Reporting4ACT! Version 8.5

Stonefield Software is pleased to announce the release of version 8.5 of Reporting4ACT! There are several new features in this version.

• A new report type, Tiled Dashboard, is now available.

• The new Edit button in step 2 of the Dashboard Wizard allows you to edit the selected report included in the dashboard.

• Dashboards now have a toolbar with buttons to pause/restart refreshing or move to the previous or next set of reports.

• Dashboards no longer display a blank cell while a report is being refreshed.

• You can now add a watermark to a report when you print or output to PDF.

• The new Include Totals output setting determines whether totals are included in Microsoft Excel data format documents.

• The Use Saved Email Settings option in the Schedule Report Wizard allows you to specify whether or not to use saved email settings.

• The Advanced Diagnostics setting in the Options dialog creates additional diagnostic files helpful for tracking down certain types of issues.

• The Other Data Sources dialog now has a Refresh button.

• Charts no longer show point labels for 0 values.

• The Commonly Used functions list in the Expression Builder and the list of function when you choose Is as the operator for a filter now both have fiscal year functions.

• You can now ignore certain filter conditions when scheduling a report.

• Act 26 is now supported.

Stonefield Query for Act! Becomes Reporting4Act!

Stonefield Software is pleased to announce a deal with Keystroke Quality Computing: effective March 15, 2018, Keystroke is the exclusive worldwide distributor of our Act! reporting solution. “Stonefield Query for Act!” has been rebranded to “Reporting4Act! - Powered by Stonefield Query” and is available in three new tiers: Pro, Premium, and Ultimate, designed to fit all budgets. All tiers of Reporting4Act! include hundreds of built-in Act! reporting templates and support the custom tables in the new Act! Premium Plus 20.1 right out of the box.

This partnership combines the distribution reach of the world’s #1 Act! Reseller with the technology of the best Act! reporting software on the market, and completes Keystroke’s suite of CRM add-on products including reporting, database design, and workflow automation. For more details, see Keystroke's blog post.

Here are answers to some common questions about this deal.

What happens to my Stonefield Query for Act!?

Nothing: you can continue to use it as you did before. When you upgrade to a new version, you’ll be upgrading to Reporting4Act!, as it replaces Stonefield Query for Act!. Speaking of which, you’ll want to upgrade to version 7.0, because it adds a lot of new features, including support for custom tables added in Act Premium Plus version 20.1 and later.

How does support work?

The same as it did before: Stonefield Software continues to provide support for both Stonefield Query for Act! and Reporting4Act!. You continue to request support by creating a support ticket on our web site.

How does software maintenance work?

If you purchased Stonefield Query for Act! from Stonefield Software, we will contact you when your software maintenance is due for renewal as we did before. If you purchased Reporting4Act! from Keystroke, they will contact you. Software maintenance works the same regardless who you purchase it from: you continue to receive updates, technical support, and use of subscription licenses as long as your software maintenance is current.

Why did Stonefield do this?

Keystroke is a world-renowned Act! reseller with a much bigger global reach than Stonefield. They also have a larger marketing and sales team. As a result, they can reach more resellers and end-users than Stonefield could ever hope to. We feel that this partnership makes both companies better and allows us to put our reporting solution into the hands of more people than ever.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 6.1.6492

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.1.6492 of Stonefield Query for Act!. This release adds compatibility with the new Act! v20.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 6.1

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.1 of Stonefield Query for Act!. There are lots of new features in this release.

• Stonefield Query is now compatible with Act! 19.2 (2017.2).

• A new type of output is available for chart reports: Microsoft Excel - Chart, which outputs to an Excel chart rather than an Excel spreadsheet containing an image, which is what Microsoft Excel - Full Format does.

• The Find Reports by Name and Find Reports Using Field functions have been combined into a single Find Reports function in the Tools menu. The dialog displayed when you choose this function allows you to find all reports having a keyword in the name or comment, being last modified on or after a certain date, or containing a specified field.

• Many optional settings that had to be set by manually editing Data.ini are now maintained in the Options dialog.

• The new No Group Footer option for a grouped field specifies that you don't want a group footer for that field.

• You can now fine-tune label dimensions in step 5 of the Label Wizard.

• The new Add group to file name output option allows you to determine when the group name is added to the file name. This also allows you to do Microsoft Word Merge output to separate documents.

• You can now use HTML tags in the body of a email.

• You now only get a warning when a summary report containing ungrouped and unsummarized fields is previewed in the Quick Report Wizard, not when it's run any other time.

• You can now select Highest and Lowest for Summary of a non-numeric grouping formula. This makes it easy to find the oldest or earliest invoice date by customer, for example.

• There is better support for group recalculation formulas. You can now sort a report on such a formula. These formulas are now significantly faster than before, especially in summary reports. You can now use calculated fields in the numerator or denominator or for the grouping of these formulas.

• The new Create bookmarks on this field setting in the Group Header Band Properties dialog in the Advanced Report Designer does the same thing that setting does in the Field Properties dialog in the report wizard, but you can now control it for advanced layout reports.

• More complex SQL statements (those with more terms in parts of the statement) are now supported.

• The AfterData script of a report now has access to the result set for a cross-tab before it's pivoted. It also has access to the result set used for a chart in a quick or cross-tab report that includes a chart through the ChartResultSet variable.

• You now get a warning when creating a formula that does division that doesn't check if the denominator may be zero to avoid "division by zero" errors.

• Blank row fields now display "(None)" for the value in a cross-tab report.

• Bookmarks on grouped fields in summary report are now supported.

• The ask-at-runtime filter dialog now shows which condition of the total number of conditions you're currently on.

• The default setting for the Run report with no records option for new quick and cross-tab reports is now turned on. That means unless you turn it off, when you run a report that has no records matching the filter conditions, the report runs but displays a blank report.

