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June 2019 | Issue #80
 
Current Releases: SM 8.0.076 (6/11) | AW 3.5.053 (4/3)
 
ACEware Software Update - 7/3 1:30 CDT
ACEware Systems Newsletter - Information to Run Your Program
New Software Features Unveiled in Vegas
Back in January, during our annual staff retreat, we identified  items to build into Student Manager/ACEweb by conference. At conference, I showcased eight new SM features. These will be demonstrated during our next update webinar set for the beginning of July. The list of the eight new features unveiled at conference is below:

  • On Firm Record, added a SHOW ESCROW button.
  • New button on Course Quick Report that quickly exports roster information into XLSX format.
  • Tools -> Mass Email Rosters to Instructors: Similar to emailing instructor rosters through a course Quick Report, but now you can send en masse--and even pick the number of days before the begin date to send
  • Limit the number of times a fee description can be used on a class.
  • Ability to pay multiple invoices with single payment. Under Module -> Invoices -> Pay Multiple Outstanding. Checkmark the ones you want to pay and go.
  • Generate Individual PDFs is now in the Reports | Registration | Receipts area.
  • F2 Show Enrollment now can search on catalog code.
  • You can fire the Email Reminders from the F2 Show Enrollment based on the selection criteria put there.
To see everything that was added as well as fixed, visit my forum post. Get with your technician if you need help updating, or visit the Student Manager Resources page. Have fun with these!

Contributed by Matthew Olson
Professional Development Scholarships Available Now
When there are budget woes at an institution, funds for professional development and travel are the first to go.  With no funds allocated, you don't get away to network with continuing education colleagues and hear what's happening in the industry. ACEware, as a strong advocate for continuing education, is here to help.

We are offering five (5) scholarships, up to $1,500 each, to support your attendance at a continuing education conference at the state, regional, or national level. To be eligible for the scholarship funds, which can be used for travel, hotel, and registration fees, you would need to present a workshop/session topic that relates in some way to how ACEware is used to serve your students or fulfill your mission. The session would not need to mention ACEware in the title or even in the session description, but it would need to highlight some element of how ACEware helps you "get your job done!"

To apply, send your session topic and description (the same one you would provide to the conference review committee) to Sharon . Include an explanation of how you plan to reference your use of ACEware (Student Manager or ACEweb) within the session. Provide  send an estimate of your expenses (travel, hotel and registration fees).  Your proposal will be evaluated within five business days. This quick review and response will allow you to know right away whether you can get some external funding to help you supplement your travel budget! Funds will be sent when your proposal has been accepted.
 
Begin looking for professional development opportunities right away!  We want to support your participation in a continuing education event.  If you want to brainstorm with us about a session idea, reach out to Chuck or Sharon. We'll be delighted to discuss ideas with you.   
 
 
Contributed by Sharon Brookshire
New Supplemental Services from ACEware
Staffing is tight in continuing and community education programs. Everyone is wearing multiple hats, and there aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done.

Maintaining your database and ACEweb site can get pushed down on the priority list when you're serving students, meeting those on-demand requests from administration, and sitting in meetings, oh, so many meetings!

Although you have good intentions to train your new staff member thoroughly, setting aside time for this is nearly impossible.   It's not intentional, but your database and ACEweb pages begin to suffer from neglect.
 
Does this sound familiar? Let ACEware help! We are adding a supplemental support package that you can add to your existing Support and Maintenance plan. This addition provides semi-annual data cleanup, staff training, scheduled updates, report writing services, an ACEweb review, and more scholarship funds for our annual users' conference.

Let us help train your staff, and keep your SM and ACEweb in top shape. See all the details here, and give Sharon a call (800-925-2493 ext 238) or email if you want to discuss adding these additional services to your current SMA.


Contributed by Sharon Brookshire
23rd Annual Conference--Huge Win!
What a fantastic conference we had in Vegas the first week of June! The session rooms and hallways were buzzing with conversations about what ACEware can do for the business of continuing education.

