There now is a new Ad Contracts pane to search for ad contracts:
There now is a new UI to edit ad contracts (including individual insertions). The interface provides not just editing capabilities, but also a lot more guidance for placing ads, sizes, and other factors, by color-coding potential issues and important aspects:
The Issue edit form now has a tab showing ad insertions:
This version has a very first (and rough) implementation of saved queries.
AI queries in the people search pane can now be saved away for later (re)use.
There now is a new search view in the people pane that lists all saved queries the current user has access to.
Promotional email batches now support these saved queries to send email batches to.
File preview in the attachments tab pages can now preview XAML and XML files.
5.101.0.0 - 3/14/2024
The people search pane has received an overhaul and some new AI features:
The toolbar has been cleaned up and consolidated, since it got a bit too “full”.
THere now is a privacy mode that blacks out sensitive data in the display of names information (available in the names search pane as well as the names edit form) which has been introduced so we can demo our app to large groups of people without privacy concerns.
There now is a new “AI Query” mode, that allows running a query (NOT a copilot-style conversation) based on a plain-language prompt. (See also: Editing Names)
Currently, data from Names, Address, CommInfo (phone numbers, email addresses, social media,...), Subscriptions, Invoices, Payments, EventSignups, Events, JobApplications, Positions, Articles, Magazines, Issues, and Inquiries tables can be involved in AI queries.
The events system is undergoing some changes:
Events now support a flag for our new State of AI brand.
The events pane now supports more filtering options.
5.100.0.0 - 1/31/2024
The problem with saving articles has been fixed. (This was related to converting different content formats on the fly, which happens behind the scenes, every time an article is saved away.)
There were some related changes across all edit forms in Olympus. The Save and Save and Close buttons now become disabled while a save operation is in progress, preventing multiple overlapping save operations at the same time. The UI also shows more information about whether or not the save operation was a success (such as in the status bar and with message boxes).
In the More... menu in the People pane, there now is a menu item called Fix Common Data Problems, which provides easy access to some of our behind-the-scenes data cleanup features. This is an experimental feature. The UI looks like this:
5.99.0.0 - 1/16/2024
The image generation feature has been fine-tuned to try to create a somewhat better prompt suggestion. (This is def. a work in progress)
Names can now be flagged as board members (and search can be filtered by that and there also is a column in names lists.)
5.98.0.0 - 12/14/2023
The AI image generation UI now works better with smaller monitor sizes
Renewing of individual subscriptions through the subscriptions page/list in the subscriber/name edit form is now supported.
The list of invoices now makes it more obvious when an invoice is unpaid, by highlighting unpaid invoices in a different color.
5.97.1.0 - 11/29/2023
AI image generation has been completed (see also Artwork)
Microsoft has now given us access to the Dall-E 3 AI API, which fully enables our AI image generator dialog:
When double-clicking an image in the list in the above UI, a detailed image dialog now opens up, which provides information about the image and allows for saving the image as a file on disk:
5.97.0.0 - 11/28/2023
A major new feature called Olympus Image Composer has been introduced, which enables the user to create art files specific to our needs. It is a small image editor. Among the more interesting features are the ability to incorporate elements that are very specific to our needs (such as build-in logo support). Also, there is a templating engine that can be used to create sets of images based on our data. Furthermmore, Image Composer is integrated with our ability to create AI art, enabling us to very quickly create sets of art assets associated with many of our data elements, such as articles, events, and more. (For more info see Artwork).
The magazine issue interface has received a considerable overhaul.
The issue list now has a “View Issue Online” button, which opens a browser to show the issue as it appears online.
The standard magazine issue pane now shows more columns, including a thumbnail of the cover image (if applicable). Also note that the issue code column now shows the accent color of the issue (or lack thereof) to quickly identify which issues are lacking the important accent color setting, or have bad accent colors (which may happen when the color is AI-generated on demand):
There now are two alternative display options that show more detail for each issue (including the abstract). Extended view shows the first line of the abstract, as well as a larger cover thumbnail: Detailed view shows the entire abstract of the article and an even larger thumbnail:
The article edit form now has access to the “Generate Art” AI feature, which can be used to generate art assets based on the content of the article. (See also: Artwork)
The Events interface has received a major overhaul
The event edit form now has access to the “Generate Art” AI feature, which can be used to generate art assets based on the abstract and description of the event. (See also: Artwork)
The event list is now grouped by future and past events.
Event branding is now shown in a more readible and intuitive fashion
Event codes now show a background color, indicating whether the accent color has been set for the event (and what it is).
The event list now has a column indicating whether a YouTube video link has been defined.
There now is a column that indicates whether all the required header images are attached to the event.
The toolbar now has a quick-access button to preview the selected event(s) in the web browser.
Events can now be “private” (in which case they do not show up on the web site unless people know the URL), which can be set in the edit form, and there also is a column in the list for this flag.
There are various little bugfixes, such as the ability to flag an event as not needing address information when people sign up. This was there before, but a bug prevented it from working properly. This has now been fixed.
The following is an example for the current events pane:
Our Blogs have been enhanced
The Generate Art and Generate Abstract AI features are now available in the blog post edit form.
The Blogs pane has received some richer formatting as well as a color coded “slug” to indicate whether an accent color has been set for the post. Also, there is a “View Post Online” feature to quickly see the selected blog post in a browser.
5.96.0.0 - 9/25/2023
The list of events now supports filtering:
File attachments have received a bit of an overhaul
File attachment tabs can now show previews of various file types (images and text files).
It is now possible to link to existing file attachments (this allows sharing of files between different entities, such as using the same slide deck for multiple training classes).
5.95.0.0 - 9/15/2023
Events can now be “cloned” from within the event edit form. This makes it easy to create a new event based on an existing event (such as when a training class is held again, or when setting up another State of .NET event).
5.94.0.0 - 7/10/2023
Updated to new version of CODE Framework client-side service components (this fixes a major resource leak bug).
Billing history display in invoices is now working again (re-written in C#)
Payment history now uses services to retrieve data (no more business object dependency)
Names can now store an inmate number (for prison inmates). This setting is also searchable and it is output for subscription fulfillments.
Consulting service setup
Consulting services can now define headers and abstracts independently. (If no header is defined, the abstract continues to be used as the header).
