MCS Software Release Notes Archive

Product Release Notes

Click on the arrow next to the product version and release date to view details about each release.

Looking for the latest Release Notes?

As of February 2023, we moved our MCS Newton, Edison, Franklin, MySchoolApps (web) and MSA Client release notes to our Support Central Website - where you can find help and manage your district’s support tickets. For the most recent release notes, click on the recent release notes link next to each applicable product below.

Where can I learn about system requirements?
You can learn more about security updates in our General Knowledge Center → General Information → MCS System Requirements or by clicking here.

DataCenter

Enhancement

Added support for End-of-Year 2021-2022.

Enhancement

Improved performance by optimizing SQL database triggers and indexes.

Fixes

Fixed an issue with the provider configuration that prevented the application from successfully authenticating to Datahub.

Fixed an issue that prevented Datahub from importing students when a record contained a null birthdate.

Enhancement

Datahub Integration can now be used to import student information from Powerschool and other student information systems.

Fix

Completed adjustments in the code that were creating false positives to anti-virus systems resulting in the program being disabled.

Fixes

The goal was to address an issue where a number of Anti-virus programs are deeming DataCenter 10.0.0 malware and disabling DataCenter.exe. DataCenter 9.9.0, which includes the increase of suspicious SIS imports and EOY, has been released while we continue to investigate and resolve the underlying issue.

Enhancement

Suspicious Import Changes
DataCenter has been updated to allow a higher threshold for suspicious import activity.

Enhancement

Application Server Timeout - Added support to increase Application Server timeout failure from 15 seconds to 60 seconds

There are currently no additional DataCenter Release Notes available.

Edison

Recent Release Notes

MCS Report Library

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | User-Defined Reports

We have added the ability to add User-Defined Reports from the MCS Report Library. This Library is maintained by HSS and will continue to grow as reports are reviewed and approved. Reports added from the MCS Report Library cannot be edited, however, you may make a copy of the report if you would like to modify it.

Added Inventory Tags to Production Worksheet

Reports | Production Reports | Production Worksheet

Managers now have the option to include Inventory Tags when viewing the Production Worksheet Report.

Beta Testing - Feature Flag

Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | District Info

Beta features can now enabled in the program using a feature flag. This field can only be edited by HSS, so please contact support if you are interested in being a beta district.

If the district is enabled for beta, features that are part of beta testing program will be clearly notated in the program.

Improved Newton Served Counts in Edison

Home | Production | Select Recipe

We have added the ability to view Newton Served counts for any mapped recipe when entering Production counts in Edison. Previously, these counts only populated for Newton items that were configured as Offer-vs-Serve.

Click here for more information on configuring FOH/BOH Integration.

Resolved an issue that prevented users from running end of year successfully.

File Attachments

We have updated Price Contracts, Bid Analysis, and Ordering to allow users to attach images, pdf, and word doc files.
Note: Maximum file size is 10mb.

Admin & Maintenance | Ordering & Price Contracts | Price Contracts | Edit Contract ID

 

Utilities | Bid Analysis | Edit Bid Analysis Group

 

Home | Order | Edit Order

 

Add EDI Support for Invoice Importer

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Invoice Importer | Add

We have added support for importing the EDI810 file specification for vendor invoice files.

 

Order Send Methods - Add Prefixes for EDI850 Receiver and Sender ID

Admin & Maintenance | Ordering & Price Contracts | Order Send Methods | Edit | Setup | File Format | Settings

We have added the ability to define the EDI prefixes for the ReceiverID and SenderID for Order Send Methods configured to use the EDI850 file specification.

Resolved an issue that prevented users from running end of year successfully.

CN25 Database

Edison has been updated to support the CN25 database.
Instructions for updating your CN database

Transitional Standards for Whole Grains

Home | Reports | Nutrient Analysis Reports | Meal Pattern Analysis

We have updated the Nutrient Standards used in Meal Pattern Analysis to require at least 80 percent of weekly grains in the school lunch and breakfast menus to be whole-grain rich.

 

Added Support for EDI850 to Order Send Methods

Admin & Maintenance | Ordering & Price Contracts | Order Send Methods | Add New | Export to File System | Setup | File Format

We added the ability to export vendor orders with the EDI850 file specification.

 

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2021-2022 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

Custom Fields

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Custom Fields

You can now define whether custom fields are available in Price Contracts or Bid Analysis and if they are hidden, optional, or required.

Admin & Maintenance | Ordering & Price Contracts | Price Contracts

When configured, custom fields are now available to be populated and stored in Price Contracts.

Utilities | Bid Analysis | Select a Bid Analysis Group

When configured, custom fields are now available to be populated and stored in Bid Analysis.

 

Improved overall performance by optimizing SQL database triggers and indexes.

 

Home | Production | Inventory Used for Production

The value of Leftovers are now calculated and displayed in Production.

 

The database name is now included in Edison when changing to a test database.

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Test Databases

Resolved an issue that prevented users from editing user-defined exports with large SQL queries.

Move Inventory

Utilities | Miscellaneous | Mobile Barcode Sessions | Add New Session

We have added a new mobile barcode session kind to support moving inventory between storage locations in EdisonMobile.

Fix

Resolved an issue that prevented menu planners from being able to access weekends when editing Menu Templates.

Read-Only Permissions

In Database Security Permissions we have added a Read Only option. This new permission level can be assigned to Menu and recipe maintenance, Item maintenance, and Price contract maintenance.

Item maintenance

With a Read Only permission level assigned to Item maintenance, if the user navigates to Home | Admin & Maintenance | Items & Catalog Numbers | Items, they can view the data but will not be able to edit fields.

Price contract maintenance

With a Read Only permission level assigned assigned to Price contract, if the user navigates to Home | Admin & Maintenance | Ordering & Price Contracts | Price Contracts, they can view the data but will not be able to edit fields.

Menu and recipe maintenance

With a Read Only permission level assigned assigned to Menu and recipe maintenance, the user will not be able to edit fields, but can view the data in the following areas:

  • Home | Admin & Maintenance | Recipes & Menus | Recipes

  • Home | Admin & Maintenance | Recipes & Menus | Menus

  • Home | Admin & Maintenance | Recipes & Menus | Menu Templates

 

FOH/BOH Integration

Home | Production | Select Recipe

We have added the ability to view Newton Served Counts when entering Production Counts in Edison.

Click here for more information on configuring FOH/BOH Integration.

Note: Using build-a-meal is required to take advantage of this enhancement.

 

Bid Analysis Settings for Minimum Cost and Minimum Quote Count

Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Bid Analysis | Bid Analysis Groups | Add New

We added two new fields in Bid Analysis for defining the minimum quote count and minimum price.

Click here for more information on performing a Bid Analysis.

