What’s New in Office Connector 2.01.0017

Posted March 6^th, 2007

New Features

Specify your conditions by clicking on a drop-down list of existing values to greatly increase your speed and accuracy.

Developer note – “Watch out sliced bread, there’s a new ‘best thing’ in town!”

Use a calendar to pick your date values and a checkbox for True/False fields.
Click the Preview button in the wizard to “scout your data” before you create a query or function.
Change the default setting for PersistentCache on your workstation. There is currently no UI to support this feature, so please refer to this document for instructions.

Performance Improvements

Checking for online updates is now delayed so startup is faster the first time you launch Excel each day.
The Refresh command now simply discards data and allows it to reload on demand. This method adds the benefit of skipping tables that have been recently used but are no longer in use.
Processing for TSCount and TSSum functions that contain no criteria is now passed to the Timberline server. This prevents the entire table from being loaded when no other workbook functions access it. It also makes the wizard much more responsive after you click Finish.

Other Improvements

The setup program has been updated and no longer overwrites stock templates that you have modified.
Information, such as our telephone and fax numbers, is now retrieved from the Internet so it will always be up-to-date.
Keyboard support is improved for the Conditions and Condition windows.
SQL Editor Improvements

Formulas embedded inside of queries are now preserved when you edit the SQL. The new behavior results in the underlying query table not showing fields in the same order as the SQL, but this situation is easily remedied by dragging the columns around in the Excel UI.
The SQL is now formatted in sections with each field indented on its own line. Show me what this looks like.
Query parameters are now maintained if you modify them by editing the SQL.
Selecting a chart object and then clicking the Edit SQL button no longer causes an error message to be displayed.

Email now has enhanced tracing to help troubleshoot issues like technical support emails and license key request being blocked.
The System Information report now correctly identifies Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Office 2007.
No longer write spurious error messages to the error log when you resize a window to a very small size.
If the Timberline system directory is stored as a UNC path, the licensing now automatically converts the UNC path to a mapped drive
The TSFind wizard no longer retains the previously used offset when you click Finish before reaching the Offset step.
There is now a topic in the online help for when you try to create a record in a table that does not allow it, for example, Transactions.
Fixes an issue where an Import would be refreshable if inserted on a worksheet other than Sheet1.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.01.0009

Posted November 10^th, 2006

New Features

New Paradigm – The wizard now has a much more powerful way to specify report conditions that is also simpler to understand! Existing customers can click here to sign up for a free online session on how to use the new wizard.

See your conditions in an intuitive graphical layout.
Specify cell references right in the wizard – without editing formulas.
Specify query parameters without switching to Advanced view.
Quickly specify a list of conditions using “One Of”.

New templates – Added GL Financial Statement (No Prefixes) and JC Job Schedule.

The wizard now detects when you are using Date fields as criteria and automatically inserts Excel’s TEXT function for you.
You can now use the wizard to name your queries before inserting them into Excel.
The wizard now clearly indicates key fields by displaying a “key” icon next to the name.
Click on your query and click Edit QueryTable SQL to go directly to editing the SQL.

Performance Improvements

Office Connector now takes advantage of a more efficient method to refresh workbook functions available in newer versions of Excel (2002 and above). Testing showed speed improvements on the order of 20%.
License checking is now more efficient, which can lead to significant performance gains in certain network environments for all versions of Excel.

Other Improvements

Canceling the Timberline Data Folder window no longer results in a duplicate prompt.
If you copy and paste a query, the pasted version will now refresh as expected.
If you delete a query and then create a new one, the new query will now refresh as expected.
The OCWorkbook function now refreshes when you click the Refresh Timberline Data toolbar button.
Conditions typed into the Advanced view now work properly.
Fixed the SQL Editor so it does not delete your text when you use the X to close the window.
Range limits on Integer values were removed to support ranges actually allowed by Timberline.
Importing data no longer creates a named range in Excel.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0028

Compatibility release for Timberline 9.4 Released October 11^th 2006.