Related services can now be sorted specifically to the service they relate to.
5.93.0.0 - 6/9/2023
A new Blog feature has been added to Olympus:
5.92.0.0 - 6/6/2023
Events:
The Event Edit Form now has a “Show Event Online” button to open a browser and see the event as it appears there.
The Event Edit Form had a problem showing the signups when the list of signups was relatively small. (In particular, when the list of signups loaded too fast, it sometimes finished loading before the main event info was loaded, and then it didn't show correctly). This has been fixed.
There was a problem that kicked in with all our service calls (due to a recent CODE Framework release) which caused errors on saving large data sets (and also caused a lot more network traffic). This has been fixed.
The service status UI now has additional options to switch each service into a “local” mode (mainly used during development) and also to launch into a Swagger UI (if available).
5.91.0.0 - 6/5/2023
There were changes to the events and signups.
It is now possible to remove individual signups (without the deleting the entire person record and associated data).
There also was a bug in deleting event signups, which caused signups not to be deleted. This has been fixed.
The list of signups (in the event UI) now shows how much attendees paid (if applicable) and also, how many other events the person has attended (thus providing an easy way to see people who attended a lot of our events).
The events tab in the person page now also shows how much an attendee paid to attend an event (if applicable).
The Name/Categories Statistics UI is now working again. It is available form within the find-people pane, or by typing its name in the search box in the main menu.
It is now more powerful than the previous version, since it can show all the names within a category, using our standard names-display, which also allows to drill into further information:
5.90.0.0 - 5/28/2023
Event signups
List of event signups (in the event form) now shows fields such as on-site/online, dietary needs, and special needs correctly.
List of attended events (in the person form) now shows fields such as on-site/online, dietary needs, and special needs correctly.
There now is a new form that allows signing people up manually for events (launched from within the person form's event page!).
5.89.0.0 - 5/25/2023
Markdown editing has been enhanced
Most markdown edit forms now feature an “Insert Attachments” menu that allows inserting attachments that are associated with the same general item (such as event attachments in the event description).
The system inserts image attachments as image tags, while other attachments are inserted as trackable download links.
Screens including attachment support now include:
Long and short bio for people.
Notes for people.
New issue notifications (all files attached to the issue are available).
Article content.
Subscription offer promotional text, confirmation email, and renewal confirmation email.
Event editing in description, confirmation email, agenda, venue, branding, and signup text.
In event promotional email batches and event signup confirmation emails.
In service offering description, other information, and special offer description.
Open position details.
In press releases.
Marketing blocks have received an overhaul and are now called Text Blocks, since they are now usful for a more general purpose.
Text Blocks now can be categorized by topic to make it easier to keep them organized.
The menu to insert text blocks in various interfaces has been improved to support categories.
Text blocks are now supported in more places. (The list is generally similar to the screens listed above that support attachments).
The “Insert Field” button has been renamed to “Insert Data” button, and is now more generally useful.
The menu under this button is now organized by category.
Fixed a bug for data previewing in new issue notification email editing.
The list of Positions now shows unavailable/archived/old positions as well.
The list of related services in the form to edit our service offerings has been overhauled and shows more information now (and also prevents from linking to the same service multiple times).
The press release editing interface has received further updates.
The UI scaling problem with the logo generator form on some specific screen configurations has been fixed.
Technology Categories (used for things like categorizng articles and other things) can now be edited through Olympus.
The list of categories now shows much more information.
A new edit form for categories has been added.
Categories can now have file attachments.
The Technology Categories edit form now shows a list of articles filed in that category.
5.88.0.0 - 5/20/2023
The Copilot in the article edit form has been improved.
The press release section of the app has been overhauled.
5.87.0.0 - 5/12/2023
Service descriptions now support embedding individual related services, or a list of all related services.
The menu has been cleaned up a little bit.
5.86.0.0 - 5/11/2023
The UI to edit Consulting Services has been overhauled (and also conforms to the latest data structures).
The services pane now shows more information
The edit form now supports all fields needed for the modern setup.
The edit form now supports simplified editing of services (in particular, the insertion of sections as we now routinely use them on our web sites).
5.85.0.0 - 5/6/2023
The list of events in the events pane has been improved.
Webinar/online events now show their location/region/city differently
The order of columns has been changed to show the more important columns first
Unannounced events are now shown in a dimmed font.
Event branding is now shown in the main grid.
UI rendering details have been enhanced (like drop-down toolbar buttons are now showing a down-arrow).
A very first (and very rough) version of CODE Copilot has been added the article edit form. (Use at your own risk).
There now is a CODE Logo Generator that can be used to create standard CODE logos and save them as PNG files:
5.84.0.0 - 4/10/2023
Tech Categories (such as for articles or interests or skills) can now be edited through Olympus.
Job postings (positions) can now be edited through Olympus.
5.83.0.0 - 3/15/2023
The names search interface now supports special fields for CODE Staffing
The name edit dialog now supports special fields for CODE Staffing
Name merging now supports special fields for CODE Staffing
Name merging now supports the job skills self-rating assignments
Service offerings now support a flag for CODE Staffing
5.82.0.0 - 2/12/2023
Articles now have a field for accent color definition.
Events now have a field for accent color definition.
Magazine issues now have a field for accent color definition.
More work has been done on the accent color dialog to prevent flickering and improve overall rendering performance and usability.
The customer inquiry pane has been improved. The display shows names and phone numbers. There also are new filter options for various spam settings.
5.81.0.0 - 11/22/2022
The list of subscription offers now shows a column listing all the associated referral codes.
Active and inactive referral codes are shown different
The toolbar now features a button to “highlight” a referral code. When this feature is active, the specified referral code is shown in a highlight color, in the list of codes.
The list of magazines now shows more columns.
Admins can now access the codemag.com cache control interface through the Olympus main menu.
Estimating number of emails to be sent has been improved (async and error handling).
Consulting services have been improved
The edit form now is structured somewhat different (with fields supporting markdown using the editor, and others are plain text fields). New fields have been added.
More fields are exposed in this form.
More fields support markdown.
There now is a sophisticated way to edit the accent color for the artwork associated with a consulting service:
5.80.0.0 - 10/5/2022
Some general fine-tuning to some of the layout elements have been made (especiall tab header spacing and automatic control position layouts).
