Upgrade To Version 4.05

We have a policy of listening to our customers and making improvements to ServiceLife if we can. If you already have version 4.0 of ServiceLife installed on your computer, then you can upgrade to version 4.05 for free. The improvements made to version 4.05 are shown later on this page. The upgrade also fixes known bugs and technical problems.

If you already use previous versions 1, 2 or 3 of ServiceLife then you can run a full install of version 4.05 to upgrade it. Note that some of the newer areas of the program will be restricted until an upgrade fee is paid. You should still upgrade though (even if you are not interested in the new features) because the existing areas of the program have also been improved.

You can upgrade to version 4.05 by downloading the program in one go if you have fast internet access. If you have slower internet access then you can download it in nine separate files instead.

Alternatively you can contact us and we will send you a free compact disc containing the upgrade to version 4.05 of ServiceLife.

1. ServiceLife now links to version 14 of Sage Line 50.
2. A copy button has been added to the Quote screen. This lets you
   copy the detail lines from an existing quote to a new quote.

1. Some of the user designed reports for the Visit screen were 
   running slowly. Their performance has been improved.

1. ServiceLife now links to version 13 of Sage Line 50.
2. For screens with larger screen resolutions ServiceLife now 
   fills out more space to the right and bottom of the screen. 
   Previously it only filled out the screen based on a maximum
   resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

1. ServiceLife did not work correctly on the new Microsoft Windows 
   Vista operating system. This has now been corrected.

1. ServiceLife now links to version 12 of Sage Line 50.
2. When adding Products to a Service Contract you can now choose 
   which Visits you want to include the products on by means of a 
   tick box grid showing products down the left hand side and visit 
   dates across the top. When renewing the contract ServiceLife 
   remembers the previous years product visit dates and repeats 
   them on the visits generated for the new contract period.
3. When adding Products to a Service Contract they are now added to 
   all the visits in the contract period even if some of them are in
   the past.
4. The contact grid on the Customer, Site and Supplier screens has 
   been improved. You can now update the fax number and Christmas 
   gift without zooming in with the Details button.
5. On the Schedule screen after scheduling an installation or visit,
   the Pending Appointments list retains the position you were on 
   in the list instead of returning to the first appointment.
6. On the Schedule screen you can now sort the Pending Appointments 
   list by priority colour as well.
7. On the top menu bar the Find Postcode option has been replaced
   by the Find Address option. This lets you find any part of an
   address rather than just the postcode.
8. On Installation and Visit sheets the customer name & address 
   have reversed position with the site name & address. The site 
   name & address is now shown first. This was on request because 
   many engineers prefer to look at where they are going first and 
   not who the customer is. Some were mistakenly going to the 
   customer because they saw that first.
9. The Common Fault drop down choice has been added to the Call Out 
   screens. You have to choose a Problem Product before you can 
   choose a common fault.
10. The Common Fault value is now shown on the Detailed Visit Sheets.
11. Two new reports have been added to both the Installation and 
    Visit screens. These will report on the invoices raised for the 
    installation or visit. One prints in brief figures and one prints
    in detail. From the report criteria you can also select whether 
    to print installations or visits showing a profit or loss.
12. On the Document tab of all the screens you can now add multiple 
    documents in one go rather than selecting one at a time. Hold 
    down the Control key to select more than one document at a time.
13. A Quote tab has been added to the Customer and Site screens. This 
    shows all the quotes raised for a customer or site in a similar 
    way to the Invoice tab of those screens.
14. On the Call Out screens an "A-Z" sort button has been added to 
    the side of the Problem Product field. This helps to locate the 
    problem product when there are many products at one site.
15. New reports have been added for Product Returns. These can be 
    found on the Site screen. You can also enter selection criteria 
    specific to Product Returns when running these reports.
16. When converting a successful Quote to a new Installation, 
    ServiceLife now offers to add any quoted products to the Product 
    tab of the Installation record. This saves repeating the process 
    separately on the Product tab. You will still need to fill out 
    any serial number and location information for each product.
17. You can now add Labour to the detail tab of a Quote for a Service 
    Contract (instead of just Installations and Visits).
18. The Contact reports on the Customer, Site and Supplier screens 
    have been condensed. They used to print one whole page per 
    customer, site or supplier but now they print one contact after 
    the other so as to use less paper.
19. In the user report designer the Cost Price field has been added
    to the list of possible fields for the Quote and Invoice screens.

1. An error sometimes occurred when printing the Overdue Product 
   Returns report with certain selection criteria. This has been 
   corrected and will no longer happen.
2. On the Document tab of all screens an error was occurred when 
   adding a document with a very long file path or file name. This 
   problem should not arise again.

