ServiceDesk 2.8.235 Update 10/27/21

A very longstanding feature in ServiceDesk allows you to assign different dispatchers to different sets of technicians. These are called "focus groups."

Essentially, the focus group feature allows a dispatcher to mostly see, within the DispatchMap, just those technicians and routes that are within his or her assigned group (actually, other techs and their routes are still visible, but their markings are rendered in a pale grey and so mostly just fade into the background).

Regardless, until now the selection of which focus group to filter upon to view, in DispatchMap, was solely set in the Settings form, for any particular office person, and there was no mechanism to on-the-fly switch to filter the view from one focus group to another.

Now that feature exists, as described here.

While adding in a keyboard command for the above-described new feature, there was need to add a reference to for the new command in the DispatchMap's CheatSheet.

"CheatSheets" are provided in ServiceDesk contexts where there are important available actions that cannot otherwise be clued to you via ToolTips or command buttons. The standard convention for displaying the contextually-applicable CheatSheet, in any such context, is to right-click in any location of the interface that does not otherwise have an operative function. There are CheatSheets in the F5 DispatchMap, Callsheets, the F8 PartsProcess, F10 Inventory Control and Ctrl-F10 MasterPartsPlan interfaces.

While so adding, it was noticed that the DispatchMap's CheatSheet had grown to be so long and with so many entries, it could easily be less than convenient to find any such entry as you might looking for. An overhaul was needed to make it more simple and better organized. For such reason, instead of seeing this, as the DispatchMap CheatSheet, as you would previously:

You will now see this (with extension below shown for what is now a branching sub-section):

We believe you'll find it's now a lot easier to find guidance for whatever it is you may be seeking to do.

As you might guess, early ServiceDesk had a very simple mechanism for calculating sales tax. You'd set a single materials and labor tax rate in the Settings form, and ServiceDesk would simply apply those.

The world has turned out to be far more complicated than that, and, as each new complication showed itself, we've added mechanisms that seek to appropriately adapt. It's not just that many different rates can be applicable within any particular servicer's territory (mechanisms with which to cope are described here), it's also the fact that in many provinces of Canada servicers must separately keep track of two different kinds of tax: PST and GST. And, there are variations even in that (for example, in some provinces both PST and GST apply to both labor and materials, while in some PST exempts labor).

Anyway, our adaptations have been piecemeal, as needs arose, and have been differently created in different contexts. Because of this, the various structures within applicable program code were messy, and easy to break with any slightly misjudged tweak. A complete overhaul was needed to produce a simplified set of unified and more robust mechanisms that work across all applicable contexts.  That is what's been achieved in this release.

In conjunction with that, we greatly improved the ToolTips that show in a tax-calculated box to explain to you the basis the system used to calculate the tax amount. This makes the basis transparent to you, whereas formerly it may have been rather opaque.

For example, if you float your mousepointer over a tax box in the F4 FinishedForms context, you'll see a ToolTip similar to this (though of course the actual information content will vary according to circumstance):

Similarly, when your're making a SalesJournal entry, you may float your mousepointer over any of the yellow "show tax amount" boxes, and you'll see a detailed explanation regarding the basis of calculation:

We hope you'll find this helpful.

You're likely using Rossware mechanisms to send out emails via ServiceDesk at least, and perhaps also via SD-MobileLink and SD-CyberLink. Regardless of which application is involved, the Rossware Direct Mail Agent connects to and sends via an external mail server that you designate. Many people use the Google's mail server. There are many, many others, and the Rossware Direct Mail Agent allows you to designate and set for any mail server that you wish to setup with.

That's by way of background.

Some of our users (perhaps you included) have opted to use a Microsoft mail server (the direct url for that server is smtp.office365.com). Or, you might use a separate service (such as GoDaddy, for example), that itself uses Microsoft's mail server in the background.

Whatever the case, in the last three weeks Microsoft's mail server suddenly began being nasty. After some quantity of mail send requests, it begins refusing to complete the "handshake" that's required to initiate the next request.

We worked and worked and worked, seeking to find a way to circumvent this new nastiness. With the present release (and with corresponding releases of SD-MobileLink and SD-CyberLink, Vers. 2.0.135 and 4.5.98, respectively), we believe we finally got it.