Q4 2020 (October - December), UK Release Summary

Overview

This article contains a list and summary of every release note published by Fourth during Q4 of 2020 (24th September to 30th December 2020). 

Release notes are listed under the following headers:

• Workforce Management
• Purchase-to-Pay & Inventory
• Purchasing & Inventory (Adaco)
• Fourth Engage/Mobile apps

Select the name of the release note to view it in full. They will open in a new browser tab.

 

Workforce Management

WFM Release Note - Labour Productivity: Override Absence Type Names

What's Changing?

New functionality to override the 'Absence Type' name within the Schedule page and the printable schedule.

Release date: Thursday 24th September 2020

Reason for the Change

To allow for less intrusive reasons to be displayed that show why employees are not able to be scheduled to work.

WFM Release Note: Automatic Tronc2 Submission

What’s Changing?

New functionality that will automatically submit Tronc2 funds to payroll upon submission of the corresponding rota or schedule.

Release date: 24th September 2020

Reason for the Change

Automatic submission of Tronc2 to payroll removes the need to switch modules, making it easier and saving time.

 

ATS Release Note - Optional Fields During E-sign Process

What’s Changing?

The e-sign provider, Signable, has made changes to the way candidates navigate from one contract field to another. A help text section has been added to the Signable contract email received by candidates.

Signable release date: 24th September 2020

Reason for the Change

Previously, only required (mandatory) contract fields were displayed when using the “next step” button during the e-sign process of contract envelope documentation. Since Signable’s release, optional contract fields are also displayed when using the “next step” button. This encourages candidates to fill in optional contract fields. It also means that filling in contract information takes slightly longer.

The help text section in contract emails will help candidates understand the new navigation functionality.

 

WFM Release Note: Labour Productivity - Prevent Publishing Shifts Until Schedule Approved

What’s Changing?

New functionality to prevent users from publishing schedules until they have been approved.

Release date: 7th October 2020

Reason for the Change

To prevent schedules from being published in error – they must be signed off and approved before employees receive their shifts.

 

WFM Release Note - Exporting Tronc2 Reports

What’s Changing?

A new option to export both the Employee Tronc and Location Tronc reports as CSV files from the Tronc2 module.

Release date: 8th October 2020

Reason for the Change

The current ‘Export to Excel’ option for the two reports downloads the data in the same onscreen format, which does not give customers an efficient view of the data. The new ‘Export to CSV’ option will allow customers to filter and pivot the data according to their requirements.

 

WFM Release Note - Carry Over Holiday

What’s Changing?

Adding the ability to add carry over holiday amounts to employees’ holiday allowance.

Release date: 8th October 2020

Reason for the Change

This change is being made in line with HMRC guidance.

 

WFM Release Note - Labour Productivity: UI Change to Homepage

What’s Changing?

When navigating to the homepage in Labour Productivity, the page will load immediately and the pie chart will load thereafter.

Release date: Wednesday 28th October 2020

Reason for the Change

To improve the user experience and overall performance of Labour Productivity.

 

WFM Release Note - Removal of Furlough End Date Validation

What’s Changing?

Removal of the validation which restricts the end date of a furlough period up to 31st October 2020.

Release date: 12th November 2020

Reason for Change

Following the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), it has been necessary to remove the validation so that users can extend furlough periods to a date after 31st October 2020.

 

WFM Release Note - Batch Furlough Status Upload Enhancements

What’s Changing?

Enhancements to the Furlough Batch Update upload functionality.

• • Amendment to ‘Complete Initial Furlough Periods’ upload to allow users to end the most recent active furlough period

  • Amendment to ‘Complete Initial Furlough Periods’ upload to allow removal of furlough period end dates that are set to 31st October 2020

  • Renaming of ‘Complete Initial Furlough Periods’ upload to ‘End Active Furlough Period’

  • A new upload template to create a new furlough period for employees whose initial period has ended

Release date: 12th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Following the recent extension to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), enhancements are being made to the batch upload functionality for furloughed employees, that allow users to amend existing furlough periods or create new ones.

