Revision History - Latest Version

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Fixed a bug in the mail-merge receipts for U.S. users, where if you included the Check # / Paid By field in the DetailsTable field, the heading of that column in the merged receipt used the Canadian spelling "Cheque" instead of the U.S. spelling "Check". (This also applies to mail-merge letters for the "Total Donations Information" option, which can also include the DetailsTable field.) Note: This bug was never present in the normal built-in receipts created with the Receipt menu options.

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When you create receipts and don't print them, then close the window displaying the receipts, there is a message box that comes up asking you whether to save the receipt information. (The included donation information has already been saved.) Clarified the question in that message box, and made the default answer for it be No, rather than Yes.

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Fixed a weakness in Database à Backup, Database à Restore and Database à Restore Old Backup where if the last backup directory used was the diskette drive (i.e. A:), and that drive is not currently available because there is no diskette in it, you would get error messages but not be able to pick a different drive for your backup or restore. Now it gives you an option to either make that drive available and try again (the only option previously), or instead switch to a standard backup directory on your local hard drive. (And having done that, you can then switch to any drive or directory in the Save Backup File As or Restore Backup File dialog box that comes up.)

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Added a way to mark a Donor as Non-Receiptable, so that no receipts will ever be generated for its donations. You do this by setting its Donor Category 1 or Category 2 value to "Non-Receiptable", which you can set up via the Maintenance à Donor Category 1 or Maintenance à Donor Category 2 options. See Handling Non-Receiptable Donors and Donations for more information.

•	Added Reports à Donor à Envelope Box Labels, which create labels containing just "Envelope # ..." and the donor's name, for all donors that have a Member/Envelope #. These labels could be put on the boxes in which you give the donors their envelopes for the year.

•	Added a check, under Windows Vista or later versions of Windows, that the program is running as an Administrator. It will not run under those versions of Windows if it is not run as an Administrator, because various features will not work and unexpected problems can occur.

•	When adding a DetailsTable to a mail-merge letter, you now have an option to specify that there should be two groups of columns on each row, in order to save space, as long as you are including at most three donation fields in the table.

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Fixed a bug where if you printed a report or a receipt to your printer, and then used the Save PDF button to "print" it to PDF, it would just print on the real printer again, and the "Printing PDF" window would stay up. (Unfortunately, this bug still exists in the mail-merge letters created with the Letters menu options.)

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Added an Email Address field to the Donor Details. If you use a standard email program like Outlook or Outlook Express, you can right-click on filled-in Email Address fields, and pick Send Email from a popup menu, to create an email addressed to this email address. (You can also use File à Send Email to do the same thing.)

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When converting to this version from prior versions, if one of your Other Info 1 through 3 fields had a label (as specified in Maintenance à Main Window Options) containing the word "Email" or "E-mail" (with any capitalization), the data in that field will be moved to the new Email Address field. The label for that Other Info field will also be changed back to "Other Info X".

•	Made a number of Donor Details fields that not everyone uses optional. (Previously, only the Member/Envelope # field was optional.) You can select which fields you don't want to see via the Maintenance à Main Window Options window.

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Made the File à New Member/Env. # and File à Edit Comments menu options work whether or not the cursor is currently in the relevant Donor Details field. (Previously, those menu options were only enabled when the cursor was in the relevant field.) Also, File à Edit Comments works even if you have made the Comments field invisible via the new options mentioned above.

•	Added a drop-down arrow to the Member/Env. # field in the Donor Details area of the main window, which pops up a one-item menu for adding a new Member/Env. #. (This is the same behaviour as if you right-click in that field, and helps make this option more visible.)

•	When importing donations via Database à Import Donations, it now allows the import if a donation being imported is for the same donor, and with the same date and amount, as an existing donation in the database, as long as it is for a different donation category. Previously it did not allow this.

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When saving a new or updated donor, a confirmation question has always come up if you either change the name of an existing donor that already has donations, or you enter a name that is the same name as another donor. Previously, if you answered "No" to those questions (to not make the change), it would cancel the insert or update entirely, losing your changes. Now, it just cancels the save, and lets you make your own changes if desired, then try Save again, or click Cancel if you prefer.

