News and Blog
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That is not just a rhetorical question here at Escape. One of the things that shocked (yes, shocked) me when I started working for Escape was the high level of customer commitment. I wasn’t naïve, no, I had worked at a variety of companies, including two multinational corporations and an internet startup. I knew customers mattered, but I was taken aback by how much they mattered here. I watched people run around like chickens with their heads cut off because a customer made a mistake and called us to fix it. It was extraordinary, inspiring. |
And we are still doing it.
But, now we have more tools for getting feedback: county-wide user groups, individual customer user groups, email, telephone, customer portals, and, my topic today, polling during the release review.
In the 09.04 release review, we conducted a poll concerning the Cash Transaction Detail report. Survey says!! The consensus was that a balance forward row should be added to the report, and that is exactly what you will see in the 09.06 release.
In the 09.05 release review, we asked about training. The following is a graphic of those results. We even allowed customers to add to the list, so payroll and purchasing aren't in the graphic, but they are considered part of the poll.
So what are we going to do with this information? Well, we are using it to help us schedule webinars for next year. Obviously, there will be one for creating and maintaining user records. This topic's popularity was a bit of a surprise to us, so taking part in polls and surveys (which will begin conducting on our web site soon) will be very important to you and us.
Finally, you may have noticed that after every news article, we have a link for you to reply. Please, if you have a concern, an idea, or just a general comment, please contact us. We are listening.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Construction at our new office continues, and appears to be right on schedule. All of the office doors and windows have been installed, and painting is in progress. The design team chose three bold colors for our paint scheme, and it is looking good!
This is the new development area. That is Chad's office on the left.
This is the new support area. Ramona is walking past the breakroom.
At this point in the construction, most of the work must be done at night, so neighbor tenants are not disturbed. Floor coverings are to be installed over the next couple of nights, with finish electrical and touch up to follow. We will begin cubicle construction on the 28th, and move our furniture and equipment in on October 1st and 2nd. If all goes as planned, we should be settled in on Monday the 5th.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Accurate payroll is essential. Having a detailed process for comparing payroll between releases is one of our most critical testing processes. So, with every release that touches the payroll compute logic, we complete a testing procedure called Payroll Comparison for all LIVE customers. Here is a quick overview:
We do this for every release, but let’s take a closer look at the upcoming 9.6 release to see how it really happens.
Our first step is to indicate which change requests affect pay and what type of impact they may have. In release 9.6, there were 18 change requests that affected payroll, including PERS reduction labor distribution, marital status tax calculations for undeclared, and an option for allowing addons to be disassociated with a position (e.g., coaches and substitutes).
Obviously, you need to have current payroll data to test the changes. For this part of the procedure, we copy the customer’s live production database to a temporary database. If we are going to copy the database to our site, we scramble the database using a proprietary program that “mixes” the SSNs, names, addresses, and hundreds of other fields to protect the privacy of our customers and their employees.
We compute pay dates, including adjustments, for each live organization. This can be quite a chore; some of our county customers have dozens of organizations. We do this for each customer, regardless of whether they are a single district or an entire county-wide implementation.
Our next step is to backup the database for the current release, copy the database to a new location, and apply the changes for the new release. We have to do this so that we can have both sets of data for our compares.
Now that we have the same starting point, we compute pay dates AGAIN, including adjustments, for each organization.
We have developed a set of comprehensive scripts that compare both payrolls, indicating if there were any changes to retirement, deductions, contributions, net, or gross. If there are, then we research the differences. For example, in our first round of pay compares for release 9.6, we compared the payroll for all of our LIVE customers. One of our customers had substantial differences, so we forwarded them to the development team for fixes.
The answer is yes. We did it again, from the beginning. If we find differences that require programming, then the ENTIRE process starts all over again. We keep at it until we have a release that does not have any payroll differences that are undesirable.
But what if some of the differences are exactly what we want? This happens. For 09.06, there were a several differences that we consider enhancements, and we make note of them separately. Two of the customer databases had no differences. Six had one difference. The others had two to four differences. We explain these changes in the release notes.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
I'm happy to announce an addition to our ever growing family of customers: Santa Rosa Junior College, in Santa Rosa, CA. This is not our first Community College District. We have enjoyed working with South Orange County CCD for many years, although only with our Finance module. SRJC will be the first California Community College running our three core modules: Finance / HR / Payroll. We got the signed contract last week, and delivered a tentative project implementation plan at the same time! We have to get rolling quickly because they intend to be live July 2010.