 

WFM Release Note - Update to the Furlough Claim Export

What’s Changing?

The ‘Existing Furlough Payments’ (August to October 2020 Onwards) export has been amended to accommodate the extension to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) beyond October 31st 2020.

• • The export name has been amended to be called Furlough Payments (August 2020 Onwards)

  • The export can now be run for dates beyond October 31st 2020

Release date: 12th November 2020

Reason for the Change

On 5th November 2020, the UK Government announced that the CJRS will be extended across the UK until the end of March. The original export was developed to calculate the CJRS claim up to the end of October 31st 2020.

 

WFM Release Note - Labour Productivity: Shift Pay Factor Icon

What’s Changing?

Introduction of a new icon in the Shift box when shifts are created using a pay type which is more than a single rate of pay. 

Release date: Thursday 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Improved visibility of employees’ rates of pay will help managers keep better track of their wage spend.

 

WFM Release Note - Labour Productivity: Opening and Closing Times

What’s Changing?

The ability to set Opening & Closing times in Labour Productivity.

Release date: Thursday 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

The new functionality will allow the forecasted sales to be distributed within the timeslots that the business is set to be open. This will result in labour demand only being populated during this time and prevent labour requirement when the business is closed.

 

WFM Release Note - Payroll Furlough Status Export

What’s Changing?

A new export is being added to the Payroll module for reporting on all employees’ furlough status information.

Release date: 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

With the number of changes and extensions to the Coronavirus Job Retention Period that have been introduced by the UK Government, this new export will help customers to keep a record of all employees’ furlough status details and manage their furlough payments.

 

WFM Release Note - Payroll Furlough Status Export

What’s Changing?

A new export is being added to the Payroll module for reporting on all employees’ furlough status information.

Release date: 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

With the number of changes and extensions to the Coronavirus Job Retention Period that have been introduced by the UK Government, this new export will help customers to keep a record of all employees’ furlough status details and manage their furlough payments.

 

Purchase-to-Pay & Inventory

Release Note - Recipe & Menu Engineering: September 2020

What’s Changing?

• • API Import Review, Manual Approval: Intolerance Values

  • Alternate Ingredient: Mandatory Fields

  • API changes:

    • GET /ingredients: Return property ‘CostPrice’ when 0 or null

    • GET /recipe/{guid}/nutrition: Nutrient ‘salt’ property added to response

    • GET /recipeidentifiers: New endpoint

    • GET /menus: Menu CourseID property added to response

    • POST /ingredients: ‘Parent Ingredient Product Name’ property added

Release date: 29th and 30th September 2020

Reason for the Change

General system enhancements.

 

Menu Cycles Release Note - Publish Multiple Times with Different or Same Dates

What’s Changing?

Ability to publish menu cycles multiple times on different or same dates.

Release date: 5th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Publishing the same central menu cycle more than once to different locations (one or more) with different release, start and end dates and different start weeks will help to save time for users.

 

WFM Release Note - Detailed Shift List inc. Holiday Hours Export

What’s Changing?

A new export has been added to the Rota module that will report on the total number of hours (including holiday and absence hours) that employees have worked over a period of time.

Release date: 12th November 2020

Reasons for Change

As a result of the introduction of both the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Job Support Scheme (JSS) there is a requirement to report on employee hours worked, including holiday and absence hours, in order to calculate employee’s pay.

 

Release Note - Recipe & Menu Engineering: November 2020

What’s Changing?

• • Menu course GUID added

  • New DELETE API: Allow deletion of alternate ingredients

  • Full Ingredient List (FIR) fields and report to support Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019

  • FIR Ingredient Intolerance Update Template to support 'may' values

  • Performance improvement for recipe recalculation

Release date: 17th and 18th November 2020

Reason for the Change

General system enhancements.

