The EstiMate Software Blog

A new EstiMate build has been prepared that addresses several issues and adds quite a few small but helpful new features.

The complete list of changes:

EstiMate 3.1.0.2

New Features:

• 33651: File attachments are now limited to 5MB in size.
• 33652: The option to exclude file attachments when making a backup has been added. This allows smaller backups to be sent to the tech support desk.
• 33550: The ability to print the material waste calculations for Wide Format and Flatbed Digital printing has been added.
• 33661: The QuickBooks link now persists the form settings (checkboxes checked, grid column widths, etc.)
• 33662: Newly copied jobs and estimates now have today’s date; jobs also have the default status flag rather than the status flag of the original job.
• 33664: Incremental search has been added to the QuickBooks export screen.
• 33669: You are no longer required to check a box verifying that QuickBooks is running before proceeding with the quickbooks export process.

Fixes:

• 33646: The left and right arrows to scroll through open estimates on the customer dashboard were covered by the customer’s phone number.
• 33659: The headers were missing from the top of the columns on the printed purchase order.
• 33660: The Screen Printed Signs and Thermal Printing plugins now show dimensions as width and height rather than width and length.
• 33654: The transactions by date report failed when sorted by customer name.
• 33655: The total lines on the Transactions by Date report were cut off on the left side.
• 33656: When copying a job or estimate that has been sent to quickbooks, the copy was still marked as having been sent and didn’t show up in the Export to QB list.
• 33665: When another network user saved a job or estimate, the open list would jump around.
• 33670: Duplicate job and estimate numbers should not be able to happen anymore. New behavior is that when another user on the network saves a job or estimate, and you are working on a new, unsaved one, you will actually see the number change on the one you are working on!

This build is still in testing but so far stable.  It will be released later this week but I wanted to give everyone a heads up if you want to get it sooner.

Download links are:

EstiMate 3.1.0.2 (29.4 mb)

EstiMate 3.1.0.2 Multi-User Server (8 mb)

The link for the Multi-User Server is for those of you who like to keep everything up-to-date; it is not necessary to update the server to use this build.  EstiMate 3.1.0.2 is compatible with all previous versions of the server.

Enjoy, and have a great week!

The rollout of EstiMate 2011 has highlighted a few things that needed fixing – and they’re fixed! We expect to roll out a build here and there over the next week or two that will correct any other issues that come up.

In the meantime, click Help > Check For Updates and download the new build.

The issues fixed in this build can be found in the release notes for 3.0.0.91.

Today was one hell of a day!

Orders for EstiMate 2011 have been flooding in, along with little final bug reports and an insane number of trial downloads.

All in all we have closed 95 customer service cases (orders, queries, etc) in the last 24 hours, as well as done battle with a mail server that crashed for 2 hours (wonder why?)… We are one tired crew!

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Today we released EstiMate 2011, a full four days ahead of schedule.

Time to break out the champagne!  After several thousand hours of work and revision after revision of the codebase, EstiMate 2011 is finally here!

Over the next three days we will be rolling out the serial numbers and links to our EstiMate Freedom customers and to everyone who pre-ordered EstiMate 2011.  The pre-orders have been a huge success and I’d really like to thank everyone who had enough faith to order EstiMate 2011 sight unseen.  I’m always humbled by how many people believe in EstiMate and our mission of having software that makes you money every time you use it!

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I just saw this scrolling by on Facebook:

Get 30% Off VMWare Fusion 3 Through Friday, September 17

EstiMate is Windows software and runs flawlessly in VMWare Fusion.

As a matter of fact, EstiMate is developed on a Mac Pro running VMWare Fusion!  So we know it runs really, really well that way.

Just thought I’d pass on the heads up.

Today I’d like to show you one of my favorite new features in EstiMate 2011 – File Attachments.

This Enterprise-level feature allows you to attach any file to customer records, vendor records, estimates, and jobs.

Now you can keep all the paperwork related to a specific client attached to their record in your database, or all the paperwork related to a specific job attached to the job itself.

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In EstiMate 2, line item groups were introduced that allowed you to create groups of items that showed up as a single item on your estimate. This was really helpful, except for when you’d created a group item and wanted to “unroll” it onto your quote – or if you had items on your quote that you wanted to “group” after you’d created them.

In EstiMate 2011, you can group and ungroup items at will. Watch this video to see how!

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When I first wrote about the new customer dashboard in EstiMate 2011, we got a flurry of requests for more information.

Today I’ve made a video that shows the Customer Dashboard in action for you, and some of the new features that are available with it, such as notes, file attachments, customer metrics, and the merging of customers and their histories.  This overview shows you how this insanely powerful new tool can give you laser-like focus on your work, your customers, and their value to your business.

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The Multi-User Server is the program that allows multiple copies of EstiMate to all connect to the data files on one machine.

Due to the fact that it is an actual Windows program that must be running in the background, someone always has to be logged into that machine for it to be running.  Not only is this a pain for the network administrator, who has to log in and start the server in the morning, but it’s also a security risk because that user has to remain logged in, reducing security to a password-protected screen saver.

With EstiMate 2011 we’ve written a Windows Service version of the server that, once installed, is “always on” and nobody has to be logged in for EstiMate users throughout the  network to connect to it.

This 2 minute video demonstrates the service version of the server.

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We are very excited to announce the new EstiMate Software Customer Service Channel on GetSatisfaction.com!

For many years we have offered the EstiMate Cafe discussion group as a place for customers and friends to get together and discuss EstiMate support issues, ask how-to questions, and connect with each other.  We’ve tried forum software of all different stripes, and ultimately have found that they are mostly cumbersome to use and don’t really provide the tools we’d like to offer.
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