PhonePad Version 5.17.4 Has Been Released.

Admin April 4, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.17.4 Server Update, which is available for immediate download. This is a maintenance release.

Changes and Fixes

ADDED – PhonePad 5 Server will now install and activate support plan renewals.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.

PhonePad Version 5.17.3 Has Been Released.

Admin March 27, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.17.3 Server Update, which is available for immediate download. This is a maintenance release.

Changes and Fixes

FIXED – Inbox date sorting wasn’t working correctly.
FIXED – Date of Birth wasn’t being saved with new phone messages for new callers.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.

Support Plans Updated.

Admin March 10, 2017

The first round of support plans will be up for renewal soon so we thought this would be a good time to let you know that we have revised and updated the PhonePad 5 support plans. Currently there are two options: the Basic Plan and the Standard Plan.

The Basic Plan is free and includes the following support options:

Support by email – response within 48 hours in most cases.
Remote Support – chargeable per incident.

The Standard Plan is based on the license you have and is annually renewable. You get a 12 month plan included with your purchase of PhonePad 5. At the end of 12 months you can either renew your plan or let it expire. If it expires you will revert to the Basic Plan.

The Standard Plan includes the following options:

Support by email – response within 24 hours in most cases.
Remote Support – generally at no cost.
Telephone callback support – leave a message and we will call you back.
Minor updates.
And the great news is major updates are also now included.

What is a Support Plan?

A support plan provides you with help with your software when you need it. Whether it’s help with installation or resolving a problem that has occurred, we are here to assist you.

Why is a Standard Plan Better Than a Basic Plan?

One of the main benefits is that you get updates throughout your support plan period. These updates can include fixes and new features. In the last 12 months we have released 35 updates. Without a current support plan you wouldn’t have received any of these.

And now that we’re also including major updates in the Standard Plan, if we release a major new version (eg. PhonePad 6) you will receive it for free!

On top of that you also get remote support where needed, and telephone callback support.

What if I Renew My Support Plan Before the Due Date?

When you renew your Standard Support Plan, our system will automatically add the remaining time onto your new plan. For example, if your plan expires at the end of July and you renew it at the end of June, our system will add 31 days to your new support plan. In other words you don’t lose anything by renewing early.

What Happens If I Don’t Renew My Support Plan?

You will revert to the Basic Plan where you will only receive support by email.

If you call us and leave a message to call you back we won’t return your call. If we can find your email address in our database we will email you instead.

You will still be able to access updates that were released before the expiry date of your plan. Any new releases released after that date will appear in the list of downloads under your MyPhonePad account, but you won’t be able to download them.

If I Don’t Renew My Standard Plan When It Expires, Can I Renew It Later On?

Yes, if it’s within 12 months.

If you have any questions please contact sales@cybercom-software.com.

We Will Be Taking a Short Break Soon.

Admin March 10, 2017

Heads up.

We are taking a short break from April 6 to April 20, 2017. We tend to do this once every 2 or 3 years, as we normally work over most holiday periods. The last time was in 2014.

Support will be limited during this time. There won’t be any phone, remote or chat support available, but there will still be email support. Response time will be within 48 to 72 hours, rather than our standard 24 hours but we will answer quicker if possible.

After April 20 it will be back to normal for the next couple of years.

Another announcement will be posted on this blog closer to the time.

PhonePad Version 5.17.2 Has Been Released.

Admin March 6, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.17.2 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes and Fixes

ADDED – An email field has been added to the phone message form to allow the caller’s email address to be displayed and/or edited. This field is optional and can be enabled or disabled via the Label Editor.
MOVED – The checkbox that controls whether or not the Date or Birth field appears on the phone message form has been moved from System Rules to the Label Editor.
IMPROVED – The tabs in the Label Editor have been replaced with a scrollable area, making it easier to access the Label fields for editing.
IMPROVED – A number of new shortcuts have been added and existing shortcuts changed.
FIXED – Added missing fields to reports.
FIXED – Direct printing issues.
FIXED – The Add Folder option was disabled for Personal and Public folders when the top folder node was selected.
FIXED – “Index Out of Bounds” error would sometimes occur when saving an Outgoing message.
FIXED – Date of Birth field on the phone message form not saving selected date.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.

