News and Blog
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We have marked the CRs in the v1.08.05 Release Notes that include performance enhancements. |
We also paid close attention to known issues and dedicated ourselves to testing the software before it was released. Ninety percent of CRs completed testing. This is higher than any Escape Online 5, Escape Online 4 or Escape Classic release!!! This is fantastic considering the number of CRs.
Twenty percent of the changes for this release were for new and ongoing implementations. Shasta, Sacramento City, Placer County, Ventura County, Santa Maria will all be testing their new POs, checks, interfaces and custom reports.
The most comprehensive changes were made to year end processing and budget on the Finance side, and permissions to employee notes, new search criteria and payroll calculations on the HR/Payroll side.
And, as users have come to expect, we updated and introduced quite a few reports: Eight for finance and eleven for HR/Payroll, including the new County Object Summary new options for Vendor Detail, and several new HR/Payroll reports: Leave Transaction snapshot, Addon Pay Rates and major updates to the Labor Distribution Detail.
In total, there were 33 changes to finance, 55 to HR/Payroll and eight to the system/infrastructure.
We invite you to join us for a release review on Thursday, June 12th at 9am to get a comprehensive look at v08.05. Contact Escape Customer Care to get your invitation!
Comments? Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Last week we had the best attended and largest release review webinar EVER!! Of course, we had some great questions. And, we took a poll about having a Year End webinar.
Q: It appears that any existing user record with any HR role other than ADMIN is showing up with the “Can Access Emp Notes” set to YES. User records with no HR role are showing with Note access set to NO. Is this correct?
A: Yes. All HR/Payroll users, except Admin, will automatically be able to access all note categories. This allowed us to introduce the feature without affecting current access.
Q: Is there a lookup for entering the categories in the User record?
A: No this is a comma delimited field where you can enter more than one category.
Q: If I leave the field blank, what will the user see?
A: If the Emp Notes Categories field is left blank in the user record, the user will be able to see ALL categories.
Q: Is the note permission linked to the role for new users or will it default to NO for all new user records?
A: It is not linked to a role. When you add a new user it will default to NO. If you copy a user record, the Can Access Emp Notes and the Emp Note Categories fields will copy the entries.
Q: Who can set up the Note categories?
A: Only all-org users can create note categories (or other users with user based permission). The categories are system-wide, so they should be set up by the county.
Q: Can org users see the categories?
A: Yes. Org users have read-only access to the Note Categories activity.
Q: How do the categories work in the employee record?
A: They will appear in the lookup when they enter a note. You must select a category to save the note. However, we discovered that if you copy a note that has an undefined code, the software will let you save it. The goal is to have all employee notes use the categories defined for your system. Please contact your project manager or Escape Customer Care for help with standardizing your employee note categories.
Q: What records use these categories?
A: The categories only apply to notes created in the Employees, Employee Benefits and Employee Payroll Setup activities.
Like I said earlier, we took a poll to see if we should hold a Year End webinar, and it was a resounding YES. Check out the stats from the polling:
So, at 9am on July 8th, we will hold an hour-long Year-End webinar that will summarize and detail the year-end process in Escape Online 5.
If you are interested in attending the Year End webinar or the next release review, please contact Escape Customer Care.
That got your attention eh? No it isn't me; I have way too much work to do!
This post is for Bob Schultz, the Superintendent at the Eureka Union Elementary School District here in Placer County. This is the district that my kids went to school in, and is the district that benefits from the Eureka Schools Foundation, of which I'm a board member (at least for a little while longer). |
 Bob Schultz at this year's Eureka Country Faire. |
Over the past four years, we worked on about 10 fund raising events together. Bob was always an unofficial committee member, and helped out however he could on event days. He most often was thanking the attendees for supporting the district and thanking committee chairs and members for their great work.
Some of our event committee meetings were held at the district office, and Bob would always come in to thank the committee for the effort and support of the district.
Bob even inadvertently was the genesis for an important Online 5 feature. At one ESF Board meeting, we happened to be sitting together, and Bob whipped out a new digital camera. "Hey, look at this camera I won at the ACSA conference!" "Cool, what are you going to do with it?" I asked. Bob said, "It's the greatest, I just carry it around. When I see something that needs fixing at a school, like a leaky faucet or a broken bench, I take a picture of it, then my secretary sends that over to Maintenance."
The wheels immediately began turning for me... Accompanying the picture would be the necessary information like what school site, location, priority - hey all the data items in a work order! So I decided that all of our main records would have "attachments." This very useful feature now allows our users to attach pictures, spreadsheets, pdf's, you name it, to our records such as employees, journals, fixed assets - all the main ones. Thank you for that one Superintendent Bob!
One of my prouder moments was being asked to join Bob and our Foundation President to craft a letter trying to explain school finance and how declining enrollment would affect our district. This letter was sent to the parents of each student. Bob even taught me something about school business at that time. I presumed that when districts were getting a 5.9% COLA, well, they would have 5.9% more money to work with. Not if they were in the second year of declining enrollment! The effective COLA for our district was 2.9%. Try to explain that to the teachers!
During his last year, Bob not only ran teacher salary negotiations in this environment, he headed up the group that would decide whether one or more schools needed to be closed since our forecast is for continued declining enrollment. At a meeting early this Spring, I asked Bob how that committee was doing and mentioned that the process must be pretty gut wrenching. He remarked that progress was being made, it had to be done, and he wanted to get it all taken care of before he left, so the new Supt could start with a clean slate.