We view this addition as another important chapter in our effort to serve educational organizations. Community Colleges have relatively few choices when it comes to financial systems, and those are extremely expensive. Once we are proven at SRJC, Escape will provide another alternative for Community College Districts. We have been working with the staff at SRJC for some time, and we know we are headed to a great working relationship with them. Just like K-12's, CCD's work with their COE's. The Escape Online 5 system being viable for CCD's will be an asset to COE's as well. |
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Everyone here at Escape is excited to be working with our new organization, and their addition to our amazing group of customers - the Escape Family. Welcome!
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With budget negotiations and union contracts making changes to pay, it can be hard to keep track what goes into effect and when. As a productivity hound, I use calendar reminders from Outlook and my cell phone to help me keep track, but that is not very efficient when it comes to changing hundreds of employees records. What you need and what you get with Escape Online is an effective date (and its associated end date). Escape Online’s payroll computes are based on effective dates of payroll records -- addons, benefit providers, dependents, employee info, pay cycles, taxes, retirement, ach, deductions and contributions, just to name a few. So, for example, an employee wants you to change the tax setup, but not until June, what would you do? |
Easy, you open the employee’s current Tax record, indicate it ends on May 31, save it, and then copy it to a new record. Escape Online automatically enters a begin date of June 1, no end date, and all of the information from the prior record. All you have to do is make the change as requested and forget it. On the June payroll, Escape Online uses the “new current” record automatically, with no user intervention.
As if that isn’t enough, you also get the added benefit of a history record. So, if the employee forgets about the change and calls you wondering why pay is different, you can look at the setup and see which changes were made and when.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Construction at the new office is really “moving” along! All of the new office walls have been framed, the electrical is done, and the drywall has been added. They are in the process of texturing the drywall and painting the walls. Next week, new interior doors and windows will go in, then floor coverings. It is really looking great, and appears that we are on schedule for an end of month move.
The painters are making great progress. Chad's and Bill's new offices have walls.
We have had a good response to our offer to give cubicles and furniture to customers and neighbors. Our one stipulation has been that our professional mover be used to move the furniture, to minimize impact on the building and our construction project. We still have quite a few cubicles available. If you have an interest, email me.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Construction of our new office suite began last week, with the disassembly and storage of the furniture in the suite. The contractor then removed the old carpet and cabinets, and cleaned the suite out. On Friday they began construction by framing the walls for additional offices and meeting rooms, and divided a couple of large work rooms into offices. Today they are wiring the new walls for electrical and data, and moving air conditioning vents and light fixtures. So far we are right on schedule for a move at the end of September.
This is the new customer support area. Those two offices at the end are Bob and Ramona's.
Here is the new area for developers. There is more room, less noise. Nice!
Our QA team will also be located in the developer's area. They will be at the far right in the picture above with a wall separating the R&D offices from the main room.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Remember how last week I told you that I had to dig and dig to find the release notes for the program I use. Well, I am sure that sometimes you feel that way about Escape Online documentation, especially the tutorials. You also may remember that I had a special project I was working on to make it easier to find tutorials and allow us to make tutorials that are not associated with an activity. |
The time has come. In the upcoming v3.09.06 release, we will be introducing a new “module” called Online Resources. The module is basically a list of links to web pages. Already we have created links to the Escape Online Knowledge Base, Friday Features, Release Notes, Tutorials and Newsletters. And, we introduced a new idea, called Escape Guides. This contains links to all of our handy dandy training handouts, like requisition processing, Escape Keys and the role matrix.
Now these resources are one click away, launching just like any other activity in your work space.
No longer will you have to go to our web site or search through activities, everything will be right there. Plus, we set it up in such a way that it will be updated in real-time. After Terri and I finish recording the Top 10, you will see a link to it next time you select the Release Information activity.
Note: Online Resources will be available only in the 3.09.06 software (.Net 3.5). It will not be available in the 1.09.06 version.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
The prior tenant had vacated without removing the furniture, so we were able to acquire all that we needed for next to no cost. For example, the conference room had a fabulous conference table that was wired for computers, a matching credenza, a drop down projection screen, and a room full of nice conference chairs! We also acquired many nice storage and file cabinets, and desk chairs for every employee. So with our existing cubicles, we are pretty well set. We are storing all of the furniture right on site during construction, so the move should be relatively easy.
