News and Blog
March 2008
Release v08.02
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008
A New Month and a New Release!
Yes, every month Escape is delivering features and functions using our new release process.
This release included 109 changes! Some were custom, but the majority (84) were for each and every one of you:
- 30 changes to Finance
- 53 changes to HR/Payroll
- 1 to our infrastructure (job throttler)
Quick Links
Here are some quick links for the release that went out earlier this week:
Summary of Major Enhancements
This release includes some impressive Finance and report enhancements:
- Color Coded Purchase Orders - We have updated the standard purchase order so that if you print copies, they will automatically be color coded! If there is more than one message for a PO copy, the copies are color coded. The color is determined by the position of the copy’s text in the copy caption. The first copy text is white (no color, normally the Vendor copy), the second is blue, third is green, fourth is pink, and fifth is yellow.
- Approvals! - Approvals can be very complex, so we have added responsibility levels and overrides, so each user can grant approvals in a timely manner.
With the new “may” and “must” logic, you can have several approvers where any one of them MAY approve the requisition and move it to the next level. OR, you can have an approver (like the principal) that MUST approve every requisition.
Also in this release, you can give users the ability to override the "check for sufficient funds" feature. This bypasses the budget check and sets the status to Submitted.
- Fixed Assets - Now you can search for assets by asset Id or tag number, using a number, a series of numbers or a range.
- Faster Position Loading - With year end near, you need to be able to quickly go through your positions. To speed up the loading of the form, we have moved the "assignment load" to the tab. Our testing showed more than a 50% improvement in load time. We think you will really see a difference!
- More Search Fields - We have added dozens of fields to the Employee Payroll Setup search, including date-based searches, tax entries and more!
And much, much more. Please feel free to post comments and questions about this release. We are always interested in your feedback!
Questions and Answers about Release v1.08.02
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Terri Hammond
Always on the cutting edge, we have begun testing a new way of letting users know about what went into the latest release. Last month and again this month, we will be hosting webinars for a limited number of individuals to tell them about the release.
This last month, we had four customers join us. The presentation went very well, but there are still a few things we need to do to improve it before we roll it out to all customers.
Nevertheless, there were some great questions submitted through the chat box that is available during the webinar. We thought everyone would be interested in the questions and the answers.
We will post next release’s question and answers and give more information about rolling out this opportunity to all of our customers.
Q – Who do I contact to get the colors on my PO?
A – Contact Escape Customer Care or your project manager.
Q – Is the % search documented anywhere?
A – This was actually pointed out to us by a customer! Because Escape Online 5 uses a SQL backend, it accepts some SQL commands. This is an example of how it accepts the “LIKE” command (%).
This will be documented in the Escape Basics chapter. In fact, the section on Searching has been completely rewritten to point out all the different ways to search and give you some pointers on creating great searches.
Q – Do I have to do anything to correct my PERS restricted flags on accounts that are currently incorrect?
A – The database update scripts used to install the latest version fixed this for you automatically.
Q – In the employee search, I see a new one - "is employee" - how does the software know that, and who would not be an employee?
A – In the employment status setup (HR/Setup/Employment/Employment Status), for each status, the user defines if this status is used for employees (is employee) and if employees in the status should be considered active (is active). This makes it easy to select active employees, without selecting several different statuses. Examples of non- employees: volunteers and retirees on benefits.
Q –Where are the new Group and Sequence fields located?
A – These are the new Group and Sequence fields for the deductions. Go to the HR/Payroll-Setup- Deductions Management activity. On the Org Deduction tab, the fields are the third and fourth fields down on the left of the form.
Q – When creating a new assignment record thru the employee and position activity, the Assignment Type, PTW Flag, and Charge benefits fields are not required. Release notes indicate these fields are required. What is going on here?
A – These fields contain default values. So while you may change these values, you may not “clear” all values. Thus, these fields are required.
