Newton 8.5 Release Notes

Owned by Robin Rodrigue
Last updated: Dec 04, 2018 by Nora Kinal
3 min read
Newton 8.5.0 - April 2, 2018

New Features

  • Customer Allergen & Special Diet Tracking Report - Added a new report that displays allergen tracking, adds, removes, edits, date/time, user
    Reports & Letters | Central Office | Allergy and Special Diet Tracking

  • Cafeteria Categories - Added the ability to create unlimited cafeteria groupings and apply multiple groupings to cafeterias.  This can be used anywhere that regions and clusters were previously used.

    The upgrade will convert regions and clusters to cafeteria categories where applicable.

    Admin & Maintenance | Cafeteria Setup | Cafeteria Categories

    Additionally, added Mass Update for Cafeteria Categories to quickly apply changes.
    Admin & Maintenance | Cafeteria Setup | Mass Update | Cafeteria Categories

  • Customer Importer - Added new utility to import customers and customer updates directly into Newton.  Use cases for this would be employees, teachers, staff, etc.
    Admin & Maintenance | Advanced | Customer Importers

    After creating a Customer Importer file for non-student customers, a scheduled job may be added.
    Admin & Maintenance | Advanced | Scheduled Jobs | Edit/Add | Add Task | Import Customer Data

  • Comments & Work Log for Customer Maintenance - Comments and Work Log tracking and customization appears in Customer Maintenance to allow more detailed audit logs e.g. parent phone calls, parent requests.
    Flashing when Comments or Work Log exists defaults to Never.
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Work-Log Types

  • Search and Replace POS Menu Items - Added a new wizard to search for an item and replace it with another item across one or more menus
    Admin & Maintenance | Menus |Search and Replace Items

Enhancements

  • Tab-Based Interface - Newton interface is now tab-based. Changes appear in the following screens:
    • Admin & Maintenance
    • Items
    • Menus
    • Cafeteria Setup
    • Reports
    • Serving Line
    • Permissions
    • Misc Setup – Schools
    • Report Layout Overrides
    • Mass Update POS Groups
    • Special Diets
    • Offer vs Serve
    • Customer Maintenance screen

  • Spending & Charge Limit Comments - Added comment boxes for Spending & Charge Limits. Comments appear in the Edit Customer tab under the Comments & Work Log tab. Flash Comments may be enabled.
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Work-Log Types 

  • Allergen Comments - Added a comment box to Allergen Tab. Comments appear in the Edit Customer tab under the Comments & Work Log tab. Flash Comments may be enabled.
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Work-Log Types

  • ‘Customer Information Exists’  Tracking - If customer information is present (See Manager, Allergies & Special Diets, Spending & Charge Limits, Photo, Biometrics, and Comments & Work Log), the tab title is bolded.

  • Workflows for Comments - Added workflows for comments – prompt, none, required
    Admin & Maintenance | Miscellaneous Setup | Work-Log Types
  • Allergy & Special Diet Tracking - Added Allergen tracking to Customer Change Tracking report.
  • Print Letters by School - When Generating Cafeteria Letters where primary and secondary (fed-by) schools exist, the option to limit schools is now available. By default, all schools fed by the primary school are selected
    e.g. Reports & Letters | Generate Cafeteria Letters | Low Balance
  • Menu Sync Speed - Menu sync speed has been increased when selecting a cafeteria and starting a serving line
  • Dynamic Column Display in Item Maintenance - By default, all allergens, food components, offer versus serve, and legacy contributions are displayed in Item Maintenance. The ability to hide selected Item Maintenance column categories and save layout is now available
  • Line Disk Defaults - When establishing Line Disks from the Meal Control Panel, only serving lines where an offline data path has been established will automatically be selected for creation
  • Charge & Continue - Charge & Continue is now the default option when a student is charging on the serving line.
  • High Charges Supervisor Alert for Inactive Students - Added the option to exclude inactive students on supervisor alerts for high charges.
  • Admin & Maintenance Changes - Miscellaneous and Advanced Setup tabs have been updated with appropriate groupings
    The following Miscellaneous Setup options are now located in Advanced Setup:

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that was causing an error to occur when a balance correction was made to a POS Customer enrolled at a cafeteria other than the one currently selected