Liberty4 3.0a Release Notes

(release highlights are in red)
 
3375 Consigned items can now be set to have a "Quantity" of greater than 1!!! This means that you can now set consigned items (items that will sell with a split between the store and the consignor) to have multiple items!!! This is VERY handy for eBay drop-off stores, since many consignors will drop-off "3 X-Boxes" or "4 cell phones," etc. This is something that has never been possible!!!

This is handy for consignment shops too! Sometimes you do indeed have more than one "pair of socks" or the like and you don't want to set these as "Purchased" items.

Quantities are tracked via "Dispositions," so you can see each item that has sold. This is one of the primary reasons we added "Dispositions" when L4C was first released.
3756 The "sort order" in Auction Items (previously named Web Items) and Storefront Items is now "sticky." If you sort by "Start Time" or "Number," this sorting will be the same when you come back to Auction Items or Storefront Items. This provides for quicker location of items and provides the user with more control over how they want to see items displayed.
4439 Resolved issue with being able to select both "Buy It Now" and "Buy It Now Only (Fixed Price)." If both of these options are selected on an item and you try to synch it with eBay, errors will ensue. Only one of these options can be selected for an item. If you have one selected and try to select the other, you will now be prompted and will not be able to select the other without first un-checking the BIN option currently selected.
4507 The backup routine has been updated! There is now a new stand-alone backup routine that will backup data, images, Auction Templates, Event Manager Templates and Word Processor Letters. You can tell the backup to include all of these or just certain ones. For example, you may just want to backup your data and not images. All backups will be stored in a single file ending with .RBK (Resaleworld Backup). The compression on this backup is quite high as well. So, even though you might be backing up a 500 MB database, 200 MB worth of images, etc., this utility will compress all of this down to quite a small file size.  For example, a 130 MB database + 250 MB worth of images compressed down to about 35 MB.

This utility also allows you to restore your backups! You don't even have to launch this utility first! Simply locate your backup file and double-click on it - it will launch the utility for you. The "Restore" tab will show you what was inside of that backup file. You can leave all of these "checked" or if you need to restore only certain things, un-check what you don't want to restore.

Each backup/restore also writes its own log file. The log will be located in C:\RWD\Log and will be date/time stamped accordingly. For example, a file named BK20070406.092700.log is a backup log (BK) created on 4/6/2007 at 9:27:00 AM.

This utility can also automate backups for you! It will use the Backup Path set in Liberty under Tools > Options > Backup. So, if you had F:\Backups set as your path in Liberty, this is what the utility will use by default. This can be changed in the utility though if you'd like. The utility can backup for you each day, at a specific time, or only on certain days. When the utility makes this
backup for you, the backup file will be date/time stamped.  One last note...this utility is "backward compatible" with existing Liberty backup files - files ending in .ZIP. Also, even though the new backups end in .RBK, if for some reason you do not have access to this utility and you need to get to your data, you (or your technician) can simply change the file's extension from .RBK to .ZIP. You can then unzip this file with any .ZIP utility - Windows XP, WinZIP, WinRAR, etc.

Liberty itself will also be utilizing this .EXE now. You will see the backup program in your "Task Bar" while the backup is occurring. It will still be sent to the same location you set under Tools > Options and it will still be named "RWDDATA." There is one difference though, the file will now end with .RBK instead of .ZIP.
4830 eBay's new "3 level" Store Categories are fully supported! You will no longer see Store Categories under Tools > eCommerce Options. eBay Store Categories are now handled via Liberty's internal Categories. To create new Categories, head to Tools > Category Editor. You will need to create all three levels (or use any of the existing Categories). eBay allows up to 300 Store Categories to be created.

You will first create a "Level 1" Category (the "parent" Category) by clicking the "New Category" button. Once your Level 1 Category is created, select it and then click "New Category" again. This will create your Level 2 Category. Once your Level 2 Category is created, select it and click "New Category" one last time. An example would be:

-> Men's Apparel
--> Pants/Shorts
---> Jeans

"Men's Apparel" is the Level 1 Category, "Pants/Shorts" is the Level 2 and finally, "Jeans" is the Level 3.

During Item Entry, you can select the Store Category by simply typing it in the Category field or by pressing "F2" on your keyboard to see the list of Categories available. Once you reach the "Auction Info." tab, if you would like this item to appear in your eBay Store, simply select the "Send Store Category" option. "Buy It Now (Fixed Price)" also needs to be selected for this to be a Store item.
4954 You can now "Receive Inventory" in a Retail Vendor account for items that are "Active" on eBay. Previous versions were generating "Access Violations" when new inventory was received.
5004 Customers reported seeing "Error: Grid index out of range" messages when in Activities > Inventory > Edit Prices. Once they reached the last item to be edited, this message would appear. This has been resolved.
5005 When under Activities > Inventory > Edit Prices, once you reached the last item, despite the "error" mentioned in issue #5004, the last item would just not "leave" this screen, even after satisfying the price, clicking "Refresh," etc. This has been resolved.
5011 The Wish List has been adjusted to match on Attributes now!!! The Wish List will now only pop-up matches (during Item Entry) if 60% (or greater) of the selected attributes match. Previously, the Wish List was matching based upon Category alone. This resulted in a pop-up for virtually every item entered into inventory. Matching on 60% or greater alleviates the unnecessary pop-ups but still provides the store with a chance to contact the person who initially requested this item to see if it is enough of a match. A sale is a sale is a sale!!!