The “create new contact” dialog now allows to (optionally) specify a default address to be created for the new contact.
New subscriptions can now be added from the list of subscriptions in the subscriber/name form.
5.79.0.0 - 9/18/2022
The coupon system has been enhanced. (See also: Coupons)
The list of coupon batches now shows more information about each batch.
The batch generation UI now allows specifying a subscription offer and referral code the coupons can be used for.
New batches can now be based on existing batches (which is useful for creating more coupons for the same initiative).
Render performance for various components (especially tab controls) has been improved.
The name search pane now shows scrollbars around the search control when needed.
The name edit form has been optimized to resize for smaller screen sizes.
The name edit form, now shows a list of all emails sent to the person. (See also: Edit Names)
5.78.1.0 - 9/8/2022
The coupon generation system/interface now allows linking the coupons to a specific subscription offer (which is generally needed to generate working coupons usable for subscriptions).
The coupon batch pane now shows what the coupon batch is linked to (typically a subscription offer/referral code).
Olympus now has a new interface to search for duplicate names. (See also: Finding Duplicate Names)
This feature is available either through a toolbar button on the search-name pane (contacts pane), or by searching for “duplicate” in the menu.
This UI shows a list of potential duplicate names (by matching first and last names). THe list on the left shows that suspect list as well as a count of potential duplicate items.
When selecting an on the left, Olympus shows all potential duplicate names (including all the same information we also show in the names search/contacts pane).
Names can be opened from this list.
Names can be deleted or merged right from this list.
5.77.1.0 - 9/6/2022
The name search pane now offers the ability to filter by people who have applied to a certain position:
5.76.1.0 - 9/4/2022
The name search pane has been improved.
The search now returns a maximum of 100 names. However, there now is a Load More button that is available whenever more results are available on the server. This button can be clicked until no more additional records are available on the server.
Searches can be restricted to people who have submitted a job application. (Note: Advanced Search needs to be active for this checkbox to be shown in the UI).
For people who have submitted job applications, application information is now displayed in a new column in the result grid.
People who had any of their job applications rated have the application information displayed in green.
People who had any of their job applications flagged as ineligible have the application information displayed in red.
It is now possible to limit results by state.
Some bugs for certain search combinations have been fixed (especially with ZIP code, street, and city searches).
5.75.0.0 - 9/1/2022
The entire People/Names/Contacts/Subscribers interface in Olympus has been overhauled.
The main names UI has been overhauled completely (See also: Edit Names)
There have been several paradigm changes in how this UI works/behaves:
The UI now loads a lot more data (see below).
All data is now loaded through our micro-service infrastructure. Direct connections to the database are not required anymore (meaning: user's IP addresses do not have to be whitelisted anymore to use this part of Olympus).
Data is loaded massively parallel, resulting in much faster load time of the UI, even though much more data is being loaded.
This UI now acts as a “control center” that shows a lot of consolidated data, rather than a data edit form. Therefore, specific data sub-elements are now edited in separate UIs that are launched from this UI, rather than being edited in-place. This makes it clearer what is being edited. It also fixes the problem with incorrect notifications about edited data (when data has in fact not been modified).
There have been numerous changes in the different UI segments of this form. New elements have been added. The most important are:
The top section of the UI now shows a read-only representation of the most important information about the person, including a photo (if available), name, position, title, achievements, and more.
This data can be edited through the Edit Name button in the main toolbar of the form.
Photos (high and low resolution) are now being edited in separate windows through the appropriate buttons in the toolbar.
The Email/Phone/CommInfo has been renamed Contact. The contents load completely asynchronously. The overall UI has been made consistent with other pages (number of items show in the title bar, toolbar within the page is consistent with other pages,… this applies to other pages listed below as well).
Contact information is being edited/added in a popup window, which immediately saves just the contact information in question.
The Addresses page has been made consistent with other pages (async loading, toolbar, editing of items in a popup window).
The Categories page has been added to show all assigned categories for the person (this is to be improved later).
The Subscriptions page has been made consistent with other pages.
The Fulfillment page has been made consistent with other pages.
The Owned Issues page has been made consistent with other pages.
The Invoices page has been made consistent with other pages. It has also been re-written and the behavior changed somewhat. This page now also features buttons to highlight events and subscriptions associated with the invoice in question (if the associated item is found, that page in the UI is activated, and the item in question selected).
The Events page has been added to this UI, showing all the events the person has attended and when. Event detail can be opened from this page.
The Articles page has been added, showing all the articles the person has authored.
The Bios page replaces the older Author and Employee pages. It shows the long and short bio of the person (if present). Bios can be edited individually in a popup UI.
The Accounts page has been made consistent with other pages.
The Inquiries page has been added, showing all the inquiries the person has placed with us, through our inquiries UI.
The Jobs page has been added, showing all the job applications the person may have submitted.
The Note page replaces the older Comment page. The comment can now include richer formatting (markdown). The comment is edited in a separate popup window.
The Attachments page is now using the latest file attachment features and shows consistent with other pages.
The Downloads page has been added, showing all the files the person may have downloaded from us.
The people search pane has a new button to create a new name/contact (See also: Edit Names)
The file attachments system has been improved
The file storage system has been improved to prevent orphaned files after deletion.
New icons are being used to display the list of file attachments.
The property dialog for each attachment now shows a trackable download link, which is the link we should give out to external people whenever we want to share a file with them.
5.74.0.0 - 7/19/2022
Added a Survey URL field in the event edit form.
Fixed a problem saving issue information
Also enhanced the issues pane, which now features a Refresh button, and it also auto-refreshes the list contents when an issue is edited in the edit form.
Loading issue covers for display purposes has been optimized.
Issue covers are now displayed in the issues pane (list of “Magazine Issues”)
There is a whole new “Customer Inquiries” menu item (for more information, see Customer Inquiries:
5.73.0.0 - 5/10/2022
The maximum number of returned and displayed names in person search panes has now been increased to 1,000.
A new theme called Colorful has been added (inspired by the latest version of MS Office)
Better display of new issue email notification batches in progress.
The signup page in the events/training form now has a button to see more detailed stats about the people signed up.
The article search has received a major overhaul (see also: Edit Articles).
