Released August 3, 2009
Dear OA LodgeMaster Users,
The development team is excited to announce the release of version 2.0! The new release includes a large number of improvements, including upgrades to Access and SQL Server, a brand new interface and menu design, a new finance modules, new reporting tools, and much, much more.
You can download the new program today from the OA LodgeMaster website. Remember, you will need to uninstall the old version of the desktop program first (by opening add / remove programs in your control panel) since it no longer works.
Inside of the desktop client:
- A new version of Access and SQL Server plus a new add-in that allows quick creation of PDFs from inside OA LodgeMaster.
- We’ve reorganized the menus. You’ll find all of the same functionality, just in slightly different places on the new ribbon.
- We’ve added new reporting tools, including the ability to print labels and export any reports for the lodge or chapter membership.
- We’ve added a brand new, greatly enhanced, finance module which allows allow better transaction processing and new budgeting functionality.
- We’ve added callout date tracking, bounced email and address tracking, and a flag for using nicknames versus first names.
- We’ve added an OA representative field to the unit setup screen.
- We’ve added user login tracking and will be adding a report so you can review this in the next release.
- We’ve added BSA membership audit reports.
- We’ve added notes fields for both members and event attendees.
- We’ve improved usage of the inactive and deceased flags to ensure members do not appear incorrectly on reports.
- We’ve added the ability to print chapter specific mailing labels.
- We’ve also fixes a small number of bugs that had been reported since that last release.
Please review the questions and answers below, and also note a couple of couple important items:
- The online portal is being finalized and will be available starting this coming weekend or new week. We’ll send out a separate announcement with links and login information once the online portal is available.
- Along with the new finance module comes a new set of tables in your database. We are currently migrating your data from the old tables, your old data should be available by the end of the weekend. Complete the upgrade and the finance information will appear once the migration is complete.
Thanks to everyone who attended our training classes and visited the support lab. We hope to talk to everyone again soon, and we hope you enjoy this great new version of OA LodgeMaster.
Yours in Brotherhood,
The OA LodgeMaster Team
Mike (C.), Mike (G.), Mike (P.), Rob (A.) and Rob (R.)
The new version brings a couple of major changes to the system that do not allow for upgrades. We're upgrading SQL server on our end to a newer version, and because of this have to do a major database conversion to move all of your databases over. On your end, LodgeMaster will be using SQL 2008 Express instead of SQL 2008 Express and Access 2007 Runtime instead of Access 2003 Runtime. These changes require the old program to be uninstalled completely and a new full version to be installed.
You will no longer be able to use the old version as your data has been migrated to the new version of SQL server. You will need to uninstall the old version by opening add / remove programs in your control panel. Once the old program is uninstalled, download the new installer from the OA LodgeMaster website, run the setup wizard, then open up OA LodgeMaster desktop.
Please submit a ticket on the help desk if you have any questions - this will allow each of the team members to respond as they have time - instead of sending all questions to one member of the development team. You can submit a ticket online at http://support.oalodgemaster.org or via email at support@oalodgemaster.org.