polytrope > cmassistant > update >

CMAssistant: What's new in CMAssistant 6.3

Do you need to read this?

This article is addressed to all new users of CMAssistant 6.3 and in particular to users who are already familiar with CMAssistant 6.0. The best way to read this article is with the new version of CMAssistant open in front of you as you read. You can then read a section, jump over to CMAssistant and see how things work for yourself, then come back here.

CMAssistant 6.3's new "user interface"

Well, we thought nothing could be easier than 1-2-3, but it turns out that we were wrong. We now have the user feedback to confirm that this is easier:

 

Users of previous versions of CMAssistant 6.0: notice that the 1 2 3 buttons are gone (upper left corner) and in their place are just two buttons with plain English names: Setup and Delivs. The Setup button takes you to all of the tabs that you used to have to click the 1 and/or 2 buttons to get to. Now, all the setup tabs are in one place:

 

 

Finally, note that, in the upper left corner, there aren't two buttons, there's just one, "Delivs" - the one you actually need if you want to switch out of setup.

The key to (nearly) everything: the "find same data" button

CMAssistant 6.3 works in many respects just like CMAssistant 6.0. But in 6.1, you will spend most of your time right in 3/Delivs and you'll be able to do just about everything there without having to hope over to separate Locations or Drops records all the times. In fact, the Locs and Drops tabs have been removed from "area 3" and the only tab you see is Delivs.

The key to using the new Delivs screen is the return of the "same data" or equals-sign  =  button in lists. Here's a screen shot of the new Delivs screen, with some of the  =  buttons circled.

Clicking an  =  button causes CMAssistant to find and display records with the same data as the data next to the  =  button that you clicked. For example, in the Date Deliv column in the screen shot above, if you click the  =  button next to the date "9/10/08", you'll find all deliveries made on September 10, 2008.

If you are an old CMAssistant hand, you may recognize this = button. We've used this user-interface device in the past. NOTE: The screen shots on this page have been taken during the development process that lead to CMAssistant 6.3. Things may have changed slightly since these screen shots were taken. Don't worry about that. The general points should all be valid.

The = next to the delivery date is the simplest, because CMAssistant makes no other assumptions about what you want when you click this button. But CMAssistant does make some assumptions when you click some of the other same-data = buttons. Here's what each button does.

1. When you click the same-data button next to a delivery date, CMAssistant simply finds all deliveries with the same delivery date - regardless of their prints status, publication or anything else.
   
2. When you click the same-data button next to a route, CMAssistant 6.1 finds all the deliveries for the same route AND the same run date (delivery date).
3. When you click the same-data button next to an issue date, CMAssistant 6.1 finds and displays all the deliveries for the same issue (cover) date AND the same publication.
   
4. When you click the same-data button next to a drop name, CMAssistant shows you deliveries for the same drop, that is, for the same location AND the same publication. And in this case, you'll also be given a chance to limit how far back to view the drop's history.
   

You don't need to memorize that chart! The assumptions that CMAssistant makes are more or less obvious and intuitive.

The same-data buttons for delivery date, issue date, route and drop give you quick access to the data groups that you most often want to find when you're working in CMAssistant. There's one other quick find available right on the new screen: At the top of the screen there is a "Current Issue" button that finds all current-issue deliveries for all active publications.

All other searches can be done the usual way, by clicking the Find button.

The four same-data searches highlight a column

When you click a same-data button, the column affected will be highlighted. And you'll also see the text change at the top of the screen, to the right of the Delivs tab. In the screen shot below, the drop column is highlighted, and the text at the top indicates that the data is displayed "By Drop". When you do a normal find using the Find button, NO column will be highlighted and the "By whatever" text at the top will disappear.

If you clicked now on the same-data button next to the issue date 8/28/08 (second record in the list above), you would be looking at all the deliveries for the 8/28/08 issue of publication "HW1", the issue date column would be highlighted, and at the top of the screen you'd now see the words "By Issue" instead of "By Drop".