The list used to display the article results has been standardized and completely overhauled.
The full-text search now uses the new advanced AI-driven search that is also now used by the CODE web site. The results are displayed in ranked order, with the search-rank being displayed (think of this as a “match percentage”).
There now is a feature to search by category
There now is a feature to see all articles that do not have the article content defined in markdown format.'
The issue edit form now uses the new and standardized article display.
Note: The new article functionality is a work in progress and there will be more related features added in the next version(s). At that point, the documentation for article maintenance will also be updated.
A Kindle export problem has been fixed.
A problem with loading some older panes has been fixed (or at least patched to a reasonable level).
5.71.0.0 - 11/14/2021
Changed login mechanism back to synchronous to avoid various thread-principal related problems, such as email sending terminating without error/result.
5.70.0.0 - 10/28/2021
Added additional defensive code around generating email batches to figure out why they sometimes do not get triggered correctly.
New asynchronous deployment algorithm to improve overall deployment process (“updates”) as well as app startup speed.
5.69.0.0 - 10/20/2021
Fixed an issue importing articles that have tables with code in cells and no style assigned.
Fixed an issue with remembered window positions being off-sreen when the system switches from multi-monitor to single-monitor (or similar scenarios). The systme now corrects this by moving windows into the visible area of the screen.
5.68.0.0 - 10/14/2021
There now is a new menu item called Service Status (which has to be searched for… it's hidden by default), which shows a list of all the services used by Olympus and what their status is.
Additional fail-safe options added to generating email newsletters in an attempt to get that part of the system more stable.
In the email batches pane, one can now see the number of total emails go up as the system queues emails. (One has to manually hit refresh to see an updated number). This means that it is not possible to see the process of queuing emails even before the emails start being sent out one-by-one.
5.67.1.0 - 10/2/2021
Distribution mailings can now be created based on silver-level digital subscriptions. (As a special case, for things like Focus issues).
When distribution mailings are created for expires subscriptions, they are sorted by most recent expiration first. (This matters when the number of records is limited).
Startup performance (especially loading the menu under secure conditions) has been improved.
5.66.1.0 - 9/30/2021
Data import improvements.
5.66.0.0 - 9/8/2021
The event interface has been overhauled.
We can now define custom confirmation emails for event attendees.
5.65.0.1 - 8/31/2021
Subscription offers and referral codes now support file attachments. This is especially useful when one wants to use custom images in emails, which can be served up from the public Azure URL associated with the attachment (which can be seen in the attachment properties).
Some overall font issues between Windows 10 and Windows 11 have been fixed.
The email marketing block editing interface has been cleaned up a bit:
5.64.0.0 - 8/30/2021
The offer code and subscription system has been updated to allow for the definition of custom subscription aand renewal confirmation emails on an offer code level, as well as a referral code level. (See also: Confirmation Emails in Subscription Offers)
5.63.0.0 - 8/25/2021
Updated various package references to fix a markdown problem in the article edit form.
5.62.0.0 - 8/24/2021
The look and feel of the app has been updated a bit to match the style of Windows 11 more closely.
5.61.0.0 - 8/24/2021
The system now allows to assign user roles (security) through an integrated interface in Olympus. (Only available to people with an appropriate security role themselves).
5.60.0.0 - 8/20/2021
New email features have been added (See also: Send Emails)
The email engine now fully supports marketing messages/blocks both in actual sending emails as well as the email preview in the UI.
The email batch pane now allows selecting an email batch and copying the message content to the clipboard by means of a toolbar button.
5.59.0.0 - 8/18/2021
We have the ability to specify generic marketing messages
We have the ability to edit email groups (and group assignments) from within Olympus.
The list of consulting services can now be edited through Olympus.
Our simple survey import has been fixed for now. (Although we need a more sophisticated version in the future).
5.58.0.0 - 8/11/2021
Added the ability to import survey results for event attendees.
5.57.0.0 - 7/16/2021
Events now default to English/US as the default language and culture.
Retrieval of PDF invoices has been fixed. (This has also been fixed on codemag.com as well).
Olympus now uses the WebView2 browser control (Chromium-based Edge embedded in Olympus) to display HTML content, such as invoices. This eliminates the old dependency on Internet Explorer. It also removed some rendering issues we had with the old control.
HTML display in the app has been improved overall to be more memory-friendly by disposing HTML objects better/sooner.
Async operations have been improved overall to be more fault tolerant.
The ability to assign presenters/trainers to events has been added back in.
5.56.0.0 - 7/14/2021
All file attachments now support the upload/attachment of very large files. (For large files, an upload progress indicator is displayed while the upload is in progress).
Magazine editing has been re-enabled in this build. The new feature also allows editing file attachments. (See also: Editing Magazines)
5.55.0.0 - 6/22/2021
We now support name merging again. (See also: Merging Names)
5.54.0.0 - 6/18/2021
The system now has a re-written capability to perform permanent deletes of names and associated information. (See also: Deleting Names)
The name/subscriber edit form now has a new delete button that uses this feature.
The signup delete button in the event edit form now also uses this feature.
5.53.0.0 - 5/27/2021
The old Kindle export feature has been removed from the menu
There now is a new “Generate MobiPocket” option on the attachments tab of the issue edit form that can be used to generate MobiPocket files (which is the legacy Kindle format). - See also: Export Content
The overall system now supports a do-not-renew flag for subscriptions. When that flag is set, subscribers will not be asked to renew their subscriptions
The flag shows up in the list of subscriptions in the subscriber edit form.
The subscription list in the subscriber edit form has been re-worked to use services rather than business objects. (Note: This is part of an ongoing effort to remove all “old tech” from the name/subscriber edit form. It makes the system faster. It also means that this works from anywhere, rather than just whitelisted locations. And it gets all the latest functionality, such as a display of this flag.)
The subscription edit form now has a Renewal tab, which allows managing the do-not-renew flag, as well as other things, such as the assigned renewal series. It also shows a complete list of all renewal steps taken.
5.49.0.0 - 4/29/2021
When creating magazine mailing batches (print subscriptions), the system now does not consider an “effective date” anymore, since that caused all kinds of problems.