PhonePad Version 5.17.0 Has Been Released.

Admin February 23, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.17.0 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes and Fixes

ADDED – Date of Birth can now be displayed on the phone message form.
IMPROVED – When you “blank out” certain labels in the Label Editor, the accompanying fields will not appear on phone message forms.
ADDED – A custom text field has been added to the Label Editor, allowing you to enter any text you like.
ADDED – Support Plans can be renewed and activated within PhonePad.
FIXED – Added missing fields to reports.
FIXED – Direct printing issues.
FIXED – The Add Folder option was disabled for Personal and Public folders when the top folder node was selected.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.

ServiceMonitor 5.1.0 is Now Available

Admin January 23, 2017

We have just released ServiceMonitor Version 5.1.0.

What is ServiceMonitor?

It is a service that you can install on your Server or Host PC that monitors the PhonePad 5 Server service and the MessageSender 6 service. If either of these services stop for some reason, ServiceMonitor will automatically restart them.

Why Would I Need It?

You probably don’t need it. But we have encountered situations where something external to the PhonePad 5 system stops the services overnight and they have to be manually restarted.

At this stage we don’t know what is stopping the services. It could be backup software or some other system process that is running that is causing some sort of conflict. The server logs haven’t revealed anything.

If you find your PhonePad 5 Server (or MessageSender 6) stops running overnight and you have to restart it each morning, install ServiceMonitor and it will keep your PhonePad 5 up and running.

How Do I Use It?

ServiceMonitor runs in the background as a Windows service.

Once you install ServiceMonitor on your Server or Host PC, the ServiceMonitor Control application will automatically start.

You may notice that it looks similar to the ControlCenter application. It is and it works in pretty much the same way. First you install the ServiceMonitor service, and then you start it.

Once you have done this, you can turn on service monitoring by clicking the Automatically restart services check box. You can disable the monitoring at any time by unchecking the check box.

That’s it.

Downloading

You can download it from here or from your My PhonePad Account.

This update is available for both fully licensed users and trial users.

Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.

PhonePad Version 5.16.1 Has Been Released.

Admin January 23, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.16.1 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes and Fixes

ADDED – A Help toolbar has been added to provide toolbar access to Help menu features.
ADDED – The new What’s New window shows all of the changes that have been included in a newly installed version. This window will be displayed the first time a user logs into PhonePad after an update. It can also be selected from the Help menu.
ADDED – A new system rule has been added that enables system administrators to prevent any messages from being deleted. Optionally, you can also stop Follow Up Notes from being deleted as well.
ADDED – A new system rule has been added that, when enabled, will mark a message as read whenever a user previews a message.
CHANGED – Dragging and dropping messages between folders now requires you to hold down the <alt> key after selecting the messages. This was required to fix an issue with selecting messages.
UPDATED – Toolbar configuration option includes the new Help toolbar.
FIXED – If you had a message selected in the Inbox, scrolled the Inbox, then selected a different message, the Inbox would jump to a different selection. This also fixes the problem with the selection jumping when sorting columns.
FIXED – The Dynamic Refresh option wasn’t working correctly for some users.
FIXED – Message counts were not updating in some cases.
FIXED – Information was not displaying correctly on the Caller Information and Message Preview panes.
FIXED – Error when adding users.
FIXED – Usernames with underscores were being replaced with #.
FIXED – When opening text messages, the caller information would disappear from the message list.
FIXED – When sending text messages to a user with a space in their name, it was generating a database error.
FIXED – When the Message Editing system rule is not active, phone messages weren’t displaying Caller information.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.

PhonePad 5 Freezing After Login – Microsoft Windows Socket Error #10060.

