NEWSTAR Pulse - Volume 2, Issue 4

Product Updates

New Features

• Accounts Payable/Liev Waver Forms: Auto-Generate Check Group and Auto-Pay PO Processing (Create Check Group option) now has a Hold check until Lien Waver signed option.
• COS Processing: For Months when COS Processing run using either Print report and Update or Update Only options, but no Journal Entry was generated, the COS Projection History report shows “(no change)” in the column header and repeat the same Amounts as the Previous month.
  Note: This change is on a go-forward basis only

• A company Security Updater program has been created, similar to HB Project Security. This Updater can be used to append a new Company to the Valid List of Companies for a Group of Users.
  NOTE: Groups created in Company Security Updater are completely separate and independent from groups created in HB Project Security

• Custom Option Take-Off: A new "Markup" field has been added to the Custom Option Take-Offs and Custom Option Pricing screens and the “Margin” field updated to display the correct Margin percentage.
• Reports: A new Planned Dates Report is available under Scheduling > Masters > Schedules, it can be used to generate a sample Lot Schedule report based on an entered Planned Start Date or Planned End Date (i.e. Closing Task). The report can then be used as reference to update the applicable Task(s) in the Lot Schedule to meet the new Closing Date.

• Work Orders: The Schedule End Time for the Warranty Inspections and Work Order Items has been added in NEWSTAR Enterprise and OnLocation Warranty Web and is visible in VendorLink. The Schedule Start and End Time fields are now displayed as a dropdown list in NEWSTAR Enterprise and OnLocation Warranty Web, and the times are displayed in 15-minute increments between the hours of 6:00 AM and 9:00 PM.

• Site Maps: The “Lot Model Price” has been added as a new Hover Field so it can be displayed on the Sales Site Map in NEWSTAR Web for any pre-sited Lots.
• OnLocation Scheduling: In Single Lot View, list or calendar, when you click on the Documents icon, the list of documents will now collapse all folders except for the Lot Documents. Other folders indicate if any documents are there, allowing you to open them if you want more details.

• DocuSign has implemented a new Consent and Authentication process to authorize integration with NEWSTAR Sales at a global level, Sales Office/Subdivision level or on a user-by-user basis.

• Sales Agent Portal
  • A new column called Extension Dates has been added to the Sales Agent Portal within the Contract Status & Dates menu to allow for Closing Extensions and Occupancy Extensions.

  • A new tab has been added to the Contract Summary menu for Payment Credits against Option Addendums within the Sales Agent Portal along with new corresponding mail merge fields.

• Design Agent Portal

  • A new label and hyperlink is added to the Customer Summary ribbon for Payment Credits. The dollar amount below the label is a hyperlink to launch the Payment Credit screen. The Payment Credit hyperlink and history table are visible but read-only for Users that do not have permission to Manage the Payment Credit.
    When the Payment Credit hyperlink is selected, the Payment Credit History Table header will be displayed. No records will display until a Payment Credit is applied.
    Note: Payment Credit History is visible from this screen only. History will not be visible from the Add Payment Credit dialogue for performance reasons.

• A "Selections Total" hyperlink has been added and now opens a pop-up carrying information for "Total Applied Discounts" under the "Selection Review" screen for Build Spec & Model.
  Note: This new pop-up is displayed only on Selection Review Screen of Build Spec & Model. You are only able to open the link from the Selections Review screen of Build Spec Model.

  • The “Selections Total” under the Model Information box (has been converted into a hyperlink.
  • Upon clicking “Selections Total” a new pop-up is displayed.
  • The pop-up is titled “Selections Total” and carries the following information:
    • Selections Total Price– This total is the accumulated total of all the options added/selections total hyperlink amount.
    • Total Applied Discounts – The Total Applied Discounts shows an accumulated total of all the discounts that have been applied on the addendums in the Selections Review Screen.

