ChannelOnline 8.4.0 Release Notes

Released, November 4, 2022

This release, version 8.4, focuses on CRM assistance, sharing of Dashboards, some StoreSite cart improvements, minor supplier and integration tweaks, plus fine tuning core application functions and operational improvements.

• CRM
• Reports & Dashboards
• Items Admin
• Documents
• StoreSites
• Supplier Updates
• Integrations
• Additional Improvements
• Bug Fixes

View the release training video 8.4 Pre-Release Training

CRM & SALES TOOLS

The day-to-day is what matters, and we are looking to help make that easier for our users. Take a look at the updates that involve account activity. We hope you find something in the there to help make your everyday better.

• Account View:

  • Display Creation and Last Login dates to Contact view widget. When viewing an account you can now see when a contact was created and the last time they logged in just by looking at the contact widget.

  • Displaying Lead Source on Account View in the Company Details widget so it can be seen prior to going into the edit page.

• • Tracking “Age” for Leads and Prospects. Added a new field called ‘Age’ to the tracking portion for display on account view and the dashboard component. Age is in number of days, example: “Age (days): 33”.

• Activity Logging:

  • Account activity logs will now record and display when an invitation email gets sent to a contact from the edit contact page.

  • Account Activity Log will record and display when the Account manager is changed on an account.

• Credit Hold. It is now possible to stop quotes from being converted to orders if the customer is over their credit limit. An Account level setting, located in the Tax & Payment edit page (and Payment Settings widget), appears under the Review All Orders check box in the Credit Terms section. New checkbox option is labeled: “Credit Hold. No quotes or proposals can be converted to orders. Storesite users will not be able to checkout.” This status is viewable in the account view’s Payment Settings widget with the new field Credit Hold positioned under the Review All Orders line. When enabled the “Convert to Order” button will not be available on the quote footer. Store users will see the Credit Hold warning message at the top of the cart prior to being able to Checkout.

• Display Billing/Shipping Code on print. To make it easier for large end customers to correctly identify an address location on print or PDF, we now include the address code when present at the bottom of the address. This feature is activated by default.

• Management of “Stage” options (Company Settings)

REPORTS & DASHBOARDS

At ChannelOnline we have been seeing increasing requests from administrators to share reports and dashboards, now here is your chance.

• Share Reports. The sharing of reports is easy, when you save a report make sure you select the “Public” setting on the Save lightbox. Public Saved Reports will become viewable by other users to run and add to their dashboards. For visibility we added a new column to Saved Reports list page called “Created By” and two dropdown filters for “Type” and “Created By”. Once a user selects that report, that user will see results of the original SalesRep creator. Shared reports can be copied and modified by any other user, but it will not be shared by default, the user will need share it as new if others want to use it.

• Share Dashboard. Create a dashboard, mark it public, and make it available to all users in the company. Public dashboards will appear as selectable under a user’s My Preferences. Login as one user and create a new Dashboard. Add some shared reports to it and make it public (with the new “Make Public.” checkbox). When another user logs in they will see this available dashboard in the My Preferences page below their own dashboards. They can then activate a public dashboard to see it on their home tab. Things to know about shared dashboards:
  • Dashboards cannot be shared if they contain non-shared reports from the saved reports sections. All reports on that dashboard MUST be shared.

• • Standard default User reports won’t be available for the public dashboards, but standard Company reports will be available. Users won’t have to share them.

  • Shared dashboards will NOT show for all users automatically. Individual Users will have to enable them from their My Preferences page. Once enabled public dashboards will be in their own section after user’s own dashboards.

  • Shared dashboards will always show after the user’s own dashboards, but users will have the ability to reorder them (like their own dashboards).

  • Users will also be able to add public reports to public dashboards that are shared by other users.
    NOTE: only shared reports and be added to shared public dashboards.

Other helpful report improvements:

• Last 6 months filter. Simply put, by popular demand, we added a Last 6 Months to the Report Date Range selection on reports.