The learning, sharing, and connections made everyone a winner, and a few lucky customers returned home with some ACEware giveaways--that's a significant return on the conference investment!
  • Free registration to our 2020 Users' Conference - Melinda, National Park College
  • An optional module - Sarah, Montana State University
  • Two hours of web-based training - Ashton, Western Kentucky University
  • Two days of onsite training & consultation - Amy, Vincennes University
We also celebrated milestone partnerships with several schools:
  • Montana State University - Billings - 5 years
  • University of California- Berkeley - 15 years
  • University of Nevada-Las Vegas - 20 years
  • Valdosta State University - 25 years
  • University of Southern California Aviation Safety and Security - 25 years
Dale Fleming, from the University of West Georgia, received the 2019 ACEware Champion Educator (ACE) award. Known as, "The Man, The Myth, The Legend and a valued ACEware Guru," by his colleagues, we applaud him for his can-do attitude and his willingness to try new software features. Dale uses ACEware as the go-to system for all of UWG's course offerings, revenues and expenses, AND uses ACEware for their department expenditures! We are anxious for him to share more with all of you at a future conference!


Speaking of Georgia, we're preparing to give you a dose of southern hospitality in 2020! Savannah is our destination--June 2-5 is the date to hold on your calendar.

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

End of Fiscal Year Funds
Ah, June.  A month of busy summer programs AND the time to close out the fiscal year. I remember the list of deadlines from the business office, and I have to say I do not miss encumbering funds at all. My thoughts are with each of you!

For those of you who have funds that you must use or lose by June 30th, consider a new software module, pay ahead on your SMA (we see a lot of this in May and June), or pre-purchase web training or report writing services. If you want to discuss your options, give me a call!

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire

Tip of the Month: ACEweb Error Email
If you notice a surge in ACEweb error emails (because your email address is listed in the AdminEmail setting of your aceweb.ini), it is possible that they are being caused by your ACEweb site being crawled by a search engine bot or other harmless scanning software. When these bots peruse your website, they can trigger the ACEweb error handler when checking up on non-existent paths or by appending invalid URL parameters.


Legitimate bots will always have a browser agent identified, so that you can easily determine if they are a bot. Check for the "Browser" line near  the top of the error email, and if it contains anything pertaining to bots, or search engines like Bing, Google, etc, then they can be safely ignored.
 
If they are constantly crawling your site, you have the option of filtering out these emails by using some extra parameters in your AdminEmail setting.
 
NOBOT:
The NOBOT setting will disable the sending of errors generated by specified search bots. Add the NOBOT after the email address (separate by a space). Specify the bots you wish 
to exclude as a colon delimited list, e.g. NOBOT:googlebot:exabot
 
For example:
 
AdminEmail=webmaster@youruniversity.edu NOBOT:googlebot:exabot:SemrushBot
 
This will filter out any error emails that have a browser line that contains any of the listed NOBOT strings.
 
Filtering these emails will weed out excess error emails that you receive, but will still allow the bots to search your site and increase your search engine rankings. If, however, you want to disallow the bots from your site or certain areas, this can be done using a robots.txt file, which your web team can assist you in configuring, but is not covered by ACEware tech support.  More information on that can be found at http://www.robotstxt.org/.

Contributed by Jason Allen
Report of the Month: Print When
If you have kids' camp program or any program where you need permissions or specific info to capture you can use print whens to put multiple items on the same report.
 
In this example you need to know whether or not registrants will be part of a carpool and whether or not they have given permission to be photographed.
 
Using RUDFL2 and RUDFL3 we can use print whens to report the correct answer.
 
By layering the fields containing "Yes" and "No" on top of each other and using a print
when on the field only the correct answer will display.
 
On the Carpool and Photo lines the fields adjacent to them are actually 2 fields each. One says "Yes" and one says "No" and they are layered on top of each other.

In the expression box you put the info you want to display and then on the Print when tab you put in the expression.
 
In the above we have the word "No" displayed when the RUDFL3 is not checked.
 
By layering fields and using Print whens you can display either answer on the same line and shorten the length of your report.

Contributed by AJ Giliberto

To your continued success!

- Chuck, Sharon, AJ, Jason, Joe, Lindsey, Matthew, Mike, and Stein

 Aceware Systems
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