Report Scheduling & Automatic Printing

CATS has always had a flexible report creation system. Now to complement that feature, we've added the ability to schedule reports to print automatically.

You may find that many of reports you count on are run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (especially if you're using the Difference Report feature). Remembering to print such reports is a chore. Now you can count on CATS to print your reports for you.

Setting up a report for automatic printing is as simple as picking it from the list and entering the schedule you wish to use.

Scheduling Options:

• Manual - no schedule, just print on a specified date
  
• Daily - print once every day at a time you specify.
• Weekly - print on specific days of the week.
• Monthly - print on a particular day of the month (e.g. the 1st or 15th day)
• Yearly - print on a particular day of a particular month
• Custom - print at a custom interval (interval in minutes)

Delivery Management

The commodity business can be very fluid and changes often cannot be completely anticipated. That's why we are constantly striving to make CATS more responsive. The upcoming Delivery Management feature is a perfect example.

What are the benefits of Delivery Management:

• Loose allocation: Allocate purchased material to sales without commitment. Allocations can be changed at any time. Purchased material can be applied to multiple sales.
• Arbitrary amounts: Allocate and deliver arbitrary amounts of material to sale contracts. Just specify how much of what material and you're done. No extra steps!
• Delivery tracking: See all the material you've placed on the delivery. Create traffic documents and invoice your delivery all from one screen.
  

How does Delivery Management work?

1. Free Allocation: Allocation no longer need be a static process of connecting a purchase to a sale. Instead, you can make loose connections between purchases in sales which signify only that a particular set of purchased material is promised to the sale. The allocation can be for a whole container or just a portion, whatever your business needs are.
   
   
   The great thing about this system is that these allocations can be easily changed at any time. If you decide to use material from Warehouse A instead of Warehouse B, it's a simple matter to switch the allocation.
   


2. Deliveries: Now all this freedom is great, but once you are ready to deliver your material, that allocation between the purchase and the sale needs to be permanent. The new Delivery management system provides a quick and easy way to finalize your allocations.
   
   Once again, you can deliver a full shipment or only part (even portions of marks & containers!). Deliver half of a bag, the Delivery management system handles that easily. And the best part is, your allocations to determine the material available for delivery!
   
   
   
3. Delivery Traffic Screen: It may seem a little daunting to have to track half-bags of material applied to a dozen different sales, but the new Delivery Screen makes it easy. It displays summary information about the Delivery (Including total weight, units, and invoice information) and offers quick access to the following features:
   - Simply add/remove marks to an existing delivery.
   - Display material on the delivery by marks, sale or allocation.
   - Create Traffic Orders (Delivery, Sampling, etc...) and Sale Invoices directly from the Delivery screen.

And, as always, CATS respects your choices; you can use the new Delivery Management system alongside the traditional approach. Whichever works best for you!

Keyword Search for Report Columns

The CATS report generator provides literally hundreds of columns to allow our users the maximum about of flexibility. However, the sheer number of options can be daunting when initially setting up a report.

The column selection process now provides a quick search mechanism which allows you to filter the display and narrow down the selection.

Update on the Most Recent Documents Feature

CATS now includes an updated Most Recent documents feature (see my previous post). The documents tracked have expanded from just Reports to include Sale Contracts, Purchase Contracts, and Invoices.

Recent Reports: Access a list of the most recent reports from the '?' menu. You can print reports from almost anywhere in CATS!

Recent Contracts & Invoices: When navigating to a Sale/Purchase Contract or Invoice you now have the option to select a recent contract/invoice number from a list. Moving back and forth between several contracts has never been easier.

Control the Information that CATS Keeps: Use the Most Recent Documents settings to fine-tune the most recent document tracking. You can disable tracking completely or just for individual document types. You can clear your document history and tell CATS just how long to remember old documents (anywhere from a couple days to a year and more!)

Production Help Files Completed

There are three new sections available in the CATS manual:
Production (manual section) - a brief overview of the production process.
Production Settings (manual section) - details the options available to users in the production area.
Creating and Managing Production Requests - a step-by-step description intended to aid users in adding and maintaning production requests.

These sections are available from the Help Index under the title "Production".


We will be updating Help files on our clients' systems in the coming weeks.

Recently Printed Reports

One new feature I am currently working on is a list of Recently Printed Reports. This provides each user with reports they have recently printed.



The Recently Printed Reports tool has the following functions:

• Modify & Print: By clicking on the name of the report the user can change the reports properties and print.
  
• Print "As Is": By clicking the Printer icon the report will be printed without modification.
• View HTML Output: Clicking on the HTML icon (if available) opens the HTML file in the default browser.
• Remove From List: Clicking on the Delete icon (Red X) removes the entry from the list.
  

Along with the ability to quickly print common reports, another benefit is the ability to print a report while you're in the middle of other work. The list is available from the '?' menu, so you can access your recently printed reports from almost anywhere in CATS. And once the report has printed you can return to work right where you left off.

This is being tested and tweaked and should be making its way into the program soon.

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