Manage your phone messages quickly and easily with PhonePad!
We are pleased to announce the release of MessageSender Version 6.2.0.
You can download the new version from your My PhonePad account.
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.26.2 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.
Support for CallerId.com devices was added. The devices from CallerId.com are a relatively inexpensive way of adding Caller ID features to your network that are compatible with most phone systems.
When using one of these devices (depending on the model), PhonePad will track all Incoming and Outgoing Calls, whether they are answered or not.
It will log unanswered phone calls from people who call outside of your normal business hours.
See how many calls you get from customers by viewing a history graph that shows the calls you receive over a period of time.
Of course, as the system has Caller ID functionality a popup message will display who’s calling. You can quickly take a message while this screen is being displayed.
You can also take a message by double-clicking on any call in the Call History list.
What’s coming next? We are working on adding Caller ID support for VOIP systems.
The charts on the Overview screen have been improved to make them easier to read. We will also be improving the charts used elsewhere in PhonePad in upcoming releases.
Bugs are an unfortunate side effect of software development. We do our best to not introduce any bugs, and fix them as quickly as we can when they are reported to us or we find them ourselves.
We have added a new debugging system built-in to PhonePad to assist us. It catches, analyzes and reports any bugs to us.
You won’t actually see this improvement as it all happens behind the scenes. Most of the time, if it catches any bugs you won’t know it’s even happened as no error messages will be displayed. You’ll be able to continue working without interruption but we will know about them and will start working on a fix.
This system should help us discover and fix any bugs much quicker than before as it’s very good at tracking down those really hard to find ones. And it saves time for you having to report them to us, send screenshots, and so on. Although we may still have to do that occasionally.
There are quite a few minor fixes in this release which we discovered as a result of using the new debugging system for a few days.
Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations. Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed. Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.
Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program. The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.
If you have the automatic update service installed then the update should automatically download and install. If for some reason it doesn’t, you can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.
These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users. For licensed users you must have a current support plan to install the update.
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
If you ever need to move your PhonePad 5 database to a new Server or Host PC then the newly updated MoveDatabase program can help you in just a few steps.
MoveDatabase consists of two programs: one for the old server and one for the new server.
These are the links you will need:
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.25.0 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.
This is a maintenance release to correct an issue with starting PhonePad that affects some users:
Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations. Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed. Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.
Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program. The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.
If you have the automatic update service installed then the update should automatically download and install. If for some reason it doesn’t, you can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.
These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users. For licensed users you must have a current support plan to install the update.
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.24.1 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.
This is a maintenance release to correct an issue with starting PhonePad that affects some users:
If you are updating from a Version prior to 5.24.0, you will probably get the following message displayed on your workstations when starting PhonePad:
This is because we changed the workstation update system in Version 5.24.0. PhonePad versions prior to 5.24.0 don’t know how to use the new update system and so don’t know how to update.
The solution is in the message, as shown above. Click the Download and install PhonePad 5 Workstation link. It will download version 5.24.1 and install it on the workstation. From that point onwards, any future updates will update automatically.
Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations. Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed. Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.
Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program. The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.
You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.
These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.24.0 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.
The main focus of this release is to improve overall performance. A bug in the database engine that PhonePad uses was causing significant speed issues to the point where PhonePad would almost freeze for some customers. An update from the vendor of the database engine has fixed this issue. We have also increased performance by extending the use of parallel processing techniques in our source base. The end result is PhonePad should run faster on your systems.
There was also a bug affecting server connections. This has also been resolved.
If you have PhonePad set to run automatically when Windows starts, it may not start correctly if there isn’t a network connection available at that time. To get around this you could add a delayed start up by adding delay=xx (in seconds) to the shortcut’s parameters.
Now there is an easier and better option. PhonePad will check for a network connection and if your network adapter is still initializing, it will wait until it has connected to your network.
Check the Admin Guide for details on how to set this up.
When PhonePad 5 Server automatically backs up your database, it also backs up the database configuration file. This file is critical for the correct operation of PhonePad.
Should it become damaged by an OS or hardware issue, power spike, server crash or an Act of God, the solution was to contact us so we could restore it for you. This update includes a new program called Configuration Restore. This saves you valuable time by enabling you to easily and quickly restore the configuration file yourself (we can still this for you if you like though).
So far we have only had to restore this file a handful of times, but it’s nice to know that if something goes wrong you can now do it yourself with a minimum of fuss.
The pie charts are gone and replaced with easy to read indicators that show you the status of your messages at a quick glance.
New Service MonitorIf any of your PhonePad services stop or become unresponsive, the new Service Monitor can help with that. It can monitor selected services and restart them if they stop running or don’t respond. Naturally we would like to know if this happens as it’s not normal.