• Contact E-mail. To make matching up reports easier, we now include the ability to select the contact email as a column option when creating Sales Reports.

• Orders (Missing PO Links)” – Updated “No PO Links” status to be more accurate. The status reflects orders that have lines that do not contain PO links.

• Created the ability to make a summary store report that is eligible for use on a user’s dashboard. This works like making sales summary reports.

• Assigned storesite reporting. When running Sales reports there are now selectable columns for your storesite information. Chose to either Store, for the name of the store, or Store Shortcut for the URL string used to ID the store. Additionally there is a new Store Method column that will tell you have that order was placed. Methods include: Store, Sales, Guest, Punchout, Esign, and any empty values reflect old orders prior to implementation.

ITEMS ADMIN

The main upgrade to Items Admin focuses on the refactoring and functionality of Configurations. Key changes include:

• Configuration Details will now allow for HTML / rich text descriptions and the ability to add Tags for rules and filtering.

• Selectable Groups. Formerly Selectable Items, Selectable Groups continues to be the place to create the groups for where selectable items will be placed. Additional minor page cleanup was performed. Additional minor page cleanup was performed on this page.

• Selectable Options improvements:

  • Paragraphs. Ability was introduced to add text Paragraphs (see custom items) to configurations for non-item related information. This alleviates the need to create custom items for adding additional information to configurations that address things like disk imaging or process steps.

  • None Default Option. Selectable options now start with a None option, creating a custom item for a none placeholder is no longer required.

  • Config Item Search. More product information gets displayed in search results to help in choosing the correct item when building the configuration. This improves selection accurate and reduces time to make correct selections.

  • Multi-select Options. For each selectable group you can determine to either stick with the single selection or select “Allow multiple option names per group to be selected for each option.“ Meaning that each selectable option in the group could be selected. This reduces the need for creating custom items for each different combination of selectable items.

  • Configurations can show images for selectable option items on the product page, internally and on the store, when the Show detail button is selected. Display product description and specifications for configuration items in a lightbox when clicking on a selectable item description (users will remain on the configuration page).

  • Page saving and editing was refactored to eliminate conflicts could happen with accidentally opening multiple add item windows or on copy paste actions.

• Copy Configuration. Resolved an issue with copying a configuration and changing either the part number or manufacture name. The system is now always enforcing this rule: “A product with the same Mfr Name and Mfr Part # already exists in the product database. Please edit the Mfr Part # to be a unique number.”

DOCUMENTS

Quote, Order & Invoice

• Auto-generate Orders (NEW). Auto-generated quotes and orders will give the sales representative and their end customer the ability to make changes to recurring service order. Setting up orders for auto-generation is simple. Make certain that your initial order has all the service items that need to be sold and billed on a recurring basis. All the products and payment options on that order will be transferred onto a new Quote (or Sales Order) on a scheduled basis for modifications. To enable this feature, go to Admin > Company Settings > Documents > and expand the Sales Order section. Click on the checkbox for “Enable Convert to Auto-create for the automatic generation of Quotes or Sales Orders in a series.“ Then select your defaults in the three rows beneath it. When enabled, Sales Orders will have a “Create Auto Series” button will be added to the footer section. Selecting this button opens the Auto-generate Series modal with create auto-generate options.

  • Start Date (Series)

  • Frequency (from recurring invoice list)

  • # in series

  • Creation Date (day of the month; X number of days prior to desired billing date)

  • Billing Date (information for users)

• USPS Address Validation. With this release comes the implementation of a feature that uses the USPS address validation service for shipping addresses on the shipping options page during convert to order. Once enabled, internally or when a store user goes to checkout, the shipping addresses on all orders (US only) will be checked. If recognized as valid, the user will proceed to the next step in the conversion process. If invalid, this feature will prompt the user to correct the address. Additional options include the ability to enforce shipping address auto-population of Zip +4, or allow the user to continue without correction. To enable this feature, go to Company Settings > Settings and scroll down to the Billing & Shipping section.  In the section there are two groups of options, one for shipping and the other for billing.