 

Mandatory Comments for Site to Site Transfers

Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Site Templates | Select a Template | Inventory | Require Comments for Site Transfers

We added a setting to make comments for Site Transfers mandatory, when set users will not be able to save a Site Transfer without entering a comment.

Add Custom Inventory Fields to Receiving Details Filter Options

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | User-Defined Reports | Add | Receiving Details | Setup Data Set

When creating a user-defined report or a report override with the receiving details dataset, you can now Filter by Custom Inventory Field(s).

 

Satellite / Kitchen Bulk Shipping Report

Reports | Production Reports

We have added a new report that can be used to record the food, temperatures, and leftovers at satellite sites.

 

Scheduled Jobs - Email on Failure

Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | Email
We added the Email On Failure Address field that can be configured with a comma-separated list of email addresses that will receive email notifications for Scheduled Job failures.

 

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs | Select a Scheduled Job
We added the ability for users to set the Email On Failure toggle, which will determine whether the system should send an email alert if a task fails.

Fixed an issue that prevented WebView2 from installing properly in some cloud districts. This caused some users to Login With MySchoolbucks through a legacy browser instead of with Microsoft Edge.

Fixed an issue that prevented some cloud users from successfully completing the End-of-Year process.

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2020-2021 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

CN24 Support

Edison has been updated to support the CN24 database.
Instructions for updating your CN database

.NET Update

Edison now requires .NET Framework 4.8.

Click here for more information about the change in MCS System Requirements.

Improved Performance of Cost of Food Used by Meal and Day Report

We have made improvements to improve the load time of the Cost of Food Used by Meal and Day Report.

 

  • Fixed an issue that prevented users from creating new site templates.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented the Negative Inventory Reconciliation job from running as scheduled.

MealViewer Integration Improvement

We have made an update to our MealViewer Integration. If all items are removed from a meal plan in Edison, the menu will now be removed from MealViewer.

Scan Receiving Improvements

Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Site Templates | Inventory

We have added two settings which streamline the workflow for receiving inventory with a barcode scanner:

  • Allow Scanning Inventory Tags when Editing Received Invoices

  • Show Estimated Expected Quantity when Editing Receive Headers

Move Planning moves MealViewer Display Group Assignments

Home | Meal Planning | Move Planning Dates

We have updated the Move Planning Dates feature to move any existing MealViewer Display Group Assignments on the source meal plan to the target meal plan.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented users from starting a Physical Inventory if unreceived transfers existed with a blank requested receive date.

  • Fixed an issue that caused timeouts when approving orders in large districts.

Fixed an issue that prevented completion of manufacturing when using custom meal types.

Report Overrides

We have added additional report layout overrides for the following reports that contain subreports:

  • Production Worksheet

  • Production Report

  • Recipe Ingredients Pull Sheet

  • Recipe Instructions

Scan Receiving Improvements

We have made improvements to the performance and clarity of using a barcode scanning during the Receiving process. The changes are only visible when Receiving from a Vendor or a Transfer.

  • Scan Barcodes screen | Scanning a barcode a 2nd time for an item will add to the number of that item, rather than adding a new row.

  • Receive Inventory tab | We have made some helpful changes to the column titles including the addition of a read-only “Quantity Expected” column.

  • Receive Inventory tab | We have added a behavior that will highlight a row orange when there is a discrepancy in quantity or when an unexpected item is added.

Permission to Allow Physical Inventory With Unreceived Transfers

We have added the permission Open physical inventory when transfers are not received. By default, this permission is disabled.
Admin & Maintenance | Permissions | Site Role Permissions | Open Physical Inventory when Transfers are not Received

Support for Connection Pooling with MCS Cloud

Edison now supports connection pooling for MCS Cloud users.

Fixed an issue that prevented scheduled jobs from running consistently for cloud customers.

Fixed a bug that was failing to enforce max length in menu fields.

CN23 for Cloud Users

Fixed an internal issue that was resulting in the CN23 database being incompatible with the Cloud environment.

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2019-2020 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

CN23 Support

Edison has been updated to support the CN23 database.
Instructions for updating your CN database

Received Date column added to Review Transfers

We have added a Requested Receive Date column to the Review Transfers screen.
Utilities |  Ordering | Review Approved/Sent Orders

Fixed a bug that was not allowing new Sites to be added and saved.

Search

We’ve added a search field at the top of the ribbon menus. Click Search to enable the search field, then type a topic to display Edison navigation options.

Query On-Hand and Encumbered (Available) Inventory during Ordering

When placing an order, if the amount entered in the Quantity column is higher than the amount listed in the Max Qty Available column, the Max Qty Available column will be highlighted red.
If the quantity of an item in an order is not available, you will not be able to Save and Complete your order until this is fixed, and a notification will appear that says, “Insufficient Quantity on hand”.

Option to Make Secondary Stock Primary

We have added the ability to switch the Secondary and Primary Stock Locations. When you have the Secondary Stock Location selected, select Convert Location to Primary to switch the stock locations.

Added Custom Site Categories and Packing Date to Inventory Tag Labels Dataset

We have expanded the Inventory Tag Labels dataset to support Custom Site Categories, [Receiving] Site Name, and Packing Date.
Home | Receive Inventory | Print | Inventory Tag Labels

 

Fixed a bug that would not let changes to Custom Inventory Fields be saved.

Filter by Site Category when Mass-Updating Templates

Users now have the ability to filter by Site within the Mass Update Menu Templates screen.
Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Mass Update | Menu Templates

Make Comments Mandatory when Issuing Inventory

Added a site template setting that allows Districts to either prompt for comments or make comments mandatory when issuing inventory.
Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Site Templates | Inventory

Make Comments Mandatory when Receiving with Discrepancies

Added a site template setting that allows Districts to either prompt for comments or make comments mandatory when receiving with discrepancies.
Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Site Templates | Inventory

Add User-Defined Fields to Receiving and Ordering Forms

Added the ability to create custom fields as part of the Receiving and Ordering process. Once the custom fields are created, your District may choose to make them optional or required at certain schools. The fields will display in orders being placed or received.

  • Create Custom Fields - The first step in utilizing the new custom inventory fields feature is to create the fields.
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Custom Inventory Fields

  • Assign Custom Inventory Fields to Sites or Site Templates - Decide which sites are able to see the custom inventory fields and if the fields are optional or required by users.
    Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Sites, Site Templates

  • Fields Displayed on Ordering and Receiving - When a user goes to place or receive an order, they will see the custom inventory fields if applicable.

    • Ordering
      Home | Order

    • Receiving
      Home | Receive Inventory

Add Packing Date to Receiving

Added a new Packing Date field to the Receiving screen.
Home | Receive Inventory

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to address issues when attempting to multi-select throughout various areas of the program. The following enhancements and modifications were made since version 6.5.

