Silent Partner Release Notes (5.0 and earlier)
Release Log |
5.0
Cloud
Addition of Select All/De-select All when adding G/L accounts to a user account as an administrator
When deactivating a user, it is no longer necessary to manually remove all their roles, connectors and supervisory capacities. System will automatically do all this upon deactivation
Added the link to our new e-Receipting to the left-hand side menu
Added a Preview option on the Batch Confirmations screen of the new e-Receipting feature. When User clicks to process receipts, the resulting grid has a column added to the end with a Preview button which will either send an email or print preview, depending on the batch setting
Send a test email to ensure users email addresses are valid for use with e-Receipting
Adjusted the search function so that it will treat & and ‘and’ the same way when conducting a search
Administrators can now add documents per user. Each user in the system has their own folder and only have access to documents within their folder. Users cannot upload documents, only have read ability. Administrators go to Admin Settings > DMS Admin > Load Employee Documents
The Notes field has now been added to the Donation Data lookup for Ad-Hoc queries as well as Account Activity report
All reports will now show the run-time of the report according to the time zone of the end users computer and not solely GMT.
Added ability to run reports from the reporting engine on Pledges - “Pledge Forecast of Next Payment”
Beta release of the upgraded Cloud Receipting
We are excited to start the private beta of our new e-receipting process. If it works well we'll roll it out to the rest of you by the end of the year. At the same time as this we'll be revamping a number of our communication tools.
Reporting Improvements:
As we continue to expand your reporting options, there are new reports added, additional data to report on.
We’ve added Donors year by month and Giving by motivation to all CRM users. Additional we’ve added some new data sources for people building reports including the “Our tags” and “Trippers” tables.
CRM Dashboard
As users login to the Silent Partner Cloud portal they will have access to some new features. You’ll now be able to select which accounts out of the ones you can see to display on the Dashboard, letting you see only those accounts that matter most to you.
You can also set goals on a per user basis for specific accounts. This will let you set and visually report on your objectives for the year.
Additionally you can now choose to see the previous 24 months on the dashboard chart. See how much progress you’ve made!!
CRM Search improvements
We’ve made some simply improvements to the CRM donor search (Such as search by email) which should make finding the right people a little easier.
Users will also notice some visual changes on the listing page such as flagging new and returning donors. Additionally those records marked at No mail or anonymous (if you can see them) will have icons.
Our Desktop App has also seen a number of improvements including new easy access buttons on the green screen. We’ve also removed a number of buttons off the main toolbar to help streamline the interface with the most useful buttons.
We all make mistakes, now it’s a little easier to correct those mistakes with our new receipt reversal wizard.
4.66
Cloud
Added Mail Chimp integration
Desktop
Resolved a General Connectors issue that would let a donor not have any connector
4.65
Desktop
Added New Import feature with Bulk add of Connectors and Mytags
Added Elavon intergration
Cloud
Modify the CRM to add a column to the donor datasource called Connectors. It will be similar to the Tags column and will be comma delimited list of the connector(s) that allow the donor to show up in this user’s search.
4.64
Cloud
Changes to Say Thanks – Bounced Bulk mail item was showing up under bounced acknowledgements. Added a filte
Glitch repaired. When user removed entity name from first column of a query, entity defaulted to Donor. GL trimming was not being applied to the donation results.
Fixed mousey image when user hits run without entering a donor number
Ordered donors by lastname, firstname in the add donor to task drop down.Changed the UI for selecting donors to attach to an appointment to accommodate clients with many donors
4.63
Cloud
My Calendar -> Add Task. Resolved issue with scheduler where changing a date on an appointment sets focus back to the subject line.
Enhanced Access Requests view on Pending Changes page. Added date requested to display, and added toggle between Active and Closed requests
Donor profile editing. Mail codes and category code interface were changed from multi-select listboxes to linked list boxes. Editing of additional languages was moved into the edit screen instead of being on the profile screen with the tags and connectors
If an existing donor is edited in the CRM, and the record is then deleted from the desktop, and then a sync is done, the change will be stuck in the queue. A message now tells the user what is going on.