• The Commonly used expressions list in the Expression Builder has new items for First Day of Last Year, Last Day of Last Year, and This Day Last Year.

• The Elegant template has better support for subreports.

• There are new templates: Elegant With Subreport Spaces and Elegant With Indented Group Headers.

• If a scheduled report can't be emailed, the error code is now -35 instead of the generic "some error occurred" -12.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 6.0.6250

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.0.6250 of Stonefield Query for Act!. The changes in this release are:

• Stonefield Query is now compatible with Act! v19.1 (2017.1).
• Stonefield Query for Act! now includes a Convert Report to New Provider function, available on the Tools menu. This function will attempt to convert a report written with the older provider into one using the new provider.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 6.0.6201

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.0.6201 of Stonefield Query for Act!. The major purpose of this release is to add compatibility for the new Act! v19. The changes in this release are:

• Stonefield Query is now compatible with Act! v19 (2017).
• New fields "Field Changed Field", "Field Changed From Value", and "Field Changed To Value" were added to the Company History, Contact History, Group History, and Opportunity History tables in the Act! 2010+ data provider. For "Field Changed" history records, these new fields parse out their information from the details text. For other history records, these new fields simply show a blank value.
• The SwiftPage sample reports were updated to use the newer Act! 2010+ data provider.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 6.0

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.0 of Stonefield Query for Act!. There are lots of new features in this release; the major ones are:

• You can now add subreports to quick reports.
  
• A new type of formatting is available for date fields: Fiscal Year. For example, if the Year Starts In setting in the Options dialog is set to November, a date of 12/06/2016 displays 2017 (since it's in the 2017 fiscal year) when the date is formatted as Fiscal Year.
  
• You can now include reports that have ask-at-runtime filter conditions in a batch report. When you run the batch report, it now prompts you for all unique conditions for all reports at the start of the run and uses those values for the conditions in all reports. That way, you aren't asked more than once for the same value.
  

See What’s New in This Version for a complete list.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 5.2.5868

We are pleased to announce the release of version 5.2.5868 of Stonefield Query for Act!. There are several new features in this release.

• A new type of output is available: Microsoft Word Mail Merge. This allows you to perform a mail merge from a report to create form letters.
• A formula can now use an expression that doesn't retrieve data from the database, such as " ", which allows you to add a blank column to a report.
• The SQLookup function can now return an expression instead of just a field. The expression must be one the database engine can understand rather than a Stonefield Query expression.
  
• The GetConditionValue function now accepts a parameter indicating which value for "is between" and "is one of" conditions is returned.
  
• You can now turn off usage reporting by adding Usage=N to the [Options] section of Data.ini.
  
• If none of your data fields contain null values, you can make processing slightly faster by adding HandleNull=N to the [Options] section of Data.INI.
  
• Grouping formulas can now be used as data fields in a cross-tab report.
  
• Cross-tab reports now use the text for the Summary Total Template field in the template if it exists; this allows you to customize the text displayed for the totals line by changing the text in the template used by the report.
  
• Help now displays correctly even when running from a server without having to install the help file on the workstation.
  
• The Calculate Value at Group Level setting in the Formula Editor is now disabled if the field is a grouping formula since a formula can't be both.
  
• The GetConditionValue, GetValueForField, GetValueForParameter, GoMonthDay, SQLookup, STOD, and RunSQL functions now appear in the Built-in Functions list in the Expression Builder.
  
• The Print button in the Preview window is now disabled for a label report using a Dymo label size since it works better to print those labels directly rather than previewing first.
  
• You can now specify "login" on the command line to prompt the user to log in when running a dashboard from a shortcut. Also, theDashboard Wizard now has a "Require login" setting in step 2.
  

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 5.2

We are pleased to announce the release of version 5.2 of Stonefield Query for Act!. There are lots of new features in this release.