Other Improvements

Faster Cache Saving – Added performance enhancement to speed up loading and saving cache data. Saving the cache is now 10 times faster.
Improved Support for Automatic Refreshes

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0021

Compatibility release for Timberline 9.3 Released May 5^th 2006.

New Features

OCWorkbook function – optionally returns Path, Name and Extension components of the workbook name. See the help topics for a description and examples.
Automatic Refreshes – You can now create a VBA macro that will allow you to pass login credentials and automatically refresh your workbook without user interaction. Due to the inherent security risks associated with storing your Timberline operator ID and password in a workbook, we are not documenting this feature. Please contact support if you wish to learn how to use it securely.
FirstRefresh custom workbook property – Add to custom properties and enter "Manual" for the value. This prevents Office Connector from automatically prompting for a data folder when the workbook is opened. The behavior is identical to what happens if you click Cancel when automatically prompted for a data folder at startup.

Other Improvements

The previously undocumented function TSCustomCaption now has documentation.
Messaging is more graceful now when you open a workbook and all license concurrencies are already in use.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0016

Released October 11^th, 2005 and updated March 30^th, 2006

Performance Enhancements

Save As Values function is faster for all supported versions of Excel. It is dramatically faster for Excel 2002 (XP) and 2003.
Significant speed enhancement when refreshing workbooks that contain Office Connector formulas that are adjacent to queries.

Other Improvements

Improved feedback in the progress meter during refreshes.
Improved concurrency tracking – view the license information report to see how often you run out of concurrencies.
Improved tracing – all applications now write to a centralized trace log and additional tracing information has been added.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0012

New Features

Tutorial movies in the launch pad are updated, and new movies will automatically show up as they are added to the web site.
Persistent toolbar

The Office Connector toolbar can now be customized like Excel toolbars and menus.
The buttons now have transparent backgrounds in Office XP and above.
Excel loads faster and clipboard contention on Terminal Server environments has been eliminated.

Modified TSSum and TSCount so they return a zero when the table is missing and Ignore Missing Tables is checked.
Removed requirement to log in to Timberline to edit query SQL.
Now display query name in progress meter when refreshing.

Resolved Issues

License file now stores the zip code and country so you don’t have to enter it for every license key request
Web update feature now has updated license logic so server changes do not cause the license to be converted into an evaluation.
Lifted the requirement to supply an SMTP mail account in case the server does not require it.
Worked around issue in the ODBC driver where some tables would be missing when the short name to the data folder is used.

Other Improvements

Menu captions have been simplified
Modified ODBC DSN properties are now automatically corrected at startup.
Implemented a license registry to make it easier to keep track of which machines are using the software.
Implemented license logging to assist when troubleshooting licensing issues.
A message is now displayed after submitting a license key request letting you know if it was successful.
Now display an error message when the refresh of a query fails after editing the SQL.
Tracing

Modified tracing to show cell address and instance count for function evaluations.
Tracing can now be started and stopped in real-time, eliminating the need to restart the application.
Tracing is now centralized so all Event 1 applications will be interleaved into a single file.
The file format has been expanded to facilitate analysis in Excel and other tools.

Technical Support Email

Diagnostic files are now automatically moved to a zipped archive file after being submitted to technical support.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0005

New Features

Integrated email component

Does not require email to be set up in order to use technical support and licensing features.
Adds the ability to reference your support case number.
Eliminates false virus warnings caused by Microsoft’s MAPI.

Resolved Issues

Resolved an issue where stored activation codes could be displayed as 0000 in the Enter License Keys window.
Resolved an error message that would be displayed the first time using the wizard if GL was not installed.
Improved utilization of existing connections when switching between multiple data folders.

