.NET Framework
Clients not hosted by Equus will be required to be running .NET Framework Version 4.6 or above on the Web Server that is hosting AssignmentPro prior to upgrading to AssignmentPro version 17.3 at the end of May 2017.
Account Sums
When creating User Report Types, users can now join from Account Sum Account to Account. This is helpful when creating an audit report of all account sums and their corresponding accounts.
Assignment Packages
Previously, during the processing of Assignment Package Batches, the Batch Processor would occasionally shut down causing the entire Assignment Package Batch to fail and stop processing any more Assignment Packages. This required the batch to be undone in order to reprocess the batch to completion. This behavior has now been improved to resume processing where the Batch Processor left off and only fail the Assignment Package that was in the middle of processing. There is also a notification message indicating which assignment and Assignment Package needs to be created manually to eliminate the failure.
Compensation Calculations
Two improvements have been made to Compensation Calculations.
Previously, Compensation Calculations were unable to pull values from line items that had been previously calculated within the same compensation calculation. Now line items calculated via user reports or spreadsheet calculations can pull values or parameters from previously-calculated line items within the same compensation calculation.
Previously, during the processing of Compensation Calculation Batches, the Batch Processor would occasionally shut down causing the entire Compensation Calculation Batch to fail and stop processing any more Compensation Calculations. This required the batch to be undone in order to reprocess the batch to completion. This behavior has now been improved to resume processing where the Batch Processor left off and only fail the Compensation Calculation that was in the middle of processing. The failed Compensation Calculation will be listed in the Error grid on the batch screen along with instructions about how to review and recalculate it.
Compensation Worksheets
When a custom header was applied to the Compensation Worksheet Periods Production Report, the data values for fields such as Employee Email Address, Assignment Type, From/To Employee ID, From/To Salary Grade, From/To Payroll System and Benefits End Date, were not displaying in the report header section. This has been corrected.
Contacts
Enhancements have been made to improve interacting with phone numbers on mobile devices.
Phone number validation has been added to the phone number fields on the Resources, Assignment/Relocation Contacts and Vendor/Service Agents screens to ensure phone numbers have been entered in the appropriate format (e.g. +123 123456789). The phone number format helps to ensure that all numbers are clickable on mobile devices or tablets, a feature that will be available in the upcoming portal.
Four new user reports have been added to help identify incorrectly-formatted phone numbers on the screens listed above. Run the user reports listed below to view a list of all contacts that have numbers that do not meet the requirements for the suggested format. Click the hyperlink listed with the contact to be taken to the appropriate corresponding screen to make corrections.
User Reports:
EQUUS - Assignment/Relocation Contacts Audit
EQUUS - Resources Contacts Audit
EQUUS - Vendor Contacts Audit
EQUUS - Assignment/Relocation Contacts Audit
Cost Estimates
Previously, during the processing of Cost Estimate, the Batch Processor would occasionally shut down causing the entire Cost Estimate Batch to fail and stop processing any more Cost Estimates. This required the batch to be undone in order to reprocess the batch to completion. This behavior has now been improved to resume processing where the Batch Processor left off and only fail the Cost Estimate that was in the middle of processing. The failed Cost Estimate will be listed in the Error grid on the batch screen along with instructions about how to review and recalculate it.
Document Type
Document Types can now be assigned a Category via a dropdown list on individual document type records. Document categories will be displayed on the upcoming Employee Portal.
Home and Host Country Tax
A suite of new Tax screens have been released to better support the workflow and data entry of mobility teams, as well as provide a full view of the data as the services are being performed. Being able to have access to the right information at the right time helps users be more efficient in their work and provide accurate information to their assignees. Also, additional countries are supported, to allow the full tax picture of an assignee to be captured in AssignmentPro.
No security role access has been granted to these screens. In order to use them, administrators will need to assign them to the appropriate roles. The existing Home and Host Country screens remain available for use until 17.3, at which time their data will be migrated to the new screens. Changes include:
A new Tax Service Request screen to allow users who work directly with a tax vendor to capture only the data that is needed to request services from a vendor. This screen captures fields previously on the Home and Host Country Tax screens and now supports tracking other countries in addition to the home and host countries. Thank you Equus Community for this idea!
A Service Order can be sent from this screen; Service Types that are mapped to the Home and Host Country Tax screens will be associated with the Service Request screen.
A new Tax Details screen to capture the details about the service. A Service Order can be associated with this screen to allow it to be linked back to a Service Request.
A new Tax Briefing Details screen to capture Briefing information. Included is the ability to capture an unlimited number of briefings, as well as track comments and documents related to briefings.
A new Tax Return Details screen to capture Tax Return information, including the ability to track a status of the return as well as important milestone dates associated with the return.
A new Tax Return Eligibility screen to allow users to manage assignees’ eligibility for tax returns in a single screen. Now, users do not have to switch between two screens to make changes to eligibility!
An update to the Tax Vendor Permission Set with the new fields from the Service Request and other Tax screens, including Tax Eligibility.
Import Data
Previously, situations existed where undoing an import would fail to succeed and flood the Windows Event Log with error messages. This has been corrected.
Internet Browser Support
Beginning with the 17.3 release in May 2017, Internet Explorer versions 9 and 10 will no longer be supported. Internet Explorer 11, as well as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari continue to be supported.