Report Designer

• There are two new settings on the Grouping page of the Properties dialog for fields in step 2 of the Quick Report Wizard: Retrieve all records and Number of records per group. Turn off Retrieve all records and enter a value for Number of records per group to limit the number of records per group. You can combine this with sorting on one of the fields in the detail for the group to see the oldest or newest record. For example, suppose you want to see only the most recent activity for a customer. To do that, group on customer name, set Number of records per group to 1, and sort on the activity date in descending order.
• There's a new setting for formulas: Calculate value at group level. This setting allows certain formulas to be re-calculated at the group level rather than just being summed, such as profit margin or other types of ratio calculations for which summing and averaging don't work. To indicate that the formula should show group values in a report, set the Summary option for the formula in the report to a new choice: Group Calculation.
• A new type of filter operator is available for date fields: Is. When you choose this operator, you can select a date type to compare the field to, such as This Week, Last Year, or This Month to Date, from a drop-down list.
• Dashboards can now include all types of reports, not just charts and gauges. Note, however, that the dashboard window doesn't scroll so it's really only appropriate for short, informative reports.
• Step 2 of the report wizards now shows information about the field under the mouse pointer in a "balloon" tip. For the Available fields list, the balloon shows any comments about the field. For the Selected fields list in a quick report or label, the balloon shows how the field is formatted in the report: whether it's grouped or summed, what numeric or date format is used, and so on. This allows you to see at a glance information about the field without having to click the Properties button.
• Four new Act! 2010+ sample reports have been added: Chart Sorted Descending by Category, Dashboard Including Quick Report, Field Background Color, and Most Recent Three Opportunities by Customer.
• You can now select more than one grouping field for a grouping formula. This is necessary for a formula that, for example, show sales for a certain date range by customer and product.
• A new type of output is available: Microsoft Excel - Data Only (Fast). This is similar to Microsoft Excel - Data Only but is faster and doesn't require that Excel is installed on the system. This format works better that Microsoft Excel - Data Only with scheduled reports because Excel doesn't always work correctly when run from a scheduled task.
• You can now specify whether category and series fields are sorted in ascending or descending order in a chart.
• You can now specify a background color for fields in a report in the Properties dialog. Sample text shows what the colors of the field will look like in the report. You can also revert to the default color for the field by turning on the new Use default color setting.
• You can now export and email a report layout to someone in one step: right-click the report in the Reports Explorer and choose Email Report File, enter their email address, and click Send.
• The Filter page in the Reports Explorer and report wizards has a new setting: Warning if no filter when report is run. This used to be a global option in the Options dialog but is now available on a report-by-report basis. The setting in the Options dialog was changed to Default warning if no filter when a report is run and it now determines what the default is for that setting for new reports.
• You can now specify the font for X-axis, Y-axis, and point labels in charts.
• When you output a cross-tab to a Microsoft Excel PivotTable, the PivotTable now supports the Show percentage of total, Show difference from previous column, Show percentage change, Column totals, Row totals, Display date as, and numeric format settings for the cross-tab report.
• The Options dialog no longer has a Date Format setting; the application now always uses the date format specified in the Windows Control Panel.
• If no output settings are specified when a report is run from the command line, the saved output settings for the report are used if there are any.
• If an advanced layout report has any images, such as a company logo, those images are included in the SFX file for the report. If you export the report and send the SFX file to someone but forget to send them the image files used by the report, the Import process they use to add the report to their reports list creates a new folder called Images and puts the images imbedded in the SFX file there. The benefit of this is that you no longer get an error about a missing image in this case.
• Some settings in the Options dialog now affect all users on a network: Create and display report snapshots, Send summary queries to database engine, Week starts on, and Year starts in. These settings are saved in Data.ini in the Data subdirectory of the program folder rather than in the Windows Registry where other settings are saved.
• The Show totals in group headers setting for quick reports is now available for advanced layout reports.
• The positions of the Advanced Layout, Chart, and Edit buttons in step 5 of the Quick Report and Cross-Tab Wizards was changed a little to accommodate other controls.
• The Alignment setting in the Properties dialogs for fields now displays icons for left, right, and center alignment.

Stonefield Query for Act! 5.1

We are please to announce the release of version 5.1 of Stonefield Query for Act!. There are lots of new features in this release.

• Several changes were made to gauges. First, the gauge has a new, more attractive appearance, including an option to show the current value using "digital" digits like a speedometer. Second, the performance of gauges on some systems was dramatically improved. Third, there are several new settings: you can specify that the goal comes from a specific value rather than a field, saving you having to create a formula for this purpose; you can specify the font and color of the gauge labels; you can specify band end values as amounts instead of percentages; and you can specify at what percentage the goal value appears. Also, the "distinct" setting in the Customize Wizard is now available.
• You can now edit labels using the Advanced Report Designer, allowing you to move fields around or tweak the layout.
• The new Grid Bars option for charts draws alternating horizontal bars in a chart, making a more attractive chart.
• The new Scheduled Tasks function in the Tools menu allows you to display the status of your scheduled reports, including last run date and result, and edit or delete schedules.
• The new Find Reports Using a Field and Find Reports by Name functions allow you to see which reports include a particular field, either in the report itself or in the filter conditions for the report, or to find reports containing text you specify in the name.
• A new Summary option for grouping formulas, Combine, allows you to combine the values of a field from several records. This is useful, for example, to create a formula that lists all of the products purchased by a customers in a single record rather than one record per purchase.
• The Formula Editor has a new code editor button. This button allows you to create and edit custom functions without having to put code in RepProcs.prg and without having to exit Stonefield Query every time you make a change to the code.
• The Formula Editor also has a new security button. This button allows you to indicate which user groups can see the formula and which can modify or delete the formula. The Formulas dialog now only displays formulas the user has access to and only enabled the Edit and Remove buttons if the user is in a group that has those permissions.
• The Formula Editor also has a Default Summary setting. This allows you to determine if numeric fields are automatically summed, averaged, or summarized in some other way by default.
• The Formulas dialog can now filter the list of formulas to only those in a certain table or Module. It also has a new Reports button showing you which reports use the selected formula.
• The report wizards have a new Save As button that allows you to save the report as a new report rather than having to first choose Copy and then edit the copy.
• You can now turn on the Ask at runtime setting for a filter condition using an expression as the value to compare to. In that case, the evaluated value of the expression is displayed as the default value for the condition in the ask-at-runtime dialog.
• The Filter Condition dialog no longer has a More button; the dialog is always expanded so the options in it are more discoverable. Also, there are new Ends With and Does Not End With operators and a new Custom Description setting.
• You can now select the direction (ascending or descending) of the sort of a group in the Advanced Report Designer.
• You can now indicate whether a header row of field names is included when outputting a report to Microsoft Excel data-only, comma-delimited, or text files.
• You can now specify the starting month of a fiscal year in the Options dialog so dates displayed as quarter use the correct quarter number for your fiscal year.
• The Maintain Users and Groups dialog now has a spot for the email address for each user. This address is used to send emails to technical support if the user hasn't filled in the settings in the Email tab of the Options dialog.
• You now get a warning when running a dashboard if any of the reports are missing.
• Temporary files more than a week old are now deleted when you close Stonefield Query to keep your temporary files folder from getting too full.
• You can no longer enter an email address formatted as "Some Name <somename@somecompany.com>" because that causes a scheduled report to fail.
• The Automatically sum numeric fields setting in the Options dialog was removed, as it's now controlled on a field-by-field basis.
• You now get a warning if you schedule a report to output to or email a file on a mapped drive, since drive mappings don't work well in scheduled tasks.
• Step 2 of the report wizards no longer has Add All and Remove All buttons, since those were were rarely used and accidentally using them causes changes you likely didn't expect.
• Turn on the new No message if no records setting for dashboards to not display a warning if there are no records for a particular chart in the dashboard.
• Importing a report containing an updated formula is now easier. In previous versions, if a formula was edited (for example, the expression was changed) at another site and a report containing that formula was exported and sent to you, importing the report didn't update the formula at your site. Instead, you had to delete the formula before importing the report. Now, when you import a report containing an existing formula that's different than your copy of the formula, you're prompted if you want to replace your formula with the one in the report.
• Importing an update to an existing report is also now easier: you are prompted if you want to replace the existing report with the one being imported. If you choose No, the imported report is given a new name (the same behavior as in previous versions).
• You now get a printer dialog when clicking the Print dialog in the Preview window for a chart.
• The dialog displayed when you click the Email button in the Preview window now has the same options as the Output page of the Reports Explorer.
• If another user is logged in with the same name, the application doesn't terminate but instead redisplays the Login dialog.
• You can now specify a width greater than 1000 for a chart, which is helpful if it's output in landscape.
• The Schedule Wizard now remembers the user name and password in the last step so you don't have to enter them every time you create a schedule.
• The size and position of the Select Email Addresses dialog is now remembered.
• If you use an ask-at-runtime filter condition for a grouping formula, the ask-at-runtime dialog now displays the name of the grouping formula so you can tell which formula the dialog is asking for values.
• You can now choose "Expression" for the Compare to setting for a filter condition using a formula.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 5.0