Fix

Multi-select - Removed a custom editor that was causing multi-select to fail throughout various areas of the program with the latest DevExpress upgrade.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to calculate real-time recipe costs and real-time menu costs, to utilize Windows’ default language, to select localization language files (V1),  support MealViewer V2 integration, Secondary Storage Layouts functionality, upgrade various Bid reports, add Site Category (e.g. Delivery Routes) filters to various aspects of the ordering process.

The following enhancements and modifications were made since version 6.0.

New Features

  • Calculate recipe costs in real-time

  • Calculate menu costs in real-time

  • Ability to configure the program to use the Windows’ default language
    Note: Not all aspects of the program are translated via this process. Additionally, all text outside the scope of the program (e.g. Item Descriptions, Recipe Instructions, etc) is not translated.
    Edison Icon | My Profile | User Settings | Default Language

  • Localized language files (V1-Beta)

  • Site-level permission to count blanks as zero quantities during the physical inventory process
    Admin & Maintenance | Sites and Categories

  • MealViewer V2 integration changes from MealViewer V1
    Note: Access the MealViewer Integration guide here.

    • System Settings
      Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | MealViewer Tab

      • MealViewer Integrations separated from External Integrations and exists in its own tab

      • URLs updates to support V2 integration

      • Test Connection for MealViewer connection

      • Full-Refresh on Next Sync automatically disables once a manual sync has been executed

      • Sync Intervals defaulted to 15 minutes

      • Ability to Exclude 0 Planned Counts

    • MealViewer Status & Sync
      Utilities | Synchronize | MealViewer Status & Sync

      • MealViewer Server Connection status

      • Automatic Data Synchronization status

      • Last Completed Sync details

      • Last Attempted Sync details

      • Next Expected Sync details

      • Sync insights

      • Ability to manually Sync Now - defaults to 30 days in the future with a maximum of 90 days when performing a Full Sync

    • MealViewer Sync Failure Alert - Added a system alert if a MealViewer sync has not occurred in the past 24 hours.

    • MealViewer Menu Groups
      Admin & Maintenance | Advanced | MealViewer Menu Groups

      • Internal concept of “buckets” that house “like recipes”.
        Note: Typically used for larger Districts that serve “like recipes” on multiple serving lines.

    • Mass Update MealViewer Menu Groups - Allows the District to more easily apply created Menu Groups to recipes on a given menu.
      Admin & Maintenance | Recipes & Menus | Mass Update | MealViewer Menu Groups

    • MealViewer Blocks
      Admin & Maintenance | Advanced | MealViewer Blocks

      • Edison setup to support how MealViewer determines what menus to display at which times. Once created, MealViewer Blocks may be added to a Menu Template.

    • MealViewer Display Groups - Edison setup to determine how menus are grouped for display both in the MealViewer Schools website and on digital signage for designated serving lines in each cafeteria. 
      Admin & Maintenance | Sites & Categories | Sites (select a site) | MealViewer Display Groups tab

    • Managers may edit where a recipe is displayed to account for daily changes.
      Note: MealViewer Display Groups will not be automatically applied if at least one planned count exists for a day.

    • Mass Update MealViewer Display Groups - Allows the District to more easily apply created MealViewer Display Groups to one or more sites.
      Admin & Maintenance | Recipes & Menus | Mass Update | MealViewer Display Groups

    • Edit MealViewer Display Groups Assignments - Site Permission - By default, the manager has the ability to edit where a recipe is assigned to a display group to accommodate for daily changes.
      Admin & Maintenance | System Security | Meal Planning | Edit MV Display Groups Assignments

  • Option to Check for Unreceived Transfers in the End of Year process and the ability to ignore the alert. The Unreceived Transfers report, located in the End of Year utility, may be accessed at any time given the correct permission level.

  • Site-specific support for Secondary Storage locations
    Note: A primary location must be established before inventory counts are moved to a secondary location. 
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous | Site-Specific | Secondary Storage

  • Updates the Physical Inventory UI screen to display secondary locations

  • Report updates to support Secondary Storage - Physical Inventory Worksheet, Staged Order Pull Sheet, Fill Order Pull Sheet, Loading Details

  • Site Categories - Updated the following screens to include the ability to add and filter Site Categories from the Column Chooser. Additionally, the layout may be captured on a per-Site basis so the user does not need to add the column(s) back every time. The option to capture and apply the layout to some of the Site Templates exists.

    • Site - Review and Approve Orders

    • Central Office/Utilities - Review and approve Orders *Note a layout does not need to be applied for this screen. It is retained by the user and can be reset via the My Profile function.

    • Fill Order

    • Stage Order

  • Request for Bid Quote (Alternate) - A new stock report has been created to a specific layout
    Reports | Other Reports | Request for Bid Quotes (Alternate)

Enhancements

  • Updated the system to DevExpress 19.2.6 and .NET Framework 4.5.2.

  • Restricted the ability to fill a Staged Order via the Staged Order system only.

  • Added a “Staged” status to the Review and Approved Orders utility.

  • Simplified DataCenter Sync - DataCenter Sync has been simplified to improve performance on SQL Servers and MCS Cloud instances
    Note: As Full DataCenter syncs should rarely occur, the functionality and location have changed. Once a Forced Full DataCenter Sync has occurred, the option will reset to disabled.

  • Enable Debug by Default - In order to assist in troubleshooting issues, log config files are automatically set to debug and the default file size increased to 20MB.

  • Added OpenID Connect (OIDC) support for on-prem.

  • Added UsageDescription and StorageDescription fields to the Request for Bid Quotes report override.

  • Price Contract Detail Report - Updated the report to include CN Labels, Price per Unit, Units per Case, From and To dates, bid award details such as Time of Bid Opening, Date of Bid Opening, Reference Number, and added the ability to enable row highlighting.

  • Updated the functionality when awarding tie bids. Each item is randomly assigned an internal number in the system from 1 to ~2,000,000,000.  Every time a tie occurs, the system “tosses a coin” to award the winner.

Fixes

  • Item Merge - Fixed an error when attempting to convert a new converted zero quantity when the original quantity was non-zero. 

  • EdisonMobile Physical Inventory Counts - Fixed an error that was failing to import data from EdisonMobile if the Physical Inventory screen was already open.

  • Physical Inventory - Fixed an error that was incorrectly detecting a barcode scanner.

  • Price Contract Receiving - Fixed the default day to today when receiving from a price contract.

  • Bulk Order Transfer Ticket - Fixed an error that was not including comments on the Transfer Ticket after making bulk changes.

  • Order Tracking Log - Fixed an error that was not including comments on the Order Tracking Log report.

  • Add Item in Bid Analysis - Fixed a bug that was opening the “New Item” tab behind the Edit Bid Quote tab and keeping focus on the Bid Quote screen.

Click here to view additional Edison Release Notes.