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When sending email to request a license key or evaluation extension, it now re-uses any previously used From Name and Email address in that email sending window. If the window hasn't been used before, it tries to determine them from an Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird profile if you use one of those email programs.

•	Added two new reports: Reports à Donor à Envelopes, and Reports à Receipt à Envelopes. They print donors' names and addresses on standard #10 envelopes for all donors or all receipts with a specified receipt issued date, respectively.

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Added two new reports, Reports à Donation à Receipted and Reports à Donation à Non-Receiptable / Pre-Receipted. The former shows the details of all receipted donations. The latter shows the details of all donations that are not eligible to be included in a receipt, because their Cheque # / Paid By value is "Non-Receiptable" or "Pre-Receipted".

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Changed Reports à Donation à Unreceipted Donations, changing its name to just Unreceipted. Also, now it does not report on donations with the Cheque # / Paid By values of "Non-Receiptable" or "Pre-Receipted". (Between this modified report and the two new reports in the previous bullet point, all donations are printed.)

•	Previously, the installation of the Network Server version of DONATION would not work correctly if you had not already installed the normal Local Database version on the same computer. That is now fixed.

•	Fixed the positioning of the right-click popup menus for the Member/Env. # and the Comments fields in the Donor Details area of the main window, which were not always correct if you changed the sizing of that window.

•	Fixed a small bug introduced by version 3.10b into Letters à Mass Mailing, where the 2nd and subsequent pages of any mailing started a fraction of an inch lower down the page than the first page.

•	In the new internal mail merge editor, moved the Edit menu options Insert Image, Insert Table and Insert Horizontal Line to a new Insert menu, and added another option Page Break to that menu, to allow you to create multiple-page letters (e.g. for a receipt with a cover letter).

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Fixed a problem that could occur in the sample mail-merge receipt letters, where if you were using a signature bitmap the underline under it might not appear, or might appear incorrectly. However, unless you delete those files first before installing this version (or a later one) as an upgrade to version 3.10, they will not be replaced, because it might be replacing a version that you had edited!

•	The details and summary tables that are available in the new mail-merged receipts (as well as mail merge Donation Totals information letters) will now have their header row repeated on subsequent pages, if the table starts on one page and continues on another.

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A small error was fixed in the French and Bilingual mail-merge receipt samples. The 2nd row of dashes (separating the 2nd copy of the receipt from the part that the donor keeps) was too long, and went onto two lines when printed. However, unless you delete these files first before installing this version (or a later one) as an upgrade to version 3.10, they will not be replaced, because it might be replacing a version that you had edited!

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The mail-merge features on the Letters menu have been completely redesigned and greatly simplified. They now use an internal editor, rather than exiting you out to your word processing program to edit the letters and do the merges. They also now allow you to create almost perfect replicas of the built-in receipts, but with whatever formatting or wording changes you want.

•	New sample mail-merge letters and receipts are installed with the program, but any old mail-merge documents that you used with Microsoft Word can also optionally be converted to the new mail-merge letter format (which is HTML).

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When you generate receipts with the Receipt menu options, if you don't print those receipts, and exit the window displaying them, the program now gives you a choice as to whether or not to save the receipts back to the database. This lets you save them without printing them, so that you can later print them either with Receipt à Reprint Range, or with the Letters menu options. Or, you can choose the other option to have them not be saved, in the case where you just wanted to see what the receipts would look like (or didn't like something about what you saw), and don't want to keep the receipts in the database at this time.

•	Renamed Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options to Receipt Options, because the letters option (selecting a word processor) is no longer needed, with the new built-in editor for mail merge.

•	In Maintenance à Receipt Options, there is now an option "Create Receipts using mail merge instead of normal report method". If you select this option, receipts created via the Receipt menu options are immediately displayed using the standard receipt mail-merge file, rather than as a report.

•	Added menu options Letters à Backup and Letters à Restore, for Backing up and Restoring Letters Files, which you can use for simple backups of your customized letter or receipt files, or for transferring them between two computers.

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In reports created with Reports à Custom Report or Database à SQL Select, it now displays an optional title, along with other standard report header fields, in the header of the report (as long as it is in the Normal format, not the Grid format). Also, columns containing dollar figures are now automatically totalled at the bottom of the report. The optional Report Title is specified in the SQL Select window.