Other Improvements

Email and web update information for one Event 1 application is used as the default for any others that have not been set up, thus reducing set up time.
Toolbar and menu graphics and captions have been updated.
Improved the licensing window.
Added tracking and status information to facilitate troubleshooting for licensing.
Added logging for when the machine is unable to access Internet resources.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0003

Resolved Issues

Newly inserted queries can now be refreshed without having to save and reopen the workbook first.
Queries are now automatically refreshed after using the Edit QueryTable SQL feature.
Queries are now automatically refreshed upon opening a workbook with the “Persistent Cache” set to None or Write-Only.
Using Save As Values now removes all Office Connector custom workbook properties. This prevents a situation where a user with on old version of Office Connector who opens the spreadsheet would see a message about it having been saved in a newer version.
When switching data folders, the existence of visible TSWrite functions is verified before updating their results. This results in faster refresh times after switching data folders in workbooks that do not use TSWrite functions.

What’s New in Office Connector 2.00.0001

Office Connector – Write

Office Connector now features two “modules” – Query and Write. When you upgrade your Query license, you automatically get an evaluation license for Office Connector Write. For more information, please see the brochure or contact sales at http://www.event1inc.com/action/contacte1.htm.

New Features

Web Help – The help pages are now located on the Internet, allowing Event 1 to continually improve and update the documentation without requiring you to update your software
New Preferences

Persistent Cache lets you control how Office Connector optimizes your connection to Timberline. Previous versions used “Read and Write”, which was great for users who wanted to stretch their license concurrencies by working on local copies of the data. We have found that most users always want to see current data, and the new default of “None” speeds up opening and closing workbooks for them. Other settings simplify sharing workbooks with non-Timberline users and streamline demonstrating the software to others. See the new web help topic for more detail.
Ignore Missing Tables allows you to create a template for multiple data folders and skip the error messages when a folder does not contain all files used by the template.
Check for Updates allows you to check the Internet for updates by clicking a button or by having Office Connector do it automatically when Excel is opened.

New Menu Structure was introduced to organize Office Connector Query and Office Connector Write and to make the Help menu match the standard Event 1 Help menu.
The TSCustomCaption Function (Query Only) was added to give you access to customized field captions.
Operator Administrator Program allows you to grant or deny the use of Office Connector Query and Office Connector Write. For more information, please see the online help topic at http://www.event1inc.com/products/officeconnector/help/general_operator_admin.htm

New and Updated Templates

If you have customized the default templates and not renamed them, be sure to back them up before applying this update. If you want to guarantee that you get all of the updated templates, delete your existing XLT files from the Office Connector folder. The following templates were added or improved:

Query – AP Vendor Query, AP Year End, AR Aging by Customer, AR Aging by Customer (No retainage), GL Financial Statement, GL Trial Balance, JC GL Reconciliation, JC Work In Progress, PR Year End, TS Batch Analyzer, TS QuickView
Write - AP Invoice Approval, EQ Equipment Maintenance, GL Budget, JC Cost To Complete, JC Work In Progress, PJ Correspondence Log, PR Employee, PR Rate Table Rates, PR Union Items.

Other Improvements

Improved architecture reduces the need to frequently access Excel objects resulting in a 400% speedup in recalculating workbook functions.
Removed the obsolete message about selecting non-key fields in the Import wizard.
Clearer and more intuitive toolbar tips and labels.
The System Information report now contains additional items:

Links for support pages on the Internet
License information for Query and Write
Your MS Office version in plain English

Performance information such as the time it takes to refresh your data is recorded in the activity log.
Added enhanced technical support tools so we can resolve your issues sooner.
Improved tracing features to clarify what you have to do and to prevent accidentally leaving tracing on.

Resolved Issues

The Temp directory under Event 1\Common is now created automatically when Timberline is not installed or not reachable and a viewer license is needed.
The Select Query Table window is now centered instead of using the Windows default position.
Added compatibility to edit SQL text in Excel 97

What’s New in Office Connector 1.01.0006

New Features

Added a percent complete indicator to the progress meter when Office Connector is recalculating workbook functions.
Added support for editing query SQL in Excel 97.
Added support for named files that include spaces.
Added information regarding the status and location of MS Query to the Additional Information report.
Validation of license codes now tells the user which license code was invalid and sets the focus appropriately.
Now default to the active sheet when the user does not specify a sheet when prompted for a cell reference when the filter text exceeds Excel's limit of 255 characters for a function parameter.
When the current data folder is missing the underlying tables for queries, the user is now presented with the option to cancel recalculating the workbook formulas.