Q – When copying an existing addon record, the system does default the begin date to the next open pay date, however this does not happen when creating a new addon record. What is going on here?
A – This was a mistake. It did not pass testing. We will review our processes to ensure this passes testing.
Q – I created a position associated with a Position Type that states NO in the MAX Hours Override field. Yet, I’m still able to view the Hours per Day field in the position detail for Pos #2 (it is not hidden, as it should be, per the release notes).
A – This was a mistake in the release notes. The fields are locked not hidden.
Q – Can you elaborate about the change for timecard assignments?
A – If you had an employee with a timecard assignment, pay computes were getting foreign key constraint errors. This is no longer occurring.
Q –Can you elaborate about the change for employees with no assignments?
A – This was for employees that have health/welfare (benefits) only, like board members. They have no assignments and no addons. Previously, the system was automatically assigning them to a bargaining unit and applying caps. This is no longer occurring.
Q – Would I want to take advantage of separate sequences for vendor payroll checks?
A – Probably not. This is only for customers that have custom checks vendor payroll checks, separate from employee pay checks and AP checks. It does not apply to most customers. It would require custom programming and a change in your current processes.
Q – What is this about IOT journal entries?
A – IOT journal entries are county journal entries that transfer money from the organization to the county (or another designated organization). The journal entries are only produced when the Vendor Check field in the contribution or deduction record is set to T (Liability Transfer). The journal entries are created during payroll processing.
This change request is about the comment of the journal entry. You can see this by going to the Finance-Fiscal-Journal Entries activity and reviewing an interorganization journal entry after a pay date processed with the new release.
Q – I ran the Pay24 Earnings History report with a date range from 12/1/07-6/30/08 for Emp ID# 169. Only data between December and January were stated. February – June data is missing, even though this date range has a status of “Future”. Am I misunderstanding this fix?
A – The change requested was aesthetic (whether or not zero totals or an asterisk should print). It should not have affected the data that was output. Please contact your customer support rep.
Q – Can you tell me more about the editing logic for benefit providers?
A – Previously, setup records were locking based on manual pay dates. Since these can be set up far in advance, the software should only lock fields based on pay from regular payrolls. This is now the case.
Q – How do I add to the Bank Account lookup in the Print Checks activity?
A –You don’t have to add the banks. Escape has developed a “smart” Bank Account lookup. When you open the search form, Escape Online automatically searches for checks in a status of Pending or Insufficient Funds (so we can check again for sufficient funds!), and displays any banks found in those check records in the lookup.
Q – Can I see a sample of the Health and Welfare journal entry?
A – Some customers do not want to post the ER portion of Health and Welfare through payroll, and choose to build a journal entry with another process. If you want more information about this, contact your Customer Care Rep.
Q – Is there anything I need to do before I create an Original Budget Model?
A – There is a lot of setup that needs to be done before an Original Budget Model can be created and changes be made. You have to setup your calendars, pay cycles, pay schedules, roll forward assignments, etc. Our Year End Reference manual has a very handy section describing this process in detail. The section is called “Preparing for Next Year”.
Q – Loading vacancies into a budget model did not affect any accounts? Was this due to setup?
A – Escape Online had a problem where Vacancies were not being loaded into Budget Management. This is fixed now. You should be able to load vacancies. If you need any help loading vacancies, please contact Escape Customer Care.
Q – How exactly does budget versioning work?
A – Setting versions is similar to creating a backup restore point in Windows. For example, I open a model, make a 5% change, save as Version 1, then make 10% change, save as Version 2, make 15% change, save as Version 3. Then I decide I want to rollback Version 1 (rolling back Version 1 will rollback Version 3 and Version 2 as well.), this means I will be back at my original point once I roll back Version 1 – just the model, with no changes. In other words, by rolling back a Version, I will be restoring my model to the state it was in before the changes were made and a Version was created.