Fixed

• Accounts Payable/Express PO Invoices: The License Withholding calculation has been corrected, allowing Auto-Generate Check Group and Cash Requirements to run without errors. These changes have also been applied to Auto-Pay PO Batch.
• General Costing / Subcontract: Subcontracts with invoices applied can no longer be deleted. If Users attempt to do so, the following message appears: “ERROR: Cannot delete - invoices exist for this subcontract. [OK]” Also, the warning message has been removed from the bottom (dark grey section) of the screen.

• Purchasing / PO Change Orders: Using the PO Change Orders program correctly reverts the Purchase Order back to an Approved status from Printed/Faxed/Emailed so the Purchase Order is included in a future print batch of Unprinted Purchase Orders to send to the Supplier.
• Purchasing / PO Price Update: The PO Price Update (PPU) program change made in the 2022.3.03 Hot Fix (R&D # 202-00-819310) has been rolled-backed so PPU Change Orders (COs) are now automatically Approved; this is the same functionality prior to the 2022.3.03 Hot Fix. This roll-back change is also available in the 2022.3.04 Retro Hot Fix on August 25th (R&D # 202-00-823226).
  Previously, changes were made to the PPU program in the 2022.3.03 Hot Fix as noted above, which referenced the PO Processing Rules for Auto Approvals and the PO Approval Rules (limits). However, any unapproved PPU COs could not be approved because they are currently not included in the “Approve Change Orders” screen; only manual COs (MAN) are included.
  Note: In a future release, a new System Configuration setting will be added to Approve PPU CO’s automatically (yes/no). This will include changes to the “Approve Change Orders” screen to include PPU CO’s so they can be approved..

• Build Spec and Model: Configurator Setting for Show Archived Items under “Selection Review” Screen has been removed. A toggle to Show/Hide the archived options has been added in the “Design Agent Portal Selection Review” screen for Build Spec and Model. When the Toggle is set to ‘Yes’, all Archived Options which are available for an Addendum are displayed. If the Toggle is set to ‘No’, then no Archived Options are displayed for an Addendum.
• DocuSign Signing Order: Design Studio Manager now displays the DocuSign recipient list in the correct signing order as it was set up in NEWSTAR Sales Office Setup. Now NEWSTAR Sales and Design Studio Manager applications are synchronized.

• Configurator
  • User Management / Contract Permissions: Functionality has been fixed so a User cannot perform any operation in the Design Agent Portal for any other user’s contract when the “Can Maintain other Contracts” permission is disabled.
• Sales Agent Portal
  • Update/Cancel Options: Rooms and quantities can no longer be modified on approved addendum items. If Rooms or quantities require updating the option must be adjusted and reselected.
  • Lawyers/Lenders/Real Estate Agents: Resolved error when associating entities to individuals, and individuals to entities. This applies to Lawyers/Law Firm, Loan Officers/Lenders, and Real Estate Agents/Real Estate Agency.
  • Community – Lot List: Resolved search query to return results when additional characters have been entered after a period or dash.
• Design Agent Portal
  • Lot Details Page: The Lot Details page now displays the Lot Address details from NEWSTAR Enterprise correctly; with a comma and space separating the City/Town and State/Province and displays the Zip/Postal code.
• Customer Wish List Portal
  • Appointment Steps Menu: The Wish List Portal is now hiding the reviewed appointments steps when the “Hide Reviewed Step and Subcategories” flag is set to YES in the Customer Wish List Settings.

• Checklist: Schedule Checklist Inspections, that include more than one mandatory field (item), cannot be marked as Completed without completing all of the required fields.
• Pending PO Requests: From the Pending PO Requests page in OnLocation Schedule, if a PO has been “Escalated To” or “Referred Back To” a User, that User's name will appear as a hyperlink in the associated column under the Results Grid. When selected, the Escalate To or Refer Back To pop-up window will appear as read-only to display the associated Notes and Reason.
• Checklist: Documents View: When users click the "View Docs" button from OnLocation Schedule – Single Lot View or Calendar View (for a specific Lot), only the “Lot Document” Type section will be expanded by default. New Icons with text have also been added at the right of the Project, Task and Model Document sections to help Users quickly identify if there are associated documents to the Lot and whether to 'Expand' the section to view the documents.

