) symbols have been an issue with PlantX. They are not considered part of the regular computer "alphabet". As such, Java, the database, web browsers and reporting tools all handle them differently. Web browsers are the most annoying, as the ™ symbol must be expanded into special codes like "™". Even something as simple as a single quotation ' must be translated into "’". QuickBooks still does not export these symbols, but we will continue to research the problem. (Even trying to get the word "™" to show up in this message is a chore!)
  • Added a few default values to the catalog attributes other grade field. This may be temporary as we work out the use of perhaps an other field in all portions of the attributes; form, root and grade.
  • Continued improvements to the material name. The handling of the specie, variety and cultivar portions of material name made it limited in the way botanical names could be sorted and displayed on tags. This is just an internal change to lay the groundwork for the next version.
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Released 6/25/09

  • Added a new Tag Color property to the material library. It will help track the color of tag to use when printing material tags.
  • Extended crop report titles to 20 characters. Since a crop report title can print on two rows for the catalog availability report, it has been extended from a 15 character limit to 20.
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Released 6/24/09

  • Created member setting that sets the default format to use for printing catalog availabilities. Action | Maintain | Member Settings has a new Report Tab property to indicate which report format should be used by default to print availabilities. This is primarily for websites that can generate catalog availability reports on demand.
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Released 6/19/09

  • Add a new Supplies Window that uses the new custom tree table views (TTV) for viewing and reporting on supplies. This view, like the Order Items Window and Allocations Window are in beta testing (live trials), as we are still working out the kinks. We figure these views can be used to create the largest number of basic reports and data exports (spreadsheets). They load quite a bit of data, so be patient, it can take some time to get one started. If you would like a demonstration of what the window can do, just give me a call.
  • Added load factor and weight as optional columns in the catalog item tree table views. See the Order Items Window or Supplies Window.
  • The Available date for the crops is now known as the Sort Date. Some members use the date for a production date and others as a ready date. PlantX.net only really uses the date to sort the crops, so now it is simply called the Sort Date.
  • Fixed the selection of crop Report Titles. There were issues with duplicates showing and they were not sorted.
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Released 6/18/09

  • Upgraded the tree table view (TTV) export of CSV file formats. CSV files can be imported into spreadsheets like Excel. The file that is produced will now export all rows, including those with totals. This means that a spreadsheet can be created as summary, without all of the detail rows.
  • Fixed a couple of PDF file format issues caused when exporting PDF files from the new customizable tree table views (TTV). Adobe Reader no longer complains about "illegal operations" when opening the exported PDF.
  • Implementing better sorting for order items. This change is making steps to create a consistent sort order across catalog items, order items and inventory items when they appear on reports. This is primarily an interim step to creating better control over all sorting of reports and table views.
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Released 6/17/09

  • Only users with administrative privileges can remove Material Facts. Since removing a single fact will remove all the data related to all materials, this feature has been elevated to administrator only.
  • Orders cannot be deleted without first having the status of Canceled. This was created as an additional precautionary step to deleting orders. You can try to delete the orders, but it will give you a message to remind you to cancel it first.
  • Fixed issue with catalog attributes. If a catalog item was change from a container type root, like Plastic Pot #5, to a non-container type like B&B, the pot material and container size where not cleared. Since the values were not actually cleared, they still had an impact on the sort order of the catalog and some reports. Now when you select B&B or other non-container root types, the unused values are reset.
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Released 6/12/09

  • Added PO Number to the Invoice Window header options. The PO Number comes from the order, can be changed on the invoice if necessary, and is exported to QuickBooks.
  • The billing and shipping addresses on the invoice are exported to QuickBooks.
  • There is an option to export the PlantX invoice number to QuickBooks. You will find the Export Document Number check box option in the Action | Maintain | Member Setting on the Accounting Tab. Use this feature with care! It can cause duplicate invoice numbers if you create invoices from both PlantX and QuickBooks.
  • Various website changes pending were included in this release.
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Released 6/10/09 (patch)