If you have Version 1, Version 2, Version 3, and Version 4 and you decide to rollback Version 3, it will rollback Version 4 and Version 3, so you will be at the point where you left off after Version 2 was saved.
Visiting Ventura County Office of Education
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Barry Collins
This week I visited Ventura County Office of Education with Carole Williams, project manager, and Chad Guest, VP of Software Development. This week marks the first live payroll for this phase of their implementation, which includes a number of the County’s larger districts. I made the visit to support Carole’s efforts, observe the implementation process during this critical period, and come away with “lessons learned” that will help to improve the process for future projects.
Today is payroll day for this rollout. Overall, things have gone very well this week. There have been some problems, in software and data, but Chad has been right on top of all the issues, and Carole has been keeping everyone moving forward. All the payrolls have been processed; checks and advices have been printed. Everyone here has been very involved and supportive, and I sense great excitement having reached this milestone!
Check out Dody Blankenburg and Carole Williams scanning through the checks and advices!
As usual, Carole is doing a fantastic job, and VCOE is very appreciative of her efforts.
Thanks Carole!
Happy Spring from Escape Technology!
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Bob Towery
First County-wide Payroll!!
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Ramona Marshall
As March progresses, we are celebrating and breathing a sigh of relief as the Placer County Office of Education (PCOE) has successfully completed their first payroll and supplemental payroll on Escape Online 5. This would not have been possible without countless hours of tenacity and determination from the Placer county districts, PCOE employees, and Escape team members.
The district’s staff had a big challenge to learn and implement Escape Online 5, which is quite a different, much more automated system than what they were used to. Kudos to all of them and of course our partners at PCOE who stepped up to the challenge at hand by establishing the end goal and keeping the team focused along the way. It isn't easy being the first COE to use a new payroll system county-wide. As usual, the Escape ‘Dream Team’ pulled together as needed to help support Kathy Carlson in order to get everything done on time. Escape has many implementations in progress and the use of teamwork is proving invaluable.
The last day of the PCOE February End of Month (EOM) payroll was "busy." As thousands of payroll compute requests reached the PCOE servers, Escape’s software had its biggest real world test. Because things don't usually go perfectly in their first big test, and it didn't, PCOE employees and the Escape team worked together to isolate and correct both software issues and database issues that were slowing the system down. Escape did a forensic analysis on how the system performed under this load and made some software and process changes accordingly. Needless to say the second payroll went on without any issues, as each one will from here on out.
I always like numbers to provide perspective, so let’s see what the numbers look like:
10,780 Employees paid
$31,038,700.08 Gross Pay
846 Vendor checks printed
$ 338,390.18 Vendor checks total
$ 15,182,980.90 Vendor Liabilities
Only as a result of teamwork we were able to accomplish this huge task. Thanks to all for making this possible!!
Our Baby's One Year Birthday
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Bob Towary
It seems like just yesterday you were born. Of course, it was an unusually long gestation, 5 years, and the birth was difficult.
Still, on the first anniversary of your birth at Dublin USD, we want to congratulate you, Escape Online 5. You are growing up to be quite a productive member of the family. Your friends at Dublin have now been joined by over 30 other districts, and they love you just as much.
Just remember to keep working late, no rest for you. Do everyone else's homework for them. We have hundreds more districts for you to go to work in, so you are going to be one busy baby. The only reports we want to get about you are GOOD reports, and lots of them. Feel free to play nicely with everyone's computer! Now that you have had your cake, get back to work!
What it's like demoing Escape Online 5
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Bob Towery
Over the past month, the Escape Demo team has visited no less than six county offices of education! With another coming up shortly.
Demos are difficult, the system is so large in scope that even with an entire day, we cannot show nearly enough functionality. Each person has certain questions they would like answered, we want to give everyone their fair share.
Even so, they are usually quite fun and informative. It's great to be out with school business professionals.
This week's demo brought something new. One CBO wrote the following note and passed it to the COE IT director:
He told me about it, and I asked if I could have the note.