•	Changed entry of donors so that if spaces were accidentally entered at the start or end of any of the name fields, they would automatically be removed. (Spaces would mess up the sort order in the Donor List.)

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For limited users, pressing Enter doesn't save a donation they are entering on the main window, as it normally does once you start entering a new donation. You have to click on Save or press F10 to save a donation you are entering. (You don't want limited users to accidentally save before they are finished entering a donation, because they aren't allowed to edit donations at all, even the ones they just edited.)

•	Changed the Database à Import Donors window slightly. Now, when you Add fields from the Donor Fields list to the Fields to Import list, they are removed from the Donors Fields list to show that they are no longer available to be added.

•	Fixed an obscure bug that only happened to one user, where trying to create a new donation would cause the program to give an error message about the function gf_default_categorynum and exit.

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Redesigned the One Date Donation Entry window, so that it optionally displays any existing donations for the specified date, as well as spaces to enter donations for all donors with no donations on that date. If you select that option, you can go in and out of that window multiple times for the same date (e.g. if you realize you need to add another donor), and still see the full totals at the end of your work.

•	Changed the way the Cheque # / Paid By field for donations is edited, so that as you type, it shows you matches from the drop-down list. (This is similar to how some fields are entered in Quicken or QuickBooks, and is often called "autocomplete".)

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When you generate Duplicate or Corrected Receipts with the Receipt à Current Donor Duplicate/Corrected or Duplicate/Corrected Receipt by Number menu options, there are now two options: either include only the donations that were previously included in the receipt, or also include any new receiptable donations for the same donor.

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Added a new report, Reports à Donation à Summary by Paid By, which gives totals of all donations over a specified date range, broken down by the value in the Cheque # / Paid By field. (When cheque numbers entered into that field, it groups them all together under the Paid By value "Check" or "Cheque", depending on your location.) This report could be helpful for getting a summary of receiptable versus non-receiptable donations, among other uses.

•	In the 2nd part of Reports à Donation à One Date Summary (summary by Paid By), use the word "Check" for the summary of all donations with cheque numbers for U.S. users, instead of "Cheque". For Canadian users, "Cheque" is still used.

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Added a “Member / Envelope # Checksum” to the bottom of Reports à Donation à One Date Details with Member/Envelope #. This can be used as a double-check that you entered the donations for the correct donors when you use One Date Donation Entry, if you use envelope numbers and add those envelope numbers up with a calculator before doing your entries.

•	Fixed a bug that only happened to users of the Network Version, and then only occasionally. When they created receipts that shouldn't be saved in the database (either because they were Sample receipts, or because they didn't Print them), they were sometimes saved in the database anyways.

•	Fixed a couple of places in the program where message boxes (including the one confirming deleting a Donation) always used the date format MM/DD/YYYY, rather than the default format you had set on your computer. (That default date format was already used everywhere else in DONATION.)

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Fixed display bugs in the receipts, introduced in version 3.03. If you selected the Receipt Style For either Australian option, or "Other" (i.e. anything other than the more commonly-used Canada, Quebec and U.S.A. options) in Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options, the main amount printed over top of the heading for the amount.

•	In Reports à Donation à Details, One Page per Donor and Category Totals, One Page per Donor, add in invisible fields category1 and category2 (for Donor Category 1 and Donor Category 2) so that you can Filter on them.

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Fixed a bug in the Send Email window (used to request License Keys or Evaluation Extensions), where if the character "#" appeared in your organization name or address, the email would not send properly. (There were smaller problems with "&" and "%" appearing your organization name or address, which were also fixed.)

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In the Send Email window (used to request License Keys or Evaluation Extensions), the default method of sending the email is now to send it invisibly via a web form on the Software4Nonprofits.com web site, which works for any user with an Internet connection. Also added a Help button to the Send Email window.

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Fixed a small problem introduced by a change in version 3.04, in Custom Reports and SQL Select: It always displayed the report in Print Preview mode, like all regular reports. Unfortunately, this is not a good choice if you select the Grid display style, because that takes away the capability to resize or rearrange the columns, which is the big advantage of the Grid style. So, Grid reports do not start in Print Preview mode.