  • Fixed an issue with the customer window making extra, random prompts to "apply changes" when no changes had been made.
  • Corrected issue with displaying the customer retail prices as part of the new UPC and SKU feature.
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Released 6/09/09

  • New Excel (XLS) spreadsheet exporter. Earlier this year, progress dictated that we update the software package we use to export spreadsheets from PlantX. Since we don't like to fix things that aren't broken, we had been using the same version for two years, which as you know is a lifetime in the world of computers. Unfortunately, the upgrade brought with it some issues with opening and saving the spreadsheets produced by the new version. From what we can tell it was related to the size of the spreadsheet. We tried to upgrade to an even more recent release, but that didn't work either, so now we have switched to a completely different utility to produce XLS spreadsheets. So far it produces smaller spreadsheets and is a bit faster, and most important, it hasn't produced bad spreadsheets. (Please let us know otherwise.)
  • The customer retail pricing has been extended to include a customer UPC and SKU. These new values will be included in the tag printing in a following release.
  • Messages and warnings for catalog items can now be changed in batch from the Inventory Window Batch Change menu option.
  • Batch change is now much faster as it will only update catalog items that actually have a change.
  • The reports Supply Value by Crop and Supply Value by Location now have an option to summarize by catalog item. These reports export to XLS spreadsheets and show all the supply detail, either all locations by crop or all crops in each location. This new option will instead skip the details and just show the catalog items by crop, or the catalog items by location.
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Internal Changes

  • For performance, the member's material list has been completely detached from the general library of PlantX material names. This prevents library entries from loading for every material, effectively cutting the amount of data sent to a connected user by as much as 20%. The impact on performance will relate directly to the number of materials in your Material Library.
  • Since the library entries are no longer used by the member's material library, the library list can be pruned of "custom" values, which will reduce the amount of time it takes to download the library suggestions.
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Released 5/29/09

  • Moved the weight values from being an attribute on the Attributes Tab to the Misc. Tab next to the load factor. These two features go hand-in-hand and having the weight as an attribute never really worked well. The weight values is now strictly the number of pounds and can be better used in overall loading and trucking computations.
  • Inventory batch update now includes the ability to change the load factor and the weight.
  • Added a Load Factor (L/F) column to the Order Load Manager Tab. There is also a total load factor include in the totals at the bottom. This total covers all allocations. We will be updating the Load Manager to the new full custom Tree Table View (TTV) which will allow you to total the load factors by each load.
  • Narrowed the date range for the document list in the customer view. It was set at 180 days (6 months), but it has been reduced to 90 days. This should reduce the amount of documents loaded and speed up customer lookup.
[edit]

Consignment Edition

  • Corrected issue with quote dates changing to current date whenever a change was made. It was using the system date each time a change was made. Also upgraded the quotes to use the new and improved date programming.
  • Plants By Use web page sorts the categories in alphabetical order by default.
[edit]

Released 5/20/09

  • Corrected issue with Auto Allocate feature and improved performance. An issue was found where if you ran the Auto Allocate feature on an order in quick succession, it could double some allocations. To avoid this, as well as improve performance, the Auto Allocate function no runs exclusively on the server in a single transaction. The server will ensure that the allocate only happens once and now only one transaction is sent to the server, it should be much faster. Previously, if you had 50 order items, it sent 50 allocation transactions to the server, where now it only sends one.
  • Adding a new Finance Charge Grace Period option to the Payment Terms. In the next release, the finance charges will calculate using a average daily balance method, producing daily pro-rated charges and observe the newly added grace period. The Finance Charge Grace Period effectively waits the specified number of days before accumulating any finance charges. The grace period is applied to each invoice separately.
[edit]

Released 5/12/09

  • Added new "To Ship" column to the custom supplies view in the inventory window. The "To Ship" column shows the remaining quantity left to ship. It is the total allocated minus the total shipped.
  • Improved the performance when loading the customer list. It was found to be performing extra, unnecessary work.
  • Add a new root attribute to the catalog. B&B in Container is new type. It acts much like a container, but implies that the container is a B&B product placed in a container. (No other way to explain that one, really.)
[edit]