Stonefield Software Inc. is pleased to announce the release of version 5.0 of Stonefield Query for Act!. This release has numerous new features.

• Stonefield Query is compatible with the new Act! v17 (2015) and Act! 2014 Service Pack 1 (16.1).
• Stonefield Query has a new report type: gauge report. This allows you to create a gauge showing the current value of something compared to a target or goal value.
• You can now create a "grouping" formula. A grouping formula is a powerful tool that allows you to create filtered summary values. For example, suppose you want columns in a report that show the sales for last year and the current year-to-date for each customer. Those aren't single values retrieved from the database. Instead, for the first column, use a grouping formula that sums up the sales records for each customer for last year, and use a similar one but for the current year for the second column.
• You can now password protect the file created when a report is output to file or email.
• You can now print to Dymo LabelWriter labels.
• The Schedule Report function is now available only to advanced users.
• A new output type is now available: Microsoft Excel - Full Format (*.xlsx), which creates Excel 2007 or later files. The former Microsoft Excel (*.xls) output type was renamed to Microsoft Excel 97-2003 - Full Format (*.xls) so you can tell them apart. The new type does not require Microsoft Excel to be installed to create the file.
• The "red" error dialog that appears when something goes wrong now has a Help button that brings up the help with information about that dialog.
• The Locations page in the Options dialog is now available only to administrative users.
• The Subscription Expired dialog, which appears when you have subscription licenses and your subscription has expired, now has a "Don't remind me again" option; turn that option on to prevent the dialog from appearing again. Also, those licenses are now deactivated rather than being deleted, so if you renew your subscription, they are reactivated.

Stonefield Query for Act! Version 4.3.5242

There are numerous new features in this release.

• Stonefield Query is compatible with the new Act! 2014 Service Pack 1 (16.1).
• A new chart type is now available: Donut, which is similar to Pie but with a hole in the middle.
• The default settings for a new chart give it a more modern appearance, such as flat rather than 3-D and better colors.
• You can now define a chart with a second values field; this field is charted as a second series against the right axis.
• The Output each group as a separate file and Output each group as a separate email options now support charts on quick reports. In that case, each file has its own chart related to the group the file is for.
• The Filter Condition dialog now uses a more modern date picker control.
• The Add timestamp to file name setting is now available even when Erase file after email sent setting is turned on in the Output page of the Reports Explorer.
• A new output type is now available: Microsoft Word (*.docx), which creates Word 2007 or later files. The former Microsoft Word (*.doc) output type was renamed to Microsoft Word 97-2003 (*.doc) so you can tell them apart. The docx format is preferred as it's more accurate.
• New "Attendees (All)", "Attendees (Contacts)", and "Attendees (Users)" fields have been added to the Company Activity, Contact Activity, Group Activity, and Opportunity Activity tables in the Act! 2010+ data provider.
• New fields "Activity User ID", "Activity User Name", and "Is Organizer Record" have been added to the Company Activity, Contact Activity, Group Activity, and Opportunity Activity tables in the Act! 2010+ data provider.
• In the Act! 2010+ data provider activity tables, "Organizer" fields now appear as "Scheduled For" to match the Act! UI.
• The Contact Related Contacts table now shows data for both contacts in the relationship, rather than only for the parent contact.
• The Check for Updates function in the Help menu is now only available if you are logged into Stonefield Query as an administrator.
• You can now change settings in the Format page of the Field Properties dialog for numeric fields in columns of cross-tab reports.
• The prompts in the Email page of the Options dialog have been changed to reflect the fact that SMTP is the preferred setting since MAPI can be unreliable, especially when emailing a scheduled report.

Stonefield Query for Act! version 4.3.4878

This release adds compatibility with the new Act! 2014 (16.0), as well as a few new features.

