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I have been going on and on about the new document viewer in Escape Online. Now, I am going to tell you about my favorite feature, emailing. Of course, you can forward Escape Online reports from the My Reports activity. And, of course, you can distribute reports, taking advantage of user-based filtering. But, nothing beats the convenience of email.

There are two ways to do this. You can email the report in its native format, EODF (Escape Online Document File), or you can email the report as a PDF.

Let’s talk about the EODF format first. Undoubtedly, this is the easiest. All you have to do is click the Email icon. Escape Online automatically launches your email software, creates an email, and attaches the report.

One click. Easy.

The only downside is that the recipient of the email must also have the Document Viewer. This means that at some time, they installed Escape Online. The upside is that they don’t have to have Escape Online open. They just click the report and it will open in the Document Viewer.

The other method is for your recipients that are not and never have been Escape Online users (like a vendor maybe). In that case, you want to send it as a PDF.

Select the Open in Adobe Reader from the File menu. This is going to do exactly what it sounds like.

Escape Online launches the Adobe Reader with the report open.

Now, you click the Email icon in the Adobe Reader and then click the Attach button.

Once you click those two buttons, the Adobe Reader automatically launches your email software, creates an email, and attaches the report.

Not exactly one click, but still pretty darn easy.  And, it gives you the flexibility you need to send reports to non-Escape users.

All in all, that is something to write home about.

Last March, we replaced the Adobe Reader as our primary report viewer with a more stable proprietary document viewer.  Now that I have used it for a few months, I have to say I just love it.
The original reason we went to the new Escape Online Document Viewer was to put reports in a separate window so you could look at your report and the software AT THE SAME TIME.

While this is most awesome, this change was more than just window dressing, so to speak.  For the next few weeks, I am going to break down the great new document viewer features (export formats, printer preferences, and emailing).

Let’s start with the export formats.

Now, you can export your reports in so many different ways, the data is simply available to ANY other software.  Some packages, like Microsoft Word and Excel, we support outright, but others can use one of the many export formats.

Check it out.

This is quite a list! Some of these you are already familiar with, like the Excel (looks just like the report but is in Excel) and Excel Data (in a spreadsheet format with only one header and no totals or subtotals).

Of course, there is PDF (which is just like you had before) and Word and RTF which both import nicely into word processing software.

Next are the XML, HTML, CSV and Text options.  These are great for all of those “other” programs. For example, say that I want to display Escape Online data on a web site.  The XML and HTML data would be perfect.

On the other hand, maybe I want to manipulate the data in iWork.  The CSV or Text options may be the best way to get the data ready for import.

The thing is, for the majority of reports, we have all of the output formats you need to get the data where it needs to be in the format it needs to be in.

But, of course, that’s not all. Next week, we will talk more about displaying the reports in the viewer and emailing reports to others (Escape and non-Escape users)!

One of the things I love about Escape Online 5 is how it has features that cover both small and large districts. Case in point, the Approval Dollar Max in workflow approvals for vendor requisitions.
Of course all districts want to approve requisitions, but some really really big districts divvy up that chore by dollar amounts. Let’s take a look.

This is an example of a workflow approval path for vendor requisitions. It contains many levels, which the requisition works its way through before the item is ordered and the money is spent. The levels are in order, but contain room for growth (notice now the levels jump from 20 to 40) in case new processes need to be put in place.

So let’s walk through it. The first workflow approval level is 10.  This is where the budget people take a look and see if it is okay. Then, the purchasing people take a gander to make sure that the item prices are realistic. Now we get to the meat of the approval process.

First, the principal approves everything for less than $1K. If it is more than that, the department managers need to take a look at it, up to $5K. If it is more than that, then the Assistant Superintendent needs to get involved and ultimately, if it is $15k or over, the Superintendent needs to give their stamp of approval.

So if you have a requisition for $3K, it will need approval from Fiscal, Purch, and Dept Manager. It will not route to the Principal because it is over the maximum, and it will not route to the Asst. Superintendent or the Superintendent because it is below the minimum.

This type of leveling helps everyone focus on what is important, and frees them from having to review and approve requisitions that others can safely approve.

Of course, this is a fairly complex approval setup and many districts won’t need to go this far, but that is the beauty of it.  The workflow approval path can be for only one level and one person for all amounts for those smaller districts, or it can take into consideration the involved budgeting of large districts.

Life doesn’t always fit nicely into a fiscal year. Sometimes you think you are ordering just what you need, but you come to find out it is more than you need. If the items you order come from your stores warehouse, how does Escape Online handle that return during year end?

Well, that is up to your department’s standards. Escape Online gives you two ways to manage the process. You can force all stores returns to post to the current year. Or, you can allow stores returns to post to the year from which they were ordered.

Obviously, forcing all returns to the current year means that if I order an item in May 2011/2012 and return it in July 2012/2013, the return will be posted in 2012/2013.

But, what if 2011/2012 is still open?  Why not have that return to post to that prior year?  Why not, indeed!  That is what the Prior Year Returns flag in the Department record is all about.  Check it out.