As part of the furniture “deal” we made with the prior tenant, we acquired about fifty, yes fifty, cubicles complete with desks, filing cabinets and overhead storage. Since we already have an office full of nice cubicles which we will move, this furniture is surplus to us. We have put the word out to some local school districts, as well as some of the other tenants in our complex. There is no reason to not share in our good fortune, so we are giving the cubicles away without charge. Need a cubicle or two?
Our new conference table will accommodate groups of all sizes.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
In my last blog entry I announced that Escape is moving to new offices in October. We actually began the process early this year, “shopping” for space in a number of office complexes in the Roseville area. Some of the considerations were size of the space, usable layout, an acceptable conference room, and of course rent rate. In the current economy we had a lot of choices! When we had identified the best options, we surveyed our employees to see what was most important to them. They wanted to stay in our current neighborhood, reduce the noise level in the office, and have plenty of conference and meeting rooms for training and meeting with customers. They also wanted it to be easy for customers to find, have plenty of parking for visitors, and have good restaurants close by.
After looking closely at several offices in the neighborhood, we settled on a complex right next door to our current one! The address is 3721 Douglas Blvd, Suite 250. Below is an aerial photo showing our original Roseville office at 3017 Douglas (1993-2006), our current office at 3009 Douglas (2006-2009), and our new office (2009-2015).
This is an overhead view of our moves and the new building. You can see the patio
from yesterday's blog to the right of our new building.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
If you have been associated with Escape for any length of time, you have probably noticed that our address has changed a few times over the years. Generally we have moved our offices as a result of company growth, but not always. Our last move, a couple of years ago, was into a current office space. Just as our lease was coming to an end at 3017 Douglas Blvd, an amazing short term sublease opportunity came up at 3009 Douglas. Although we would be a bit cramped compared to our former space, we saved substantially on rent, which we then put to use with additional employees to serve our customers.
We have now reached the end of that sublease, and just in the nick of time. We continue to add employees, and are literally busting at the seams. We need more space! So, we are moving to a new office suite at the beginning of October, with a long term lease and plenty of room to grow.
The patio outside our new building at 3721 Douglas Boulevard.
I am acting as coordinator for the move effort, and have begun the process of preparing the new suite for Team Escape. I will keep you updated on progress via this blog as we go. Stay tuned…
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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I have a confession: I don’t like reading release notes. I know, I know, it’s my job to write them, but still… they are a pain to wade through. You may remember, last month I upgraded the software I use to write the documentation. Their release notes are 50 pages!! I thought that was a bit excessive, so I didn’t read them. I just upgraded and started using the new software even though it looked completely different. Guess what? I had trouble finding things and I felt very angry about how THEY jacked up MY program. |
Finally, I was so frustrated, I broke down and read the release notes (once I finally found them in an obscure directory on my hard drive). Oh my gosh, there are really cool features in this release, features that are going to make my job tons easier. And, I mean tons. I have new workspace options, saving me countless keystrokes. I can create documentation for new Escape Online features, put them in the appropriate book, but exclude them from publication until they are ready for prime time. That alone will save hours of note taking, tracking and review time.
So here I am eating humble pie and telling you, even if you don’t “have the time,” getting to know how the latest features work is worth it. Escape Online makes it fairly easy too with different formats to fit your schedule. First and foremost, we don’t go on and on and on for 50 pages, the release notes are available through the software, we have a release review, and now we have Terri and Leslie’s Top 10. Take a moment; learn from my mistake. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Stay tuned. Next week I will give you a sneak preview of a new feature that is going to put release notes, tutorials, newsletters and other communications ONE CLICK away.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Today, September 1st marks Carole’s 15th anniversary with Escape Technology. Unfortunately for us Carole is not in the office today, instead she is at Sonoma County Office of Education doing HR/Payroll training. We didn’t want the day to go unrecognized so we arranged for flowers to be delivered to her while she was onsite...boy was she surprised! Later in the day she received another surprise when the Sonoma COE staff had their own celebration for her!
Carole joined Team Escape in the summer of 1994. Born and raised in California, her professional life has been dedicated to school business. She has worked at two different Sacramento area school districts as a Fiscal Services Director and Budget Analyst.
Carole has worked with nearly all our customers over the past 15 years. If you would like to wish her well, drop an email to Carole. Thanks for a great 15 years Carole and here’s to 15 more!
P.S. For anyone that doesn’t know, Carole is how I found out about Escape 2½ years ago, we met at a social event, and well, the rest is history!
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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