Add the ZonePro Forum to your Home Page

If you want to keep up with new posts regarding ZonePro you may be able to add the RSS feed for this blog to your home page. For example, I use myYahoo for my home page which lets you add content and type in an RSS URL. The URL to add in this case is http://zonepro32.blogspot.com/atom.xml Adding this content to your home page will allow you to easily see when the last post was made to the ZonePro forum.

New Angle for Contact File Module

The next release of the Contact File Module will introduce a way to use the Contact File screen to navigate around the permit databases. A quick refresher: the Contact File is a database of contact names. Just like the Property database has one record per parcel, the Contact File database can have one record per contact. The Contact File solves two problems in ZonePro: 1) It gives you one point of reference for a person who is associated with multiple property records; and 2) It gives you a way to have as many names as you like associated with any property. Previously in ZonePro the Property screen was the only way to navigate around the permit databases. In other words, you look up a property first and then you have access to any permit records created for that property. In the next release you will be able to launch a Contact File screen directly from the opening ZonePro screen. Then you'll be able to look up a contact name and view any permits associated with that person. This new Contact File screen has quick access to all Rental records associated with the person or all violation records (Violations, Housing, Presale) associated with the person. You can get to the other permit databases by going to any property records associated with the person. We've added a couple of new documents to the Contact File Document screen that print out all associated rental properties or violation records. These new features should make the Contact File application much more useful, especially to customers tracking rental property or to those who wish to track violations by person in addition to by property.

Photo Report Needs Tweak

As part of the last upgrade you had to run a "Document Scrubber" process to prepare your ZonePro documents to work with the revised report screens. I recently learned that that process doesn't handle a particular issue with the "Basic" report in the Image Database Report screen. That document requires one more little tweak. To fix it: 1) Go to that report screen; 2) Change the Ouput option to "Document Editor"; 3) Left-click on the Print button to open the Basic report in the Document Editor; 4) Double-click on the large grey square that serves as the image placeholder; 5) In the Properties dialog screen change the Control Source from "photo.filename" to just "filename"; 6) Click Okay, save your changes, and exit the Document Editor. You should be good to go. If you don't have ZP Toolbox installed contact us and we'll e-mail the revised version of the document to you.

ZP Remote to replace ZP Laptop

I have fininshed the rewrite of ZP Laptop and the new product is called ZP Remote. Like ZP Laptop the purpose of ZP Remote is to allow customers to take ZonePro out into the field and pass their updates back to the office. ZP Remote offers several key advantages over ZP Laptop. ZP Remote uses the same application modules as ZonePro. This will make the program much easier to maintain from our standpoint. For example, any enhancement that we add to the Building Module is immediately applicable to both ZonePro and ZP Remote. Another advantage of this approach is that ZP Remote can support more databases than ZP Laptop. ZP Laptop was limited to Zoning, Building and Housing applications. ZP Remote will support those as well as the Appeal Module, Contractor Module, Other Permits database, Planning Module and the Fire Module. ZP Remote uses the logging technique we rececently developed to keep track of changes made in the field and pass those changes back to ZonePro. One advantage to this approach is that only the fields that were changed are passed back, unlike ZP Laptop which passed back the entire record each time. Another advantage is that you do not need to download entire ZonePro databases to refresh the ZP Remote databases. In fact ZP Remote offers several download options: 1) Full database downloads for installing the program and periodic refreshes; 2) Last Update downloads which only pulls records that have recently been edited; 3) Log file downloads if you choose to log changes in ZonePro. ZP Laptop only had the first option. The second two options transfer much smaller amounts of data and should make the daily downloads much faster for ZP Remote users. A major new feature of ZP Remote is the ability to exchange data with ZonePro without the ZP Remote user having to go into the office. ZP Remote has the ability to send and receive update files remotely, as it were. These update files can be sent back and forth via e-mail or any number of other methods. One very cool option is to use our new ZP Web service where we host an internet holding spot for the files which both ZP Remote and ZonePro can log into automatically to exchange update files. Existing ZP Laptop customers will be the first to receive this new upgrade which allow includes upgrades to key ZonePro modules.