Research Facilities and Equipment Database

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Release Notes and Change logs

Release Version 1.6 - March 2013
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
Developed new ‘data aggregator’, to allow integration with other SES members data	Allows data to be shared automatically with other SES consortium members (Oxford, Southampton, Imperial and UCL)
New automated email notification. An email is sent to the Fixed Asset Team in Finance as soon as an asset is submitted for Fixed Asset Approval	Improvement of the fixed asset approval workflow. Notifies the Fixed Asset Team as soon as an item has been submitted to them for review and approval.
New automated email notification. An email is sent to the ‘Primary Contact’ as soon as an asset is submitted is approved by the Fixed Asset Team (or is not approved and is returned to DRAFT status instead)	Notifies the equipment/facility Primary Contact as soon as the Fixed Asset Team have approved (or returned to draft again) an item they have submitted for approval.

What’s planned for the next release ?
Ability to create a duplicate of existing records.
Improved user experience for the Fixed Asset team. Reduction in the number of mouse clicks required to approve an entry.
Develop additional reporting capability.

Release Version 1.5 - February 2013
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
Updated ‘Utilisation’ searching from free text to drop-down list selection	Improved searching capability and user experience.
Developed and implemented Web Services, so that data can be integrated/read by other applications.	Underpinned latest ‘searchable website’ release, as well as allowing sharing of data to/from other SES consortium members. (Oxford, Southampton, Imperial and UCL)
Updated the ‘export’ function, so that additional fields are included	Improved reporting capability. Allows admin users of the database to produce detailed extracts to help with overall management of the database and its contents.

Release Version 1.4 - January 2013
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
Ability to filter on ‘Photo’ column	Allows identification of which records have a photograph loaded and which ones don’t.
Ability to search on ‘Primary Contact’ column	Allows records to be filtered by Primary Contact name. Useful feature for the larger departments where many separate contacts are responsible for maintaining equipment / facility records.
New ‘Department’ Filter, where multiple department selections can be made and saved.	Useful for larger departments (e.g. Physics), where multiple department codes are being used.

Release Version 1.3 - December 2012
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
Addition of a new Support Contract section, including the ability to store: Whether a not an item is covered by a Support Contract Support Contract Provider Support Contract Type / Service Level Annual Support Contract Cost Contract Renewal Date Support Contract Number/Reference	Ability to capture whether or not an item is covered by a support contract; and where such a contract is in place to store additional information relating to the agreement. Over time, this information should allow the University to negotiate improved terns with support providers as well identify areas where there is no support in place.
An additional field to store a URL for User Guide	Ability to link to an equipment user guide on the web (where such a guide is available).
An Additional Identifiers section, where users can store the following information if required: Original Invoice Number Purchase Order Number Local Asset ID	Ability to store additional equipment / facility identifiers so that the records in the Equipment Database can be easier cross-referenced to other local spreadsheets and databases.

Release Version 1.2 - November 2012
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
The ‘Additional Comments’ field has been made larger	Allows more information to be stored than in previous version.
Enforcement of reason code to be selected and additional explanation to be entered when an item’s status is changed to ‘Withdrawn’	Will provide a far better understanding of why items are being flagged as withdrawn and will allow the project to focus their efforts on overcoming such barriers.
Enforcement of reason code to be selected and additional explanation to be entered when an item is flagged as ‘Unavailable for sharing’	Will provide a far better understanding of why items are being flagged as unavailable for sharing and will allow the project to focus their efforts on overcoming such barriers.
Improved version history to show us who changed the status of a record, when the change was made, and what the ‘before’ and ‘after’ situation was.	Improved ability to audit changes to records where required
Addition of two-tier taxonomy (category and sub-category) for each item, in line with the taxonomy already being developed and used by Oxford.	Ability to categorise equipment/facilities by type. Will also feed through to the searchable site in due course so that users can search by category/subcategory rather than only by description
Add further fields to the XLS/CSV file export in line with latest additions	Provides admin users with the ability to pull together all of the information held against facilities and equipment into a single file so that any gaps or issues are easily identified.

Release Version 1.1 - October 2012
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
The Facility / Equipment selection buttons at the top of the screen have been changed so that they are now far more visible.	Clearer distinction between Equipment & Facility records
One click viewing / editing of all records. There is no longer any need to select a record first and then click on the ‘EDIT SELECTED’ button.	Improved user experience by reducing the number of mouse clicks required.
Pagination has been introduced throughout the database, so that records are no longer displayed in one long list. User is able to select from a list how many records should be displayed on each page.	Reduction in the amount of scrolling required. Also provides greatly enhanced system performance.
A count of selected records has been added to the bottom of each page. e.g. : ‘Displaying 69 record(s) in 7 page(s)’	User is now able to see how many records relate to the search criteria entered.
The ‘Unavailable’ utilisation value has been replaced with ‘Unavailable for Sharing’ instead	Less confusion, as some users though ‘Unavailable’ meant that we didn’t know what the utilisation level was.
A warning message is shown in the event that a duplicate Asset ID is entered.	Highlights potential addition of duplicate records, whilst still allowing an item to be recorded individually as a piece of Equipment and also as part of a wider Facility.
Ability to upload a photograph against each equipment and facility record.	Improves the information available to users, by passing this picture through to the ‘search only’ web site.
Ability to export selected equipment and facility information to .CSV or .XLS	Provides admin users with the ability to pull together all of the information held against facilities and equipment into a single file so that any gaps or issues are easily identified.
Fixed Asset Approvers now have default access to ‘ALL Departments’, rather than have to be allowed access to each department individually.	Reduced administration overhead when setting up new Fixed Asset Approvers.
A basic audit history for equipment and facility records, showing: When the record was created and who by When the record was last modified, and who by.	Increased auditability.

Release Version 1.0 - July 2012
What’s new in this release?	Benefits of this change?
First Release of Administration site, Research Facilities and Equipment Database	Facilitates sharing of facilities and equipments.