December 2015 Update

In this update:

• New hosting available 
• Bed list screen
• Latest version

Merry Christmas! 

I hope you are all enjoying the silly season, and here's an early present for you - the first of the updates I'm planning to keep you in the know on what's happening in the world of Club System. I'm hoping to get them out at least quarterly, but let's see how we go.

New Hosting Available

I have been researching an alternate host for Club System sites for the past few months, and have found Webres Solutions. This company out of Melbourne can provide a lot more power, reliability and speed than the current Kiwihosting solution, and the support to date has been outstanding.

All new Club System sites created in the latter half of this year have been set up on the new hosting, and have provided a good test and shakeout of the new service. I'm now looking to start moving existing sites across.

Of course, the additional benefits come with extra cost, so for those who want to move there will be a small increase in your yearly fee, as well as a one off cost to cover the move. Those that are happy with the existing solution are more than welcome to stay there for the time being.

Please get in contact if you are interested in finding out more, especially those in the Southern Hemisphere who would like to upgrade in the off season.

Bed List Screen

Check out the photo below of the screen up at Icicles Ski Club. This screen has a real time version of their bed list, as well as weather updates and other important information. Let me know if you are interested in discussing what's involved to get one of these up in your lodge.

Latest Version

The latest version is v10.04, which has some exciting new features you can check out in the earlier blog post here. Things are pretty busy in the lead up to Christmas, but I will be happy to upgrade anyone who would like it in the new year - just let me know.

Until the Next Time...

That's it for the first update - I hope it's been useful! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Upgrade Available - 10.04

New Features

• Booking - add guests gender field (controlled by ShowGuestGender  param)
• Booking - add ability to set max number of nights a member is  allowed to book in any booking period
• Booking - add ability to set which day of the week the first night in a booking can be (booking openings)
• Booking - add booking periods to staggered booking periods - so  can set opening dates for particular booking periods (controlled by  CheckBookingPeriodForBookingOpening parameter)
• Booking - disable all interactions (including cancelling) during  disabled booking period
• Booking - show requested and held beds (when using SYB) on bunk  list and availability
• General - ability to add all members in a membership status to a  new work party
• General - Add work party fields to contact member form 
• Financial - add CBA payments

Fixes & Minor Enhancements

• Booking - remove booking fee and any other invoice lines when  expire a booking
• Financial - update so invoices switch to over due based on  overdue date, not invoicesduewithin parameter
• Financial - changes for authorize.net URL
• Financial - after committee transferring money, when click view  financial summary link takes to members own view, not committee view of  that member
• Financial - when save a status, need to update a fee, not  delete, as if delete then doesn't recognise already have generated an  invoice for that member and fee
• General - Icicles specific tasks to generate work party fees,  MYOB invoices & member reports and generate balancing work parties
• General - members lists in dual select boxes are not in  alphabetical order
• General - rename staggered booking periods to booking opening  periods (to remove confusion)

As always, let me know when your club is ready to upgrade either by email, or leave a comment below.

Upgrade Available - 10.02

New Features

• Ability to restrict pages within the members area by membership status (controlled through Admin > Menus & Pages)
• Only display those pages in the menu that the member has access to (controlled by ShowRestrictedPages parameter)

Fixes & Minor Enhancements

• Resolve issues with display of availability calendar in Safari
• Resolve issues with expired bookings holding bunks (only an issue when using SYB)
• Ensure can't edit or delete SYS membership status (as this is required for Club System support)
• Add child age to bed list screen view
• Resolve error when managing booking conditions when have a single lodge
• Fix duplicates shown in admin > booking emails page
• Add scroll bars to the more info popup on Manage Bookings page
• Hide double / single field on edit beds when not using SYB
• Resolve error where not generating a transaction when deleting an invoice line from a finalised invoice
• Resolve error where not getting credit note when cancel part paid invoice
• Allow xlxs files to be uploaded
• Add membership status to lockers report
• Remove deleted lockers from lockers report

As always, let me know when your club is ready to upgrade either by email, or leave a comment below.

Upgrade Available - 10.01

New Features

• Allow max nights in booking to be more than 7 (controlled by MaxNightsInBooking parameter) and change show details links on Manage Bookings page to a single More Details link which opens a popup that can display more than 7 nights
• Add Save & Continue Edit button to Menus & Pages, and link to view page once saved to make editing pages and viewing edits easier
• Add template option to menus & pages to allow for page with no headers etc to be created (and for additional templates to be more easily added in the future)
• Make page design responsive so can be wider depending on screen size (may need separate tweaks for certain clubs -­ please ask) 

Fixes & Minor Enhancements

• Add bed names to bunk list in screen view (controlled by BunkListScreenShowBedNames parameter)
• Change day displayed in bed list screen view to be current day - 1 (controlled by parameter BunkListScreenFirstDay)
• In change bed type page, add "select" to drop downs so can change bed type easily
• Add booking fee and correction to invoice line types Financial ­ fix for charging correct amount on invoice when accepting a booking with non­default bed type and booking payment model = accept 
• Fix to ignore deleted invoice lines when checking whether to create a line for the selected year
• Remove authorize.net references from payment complete screen unless authorize.net is on (only available for USA clubs) 
• Add balance (total num days) column to work parties on family summary page 
• Add DOB as field for Contact Members message
• Fix to open uploaded file correctly when not logged in 
• Upgrade botdetect to later version so will work on lower levels of trust on new hosting
• Add family master ID and fix view invoice column on purchases report 

As always, let me know when your club is ready to upgrade either by email, or leave a comment below.

DDos Attack

Over the last few days Kiwihosting has been subject to a DDoS attack, which is a denial of service which has affected several Club System sites. Basically the servers were flooded with requests which meant they were not able to keep up with demand. This kind of attack can happen regardless of the hosting you are with - it's what big companies like Sony etc have been dealing with recently. They are very hard to stop. Kiwihosting is reporting that the DoS attacks are slowing, and that there has been no data loss, however the performance is still not optimal.

You can see the trail of what happened here: https://twitter.com/kiwihosting and a detailed explanation here: http://forums.kiwihosting.net.nz/index.php?/topic/1443-picard/

I've been in constant contact with the hosting, and have been assured they are continuing to look into it. Also, I am actively investigating alternate hosting solutions. I hope to have some options available for discussion during the week for those that are interested. It is not something to be taken lightly, as I need to ensure we're not just jumping ship, and we have somewhere reliable to land. Also, it will take me a while to get the sites moved, and there will definitely be additional down time while this happens. I'll communicate again as soon as I have some options.

Sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. Unfortunately it's something outside of my control, and I am as frustrated with the situation as you are!