New Mercury Systems Feature: Drag-Drop Image & Document Support

If you currently store images or documents within the Document Storage tab of either Client Details, Job Details, Contract Schedule, or Stock Record forms, you may like to know that drag/drop support has been added to allow you to simply drag photos and documents from a source folder (e.g. Windows Explorer folder) and drop them into any of the image placeholders or the Documents list, within the Document Storage tab.

You can also drag email attachments (e.g. PDF, Word, Excel files) from Outlook directly into the Documents List of any Document Storage tab of the above-listed forms.

This makes the process of adding photos and documents much faster.

This new feature is available within Mercury Systems version 275(p) and higher.

Please contact me if you would like me to schedule a software update for you to begin using this feature (note: if you subscribe to Hatchgate’s Cloud Server, please do NOT update until you have spoken to me).

New Accounts Export Support For Xero

Mercury Systems version 275 has been released to include accounts export support for Xero in addition to Sage. The new accounts export module has been re-written to allow the user to fully configure the layout of export files.

New Mercury Systems / Mercury Mobile Engineer App Feature…

In the past, if you made subsequent changes to a job that had already been sent to a Mercury Mobile Engineer tablet/phone user, you had to remember to re-send the job to the engineer so that they would be kept informed of the changes (e.g. a change of visit time; client details updated; additional details added to the fault description etc.).

From Mercury Systems version 269c onwards, the system will automatically re-send jobs that have been modified. The criteria for automatic re-sending of jobs is:-

1. Job must already have been sent to the engineer in the first instance (so you must still sent the job to the engineer initially, in the usual way)
2. Job must not be closed or cancelled, i.e. if the job is not currently active, it will not be re-sent.
3. Job must be booked for either the current day or a future date (i.e. jobs will not be re-sent if we are already past the visit date)

Any changes to the client details, job details, or the diary visit time on a job meeting the criteria above, will trigger a re-send event. Modified jobs will be queued for re-sending and will be transmitted to the engineer within 60 seconds of being saved.

Please contact me if you would like me to schedule a software update for you to begin using this feature (note: if you subscribe to Hatchgate’s Cloud Server, please do NOT update until you have spoken to me).

Kind regards,

Paul.

Windows XP end-of-support notification

In April 2014, Microsoft terminated support for Windows XP, which was already 12 years old at the time.

From December 2016, Windows XP will no longer be supported by Hatchgate Software, and future updates of Mercury Systems and other software produced by Hatchgate Software after this time may not work correctly.

If you have any Windows XP machines remaining in your office, please consider upgrading them to something more recent such as Windows 7, 8, or 10 to avoid any future complications.

Mercury Systems version 259 has been released

This latest version of Mercury Systems improves the 'partnering' functions and provides numerous small improvements to usability as well as some bug fixes.

If you haven't updated your software recently, please either update it yourself by using the 'Mercury Software Update' utility or contact Hatchgate Software to schedule an update date and time.

Ad-blocking Software

Ad-blocking software is not exactly new, in fact ad-blocking utilities have been around for years.  For all of these years I have avoided this type of software thinking that I can just ignore the adverts and get on with work.

But there are benefits:  In addition to making your web surfing faster, because adverts are simply not loaded meaning the pages load quicker, blocking adverts also makes it more secure since there have been many documented cases of rogue adverts introducing malware or ransomware (the 'new' big threat) onto your computer by deliberately - or accidentally - clicking on an advert.

Regardless of the browser you use, whether it's Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer, you can search for 'adblock software' and then select a utility for your make of browser from a reputable supplier.

I use 'AdBlock Plus', which is free, works on all browsers and is easily installed by clicking on the 'install...' or 'add...' button.  AdBlock Plus allows you to choose between blocking all adverts, or only those that don't conform to strict guidelines that all advertisers must follow, in which case only 'trusted' advert providers will appear.

The above is just my personal opinion.  I am not affiliated to ad-blocking companies in any way.

Windows 10

As most of you will know, Microsoft's new Windows 10 operating system has been around for a number of months now.  When it was first released, I suggested waiting for a time for it to prove itself before recommending that you upgrade.

Mercury Systems works perfectly when installed on Windows 10.  Sometime ago I upgraded my three machines to Windows 10 and all programs work as intended.

I am now happy to recommend to all customers that you consider upgrading to Windows 10 on your office machines whilst Microsoft is still offering the upgrade free-of-charge.  The exception to this would be if you know of legacy software installed on your machine(s) (or perhaps really old hardware devices such as old printers) that may not work correctly after an upgrade.  Almost all software programs developed within the last 5 years (or even longer) should work without complaint.

If you have been sitting on the fence, now may be a good time to reconsider the options available.