Saturday 16 November 2013

SAP Crystal Reports Update - SP 7 released by SAP



SAP have released Support Pack (SP) 7 for Crystal Reports.

This updated contains some bug fixes that will resolve some minor issues for Dolphin Clients.

If you have not already had an update from your Dolphin Distributor and support office, please contact them to make arrangements for this update.

You can find our Distributor Details at this link.

If you're technically inclined, or even just curious, you can read the release notes from SAP over here

Thursday 24 October 2013

How to get your License to download through a proxy.

The license for Dolphin 4 software is downloaded and checked on a daily basis.

This requires access to the internet for a small piece of software called the Dolphin RegServer.

Once a license cannot be checked, the software will continue to work for a maximum of 7 days , and thereafter access to the site will need to be restored for the license information to be verified.

If you company has a firewall, and your IT department is managing and allowing specific access through a proxy, then it may be necessary to manually enter the proxy settings.

This is something that should be done by your local Distributor and Support office.

Make sure your IT support provider , or department are aware of this requirement if they are planning on changing , or have recently changed your proxy settings or firewall settings.

Monday 23 September 2013

Refresh Quote list vs Refresh individual Quote Details

Did you know that there are 2 different refresh actions you can perform while working in the Estimating module of Dophin 4 ?

You can refresh the entire document list, or you can just refresh the details for the quote or job you are have focus on .

This is how

Saturday 6 July 2013

Reminder: Older versions of Dolphin Dekstop Software no longer licensed from 1 October 2013

This post is a reminder regarding a previous notices dated Wednesday 6 March  2013, Thursday 6 September 2012, and Thursday 6 December 2012  :

It's also important for us to make it clear to all clients, that the development and management team do not have any financial incentive to force an upgrade. There are no costs or charges associated with providing updated software to the Distributors, and your licensing is not affected or increased by moving to a newer version. The older versions have reached the end of their shelf-life , and the newer versions are more stable, with many bug fixes and newer features.

We have never in the last 20 years since Dolphin was founded, forced any client to upgrade, as we believe that the improvements to the software should speak for themselves. This change to our policy is not about making money, and it is not about getting more money from clients, because we don't charge any fees for the upgraded software.

We do not charge for upgrades, and our distributors receive all software upgrades at no cost to them.

Unfortunately , we have reached a position where a small number of clients are working on versions of the software that  cannot be maintained and supported.

If you are happy to have the upgrade done and tested remotely, without a consultant coming to your premises, then there is no reason that you cannot ask for a free, or substantially reduced upgrade fee when speaking with our Distributors.

The following versions of Dolphin4 Software will no longer be supported or licensed from 1 October 2013.
  • 4.218.31.17
  • 4.218.31.20
  • 4.218.34.21
  • 4.297.32.85
  • 4.373.33.29
  • 4.378.34.35
We will also not be supporting or licensing any versions older than these. 

If you don't know how to check which version you are on, we have a previous post that explains where to look in Dolphin to see the version number.

This does not affect any of our other clients who are already working on newer versions of the software.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Windows XP and Dolphin4 - an update to our minimum OS requirements

Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft from 8 April 2014.

In preparation for this change , we have removed Windows XP from our list of supported Operating Systems, as from 8 April 2013.

This is exactly a year ahead of when Microsoft will no longer support the product.

We have been asked why we are ceasing support so far in advance , our reasons are explained below.

Monday 11 March 2013

How tax works in Dolphin -4 Tax in your quotes



Following on from our posts in October last year - How Tax Works in Dolphin - 3 Assigning a Default Tax to a Stock or Service Item, we now address how the estimating module and cost calculations  use ( or rather don't use)  the tax percentages that have been setup on Client and Stock Items.


Wednesday 6 March 2013

Reminder : Older versions of Dolphin4 will no longer be licensed or supported from October 2013


This post is a reminder regarding a previous notices dated Thursday 6 September 2012, and Thursday 6 December 2012  :

It's also important for us to make it clear to all clients, that the development team do not have any financial incentive to force an upgrade. There are no costs or charges associated with providing updated software to the Distributors, and your licensing is not affected or increased by moving to a newer version. The older versions have reached the end of their shelf-life , and the newer versions are more stable, with many bug fixes and newer features.

The following versions of Dolphin4 Software will no longer be supported or licensed from 1 October 2013.
  • 4.218.31.17
  • 4.218.31.20
  • 4.218.34.21
  • 4.297.32.85
  • 4.373.33.29
  • 4.378.34.35
We will also not be supporting or licensing any versions older than these. 

If you don't know how to check which version you are on, we have a previous post that explains where to look in Dolphin to see the version number.

We have a very small number of clients still on these versions, and we will be working with our Distributors over the remaining 7 months to upgrade them all to newer versions.

This does not affect any of our other clients who are already newer versions of the software.




Monday 25 February 2013

Upcoming Development release

We're working on a new release of Dolphin4, right now , and thought we'd quickly update a short post to confirm some additions to the new release that you can expect to see in the next 2 -3 months .

  • We have enhanced and tweaked the process of capturing and updating client details while in the middle of a Quote or on a Job form - early testing indicates a dramatic speed improvement and overall user experience. 
  • Some minor enhancements to the Report writing tools mean that your distributor has even larger capabilities in providing you with a wider range of options for your reports. 
  • You can now view your installation details, including the database name, server details and version number on the About Dolphin screen
A number of smaller bug fixes and enhancements are also included - so keep an eye out for communications from our distributors once the release is official.