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Added the capability to use DONATION with the multi-user Firebird Server database software, instead of the single-user Embedded Firebird that it normally comes with. This can allow you to have multiple users on a network access the same database, either one at a time or simultaneously. Separate licensing (and payment) is needed to use DONATION with the Firebird Server, even for only one at a time usage, and additional payment is always required for simultaneous usage. Details are on the PRICING page on the web site.

•	Added the Database à Restore Old Database (DONATION3.DB) menu option. It allows you to restore a database file from older versions of DONATION (version 2.70b or earlier), then have that file converted to the new database format.

•	Changed the Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options menu option, adding in a "Starting Receipt #" field, which can set your starting receipt number for each year to something other than 1. (Very few organizations will need to use this, or for that matter should use this!)

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Fixed a bug where if the main window has been minimized when the program is closed (e.g. if you Shutdown or Restart your computer with DONATION minimized), it would start again minimized. As a result, users thought it hadn't started, tried to start it again, and got an error message about not being able to connect to the database. Now, if it was closed when it was minimized, it starts the next time at its original standard size and position.

•	In Database à Reassign Envelope Numbers, if you chose to do it in alphabetical order, that order is now case-insensitive, like the Donor List. (I.e. if a last name starts with a small letter, it is sorted in with other last names that start with that same letter, capitalized.)

•	Fixed Reports à Donor à Potential Duplicates so that donors are viewed as potential duplicates if either the business name, or the first and last names, are very similar (previously all 3 had to be very similar).

•	Slightly re-wrote Reports à Donor à Potential Duplicates, so that it gives the same results as it used to, but will probably run more quickly. (However, it can still take a fair while if you have a very large number of donors.)

•	Fixed a bug in Reports à Custom Report, where if you use the "Last, First" Donor column, and the "Sum(Total Amount)" or "Sum(Eligible Amount)" Donation columns, and a range of years, and Separate Totals, it gives an error when you run it from the SQL Select window.

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In the Help à Request or Install License Key window, display the "Request License Key for your Organization" button if you are within two months of your annual renewal date, so that you can get an updated key if you have paid your annual renewal. Previously, this button was not visible on this window unless you either were not yet licensed, or your annual renewal date had passed.

•	Fixed a minor bug in Receipt à Filtered Donors, where if you put in values of Other Info 1, Other Info 2 or Other Info 3 to filter on, they were case-sensitive. They are now case-insensitive, as they were in versions of donation prior to 3.00.

•	Fixed a bug on the main window: On program startup, the focus wasn't always on the Donor List, so you couldn't immediately scroll with the arrow keys etc. or find donors by typing initial letters of their last name or envelope numbers.

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Included an extra DLL in the full installation programs (e.g. DONINST.EXE), which is required by systems that have certain Windows Accessibility features turned on, and which caused an error message ("PowerBuilder Accessibility Error ...") if it was absent. N.B. Most users did not have those Windows features turned on, so they did not get the message or need the DLL.

•	Fixed the fact that Help à Revision History took you to the Introduction page of the Help, rather than the correct page that shows the history of the changes to the program in successive versions.

•	Added a Business Name field to the Donor details. If there is a Business Name and also a Last Name and First Name, the business or organization is assumed to be the actual donor, and the individual's name is assumed to be a contact at that business.

•	When this version starts up for the first time, any existing donors who have a Last Name filled in but no First Name are assumed to be businesses or organizations, and the contents of the Last Name field are moved to the Business Name.

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The validation of required fields for the Donor is now done on Save, not as you edit the fields, so that you can enter the fields in any order without getting "stuck" in a required field. Required fields are either a Business Name or both a First Name and Last Name (or all three), plus Address Line 1.

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The program will now work with Large size Fonts (set in Control Panel's Display tool, Settings tab), as long as the screen resolution is at least 1024 x 768. It will also work with Normal Fonts with screen resolutions as small as 800 x 600. (Previously, problems occurred with Large size Fonts, most specifically that the printout of the receipts always looked bad.)