Also, when the pop-up actually appears on the screen, you will see exactly how much this item matches the one requested - i.e., "75% match," "90% match," 100% match," etc.
5018 Resolved issue with orders "re-downloading" if two "Paid" orders are merged together in Order Manager.
5065 Adjusted field in Order Manager orders to accommodate the newer USPS 30-character tracking #s.
5071 Resolved issue with Quick Copying items and copying the "Listed" amount. If a sold item had been listed twice and you decided to copy it for a new listing, the "Listed" count would show as "2" as well, even though it had never been listed.
5079 All new Client accounts added to Liberty were not defaulting to "Layaways Allowed" in the last release. If you were in POS and added a new account/customer and then tried to do a Layaway for them, the Layaway button would be "flat"/disabled. The only way to allow them to do a Layaway would be to go to Liberty Inventory, change that setting in their account and then start the sale again. This has now been completely resolved!
5081 Resolved issue with "List Index out of Bounds" errors when adding new Zip Codes during the "Add Account" process.
5083 Store Credit payments are no longer available in Order Manager, since they are not bound to any specific account.
5085 You can now copy Outright Purchases! When you utilize "Quick Copy" or "Copy Items," you will be prompted to enter a "Quantity" as well as a "Cost." The new item will be copied and a transaction will be created on the Transactions tab for this payable amount.
5086 Resolved issue with large "gaps"/blank space on the Account Productivity report. A patch for this was released shortly after the 2.6b release, but is officially included in this 3.0 release.
5087 Resolved issue with "Access Violations" when trying to do "End Listing Now" for an item that eBay has canceled/removed from their site. The item is no longer there, so there is no data to "get" from eBay. Liberty now shows the item was "not found" and will move the item back to the "Not Ready" tab with no Auction ID and no "Relist?" status, so the item can be listed again or removed from Auction Items all together.
5088 Client accounts that have been "De-activated" in Liberty Inventory, will no longer appear in the "Select Customer" window in POS.
5101 Resolved issue with Price Codes and amounts with an "8" in the hundredths place. If you had a Commission Split, Markdown, etc. set to something such as $0.01 - $99.98, $99.99 - $499.98, etc., this was not truly "saving" to the database and each time you came back to the Price Code, "Save" was triggered.
5125 It is no longer possible to create multiple "RWD" logins within Liberty. Previously, one could create as many "RWD" user logins via Tools > Security > User Maintenance. This would then lead to myriad issues within the application, particularly when trying to login.
5129 Resolved issue with "File > Log On" not loading Application Security Levels. If a user with a Security Level of "1" was logged in and then clicked File > Log Off, then a user with a higher Security Level logged in via File > Log On, they would still be bound to the level of "1" and thus, could not access areas of the program they should have access to. Closing the program completely and re-opening the program loaded Security Levels as normal.
5133 Resolved "invalid class typeclass" errors when attempting to send emails via the Word Processor. This only happened when the email was "filtered" by one of the following:

- Created
- Last Fee
- Last Item
- Last Purchase
5137 Resolved issue with Pay Delays and Refunding items. Here is an example of what was happening:

Pay Delay is set to 10 days. If you sell an item on 12/1, then refund it on 12/8 and then cut checks on 12/15, it is including the money for that Sold Item. It is not taking the Refund transaction into account. So, when you cut a check, it would pay them for this Sold Item even though it had been refunded. Once you get past that 10 day delay, it does in fact take that refund into an account.
5151 Added up to two "retry" attempts during the synchronization process. This will take place specifically if the images "fail" to upload. This is not something that you would experience on the Resaleworld servers, this was happening with 3rd party hosting companies. If their connection was "reset" or if there were any other problems, the item would not upload. If this happened on a Friday night, you wouldn't know about it until the next day. Now, Liberty will try a few times, at a regular interval, to see if it can get through. If after two retries, no connection is made, then the item will have errors and will not go to eBay.
5186 Resolved some outstanding issues with the DAZzle/Endicia integration. In Order Manager, the right-click " Print Endicia Label" option has been available since 2.6b. The application would tend to "hang" while waiting on a response from DAZzle. This has been resolved 100%. Once the label has been printed, Order Manager will show "Label Printed." Once you click "Ok," the Paid order will move to "Shipped" with the tracking number Endicia assigned to the order.
5188 Modified the Auction Status report to handle more than 12 characters. It was only displaying up to 10 characters. Since eBay increased these, you couldn't read the entire Auction ID.
5189 Resolved issue with the Donation Repot not displaying the correct Zip Code. The report was reflecting the Store's Zip Code instead of the consignor's.
5192 Resolved issues with regarding the RWX Helper Service not "letting go" of the database. If an error came up right at the end of the synchronization process (very rarely), and the process didn't close "gracefully," the connection would remain. Then, if new changes were manually added to the database (Serial Numbers, etc.), this data would not "take"/write to the database.
5205 Resolved "Divide By Zero" errors on the Retail Sales Summary report.
5211 In a Retail Vendor account, any amount entered into the MSRP field was not being saved. This is now working.
5231 Tools > Price Codes - fixed a spelling mistake for "ConsiGment Split." It now reads as it should - "Consignment Split."
5256 The Item Description - Long Format report now includes the "Quantity."
5259 You can now "View Auction" from within the Inventory tab, instead of having to go all the way to Web Items (now known as Auction Items).
5262 Tools > eCommerce Options has undergone a facelift! This isn't just cosmetic though.  There are a few new tabs, notably, ShopRW.com Settings. ShopRW.com is the new online storefront that will allow Liberty users to "push" data up to the Web!!! For more details on this, see Issue #5299 as well as http://resaleworld.com/recommerce.