Franklin

Recent Release Notes

MCS Report Library

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | User-Defined Reports

We have added the ability to add User-Defined Reports from the MCS Report Library. This Library is maintained by HSS and will continue to grow as reports are reviewed and approved. Reports added from the MCS Report Library cannot be edited, however, you may make a copy of the report if you would like to modify it.

Note: The MCS Report Library can now be accessed in Franklin, but reports are coming soon!

Scheduled Jobs

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs | Email Letters

We have updated the email system to better handle batches that contain invalid email addresses. The system will now log the invalid addresses and complete the batch.. Upon completion of the batch, invalid email addresses are displayed to the user as an exception, and are also available in the Scheduled Job Log Report.

 

 

Scheduled Jobs

We have updated scheduled jobs in MSA Client to improve reliability and performance in MCS Cloud.

 

Backdating DC Matches

Utilities | Direct Certification | Import File

We have updated DC Matching to allow the user to define the effective date of the file.

If the effective date is in the past, the system will create a Status Backdate record to allow Meal Eligibility Corrections to update the claim and student purchases.

End of Year Support for Extended Carryover Status

We have updated the End of Year process to allow applying the most recent carryover status from as far back as 2019-2020 for students who do not already have a carryover status from the prior year.

SY22-23 Eligibility Carryover Tool

Utilities | Advanced | SY22-23 Eligibility Carryover

We have added a new utility for those who have already run End of Year, but need to set the most recent carryover status from as far back as 2019-2020 for students who do not have a current eligibility status or a carryover status from prior year.

Fixed an issue that prevented districts with custom school types from being able to upload schools to the MySchoolApps website.

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2021-2022 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

Fix

Fixed an issue that prevented the Eligibility Composite Report from loading if there is a student with no student number.

Resolved an issue that required MCS Cloud users to complete multi-factor authentication daily.

DevExpress 21.2.5

Updated 3rd party UI and reporting component DevExpress to version 21.2.5.

Fixed an issue that prevented some customers from being able to successfully edit and save customer records.

Fixed an issue that prevented WebView2 from installing properly in some cloud districts. This caused some users to Login With MySchoolbucks through a legacy browser instead of with Microsoft Edge.

Fixed an issue that prevented some cloud users from successfully completing the End-of-Year process.

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2020-2021 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

.NET Update

Franklin now requires .NET Framework 4.8.

Click here for more information about the change in MCS System Requirements.

Added Application Approval Result Fields to Customer Letter Tokens

We have made the application approval result fields available to be used in Custom Letter Tokens.

Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Letters | User-Defined Tokens

Online Application Counts Report

The Online Application Counts Report will tell you if you have new applications that have been pulled into the system by MySchoolApps and require attention. This report can be emailed. The report contains three sections: Needs Attention, Activity for [Date Range], Year-to-Date Counts.
Reports | Application Reports | Online Application Counts

Support for Connection Pooling with MCS Cloud

Franklin now supports connection pooling for MCS Cloud users.

Fix

Fixed an issue that prevented scheduled jobs from running consistently for cloud customers.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to add a Student Age field to Applications.

Enhancement

Ability to collect and store Ages from Applications

We have added support to accept all household members' ages from all applications. The Student Age field is now available in the Zone Definitions tab of Scan Form Maintenance.
Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Scan Forms (Edit) | Zone Definitions tab

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to add support for End-of-Year 2019-2020 and to make improvements to Start-of-School.

Enhancement

Query End of Year date when uploading Schools

We have added logic when uploading schools to query the End of Year date established at www2.myschoolapps.com. If the End of Year date is in the past, Schools will upload to www.myschoolapps.com.

Fix

  • Fixed a bug that was causing errors when running the Maryland DC Plugin (Maryland Districts only).

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to add support for End-of-Year 2019-2020 and to make improvements to Start-of-School.

New Feature

Search

You'll find a search field at the top of the ribbon menus. Click Search to enable the search field, then type a topic to display Franklin navigation options.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to add a Custom Report.

New Feature

  • Eligibility Composite Report - We have created a new report that displays a summary of all student eligibility counts, organized by application type.
    Reports | Student Reports | Eligibility Composite

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to address various defects in the program.

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that caused DataCenter sync to fail due to changes for a different bug.

  • Fixed a bug that was failing to complete the “Detach DC Sibling” process when a Primary recipient was incorrectly attached to another Primary recipient. Now when a DC Sibling is attached to a primary, the button reads “Link to Primary Sibling” and when detaching a sibling, the button reads “Unlink from Primary Sibling”. The process will not allow attachment to another Primary. Changes will not be applied until the Apply or Ok button have been selected.

  • Fixed a bug that was incorrectly adding students who are Verify for Cause after the November 15 date to section 5-8 of the FNS-742.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to address various defects in the program.

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that caused DataCenter sync to fail due to changes for a different bug.

  • Fixed a bug that was failing to complete the “Detach DC Sibling” process when a Primary recipient was incorrectly attached to another Primary recipient. Now when a DC Sibling is attached to a primary, the button reads “Link to Primary Sibling” and when detaching a sibling, the button reads “Unlink from Primary Sibling”. The process will not allow attachment to another Primary. Changes will not be applied until the Apply or Ok button have been selected.

  • Fixed a bug that was incorrectly adding students who are Verify for Cause after the November 15 date to section 5-8 of the FNS-742.

Click here to view additional Franklin Release Notes.

MySchoolApps (web)

Recent Release Notes

Accessibility Statement

We have added an accessibility statement link to the MySchoolApps landing screen to express our commitment to conforming to WCAG 2.0 AA standards.

Upload School Type

Schools Types are now sent to MySchoolApps from MSA Client & Franklin.

Administration Home | Schools

New Features

Ability to Skip Income and Manually Define Eligibility

Districts now have the ability to allow parents to skip income and manually define eligibility when entering an economic survey.

Setup | Application Settings | Misc Settings | Auto Skip Student Income and Household Member Section

Important Note
This option was added to support Washington’s economic survey template, but the setting is available for all districts. This should only be used for economic surveys and it is recommended that you validate with your state department if this meets any economic survey requirements.

When Auto Skip and Manually Define Eligibility is enabled, users can choose their household size if below the guidelines. If the household income exceeds the amount listed for the household size, users can select that they do not qualify. Since the household size and income are collected on the example form below, non-student children, household members, and student income sections are skipped during the survey.

Added Support for MySchoolBucks SSO Login

We have enabled MySchoolBucks Single Sign-On for all MySchoolApps users. For more information including training videos and FAQs, please review this MySchoolBucks Login Security Updates article.

Added Support for Puerto Rico

  • Added Puerto Rico Time Zone

  • Added Puerto Rico as a State

Income Prompt

Fixed a bug that was prompting for income and additional demographic data when those fields should be skipped.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to address regulatory compliance updates.