If you set this flag to Post to Current Year, the reversing expense journal entry is created in the current fiscal year.  But, if you set the flag to Post to Prior Year, the reversing expense journal entry is created in the prior fiscal year, as long as it is still open.

This flexibility at the department level is awesome because while purchasing may want to have stores returns  journaled to last year, the food services department may not.

And, that fits nicely into any organization’s standards.

Last week, I talked about approving requisitions quickly by taking advantage of the a direct edit list. This week, I want to spotlight how you create that list, because it is that time of year where you need to focus on wrapping up current-year requisitions. And, that means approvals need to be addressed without delay! The Approve Requisitions activity helps you with this by giving you lots and lots and lots of search criteria. Most importantly, you can filter your list by fiscal year and include/exclude requisitions that are on hold.

If you only have one day left to approve requisitions for this year, you don’t want your list to be cluttered by all of those requisitions people are entering for next year.

AND, you especially don’t want to ignore those requisitions that have been put on hold. Just because they were put on hold doesn’t mean that they don’t have to be dealt with. Quite the opposite. You need to figure out how to get them off hold and through the year-end process.

See how you can specify the fiscal year and set the flag to include requisitions on hold?

Escape Online helps by defaulting to the current fiscal year, but of course you can change this at any time.

In fact, you can change any of the search criteria to focus your list even more for all of those last-minute requisitions.

And, of course, you can always save your search criteria as a favorite and use quick links to jump start your list without delay!

The majority of these fields were added to the Approve Requisitions activity at the request of Sacramento City Unified School District with several other customers seconding (or voting) for the change. With Sac City having 47,900 students on 81 campuses, you can imagine the number of requisitions that need to be approved at any given time, especially in the last few weeks of the fiscal year. 

Remember way back in January when I talked about rolling forward accounts? Escape Online has the same type of functionality for position assignments. Just like accounts, position assignments need to be rolled forward every year. Escape Online has an automated process which copies the assignment from the current fiscal year to the new fiscal year. And it is really easy to use. Check it out!

You simply select the option and Escape Online does the rest!

When deciding what to copy, Escape Online considers step and column movement, assignment cancellations, position termination dates, and employee termination dates. And, the copy process is smart enough to ignore supplemental days, ensuring that you don’t give unintended “extra” days next year.

Speaking of extras, it also writes to the form the date of the roll forward and who did it. AND, it writes a history message to the next fiscal year, detailing what was rolled forward and, more importantly, what wasn’t rolled forward and why (e.g., you manually edited the assignment in the new fiscal year).

As you can surmise from the highlights on the screen capture above, the roll forward process can be done again and again. So as you change calendar setup, you can roll forward again to make sure you catch all of your changes!

It was Benjamin Franklin that said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Yet even in its certainty, taxes are not static. The government changes them. The employee changes them. How is a payroll tech to keep track of the changes?

Of course, the majority of records connected with paying employees through Escape Online are date based and that is half the battle. But, keeping track of “why” you made the change and explaining that change to an employee (even when the employee is the one who requested the change!) can tax a person’s memory (pun intended!).

That is why we added a comment to the employee’s tax record. Check it out!

You can enter up to 60 characters to record why a change was made: a change in marital status, an added tax amount, or even a recording of a lock-in letter from the IRS.

Plus, you can search for employees by these comments. All you have to do is enter a word, and Escape Online will display all employees with that “word” in the comment of their tax record.

Now that’s a certainty!

The reason for entering an expiration date into an account is to keep users from using that account after that date. But how does the user know if the account is expired?

Luckily, Escape Online warns users. As a payment reaches each milestone, Escape Online warns the user if the status of the account has changed.

When a user creates a payment, submits a payment, or approves a payment, Escape Online takes action if one of the accounts is expired:

• Create Payment – Puts the payment on hold automatically, giving you the opportunity to resolve the issue.
• Submit/Approve Payment – Warns you, but allows you to continue processing as normal.

In all cases, a history record is written to the payment record listing the expired accounts.

This is just what users need: timely information that gives them the opportunity to make informed decisions!

NOTE:  This new functionality was part of the 12.01 release because it was one of the top 5 requests that Escape Online customers wanted!

Last week, I talked about the new Seniority Rank field in the Employee record. In that post, I briefly mentioned the Seniority Dates Extract (Employee59) report.

This is an exciting new report that really deserves more than just a few words. So let’s take a closer look.

Like so many of Escape Online’s extract reports, the Seniority Dates Extract automatically launches an Excel spreadsheet with data that you can slice and dice any way you want.

Check it out.  There are so many ways to filter the extract that you can make the perfect set of data for your analysis.

Plus, did you notice that some of the fields have an “s” in parentheses? Oh yeah, that means that you can select multiple items from the lookup.

So, if you want only three bargaining units to show up in the data, you can select those three from the bargaining unit lookup and the report will filter out any employees that do not belong to one of those bargaining units!

The extract includes dozens upon dozens of columns, with everything from the seniority rank field you read about last week to credential information to custom information that only applies to your organization to job category/class.

Getting the data you want in the format you want is powerful, and this is one powerful extract.