Stonefield Query for HEAT Version 7.2

We are pleased to announce the release of version 7.2 of Stonefield Query for HEAT. There are lots of new features in this release.

• A new script is available for reports in the Customize Report Wizard: BeforeOutput. This script allows you to change output settings for the report before it's output to file or email.

• If a subreport has an ask-at-runtime filter condition that matches a filter condition in the main report, the value of that filter condition for the main report is used for the subreport and you are no longer prompted for the value (similar to the way this works for linked reports).

• Cross-tab reports can now have a page field, which appears in the page header and causes a page break when its value changes.

• You can now specify the number of points per page in a chart that's part of a quick or cross-tab report.

• You can now specify whether the Y-axis scale of a chart is determined automatically and, if not, what the minimum and maximum values are.

• Gauges are now centered in their preview window.

• The Scheduled Tasks dialog has a Diagnostic button that displays the content of the most recent diagnostic file for the selected task.

• You can now append to an existing Microsoft Excel document when outputting to Excel full format.

• You can now specify whether an Excel document has gridlines.

• You can now choose the merge type, Letter or Directory, when outputting to Microsoft Word Merge. This affects where pages break in the generated Word documents.

• The new Shadowed setting allow you to specify whether the data shapes in bar, column, pie, and donut charts are shadowed.

• A chart in a quick or cross-tab report can now be different than the main report. For example, a cross-tab with Country in the row, Order Date (displayed as Year) in the column, and Sales Amount in the data can have a chart has Order Date (displayed as Quarter) as the x-axis and Sales Amount as the Y-axis (that is, Country isn't used in the chart).

• You can now turn on Subtotal on This Field for a date field formatted as an aggregate date (such as Quarter or Year) in the rows of a cross-tab report.

• You can now create a template that displays only the page header rather than both the page header and report filter.

• You can now press Enter to add a line break in the Expression Builder for report headers and footers, the message of an email, and the Customize Report Wizard.

• The Expression Builder button is now available for the custom description of a filter condition.

• In the Expression Builder, clicking the Values button to display the Values dialog and selecting a value now inserts that value into the expression.

• You can now use loReport.GetReportHeader(.T.) in a report template to display the page header without the report filter.

• If you import a template with the same name as an existing one, you're asked if you want the imported template to overwrite the existing one or be imported with a new name.

• The last page of the Formatting Options step in the Chart Wizard is now labelled "Other" because it contains other settings.

• You can no longer use the Edit Chart button for a chart that's part of a quick or cross-tab report because it doesn't work properly.

• You can no longer use the Print Preview function in the Advanced Report Designer since it isn't reliable.

Stonefield Query for HEAT Version 7.0

We are pleased to announce the release of version 7.0 of Stonefield Query for HEAT. There are lots of new features in this release.

• Multiple license types are now available. This allows you to decide what set of features you would like to have.

• You can now evenly spread the columns across the page in a quick report by turning on the Auto-fit to Page setting. This setting adds extra space between the columns so the fields take up the entire width of the page.

• You can now sort a cross-tab report by a data field. This can be used to, for example, show customer sales by country and product with the largest customers (by sales) at the top and smallest at the bottom.

• You can now specify the number of columns to display in a dashboard. If the total number of cells (rows multiplied by columns) is less than the number of reports, the reports are cycled through in sets at the specified interval. For example, if you specify two rows and two columns, only four reports can be displayed at a time, so if the dashboard contains six reports, the first four are displayed, then the next two, then the first four again. The interval is now in seconds rather than minutes. Also, you can now add more than 9 reports to a dashboard.

• You can now specify the minimum and maximum values for a gauge. The goal value is now optionally shown as a goal marker on the gauge.

• Fields containing HTML and rich text (RTF) content can now be displayed as formatted text.

• The performance of outputting a report with a large number of records (tens of thousands) to Microsoft Excel Data-Only (Fast) was greatly improved (90% faster) and produces smaller XLSX files.

• You can now format a field to display negative numbers in parentheses rather than with a minus sign (for example, (123.45) instead of -123.45).

• You can now specify the title settings for the right axis in a chart that has a field plotted on the right axis.

• You can now create a stacked chart when there is no series field but there is more than one value field.

• You can use the new built-in variable ChartTotal to display the total of a chart, such as in the title of the chart.

• A new type of formatting is available for date fields: Day, which displays Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.

• When you compare a field to another field in the Filter Condition dialog, the drop-down list of fields to compare to now includes fields from other tables in the report, not just the ones from the selected table.

• You can now drill down from a report using an aggregate date (such as Month/Year) to one using a filter on a date range.

• You can no longer sort a chart by values if there's more than one values field or if there's a series field because the chart doesn't support sorting on more than one set of values so the sets don't match with the x-axis.

• The Select Values dialog, which appears when you click the Values button in the Filter Condition dialog or the Expression Builder, now has a Search option so you can search for values.

• The value for a filter condition can now be used in the custom description of the condition.

• The Preview window has new zoom levels: 1000%, 800%, and 500%.

• Expression builder buttons are now available for the header and footer of a report and for the subject and message of an email, making it easier to enter expressions for these things.

• The GetValueForField and GetValueForParameter functions now accept a parameter indicating which value for "is between" and "is one of" conditions is returned.

• You can no longer schedule a report to output to any Microsoft Excel format other than Microsoft Excel Data Only (Fast) or any Microsoft Word format because the other formats require running Excel or Word behind the scenes and they cannot be reliably run from a scheduled task as Microsoft themselves admit.

• The Format function can now use < and > as delimiters for placeholders in addition to { and }. This allows it to be used in expressions, which use { and } as the expression delimiters; for example, {Format('<0:c2>', MyValue)} works but {Format('{0:c2}', MyValue)} doesn't because of the confusion of the two uses of { and }.

• The default Add Missing Values setting for date fields in a chart is now turned off.

• You can now include commas in values passed to filter conditions in a parameters file by escaping them (prefixing them with a backslash); for example, <value value="My Company\, LLC"</value>.

• Cross-tab reports now use weighed averages rather than average of averages when Average is used for a data field.

Stonefield Query for HEAT Version 6.1

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

• 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 HEAT Version 6.0

We are pleased to announce the release of version 6.0 of Stonefield Query for HEAT. 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 HEAT Version 5.2

We are please to announce the release of version 5.2 of Stonefield Query for HEAT. 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.
• 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 HEAT 5.1

We are please to announce the release of version 5.1 of Stonefield Query for HEAT. 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 HEAT Version 5.0

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

• 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.
• The Inventory Control Location Item Details table now also appears in the Purchase Orders module.
• The Inventory Items table now has a Total Quantity on Hand field that contains the total quantity on hand from all locations.
• The Inventory Shipments related tables no longer appear in the Order Entry or Purchase Orders modules to avoid confusion with the shipments tables already in those modules.
• 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 HEAT Version 4.3

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

• 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 HEAT version 4.2

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

• 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 HEAT 4.1

We are pleased to announce the immediate release of the Stonefield Query for HEAT 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.
• When you install a new version of Stonefield Query over an existing one, if there are any new or modified sample reports, a dialog appears telling you that and allowing you to select which of those to import. You can also choose the Check New or Updated Sample Reports function in the Tools menu.
• 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.

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.
• There's better support for adding images stored in your database to reports.
• 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.
• You can now filter on the Source Database field. This allows a report to drill down based on a data source. For example, suppose you have a cross-tab report that retrieves data from multiple data sources and it has Source Database as the column field. Clicking a specific data source should drilldown and run a detail report for that data source only, so the linked report has a filter on Source Database.
• The progress dialog that appears when running a report that retrieves data from multiple databases now shows the name of the database the data is currently being retrieved from and the number of records retrieved.

Stonefield Query for HEAT 4.0

We are pleased to announce the immediate release of Stonefield Query for HEAT 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.
• You can now configure Stonefield Query to retrieve records from the database in batches (also known as asynchronously). This gives you the ability to stop a long-running report while records are retrieved rather than having to wait a long time for retrieval to be complete.

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

• Stonefield Query for HEAT now supports HEAT version 9.5 and lower.
• 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 group option so you can select the data group 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.

Stonefield Query for HEAT Version 3.3

We released version 3.3 of Stonefield Query for HEAT 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.
  
  
• You can now report on HEAT "First Level Support" tables.
• Added new "Latest Group Assigned" field to the "Call Log" table that will give you the name of the most recent Group that a Call has been assigned to. This is available so that you do not need to include the "Assignments" table in the report as this would give you multiple records for each Call, one for each assignment that the Call has.
• Added a new "Latest Assignee" field to the "Call Log" table that tells you who the latest assignee is for that particular call.
• Table captions are now of the form: TABLEDESC[TABLETYPE]. Where TABLEDESC is the table caption from the HEAT database and TABLETYPE is the table type (both set by the HEAT administrator). This is to avoid the confusing issue of table listings that have the exact same caption for different tables. You can further narrow down the list of available tables by turning on the "Exclude Supplementary Tables" option in the Tools->Options menu.

Using Stonefield Query on 64-bit Windows

Although it's a 32-bit application, Stonefield Query works just fine on 64-bit versions of Windows, including Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008.

One known issue with Windows, however, is that 32-bit applications can access 32-bit system DSNs, 32-bit user DSNs, and 64-bit user DSNs, but not 64-bit system DSNs. Since the default ODBC Administrator is the 64-bit version (you can run the 32-bit version from the SysWoW64 subdirectory of the Windows folder if necessary), any system DSNs you create aren't visible to Stonefield Query. So, either create user DSNs rather than system DSNs or use the 32-bit ODBC Administrator to create your DSNs.

This impacts any version of Stonefield Query that uses ODBC DSNs rather than connection strings, including:

• Stonefield Query SDK (if you turn on the User Can Manage Data Sources configuration setting)
• Stonefield Query for GoldMine
• Stonefield Query for HEAT
• Stonefield Query for MAS 90 and 200
• Stonefield Query for Sage Accpac ERP
• Stonefield Query for Sage BusinessVision
• Stonefield Query for Sage Pro ERP (SQL version)

Stonefield Query Version 3.2 Update

We posted updated versions of the Stonefield Query SDK, Stonefield Query for Sage Accpac ERP, Stonefield Query for Sage Pro ERP, Stonefield Query for GoldMine, and Stonefield Query for HEAT today with the following changes.

All Versions

• Thanks to Boudewijn Lutgerink, the Dutch version of Stonefield Query is now current with version 3.2.
• An error that occurred if you ran a report that uses the RunSQL function in the Advanced Report Designer was fixed. Also, editing a field using that function no longer executes the function.
• A bug that caused an error if you created a new report then right-clicked in the Reports Explorer on a folder was fixed.
• A bug that caused the Favorites folder to appear as "Favorites" in some dialogs rather than the localized equivalent when the language is set to something other than English was fixed.
• Stonefield Query now has consistent behavior if you try closing it by clicking the Close button, right-clicking and choosing Exit, or choosing Exit from the File menu when a report wizard is open.
• You no longer get an error if you press Esc during the "processing records" step when running a long report.

Sage Pro

• The Analyze Database function now works correctly with Sage Pro databases.
• The Pay Priority field in the Accounts Payable Master File in the Sage Pro version now supports a value of 0 for Payment Hold.
• Stonefield Query now supports the case where you've customized the SQL statement for a report and used code that includes multiple SQL statements.
• It now does a better job when updating from an older ACCPAC Query version.

Sage Accpac

• Date fields in the Sage Accpac version now display as true date values rather than numeric values.
• Some joins were optimized in the Sage Accpac data dictionary, making some reports (especially those involving Accounts Receivable Items) faster.
• A bug that prevented reports involving Order Entry Invoices and Invoice Details from working correctly when you have more than one data dictionary was fixed.
• It now does a better job when updating from an older ACCPAC Query version.

SDK

• A bug that gave an error when creating help files for a project when you're running the Configuration Utility on Windows Vista or Windows XP using a limited user account was fixed. Also, it now gives a warning rather than an unexpected error if the folder for the help files is read-only.
• The update process now displays the correct name of the updater application if you've changed it when the user runs the Check for Updates function and an update is available on a Windows Vista system.
• Stonefield Query now supports updating project components, such as the data dictionary files.

Stonefield Query for HEAT 3.2 Released

Stonefield Software Inc. is pleased to announce the release of version 3.2 of Stonefield Query for HEAT.

Stonefield Query is a user-friendly report writing, business intelligence, query, and data mining tool. With its intuitive wizard driven design, Stonefield Query makes report writing a snap for even the most novice user. Elegant and persuasive reports can be created in minutes with little or no technical knowledge required.

Some of the new features in this release are:

• The performance of queries involving a filter on a date field is now dramatically faster than before. However, this will require you to change any dynamic Date expression filters to use the new built-in HEATDate function.
• New Elapsed Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) and Elapsed Days/Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) fields in the Call Logging and Call Assignments tables show the elapsed hours for a call taking the hours of operation of your Helpdesk (rather than total elapsed time) into account.
• You now have the option of choosing a calendar type in the Tools=>Options menu if you have multiple "Help Desk Hours of Operation" calendars created for your HEAT database. This data is used when calculating the Elapsed Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) and Elapsed Days/Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) fields in the Call Logging and Call Assignments tables.
• Exclusion filters: this allows you to query on the absence of data, such as "give me a list of customers I didn't contact last year" or "give me a list of everyone who did not buy product X". Behind the scenes, Stonefield Query generates a NOT IN subquery, but from the end-user's perspective, it's just as easy as creating a normal filter.
• Modeless report wizards: the report wizards are no longer modal, so you can modify more than one report at a time.
• Single ask-at-runtime dialog: all ask-at-runtime filter conditions now appear in a single, wizard-like dialog rather than one dialog per condition.
• Workstation installer: Stonefield Query now has a separate WSSetup.EXE installer, installed by Setup.EXE, that does workstation installations with the minimum of user interaction.
• More grouping options: you can now specify that a non-grouped field should be included in the group header for another field, you can have all fields in the group header on a single line rather than stacked on separate lines, and all fields in the group header now appear in summary reports.
• Multi-line headings: many fields now have multi-line headings so they don't take up as much room in a report, and you can change field headings to use multiple lines.
• Customize Report Wizard for all report types: all report wizards now have an Advanced button, allowing access to TOP N, custom SQL statements, and other features.

There are dozens of other new features and bug fixes. For more information about version 3.2, please see the What's New in This Version topic in the online documentation.

Improvements in Stonefield Query for HEAT

In addition to all the new features and bug fixes in Stonefield Query (and if you've been following this blog, you know there are a lot of them), we made the following improvements in Stonefield Query for HEAT:

• The performance of queries involving a filter on a date field is now dramatically faster than before.
• New Elapsed Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) and Elapsed Days/Hours (Based on Help Desk Hours) fields in the Calling Logging and Assignments tables show the elapsed hours for a call taking the hour of operation (rather than total elapsed time) into account.
• We eliminated the cause of duplicate fields in the Profile table.

These improvements will be in version 3.2, due for release later this month.