Internal Improvements

  • A review of security and permissions revealed a potential issue with user permissions. A user registered as an administrator could alter the name and/or email address of a super user. This option has been disabled.
[edit]

Released 5/4/09

  • Created a unified Ship Date for inventory. To date, the flexibility of PlantX.net allows for the entry of a shipped date at either the order level, the load level, or the truck. But, in order to create more accurate ship reports for state audits or royalties, the ship date is applied directly to each allocation of inventory. Of course, the date can be applied to a batch of allocations, a load, or the entire order.
  • New Shipped Inventory report that allows greater control over the report criteria (namely ship date range) and the columns and sort orders used to create the report. The new version of the report runs on the server so it is much quicker and has an XLS export option.
[edit]

Internal Improvements

  • Created a better date range class and handling of dates with regards to timezone and daylight savings time.
  • Improved the loading of bulk options by as much as 25%. When loading a large set of order items, allocations, supplies, etc., the server will now load larger blocks of data in a single pass. Tests show that it reduced longer tasks from 20 seconds to 14-15 seconds. This will have a direct impact on loading larger lists, especially for reports.
  • Optimized broker server operations by further reducing the number of queries sent to the server.
  • Optimized the speed of browsing the inventory. While stepping through the catalog, item by item, the various related information is now loaded simultaneously to avoid numerous round trips to the server. The result; rather than three queries to load a catalog item, it now only takes one.
[edit]

Released 4/1/09

  • Updated the Supply Window by moving the Location from the Cost tab to the Properties tab.
  • Fixed the edit for Material Fact defaults
  • Expanded the common Notes panels to fill out the available space to make it easier to edit larger note fields.
  • Any applicable customer discounts are applied to orders submitted through the website.
[edit]

Release 6/4/08

  • Improved Availability Report
    • The new availability report has many new features that lay the groundwork for all reports. These include:
      • Select columns, the order they appear in and the relative width.
      • Select the grouping used, e.g. by material name, attributes, catalog item type, etc.
      • Upload custom graphics for the page header
      • Save all settings for later reuse
  • Consignment Edition
    • Lead source tracking for sales (invoices)
      • Enter any number of lead sources, e.g. freeway, radio, magazine
      • Sales program requires selection of the lead source at POS
      • Queries and reports for invoices by lead source
[edit]

Release 4/29/08

  • Minor improvements and fixes.
    • Crops are now either available or archived, not both.
    • Stock adjustments can be entered with quantity 0 in order to audit recounts with no changes, or to record inspections.
    • Ability to drag-n-drop portions of a supply to supplies from other crops. Previously it was restricted to the same crop for accounting consistency.
    • Option to print a list of materials that do not have any pictures related to them.
    • The supply listing in the inventory view is by sorted by location after they are first sorted by crop.
    • Shipped report has an option to hide the detail, dramatically reducing the length of the report.
[edit]

Release 4/27/08

  • Revised Invoice, Packing Slip, Order Acknowledgment and Order Confirmation reports. The reports are now printed from the reporting servers and use a unified set of selection parameters in the reporting wizard. Instead of lumping all selections in a single wizard frame, the selections are spread over several, easier to read steps. All of the format selections can be saved and reused from one run to the next, making selections consistent from one run to the next, and cutting back on the need for redundant selections each run. This also paves the way for selecting report format for use on the website.
[edit]

Release 4/16/08

  • New Lading Report. This new lading report prints a lading report, designed for use as a Bill of Lading. Notably, it prints multiple copies, e.g. nursery copy, trucker copy, customer copy, etc. It uses our new reporting server technology and is a prototype showcasing our improvements to the reporting wizard. The reporting wizard breaks the report selections down into smaller more manageable steps, allows for custom report graphics and saves settings for future report runs.
[edit]