Pending Changes page to show concurrency errors on both queues with instructions on what to do so the end user and support can figure out what is going on and address the issue(s)
Added more information to the bouncing receipt notification email
Display of the two fields on the Donor’s Profile – Cloud Mailing History.
Added ability to save a legacy motivation code or a cloud only motivation code to a bulk mailing.
Our Tags – Part 1 – Allow SWO (Thank you!) to assign connectors based on which donors are in a particular Our Tag
SparkPost Mail is now compatible with Silent Partner Software
My Calendar. Reminders in the Cloud that can even be set up to send you notifications by email!
Silent Partner Custom Reporting Engine! (Contact us to set this up)
Add multi-donor contact records. (Thanks YFC Montreal!)
Improperly-formed email addresses report now comes with improved deeper-cleaning action!
Looks even better on mobile phones and more features are small-screen and touch-screen friendly
Synchronized logins with new reporting engine
Easier to use bulk mail and receipt letter templates
Added small “helper notes” in various places to make things clearer for new users
Cloud Notes – out of beta and improved! Thanks for all your testing and feedback!
Added features to bounced mail/email reports
Clearer, universal descriptions for queries/searches in the Cloud and in the reporting engine to make things even easier to search for!
Allowance for larger file upload sizes for receipt letter and email templates (Thanks BC Teen Challenge!)
Improved “edit mode” for templates
4.62
Desktop
New feature: “Our Tags” – An easier way to tag donors similar to how you now can in the Cloud. A more advanced Mailing Code.
New basic filters added
Improvements to GL Export feature and additional GL Packages supported
Additional options for handling “fees” with relation to smaller donations
Updated links to new help documents and FAQs on Knowledge Center
4.61
Desktop
User-requested feature: Scroll and arrow-key lock for donor toggles (e.g. “Receipt Annually” field). Thank you for all who suggested this!
Improved error trapping
Expanded account fields
Cloud
New and easier to use PayPal setup wizard
“Remember me” option for Cloud logins
Auto-adjustments for different screen sizes
Hideable left-side menu
Improvements to query builder
Faster loading for Bulk Mail, “Say Thanks”, and Letter Templates
Clickable links in the Cloud to find help documents and contact support
My Tags – Create and organize your own donor lists!
4.60
Desktop
Retroactive UIDs for donation tables in preparation for future Cloud features
Colour-coded quick identification option for marking donors as “deceased”
New options for automatic fee deductions for credit card donations
Faster startup for the Silent Partner Desktop
New fields added to Survey Module for Bequests
User-friendly micromanagement of Pledges with Multiple Designation Donations (Thank you Lutheran Laymen’s League of Canada!)
Ability to set default reply codes for incoming PayPal donations
Administrators can now deactivate defunct/closed Offices and prevent new batches from being accidentally created for them
Considerations added in Export to Bank function for donors who give via multiple credit cards on the same day
Formatting enhancements to Giving by GL Account to display the first donation to an account from a donor in italics on Excel spreadsheet (Thanks Pioneers!)
Cloud
Usability enhancements such as clicking “Enter” key to search instead of using mouse
Date validation to ensure that birthdates and anniversaries are entered the way you mean for them to be
Clearer and “any-screen ready” menus and tables for the Cloud
“What’s New?” greeting on Home page
“Add a Donor” button
Restructuring of menus based on client feedback (Thank you everyone!)
You can now “Say Thanks!” to your Donors from the Cloud!
More options and enhanced clarity for both E-mail and paper mail from the Cloud
Quick assigning of connectors, permissions, and donor lists for staff; option to make changes take effect immediately or only at next login
New “Communicate” section to consolidate E-mail, paper mail, and receipting in one easy-to-find place
Links between Donors in the Cloud (Thanks EduDeo Ministries!)
New clearer Progress Meters in the Cloud
New Dashboards!
