The “Bermuda Package” & Calendar Copy |
Hello %firstname% %lastname%,
This email welcomes our newest subscribers Trevor Nelson with Farr 40 Katahdin in Barrington – RI, Mark Coleman with Mills 41 Eclipse in Newport – RI, and David Wilson with Catalina 36 MkII Pau Hana in Newport – RI. It also provides information about new features including what is referred to as the Bermuda Package and Calendar Copy, both added with incremental release version 2.8.1. The Crew and Skipper Manuals remain at version 2.8 with the new features described on the Support Forum until the next major release.
New Features
- The Bermuda Package – New Profile Fields & Custom Reports: Jessica Ossi-Nackman & Gary Nackman from the Baltic 51 High Note are planning for the 2020 Newport to Bermuda race. They had been emailing a spreadsheet to gather passport information, emergency contact information and travel arrangements. Based on discussions with Jessica, Crew Manager has been updated so that information may be entered in each Crew members profile. By default, the new fields are not displayed, since that information is not normally required. The Skipper may enable these fields as described in Extra Crew Profile Fields for Passport, Emergency Contact & Travel on the support forum. The Skipper may then produce a report and export the results to Excel. New on the Skipper menu, the Skipper will now see Custom Reports and may create custom reports as described in Create Custom Crew Reports & Download to Excel.
- Calendar Copy from the Crew Manager Main Site: The Crew Manager site includes on its calendar sailing events that may be of interest to Crew Manager subscribers. A number of subscribers have requested the ability to copy these events to their own site. Skippers may now easily copy events listed on the main Crew Manager site to their own site as described in Easily Copy Events from Main Site Calendar on the support forum. This minimizes keyboard entries and provides the full event with images, links and text that may be easily edited on your own sites.
- Crew Comment Field When Setting Availability: Crew members may now provide a comment in a text field next to their Availability. This feature is on each calendar entry, Crew Availability and Crew Assignment pages. It is also available on any Skipper page where the Skipper may override availability and enter comments. Crew members may use the comment field to provide relevant information such as “may arrive late from work” or “I’ll bring rum”.
- Option to Turn Off All Crew Manager Email Notifications: Lance Ryley from Columbia 30-2 RockIt 2.0 requested the ability to turn off all email notifications the Skipper receives, including when Crew change availability. There was a partial solution originally built in, but it did not cover Skipper emails when Crew changed availability. There is now a checkbox on the Crew Manager Modify Settings screen to enable or disable the various emails sent to the Skipper. The new setting is described in Option to turn off all Crew Manager email notifications on the support forum.
- Customize Your Boat Website: This isn’t new, but updated with additional information in the “How do I customize my site?” post on the support forum. You may also have your boat website customized for you using Customize Crew Manager Website Services.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed some behind the scenes incorrect math functions that you probably didn’t notice were wrong
- No additional bugs have been reported
Feature Requests Under Consideration
- Copy Calendar Events From Any Crew Manager Site: Now that the ability exists to copy a calendar event from the main Crew Manager site to your own site, it would be easy to extend this so you may copy events from any Crew Manager site to your own. This might be helpful for boats in a specific geographical area where they may want to get an event from a friends boat calendar and add to their own site. Please provide feedback on the proposed feature by clicking on this email link to the Crew Manager Administrator.
- Crew Pictures (Deferred): Dan Corcoran from J/109 Strider requested a feature for Crew Pictures Integrate with Smartphone. Dan & I discussed the various options available with photo sites, links, etc. and agreed to follow up further once he looks at various alternatives. I created a photo page on my J/109 Vento Solare site and post links to Google photos and Dropbox that crew members send.
- In App Messaging (Deferred): Dan Corcoran from J/109 Strider requested a feature for In App Messaging with Notifications & Positive Acknowledgement. He would like to know when someone reads a message initiated by Crew Manager. Dan & I discussed this and the complexity of the various messaging systems. Crew Manager uses standard email and SMS text messaging. I told Dan I would be willing to integrate an established messaging app he identified, provided they offered a defined API that could be interfaced with, but it was not intended that Crew Manager develop its own messaging program.
- Multiple Events Set Availability on Expanded Calendar List: The existing calendar list has the ability to open all events and display availability dropdowns and a submit button for each event. Currently submission and update is limited to a single event. It is desired that this operate similar to the Availability and Assignments pages under the Crew menu where the submit button handles multiple events. This will be investigated on how best to incorporate.
2020 Season Planning
Existing Crew Manager subscribers planning a follow on season have some useful tools to setup the 2020 schedule. Smart Copy Events Between Years makes it easy for those who have a 2020 schedule similar to 2019. Events are copied with a selectable date offset so the 2020 event appears on the correct date.
New subscribers and existing subscribers may also Import an Excel Spreadsheet to Populate the Calendar to easily load new events. This is handy to enter many events at one time. You may always enter events individually with these tips to Create Events & Split Repeating Events (e.g. Regatta Series). The newly added Easily Copy Events from Main Site Calendar provides another method to add events to your calendar.
Crew Manager Documentation
Support documentation is always available on the Crew Manager Support Forum. Anyone may read the forum but you need to create a forum account to post. The forum is easily reached via the boat website menu where the following choices are provided.
- Documentation and FAQs – Crew & Skipper manuals and answers to frequently asked questions
- Crew Manager User Discussion and Questions – If you have a question or want to discuss something post it here.
- Report a Bug – If you find a problem report it here so it can be addressed.
- Request a Feature – We are open to suggestions, additions or changes to Crew Manager that will make it better for everyone!
Crew Manager LLC is a low budget operation with website hosting expenses and RI Small Business tax filing expenses. If you like it, please help recruits boats by forwarding this email to your friends. The Annual Subscription for New Sites and Annual Subscription Renewal options are the best deal and help me meet cash flow requirements. I hope you find Crew Manager as a useful means to organize your schedule and crew. If you have suggestions on how it can be made better, feel free to post on the Support Forum.