Release 3/28/08

  • More sources for printing Catalog Tags. Previously, the quantity of catalog tags to print was entered by hand or used the allocated quantities from an order. Now quantities can come from a specific load on an order or the remaining trees to ship at a location.
  • Custom report title for availability. Since availability reports are printed for any number of reasons and everyone seems to have their ideal report title, we have created an extra parameter that is the report title of the report. You can customize the field to your liking.
[edit]

Release 3/07/08

  • New options to send notices to web users. With a button press send Access Granted, Account Created and Password Reminders to website users.
[edit]

Release 3/03/08

  • New optional column for order confirmations to print list price. To clearly show the difference between the listed catalog price and the discounted prices that you give your customers, a new column showing the list price was added to the order confirmation.
[edit]

Release 2/15/08

  • Additional styling to website orders and order item presentation. Since there were a number of new columns added to the order listing, new coloring and column outlines were added to make the columns easier to read.
[edit]

Release 2/14/08

  • New Reference field on orders. This satisfies the requests for another cross reference value to print on order confirmations.
  • Website orders now show amounts shipped. When your customers browse their orders online, if the order has a status of confirmed (or higher) they can see the shipping progress of the order.
[edit]

Release 2/13/08

  • Show available count option added to the inventory view. Selecting View | Show Available Count displays the available amounts on the catalog item tree view.
  • Supply Margin report has an option to print by location.
  • Shipped and remaining columns now appear on the website orders. Your customers can login to your website and get the shipping status of their order.
[edit]

Release 2/11/08

  • Load report has new option of selecting extra column content. Previously, the column either showed the sale price or nothing. Then we added an option to show the retail price. Now, you can optionally select to show the location.
  • Supply Margin report now prints by location too. A new option was added to the Supply Margin report to sort the report by location.
  • Unassigned loads now respond to changes in Order status. When an order status is changed to shipped, unassigned loads no longer show in the Unassigned Tab in the Truck Window. Although this is how is has functioned, it was inconsistent.
[edit]

Release 2/07/08

  • New Supply Margin report. This new report list the supplies by catalog item, showing the cost with the catalog pricing, the profit margin and markup. (sort by location coming soon)
  • Customer accounts carry a default markup. If a customer uses a flat markup across all plant costs, you can enter the amount in the Customer Window | Settings Tab. Each time an order item is added to the customer's order, if there is no saved retail amount, it will automatically calculate the retail using the default margin.
  • New retail label format option for those who do not want to print UPC codes and instead use the entire label for descriptions and plant facts.
[edit]

Release 1/16/08

  • New Customer Export CSV for Blackberry phones. Use the Export CSV (Comma Separated Values) option of the Customer Window to create a file that can be imported into other applications. The CSV file has been formatted specifically to work with Blackberry mobile devices. By using the ASCII Importer/Exporter that comes with your Blackberry, all of your customer contacts can be copied to your Blackberry phone.
[edit]

Release 1/10/08

  • New Export Comma Separated Values (CSV) file from Materials list. If you need to use the catalog information from PlantX.net in other applications you can export the entire material list to a CSV file. The CSV file can then be imported into a spreadsheet or other database applications.
  • Found and corrected an obscure error when sorting catalog items that used the ground bud and/or rooted cutting attributes.
[edit]

Release 1/08/08

  • Added two new Catalog Pricing Reports that produce spreadsheets with the current pricing. The Pricing by Material report creates a spreadsheet of prices ordered by material name, the same order as the inventory view. The Pricing by Attributes report will group and order prices on catalog attributes, which tends to group plants of similar size or container, which are likely to have similar prices. Each report should give you a means of cross referencing prices.
  • New picture cropping feature! Select a portion of each picture to act as the icon for use on the website and in PlantX.net in general. A main crop can also be set to trim the full size view of each picture. A reset button set each crop to the optimal size and shape. The cropped region can then be adjusted in size and position to choose the precise portion of the picture. See the Picture Reference and the Picture Adjust Tab for details.
[edit]