Yeah we skipped a version number. Version 5.23.0 was a Beta version that we only gave to customers that were having perfomance issues. They tested it for us to confirm that the issues were fixed. Once that was done we added some further changes and then released it as 5.24.0.
When you update PhonePad to a new version your security software may see this as brand new software. You may need t0 reconfigure it to allow PhonePad, particularly if it uses any form of real-time scanning or protection. The security software we use has to be reconfigured every time we update any software on our systems. Yours may be similar.
If you have speed or connection issues after updating, please check the security software on your workstations and Server/Host PC before contacting us. Chances are it is intefering with the clean running of PhonePad. Make sure that PhonePad Workstation and PhonePad Server are not being real-time scanned, protected or monitored.
Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations. Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed. Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.
Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program. The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.
You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.
These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.
Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.
If you have read through the Admin Guide you may have noticed that we recommend installing PhonePad 5 Workstation on your server.
There’s a good reason for that.
If you ever experience a connection problem when launching PhonePad 5 on your workstation, having PhonePad 5 Workstation on your server can help determine what is causing the problem.
For information on what can cause connection problems, refer to this article: Connection or Speed Issues
If you are using Webroot SecureAnywhere (a great product) and you notice that PhonePad is a bit sluggish after installing it (or installing an update), then check your Webroot settings on your Server or Host PC, and your workstations.
You can do this by following these steps:
1. Click the arrow icon in the System Tray/Notification Area
2. Right-click on the Webroot icon.
3. Select Control Active Processes from the popup menu.
4. In this example you will see that PhonePadRun.exe and PhonePad5Server.exe are set to Monitor. This is not good as it will slow PhonePad down.
5. Change them both (and any other PhonePad related application) to Allow. You should find that PhonePad immediately speeds up.
If you use an IT Support company then you may find that you don’t have the Control Active Processes option. They could be controlling this for you centrally. In that case get in touch with them and ask them to check these settings.
If you are having either of these problems with your PhonePad then read on.
If PhonePad has trouble trying to connect to your server then there are some things you should check.
Run Control Center on your Server or Host PC and check the overview screen.
There should be a green status indicator next to PhonePad 5 Server. If it’s red then the service is installed but not running. If it’s gray then the service isn’t installed.
If the service is running, try stopping and starting it.
When PhonePad is installed, firewall rules are automatically set up for the Windows Firewall. Unfortunately many anti-virus products that have their own firewalls ignore these settings.
If your anti-virus software has its own firewall then you may need to configure it to allow PhonePad connections between your workstations and your Server or Host PC. It will need to be configured to allow TCP and UDP communication on ports 12600, 12601, 12602 and 12603.
Although unlikely you may have other software running on your Server or Host PC that is using the same port numbers. As only one application can listen on a port this will cause a problem. This should show up in the logs.
If PhonePad is running slow on your network then there are a couple of things you can check.
This is the number 1 cause of speed issues. Many anti-virus products have some form of real-time scanning or monitoring. What they’re doing is checking a program when it runs, when it 
accesses a file, etc.
For most software this isn’t a problem. For example, if you open a Word document the time it takes for the anti-virus software to scan it is very small, maybe even unnoticeable.
However, with a database-based system where the data files can be accessed multiple times per second, the delay can quickly build up to several seconds. And the more users accessing the system, the longer the delays become.
The recommended solution is to exclude the PhonePad 5 and PhonePad 5 Server folders, as well as the data folders, from real-time protection. If that’s not possible you may need to disable real-time protection altogether (that would be a last resort).
You don’t need to exclude the folders from your scheduled virus scan though, just the real-time protection. You can safely excluded the data folder as it doesn’t contain any executables or DLLs.
One important consideration: try to schedule virus scans outside of business hours.
The next most common cause of speed issues is automatically checking for messages too frequently. You will need to be logged in as a PhonePad Administrator to check this.
We recommend that you use the Dynamic Refresh option for message checking. Whenever a new message has has been received for the logged in user, the notification will be pushed to the workstation.
If for some reason Dynamic Refresh is not working for you (please tell us if this is the case), you can use the alternative method which frequently polls the server for new messages.
But don’t set the check time too low (ie. frequent) as this can slow things down. Setting it to 30 seconds is good, 15 seconds if you really have to, but lower than that is not good if you have more than a couple of users.
What if you have done all of this and you still have speed issues? It’s then time to contact us and let us know so we can investigate it.
If you downloaded and installed Server Update 5.22.2 you may have experienced a problem running PhonePad (it didn’t affect all customers).
There was a problem relating to the generation and storage of temporary files. This caught us off guard because the test machines didn’t detect this problem. As soon as we became aware of the issue we tracked it down and fixed it. The fix is in Server Update 5.22.3 which was released late last night.
If you have experienced this problem please install PhonePad 5 Server Update 5.22.3 on your Server or Host PC.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