Editing of photos associated with names (a.k.a. “author photos”) has been re-worked
The feature to attach author/employee photos in the name edit form has been tweaked to default to PNG files (and to support PNG files in the frist place).
Author-photos changed through this UI are now automatically synced to Azure and thus show up on the web site correctly. (Note that it may take several minutes for these photos to show up on the web site, due to performance-related caching of photos).
The article pane now has a Force-Sync all Article and Author Files button, which forces syncronization of files to Azure for display on the web site and in mobile apps. This can be used to force a refresh of potentially outdated files, such as author photos, images in articles, and the like. (See also: Edit Articles)
The search for articles by author now works again. (And author names are retrieved async by this pane now, so it should overall be much faster).
The overall data loading infrasture has been enhanced to catch more overall errors when the user unexpectedly closes forms before data processes complete.
5.48.0.0 - 3/26/2021
Renewals
Renewal steps now have a field to set the minimum interval (in days) from the previous step.
The renewal series edit form now shows a column for minimum interval between steps, in the steps list.
Renewal processing has been optimized server-side to speed up the process a bit. (It still takes a long time to process).
Events
Events can now define additional branding/text to be displayed with event information and with the signup process. (This is to satisfy partner criteria for Microsoft).
Events can now define two opt-ins (getting partner notifications and sharing information with partners) plus associated text (markdown) to be displayed with the opt-in checkboxes.
When triggering email batches, the system now asks for confirmation before batches are triggered.
The system now tracks who generated batches, and displays so in the email batch pane.
The system now keeps better track of when a batch was last updated, so it becomes easier to see if a batch has stalled.
Cosmetic tweaks have been made to various lists displaying email batches to optimize readability of the information.
The Email Batch Pane now has a Process Interrupted Batches button. It can be used to resume stalled email batches. See also: Sending Emails
5.46.0.0 - 3/8/2021
Events now have a flag for “CODE Presents” webinars.
Email batches that are still being processed are now highlighted in a special color in the email batch pane.
5.45.0.0 - 2/18/2021
The system now has a coupon generation feature. (See also: Coupons)
There is a pane showing all coupon batches and their use:
There now is a dialog that allows triggering coupon generation:
5.44.0.0 - 2/17/2021
The “Magazines and Issues” menu item is now called “Magazine Issues”
The list of articles in the issue edit form now shows more information for each article:
All author names are now shown in the author column, for articles with more than one author.
It is now more obvious when an article doesn't have an assigned author.
The author photo is now displayed (which makes it easier to spot authors with missing photos, or incorrectly assigned authors).
The “assign authors” and “assign issues” functionality in the article edit form are now fully implemented with the new author search UI (customer search UI).
5.43.0.0 - 2/11/2021
The Unassigned Subscriptions pane (showing subscriptions that have not been assigned to renewal series) has been brought forward to the latest technology.
This UI is now launched from within the Magazine Renewals UI (or by searching for it in the menu).
This UI now launches the new subscriber edit form when double-clicking a row in the grid (rather than the outdated one it showed in the old UI).
5.42.0.0 - 2/9/2021
Buttons are now rendered slightly different. This enables us to provide more feedback about button states, such as disabled buttons (which are now more obvious).
The renewal series assignment and process dialog now provides more feedback when assignment or processing is running.
Renewal series assignments now also process subscriptions without addresses and phone numbers.
Subscription offers now define a “Renewal Grace Period” that defines how expires subscriptions are renewed. (see also: Subscription Offers))
The renewal series edit form now shows more fields in the steps page (grid).
The renewal series edit form now maintains selection of steps and rules after a refresh (such as when a step is saved in the steps edit form).
The sender name in the renewal series step edit form now saves correctly.
5.41.0.0 - 1/28/2021
Hamburger menu now shows a better message while user rights are evaluated during logon.
Right-aligned list column headers now render correctly when sorted.
The renewal series pane now shows number of subscriptions currently assigned to the series.
5.40.0.0 - 1/25/2021
The list of events now shows the event code and signup numbers.
5.39.0.0 - 1/16/2021
The customer search has been improved further to provide better performance and async loading.
Email, phone numbers, and other comm info are now separate search fields
The subscription count column now shows in green when the customer has an active subscription.
The file attachment properties dialog (see last release) has been enhanced further.
The window is now launched non-modal (other windows can be interacted with, while this dialog is open).
For log entries where the user who downloaded the file is known, the name details can now be opened directly from this dialog.
The magazine issue search pane now shows file download stats for each issue (MobiPocket/Kindle and PDF/Web). Note: Collecting of these stats started in early November 2020.
5.38.0.0 - 1/14/2021
The file attachment property dialog now has an access log table (showing download details) as well as a simple graph showing access log stats.
5.37.0.0 - 1/10/2021
The contact/subscriber search has been further improved
Several search bugs have been fixed
Sorting by clicking column headers has been enabled
The resize behavior of the pane has been enhanced to fit the advanced search more easily, yet take advantage of the available screen real-estate better, in large screens.
Search now happens asynchronously and in separate steps, allowing additional data (additional columns) to “trickle in” as data is retrieved. This improves the overall search performance. The user can already interact with the list while additional data is loaded.
The list now shows photos for people that have a photo on file (also loaded asynchronously)
5.36.0.0 - 1/4/2021
When copying a key from a data edit window to the clipboard (through the status bar), it now only copies the actual data without the word “Key:” in it.
Navigation behavior of the integrated web browser has been improved. The Back/Forward buttons now become enabled mroe reliably when navigation is possible. (Note: there still seem to be some occasional anomalies, but that seems to be due to the EdgeChromium browser control and probably needs to be fixed with subsequent versions of that Microsoft control).
Changes to toolbars:
Toolbar buttons now have a slightly different look to make it more obvious which buttons are enabled/disabled and to more clearly indicate interactions such as mouse-over or mouse-down. Also, default buttons do not have a colored background anymore (to enable toggle buttons… see below).
Toolbar buttons now have more of a square-cornered look.
There now is a new toggle-button style (which is used in places such as for selecting the view-mode of the contact list/subscriber search).
Contact/Subscriber search has been re-worked majorly
The toolbar has changed and now provides a more logical way to switch between display modes for the list.
The toolbar now has toggle buttons to switch between “starts with”, “contains”, and “exact match” search modes.