1. A new tab called Document has been added to most screens and it replaces the Image tab which was limited in its capability. It allows you to add an unlimited number of documents to a ServiceLife record. These can be images, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets or any other type of document. By clicking the magnifying glass button you can open the document in the software that originally created it.
2. ServiceLife now links to version 11 of Sage Line 50.
3. You can now create new customer and supplier records in Sage Line 50 from ServiceLife. You can do this from the Customer and Supplier screens by clicking the Sage Details button. Enter a new Sage A/C Ref value and click the Create button to add the new record to Sage.
4. You can now import new suppliers into ServiceLife from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. A new ServiceLife excel template called "ImportSuppliers.xls" has been installed into folder "Excel Template" for this purpose.
5. A new type of record has been added called a Product Return. You can add a product return from the Product tab of the Site, Installation, Visit and Service Contract screens. This is to show that a product has been temporarily removed from site and it allows you to follow the repair process through to when it is returned on site.
6. You can now enter an invoice as a Credit invoice. There is a new Credit Invoice flag on the Invoice screen for this purpose. All the detail lines for a credit invoice must have a negative Sales Price.
7. The actual colour of the priority colour field is now visible at all times on the Installation, Visit and Service Contract screens.
8. On the User Settings screen you can now turn off the message that warns you if an invoice has not been created when you set the "Finished" flag on the Installation and Visit screens. 
9. When you mark a Visit as finished ServiceLife will warn you if you have not completed the arrival time for a Visit Response Time that you started.
10. If you change the Provisional Date on the Installation screen then ServiceLife will offer to change the install dates of all products associated with the installation.
11. You can now add new contact names from the Installation, Visit and Service Contract screens. There is a yellow cross "Add" button next to the contact fields for this purpose. 
12. When adding products or parts to an invoice, quote or purchase order you can now sort the list of items to add by Account Category as well.
13. Missing Account Categories were not being rejected from the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet import of products and parts. Instead they were successfully imported with a warning and given the account category of "(N/A)". This has been changed on request and now they are rejected by the Excel import process.
14. On the Security tab of the Personnel screen you can now set a Multiple Records flag. If set to False then it will stop a user printing, emailing or Word merging more than one record at a time. This is designed to stop users printing off all your records in one go and running off with the information.
15. A new button called "Email" has been added to the toolbar of all reports. It enables you to attach the report to a new email without having to export it to a new file name first.
16. Most reports are now printed in Site Name order. This applies in particular to Installation, Visit and Service Contract reports (where applicable).
17. The order that detail lines will print for Invoices, Quotes and Purchase Orders has been changed. You can now print the items in the order they were originally added as well as in Product, Part, Labour and Miscellaneous order.
18. Several extra fields have been made available to the Report Designer. You will see these in the Fields list when you are in report design mode.
19. The mobile phone number of any contact for an installation or visit will now print on Installation Sheets and Visit Sheets.
20. A new report has been added which lists all Customers that are marked as "On Hold". You will find this report with all the other customer reports.
21. A new report has been added that lists Sites by "Site Type". You will find this report with all the other site reports.
22. A new report has been added that lists all Purchase Orders not paid. You will find this report with all the other purchase order reports.
23. A new report has been added that lists all Invoices by "Invoice Type". You will find this report with all the other invoice reports.
24. Three new reports have been added that show all Installations, Visits and Service Contract where regular payments have been set up (respectively).

1. The Site Name now transfers to the Delivery Name on a Sage invoice created from ServiceLife. This applies to versions 7 and above of Sage Line 50.
2. After you changed the key phrase "Quote" to another word (such as Estimate) then when you clicked the Print button on the Quote screen the list of built in reports to choose from was empty. This problem has been resolved.
3. You were not allowed to delete a quote after it had been successfully converted to an Installation, Visit or Service Contract even after deleting the converted record. This has been rectified.
4. When designing a new report from an existing one the Paper Size and Orientation was not being carried across to the new report.
5. Merging to Word for versions of Word 2003 and above was failing with an error when merging to an existing template.
6. The report "List Visits By Latest Status" was not printing the telephone number correctly. 
7. When using the built in Letter designer the address was a little too far to the left to show fully in a window envelope. It has been moved a little further to the right.
8. When printing reports to a Dot Matrix impact printer the reports were sometimes coming out in a garbled format depending on the type of printer. This has been rectified.
9. When importing Products and Parts from Microsoft Excel the ServiceLife excel template was restricting the Short Description to 30 characters and it should have been 40.
10. On the Schedule screen if you scheduled two jobs that followed immediately on from one another and both were for the same Site then they became merged into one large job on the screen. This problem has been solved.
11. There was an occasional rounding problem when calculating the tax (normally VAT) on the detail lines of the Invoice, Quote and Purchase Order screens. This only happened on some values and was out by one penny. This problem has been rectified.
12. When merging an email address to a new email some computers were combining the "name" and the "email address" into the output address of the new email. This problem has been solved.

1. Two new Visit reports have been added. They print the 52 week visit plan by site or by product and they also show the priority colour. They are of more use to those with colour printers.
2. Some new values have been added to the options on the Security tab of the Personnel screen. Quote, Invoice and Purchase Order security now has a separate value for Company Totals. A brand new option called Running Reports has also been added to allow for greater security when running reports.
3. A new field called Site Type has been added to the Site screen. You can use it to differentiate between different types of site. It has also been added to the selection criteria for site reports, letters, emails and merging to MS Word.
4. When clicking the Undo button during report design the report will now revert to when you first opened the report instead of just back to the last set of changes.
5. On the General Settings screen the default provisional durations (in hours) have been reinstated for new Installations and Visits. This was removed on version 4.0 but some customers requested these be put back. You will see them at the bottom right of the screen in the Schedule Screen Settings area.

1. An error was occurring in the calculation of regular maintenance visit dates when creating or renewing Service Contracts. When setting the number of visits to 52 for a year long contract the program was saying there were too many visits for the contract duration. This error has been resolved.
2. When creating regular invoice payments an error was occurring if the Invoice Notes field had more than 100 characters in it. You can now enter an unlimited number of characters.