• Stonefield Query is now compatible with the new ACT! 2014 (16.0).
• More than 25 new sample reports have been added for use with ACT! 2010 and later databases.
• If you add "KeepLog=N" to Data.INI, Stonefield Query creates separate diagnostic files with a timestamp as part of the filename so individual logs are created for each run.
• You can now use detail header and footer bands in templates.
• Stonefield Query now creates a default filename when emailing reports.
• You can now specify what "mail mode" to use when emailing via SMTP. This is helpful if problems arise with some types of SMTP servers.
• Emailing each group in a report to separate email addresses now continues to send even if one or more of the addresses is invalid if the Continue Running Reports if Cannot Connect or One Report Fails setting is turned on in the Options dialog.
• Administrator users can now edit any report even if it has security so it's only accessible to one user.

Stonefield Query for Sage ACT! Version 4.3

We are pleased to announce the release of version 4.3 of Stonefield Query for Sage ACT!. Here are the new features in this version.

• Stonefield Query for ACT! has been renamed to Stonefield Query for Sage ACT!, to match the latest naming convention of Sage ACT! itself.
• You can now create batch reports. A batch report automatically runs several reports, outputting each to the desired destination. This is handy if, for example, you normally run the same three reports at the end of every week. Rather than choosing them one at a time, you can create a batch report that combines those three reports and just run it. You can even schedule batch reports.
• You can now append the output of a report to an existing Microsoft Excel output file. In that case, the report appears in a new worksheet (tab) within the spreadsheet. This even works if the file is already open in Excel. You can also now choose XLSX or XLS as the extension for a Microsoft Excel output file.
• Turning on the new Start each group on a new page option for the first row field in a cross-tab report causes each group of records to appear on its own page. You can also now turn on the Output each group as a separate file and Output each group as a separate email settings so each group is output to its own file or email.
• The new Delimited - Microsoft Excel Format output type outputs to a comma-separated values (CSV) file but uses Excel formatting so things like leading zeros are preserved when the file is opened in Excel.
• Formulas are now stored in the same folder as reports (in a file named CalcFields.DBF) so if the program runs on a workstation but reports are shared on a server, so are the formulas. For backward compatibility, the program will still look for CalcFields in the Data subdirectory of the program folder so you won't lose your formulas, so this works better for new installations rather than existing ones.
• You can now enter a formatted SQL statement in the SQL Statement step of the Customize Report dialog. For example, carriage returns and tabs are now permitted. This makes it easier to take a SQL statement from another application and paste it into a report's SQL statement. Note that this change now requires you to prefix procedural code with "*-" if you want to use code rather than a SQL statement (a rare occurrence).
• Microsoft Excel full-format output works better now: the output has a single page header at the top of the document and a single page footer at the bottom rather than header/footer sections where the pages would normally break, and the use of empty columns and rows for positioning is minimized.
• Stonefield Query now handles font scripts other than Western, such as Cyrillic or Greek. You can select the desired script in the Font dialog that appears when you click the font button in the Field Properties dialog of a report wizard or in the Advanced Report Designer.
• Clicking the Add All or Remove All buttons in Step 2 of the report wizards now display a prompt asking you to confirm if you want to do that to prevent inadvertently adding all fields in a table to a report or removing all fields from a report.
• The application no longer erases the diagnostic log (Diagnostic.txt in the Data subdirectory of the program folder) if KeepLog=Y is in Data.INI. This is useful for checking diagnostics over multiple runs, such as for scheduled reports.
• You can now resize dashboard windows to a much smaller size than before.
• You can now edit a chart that's included in a quick report with an advanced layout. The Size page in Step 4 of the Chart Wizard is now disabled in that case, since you cannot change the chart size.
• You can now click the serial number in the About dialog (available from the Help menu) to copy your serial number to the clipboard. This makes it easier to enter the serial number when creating a ticket in our online support ticket system.

Stonefield Query for ACT! version 4.2.4603

Version 4.2.4603 has several great new features.

• Stonefield Query is now compatible with the new Sage ACT! 2013.
• Four new sample reports have been added for ACT! 2010 and later databases.
• The performance of reports using the Details or Notes fields in the ACT! 2010+ data provider has been greatly improved.
• New "Organizer Phone" fields are available in the activity tables in the ACT! 2010+ data provider, similar to the existing "Organizer Email" fields.
• The new Auto-fit to page setting for quick reports automatically reduces the font when fields would normally be moved to a second row because there are too many to fit on one. This makes it possible for the fields to fit on a single row.
• The new Find Field button in step 2 of the report wizards makes it easier to find a field by part of the caption.
• Reports can be combined into a single PDF output by specifying the same file name for each report and turning on the new Append to existing file setting.
• The Dashboard window now supports outputting all charts to a single PDF file.
• You can now sort a chart by values rather than the default alphabetically by category by setting the Sort setting in the Field Properties dialog to Ascending or Descending Order.
• You can now define multi-line point labels for charts in Windows XP (it was only available in previous versions for Windows Vista and 7).
• You now get a warning if you copy an expression from the Expression Builder and paste it into a place where real table and field names are required, such as the expression for a formula or a field in the Advanced Report Designer. Previously, you would get an error when running the report.

Stonefield Query for ACT! version 4.2

We are pleased to announce the immediate release of Stonefield Query for ACT! version 4.2. There are lots of new and improved features in version 4.2.

• Several new sample reports have been added for ACT! 2010 and later databases.
• Stonefield Query now supports relationships between two subentites defined using TopLine Designer.
• You can now edit formulas from Step 2 in the report wizards. When a formula is selected, click the Edit Formula button to edit it. Otherwise, that button appears as "New Formula", so clicking it creates a new formula.
• Formulas now appear in report wizards with "[Formula]" after the name so you can distinguish them from real fields.
• You can now specify the order that a formula appears in its table when fields are displayed in table order. This is useful if you want a formula to appear somewhere other than at the end of the list of fields.
• You can now specify the number of rows a dashboard has. For example, if there are four charts in a dashboard and you specify two rows, the dashboard will have two rows of two charts each.
• Two new templates are available:
  • Modern: this template has alternating light and dark rounded rectangles in the detail band and a blue rounded rectangle for column headers.
  • Modern with Title: this template is similar to Modern but with a title page showing the report name, comment, user, date, and filter.
  To add these to the list of available templates, choose Template Editor from the Tools menu, click Import, and select these templates from the Sample Templates folder.
  