4.55
Desktop
Overhauled and improved Silent Partner update process. It is now much faster and has built-in compensation for users with less reliable internet connections
Performance improvements to increase speed and smoothness of core Silent Partner functions
Full-circle exchange and modification of Contacts between the desktop and the Cloud. Cloud contacts can be created/modified/deleted in the desktop and vice-versa
Speed boost with ADS now extended to include secondary tables
Faster start-up for Silent Partner Client/Server Edition
Simplified process for importing donations
More options for handling PayPal donations
Cloud
More advanced syncing/editing of Contacts between Cloud and desktop
New links to help documents in the Cloud
New larger and easier-to-use icons
Faster response time and reduced loading time on the Cloud for the dashboard, duplicate donor checks, searches, and auto-complete drop-downs
“Anti-Oops” measures put in place for mail/email templates
New Monthly Support History report on the Cloud Homepage
Link to Release Log from the Cloud Homepage
Easier-to-read changes shown on the donor profile for recently modified donors
New report added for Account Visibility users: Donor Profile Report
Tie-ins between Cloud and Desktop users with UniqueIDs for private/confidential notes
4.54.2
Desktop
New “Legacy Survey” Module available. Up to 17 questions plus a memo field for notes
Button added to second row for easy access of Legacy Surveys and new 3rd Tab in Donor window to display survey results
Default and custom Queries added for Legacy Survey Module.
Query optimization so that newly created queries will run faster (ADS required for speed boost)
Addition of admin function: Debug-View for filters/queries (accessible by holding down Shift key when creating/executing queries)
Additional fields to Donor Import function
Increased the amount of space for writing donor comments and contact records
New fields added to Legacy Survey Module
Cloud
Bulk Mail/E-Mail
Integration with Mandrill
Quick Tagging for custom donor lists
New touch-friendly buttons with pictograms (Thank you everyone for your suggestions for the icons)
Clarifications on terminology based on user input and suggestions
Universal Searchbox to allow users to look up donors from any screen on the Cloud
Bulk Actions in the Cloud
New Reports
4.54.1
Desktop
Donor Advantage enhancement. New lookup table for Donor Advantage that allows the user to enter in the “type” or “description” of the donor advantage. Will be printed on 2015 year-end receipts
New digital signature for environments with more stringent firewalls/virus scanners/security
Changes made to scheduled Cloud Sync to match changes made by Server versions of Microsoft Windows
New warning added for organisations that are set up to print a signature and/or logo. Silent Partner will detect if either of those files are missing when the user goes to print receipts (Thank you Pioneers for the suggestion)
Default to OLE format for generating Excel files. In order to use the old format: Hold Ctrl key when clicking OK/Proceed/Preview/Print
New checks to protect fields from being changed if user enters in invalid changes
New logging for errors
Cloud
E-Receipting
4.53
Desktop
Improved updating process to compensate for interruptions in internet/network connection.
Enhancements to pledges. Addition of UIDs to Pledges table
Improved clarity in menus
Auto-restructuring of tables for batches cloned from old versions of Silent Partner
Enhancements to Gift in Kind donations with regards to multi-designation entries to provide simpler receipting
Grouping of multi-designation Gift in Kind receipting for cases where more than one is entered in a single day
Cloud
New Organization Administration Reports
Interface tweaks based on user suggestions
4.52.1
Desktop
Auto-detection of deleted donors and ability to recover when importing PayPal donations
Enhanced reindexing process to accommodate cases where user environment causes index corruption
More clarity in the PayPal “download transactions” screen, as well as updates to the download process in response to PayPal API changes (Thanks go out to Word of Life and the others who made suggestions!)
Enhancements to syncing of Contacts between SPD and SPC. Addition of UIDs to Contacts table
Additional failsafes in cases where the batch date is changed
Improvements to the handling of PayPal “shopping carts” and PayPal fees (Thanks Empower Ministries!)
