FoxFire 8 ... not out yet, but looking better and better!

The next version of FoxFire appears pretty close to release.

Take the tour at the link above. It looks pretty impressive and will be a very nice enhancement to the Donor Manager.

As I was looking through the latest update to the tour, I was impressed with the ability of the program to run a report, and e-mail sections of the report (as the report is running) to different people.

Imaging your mission printing account activity reports .... one report .... and as each account changes, the report writer emails (as a pdf) that section of the report to the person in charge of that account.

One account .... a thousand accounts. All handled in one batch action.

If it works, I'll be impressed, and I can already think of at least a dozen uses for this. Maybe not in the donor manager, but in other apps I have helped with.

We'll see!

Neck deep in Pro-Matrix work

The past month has seen just a little development on the Donor Manager. In between a lot of travel and speaking as we try to finish up our support raising, most of my programming efforts have been concentrating on the Academic Records software that I'm re-writing for Wesley Seminary (www.wbs.edu).

The program is in use daily and it has been going quite well. There have been the usual minor glitches, plus a few errors in data design that have shown up quickly and were easily fixed. We were even able to make a link to put the data (FoxPro) up on their website so that students and faculty can access their academic records via the net.

The app also has to talk to GoldMine (contact manager) and AccPac (accounting) software, and that part isn't done yet.

Most of the stuff yet to be done is minor bells and whistles and additional special needs reports.

ProMatrix with it's robust and active data dictionary has been a real boost to this project, and I continue to be impressed with it.