Fixes

School Drop-down Transparent

Fixed a bug that was removing a solid background from the school drop-down list if “Use Autocomplete School Search” was enabled.

Adult Signer Page Erroring

Fixed a bug that was erroring when navigating back to the Signer page if a SSN was present.

Custom String URLs Redirecting to Same Location

Fixed a bug that was causing URLs entered in Custom Strings to navigate away from MySchoolApps to the first selected URL no matter which URL was selected.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to address regulatory compliance updates.

With introducing Year-round applications, comes the added benefit of being able to access the “prior-year” database. The current year database becomes the prior-year database upon release of the “upcoming school year” version. Please note that adding and inactivating users once the school year has rolled only updates in one system. The same occurs when changing your password. You must update them in both systems as they are independent of each other to support both databases.

Prior-year url: www2.myschoolapps.com/Admin

Current year url: www.myschoolapps.com

New Features

Ability to disable gender field

Districts now have the ability to disable (hide) the gender field on MSA Free & Reduced applications.
Setup | Application Settings | Misc Settings | Prompt for Gender

Gender Prompt Note
Districts new to MSA (May 2020) will have a Hidden Gender Prompt as default.
Districts with previously selected gender prompt options will see no change.

Pending Applications Alert Email

We have added a System Alert email regarding pending applications. The email will alert management companies of Districts who have pending applications along with a total of those applications.
Note: To receive an alert email, the email address for the receiving administrator must be up-to-date.
Administration Home | System Alerts

Add New Application “Section” for Children (Non-Students)

To conform with the USDA Online Application prototype, a new section has been added to capture data for non-student children separately from students and household members. Districts now have the ability to choose whether or not to prompt for special circumstance options (migrant/homeless/runaway/headstart), birthdate, age, income, etc. for non-students residing in the household.
Setup | Application Settings | Misc Settings

Enhancements

Updated Privacy Policy which also includes California laws

We have updated our Privacy Policy for our California users to be compliant with California laws.

Remove Maintenance Mode and Update Web.config 

We have begun preparations to allow EOY to run successfully for our Districts.

Add District Name to Unresolved District Alert Email

Updated alert emails to contain the District Name.

Change option for address required and enhance default description

We have updated the option for requiring addresses on applications. Selecting this option allows the applicant to choose NOT to provide any address information on the application (makes the address optional).  Turning this on is recommended by the USDA as it reduces the exclusion of homeless applicants; however, it can decrease application accuracy/validity. The checkbox will now be selected by default.

Updated Income Eligibility Guidelines for the 2020-2021 School Year.

We have updated the Income Eligibility Guidelines in accordance with the USDA 2020-2021 School Year.

Redirect all non-admin traffic to www2 between MSA EOY and July 1

The system will redirect all non-admin traffic to the “beta” site after End-of-Year has been run in MSA and before July 1st.
Note: HSS users and District admins should be able to log in to admin on both the current 2019-2020 School Year website (www2.myschoolapps.com) and the upcoming 2020-2021 School Year website (www.myschoolapps.com).

Users and passwords do not automatically update between www and www2 when adding, changing, or inactivating. You will need to update each sight individually.

Min/Max FDPIR Case Number Validation

Added logic to prevent users from saving invalid values.

Fix

Emancipated Minor

Fixed a bug that was forcing an emancipated minor to add themselves as a household member.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to allow Districts to continue accepting applications for the 2019-2020 School Year.

Enhancement

Redirect all non-admin traffic to www2 between MSA EOY and July 1

The system will redirect all non-admin traffic to the “beta” site after End-of-Year has been run in MSA and before July 1st.
Note: HSS users and District admins should be able to log in to admin on both the current 2019-2020 School Year website (www2.myschoolapps.com) and the upcoming 2020-2021 School Year website (www.myschoolbucks.com).

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to make changes to the system to allow Districts to accept applications year-round (July 1 - June 30).

Enhancement

End of Year Application Start and End Dates

We have updated MySchoolApps to allow the ability to accept online applications beyond the current maximum end of year date of June 1st.
Note: The software treats the End Of Year Date set as the date on which to STOP accepting applications. So if a district wants to accept applications up to and including June 15th, they should set the EOY date to June 16th.
Setup | Application Settings | Misc Setup | District Miscellaneous Setup

Click here to view additional MySchoolApps (web) Release Notes.

MSA Client

Recent Release Notes

Improved performance by optimizing SQL database triggers and indexes.

We resolved an issue that caused applications missing the social security number in MSA to be sent to Nutrikids reflecting that a social security number was present.

Resolved an issue that required MCS Cloud users to complete multi-factor authentication daily.

We have added the ability for users to configure alert emails when a task fails in a scheduled job.

Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | Email
We added the ability for administrators to define a comma-separated list of email addresses that will receive notifications for Scheduled Job failures.

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs | Select a Scheduled Job

We added the ability for users to toggle whether the system should send an email alert if the task fails.

We added a new Form Type column and added toggles to Include Meal Benefits Applications and Include Economic Surveys.
Home | Application Review

 

New Features

We added the ability to Review and Edit Income Eligibility Guidelines. These will be updated each year with the End-of-Year process and are used to provide an Estimated Status for Economic Surveys.
Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Income Eligibility Guidelines

 

We added the ability to add a User-Defined DataSet Export. A User-Defined DataSet Export allows the user to define the schema layout of the export file.
Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Exports | Add New

 

We added the Economic Survey with Estimated Status Data Set to the User-Defined DataSet Export. It is not recommended to process Economic surveys in your Free and Reduced software. We have included an Estimated Status field that is an approximation of what the status would be if it were processed as a Meal Benefits Application.
Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Exports | Add New | Setup

 

The Application Detail Report will now show the Form Type field in the application header. Additionally, we’ve added the option to Show Estimated Status for Economic Surveys, if selected the Estimated Status field will be displayed at the bottom of the report.
Reports | Application Reports | Application Detail

 

Fixed an issue that prevented WebView2 from installing properly in some cloud districts. This caused some users to Login With MySchoolbucks through a legacy browser instead of with Microsoft Edge.

Fixed an issue that prevented some cloud users from completing the End-of-Year process.

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2020-2021 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

.NET Update

MSA Client 6.0.0 requires .NET Framework 4.8.

Click here for more information about the change in MSA Client System Requirements.

SignalR Implementation

The system will use Azure SignalR Service (PaaS) instead of the existing message relay system in MCS Cloud.
.NET Framework has been updated to 4.8.

Online Application Counts Report

The Online Application Counts Report will tell you if you have new applications that have been pulled into the system by MySchoolApps and require attention. This report can be emailed. The report contains three sections: Needs Attention, Activity for [Date Range], Year-to-Date Counts.
Reports | Application Reports | Online Application Counts

WebSMARTT Export

We have updated the WebSMARTT Export to better reflect applications that are marked I Do Not Qualify or Declining Benefits.
Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Exports

Fix

Fixed an issue that prevented scheduled jobs from running consistently for cloud customers.