Release 12/21/07

  • Added more Inventory Batch Change options. You can now collectively change the tag color for the selected catalog items.
  • Added the substitution option to the Order Entry Tab. You no longer need to go to the Order Items Tab to mark an ordered item as substituted. We also created a new icon for this option.
  • Standardized the date/time and page number footer on the Order Load (OLD) report.
[edit]

Release 12/19/07

  • Made the substitution option on the order items view a single click. No longer do you need to toggle a check box, just click the toggle substitution button. Remember, if you have any inventory allocated to the ordered item and plan to do a substitution, you will need to remove the current allocations first.
[edit]

Release 12/17/07

[edit]

Release 11/21/07

  • Created new Catalog Item Type. Similar to the catalog item option sort field, the Catalog Item Type more clearly defines the type of a catalog item. Categories are used to organize and sort the Material Library and the Catalog Item Types are used to organize and sort catalog items.
  • Inventory can be sorted on new Catalog Item Type.
  • The order list on the Inventory Window Supplies/Orders tab now shows the total amount shipped for each order item. Previously, the line showed only the amount shipped from the currently selected supply. This should reduce the confusion and avoid the need to scan the entire supply list for shipped amounts.
  • New Inventory Batch Change feature expedites the changing of miscellaneous catalog properties including pricing, container deposits, revenue accounts and many others.
  • New option to update the costs and sales amounts of one or more items in an item group.
  • Fixed the apply button on the Invoice Window. The button will only become active when you change any value in the header of the invoice and when you press the apply button, it will deactivate until you make another change.
  • Fixed the stock adjustments to handle larger quantities.
  • Category and Catalog Item Type maintenance moved to the Action | Maintain menu.
  • Removed unnecessary and confusing past due aging column from the account ledger tab.
  • On-line support feature now supports our new fiber network.
[edit]

Consignment Edition

  • View all items now shows the sale price if the item is on sale.
  • Item sale price can be adjusted by amount or by discount. Entering one value will calculate the other.
  • Audits show dollars and cents when changing the cost, retail or sale amount on an item.
  • Sale price and discount show on the Plant Window.
  • Added sale price and sold column to Item Group detail list of items.
  • Item Group Window has been rearranged. The list of items is now below the list of groups. This allowed for more room to see the numerous columns shown for items.
  • Item Group detail report now lists the retail, discount and sale amount.
[edit]

Release 11/15/07

  • Added new attributes for root type. Tray is used when plants, namely flowers, are sold in a tray. Use the Cell or Flat type and the Flat/Cell Count to further describe the tray if necessary.
  • Added to new QuickBooks connection options to diagnose issues with various installations.
[edit]

Release 11/12/07

  • Exporting an individual invoice to QuickBooks prompts you to first link the account if it is a new account not yet linked.
  • Corrected the new Supplies and Orders tab on the Inventory Window to update correctly when the View | Supplies for Achieved Crops is toggled.
  • Added "Partial Ship" as a new Order Status. Use this status when only part of the order has shipped and further material requires shipping.
  • Printing a deposit invoice from an order now includes the due date.
  • Printing the prices on the Dig Location report is now optional.
[edit]

Release 11/1/07

  • Better column sizes on Supplies by Location report. Longer materials and attributes wrap correctly and the report footer is standardized.
  • Supply lists with only a single entry will no longer steal the focus when you scan down the catalog list. This bug/feature had a tendency to interrupt the key entry while searching for a catalog item.
[edit]

Release 10/30/07

  • New Aging Report with document detail to show not only aged account balances but the document details as well.
  • Cleared balances no longer show on the statements.
  • New default password can be set for web users that sign up through the website.
  • Web setting to control whether or not new users can register through the website.
[edit]