The toolbar now also features an Advanced toggle button that shows advanced search fields when activated.
There are now many additional ways to search for people.
The search for communication information (such as phone, email, ...) is now “canonicalized”, meaning that phone numbers are now found regardless of their formatting. (So searching for 5555555555 will find a phone number stored as (555) 555-5555 for instance).
The result list now shows many additional fields of information.
The search is now done multi-threaded, meaning the UI doesn't freeze while the search is ongoing. (Note: The search is now much more complex, and can thus be slower than before, depending on the exact search criteria). It is also much more obvious when a search is in progress and when it completes.
The search UI now comes up remembering the settings for display mode, search mode, and whether or not advanced search is visible.
The comm-info search field (phone, email, web…) now allows entering multiple search expressions separated by ;.
5.35.0.0 - 12/26/2020
Tabs in the main screen can now be undocked and floated around the screen (including multiple screens):
There now is a new login dialog (with a new associated security model):
Olympus uses the same accounts (and therefore the same user name and password) as codemag.com.
All such accounts are fundamentally eligible to log in to Olympus. However, these accounts have to be assigned appropriate rights to get into Olympus.
The new model uses role-based security. Users who aren't in required roles will not see certain menu items. Therefore, many users will now see fewer menu items than before.
The app now shows the logged in user name in the status bar.
The user name in the status bar can be clicked on to see more detail about the user.
5.34.1.0 - 12/22/2020
There have been various cosmetic changes throughout the system, replacing previously incorrect icons.
There now is a separate subscription offer referral code edit form (see also: Subscription Offers).
5.34.0.0 - 12/21/2020
Subscription offer editing is now available in the new version (see also: Subscription Offers).
5.33.2.0 - 12/17/2020
The save behavior of new renewal series has been improved.
Creating new steps and rules in renewal series can now only been done after a new series has been saved the first time.
Open renewal series panes (lists) now refresh when series are edited and saved.
The new-item behavior has been improved throughout the app.
5.33.1.0 - 12/14/2020
The people search pane now makes it more obvious when a query returned no results.
Improvements to the renewal series step edit form
The email and print definition preview can now show offer grids (showing live data from the selected offer and it tries to pick the correct region based on associated rules, where possible).
The preview can now show the real advertised offer price.
The preview can now show the real advertised offer discount.
Advertised discount is now a new field that can be embedded.
The default styles have been enhanced to add some styles specific to the content of renewal emails and print-outs.
The current issue cover can now be inserted from the drop-down menu.
The preview refreshes when a different offer or referral code is picked, or when the action changes (such as from email to print).
The renewal series step edit form now allows sending test emails for steps with an email action.
The renewal series step edit form now allows generating a test PDF for mail action steps.
Mailed (PDF printed) renewal series steps are now processed properly server-side and are thus considered valid and supported step actions.
5.32.0.0 - 11/25/2020
Renewal series steps and renewal series rules can now be deleted.
Addresses in the contact edit form can now be merged. (Note that there remain technical challenges and the form should be closed without saving immediately after the merge operation).
Comm infos (such as phone numbers) in the contact edit form can now be merged. (Note that there remain technical challenges and the form should be closed without saving immediately after the merge operation).
5.31.0.0 - 11/24/2020
Further cleaned up the menu
There now is an integrated web browser experience.
Documentation, change logs, wish-list, as well as web sites such as codemag.com and eps-office.com can now be accessed from within Olympus.
5.30.0.0 - 11/23/2020
The menu has been cleaned up a bit (and search reveals more menu items than are currently there)
The entire area related to renewals (with renewal series, steps, rules, and the rule debugger) has been replaced. (For more information, see Subscription Renewals)
5.29.0.0 - 11/10/2020
Invoices are now showing the name in the address block.
Invoices can be retrieved as PDF through Olympus again.
The “default button” on panes in the main form works again when hitting enter (such as typing the name on the subscriber search pane, and hitting enter to trigger the search).
All our grids/lists now support copy & paste for all our selected rows. This works especially well when pasting into apps like Excel. Note that depending on the list, this feature will generate results of different levels of usefulness. For instance, it works very well on the list of events, or on the list of accounts a user has. It does not work so well on the list of file attachments, due to its highly customized formatting.
5.28.0.0 - 11/9/2020
Our system now keeps track of file downloads. Simple download numbers can now be seen through Olympus in all file attachment grids and all file property dialogs. (This feature has been implemented especially for digital magazine downloads as well as event-attachment downloads). Note that some older files do have their downloads tracked already, but in general, this number is only accurate from 11/9/2020 on.
When a file has a download count greater than zero, the download count is shown in the file list:
The file property dialog launched from the above list now always shows a download count:
5.27.0.0 - 11/7/2020
The main application window now supports opening multiple panes at once in a tabbed form.
Theme switching has been improved and now works without restarting the app.
Legacy UI components now integrate a little better (although some still have odd colors and some even have trouble accessing data).
Email markdown editors now do a better job at refreshing the preview immediately after a field is inserted. (Used to require a click on the editor in some scenarios before).
Added some more defensive code to avoid spaces in user names and other account fields.
Default styles snippet that can be inserted into emails has been updated.
5.26.0.0 - 11/4/2020
The preview of the email newsletter UI now shows a preview that is a better approximation of what the email really looks like for people. (Note that results can still vary widely as people use different email clients) .
The preview of the article markdown edit UI now shows a preview that is a better approximation of what articles on our web site really look like. See also: Article Editing
Inline code (in paragraphs) is now rendered in an exaggerated way in the preview of the article edit experience, to make it easier to spot these text segments. See also: Article Editing
There now is the ability to send email batches to people signed up for a specific event. See also: Sending Emails
5.25.1.0 - 10/13/2020
The signup export in the event edit form now also exports a column showing the number of active subscriptions the signed up person owns.
5.25.0.1 - 10/12/2020
Communication information in the contact edit form (especially email) now shows whether it is verified, valid, and if it is invalid, the reason for it being invalid (in the notes column).
The Email Batches pane now shows batches grouped by month. It also shows the total number of emails sent in each month (which is very useful in knowning when we are over the total number of emails we can send through SendGrid). See also: Sending Emails
The event edit form has been improved
It is now possible to double-click a signup row to open the customer detail.