Fix

Updated the Mosaic Hosted student importer to support Mosaic Azure integration.

Fix

Updated security measures to accommodate Mosaic Districts who are not Mosaic Azure integrated, including Mosaic standard Districts.

Enhancement

Ability to collect and store Ages from Applications

We have added support to accept all household members' ages from all applications. The Student Age field is now available in the Zone Definitions tab of Scan Form Maintenance.
Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Scan Forms (Edit) | Zone Definitions tab

Added export integration setup for Mosaic Azure Districts

We have added a new Mosaic FOH (Front-of-House) Azure File Transfer Integration Mode. The new integration mode allows you to upload application data directly to Mosaic in Azure.
We have also added Safety Checks to ensure communication does not occur if the MSA Client database is copied into a test environment.
Note: The Azure File Transfer option requires setting the District's NCES number on the District Info tab.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to prepare for the MSA Client End-of-Year 2020 process.

Enhancement

Query End of Year date when uploading Schools

We have added logic when uploading schools to query the End of Year date established at www2.myschoolapps.com. If the End of Year date is in the past, Schools will upload to www.myschoolapps.com.

Release Goal
The goal of this release was to prepare for the MSA Client End-of-Year 2020 process.

New Features

New Search Tab

You'll find a search field at the top of the ribbon menus. Type in the search field to display MSA Client options related to your search topic.

Enhancements

Suspicious Student Import Changes

MSA Client has been updated to allow a higher threshold for suspicious import activity.
New thresholds are as follows:

  • District Intervention Required (A user from the District should spot check the import and manually run the job) - 60% changes, 20% insertions/adds, 20% deletions/inactivations

  • HSS Support Intervention (The District must contact HSS Support so that Support can review and approve changes) - 50% insertions/adds

Dev Express Update

Updated Dev Express to 17.2.7.

.NET Update

Updated .NET Framework to support 4.5.0 or higher.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to update various system imports and exports and address an issue with the Nutrikids Export.

New Feature

  • Implemented OpenIDConnect (OIDC) for on-prem customers.

Enhancements

  • Upgraded the system to require .NET 4.5.0 Framework as the minimum supported version.

  • The Mosaic Import has the ability to import email addresses and status expiration dates in MSA Client.

  • The Mosaic Export populates Information Release 1-15 data.

  • The Cafe Enterprise Export lists household member names, if available. If a household member is “unlisted” and results in a household member mismatch, the member name will be populated as Override Member + the next available household member. (e.g. 2 household members are listed on an app, but the singer has listed themselves twice, the system would report Override Member3.)

Fix

  • Fixed a bug that was exporting child income frequency in an unrecognizable format for Nutrikids clients.

Click here to view additional MSA Client Release Notes.

Newton / Newton POS

Recent Release Notes

Added Skipped Batches to Supervisor Alerts

Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Supervisor Alerts

We have added the ability to add a supervisor alert type of “Has Skipped Batches”.

After adding the “Has Skipped Batches” alert type, the next time Point of Sale opens it will trigger alerts for any skipped batches back to the beginning of the year. Backdate the date range filters to see previous claim periods with skipped batches.

Added Skipped Batches to Posting Summary Report

Reports & Letters | Central Office | Posting Summary

In the Posting Summary Report, a filter has been added to only see cafeterias with skipped batches. Additionally, when the report is run to include cafeterias that have posted, any operating days/sessions that contain skipped batches will be notated with an asterisk.

 

MCS Report Library

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | User-Defined Reports

We have added the ability to add User-Defined Reports from the MCS Report Library. This Library is maintained by HSS and will continue to grow as reports are reviewed and approved. Reports added from the MCS Report Library cannot be edited, however, you may make a copy of the report if you would like to modify it.

 

Improved Handling of Invalid Emails

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs | Email Letters

We have updated the email system to better handle batches that contain invalid email addresses. The system will now log the invalid addresses and complete the batch.. Upon completion of the batch, invalid email addresses are displayed to the user as an exception, and are also available in the Scheduled Job Log Report.

 

Fixes

 

Posting Summary Report

Fixed an issue with the Posting Summary Report that prevented the report from loading when filtering for cafeterias that have not posted.

Correct Transaction Purchase Types with Meal Eligibility Corrections

Utilities | Advanced | Meal Eligibility Corrections

We have added the ability to correct student balances, claims, and transactions with an incorrect purchase type due to area eligibility mode or CEP claiming percentages being misconfigured.

Posting Summary Report Layout Override

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Report Layout Overrides

We have added the ability to create a report layout override for the Posting Summary report.

Fix

We have corrected the attendance numbers in the dashboard Participation by Meal Type metrics.

Central Office | Customer Maintenance & Central Office | POS Customer Maintenance

We have added the ability to add attachments for both Customers and POS Customers in Newton. These attachments are read-only for site level users who do not have edit permission.

 

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2021-2022 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

 

Print Letters for Inactive Students

We have added the ability to generate a General Letter for only inactive customers.

Reports & Letters | Sales & Revenue | Generate Cafeteria Letters | General Letter

Fix

Fixed an issue that caused adults to receive free meals in CEP schools when purchasing meals from a vending machine.

Resolved an issue that prevented some cash drawers from working in Newton POS after upgrading to Newton 12.5.

Resolved an issue that prevented some PIN pads from working in Newton POS after upgrading to Newton 12.5.

Enhancements

System Requirements Update - .NET Framework 4.6

Newton POS has been updated to require .NET Framework 4.6 and above.

 

Support for New Credit Card Terminal Hardware

Our application has been updated to support new credit card terminals, but the hardware and documentation are not yet available. If interested, please contact your sales rep for availability.

Admin & Maintenance | Serving Line | Serving Line Configs | Select a Configuration

 

New Guest School Field Added to Customer Subscriptions Report

The Customer Subscriptions report now displays the guest school that customers are subscribed to.

Reports & Letters | Customer Info | Customer Subscriptions Report

 

Federal Edit Check Report

Applied optimizations to the Federal Edit Check report that will result in it loading more quickly.

Resolved an issue that prevented on-premises districts from successfully upgrading to 12.4.0.

.NET Framework Requirements Warning

Added a warning that communicates the need to upgrade to .NET Framework 4.6 or higher, .NET Framework 4.6 is a prerequisite starting in Newton 12.4.1, targeted for release on March 31st.

Fix

Resolved an issue that prevented users from creating formulas when importing photos.

Added Recap and Reconciliation Report to Report Layout Overrides

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Report Layout Overrides

The Recap and Reconciliation Report is now available as a Report Layout Override.

Fix

Resolved an issue that required MCS Cloud users to complete multi-factor authentication daily.

