The latest version of Alert, being AlertV5r4, has now been released. AlertV5r4 incorporates a number of enhancements with the bulk of these being primarily concentrated on the User Interface. The enhancements are:-

Ribbon Strip

Microsoft introduced the concept of a ‘Ribbon Strip’ in Office 2007. This has replaced the Menubar and Toolbars previously found in Microsoft systems. Microsoft has continued with this in Office 2010. Alert has followed this approach and introduced the Ribbon Strip in AlertV5r4. This replaces the Alert menubars and toolbars.

VBS were aware that a change in menu navigation is potentially very disruptive to productivity. As a result VBS intentionally retained the path to, and location of, menu items in Alert even though the Ribbon Strip has been implemented. This ensures that current users may immediately commence us of Alert V5r4 without additional training.

Following is a screen shot of Alert V5r4 with the new Ribbon Strip.

Web Application Look and Feel

AlertV5r4 forms, reports and other objects have been enhanced to be consistent with the look and feel of current business applications including web based applications. For example function buttons, text and other controls have been changed to be flat on the form instead of raised to look like buttons.

The following screen shots show the ‘new’ look of AlertV5r4.

Functions moved to Ribbon Strip

Function buttons have been moved to the Ribbon Strip where possible. For example function buttons on Alert search forms have been moved to the Ribbon Strip.

Report Output Options

AlertV5r4 provides options to output reports to PDF, XPS, or Rich Text files. It also has a facility to send a report as an attachment.

Office Color Scheme

Alert has been enhanced so that Microsoft Office Color Scheme Management is applied in Alert. This means that the background color of Alert forms and other style aspects may be changed by the user.

The Microsoft Office color scheme may be set in any of the Microsoft Office applications, such as Excel or Word by opening the application and selecting File > Options > General > Color Scheme. Any change made to the Microsoft Office color scheme will also be applied in Alert.

Microsoft Office Version Compatibility

This release of Alert has been developed to be compatible with Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010. Alert no longer supports Microsoft Office 2003. The preference for deploying AlertV5r4 is for the Alert user to have Microsoft Office 2010 installed.

Microsoft Project Integration Changes

A major change was made by Microsoft in Project 2007. This change was to remove the ability to save projects to ODBC-compliant Microsoft SQL Server databases or to MS Access .MDB. In AlertV5r3 and prior Alert saved Microsoft Project information in ‘MSP’ tables that were included in the Alert SQL Server database. This is no longer possible when using Microsoft Project 2007 or 2010.

See:-
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA101691071033.aspx

The alternatives to saving Microsoft Project data in SQL Server tables using ODBC are very limited and consist of .MPP files stored on disc or .XML files stored on disc. The other alternative, which is Microsoft’s preferred, is to purchase Microsoft Project Server. Microsoft Project Server does in fact use SQL Server to store Project Server information.

See:-
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms436148.aspx

Alert continues to support integration with Microsoft Project and has developed a solution that uses individual Microsoft Project 2007 or 2010 files along with Microsoft Project data stored in Alert.

Microsoft Project Compatibility

AlertV5r4 is only compatible with Microsoft Project 2007 and Microsoft Project 2010.

Microsoft Project is installed separately to Microsoft Office and Microsoft Access. It is possible for example to user Microsoft Project 2007 with Microsoft Office 2010.

VBS recommend that users of Alerts integration with Microsoft Project use Microsoft Project 2010. There have been significant improvements to Microsoft Project 2010 that make the upgrade worthwhile. For example:-

1) User Controlled Scheduling http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2009/10/23/project-2010-introducing-user-controlled-scheduling.aspx

2) Timeline View http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2009/10/01/project-2010-introducing-the-timeline-view.aspx

3) Team Planner View http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectified/archive/2009/09/17/3281566.aspx