May 12, 1998
What's New in Mile Manager Deluxe v. 3.0

This is the first exclusively 32-bit version of Mile Manager, and 
is the recommended solution for users of Windows 95/98 and NT.  

Version 3.0 incorporates numerous maintenance fixes and a number of new features.
Two of the most significant new features are these:

1. New Automation support for Excel '97 and later.

Now, you can send many kinds of output directly from Mile Manager grid-style
displays to your worksheets in Microsoft Excel, using automation services.  

If Excel is already running when you click to send your data to Excel, 
you'll see a dialog showing you any open workbooks, and the worksheets 
in each.  Just click on a workbook and sheet, to send data to that sheet.  

(Options activated when you send data to an existing sheet include 
whether to check for empty cells and notify you of data overwrites 
ahead of time, and where within the target sheet to write your data.)

If Excel is not running when you click to export, it will be launched
through automation, and you will, by default, send your data to a 
newly created workbook and worksheet.

Anytime you send data to an Excel sheet, you can define formatting
(font size, bolding and italics, or new sheet tab names) and 
highlighting, from Mile Manager (appropriate defaults are provided.)  

Where appropriate, you also have the option to include column totals 
automatically (although, within Excel itself, it is so easy to insert
a summary field interactively, that you may just want to do this 
yourself anyway.)

Finally, in most instances when you send data from a Mile Manager 
display to your Excel sheet, you will have an option (typically on 
a pop-up menu) to send data exactly as it appears at that moment in 
Mile Manager, or to send a more detailed set of rows and columns,
with more fields of interest.  (Your trip records, for example,
can be sent to a worksheet in low, medium and high detail.)

This Excel functionality is designed to supplement the extremely
powerful report-writing capabilities that are already built into
Mile Manager (and which have been tuned in version 3 as well.) 
In most instances, there already are one or more report formats 
pre-defined which will give you a thorough, customizable, and 
attractive layout with which to view and print your data.

You now have the added option of working in Excel, however, to 
exploit the Office connectivity that many users enjoy with Excel.


2. New Client-Location Import/Export Support

IMPORT SUPPORT
There is now an intelligent parser that you can use to import client
and contact information from other PIM-related applications, into 
your Mile Manager databases.

This parser scans your import file (i.e. a comma-separated text 
file, which most PIM and database programs easily create) and 
helps decipher the records it finds.  

In the usual scenario, it presents you with a set of sample 
records from this import file, and lets you map fields to your 
Mile Manager Client and Location record fields.  Then, you can 
preview your mapping in actual Mile Manager records, before 
approving the import.

Finally, when the mapping meets with your approval, you have the
opportunity to select batch, or one-by-one import.  In batch import,
each record will be added "silently", unless errors or duplicates are 
found, in which case the import routine will pause and present you with 
the record for inspection, to edit, save, or skip.

In one-by-one mode, each record will be presented for inspection or 
editing, before being written to the database.

During all imports, you can activate a filter to scan the candidate 
records against your existing Mile Manager database, looking for 
duplicates, based on your own custom combination of fields.  

(Use of this filter is recommended to help guarantee an efficient and 
non-redundant Client/Location database.  A non-redundant database is 
important to one of Mile Manager's most useful features: the automatic
keeping of appointment and trip visitation histories, for your clients 
and locations.)

EXPORT SUPPORT
You can export from your Clients and Locations database, in several ways.
You may simply send all records, or, in the Clients and Locations
cabinet, you can create a list by any of the search methods provided (e.g.
last name, location name, or date of last visit), and then export these 
flagged clients or locations to your output file, directly from this list.


Other Features in v 3.0

General maintenance rewrites occurred throughout the application,
including a modernization of the data access object model, and an 
associated new set of drivers to underly this functionality. The 
resulting application is more stable and is more amenable to future 
enhancements. 

Small functional enhancements like multiple entry for fuel receipts
(something specifically requested by customers) are sprinkled throughout,
along with more reliable compacting utilities for the database and report
alignment changes, to enhance the overall usability of Mile Manager.