10th February 2023 | New 'Contacts' option within emails, Send Inspection notifications from Export list, Social Housing merge fields, Bug fixes and more...

Feature Summary

Email: New Contacts option: This release sees a highly requested feature implemented - The return of the highly anticipated Contacts button is here! When composing a new email, you will be able to use the new 'Contacts' button to search for current agents within your database, and then select and insert their email addresses into the To, Cc or Bcc fields. A time saver for those who need to copy their team members into email chains regularly.

Inspections: Send notifications from Export list: Another time saver being released this month, we have added the ability for Users to send inspection notifications via Email/Print/SMS directly from the Inspections Export list.

NOTE: The tenant information displayed in the 'Create Mail Merge' screen is read-only, this allows the user to review the information before sending the notification emails/letters.

Social Housing: Merge fields: For our Social Housing clients using the new Social Housing module within Palace, we have introduced merge fields for all information fields that were implemented in our last release. These are available to be used within custom views and document templates as expected. The merge fields cover the following areas: Social Housing - Properties, Social Housing - Tenancy (Housing Details) & Social Housing - Tenant (Person Details).

 

What we fixed

PAL Holidays module: Batch Owner Payments: We have changed the default To Date for Holiday Owner batch payments, to equal the current date for ease of use. We have also fixed an issue that saw guest money not being picked up for payment to the Owner due to a time conversion issue, this will now work as expected.

Reports: Bank Reconciliation - Presented: The Daily Summary toggle on this report has now been replaced with an 'Include Summary' toggle. When this toggle is set to Yes the report will generate with an Owner categorised breakdown.

A new toggle added to this report - 'Include Property Grouping' (which is displayed when the 'Include Summary' toggle is set to Yes), will allow Users to further break down the report to a property level.

Transactions: Work Orders - Invoice Tenancy: We have fixed an issue that saw Tenant media instructions not being followed correctly when an Invoice Tenancy was processed via a work order. With the fix applied, this will now work as expected.

Diaries: Deleting entries: We have added validation for Users (who have the 'Delete Diary Entry' authority set to Yes) when deleting a diary entry. Users can now expect to see confirmation of deletion when processed successfully. 

Reports: Invoices (Unpaid/Pending): An intermittent issue with our Supplier & Property Unpaid/Pending Invoices reports, saw reports being generated with partial information. We have fixed this issue so these reports will now generate successfully & accurately each time.

Emails: Mark as read/unread: Users now have the ability to mark emails as read & unread via the 2 buttons within their email inbox.

Emails: Confirm archive: If you've ever accidentally selected Archive on an email when in your email inbox, this change should delight you. We've added a new warning when a User selects Archive on an email, covering those accidental clicks.

Inspections: Import/Export lists - Apply company portfolio, Administrator & user permissions: A small but important change in this release. We have now applied company portfolio, Administrator and user permissions to the Inspections - Import and Export lists. The Property Manager field will now follow the same logic as the User field on the Dashboard. 

• The Property Manager dropdown will now only display the users you have shared permissions with. To get a better understanding of user permissions, click here.

• There will be a new option called 'User Permissions', which will display Inspections for users you have permission to see (Very similar to the first bullet point, however, instead of needing to select each user, you can use User Permissions to show them all at once - Great if you are working in pods)

• The option (All), will only be available to those that have the company portfolio setting. Similar to how the company portfolio setting works with your properties, owners & tenants, when this option is selected the system will display ALL Inspections, regardless of shared permission settings -
  NOTE: You must unlock the Company Portfolio to see all entries, the same way you would when looking at properties & tenants.

If you are a pro at understanding how permissions and authorities work, then click here for a simplified article on the new changes.

PAL Holidays Module: Reports: Holiday Bookings - Show transactions: We have introduced a new 'Show Transactions' toggle to the bulk and individual Holiday booking reports. Users now have the option to display guests related transactions when generating this report, allowing for easier tracking of guests' funds.

Transactions: Payment Bond - Online file: Previously, if a database name contained a '%' sign, Users would encounter issues with the online file when generating their bond payments. We have now changed the online file to ignore this character, so Users with this scenario will no longer have trouble generating and processing their online files for bond payments.

PAL Holidays Module: Holiday guest: Ability to print screen: Our Holiday module clients will now have the ability to print guests booking information via the new Print button available on each guest record.
NOTE: The Print button will open a browser-based print preview - where a user can select their preferred printing options.

PAL Holidays Module: Holiday guest: Ability to Email/SMS: Our Holiday module clients will now have the ability to Email/SMS a guest via the new Email & SMS buttons available on each guest record.

NOTE: Emails and SMS sent/received to/from a guest will be stored in the relevant property diary.

PAL Holidays Module: Reports: Palace Holidays statements - Show future bookings: The Holiday - PAL 2 (Portrait) statement type now has the ability to display future guest bookings, so an Owner has visibility of upcoming bookings. This setting is located under System > Settings > Management > Owner - 'Show future guest details on statements'. The Statements will display future guest details inclusive of First & Last names, check-in/out dates at the top of the statements when the setting is set to Yes.

Reports: User Statements: For our Australian clients attempting to generate User Statements within month end, good news - we have fixed the issue that saw User statement generation producing an error. These will now generate as expected for you, within month end.

System: Uncleared funds: We have now marked the Uncleared Funds day setting under System > Settings > Management > Owner as a mandatory field. If this field currently has no value in it we have updated it to 0. We have made this change to mitigate some issues that have arisen around uncleared funds previously.

PAL Holidays Module: Reports: Palace Holidays statements - Day rate column removed: The Holiday - PAL 2 (Portrait) statement type now has the Day rate column removed. We have moved away from Daily rates with the new Holiday module, so removing this column at this stage makes sense.

REI Forms: Some issues arose recently around our integration with REI Forms. Some of our clients were not able to select the correct templates, if at all. We have applied a fix on our end and this integration will now work as expected.

Maintenance Plus: Latest release notes: Check out the latest release notes for Maintenance Plus here.