•	The One Date Donation Entry window now has a Find Donor button, which you can use to find donors by Name or Member/Envelope # - the same as you get by using File à Find Donor on the main window. It can be accessed with either Alt-F or Ctrl-F.

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Tightened up the handling of support and updates eligibility, so that if your updates eligibility period (12 months from the date of your last Full License or Annual Renewal payment, or from being issued a free license) has expired, you cannot install an updated version of DONATION that was released after the expiry date. You also can't install a License Key that has already expired (i.e. that is more than 12 months old) unless you have previously installed a non-expired License Key on the same installation of DONATION.

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If you have exceeded the number of donors with donations that you are licensed for, and you bring up the Evaluation and Licensing window with Help à Request or Install License Key, it will show the button with which you request another license key (one that allows for your actual number of donors with donations).

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Added two new columns ("# Donations" and "# Donors") to Reports à Donation à Category Totals. There is also now an extra total at the bottom of this report, labelled "Total Distinct Donors across all Categories", that just gives the total number of donors with donations. This is the number of donors that is relevant for determining which level of payment is required for a Full License or Annual Renewal fee.

•	Fixed a couple of reports where the field for the donor name was too short, and names could be cut off at a shorter length than was necessary. (Many reports can still cut off the ends of very long names, because there is just not enough room on the page for the whole name.)

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In Reports à Donor à Mailing Labels, added a non-displayed (i.e. invisible) member_number field (the Member/Envelope #), so that you can filter or sort on it. For instance, you could create labels for only those donors who have a Member/Envelope # by using the filter "member_number >= 0" (without the quotes).

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Fix a bug in the CSV files exported by Letters à Mass Mailing, that prevented them from being loaded into Excel properly, and could cause extra blank lines to appear in mail merge letters using the <<fulladdress>> field. Other than the blank lines, however, it already worked correctly if you were merging to Microsoft Word directly.

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Fixed a small bug in the sample mail merge letter receipts_merge.doc, used in Letters à Mass Mailing when merging Receipt letters to Microsoft Word, where the <<ytdtotalamount>> field had a typo in it, causing errors to come up during the merge. (However, this file is never updated during an upgrade, so this will only help new users.)

•	Improved the error message if there is a conversion error when converting the database from version 2.70 or earlier to the current version. If the problem is in converting the DONOR table, the message points to a helpful Support Forum posting about the problem.

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Made the Maintenance à Organization Info window wider, so it would be clearer that you can enter up to 70 characters for the Organization Name fields. (You always could do that, and the field would scroll right if necessary as you typed, but this makes it easier to see all of a long organization name.)

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Added a control in the Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options window, that allows you to specify the label for the member/envelope # field on the receipts, if you use such numbers for your donors. It can be "Envelope #" (the default), or "Member #", or you can choose to never have the member/envelope numbers displayed on receipts at all.

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On Reports à Donation à Details, One Page per Donor and Category Totals, One Page per Donor, if you use the Sort or Filter buttons, it no longer displays the sort or filter criteria on each page of the report. (Most reports do display them, but because these reports may be sent to donors, it is less appropriate to display the sort or filter criteria on them.)

•	Warn licensed users if they have more donors with donations than they are licensed for, and give an option in that case to go to the PRICING page on the web site to pay for the difference.

•	In the version of the Evaluation and Licensing window reached via Help à Request or Install License Key, the Request License Key button is now visible if either your support and upgrades period has expired, or you have exceeded the number of donors with donations that you are licensed for.

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Fixed a small bug where after re-opening a new database or new year (e.g. with Maintenance à Change Year, Database à Restore, or Database à Switch Database), the drop-down list of Donor Category 1 and Donor Category 2 values was not re-loaded from the database (or year) that was just switched to, and thus an incorrect list could be displayed.

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Fixed a weakness in Database à Backup and Database à Restore, where if the last backup directory used was a drive that is not always available (e.g. a CD drive or a drive for a USB memory key), and it is not currently available, you would get error messages but not be able to pick a different drive for your backup or restore. Now it gives you an option to either make that drive available and try again (the only option previously), or instead switch to a standard backup directory on your local hard drive.

•	Changed a couple of reports (Reports à Donation à One Date Summary and Summary by Category) to have at least 1/2" left margins, so that they can be 3-hole punched without cutting out any of the text on the left.