DevExpress 21.2.5

Updated 3rd party UI and reporting component DevExpress to version 21.2.5.

 

Added Operating Date to Permission Override Requests

Central Office | Release Override Requests

A new field has been added to permission override requests that displays the operating date that is being opened.

 

Added Operating Date to Permission Override Requests Report

Reports & Letters | Central Office | Permission Override Requests Report

A new field has been added to the Permission Override Requests Report that shows the operating date in the request.

 

Match Results added to Income and Expense Imports

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Income and Expense Importers

A new screen was added to Income and Expense imports which displays which records were matched.

Resolved an issue that prevented Newton from successfully loading on some machines.

Outdated Workstations Report
Reports & Letters | Central Office | Outdated Workstations Report

We updated the Outdated Workstations Report to include Newton POS cashier terminals and the report will now display the Operating System version.

OVS Requirements - Require Fruit
Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Offer-vs-Serve | OVS Requirements

We added a Required Fruit toggle, when checked POS will require that at least one fruit is served to a student in order to count a reimbursable meal.

Fix

Increased threshold required to match a Newton POS Customer to a DataCenter Student to reduce the likelihood of false matches.

Fixed an issue that prevented Newton from successfully synchronizing with DataCenter in some districts.

Seamless Summer

Enable Seamless Summer
Admin & Maintenance | Cafeteria Setup | Cafeterias
We added a Seamless Summer toggle that will count any new meals being served as Seamless Summer.

During the time when a school has Seamless Summer enabled:

  • All students will receive one reimbursable meal per meal period free of charge.

  • All reimbursable meals will be claimed as free on the claim report.

  • All student eligibilities will show as free on the edit check.

For more information on configuring your district for Seamless Summer, please review this Seamless Summer Knowledge Article.

Set Historical Seamless Summer
Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Schools
The Set Historical Seamless Summer option allows you to enable Seamless Summer retroactively for a date range.

Important Note
If you served reimbursable meals outside of the Seamless Summer date range you specified, a Meal Eligibility Correction will be required to correct affected transactions.

For more information on configuring your district for Seamless Summer, please review this Seamless Summer Knowledge Article.

 

Touchscreen Images

Admin & Maintenance | Menu | Touchscreen Images
We added touchscreen images for you to use on your POS for many popular menu items.

We have added the ability for users to configure alert emails when a task fails in a scheduled job.

Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | Email
We added the ability for administrators to define a list comma separated list of email addresses that will receive notifications for Scheduled Job failures.

 

Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs | Select a Scheduled Job
We added the ability for users to toggle whether the system should send an email alert if the task fails.

Fixed an issue that prevented WebView2 from installing properly in some cloud districts. This caused some users to Login With MySchoolbucks through a legacy browser instead of with Microsoft Edge.

Fixed an issue that prevented some cloud users from successfully completing the End-of-Year process.

Fixed an issue that prevented cloud users who were linked to a MySchoolBucks account from authenticating to Point-of-Sale.

Newton Dashboard

We have added a new Dashboard view in Newton that can be used to quickly and easily view meal participation data from your home screen.

Click here to learn more about Newton Dashboard.

Enhancements

End of Year Support

We have updated the End of Year process to support the 2020-2021 School Year.
Click here to view the End of Year Instructions or to sign up for an appointment to have a Customer Support Representative perform the process for you.

.NET Update

Newton now requires .NET Framework 4.8.

Click here for more information about the change in MCS System Requirements.

 

Fixed an issue that prevented allergens from being moved when merging an inactive customer record into an active customer record.

Posting Corrections Scheduled Job

We have added a new Scheduled Job for Posting Corrections. The posting corrections task will automatically be able to correct cross-site reimbursable meals by retaining the "Reimbursable" or "Area Eligible" purchase type for the first transaction, and converting all subsequent transactions to a purchase type of "At Cost".
Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Scheduled Jobs
You can view this Knowledge Article in Support Central for more information on configuring Scheduled Jobs.

Setting to create Eligibility Statistics for non-posting sites

A new setting has been added to create eligibility statistics for non-posting sites. When enabled, the system will calculate enrollment and attendance statistics for schools that have claimed meals but not yet posted.
Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | Misc Values

 

Enhancements

Claim and Federal Edit Check will now automatically handle students in mixed CEP districts.

We have updated Newton to automatically handle visiting students in mixed CEP districts based on the Claim Served Meals at School setting. If At this school is selected, meals will be claimed at the serving site. If At the student’s enrolled school is selected, meals will be claimed at student’s enrolled school.
Note: If At the student’s enrolled school is selected, the price the student is charged for the meal will be determined by the Price Category Mapping Template of the serving school.

CEP warning when saving Cafeteria

When saving a cafeteria or school, users will now receive a warning if a CEP school is configured to claim its meals at a non-CEP school. The warning message will display the mismatch in Area-Eligibility Modes.

/exp

Support for Connection Pooling with MCS Cloud

Newton now supports connection pooling for MCS Cloud users.

Fixed an issue causing Attendance Factor settings to be ignored at posting.

Multi-Day Sales

We have added a new solution for contact-free serving! Multi-Day Sales can be used for curbside pickup or back office meal entry.
Newton Icon | Multi-Day Sale

To learn more, watch the Cashier Overview video below.
You may also refer to the following articles in our Support Central website:

New Cafeteria Permission to Toggle/Skip Batches

We have added a new cafeteria permission to allow the restriction of skipping batches without authorization from the central office through the authorization request process. When the restricted user tries to skip a batch, they will be prompted to submit an override request, which will need to be approved by an Administrator. Click here for more information on Override Requests.

Enhancements

Hide Buttons that don’t work in Offline Mode

Buttons, Reports, and Utilities that require internet connectivity to function will now be hidden when in offline mode.

Fix

  • Fixed an error that occurred when entering after school counts.

 

Fix

Fixed an issue that prevented scheduled jobs from running consistently for cloud customers.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to make Improvements to Start of School, add a Bulk Meal Counts Worksheet, and make enhancements to MySchoolBucks integration.

New Features

Help Buttons

We have added help buttons on every page of Newton. Clicking on the help button will open your computer’s default web browser and take you to the associated product documentation page. Specified help to either the section in the User’s manual or a Heartland Help article are forthcoming.

Bulk Meal Issuing Worksheet

We have added a Bulk Meal Issuing Worksheet that allows Districts to determine how many days and meals are needed to record as well as hand-write Totals for Prepared, Served, Leftover, Damaged, and Employee meals. This option is intended to assist with Emergency Meals, Seamless Summer etc. where specific customer tracking in not necessary.
Reports & Letters | Sales & Revenue | Bulk Meal Issuing Worksheet

Enhancements

Deleted Inactive Students with Balances

Added improvements to the system to more elegantly handle the merging of students with balances who have returned to the District after being removed from DataCenter (upon the 2nd End of Year process where a student remains inactive).

