Announcing Facil Version 4.5!

Version 4.5 is a major update to Facil, including major new features, new functions, and many improvements...

All Facil Tech Support subscribers will receive this new version automatically and at no charge.  Thanks to the many Facil users whose suggestions contributed to the design of this new version.  Very special thanks for testing this new version and providing invaluable feedback goes to the Facil users at ...

Tualatin Valley Community TV in Beaverton, OR, Evanston Community Media Center in Evanston, IL, Campbell County Community Media in Highland Heights, KY, Thurston Community TV in Olympia, WA  ... and, of course, Access Tucson.

 

New Features!
New Clip Library Click to Watch a Video Demo!	Track all your best video segments for reuse. Record the clip's location by Program, start and end time. Enter a name for the clip, a description, and any number of keywords for later reference. Find your clips using any combination of keywords, by any text in the description or clip name, and/or by using the Program Viewer to specify dates, subject, etc.
New Person Activity Tab Click to Watch a Video Demo!	This new tab on the Person form shows a chronological list of a Person’s activities, including Reservations, Classes, Programs turned in, Projects started and closed, and Payments made.  You can select which of these five kinds of activity to display, you can choose a date range of activities, and you can print a report of the displayed data.
New “Facil Today” Form Click to Watch a Video Demo!	Gathers together the items that may need your attention – all in one place, automatically! You can set this form to display automatically every time Facil starts up, or you can select it anytime from the main menu. Seven different categories of items are listed in Facil Today. A count of each category is displayed and a “view” button displays detailed information on all the items in that category. The seven categories are: Active Reservations past their End, i.e. reservations that should already be Completed or Cancelled. The View button shows these reservations listed in the Reservation Viewer, where you can review them and link to each Reservation form for editing. Programs past their Due Date, i.e. programs that should have been completed but have no Received Date entered. The View button shows a new “Programs Past Due” form which lists the details of the Programs, in order by their Due Date, with links to the Program and Project forms. There is also a Mailing List option on the Programs Past Due form – easily send an email to all the producers of programs that are past due! Active Projects past their End Date – easily review these Projects to see if they should be Cancelled, Completed, or have their End Date extended, i.e. renewed. The View button shows these Projects in the Project Viewer. Active Persons past their Expiration Date – check on Persons who should be renewed or made Inactive. The View button shows these Persons in the Person Expiration form where you can see their latest Reservation or Class, email the expiring Persons, generate a report, or reset the Expiration Dates or Status in mass. Reservations Starting Today and Reservations Ending Today – quickly see how much activity there is, including equipment check out or check in. The View button shows the pertinent Reservations in the Reservation Viewer. Classes Starting Today – Click View to display the Class schedule for the details.
New Program Schedule "Time Slot" View Click to Watch a Video Demo!	This new form allows looking at the Program Schedule in new ways. See the schedule for only selected days of the week and/or any part of the day, i.e. Monday through Friday, 7 to 10 pm. Filter by Minimum length to show just programs, not promos, etc. Show one or all Subjects. Select any date range and one or all channels. Easily view just your prime time shows, weekends, late nights, religion or sports, etc.
New Equipment Usage Day/Time Report	Report equipment and facility use by Day of Week and Time of Day. Determine your days and times of peak demand for each equipment type.  Reports hours of equipment use for specified date range and specified equipment types. You can choose to define four “day parts”, i.e. morning, afternoon, evening, late night – or the report can break down usage for each hour of the day. The report produces a table of the hours or day parts with a column for each day of the week.
New Tape Checkout Tracking	Keep track of tapes when they leave the library. Record the date out, who has the tape, which staff gave out the tape, and when it is due to be returned. Show all the tapes, just the ones that are checked out, or just the ones that are due to be returned.
New Functions!
New Person Data	Mobile phone number Office phone extension “ID” field – use to store Driver’s License, Social Security, or other ID number. Choose your own type of ID number or use more than one type. User Name and Password – for use on your web site, your local network, or any other computer login.
New Organization Data	Person Position in Organization – Record a Position (President, Admin Asst, Director, etc) for every Person affiliated with an Organization. No more guessing which person you want to contact! Organization Expiration Date – Record an expiration date for the Organization and Facil will report organizations expiring in any selected date range.
New Program Data	Seven new data fields have been added to the Program records: Production Date Primary Audio Language Secondary Audio Language Close Captioned (Y/N) Rating (G, PG, 14, MA, etc.) Sub Rating (D/S/V/L) Distribution Rights Where appropriate, these items have also been added to the Project form (as Program Defaults), Program Viewer, Project Viewer, and Programming Analysis Report.
Reserve Specific Equipment Unit by Tag Number	Reserve any specific equipment item by entering its Tag Number in the Reservation when you make it. Facil checks to see that this particular Tag Number is not already reserved for that time. You can now reserve a specific camera from a set of identical cameras or track the specific hard drives that are reserved among all your identical drives. Of course, you can still just allow Facil to work with the available quantity of each item as before, and not worry about which Tag Number is going to be used until check out time – it’s up to you. You can see exactly which Tag Numbers are reserved and which are available by clicking the new “?” button next to the Tag Number on the Reservation equipment list.
New Mailing List Features	Owners, Permissions, and Descriptions – Make any staff member the “owner” of a mailing list. The owner can then set permissions to allow others to use the list, either full permission (edit and mail), read only (view and mail, but can’t edit), or no permission (can’t view the list.) Mailing Lists also have a description of any length. Save any Person Mailing selection as a permanent named mailing list. Just choose “Save Selection As Mailing List” on the Mailing Output tab. A dialog asks for a name and then the Mailing List form is displayed with the contents of the new list. This allows editing who is on the list, reusing the list at any future time, or just keeping a permanent record in Facil of whom the mailing was sent to.
Email a List of Reservations	Now you can email an entire list of reservations selected in the Reservation Viewer. This is an easy way to send a producer a detailed list of ALL their reservations – future or past, selected by Project, by Equipment Type, etc..
New TV Guide X-List Export	Prepare your program schedule for submission to TV Guide with just a couple of clicks. Produces a data file in the correct format for submission through the TV Guide X-List system, with your program times, titles, descriptions, and categories – ready to send to TV Guide!
Improved Synergy Playback Integration	Enter your digital files, Windows Media streams, URLs, and other digital sources directly into the Facil Program list and schedule them just like other Programs. When you import your Facil Programs and Schedule, Synergy will create the new Title and MSN and playback the Program as scheduled – automatically, with no Synergy data entry.
Improved!
New Class Registration Button on Person Form	This new button appears on the main Person tab and also on the Person Classes tab. Very often when you enter a new Person, the next step is to register that Person for an Orientation or other class. Click the new Class Registration button and the Class Schedule is displayed. Select the Class and click New Registration. Facil knows who you are registering and goes straight to the Registration form – no more searching for the Person you just entered!
Easier Person Data Entry	Easier Phone Number data entry – All phone number fields now format automatically. Just enter 7 digits or 10 digits with no punctuation and the number automatically reformats to (###) ###-####. Default Area Code - Enter a default Area Code in the Global System Settings. When you enter a 7 digit phone number, the default Area Code is automatically added. When you enter 10 digits, the Area Code you entered is used. Default Zip Code – if most of your Persons are in the same Zip Code, set a default and you won’t need to enter that Zip Lock Person ID Numbers – Facil allows manually entering new Person ID numbers, even though they generally are assigned automatically. This is to allow new Facil users to carry forward any existing Person IDs they may have. A new Global Setting allows locking the Person ID field, eliminating the possibility of accidentally entering an incorrect ID number, but still allowing manual control if needed. Choice of automatic Expiration Dates – Previously, the Expiration Date always defaulted to the anniversary of the Joined Date. Some organizations expire all Persons on the same date, such as Dec. 31st. A new Global Setting allows using either the anniversary OR any calendar date of your choice.
New Data Exports	Export the selected data from: Reservation viewer Person Expiration form Volunteer Service form
New Payment Receipt printing options	Print 2 or 3 copies of the Payment Receipt all on one page. Save paper!
Enhanced Reports	Volunteer Viewer Report: Now includes total hours for all volunteers and a count of the volunteers. Class Registration Report: Now has reports options for Date Range and choice of one or all Cert Codes. Previously the report always showed every class registration recorded. Programming Analysis Report: New Channel breakdown lets you compare programming between each of your Channels in a single report. New Series/Not Series breakdown shows how many hours and shows are part of a Series. Program Guide Chrono Export: The Project ID and Program ID have been added to the data exported.
Reservation Viewer	New “Starts On” date and “Ends On” date options work with the date range you choose. Previously the Reservation Viewer always showed all the Reservations where any part of the Reservation time overlapped the Date Range you chose, i.e. all Reservations affecting that time frame. The new options allow you to also see only Reservations that start or only those that end in the Date Range New “Show Late” Button displays all Active Reservations that are past their End Date/Time – with just one click. New “+24” toggle button makes the End of the Date Range automatically follow the Start by 24 hours, making it simple to view a day at a time. You can always edit the End of the Date Range to any desired time, and you can turn off the automatic 24 hour range by “un”-clicking the toggle button.
Program and Project Viewers	Sort the viewer displays the way you want! Both Program and Project viewers can now be sorted by almost every field, including calculated fields such as the count of Past Due Programs or the First/Last Scheduled Dates. The report from the viewer will have the same selected sort order, giving you many new report choices Performance of both viewers has been greatly improved! The initial load time is about the same but all subsequent filtering by criteria is virtually instantaneous.  In addition, the Program Viewer now loads data only when necessary after mass changes; most often the Program Viewer will open instantly each time you go back to it during your Facil session. Program Viewer Signal Source – A new criteria lets you find Programs that are Live vs. Taped vs. Satellite, etc. Project Viewer Planned End Date – This new criteria allows you to easily see which Projects are due for review in any selected time period.
Program Schedule Editing: Simpler Project/Program Search.	When searching for a Project or Program to enter into the Schedule, you now have the option to search by Title without using the Project or Program Viewer. Just enter any word that’s in the Title using the same search form you use elsewhere in Facil. This is a simpler and quicker alternative when you know the name of the Project or Program and don’t need all the tools of the Viewers to find what you want.
Person and Project Search Forms: Active Only Option	Person search form - An option now allows showing “Active Only” or “All Persons”. Since you do most of your business with your Active persons, this can reduce the number of names to search through. Your last setting is saved for the next time you use the Person search. Project search form - An option now allows showing “Active Only” or “All Projects”. Your last setting is saved for the next time you use the Project search.
Duplicate Reservation Form: New “View Dupe Reservations” Button	After saving the newly duplicated reservations, click this button to open the Reservation Viewer and display a list of just those new reservations. From there you can print or email that list of reservations, or review/edit the reservations using the link buttons.
XML Data Exports	A new XML option has been added to the types of data exports available throughout Facil. This is particularly useful for moving data to a web based platform.
Fixes...	Volunteer Viewer – corrected error that occurred if Email or Report was attempted when no records were being displayed. Email sent from Facil incorrectly marked as “Spam” – A few Spam filtering systems would sometimes reject email sent by Facil due to internal coding in the mail header. Reservation form – an error occurred if the Person was changed before any Equipment was reserved. Reservation form – an error occurred when attempting to add equipment using the Check Out form if there was no other Equipment already reserved. Reservation form – using Check Out to set Tag Numbers or add equipment did not update the Revised Date of the reservation. Program form – Person notices were not displayed when the Producer was selected from the Person search form. Active Reservation Limit  – The Active Reservation Limit was not being checked when a Reservation was made from the Appointment Book.