• Objects in templates have a new Center option, which is useful for images such as logos that you want to be centered horizontally on the page.
• Stonefield Query can now automatically sum numeric fields when you add them to a report. Turn on the Automatically sum numeric fields setting in the Options dialog to use this feature.
• The Format page of the Field Properties dialog of the Advanced Report Designer now has a Display date only setting that works like the same setting in the Properties dialog of the report wizards: turn this setting on to display the date only or turn it off to display the date and time.
• You can now specify whether missing date values are included in a chart when a date field is used in as the category (X-axis) field.
• The License Manager now includes a Copy button to copy the selected serial number to the Clipboard. This makes it easier to specify your serial number when requesting technical support.
• You now get a warning if you try to schedule a report that has ask-at-runtime filter conditions, since that prevents a scheduled report from running.
• Because exclude filter conditions are often erroneously used in place of a normal "not equals" filter (for example, you want a list of customers who aren't in Germany and use an exclude condition of Country equals Germany rather than the correct way, with a normal filter condition of Country does not equal Germany), you now get a warning if you try to create an exclude condition of this type, although that doesn't prevent you from using it.
• Most cross-tab reports run faster now.
• You can now output cross-tab reports that have Show Change or Show % Change turned on to Microsoft Excel, CVS, or PivotTable files even when the report can't be previewed or printed because it has too many columns.
• Stonefield Query starts up faster than before.
• The setting of the "display only directly related tables" button is no longer remembered because it was easy to miss that this option was turned on and then wonder why all of the tables weren't displayed.
• Turning on Use same options next time report is run on the Output page of the Reports Explorer now saves the selected printer if it isn't the default printer. This allows you to always print the report to the same printer, such as sending mailing labels to a label printer.
• You can now specify the name of a report to edit or that a report should be created with the New Report Wizard with command-line parameters.

Stonefield Query for ACT! 4.1

We are pleased to announce the immediate release of Stonefield Query for ACT! version 4.1. There are lots of new and improved features in version 4.1.

New Features

• You can now define dashboards using the new Dashboard Wizard. A dashboard is a set of chart reports that displays on your desktop in its own window. These charts automatically refresh at an interval you specify so you can always see the most current data.
• Stonefield Query now supports Windows 7:
  • When you run a report, the taskbar button shows a moving green bar indicating something is happening.
  • You can now right-click a report and choose Pin to Taskbar to pin it to the taskbar; choosing that item in the taskbar launches Stonefield Query and previews that report (this obviously works best when Stonefield Query itself is pinned to the taskbar).
  • Stonefield Query report files, which have an SFX extension, now display a nice report icon in Windows Explorer. Double-clicking an SFX file launches Stonefield Query and previews that report.
• You can now create a desktop shortcut for a report. Right-click any report in the Reports Explorer and choose Create Desktop Shortcut. This will create a shortcut on your desktop with the same name as the report. Double-clicking this shortcut previews the report without opening Stonefield Query, which is handy if you just want to run one report without having to find it in the Reports Explorer.
• Usage statistics are now maintained for reports, and the new Usage Reporting function in the Tools menu allows you to report on these statistics. This allows you to determine which reports are actually being used, how often, and by whom.
• A new type of display for date fields is now available in the Field Properties dialog: "Month/Year". This displays the month and year part of the date, which the "Month" option formerly did. "Month" now outputs only the month part of the date, which is handy, for example, in cross-tab reports where you want to show the date in the rows and the year in the columns to compare sales by month and year. Reports you created prior to version 4.1 using "Month" are automatically changed to use "Month/Year" so they work as they did before.
• You can now configure how much memory Stonefield Query reserves for itself at startup. This is especially useful in Windows Terminal Server environments where multiple users run Stonefield Query on the same server at the same time.
• The new built-in GoMonthDay function makes calculating dynamic dates, such as the first day of the previous month, much easier.

Charts

• Multi-page charts are now supported. In the new Size/Paging page of the Chart Wizard, turn on Paging and set the number of points you want on each page.
• Linking, such as drilldowns, from charts is now supported. The Properties dialog for the Category (X-axis) field has a Link page that works the same as other report types. This allows you, for example, to display a chart showing sales by salesperson and click a certain salesperson to drill down to a report showing individual sales for that salesperson. Linking even works in charts displayed in a dashboard. To support this feature, a different preview window is used for charts. It has the same features as the preview window used for other report types but cannot used tabbed pages showing other report types, only other charts.
• Charts now use the Segoe UI font for text in Windows Vista or later because it looks better, especially when rotated.

Cross-Tab Reports

• Cross-tab reports now support displaying the amount and/or percentage change between columns. The Display page of the Properties dialog for a data field has new "Show difference from previous column" and "Show percentage change" options. You can turn on one or both of these.
• You can now specify whether cross-tab reports include row and column totals using new options in Step 5.
• The Select only top option in a cross-tab report now applies to the totals for the first row field rather than the row field itself. For example, setting "Select only top" to 10 now displays the top 10 values rather than the top 10 alphabetically.