How's that for being a stand up guy? In my school business career, I have met several Superintendents, but have never gotten to know any of them as well as Bob Schultz. I feel really fortunate for this opportunity. His encouragement definitely provided inspiration for our "all volunteer army" as I like to call our Foundation. I'm sure the enthusiasm also encouraged administrators and teachers to do the best job they can with our students. I definitely learned from Bob and am a better person and businessman for knowing him - I guess he's an educator no matter who he is working with, eh?
Succeeding Bob is Dr. Tim McCarty, most recently of Dublin USD, coincidentally the first customer to go live on Escape Online 5, in March of 2007. Here is the announcement. I have met him before, and look forward to working with him.
Enjoy your retirement Bob Schultz, and thank you for your contributions throughout your career!
It's always great to announce that we are bringing new employees to our company. This month, we have a first - three new employees at the same time!
Pictured here with me are two new Customer Care representatives, Sue Vroomman and Jennifer Stahr. Also we have Philip Wong, our newest member of the Escape Development Team. Philip reports to Ramona.
All three are going through an intensive training process. We have high hopes that they will be productive team members quickly, working to help out our customers in many ways.
Please watch the Escape News page over the next week, as each of them will be introducing themselves. I want to thank each of you for joining Escape Technology!
Prior to coming to Escape, I worked for 11 years in the broadband cable and telecommunications division of an international company, as the technical lead on implementations and custom development projects. Although I was challenged by what I did, I found that I was getting further and further away from what I really loved – working directly with the customer, picking apart problems and resolving issues. I was also looking for a smaller company experience, one where the relationships within the company and with the customers were more connected, more personal. I feel fortunate to have found both here at Escape Technology: an opportunity to return to customer service, and a company and a group of individuals deeply dedicated to customer-focused quality. |
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I’ve been very impressed throughout my training with Escape Online 5. It is much more user friendly than other software I’ve supported in the past. For example it is more intuitive and the naming conventions are more logical. And based on the complexity of school business, that is a very good thing! I’m still putting all the pieces together, but hope to get up to speed as quickly as possible. It’s great to be a part of the Escape Customer Care team - I look forward to getting to know you as we work together.
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It is my great pleasure to join the Escape team serving public education community. In my past 14 years, I have served as an engineer of software development and developed software and reports which are widely used throughout California school districts. I was the principal software developer at School Services of California, so I probably know many of you and you have used software that I wrote. I have also served as a board member in a non-profit Chinese school with more than 300 students for two years.
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Software development is a process that always involves solving problems and creating solutions. It requires constantly updating my skills and knowledge. I feel very satisfied and enjoy when I can resolve those challenges. As a new member of Escape team, I would love to do anything that can help our customers to manage the administration of education in California.
Even though I have been with Escape just for a short period of time, I am already impressed with the quality of the company’s products and how the company takes care of customers. I have a broad knowledge of school business, which will help me with my development projects.
I am very fortunate and excited to have a chance to work with the Escape Technology. I will continue to contribute my professional skills and experience to the public education community. For the next few months I will be joining the Report Development team and putting my 10 years of Crystal Reports experience to work.
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I really enjoy problem-solving, working with people, and providing great customer service. For the past 11 years, I worked in a technical software support position with a year spent at various customer sites doing implementations. Although I loved what I did, the company had lost touch with what I felt was truly important. When I started looking for a new position, it was important for me to find a company that was focused on the customer. I also needed to be able to say that I believed in the product that I was supporting. Escape seems to be a good match for my professional beliefs, my skills, and personal goals. |
Since joining Escape, I have been so impressed with the software, the tools, the communication, the friendliness and the dedication to providing the best solutions to their customers. My past employer, a large international software company, planned for years to write and implement an updated, user-friendly version of their old software. They were never able to bring that plan to fruition. Escape has accomplished that with Escape Online 5. I’m impressed!
Education has played and continues to play an important role in my life. I feel that education is the key to the success of each one of us personally and our great country.
I look forward to providing great customer service to you!
For the past few months, we have been having Release Reviews via a webinar. For those of you who have never been to a webinar, what we do is send all the attendees a link to a website. When they click on it and login, they see Terri’s screen, exactly how she sees it! They hear her voice over a telephone connection.
It’s the next best thing to being right there! The review lasts about an hour and lets you know all about a release's new features without ever having to leave your desk. Attendees can even type questions into a chat window, which we answer, live, for everyone.
We started small, inviting only a few customers. Then, we invited some more. And, now we are opening it to all of our customers. Today, Rose of Sierra COE was a first time attendee. She thought the session was "Awesome."
We have had similar comments from other attendees regarding how easy it is to sit at your desk and get a detailed review of the new software. We agree. This is a great way for you to find out about a new release in an easy-to-use, easy-to-attend format.
We have Release Reviews scheduled for the second Thursday of every month. During the session, Terri Hammond walks you through the most exciting changes and enhancements, while I monitor the chat room. The webinar includes the ability to chat (you ask us questions) and poll (we ask you questions).
In fact, at today's Release Review, we polled the attendees to see if they were interested in going to a Year End Overview. Seventy percent said, YES. So, we are going to work out the details and let you know.
At today's review, we had 22 attendees, and some of those attendees were actually large groups watching the session in a conference room. If you would like to join us, please contact Escape Customer Care so we can add you to the invitation list!
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