  • Enable billing address auto-population of Zip +4.
  • Force the use of the USPS Address Standard format on convert to order and store checkout. The order will not proceed until the billing address meets the standard and validation criteria.

• Activity Log upgraded for overall performance. Updates include a search box, plus filters for the following data: Action, Status and User.
• Show Available Qty on send/print. New print option labeled “Show Available Qty” is within the Document Print Settings on the delivery window. It has been listed as the “Available Qty“ checkbox value, and can enable it for store site use. When selected it places a “Qty” column after list price and discount off list. Users can add this to their default settings in My Preferences if desired.

• Including an Auto-renewal Reminder field to invoice headers (regular and recurring), making it similar to the functionality found on sales orders. The initial setting will still be on create and notifications will appear in your inbox and/or be sent via email.

• Ability to change payment terms options on quote. To use this when making quotes, click edit icon in header by Order Options, navigate to the Terms radio button (if enabled) and select the term length from the dropdown.

• Ability to set Quote Expiration from a specific date to the End of Month that is was created. To set this up, go to Company Settings > Documents, expand and edit, then navigate to “Enable Expiration Date; a quote will Expire the following number of days after the Creation Date.“ Instead of setting a number of days, select the checkbox that says “Month End”. Then hit save in the footer.

Purchasing

• Purchase Order Document Template layout adjustments. Made the header details align to the left so that they line up with the product table. Also, now hides Special Instructions when there is no data in the field to tighten the spacing on that table a little.

STORESITES

In our ongoing 2022 store improvements effort we have brought forth these tools to help you, plus provide more options to your shoppers.

• Google Analytics 4 (formerly known as “App + Web”) has been additional to the store settings options. Enabling Google Analytics 4 measurement ID will automatically disable the older analytics ID plus its “Remarketing and Advertising Reporting” within the system. Google Tag Manager is independent and will still be used but the older Universal Analytics will be disabled. To switch, go to, Settings, Webmaster Tools, insert our Analytics 4 ID and hit save. Once saved you we begin receiving data in the newer Google Analytics account, no data will be delivered to the older Universal Analytics account.

• Updates to Custom Tabs (url and title tag). Providing move customization for using custom tabs/pages by providing the ability to rename Custom Tabs/Pages in the url to a word specified by the admin user. On the Pages sub-tab, page edit.

• Display “In Stock”. Created a new storesite setting to display either Avail QTY, In stock, or Out of Stock values to customers on search results pages. To enable, go to Store Admin > [Store] Edit > Settings > Products in “Set what you want to display for item Qty on search results.” There are two options presented there. Either, “Show Qty”, or the second option is to select “Show In Stock” if stock is equal to or greater than [___] and “Out of Stock” for items below this value. The default setting is to show the actual quantity. This gives administrators that chance to hide qty if it does not meet a minimum threshold amount. NOTE: The store will display actual available inventory (quantity) on the detail page and no modifications were made to the cart display.

• Continue shopping. Enable the new ”Add and Remain” lightbox feature to allow users to either continue shopping, or go to view items in their cart (this stops users from going straight to the cart when clicking add to cart). If enabled, each time a user clicks Add to Cart a light box will confirm the selection and ask if they want to continue shopping or go to the cart. This feature is enabled by editing a store’s Settings section under Cart (Quote) called “Enable Add and Remain lightbox …“.

• Live inventory in cart. Included a new storesite cart option to allow for users to run a live inventory update through a button at the top of the product table. Select the checkbox setting: “Enable the ability for customers to run a live inventory update when they are in the cart.“ Once enabled users will be able to select Live Update from the top of the product table in the shopping cart (just like on an internal quote). To activate, edit a store’s Settings section under Cart (Quote) with the checkbox called “Enable the ability for customers to run a live inventory…“.

• Guest checkout on StoreSite. Setup the ability to have a generic ‘Guest’ checkout option on the login page of all stores. This is enabled in StoreSite Admin > Settings next to customer self registration. If guest checkout is allowed, the option will display under the Login and Register option on the store Login page. Other features included in activation:

  • Show Guest checkout in document and account history.