Resolved Issues

The WIP template now functions properly.
The toolbar now reappears when opening a new workbook after the Close Window button (the small ‘x’) was used to close all previously open workbooks.
The Office Connector “viewer mode” now protects the status of the license on the network should Timberline become available at a later time. The viewer mode allows the user to work out of the cache when Timberline is either not installed or is otherwise inaccessible.
Worked around an issue where Excel would sometimes evaluate cells in the wrong order causing Office Connector to prompt for a database connection even though the values exist in the cache.
Now display only one message when the wizard is used to create multiple workbook functions with criteria that return no results.
If the user deletes the word "Where" from the Advanced view of the query wizard, it is automatically restored.
Now prevent multiple error messages from being displayed when recalculating workbook formulas that use an invalid custom query.
Enhanced the logic regarding the clipboard being locked to work around a bug in Microsoft Terminal Services, which affected Citrix and Terminal Server environments, especially under high-traffic conditions:

Pushed the messaging for clipboard access problems from the add-in over to Office Connector so the user doesn't get messages from both the Excel side and the VB side.
Modified messaging logic for clipboard competition so that the message is only displayed once if the user clicks cancel (it could be displayed once per button otherwise).
Added the ability to set the threshold for how many retries Office Connector will make when the clipboard is locked. The default is 10.
Added the ability to totally suppress any messages about the clipboard being locked.

Fixed an issue where upon closing a workbook after having canceled out of the database sign-on, many entries would be written to the error log saying that there was not a valid TS.CTL file in the current directory.
Fixed a bug with Excel 2000 where Excel would prompt to save changes even though no changes were made.
Fixed failure to initialize workbook when MS Query was not installed.
Now prevent functions from evaluating twice when the workbook is opened from a workstation that has the add-in installed to a different location.

Other Improvements

Greatly enhanced performance for calculating formulas based on an invalid custom query by not writing messages to the error log and storing a collection of "known missing tables" to speed up the test for existence.
Enhanced tracing now integrates Excel events, messages displayed on the screen and error messages into a single file with the original Office Connector tracing information. Also augmented the core Office Connector tracing.
Added information about the license, Timberline and MS Query to the "unexpected situation" diagnostic files email attachment.
A message is written to the error log when the attempt to create the E1 DSN fails.

What’s New in Office Connector 1.00.0200

New Features

Improved Wizard UI

The exclude Duplicate Rows checkbox now always defaults to unchecked.
The Adjust Column Widths checkbox now always defaults to False.
The criteria panel now always defaults to Normal (grid-based) view, even when the Advanced view was used previously.
The Keys grid in the TSLookup wizard now defaults to “cell reference” and initializes the focus to the Value column.

Improved Licensing

Multiple license keys can now be entered in response to a single license key request email.
Added support for new license models – subscriptions and site licenses.
Added the ability to set the maintenance or subscription expiration to a specific date.
Improved and standardized the wording of messages across all Event 1 applications.
Implemented the “consultant’s license” feature to allow consultants to use their laptops at customer sites without affecting the customer’s license.

Improved Preferences

Added the ability to turn PushDownFilterSupport on and off from the Preferences window instead of having to use Regedit or merge the .REG file supplied by Timberline into the registry.
Added tooltips to the check boxes on the Advanced tab to help users understand what they do.

Improved “Additional Information” report

Replaced the simple message box with a fully formatted HTML report.
Added sections with information about Windows, Timberline, licensing and Office Connector.
Added a Support section with links to the Movies, Install Guide, Templates and Webex.