The list of attendees now has a column that shows whether the attendee is an active magazine subscriber (and if so, how many subscriptions are active).
There now is a new button to trigger assigning subscriptions to people signed up for an event, which launches into the new “assign subscription” feature for event attendees.
The comm-info edit dialog can now edit Verified and Invalid and edit the note associated with comm info (typically used to explain why it is flagged as invalid.)
5.24.1.0 - 10/9/2020
Fixed a display problem with generating schedules for magazine issues.
5.24.0.0 - 10/6/2020
The contact edit form (“subscriber edit form”) now shows in the comm-info grid whether the information is verified, invalid, and what the reason might be something is flagged as invalid. (All this is especially useful for emails, but can also be used for other types of communication information.)
The email sending sub-system has been further enhanced (see also: Sending Emails)
There now is a toolbar in the interface that now has the “Generate Batch” button, rather than it being a regular button at the bottom.
There now is a button that provides an estimate as to how many recipients will be included in a batch. (Which works different for email newsletters, new issue notifications, and event promotions, but is supported in all these scenarios).
There now is a button that allows sending a test email (usually to oneself)
The interface for sending event promotions has been enhanced to support embedded event fields better (including the preview).
Last used email text is now preserved and loaded the next time the same email UI is opened again (separate for newsletters, event promotions, and new issue notifications)
5.23.0.0 - 9/25/2020
The article edit system has been improved (see also: Edit Articles)
The XML to markdown automatic conversion mechanism has been improved to fix many special characters and also recognize certain patterns (RegEx) to create better formatting out of the box.
The article edit interface now shows “New” in the Markdown tab when the markdown was just auto-generated. It can also be cleaned out and saved from this UI now in order to force re-generation on the next open of the form. (Note: If the markdown was previously saved away instead of it being auto-generated, it shows “Yes” as before).
5.22.0.0 - 9/23/2020
The automatic save system when closing windows has been overhauled to fix some threading bugs that caused some fields (especially multi-line text fields) to be cleared out incorrectly before their contents got saved.
Enhancements to the email sending system.
5.21.0.1 - 8/20/2020
There now is a new banner editing experience, including a list of banners and a banner edit form.
5.20.0.0 - 8/14/2020
Events now show a list of signups right in the event UI. Data can be exported to Excel from this interface and individual customer information can be opened from there.
There now is a new Email Batches pane that shows all email batches sent by the system (including email newsletters, event promos, new issue notifications,...). This can be used to monitor the progress of the most recent 100 email batches. This pane also allows for the creation of new email newsletters.
There now is a new email newsletters interface (launched from the above pane). It works much like all our other email sending interfaces. However, this is specific to people signed up for email newsletters. (Note that this UI shows an estimate of the number of people invluded in the email newsletters. This is just an estimates as things like blocked emails, or de-duplicating lists can change the final numbers):
5.19.0.0 - 6/18/2020
Article Markdown editing (and associated display on the web page and other formats) has been improved. See also: Article Editing
5.18.0.0 - 6/9/2020
The event edit form now has a feature to send promitional emails right from within that interface.
The event edit form uses a similar email notification UI as the notification batches for magazine issues. This is currently still a work in progress, although it is already workably functional.
The event management system now allows for the setup of a YouTube email ID, which identifies stored recordings on our YouTube channel, linked to the event.
The event edit form now allows for the definition of a webinar URL. If that is set, users joining through our new live signup URL (codemag.com/events/live/xxx) will be forwarded to that webinar URL (presumably on YouTube, but it could be elsewhere).
The event edit form now allows for file attachments. Attachments can be anything. In future versions, some file attachment types will play special roles (like slide downloads for people signed up for the event).
5.17.0.0 - 5/19/2020
The Issue Edit Form now has a tab that shows Email Notification Batches, which are batches of emails we send to subscribers to let them know a new issue is available. The UI shows the batches, how many emails were included in the batch, how many of those have already been processed (processing large batches runs on the server and may take a long time), how many emails were actually sent vs how many were blocked by our system, and more:
There now is a new interface that allows queueing email notification batches. Usually, we send those to digital subscribers, but print subscribers can be included as well. This interface can be used to create a Markdown-based email, with embedded fields (can be added through a toolbar button). The preview on the right shows an approximation of what the email will look like in differnet email clients (including values for embedded fields). When the generate-button is clicked, the batch of emails is scheduled to be processed in the Cloud and the user can close this UI.
5.16.0.1 - 5/11/2020
The subscriber edit form account tab now has a new Get Temporary Password button. When this button is clicked, a temporary password is copied to the clipboard. One can then go to the codemag.com web site, enter the account username and the temporary password to impersonate the user for a limited amount of time. This is useful for seeing the data on the site the way the user sees it.
5.15.0.0 - 5/7/2020
There now is a first version of a new event management interface
List of events:
The new event edit interface, while still a work in progress, supports the most important features now: Note that many text fields now support Markdown formatting (as is apparent when a Markdown editing interface is displayed):
The article editing interface has been completed further. (It is still a work in progress, but it is much more complete now and can edit most of the information neded to maintain articles). See also: Article Editing
The main article information can now be edited properly (and saved correctly) through the main interface.
Editing of article content is now mainly done through the new Markdown interface.
The older XML version is still there, but used by fewer and fewer formats. It should be considered “legacy” at this point and will only be used in the future when the Markdown version is not provided.
HTML previews have been removed from the main form. Individual HTML previews for both the Markdown and the XML versions can be launched from those tabs.
Authors and issues can be assigned. However, these interfaces are still a work in progress and are lacking features such as removing authors and issues.
5.14.0.1 - 4/14/2020
This version includes a new (beta) version of our new event editing interface. Rudimentary event editing is now supported, although not all fields are properly handled and saved yet.
5.13.0.0 - 4/13/2020
The press release edit form now supports full Markdown editing with preview:
The article edit form now features full-featured editors for article Markdown (in preview… not actually used yet!), XML, and HTML. See also: Article Editing
5.12.0.4 - 3/29/2020
The database has been moved to its final Azure location. This new version is required to work with the new database!
5.12.0.0 - 3/25/2020
Press release editing has been brought forward and works again.