Increased length of certain fields in SPD
New “Edit donor in Cloud” button. A quick link to open that donor in the Cloud (if user is logged into the Cloud)
Added ability to edit and reassign open donations for accidentally deleted/merged donors
Cloud
Modifications to emailing through the Silent Partner Cloud to accommodate upcoming e-receipting
4.52.0
Desktop
Addition of 6th tab in Donor Profile to track Primary Language, Communication Method, and Receipt Preferences
Timestamps added to language fields for searchability
Clarifications based on user requests on the Deductible vs Non-Deductible Report.
New ability to use Bulk Replace on Receipt Preference, Communication Method, and Primary Language fields.
Additional fields synced with the Cloud to allow for more Silent Partner Desktop features to be added in the future
Enhancements and additions to Sponsorship module with relation to “Sponsorship Children”
Cloud
Speed enhancements for the Cloud
4.51.0
Desktop
Framework for adding Documents to Donors
Stratified giving report will now be more consistent with other reports for Donor counts
Cloud
Ability to hide G/L from the GL assignment Screen
New SMTP options to allow sending email through your email address and Silent Partner
4.50.2
Desktop
Updates to Sage 50 Canadian G/L Export
PayPal Enhancements (Multiple Accounts per transaction)
New built-in queries for Couples without both First Names
Description for the CONSENT field in the Data Dictionary is now
“Consent to contact”
Duplicate donor check now includes Email
Improved pledge recalculation mechanics for donors with multiple concurrent pledges
In the Sponsorship module: Addition of Profile Print Dialogue button
Cloud
Beta Version of Cloud Notes
Beta cloud reports Lapsed Donors, Year to Year Comparison, Donations by Motivation Code
4.50.1
Cloud
Added Dashboard in Administration page of current licenses and Usage ( Thanks YFC Vancouver for the Suggestions!)
Administrator function to add additional Users under Administration Page
New Intranet Library Function with Folders, Preview and drag and drop functionality (Thanks YFC Winnipeg for the idea!)
Administration control for new intranet function
G/L Filter box on Group and Users Moved down to above complete list. Still filters on whole page, just more clear now.
Update the contact form under Donor’s Profiles with clearer Buttons (Thanks VisionLedd for the Suggestions!)
4.50 / 3.27
Cloud
Complete overhaul of the Cloud with new Individualized Access System (AKA: new security system) – See features below:
Added Roles (What can you do in the system)
Connectors (Which Donors you can see and manage)
Added Groups (Groups of Users with the same Connectors and Accounts)
You can now assign specific donors (or sections of specific donors) to users or groups
Updated the core database
Added ability to run advanced queries and donor searches in the Cloud
Ability to share, modify and save queries in the cloud
Basic Email notifications for Administrators
Improvements to the user reports in the cloud
Improvements to user interface
Improved file naming convention for Silent Partner Cloud exports
Improvements to Silent Partner Cloud administration options
Option for Administrators to give: read/write, read-only, or full-access of donor records to their staff
New hierarchy of users with visualized permissions inheritance
Option to request access to a specific donor in the add donor screen
Improvements to the PayPal module
Upgraded the hardware framework
Desktop
Additional credit card choices in for PAC report filters.
The addition of Sponsorship Documents and Sponsoree Lookup. More keyboard shortcuts added for new functionalities.
Addition of selectable/taggable list of documents for printing or mailing out.
Improvements to emailing in the Sponsorship Module. Automatic matching of sponsors with selected sponsoree to obtain the email address of the recipient.
Backup/Upload additions: Added new checkbox for backing up and uploading the Sponsoree documents along with the backup files.
Addition of a warning to the checkboxes (batch archive & sponsorship documents) about potentially increased backup file sizes.
Query retooling to squeeze out more room for long queries. (Thanks to Youth With A Mission)
Intelligent Cloud File Corruption Prevention when syncing.
Improvements in the PayPal import to incorporate an auto-capitalization function for the first letter of certain fields. (Thanks To HPI)
The “Title” field has been added to the PayPal browse so that the user can now see this field.
Wording changes in the Deductible vs Non-deductible report to make the meanings clearer. (Thanks to YFC Calgary)
New button that brings up a brief summary of all the open batches. Exportable to Notepad as a .txt file. (Thanks to YFC Winnipeg)
Enhancements to the PayPal transaction download in the desktop application to reflect the new user permissions created in the new version of the Cloud.
Applied changes to the Donor details Tab 3 to fit with the nomenclature of the new Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation.
Clarifications in the Giving by GL Accounts report options with regards “Sort order”.
Additional configuration option for clients with the Advantage Database Server. Clients with the ADS are able to choose whether or not they want to keep the existing filters on while running reports. (Many have requested this)
Mass Archiving introduced in the desktop
Continued Sponsorship Module updates in the desktop
Updated the Version number to sync with the Cloud 4.5
3.26
Desktop
Addition of a pop-up warning if the client’s receipt.dll version number does not match up with the spwH.exe version number
In Sponsorship module: The addition of “Sponsorship Notes”. The Sponsorship button & menu is now a dropdown (submenu)
More advanced/smarter duplicate donor check. Checking existing donors for suffixes added to their name. (Thanks to HPI)
4.10
Cloud
More functionality has been added to CRM Beta:
Upload a donor’s profile photo
Ability to attach documents to a donor
Cloud Services can be branded with a client’s logo and background color.
Added sub-menus to Admin, CRM and PayPal pages; removed the items from the left nav bar.
Audit trail of changes to donor and contact history records.
Changes to the user interface
Back-end architecture changes, tweaks and bug fixes.
3.25
Desktop
Mass Delete/Archive of 7-year Lapsed Donors. (Several clients requested this)
Sponsorship module enhancements. Additional font size and margin options.
4.00
Cloud
More functionality has been added to CRM Beta:
Add new donors & modify existing donor records
Add contact history records
Administrator approval of donor changes
Data sync is now two-way: Cloud to Desktop AND Desktop to Cloud
Click on a donor’s profile to send an email and record this contact.
Some back-end architecture changes, tweaks and bug fixes.
Beta
Cloud
The Silent Partner “Green Brand” added to Cloud Services
CRM Donor Information Search – In Beta Test for Administrators
Online Donation Version 2 is in Beta!
PayPal buttons and the integrated donation import is tested with a few customers
Reports & Shared Documents now have a description
File size and upload date are displayed for Shared Documents
A list of all Cloud Services help pages is now available from the Support link
When the user logs out, he is reminded to close the browser after accessing Cloud Services from a public computer
Account Activity Report – The Sub Totals by Donor section can be exported to Excel and the Payment Type has been added to the details section
A tool to create PayPal buttons that are integrated with your G/L and Motivation codes is now available
When logging in, users who do not have a strong password are notified and encouraged to strengthen their password.
3.24
Desktop
When changing addresses now by default it keeps the current telephone number and extension.
Tweaks to Sponsorship module layout to maximize text space and photo size.
Added support for new more advanced TeamViewer remote support tool
Added new 5th tab to Donor Details so that you can now add info for up to 7 social media contact entries (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, plus 4 other customizable ones)
Preventative measure against user index corruption, automatic rebuilding of certain index files on opening of donor table.
Speed boost in opening tables.
A tweak that allows for the printing of $0 receipts. The case where this may be used is if the donor/user is being audited and requires a reprint of a particular receipt. (Action International Ministries)
Added import feature that allows the user to process donations even if they are not from PayPal (the csv file must still conform to the PayPal formatting). (Scripture Union Canada)
Advanced donor duplication check that checks against deleted donors as well.
Undeleting donor records will now stamp that record as having been deleted in the past, this way the user can know that there may be some out of date information or that the donor has lapsed in the past.
Our products got an upgrade!
Some screenshots and help videos have been made using older versions of our products. Though your version's colours and themes may appear different than what you see here, the instructions, links and advice in this article are still accurate and useful!
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