•	Fixed a bug in Letters à One Letter and Letters à Mass Mailing where the Browse button used to select a word processor document file with your merge codes in it would not work properly, and you had to instead type in the full pathname for that file.

•	Fixed a minor bug in Maintenance à Donation Categories, Maintenance à Donor Category 1 and Maintenance à Donor Category 2 - none of them showed their lists of categories in alphabetical order. However, the lists were already in the right order in the drop-down fields used for data entry.

•	Improved the installation program to resolve a problem for users with Windows Vista, when they are upgrading from version 2.70 or lower, where the newest version of their previous database file would not be converted to the new format.

•	Added a new menu option, Database àDelete All Data, which does that - delete all data in your database. This would rarely be used, but can be used to help with restoring backups from version 2.70 or earlier.

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Changed to using the embedded version of the Firebird Database, instead of the previous Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA) database. If you have a previous version of DONATION, the first time you start this new version, you will be prompted to let it automatically convert all of your data from the old database to the new database. (The new Firebird database file is named DONATION4.DB, whereas the old Sybase ASA one was named DONATION3.DB.)

•	Unlike with the old Sybase ASA database, it is not currently possible with the new Firebird database to move your database to a different computer on a local area network and use it remotely on that computer. This will be possible in a future release, using the full multi-user version of Firebird.

As part of the change to Firebird, several changes to database fields were made, and several other related changes were made, as follows:

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Added a 2nd Organization Name field in the Maintenance à Organization Info window, which is intended for use by Quebec organizations that have both an English and a French name. Receipts for users in Quebec (identified by picking one of two relevant options in the Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options window), will have both names printed on their receipts, if they have both been filled in.

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Changed the lookup of Donors in the Donor List which is done by typing in a Member/Envelope #, so that it waits until you have typed in the entire number before it goes to the donor with that number. Previously, if you typed in "1", for instance, it would go to the first donor whose Member/Envelope # started with "1", which was not very helpful. Now at that point it will only go to the donor whose Member/Envelope # is exactly "1".

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Replaced the optional donation field called "Fair Market Value", which corresponded to the total amount of a donation when the donor received something in return for it (e.g. at a fundraising dinner, where they receive the dinner). Previously the "Amount" field was meant to be the amount that the donor could claim on their taxes (excluding the value of the thing they received, which the Canada Revenue Agency calls the "advantage"), and the "Fair Market Value" field was the total amount they actually gave. Now, instead of "Fair Market Value" there is an optional "Eligible Amount" field. When this is displayed, the main "Amount Field" is now called "Total Amount", which should be clearer. To put this another way, the "Amount" or "Total Amount" is really the same as the old "Fair Market Value", and the "Eligible Amount" is really the same as the old "Amount". You do not have to enter an Eligible Amount unless it is less than the Total Amount.

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Canadian receipts now comply with the Canada Revenue Agency's guidelines for what it calls "split receipting". New wording was added to the receipts when the donor has received an "advantage" (something in return) for their donation, which is indicated by entering an Eligible Amount which is less than the Total Amount. There is an option in the Maintenance à Receipt and Letters Options window that enables entering the Eligible Amount.

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Made some changes and additions to the merge field names for Letters à Mass Mailing. In particular, the field "year" is now named "year_number" in all letters; in the Receipt letters the field "ytdtotal" is now named "ytdtotalamount"; and some fields for eligible amounts have been added. This may require some adjustments to any mail-merge letters you have been using, though only if they included those fields.

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Backup files now have an extra file extension added to them, e.g. DONATION4.DB is normally backed up to DONATION4.DB.GBK, and they are not exact copies of the database file they backed up. (In fact, they are smaller, but they do contain all of the same information.) They cannot be just copied back in order to do a restore - you must use the Database à Restore option.

•	Added a popup calendar to the Donation Date field, which can be used either for entry, or for checking if you are not sure of the current date format. You can also still just type in the date.

•	The program now prompts you weekly (or at another desired frequency) to backup your database. You can set the desired frequency of reminders to Never, Daily, Weekly or Monthly, by using Database à Backup Reminder Frequency.