Other Features

• Emailing now supports SSL/TSL for SMTP, which means you can now email using Gmail or Hotmail accounts or other SMTP servers that require SSL/TSL. Also, emailing using MAPI with Microsoft Outlook as your email program no longer displays the dreaded Outlook security dialog.
• Certain characters that weren't allowed in the name of a report, such as a period, comma, question mark, slash, and so on, are now allowed. The only character you can't use is a backslash ("\").
• Certain characters that weren't supported in the body or subject of an email, such as "&" or ">", are now allowed.
• You no longer have to contact us if you have to activate the program on a different computer than it was originally activated on. Online activation will automatically activate this computer and deactivate the license on the other one.
• Output to text, comma-separated (CSV), table, and XML files is now faster.
• Exclusion conditions now work faster than before.
• The Preview window now remembers the setting of the zoom option. If you run a report and change the zoom to 200%, the next time you preview a report, it'll be at 200%.
• The Ask At Runtime filter and report progress dialogs now always appear on top of any other windows so they can't get lost behind something else if you click on a different window.
• The Setup dialog has a new page (page 2) for contact information.
• The activation process is now simpler. Clicking the Click here to activate the program now link in the Welcome dialog (displayed when you're running an unactivated version) now displays the License Manager dialog where you can add as many licenses as you need rather than bringing up a Registration dialog that only allows one license to be activated.
• New templates are automatically imported when you run Stonefield Query.
• The OnSelect script for a report can now access the report using the Report object. This is useful if, for example, you want to change the default filter for a report when it's selected.
• You can now use the built-in RunSQL function in formulas.
• It's easier to work with the Dynamics tab in the properties dialog for Pictures and Rectangles in the Advanced Report Designer. You no longer have to enter values in 960th's of a inch; instead, you can enter value in inches or centimeters, depending on how your system is configured.
• File dialogs, such as those displayed when you output to file or export a report, now support Windows Vista and later features, such as search and recent places.
• The ask-at-runtime filter dialog now appears on top of the report progress window so it doesn't get hidden behind other windows.
• The new GetValueForParameter function is like the existing GetValueForField but allows you to specify the caption, data type, and size of the parameter being requested from the user.
• The "Add Report to ACT! Menu" screen now includes an option to output to the Stonefield Query preview window.

Stonefield Query for ACT! 4.0

We are pleased to announce the immediate release of Stonefield Query for ACT! version 4.0. There are lots of new and improved features in version 4.0.
We have a video covering some of the new features in the Report Designer.

Report Wizards

• You can now customize the relationships between tables in a report without having to edit the SQL statement for the report.
• You can now turn on the Show percentage of total option when you use the Count and Count Distinct summary types in Quick and Cross-Tab reports.
• You can now use the Highest and Lowest summary types on all fields, not just numeric ones.
• You can now create a filter condition that compares a field in one table to a field in another table by using an expression condition.
• Creating a formula by clicking the Formula button in Step 2 of the report wizards now automatically adds the new formula to the report.
• The list displayed when you click the Values button in Step 2 of the report wizards or the Expression Builder now displays two columns of information for certain fields: the value displayed in reports and the actual value stored in the database.
• If Stonefield Query closed due to a problem and you were in the middle of editing a report in a report wizard, the next time you start the program, it prompts if you want to recover and continue editing that report. Choosing No abandons the recovered report so the changes are lost.
• You now have finer control over the placement of a report's filter in a custom SQL statement.

Quick Reports

• You can now group on a field even if the Display this field in the report option is turned off. This is useful, for example, if you want to group on customer ID but display customer name in the group header.
• You can now create bookmarks on fields that are included in the group header of another field.
• You now get a warning in the Field Properties dialog if you turn on the Include this field in group header for option and select a grouped field in a different table than the current field.

Charts

• New options in the Chart Wizard allow you to stack series in area, bar, and column charts and combine smaller slices into one "other" slice in pie charts.
• You can now specify whether a chart added to a quick or cross-tab report appears at the top or bottom of the report using the new Position on report option.
• The Total type option in the Field Properties dialog for the Chart Wizard has a new Count Distinct setting.
• The Summary report option in Step 4 of the Chart Wizard has been removed. Instead, set Total type in the Field Properties dialog to None, meaning you want individual values plotted rather than summarized values.
• The Multi-line option in the Labels page of Step 4 in the Chart Wizard is no longer available for Windows XP since that option is only supported in Windows Vista and later versions.
• You now receive a warning if you create a quick or cross-tab report, add a chart to it, then remove one or more of the fields used in the chart.
• Outputting a chart report to an image (such as GIF) now outputs just the chart, not an entire page with the template.

Cross-Tab Reports

• You can now specify how a date field used in the row of a cross-tab report is formatted: as a date, hour, week, month, quarter, or year.
• You can now specify the width and what to do if the width is too narrow in row and data fields in the Cross Tab Wizard.
• The Field Properties dialog now has a Suppress repeating values option for row fields. If this option is turned on (which it is by default) and several records in a row have the same value in this field, only the first occurrence is printed; the field in subsequent records appears blank.
• A new _TOTAL value is True only for the grand totals line in a cross-tab report, so you can use that in, for example, the Print When expression of an object in a template to output that object only for the totals line. Similarly, _SUBTOTAL can be used to output an object only in a subtotals line.

Preview and Output

• A new file output type is available: Microsoft Excel PivotTable. This type, which is only available for cross-tab reports, creates an Excel PivotTable formatted the same as the cross-tab report, but you can use Excel to change or pivot the report as necessary.
• You can now output cross-tabulation and advanced layout reports to more file types, including Microsoft Excel data-only and delimited.
• The Embed fonts in the file option on the Output page allows you to embed the fonts used in the report, such as a barcode font, in a PDF file.
• The Preview window now supports the same types of output types as the Output page of the Reports Explorer.
• When you run a report, the Reports Explorer and any open report wizard windows become dim and a progress window appears, showing you the progress of the report process and allowing you to cancel the process before it finishes. You can turn this off if you wish by turning off the Display progress during report runs setting in the Options dialog.

