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This Relocation Specialist Update is published in an effort to inform and educate.

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Recently, Microsoft introduced Service Pack 2 (SP2) for their WindowsXP operating system. Though this has provided unprecedented levels of security, it also has caused its share of new challenges.

One new “improvement” is the ability to open spreadsheets in an on-line window, as opposed to downloading the records and viewing them in an Excel spreadsheet as before. This has caused numerous problems for those using SP2 that has nothing to do with Relocation Specialist. Though this is a security option that keeps unwanted data from being downloaded into your PC, it is not what most people want to happen.

Fortunately there is a solution. If you have not experienced this problem, you don’t need to fix it. However, if you want to be able to click DOWNLOAD and OPEN and have the records automatically downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet, and they currently only open on-line, here are the steps:

Now when you click DOWNLOAD and OPEN from any of the pages in Relocation Specialist, the records you are viewing will be dropped directly into an Excel spreadsheet.

Roster: How to get a report with all records received this year AND all records closed this year regardless of when they were received?

In the past it has always been difficult to get into one report all the records that were received during a given time period and all the records that were closed during the same time period but may have been received during a different time period. The reason that has been difficult is because were using two different fields with two different entries.

For example, if you want all records received this year and all records closed this year no matter when they were received you need to enter dates in two different fields: [Date Received] and [Close Date]. But, if you enter dates in the ‘Date Received BEGIN’ field and the ‘Date Received END’ field along with dates in the ‘Date Closed BEGIN’ field and the ‘Date Closed END’ fields and you use the ‘Connect all fields’ equal to “AND” you would only get records that were received this year and were closed this year. That’s not what you want.

Fortunately there is now a solution. The ‘Roster 2’ report is now available. This report produces the same fields as the ‘Roster’ report and may be used with the optional Report Generator software. The difference with ‘Roster 2’ is that you can now combine the date fields to get the desired results.

To use the example above, you would enter “>=’01-01-2004’ AND <=’12-31-2004’” in the ‘Date Received’ field and the same thing (“>=’01-01-2004’ AND <=’12-31-2004’”) in the ‘Actual Close Date’ field. Then, in the ‘Connect all fields using’ entry you will use the “OR” selection. This way you are able to select all records that were received this year OR closed this year and get all the records included!

Don’t worry about having to remember the exact syntax for the date statement in the example above. When you get to the report’s selection criteria you’ll see a ‘Helpful Hint’ box at the bottom of the page with the sample date range included. Simply highlight the sample, right-click and click COPY. Then, right-click in the date field and click PASTE. Next, you can manually change the dates you want while leaving the other syntax entries. Click ‘APPLY FILTER’ and you’ll have all the records.

AutoUpdate form improved

Recently the AutoUpdate form has been improved to work better with Internet browsers. In the past the form would open in the first available Internet window, when opened using AOL or other on-line services. The AutoUpdate form has been changed to open in its own new Internet window which avoids many of the conflicts with other Internet services.

Notes for Broker Center imports

Now that you are able to download Broker Center reports and import them into Relocation Specialist, (ReloSpec) there are a few things you’ll want to do to maintain consistency among the records. Specifically you’ll want to be sure your ‘Referral Types’ options and your ‘Referral Status’ options include those that will be coming from Broker Center .

Remember that you’ll be importing and updating records between Broker Center and ReloSpec. When you select a record in ReloSpec and click UPDATE, the [Referral Type] field and the [Referral Status] fields are dropboxes that are limited to whatever you have entered into those tables. Since Broker Center uses different terms that what you probably have in ReloSpec, you’ll need to add those terms into the appropriate tables so that when you UPDATE a record in ReloSpec the actual Referral Type and Referral Status will be displayed in the Update page.

Here is a partial list of entries that should be added to the Referral Types table. From the Main Menu of ReloSpec, click Utility Settings, then click ‘Referral Types’. Add the following entries: LST, HF. There may be others. This is not a complete list.

Here is a partial list of entries that should be added to the Referral Status table. From the Main Menu of ReloSpec, click Utility Settings, then click ‘Referral Status’. Add the following entries: Placed, Drop, FSale, Canc, PSale, and Compl. There may be others. This is not a complete list.