It's not every day you get a compliment like this. I hope all our demo attendees are similarly impressed.
Beginning the Journey
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Barry Collins
In my previous blog entry, I discussed my desire to visit our customers that have or will soon convert to Escape Online 5 to see how they are doing, share what Escape is up to, and facilitate improving our product and service. Last week I made my first customer visits, spending time at four Los Angeles area customers.
Three of those customers, Citrus CCD, Pasadena CCD, and Hawthorne ESD have converted from Classic to Online 5. El Monte City SD is currently in the process of converting. In every case I found enthusiasm for the new product, feedback that will help us to improve the product, and opportunities to provide tips regarding use of the software. I was also able to share with them what our development priorities are and describe the changes within Escape Customer Care that will help us better serve them.
This first trip absolutely confirmed the value of face time with customers. I am now working to turn the great suggestions into software, pass what I learned on to our team, and schedule my next trip. Stay tuned!
Customer Care and Testing Update
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Ramona Marshall
Our last blog left off with news of some organizational changes and that I’d provide more specifics on Customer Care and IT.
As part of our effort to organize our upcoming implementations, Jennifer Escamilla has been promoted to Manager of Customer Care and Testing and will be responsible for managing the day to day activities of the support team and directing the testing efforts of our monthly releases.
Jennifer was a natural choice for this position since she has worked primarily in Customer Care for the 7 years she has been at Escape, is a resident expert in HR/Payroll and she has an affinity for testing.
Consolidating these two disciplines into a single team under Jennifer will provide centralized accountability for the quality of the software before it leaves Escape and supporting it once it’s out the door. Julie Leaman (Dippold), Elen Meltonyan and Robin Dutton are the friendly voices you continue to hear when you call in with questions, whereas Stephanie Fury plays a more behind the scenes role, performing unit testing and integration testing of our monthly releases.
Now IT….Mike Long is a Certified Microsoft Professional and is in his 9th year here at Escape as our Systems Manager. As we are now transitioning into implementation mode with Online 5, he is spending significant time working with our Project Managers on their implementations and with the support and testing team on fine tuning our monthly releases.
Some of Mike’s goals over the next couple of months are to upgrade our existing infrastructure, automate the install process of our monthly software releases, increase his expertise in SQL administration and keep a watchful eye on upcoming technology.
Next month we’ll give an update on Documentation and Training!
Journey to Escape Online 5
Dateline: Roseville - March 2008 - Barry Collins
Readers of this blog know that we are now having quite a bit of success with implementations of Escape Online 5 at both new and existing customers. And it’s no overnight success. We began in 1999, with research into development of a browser based application, but the platform proved to be inadequate for our product.
We regrouped in 2002, beginning development of Online 5, a true Windows application. Before we knew it, we had invested five years and several million dollars in development of all Escape modules! But when we showed Online 5 to customers and prospects, they confirmed that we were achieving our goal - the "ultimate school business system."
In 2006 we began converting existing customers and ramping up our sales effort. The response was overwhelming! Everyone who saw the software wanted it, and wanted it now. Between existing and new customers, our implementation resources were quickly overwhelmed. Our customer care team had been well trained, since they led the test effort for the new product, but it wasn’t long before the demand for implementation and support exceeded our capacity. And the line of customers to be implemented was getting longer – something had to give!
With the addition of a Chief Operating Officer, increased support staff, and better use of project management principles, we have been able to increase productivity and develop a workable implementation schedule. Additionally, these changes have given me the opportunity to do something I value - visit customers to see how they are doing, share what Escape is up to, and facilitate improving our product and services. I am now scheduling visits to all Classic and Online5 customers, starting with those that converted from Classic to Online 5 in 2007. Over the next several months, I hope to visit every customer.
Keep checking the Journey to Escape Online 5 blog as I detail my travels, sharing my observations and experiences on site.
Thanks in advance to all of our customers for your hospitality and continued support of Escape.
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