List of press releases:
Press release editing:
The actual press release text now supports simplified editing in Markdown as seen in this screen-shot:
All new-style edit forms now show the key of the item being edited in the status bar. The icon next to it allows copying the key to the clipboard:
5.11.0.2 - 3/24/2020
MobiPocket (Kindle) export has been activated again, and is mostly functional.
5.11.0.1 - 3/15/2020
There now is a new Article Control Center. See also: Article Editing
There now is a new Article Edit Form
The Issue Edit Form has been enhanced
Articles can now be edited/launched from the issue edit form by double-clicking an article in the grid.
The subscription/renewal import form now has a feature that allows creating an empty CSV file that can be used as a starting point to fill in new data. (It is handy because it shows all the available fields).
5.10.0.0 - 3/3/2020
The subscription edit form now allows picking fulfillment and billing addresses. (Note that the actual editing of addresses is done in the subscriber edit form rather than the subscription edit form):
The subscription edit form now shows a list of all magazine issues included in the subscription. Only released magazine issues are included:
The subsriber edit form now shows a list of all issues owned by the subscriber (across all subscriptions). Only released magazines are included in the list.
5.9.0.1 - 3/2/2020
The duplicate subscription form now launches the correct name edit form.
5.9.0.0 - 3/1/2020
Contact Control Center
The New Subscriber button does no longer incorrectly launch a subscription edit form.
There now is a new Subscription Import/Quick-Entry button (see below).
Subscriber Edit Form
Double-clicking a subscription now opens the subscription edit form (formerly it used to open the subscription overview form).
Cancelling subscriptions now works without an error being displayed.
Subscription Edit Form
This form now sorts the display of fulfillment records correctly (with the newest fulfillment first).
There now is a new Subscription Import Form (launched from the Contact Control Center… see above)
5.8.0.0 - 2/11/2020
A screen resolution problem related to the menu has been fixed.
The menu now has a search textbox at the top that allows filtering of the menu:
It is now possible to edit subscriptions associated with subscribers (with the exception of address editing, which is currently a work in progress). The subscription edit screen now focusses entirely on editing of existing subscriptions:
The subscription edit form now has become more of a “subscription control center”, showing additional information, such as fulfillment history (which is specific to the subscription in question, in contrast to the fulfillment history shown in the subscriber edit form, which shows all fulfillments across all subscriptions):
...and invoices (also associated with the current subscription only, contrary to the subscriber edit form, which shows all invoices associated with a person):
...and the subscription's history (with lots of additional data that wasn't available before, showing a snapshot of the subscription as it was at the time the change happened):
5.7.0.0 - 2/3/2020
The Mailings tab of the issue edit form now allows for the creation of new fulfillment batches.
There now is a completely re-written fulfillment batch creation UI (and associated back-end logic).
The dates page of the issue edit form has been re-designed to work on smaller monitors.
5.6.0.0 - 1/26/2020
The issue edit form has been completely replaced with a new one. This new form is much more powerful and acts as a control-center for everything related to an issue. Including articles in an issue, mailings, and more.
The entire issue editing experience (from the issue list to the issue edit form) is now entirely based on service calls. This means that no VPN access is required to use these features, and no IP addresses have to be white-listed on the datagbase for these features. This also means that this form should work more efficiently in remote-access scenarios.
The first page of the issue edit form has been changed slightly from the previous version:
The production-dates page of the issue edit form has been changed slightly from the previous version:
The sales-information page of the issue edit form has changed slightly:
There now is a new mailings-page in the issue edit form. It shows all mail batches created for this issue, with information about how many individual packages were sent, and how many total copies (the two numbers could be different if multi-copy subscribers were included in the batch). The headers also show the totals for all batches.
There now is a new articles-page that shows all articles in the issue:
The attachments-page has been modernized and uses our new standardized file-attachments page:
A bug that caused the font within the drop-down calendars throughout the system to appear too large and be cut off, making the days unreadable, has been fixed.
5.5.0.0 - 1/18/2020
File attachment logic throughout the app has been updated to use the latest file services (with access of files stored on Azure)
All file attachment grids have been re-worked to work with this new mechanism. The look has also been cleaned up:
The file attachment property dialog has been updated and enhanced (especially the support for categories and for Azure files has been improved):
The file attachment upload dialog has been cleaned up and enhanced (especially the support for categories and for Azure files has been improved):
5.4.0.0 - 1/15/2020
Issue editing is back online at least in a rudimentary fashion.
A new version of the magazine issue list has been implemented:
5.3.0.1 - 12/13/2019
The app now uses an updated invoice display. (Note: We are aware of the rendering issue at the top-right side of the invoice, but this is an Internet Explorer related issue that won't be fixed for now. We are moving to Chromium anyway, which will display that detail correctly):
The app can now create a PDF version of an invoice by clicking the Get PDF Version button in the invoice display:
5.2.1.0 - 12/10/2019
Fixed a problem related to author information when saving names that weren't authors.
5.2.0.17 - 12/06/2019
The refresh algorithm in the contact edit form has been improved to refresh the content of different tabs correctly in more different scenarios.
The application auto-update mechanism has been improved to provide more sophisticated update checking and downloading, as well as showing this change log whenever the application has been updated. (This will come into effect for all updates from here on forward).
The application now has a new status bar, showing the status, the current application version, and providing a way to switch the color theme:
5.1.0.1 - 12/04/2019
Re-enabled additional address editing options. The new address UI exposes all fields individually (including the state field even for countries that do not have states, so incorrectly filled state information can be cleared out). It also provides a preview of how the address will be formated in the country in question. Plus, if the address is in the US, it can be verified with the USPS right through this interface:
Subscription display is back in, allowing a view of all subscriptione settings at a glance:
Invoice display is back in, showing a preview rendering of an invoice:
Payment history can be displayed from the invoice dialog:
Billing history can be displayed from the invoice dialog. The UI style is still the old style.
5.0.0.0 - 12/01/2019
First officially deployed new version of the re-written Olympus application.
Olympus has been given a new (more modern) look. It supports simple color themes. And it has been optimized to support larger screens better. Here is a general screen shot that provides an overall idea:
The former “subscriber edit form” has been re-worked into a new “Contact Control Center” that provides a much richer feature-set for editing contact information with all the related data:
