Addendum to Update 7.20

Addendum to Version 7.20
(for 7.20 - 7.21)

(The following changes were implemented since version 7.15)

We are proud to announce many new dynamic features in The Ultimate with this release. Please take the time to carefully read through this addendum to learn how to implement them.

Sensitive Customer information now Encrypted to avoid identity theft
In today's world of customer's knowledge of identity theft, The Ultimate now encrypts sensitive data such as Credit Card number, Social Security & Driver's License. This means that there are not reports which will print these fields. They have also been taken out of the DBase Export. The only way these fields can be viewed is from within The Ultimate, and (if security is used) you can set the salesperson's level to view the information.

Perform Customer and Rental searches sorted by Code
When in Customer or Rental Maintenance, press <F7> (Code) from the search screen <F5> to sort the items by their code. Pressing <F7> again will toggle the feature back to the Customer name and Title sorting.

Perform Searches of Rental Titles and Movie Stars by PARTIAL search
An outstanding feature! When in Rental Maintenance, press <F9> (Part) from the search screen <F5> to allow partial word searches. This feature can be used for both the Rental Title and the Movie Star's name. An example of it's usage is when a customer knows there is a movie with the word "TRAIN" in it, but does not remember the entire title. Pressing <F9> and typing TRAIN> will bring up all matches with the word TRAIN somewhere in the title.
NOTE: Since this feature builds an index on the fly, it may not be useful for older slower computers or (definitely) systems running on DOS. Test it to try it out. On most computers it should take less than 30 seconds, which makes it well worth it!

Select the Customer's "Master" phone number from a list of Home, Work and Mobile numbers
The Ultimate stores three phone numbers for each main user. Home, Work and Mobile. However you can now designate one of these numbers as the customer's "master" or preferred number. To assign the master number, go into the "Main User" tab in Customer Maintenance and press <enter> until you get past all three phone numbers. At that point a box will come up which allows you to select the phone number you wish to become the master. This is the phone number which will print on reports. It also has been added as a "field" selection in the Report Generator".

Individual Invoice Notes now available
Another outstanding feature! You can now write and assign a note field (up to 100 characters) to each individual invoice. Great for noting "why the customer got a free rental on this invoice". These notes will display on all "View Past Invoice screens. To implement this feature, press <F4> (Note) during any line of the invoice, while in progress (except the first line). When displaying invoices, the <F4> key will once again display the word Note, telling you that a note is attached to this invoice. Press <F4> to review the note.

The Ultimate now stores Customer's rentals by Format, Rating, Pricing Group and Title Category
On the last update, we added the Format tracking, but have now added the other categories as well. This is one of those features that needs time for the data to be collected and stored before having suitable usefulness. Therefore, in 7.20 there is not a method to view or print this information. This feature will be quickly added in a free downloadable patch as well as being in the next update 7.30. It was decided not to hold up this update for us to complete screens and reports which are virtually useless until a few months. Check our web site every few weeks for new patches. We are currently testing various screens and reports that could be utilized.

Improvement to the Reservation System
When making a reservation, The Ultimate will now display the actual USER of the account that reserved the rental. In the past, they were all assigned to the main user. The reservation will still attach itself to the main user, but the actual user the reservation was originally for will be displayed.

Added additional Reports to print mass Customer and Rental labels instead of just one at a time
This is a widely requested feature. In the past, Customer and Rental labels could only be printed one at a time within Customer and Rental Maintenance. We have now added the ability to print multiple labels based on your custom criteria. This new feature can be implemented in the Reporting System by adding these new reports to the menus through the Report Generator". If you are already using The Ultimate, this update does not come with these reports already linked. All you have to do is follow the easy instructions enclosed. The Sort and Range options are the same as with any other report.
IMPORTANT: The label type must be set as the default label type in the Customer and Rental Maintenance screens. To do this, enter any Customer or Rental code and arrow to the Labels tab. Before pressing <enter>, press <F10> and select from the listing. Visual examples will appear to help you in your selection. One the default is set, it is permanent until it is changed again.

Duplicate Check of Customer's Street address
When adding a new customer, The Ultimate now checks for duplicate Street Addresses to insure that users on a "bad" account are not opening their own. In today's world, people live together who have different Social Security, Driver's License & Phone Number. The Street Address is the one thing still in common. To insure accuracy to catch duplicates, it is suggested that all customer's addresses be entered from their Driver's License.

Don’t Forget to set Security for new features
A few of the new additions to this update have associated security options.
If you use security, then you can find these added questions from the following menu:

System Tables Setup / System Setup & Tables / Security Levels.

Any newly added questions will have “blank” answers which you may want to fill in with a security permission level.

IMPORTANT!

Some of the new features added in version 7.20 will be enhanced in future patches which are free to download from our web site. All of the enhancements planned are now being tested in several stores for their feedback on the best presentation method within the software.

Please be aware that ALL customers who received
version 7.20 can download our patches for FREE!.

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