This month’s release is packed with more. More than 430 hours of development went into r20250414; more than 100 resolved issues; and even more help articles that the dev team have written – just click on the “?” in the top right corner and you can search the online help system.
The first new help article is an overview of how to create new cyclical work plans, and the second is a summary of the points covered in our webinar on uploading SORs and splitting jobs.
New Features
- Allow colours to be added to site details
At the top of the new features list is a capability added by one of our newest developers. Marwah has added colours to site details – so we can add groovy splashes of colour to the top bar on the jobsheet when there are warnings about a site. This is easy for us to configure for you, you just need to let us know what colours you want to add! The contractor who asked for this has a site detail “Client has aged debt” and they wanted it to be highlighted in angry RED! The same colour is used wherever we display the notes.
- Ability to export and re-import of survey setup data
Meanwhile, Pat and Madi have been busy on some cool new features. Pat has been working on a way to share our Jira issue tracker tickets with you, and Madi has been re-implementing the horrible survey setup screens. Both projects have now been merged, but we are still in the early adopters testing phase and will let you know as they progress. The new survey screens are designed to remove all the little headaches in the old screens, and make the process much more intuitive, whilst adding the ability to export and reimport survey’s from templates. The issue tracker access is intended to make it easier for you to see how we are progressing (or not!) your requests.
- Added two new columns to the supplier invoice chase email template substitutions so suppliers can easily “reply” to the outstanding invoices with comments
One of the underused features of MARKUS is the “Supplier Chaser” emails using communication templates. MARKUS can produce a filterable list of suppliers with outstanding orders / invoices etc, and at the touch of a button will email the supplier with the details. This is driven by a fully configurable template that allows you to pick what information to send to them. The simple substitutions on this email now contain some spare columns so the supplier can quickly respond to your email just by hitting reply and filling the blank fields (assuming they don’t have a sub-contractor portal login!).
- Split the Sage Cloud Purchase invoice export into two files to make CIS transactions easier to process (as Sage Cloud importer can’t handle them)
- Changed the mobile expenses recorded by the mobile app to save invoices to a new “Awaiting approval” status to separate them from the other unpassed purchase invoices; also tweaked the purchase invoice passing process to allow for sequencing the columns independently to the work flow values of the statuses
Added the ability to show client warnings/prompts that can appear on the mobile app on the health and safety warning screen (alongside site specific warnings)- Audit trail has been added for absence creation, editing, approval, rejection, and deletion
- Updated the no access report to show the upcoming visit date along with the furthest visit date
- Added the supplier invoice API to the interface monitor dashboard panel
- Changed the wording of DRS field on the client wizard so now it says DRS instead of CIS to match the caption
- Updated the jobsheet view for client only users so it hides visit start and end times
- Changes to the FSC print to not show cancelled 152 jobs
- Added the supplier alpha to the detail table on supplier invoice entry
- A new prototype screen to view and edit survey actions and tasks
- New uom survey types for the new survey entry
- Made dates on the project jobs report sortable
- Added a ‘remaining committed’ field to the job sheets purchase order table (defined by contractor name)
- New combined contact search that finds jobs based on job OR asset contact details in a variety of fields
- Logging into job history when “visible to operative” and “visible to client” are changed using the jobsheet sliders
- Changed the mobile app “places to go” search bar to find any text on screen
- Added “Time in status” to the status change report
Added the ability to show client warnings/prompts that can appear on the mobile app on the health and safety warning screen (alongside site specific warnings)Changes For a Single Contractor
- Changes to the UWE valuation report
- Changes to the email RAMs import to support very old jobs
- Changes to supplier invoice API “automation” as requested
- Changes to the UWE/Archibus status export
- Changes to the Southwark/NEC Northgate APIs to support non-unique asset references when dealing with both Admin Units and Properties
- Altered how PPM task details are displayed (including the job number) on the mobile app for a single contractor
- Fixed the “Jacobs” cut-down client job entry screen to handle argument count error
- Added information about KPIs to the Cobalt/Orchard interface
- Added support for empty filenames to the Whitehorse/Homemaster and Cairn HA/Homemaster integrations
- Updated our internal process for rejecting jobs from the UWE/Archibus API where jobs have been duplicated on the client’s side
- Fixed Thursday and Friday overtimes not populating correctly for on a timesheet PDF
- Updates to the mechanism that saved unchanged supplier invoice status comments so that comments are stored even if no status change happens
- Updated to the standard survey printout to improve styling
Platform Improvements
- Updated the mobile app release screen to allow for release to a single or a handful of operatives
- Ongoing minor upgrade of PHP8
- Ongoing major upgrade to Python3
- Continued enhancing the internal Jira API client to display support requests within MARKUS
- Changed the new customer bootstrap process to grab the master mobile app server
- New crash log montior to raise Jira issue for any mobile app crashes
- Fixed the deprecated import database functionality on the mobile app to allow for testing of data exported from an operative’s device
- Realtime log viewer for Epix support staff to watch individual mobile app connection attempts
- Added accreditation logos to invoice PDF
Bug Fixes
- Removed duplicated button for adding sales lines in the Care and Repair mobile app
- Fixed add to work plan live search errors when work type not selected correctly
- Fixed some invoice lines getting skipped when exporting from Quickbooks
- Fixed the wrong barcode references and location appearing for tasks on the RACSAMS app
- Fixed the Edit Address screen showing the incorrect title
- Fixing a bug stopping users from getting past the add jobs stage of creating a new project
- Fixed a bug in Purchase Order Entry where you select a part for a different supplier
- Removing the job history being added for unpassed PO invoices when other PO invoices are passed
- Fixed the days available rounding on the holiday report to match what the operative has been contracted to have in that period
- Fixed a bug with status KPIs not updating when changing the status but not changing the date/time of the status change where the new status had a different KPI
- Fixed a bug where a ” ” in the value of a desirable detail would break the report filters
- Fixed database trigger sequence for MOT last completed date on work plans