Admin January 9, 2017

If you have a version of PhonePad 5 earlier than 5.15.0 and are experiencing “freezing” issues after logging in, then you are probably getting Microsoft Windows Socket Error #10060. You can verify this by checking the PhonePad log files for the affected workstations. You can find them under this folder: C:\ProgramData\Cybercom Software\PhonePad5\Logs.

What is actually happening is that PhonePad 5 is trying to connect to the Notification and Communications servers but is getting an error back from the Windows Socket Layer. So it tries again, and keeps trying, to establish a connection. It ends up in an infinite loop if the errors keep occurring.

The immediate solution is to update to Version 5.15.0 using the PhonePad 5.15.0 Server Update. Although you will still get an error message about Microsoft Windows Socket Error #10060, PhonePad will no longer “freeze” as the number of retries has been limited. In addition to that, the connections are now done in background threads rather than the application’s main thread. As a result of this you should notice that PhonePad logs in much faster.

Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do within PhonePad to stop this error from occurring as it’s actually happening outside of PhonePad in the Microsoft Windows Socket layer. PhonePad is asking for the connections. Once a connection has been requested there’s nothing PhonePad can do about it except ask again – it’s up to Windows to provide the connection.

Initial investigations show that it is generally caused by some type of network configuration issue. We are working on finding out solutions for this. Although it’s not caused by anything we are doing we would like to find out how to resolve this error. If all goes well the solution will either be in the form of instructions, or if at all possible we will try to do it programmatically.

So what’s the downside of this error:

PhonePad workstations with the error won’t be able to receive broadcasts from system administrators.
Dynamic Refresh will be disabled and PhonePad will automatically revert to the polling method of new message checking.

The bottom line is you will be able to continue using PhonePad 5 as normal so it’s only a slight inconvenience.

PhonePad Version 5.15.0 Has Been Released.

Admin January 9, 2017

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.15.0 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes and Fixes

NEW- A new system snapshot feature has been added. Whenever you install a server update PhonePad will now take a “snapshot” of your database and application files. If something goes wrong during an update you can quickly revert PhonePad back to the way it was before the update, with just a couple of mouse clicks (using the new RestoreSnapshot program).
ADDED – A new system rule can be invoked to prevent users from changing their own passwords. Admins can still change these passwords.
ADDED – A new system rule allows extended error messages to be displayed when a user attempts to login and fails. When enabled, the message will tell them what the problem was, ie. an invalid username or an incorrect password. For security reasons this can be turned off via the new system rule.
IMPROVED – When exporting the Address Book, you can now select which columns you want included.
IMPROVED – You can now select which columns to include when you print the Address Book.
IMPROVED – There have been occasions where users have deleted their PhonePad 5 Databases in an attempt to reinstall the software but have forgotten to re-create it. When started, PhonePad will do a check to make sure that the database exists and display an error message if it doesn’t.
IMPROVED – System Information now includes message statistics and computer information.
IMPROVED – DatabaseRestore and DatabaseRepair have been changed to connect directly to the database, bypassing the server. They will also attempt to stop the server service and restart it again once they have finished processing.
FIXED – Some users lost messages or user accounts during December. Fortunately they were able to recover their data from the automatic backups. The culprit was a process scheduled to run in December that automatically optimizes the PhonePad database. Somehow the data was being lost during the optimization, probably . The process has been removed to prevent this from happening again.
FIXED – When the Inbox was refreshed, it wasn’t displaying the sender in the Caller column for text messages.
FIXED – Dynamic Refreshing (BETA) would sometimes stop working due to the way it works out which workstation to push notifications to.
FIXED – For some users PhonePad would appear to freeze after logging in. What in fact was happening was that PhonePad was unable to connect to the Notification and Communications servers due to Windows socket issues. The logs showed that the connections were stuck in a loop as PhonePad continually tried to reconnect to the servers. The connection code has been modified to run in a background thread so that PhonePad can continue to start up. Any Winsock errors received from Windows will be displayed but users will be able to continue using PhonePad.
Various minor fixes and improvements.

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.