  • Guest users will never see any pre-populated data, or billing and shipping information.

  • Added an Order Method column to sales reports for reporting on guest orders.

• Admin Navigation section. Moved ‘Browse Menu’ components from the Components sub-tab to the Navigation admin section to be with the other navigation elements.

• Improved how items get deleted from spotlight/featured product lists in store admin Components. Changes include: Converting the old delete icon buttons to checkboxes. Adding a Delete button on the right hand top side of the list table (above the checkboxes) to allow for selecting multiple items to delete at the same time.

SUPPLIERS

• Tech Data purchase orders. Ability to have manual purchase orders get confirmation numbers and tracking automatically when the purchase order number matches what is in Tech Data’s system. Updating both shipping cost and handling fee when available from TD’s system. Included a fix for a saving and display issue with the Tech Data check box in integration settings for activating the Quote import function from Tech Data.

• Ingram Micro purchase orders. Ability to have manual purchase orders get confirmation numbers and tracking automatically when the purchase order number matches what is in Ingram Micro’s system.

INTEGRATIONS

Salesforce

• Ability to map Sales Rep and Account Manager from a ChannelOnline Quote or Order document, to an Opportunity Sales Rep or Opportunity Owner in Salesforce. In the integration settings ChannelOnline Fields Mapping, you can map Opportunity (quote) SalesRep and the new Opportunity (quote) Account Manager to the correct fields in SalesForce.

• Expanded the account name field limit from 50 to 100 characters, and improved the ability to import from using any of these fields: name, account number, or SalesForce ID. The previous limitation stopped accounts from importing even when using the Salesforce account number.

Intuit Payment Processing

• Implemented Intuit Payment as an available electronic credit card processor under Payment Options in Admin.

XML/ IMPORT/ EXPORT

No XML Updates were added in 8.4, the current schema can be reached at: https://xml.channelonline.com/schema/8.2/schema.zip

ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

• CPAS – Apply default CPAS group rules for self registered users.

  • The store has a designated account for self registered users (example Bank of America)

  • The Account (BofA) has CPAS enabled

  • The reseller wants the default CPAS rules (which are determined by the CPAS Group that is set as the default one) to be applied to all future self-registered contacts

• When using the Account Import wizard, it is now capable of accepting checkbox custom fields with a true or false value. For checkboxes to be used as selected, the value must be true, all other values will be interpreted as false.

• Skip to Front/End on result pages. Added arrows to advance to the end or back to the front on search results with hoover tips “Skip to Front” and “Skip to End” for quicker navigation. Extremely large result sets will ask the user to apply filters to narrow down the results in order to skip to end.

• Built a double click prevention check for when users click Add to Cart to eliminate the possibility that someone accidentally adds it twice.

• Display the list of ordered products via a line item table in the customer confirmation email. Insert a document line item table like the <shipped_products_table> from the Order Item Shipped Notification (saved and abandoned carts) email(s) and have made it available for use with “Customer Order Submitted Notification“. Go to System E-mails > System Generated and edit the email to insert the table merge tag.

• Catalog admin to item search results links. Created links in catalog admin so that a user can jump to the search results list of that specific catalog’s items. Links are found in to places:

  1. On the catalog list page, make the number of items a link to search.

  2. On the catalog view page, add to the action box as “View Catalog”.

• Updates to Proposal Order Options selections.
  • Displaying credit limit and available credit balance in the Proposal header just like it appears on a Quote. When creating a proposal the Credit Avail / Limit field is now visible and populated when in use.
  • The account payment method page showed all options for the selected customer. Although terms were selected the details did not reflected on proposal options. Those selected are now showing on the document header.

• Updated the Invoice payment window’s payment type dropdown to include ACH / EFT options when the payment option is enabled globally.

• International Date Format of DD/MM/YYYY is now supported and can be set in Company Settings > Company Details > Company Info edit page under the Date Format section. Do not toggle this setting from US format unless you are sure that you want all documents to be updated to the international format. This feature is available in all markets, US, CA, UK, NL, AU, MX and BR.