• Item Craft Calendar View: The Legend popup windows displays the correct color for “Scheduled Inspection” when viewed under the Item Craft Calendar View. This will match what is displayed in the Calendar View when scheduled. If a Warranty Inspection is completed, it will be displayed as green in the Calendar View. 
• Warranty Form: The “WO Instruction” field available under Warranty Forms now allows 20,000 characters. Previously, the field was limited to 80 characters. 

Why can't a User see a Document in NSEWeb?
User Access, Roles, Group and Tags are all used by NSEWeb in determining if a user should see a document or not.

Step 1 - Gather the following information…

1. Log into NSEWeb with a user who has Document Management access.
2. Go to the Document Management menu and select View Document.
3. Do a Search for the appropriate Document Type (ie Project, Lot, Model etc).
4. Once you Locate the document in question, click on Document Details for that document.
5. Note the Tag, Groups and Roles and the Project or Lot the document is associated to.
   

Step 2 - Validate the User's Project access.

NOTE - This is only applicable if you have Project Security activated in NSE.

There are two ways you can check if the user has access to the Project:

1. Go to NSE under Administration - System Admin - Security - HB Project Security and validate that the UserID in question is in a Group where the Project is also loaded.
2. Ask the user if they see the Project in the dropdown available to them when they search for the document?
   • If the User does have access to the Project, then continue with the next validation step.
   • If the User does not have access to the Project, then you will need to give them access to the Project.

Step 3 - Validate which Roles the User is associated to.

1. Log into NSEWeb with a User who has administrative access.
2. Go to the menu Administration - Users and Roles.
3. Search and select the UserID in question and you will see the Roles they are associated to.
   • If the User has been associated to at least one of the Roles associated to the document then proceed with the next Step.
   • If the User does not have at least one of the Roles associated to the document you will need to either:
     1. assign that User the Role
     2. Edit the Document so it has been assigned one of the Roles that the User has.

Step 4- Validate which Groups the User is associated to.

1. Log into NSEWeb with a User who has administrative access.
2. Go to the menu Administration - Groups - Users and Groups.
3. Search and select the UserID in question and you will see the Groups they are associated to.
   • If the User has been assigned to any one of the Groups associated to the document then proceed with the next Step.
   • If the User has not been assigned any one of the Groups associated to the document you would have to either:
     1. assigned the User to one of the Groups associated to the document
     2. or disassociated the Document to any Group (as Group is Optional).

Step 5 - Validate that the NSEWeb User is searching for the document correctly.

1. Have your User send a screen shot of how they are completing the filter screen.  They may be choosing an incorrect Tag or date etc.
2. Validate how they are completing the filter against what you know from Step 1 about the Document in question.

Name Dropping: Kim Caswell

• Team you are part of: Enterprise Solutions Professional Services
• In two sentences, what is your job? Implementation Manager – I am a SME (Subject Matter Expert) on SalesXpress & Design Studio Manager. I also implement & train on NSE Home Production
• What do you love about your job? Everything – the customers, the fact that each day is completely different yet working with the same products.
• What’s one thing you enjoy doing every day that’s not part of your job description? Working within the system and discovering new things. No matter how much you use NSE, there is always something new to discover/learn.
• What was your first job? My very first job was McDonald’s – hate to say it, but I worked the first drive-thru in Scarborough, ON.
• Currently reading: A Life Without Water by Marci Bolden.
• Do you have any pets? I do not, but my grand dogs live with me – 2 Gold Doodles – Miller & Memphis.
• Film you’ll always love: It’s a Wonderful Life.
• Last show you binged and loved: Virgin River.
• First concert you attended: Styx - 1983. The Kilroy Was Here tour.
• Best snack you’ve had lately: Cucumber/Everything Bagel Cream Cheese with Cherry Tomato.
• Recipe you're known for: Chicken Taco Chili!
• Sport team you cheer for: Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning.
• Songs on repeat these days: Any Luke Combs, Old Dominion or Luke Brian (Drink a Beer)
• Quotable: If it is meant to be, it will be