NOTE that column highlighting only works if you are using FileMaker Pro 9 or higher. But even in FileMaker Pro 8.5, you will see the "By Whatever" text advisory at the top of the screen.

View and edit drop details

In older versions of CMAssistant, the structural distinction between locations (addresses), drops and deliveries kept forcing you to switch tabs. That's no longer true in CMAssistant 6.1. From any list of deliveries, you can view and edit the corresponding drop and address details by clicking on the "View Details" button at the bottom of the list. Notice that you will view the details of the selected record. To hide the details and return to plain list view, click the Hide Details button.

The safest way to edit details for a drop - the way that is least likely to confuse you - is to view records by drop first (by clicking on the same-data button next to the drop you are interested in), and then to click the View Details button. But sometimes you may want to move from one drop to another quickly, and you can do that if you like.

The details box at the bottom of the screen gives you access both to drop properties like pause and resume dates and rack assignments, and to address info.

Adding drops and deliveries

Two buttons at the top of the screen allow you to add a new drop, and to add a new delivery (say, a new restock) to an existing drop. These buttons are labeled +Drop and +Deliv. You will see these buttons on screen all the time.

The +Drop button can be clicked at any time, no matter what the found set you're looking at.

The +Deliv button, on the other hand, assumes that you want to add a delivery to the drop for the record that you have selected, and you should be looking at a current issue delivery for  that drop.

Adding anything else (issues, routes, etc.)

When you view records by issue, and if the issue is the current issue for a publication, a + Issue button appears at the top of the screen to the left of the +Drop button. Click the +Issue button to start the new-issue process. (You can see the +Issue button in the screen shot in the next section of this article.)

To add anything else - to add a route or carrier - you click on the area 1 or area 2 buttons, just like you did in CMAssistant 6.0, go to the appropriate tab and use the New button.

Calculating totals

At the bottom of the list, there's a blue equals-sign button underneath the copies/draw column. This button gives you detailed totals for the records in the found set. The totals are displayed in a dialog (see the screen shot). The copy button in the dialog allows you to copy the info in the dialog to your computer's clipboard, so you can paste it into a word processing document and print it out.

What's changed since the previous issue?

If the draw for a drop has changed since the previous issue, the delivery's copies and draw amounts will be highlighted on screen. Yellow highlighting indicates that the draw has gone down. Green highlighting means the draw has gone up. You don't need to do anything to see this highlighting. It is automatic.

In the Find menu at the top of the screen, there is a command that allows you to constrain the found set to deliveries whose draw has changed.

NOTE that the point of reference here is always the previous issue. In other words, if the March 8 issue is highlighted, it means that the draw for this drop was different for the March 1 issue. It doesn't matter what today's date is. When you look at the history for a drop, the highlighting allows you to see at a glance where the draw has changed.

Draw changes are highlighted on route sheets, too, for the benefit of carriers. However, since we don't expect you to print your route sheets in color, all changes are highlighted on route sheets in gray.

 

Other button details in the new Delivs screen

Finally, here are a few other things to notice on the new screen in Delivs.

1. Info for current-issue deliveries is highlighted in dark red text.
2. The default list view shows you the number of copies for the individual delivery. The column is labled  "copies". If you wish instead to view the total draw for the issue, click on the "Show Draw" button immediately above the word "Copies".
   
3. If you view a drop's history, and there are lots of restock deliveries in it, you can hide the restocks and view only the primary deliveries with their draw amounts by clicking the "= Priimary" button, which is at the top of the list above the drop info.
   

You don't need to remember anything

You don't really need to remember anything. Every clickable item on the Delivs screen has - or should have - a help balloon, so if you forget what a button does, just hover the mouse over the button and wait half a second for  the balloon help to appear.

*

For more info about the user interface in CMAssistant 6.3, go to the advanced topics page, here.