• Updated all shipping tables for UPS, FedEx, and USPS.
• Modified the Favorites list on the store to contain the words “Select All” next to the select all checkbox at the top of the favorites table.

BUG FIXES

• Remove deleted Lead from the Tracking Dashboard when it’s deleted from the Account tab’s page. Previously the deleted Lead was still visible on the dashboard widget.

• Last Modified By was not updating on Bundles and Configurations when changes were made to items within them. Item adds and deletes are now being tracked..

• Resolved issues where certain product and comparison selections from Company Settings> Settings > Print Specifications & Comparisons were not being applied to the print/email document.

• Corrected inaccurate logging of coupon adds and removals from the document total section. Now this activity is being accurately tracked on quotes and orders and posted within the activity log.

• Fix a condition where unchecking ‘Include attachment’ on the send window did not disable PDF/HTML radio buttons. Now when it is unselected, the radio buttons will become disabled.

• Resolved an UTF-8 or ISO/IEC 8859-1 encoding issue with special characters in Company Names during XML creation. The encoding properly handles accents and symbols in the transaction.

• Lease amount for GreatAmerica was not showing the a lease amount under certain dealer key settings on the print document view. This has been resolved; the lease options appear when selected.

• Retention issue occurred when a supplier contact was deleted but was still able to be found in search. Deleted contacts can no longer be found in search after the fix.

• Enabled Top Sellers sales report filter by Top Category to work with the newer three tier category structure. Now resellers that switch to the newer three level category scheme can use them in their category reporting.

• Identified and corrected a condition where accounts and contacts could not be restored after being deleted. Error restoring contact happened when documents were inadvertently deleted.

• Fixed an issue where deleted user groups, in Personnel, still displayed as available in the selectable user groups box for assignment to users.

• Resolved an uncommon scenario where an “add to quote” error was caused by adding a configuration to a document, then followed by a service item.

• Rectified a rare situation that caused some scheduled reports not to send. Reports were running but not being delivered to the recipient.

• Code updates on the edit my preferences page, no core functionality changes (see Dashboards above).

• Moved “Printed On Date” to the PDF header section on the Product Specification print. This relocated it from the center of the product description.

• TradeCentric extrinsic field length truncation. ChannelOnline will truncate fields going to TradeCentric the they exceeded the their field length limitation of 20 characters.

• Changing store contact password prompted incorrect message to user. This was corrected so that the proper messaging is related to the user.

• Service Items were missing line 2 of the custom description when added to documents. Now both line one and line two are showing when added to a quote or order.

• Service Item end dates we not populating correctly if they had been updated on the product view page before add to quote.
• Corrected an issue with transferring accounts from one sales rep to another through Account Transfer. The issues was that the system showed the transfer had completed, but the original sales rep was still assigned to the account. Moving forward the completed transfer will have the new sales rep correctly assigned to the transferred account.
• Cleaned up Activity Log records on Leads and Prospects. Records we inaccurately showing a store access email was sent to the customer.
• Supplier Enable/Disable/Delete button inconsistencies have been resolved. After disabling a supplier (supported or custom) the enable function was not appearing on the supplier view page. All enable, disable, and delete/restore functions are now working for both supported and custom suppliers.
• Found and resolved a problem with users attempting to access POs when that access has been removed. Users would get redirected to many different pages when trying to search a PO. This condition will not prompt the correct error message response.

Over 115 customer and QA reported bugs and/or tasks were resolved. Ask support if you have questions regarding an outstanding ticket not addressed in the release notes. 

Fun Tip

Have you ever wondered what ChannelOnline’s category list and codes looks like?

Well, to get an up to date version of the category names and codes you are using, there is a simple download that you can grab. To find it, go to Admin > Import/Export Wizard > Custom Item Import.  In Step 1, there is an “Available categories” download link. Once you click on that the file will be automatically downloaded to your system. With the file are two columns; one for ID, and the other for category name.