Original publication date: July, 2006

New Builds for WinCATS (build 117), WebCATS (build 416), and eCenter Direct (build 804)

In the first week of July, Softshare released new builds for all three of our Softshare 'CATS components. No product was neglected this go-around. Your center should have already received these upgrades so now it's time to begin enjoying all the new features we've added!

• New Features for WinCATS & WebCATS
• New Features for eCenter Direct

New Features for WinCATS & WebCATS

Some of the new features of WinCATS 4.1, build 117 and WebCATS 4.1, build 416, along with tips on how to use them, are highlighted next. For a complete list of fixes, enhancements, and new features for WebCATS and WinCATS, view Softshare's online build notes (WebCATS' build notes are available from the Help|About WebCATS command in WebCATS and WinCATS' build notes are available from Softshare eService).

Printing Labels from WebCATS

You no longer have to rely on WinCATS for automated integration with mailing labels. WebCATS can now print address labels for any client subset or attendee/mailing list. WebCATS supports the Avery 5160 address label format which is the standard 1" x 2.625" mailing label (30 labels per page). WebCATS renders these labels in HTML, which means that you must set very specific margin settings in Internet Explorer's Page Setup screen (File|Page Setup) in order for the labels to print correctly.

• Top margin = .5"
• Bottom margin = 0" (IE will replace the zero with the minimum values supported by the driver)
• Left margin = .25"
• Right margin = 0" (IE will replace the zero with the minimum values supported by the driver)
• Headers and footers should be blank

Easier Tracking of Follow-Ups

WebCATS has several new features to make the tracking of scheduled follow-up counseling sessions easier.

• Follow-up time field. A new field has been added to client records that lets you track the time that a follow-up counseling session has been scheduled for.
• Follow-up contact field. A new field has been added to client records that lets you track the contact that a follow-up counseling session has been scheduled with. For newly created or already existing client records, this field initially defaults to the client's primary contact, but you can change this selection to any contact associated with the client company, or to a blank value indicating no selected follow-up contact.
• Generating follow-up e-mail reminders from client record. In the view-only mode of a client record, you can now click the follow-up date/time field label to generate follow-up reminder e-mails. Previously, WebCATS only generated these e-mails after a new counseling session record was saved.
• Follow-up e-mails include vCalendar attachments. In the follow-up reminder e-mails that you can optionally generate for yourself, the contact, or both, WebCATS now includes vCalendar attachments. vCalendar attachments (i.e. .vcs files) automatically import appointments into calendar applications like the one included in Microsoft Outlook. vCalendar files must be opened and saved from the recipient's e-mail application in order for appointments to be integrated into the application's calendar.

New Client Merlin Enhancements

Now you can determine which client, company, and contact fields you are prompted to fill out when completing the New Client Merlin. If there are fields that you've always wanted to add to (or remove from) the New Client Merlin, an administrator can do so from WinCATS' global configuration settings. This extra flexibility will go a long way toward ensuring data integrity and consistency across your database.

A final page, which allows you to choose the next activity to perform after saving your new client record, was also added to the New Client Merlin. From this new page, you can choose to (1) go to the newly created client record, (2) go to the company record, (3) go to the primary contact record, (4) select product codes (PSCs, SICs, and/or NAICSs) to add to the company record, or (5) create a new counseling session for the client.

Note: The Client Merlin is no longer available in WinCATS. As discussed in the November 2005 issue of Softshare Times, WinCATS is moving toward an administrative-only tool. Therefore, as Softshare enhances its various data entry tools, such as the Client Merlin, we are removing them from WinCATS so that we can concentrate on the core competencies of each product.

More Duplicate Details

When performing a company or contact duplicate check, WebCATS now returns more details for potential duplicate records. For example, for a potential duplicate company record, you can optionally see the company's e-mail address, mailing address, business status, business size, and business type by clicking the plus sign that precedes the record, as shown here.

Running Worksheets by Counselor

In addition to date, center, and funding source criteria, you can now also generate worksheet numbers for individual counselors.

Company & Contact Address Synchronization

If you update the address in a company or primary contact record, WebCATS will prompt you to synchronize its associated primary contact/company record with the updated address. If this is desirable, you only need to click in agreement and WebCATS automatically performs the synchronization for you. This synchronization feature can be turned off from WinCATS' global configurations settings.

Filtering Counseling Sessions by Preparation, Travel, and/or Contact Hours

When filtering counseling session records from the record summary view, you can now include preparation, travel, and contact hours as part of your filter criteria. Previously, the ability to filter counseling sessions by a range of hours was available only when running certain counseling session reports. This option was removed from the report criteria and added to the record status filter box so that it could be more globally applied.

Hyperlinking in Report Output

WebCATS makes extensive use of hyperlinks throughout its interface so that you can easily jump between related records. Now, we've also added hyperlinks to many management reports' generated output, as shown here. Hyperlinks can be turned on or off on a per-report basis via the Enable record links? check box located in the report criteria window.

Page Expiration Status

When performing an edit function, WebCATS displays a continuous real-time page expiration status for the page being updated. This will help ensure that you don't lose work due to server connection timeouts.

New Reports & Worksheets

We've added several new reports & worksheets to Softshare 'CATS:

New Reports

• Clients Starting as Conference Attendees. This new report highlights all current clients whose primary contact attended a conference dated before the client's start date.
• Awards by County. Two new reports were added that break out awards by county. The Awards by County/Agency Type additionally highlights awarding agency information (DoD, Other Federal, State, and Commercial) and the Awards by County/Contract Type additionally highlights contract classification (prime or sub-contract).
• Mailing Label Report!

New Worksheets

• Expanded Economic Impact Report. This new worksheet is an expanded version of the SBA Economic Impact Report. It is not required by SBA or any other funding agency; it is for your internal purposes only.
• Information Transfers/Inquiries Report. This new worksheet provides a general overview of information transfer activity (as tracked by information transfer and inquiry records). It is not required by SBA or any other funding agency; it is for your internal purposes only.
• DLA 1806 Worksheet (2005). This new version of the DLA 1806 worksheet includes a new line 21 JOBS CREATED (via Award Amounts). This value is calculated by totaling the dollar amounts of all state, federal, and DoD prime and subcontract awards for all businesses, and dividing by 42,500.

eCenter Direct

Build 804 includes a couple of new features including strengthened e-mail address validation in eCenter's counseling and conference request forms. But the most significant new feature is eCenter's ability to support more than one survey. Now, each center can post a unique survey to eCenter. When a client logs in, eCenter dynamically determines which survey to display based on the center that the client is assigned to in the Softshare 'CATS database.

To configure surveys on a per-center basis, create the surveys in WinCATS' global configurations settings (the process of creating eCenter surveys has not changed). Then, from the Configuration tab of each applicable center record, select the appropriate survey from the new Current Client Survey field. If this field is left blank in a center record, then the globally configured survey will display for that center's clients.

© 2012 Softshare, Inc. All rights reserved. This article is part of an archive of Softshare newsletter articles dating back several years. Some of the screenshots, procedures, or information contained within this article may no longer be 100% accurate or relevant, as Softshare's software and services are very fluid. Thank you for your understanding.