Advanced Report Designer

• Several of the object property dialogs in the Advanced Report Designer have some changes. The Rotation option no longer appears on the General page but on its own Rotation page because it now shows a sample of how the rotation will look. The properties dialogs for field, picture, rectangle, and line objects have a new Dynamics page that allows you to conditionally alter the appearance of the object. Because the conditions on the Dynamics page are more flexible than dynamic font and color settings, those two items have been removed from the Style page for field objects.
• You can now use gradient colors for rectangles in the Advanced Report Designer, both for reports and templates. A couple of new sample templates, Gradient Template and Valencia Orange, show how these can be used to produce nice, professional effects in your reports.
• If you use Windows Vista or later, you can now change the printer used for an advanced layout report in the Page Layout page of the Report Properties dialog (this option was previously and is still available for Windows XP and earlier).

Other Features

• You can now use fields from tables involved in the report for exclusion conditions. This means you can create a report that, for example, shows all customer who bought something last year (using a filter condition of sales date is between January 1 and December 31 of last year) but didn't this year (using an exclude condition of sales date is between January 1 and December 31 of this year).
• The performance of certain types of formulas was improved.
• The Formulas dialog now has a Copy function to make it easier to create a formula similar to an existing one.
• The Formula Editor now has a Data Provider option so you can select the data provider the tables in the Tables list are from.
• The default name when you copy a report is now the existing report name with a "1" suffix; in previous versions, the default name was blank.
• The login dialog now has a link to the Setup dialog. This is useful if you need to change something about the Stonefield Query setup before logging in.
• You cannot schedule reports if you are running Stonefield Query on Windows Terminal Server or Citrix since those environments don't permit it.
• The version number now displays in the Reports Explorer title bar so you can quickly see which version you are running.
• You can now specify carbon copy (CC) addresses when sending emails.
• If you're using Microsoft Outlook or some other MAPI email program, you can now enter the name of a distribution list in the To, CC, and BCC options to send the email to a group of people.
• Importing several reports that use formulas at one time is now significantly faster than before.
• Specifying "ALLOWDIALOGS" when running Stonefield Query from another application or the command line now causes a progress dialog to display as the report runs.
• Diagnostic logging is now always performed. A file called Diagnostic.TXT is created in the Data subdirectory of the program folder and is overwritten every time you start Stonefield Query. This file is very useful for tracking down errors or performance issues, and previously was only created if a file named Log.TXT existed.
• Stonefield Query now displays a message that it's retrieving news items while it does that task so you can see what's going on.
• An option to control the "serialization" of retrieving activity data when using the ACT! 2005-2009 data provider was added to the Options screen.
• The options screen now gives more informative messages about when changes made will take effect.

Stonefield Query for ACT! Version 3.3

We released version 3.3 of Stonefield Query for ACT! today. The list of new and enhanced features in version 3.3 is extensive; see the online help for complete details. Here are the major new features.
Report Designer

• The new Formula Editor allows you to create your own formulas without using the Advanced Report Designer or customizing the data dictionary.
• The new Show percentage of total option in the Format page of the Field Properties dialog automatically adds a new column to the report showing the percentage that the field is of the subtotal in detail lines, of the next level of grouping in subgroup footers, and of the grand total for group footers.
• Turn on the new Show totals in group headers option in Step 5 of the Quick Report Wizard and the Options page of the Reports Explorer to display group totals in the group header rather than the group footer.
• Stonefield Query now supports Crystal Reports reports. You can add them to Stonefield Query using the External Report Wizard.
• The Preview window is no longer modal, meaning you can open multiple instances. Also, the new Preview reports in tabbed pages setting in the Options dialog allows you to determine whether different preview windows are used when you run more than one report or whether the reports appear as different tabs in the same preview window.
• There are several new output options available. You can specify that a timestamp is added to the file created to prevent overwriting existing files, that the file emailed to someone shouldn't be deleted after the email is sent, and what filename to use for the emailed file.
• Previous versions of Stonefield Query create a report as a PDF file when emailing the report to someone. You can now specify the type of file used as an attachment.
• You can now specify that each group in a report should be output to a separate file or email and that the email address should come from a field in the report itself. This can be used, for example, to email invoices to customers; the report is grouped by customer name and includes the customer's email address, so each customer's records are emailed to them.
• You can now sort fields in database order or alphabetical order in Step 2 of the report wizards.
• You can now tell Stonefield Query to display in the Tables drop-down list only those tables related to tables already appearing in the selected list.
• Reports are now stored as export files with an SFX extension in a folder structure that exactly matches the folders in the Reports Explorer.
• The new Send summary queries to database engine setting in the Options dialog allows you to specify whether Stonefield Query or the database engine does data summarization. This may significantly improve the performance of certain types of reports.
• The new Run report with no records option in Step 5 of the report wizards and the Options page in the Reports Explorer allows you to run a report when there are no records that match your conditions.
• Stonefield Query now supports the changes made in the ACT! 11.1 update.
• The new field Contact in Current Lookup has been added to the Contact table. This field allows reports to be filtered based on the current ACT! lookup.
• The new table Contact Related Contacts is now available. This table was added in ACT! 11.1, so it will only be available in Query when connected to an ACT! 11.1 or later database.
• The Add Report to ACT! Menu function has been improved, and now offers many more options for specifying settings for these reports.

Stonefield Software is Sage Gold Development Partner and Sage Certified

Stonefield Software was recently awarded Gold Development Partner status with Sage (formerly known as Sage Software). Also, our Stonefield Query versions for Sage products, such as Stonefield Query for Sage Accpac ERP, Stonefield Query for Sage Pro ERP, and Stonefield Query for ACT!, were recently certified by Sage.