Release 10/19/07

  • Bulk entry from website availability. Website users can now enter the quantity ordered directly into the availability. This speeds the order entry for the customer.
  • Random or default password. When a new website user is registered, they are assigned a random password which is a combination of plant names and numbers. Alternately, you may choose to use a common default password for new registrants. To do so, use the Action | Web Settings and the Settings Tab to set a default password.
  • Availability lists can now be optionally print the common name of the catalog items.
[edit]

Release 9/13/07

  • Search orders by invoice number. This invoice number can be used to locate the source order the produced the invoice. If there is more than one resulting order, PlantX.net offers the option of choosing a related order.
[edit]

Release 8/16/07

  • The Supply | Availability Report now supports options for a Minimum Quantity and Minimum Value. Any catalog items that do not meet either the prescribed Minimum Quantity or Minimum Value, are not included on the report. The minimum value is the quantity multiplied by the price.
  • The catalog tree in the Order | Entry Tab now shows the quantity available when entering an order. This way you can preview the quantities available while entering an order which helps for entering orders where the quantity to order is dependent on the remaining available or to determine if a substitution is in order.
  • New report Sales | Account Sales to print a list of all accounts and a summary of the last order that was entered. Use this to give sales people a report of the last order entered for a customer. Can be printed in account name order or by last ordered date.
[edit]

Release 7/31/07

  • Sort the catalog items in the Inventory Frame by revenue account. That way you can confirm the assignment of revenue accounts to each catalog item.
  • Added an option for printing an aging by sales person. This way you can print an aging for each sales rep.
  • Completely revised the label printing. It now uses a graphical view to show you the tag layout. It will also save your defined labels, envelopes, postcards, etc. Add custom graphics to the label to give them a personal touch. If you need help running this awesome feature, give us a call.
[edit]

Release 7/10/07

  • Added credit memo option to create credits by selecting an invoice and the invoice entries that require reversal.
[edit]

Release 7/10/07

  • New report that lists the customers by sales person and their last order date. Show the sales person which customers have or have not placed an order yet.
[edit]

Release 7/10/07

  • Consignment Edition: Created a shipping list feature to help with post-sale plant management. Primarily used to record which plants have shipped and which remain in will call or require delivery.
[edit]

Release 6/6/07

  • You can now batch change catalog item revenue account. Use the Inventory | Change Revenue Account... option from the Inventory Frame.
  • Added Serpentine trunk type to tree attributes
[edit]

Release 4/18/07

  • Added more catalog sorting options in the inventory views.
  • Shipped report can sort and select by catalog's miscellaneous sort.
  • Fixed note field length on quote headers.
  • Simplified account transaction edit.
  • Consignment: Plant can belong to more than one group.
  • New invoice uses default billing and shipping contact.
  • Wish list quantities are optional for all load (allocation) reports.
[edit]

Release 3/20/07

  • Reporting server creates reports on the main servers and sends the PDF result. Cuts back on the amount of data that is sent over the Internet, greatly increasing the speed of reporting.
  • Report results (PDF) are kept in a report listing. When a report finishes, it is listed in the reports view where it can be viewed again, saved to disk or e-mailed.
  • Improved taxes with multiple tax rates (federal, state and local) that can be set for each customer.
  • Retail pricing can be saved for each customer-catalog item combination. When you enter the retail price that a retailer offers their customer, PlantX.net records the amount and recalls it on future sales orders.

For details and preview see Release Notes 3/20/07

[edit]

Release 1/24/07

  • Added feature that copies prior consignment orders (Consignment Edition)
  • Fixed weight calculations on the Load Summary (aka Dispatch Summary). The report incorrectly converted the unit of measure, grossly exaggerating the weight.
[edit]

Release 1/23/07

  • Fixed the ability to change the date on a newly added account document.
  • Fixed the sort order of chart accounts.
[edit]

Release 12/29/06

[edit]

Release 12/20/06

  • You can put the Trademark and Registered symbols in a Material name.
  • Added two new root attributes, Root Control Bag and Smart Pot. See Catalog Items.
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