MySchoolBucks Balance Transfer

Parents have the ability to transfer money between students in MySchoolBucks. You can see balance changes by time and date in the following reports:
Student Account Statement
Online Payments
Note: You can also view balance transfers within MySchoolBucks using their Payments Report.

MySchoolBucks Support for designating funds for “Meals Only”

Districts now have the option in Newton MSB Setup to synchronize Meal Controls set in MySchoolBucks.
Note: In MySchoolBucks, if the option to allow payments to be designated for Meals Only is selected, the Use Unallocated-Cash Only option should be disabled. If this setting is not disabled, payments will be placed in Newton's unallocated funds for a customer.

Misc School Counts Improvements

  • Misc School Counts Setup - Any Misc. School Count data that has been established and contains a non-zero value from a previous operating day may not be modified in the Misc School Count Maintenance screen with the exception of the Description.

  • Misc School Counts Posting - If a Misc School Count has been inactivated and non-zero counts exist, the description of the Misc School Counts shall in (inactive) in the posting screen. Additionally, the user is able to modify previously existing counts.

These changes are to maintain the integrity of the data and provide accurate reporting.

Outdated Workstation Report Update to .NET Framework 4.8

We have updated the Outdated Workstation Report to call out all machines that are recommended to be updated to .NET Framework 4.8.
Note: This upgrade will be necessary for any district that wants to use the latest upgrades.
Reports and Letters | Central Office | Outdated Workstation Report

Additional criteria added to the Customer Allergies Report

We have added the ability to choose how to display Customer IDs in the Customer Allergies Report and we have added multiple grouping options for customers in the report.
Reports and Letters | Customer Info | Customer Allergies

Fix

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing previewing some report layout overrides.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to add support for End-of-Year 2019-2020 and to make improvements to Start-of-School.

New Features

Search

You'll find a search field at the top of the ribbon menus. Click Search to enable the search field, then type a topic to display Newton navigation options.

Enable Windows Default Language

Ability to configure the program to use the Windows’ default language.
Note: Not all aspects of the program are translated via this process. Additionally, all text outside the scope of the program (e.g. Custom Letters) is not translated.

Enhancement

Student Search including enye, accented vowels, and standard vowels

When searching for students in POS, the search will now return names that have an enye (ñ) or an n in the search results.
When searching for students in POS, the search will now return names with accented (á, é, í, ó, ú) and standard vowels.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to refresh the look and feel of Newton, to make improvements to data imports, and to provide enhancements to serve emergency meals.

Fix

  • Fixed a bug in the newer version of DevExpress that was causing unexpected behavior in some forms within the system.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to refresh the look and feel of Newton, to make improvements to data imports, and to provide enhancements to serve emergency meals.

Update

  • Changed the database upgrade to retain unused Miscellaneous School Count configurations.

Release Summary
The goal of this release was to refresh the look and feel of Newton, to make improvements to data imports, and to provide enhancements to serve emergency meals.

Fix

  • Fixed a bug when transferring money from the Central Office tab.

Newton 10.5.1 - March 26, 2020

Newton 10.5.1 - March 26, 2020

Release Summary

The goal of this release was to refresh the look and feel of Newton, to make improvements to data imports, and to provide enhancements to serve emergency meals.

  • Any District who would like to upgrade to 10.5 version must be on .NET Framework 4.5.2 or higher and must also upgrade DataCenter and Franklin to the .1 version.

  • Some of the items noted below are associated with the Newton 10.1 Beta release.

New Features

  • Misc School Counts - This feature is available in Newton versions 10.0, 10.1, and 10.5.
    This feature will allow Districts to track the number of meals they are serving. It has been specifically set up to assist with the distribution of Emergency Meals.
    Misc. School Counts are also captured in the following areas: (After Posting) Daily Recap, Federal Edit Check, Claim
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Misc School Counts
    Admin & Maintenance | Cafeteria Setup | Cafeteria Templates

See Emergency Meals Documentation here.

  • Improved Color Theme - Newton has a new look! Check out our new color theme.

  • Ability to Import Labor Hours - Users now have the ability to import labor hours from their time management systems.
    Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | External Enrollment Data Importers

  • Ability to Import Bank Deposit Info - Users now have the ability to import bank deposit information in order to perform Bank Reconciliation.
    Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Bank Deposit Importers

  • Ability to Import Income and Expense Account Data - Users now have the ability to import income and expense information.
    Admin & Maintenance | Advanced Setup | Income And Expense Importers

  • Attendance Calculation Method - This new report override setting establishes how Attendance should display on various reports if attendance has been imported. The system may be set up so the user has to pick an option at runtime.
    Admin & Maintenance | System Settings | Reporting tab | Attendance to Display (Posted Attendance (Manual, Imported, Calculated) or Posted Enrollment x Attendance Factor

    • Affected reports: 

      • After Posting | Daily Recap

      • Sales & Revenue | Combined Participation and Sales, Federal Edit Check, Recap and Reconciliation

When claiming meals at a school other than the Cafeteria in the system (“this” school), the system will automatically roll enrollment and attendance for the Claim at School.

Enhancements

  • Updated Newton to use .NET 4.5.2

  • Dev Express 19+

  • Outdated Workstation Report (.NET Framework 4.5.2) - The report displays any workstation running versions lower than .NET Framework 4.5.2.

  • Additional fields to support income and expense imports
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Income/Expense Accounts

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was not considering manually posted meal counts when posting a day.

  • Fixed a bug that was not allowing the editing of meals under review transactions when School is set to At-Risk Supper.

  • Fixed a bug that allows scheduled jobs to be negatively affected by DST.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented saving a claim when a CEP school had associated reduced enrollment counts.

  • Fixed a bug that was disallowing data to generate when a la carte sales for a meal did not exist during a given time period at a Site.

  • Fixed a bug that was displaying all double card usages under one student record when running the Before Posting report.

  • Fixed a typographical error in the Apply External Enrollment Data confirmation screen.

Click here to view additional Newton Release Notes.

TimeKeeper

Enhancements

  • TK-14 Added I and Clock Out Terminal columns to the Clock In/Out Record screen.

  • TK-35 Added new payroll report named Payroll Report to Clock In/Out Reports.

  • TK-36 Changed supervisory group list to sort alphabetically

  • TK-37 Changed employee search list to sort alphabetically

Fixes

  • TK-34 Refresh button disappearing on Time Sheet Screen - Client reported that when a user has Windows set to use medium or large text, or certain display settings that the Refresh Button on the Time Sheet screen falls off the page.

    Changed the default size of the form to display much smaller to prevent this. Users accustomed to the larger size will need to resize the form or maximize it after loading.

Click here to view additional TimeKeeper Release Notes.