 

Inventory Release Note: Update Sales Import Status

What’s Changing?

New functionality that allows the updating of sales processing statuses for selected site(s), resulting in sales being redistributed on the next stock period close.

Release date: 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Currently, customers need to raise a case with Fourth for a sales processing status to be updated. Such requests are required where sales have already been processed and distributed but changes have been made to recipes or an assignment to site. Introducing an interface for customer administrators to control this directly within Inventory puts the customer in control, removes the requirement to raise a case, and reduces lead time.

 

Inventory Release Note: Document Reconciliation as Default Page

What’s Changing?

The Document Reconciliation page will become the default page when navigating to the Documents tab.

Release date: Thursday 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Document Reconciliation is the most heavily used documents page, therefore is being made the default. Users can now start reconciling documents without an additional click/step.

 

Inventory Release Note: Prevent GRN Creation for Orders from Ordering app

What’s Changing?

Configuration has been introduced that prevents purchase orders created in the Ordering app from generating goods received notes in Inventory.

Release date: 9th December 2020

Reason for the Change

The setting allows customers using a Recipe & Menu Engineering and Inventory setup, but whose sites are not yet using core Inventory functionality, e.g. stock management, to supress the creation of transactions that prevent downstream activities, e.g. ingredient archiving, from occurring without significant manual intervention.

 

Purchasing & Inventory (Adaco)

General Release Notes - Purchasing & Inventory 4_6_108

What’s Changing?

Fourth’s Purchasing & Inventory (Adaco) release 4.6.108 includes new functionality. Specifically:

• • Vendor Interface to convert Purchase Orders to Outlet Requisitions after transmission

  • Purchase Requisition Approvals in the Fourth app (mobile)            

Release date: 20th (EMEA) / 22nd October (USA) 2020

Reason for the Change

Vendor Interface to Convert Purchase Orders to Outlet Requisitions after Transmission

As some customers use internal suppliers, they would set up one of their Properties as the internal supplier, and each Outlet as one of their Properties, managing the Orders as Outlet Requisitions. The new vendor interface will create an Outlet Requisition in a specific Property from a Purchase Order on transmission.

Purchase Requisition Approvals in the Fourth app

Enables users to open the Adaco web approval page without having to log in additionally with Adaco credentials.

 

Fourth Engage/Mobile apps

Release Note: Engage 2.50

What’s Changing?

• • Video content in Engage Announcements

  • New Admin area within Engage to create and manage Announcements

  • General bug fixes

Release date: 8th October 2020

Reason for the Change

As more of our customers are using the Announcements feature to communicate with their employees, we are adding video to the types of content that can be included within the body of an Announcement.

The new Admin area in Engage makes for a smoother, more simplified user experience.

 

P2P&I Release Note - Counting app 2.12.0

What’s Changing?

Fourth’s Counting Application 2.12.0 includes new functionality.  Specifically:

• • Count Audit Report – giving the ability to track counts by specific Location areas and employees

Release date: 25th November 2020

Reason for the Change

This report can be used to audit stock counts and help to target and resolve misbalances.

 

P2P&I Release Note - Receiving app 1.15.0

What’s Changing?

Fourth’s Receiving Application 1.15.0 includes new functionality.  Specifically:

• • Allowing negative quantities

  • Consistency changes

Release date: 26th November 2020

Reason for the Change

Allowing negative quantities

This is to bring the Receiving app in line with backend systems (Inventory, Purchasing & Inventory (Adaco)) that already support negative quantities for goods received notes (GRNs)/Invoices as return lines.

Consistency changes

To align the Receiving app’s design with other Fourth mobile applications, making it more user-friendly and consistent with Fourth’s design standards.

 

Release Note: Health Survey 1.2

What’s Changing?

• • An additional 4th question for EMEA users

  • Reduction of self-isolation period from 14 days to 10 days

Release date: 17th December 2020

Reason for the Change

To keep in line with current UK Government and NHS guidance.