Merge Documents
A few changes were made to Merge Document functionality.
Excel merges created after the 17.1 update failed to execute correctly when used with Note/Communications. This has been resolved.
Merge documents based on Excel workbooks that include protected sheets were failing after the 17.1 release. This has been corrected.
Move Management
The Move Management screen was enhanced to better support the workflow and data entry of mobility teams, as well as provide a full view of the data after the move is complete. Being able to have access to the right information at the right time helps users be more efficient in their work and provide accurate information to their assignees. Changes include:
The addition of a Move Management Service Request screen to allow users who work directly with a moving vendor to capture only the data that is needed to request services from a vendor.
This screen captures fields previously on the Move Management screen (from the Details and Authorized sections) as well as the following new fields: “Send Bills To” and “Employee Special Instructions from Mobility”. Also, to provide greater clarity, the “Special Instructions” field was renamed to “Special Instructions to Vendor”.
A Service Order can be sent from this screen; Service Types that are mapped to the Move Management Details screen will be associated with the Service Request screen. Users that have privileges on the existing Move Management Details screen will have the same privileges on the new Service Request screen.
An update to the existing Move Management Details screen to support tracking of international move dates as well as more detailed date tracking.
An update to the existing Move Management Summary screen to contain a better set of data to facilitate determining which record applies to which move. Also, hyperlinks have been added to the Move Management Details grid to quickly take the user to the Service Request or Service Order screens.
The addition of a set of Document Types that are specific to Move Management, to allow those documents to be easily tracked and exchanged with vendors and assignees.
A single Service Order can now be associated with many Move Management Detail records, eliminating the need to capture redundant authorization information and keep separate records for Shipment Type/Authorized Service combinations.
The addition of “Sea Shipment” to the Shipment Type choice list to support overseas moves.
An update to the Move Management Vendor Permission Set with the new fields from the Service Request and Move Management screens.
Previously, a Move Management record that had an Authorization check box selected could not be deleted. This has been corrected, and now mobility coordinators can keep a clean set of their Move Management records. Thank you Equus Community for pointing out this issue!
Added all new HHG dates to the assignee’s internal timeline of dates to provide mobility users a complete view of the timeline. Current functionality of only showing scheduled dates when actual dates don’t exist remains.
Important Note for Self-Hosted Clients: This release includes changes to the MOVE_MANAGEMENT and MOVE_MANAGEMENT_HOUSEHOLD_GOOD tables. Custom logic that references these tables might break or cause the update to fail. A script has been provided prior to the release which will find and list any such references. Run this script and address any references found prior to applying this update.
Security Updates
As a standard process, Equus fixes vulnerabilities found through testing and analysis. For this release, one enhancement has been made to address a finding.
Service Orders
An issue was found with the calculation used for the Service Order Ordered Date field that caused the date to be updated based on the service order status rather than the status of the Note/Communication attached to the service order. This has been corrected.
User Tables/User Pages
In an effort to continue to provide configurable features for storing data, user tables and user pages have been upgraded to accommodate company and system-level user pages. Additional pages have also been added to increase the amount of data and pages available, making data storage for custom calculations and user reports easier to access and maintain.
User Tables have been enhanced to include the option to create and store data at the company or system level and can be used similarly to assignment-level User Pages.
User Pages have been increased from ten editable pages to thirty editable pages and can now be used at a company or system level.
Vendor Integration
This release continues to expand capabilities within AssignmentPro to support integration with vendors who don’t use AssignmentPro, allowing for additional process efficiency, vendor communication efficiency, data centralization and accuracy, and easier vendor service visibility.
Service Orders can now be sent via vendor integration using custom Service Types. Previously, custom Service Types were unable to initiate an order via vendor integration. Now users can map their custom Type(s) to a standard Type, and the custom one will behave like the standard one. This allows users to continue getting value from their custom Service Types, while simultaneously being able to work with vendors via vendor integration. This functionality can be found at the bottom of the Lookup Maintenance Screen when Service Type is selected as the Lookup Field.
Non-standard services can now be ordered from vendors on the Service Order screen. For example, a client can create Service Orders using custom Service Types such as School Search or Home Search and send the Service Order to the vendor via vendor integration (by mapping the custom Service Types to the new Generic Service Type) or via other communication methods (e-mail, etc.).
As part of this change, a Budgeted Amount and Actual Cost can be tracked on the Service Order, providing a centralized place to capture cost information about the service. A new setting on the Service Order Settings screen controls the visibility of these fields.
What-If Cost Estimates
Two issues were found in the creation of What-If Cost Estimate templates. Both have been corrected.
Users were unable to add default custom calculation values to the template.
Integers that were entered into input fields were causing errors and not saving properly.
Widgets/Dashboards
A few changes were made to widgets.
Internal - Import History for last 10 days: A new widget has been created that will return the last 10 days’ worth of imports (both Processed and Errors). The widget contains a link to the import history as well as a details link to return the error results in Excel. This widget will not be shipped on any existing dashboards but is available for use.
Internal - Widget User Report Links: A fix was applied to this widget to allow the user report links to work with clients that have custom directory structures. Example:
https://assignmentpro.equusoft.com/Main/OtherPages/SignIn.aspx https://assignmentpro.equusoft.com/AssignmentProDemoNew/Main/OtherPages/SignIn.aspx