Enhanced security for QueryTable objects to eliminate a situation where a user could manually refresh a query to bypass the need for a password.
Office Connector will now automatically recognize and offer to apply the workaround for the bug in the 8.x Timberline ODBC where parameters don’t work. “Recognition” happens when a query fails to refresh and it uses parameters and the ODBC driver is older than 8.03.12.5910.
Added a new custom workbook property "PersistentCache" that controls how the persistent cache (cache worksheet) is handled. A setting of 0 prevents the cache from being used. A setting of 1 uses the cache for reading but does not update the cache when the workbook is saved. A setting of 2 is the default value, which reads and writes the cache worksheet in the same way as previous versions of Office Connector.

Updated Templates

JC Work In Process - The JTD Extras Work Billed and NM Extras Work Billed columns were pulling cost instead of work billed.
GL Trial Balance - The range of cells referenced in the SUM functions at the bottom was not getting updated correctly when the number of rows in the query changed. This was because the range of cells in the template only referred to one row, which would have made it appear as though the GL was out of proof even though it wasn't.

Resolved Issues

Restored Office 97 compatibility for QueryTables.
Fixed a bug where saving the workbook as a new name would prevent queries from refreshing until the workbook was reloaded.
Fixed a bug introduced in version 1.00.0190 where you could click a Wizard toolbar button, select data folder, cancel login and then the wizard toolbar buttons stop working.
Fixed a bug where selecting a data folder and then canceling the password prompt would leave "Connecting to Timberline..." in the Excel status bar.
Modified the sign-on logic to prevent extraneous messages from being written to the error log when the current directory is not a valid data folder.
The "Saving Cache" progress window is no longer displayed when there are no Office Connector data in the spreadsheet.

What's New in Office Connector 1.00.0194

New Features

Customer information is now stored in the license file so it only needs to be entered once.
Added "Reason for request" to the Request License Keys form and made other minor improvements.
Added support for hidden files and folders in the Timberline program directory and in the data folders.
Added ability to turn off "Adjust column width" in the query wizard.
Added "Preserve column sort/filter/layout" and "Preserve cell formatting" as defaults for queries.
Fixed icon captions for the tutorial movies.
Added ability to suppress maintenance expiration messages.

What's New in Office Connector 1.00.0190

New Features

Enhanced support for Excel 2003.
Enhanced support for named files.
Added toolbar button for editing preferences. You can now control web updates, the tech support toolbar and tracing functions from the new Preferences window.
Expanded the tech support toolbar to include buttons for opening the error, program and trace logs and the INI file.
The Configuration (INI) file is now included in the Tech Support email.

What's New in Office Connector 1.00.0185

New Features

Web-Update: Office Connector now automatically checks the web for updated versions at startup. You will be prompted if there is an update available. This feature can be turned of if desired. Please contact Event 1 support to disable the web update feature.
The Email Support feature now includes more support files and zips them all into a single attachment.
Added a checkbox to the Query and Fill Down wizards that allows you to control whether Excel will scoot existing columns and rows over to make room for the data or if the data simply overwrites anything in the way.
Added a prompt for a cell value when a function filter exceeds Excel's limitation of 255 characters.

Features For Advanced Users

Added a "Tracing" feature that allows you to see what functions are being executed and in what order. This feature can be turned on and off via the INI file. Call Event 1 if you need to use this feature.
Added the "TechSupport" toolbar, which adds buttons for editing QueryTable SQL, opening the error log, audit log and INI file. This feature can be turned on and off via the INI file. Call Event 1 if you need to use this feature.

Resolved Issues

The Tutorials now play correctly from the Launch Pad.
The TSDataFolder function result is now written to the cache. This resolves an issue where Office Connector would prompt for a database login even if all of the other required values were in the cache.
The TSDataFolder function no longer returns 0 if you pass True. Example: =TSDataFolder(TRUE).
Eliminated some unnecessary messages that were being written to the error log.