Under General Settings > General, the layout for images and such as been cleaned-up a bit. All eBay-specific sections - HTML Templates, Duration, etc. - have been moved to the eBay Settings > General tab. The Headers & Footers for Emails have been moved to their own tab - General Settings > Email Headers & Footers. There is also a new "Automatically Synchronize" feature!!! To read more on this, see Issue #5298.

Under eBay Settings > General, you will now see the Payment Types available for eBay.

The eBay Settings > Accounts tab has changed quite a bit too! Now, you can simply "Enable" (or disable) eBay or eBay Motors, respectively. You no longer have to "associate" a Marketplace with a Broker. You can also "Validate" your Resaleworld Registration Information (formerly known as your "Broker" information). This ensures that what you have typed there is correct. Lastly, eBay Auction Accounts can be authorized from this screen - instead of having to close out of Liberty, browse to My Computer, etc. So, if you change your password on eBay, you can just update this information right inside of Liberty!  Also, accounts that have not been authorized successfully, will not appear within the Liberty application and thus, you cannot accidentally set items to upload to an account that will not yet work.
5298 Liberty now has a built-in automated synch feature! Under Tools > eCommerce Options > General Settings > General, you will find a section off to the right entitled "Automatically Synchronize." This feature allows you to select from the following options:

- Never
- 2-3 Times an Hour
- Once an Hour
- 4 Times a day

Leaving this set to "Never" means you would have to manually synchronize in Auction Items, Storefront Items or Order Manager, respectively. Setting this to "2-3 Times an Hour" will result in Liberty synching about every 20-30 minutes.  "Once an Hour" means just that. "4 Times a day" will synch Liberty with the Web up to 4 times per day.

Keep in mind that each synch is dependent upon when the last synch ended. So, if this is set to "2-3 Times an Hour," that means within the duration of an hour, not necessarily between "2 PM and 3 PM." This will help keep Liberty in-synch with the new ShopRW.com storefront as well as eBay. If you need Liberty to synch at more specific intervals, you would then want to use the Windows Scheduled Task routine. For instructions on how to configure this, follow this link =>
http://www.resaleworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031.
5299 Resaleworld is proud to announce the new ShopRW.com online storefront! This allows Liberty customers to upload all (or specific) items to their own Web site! The site will remain hosted on our servers and will be a "subdomain" of ShopRW.com. For example, http://mystore.shoprw.com. ShopRW.com is ambiguous enough that it will not appear to be a company other than your own.

This new venture has been deemed "reCommerce" - a blend between "resale" and "eCommerce." Within an instant, store that have never had a Web presence will not only have a fully functional, customizable Web site, they will also be able to sell inventory from within Liberty online! You can take your store to the global marketplace - the Web - with only a few clicks!

Stores that found eBay to be "too much" will really take to this. With eBay, it is a completely separate world. Not only do you need to know consignment and your own business, you also need to know eBay's rules and policies. Well, with your own Web site, the policies are your own!

In addition to uploading Inventory and processing sales, you can also choose whether or not to upload your consignors' information! Each account within Liberty has a new option entitled "Upload Account Info." With this option checked, Liberty will upload new Sales History, any "open" transactions (money owed) as well as items that have been uploaded to the online store. The most interesting portion of this is the open transactions. This will allow consignors to view how much they are currently owed. This alone will save your store time spent on the phone, or in-person, answering questions. This option is not "on" by default for each of your consignors. Due to the nature of the Internet and personal information, you will want to get verification from each of your consignors on whether or not they want to "opt-in" to this program.

For more information on this and to register for your free 30-day trial, please visit => http://resaleworld.com/recommerce.

Here are the basics you will need to configure Liberty to work with ShopRW.com:

Under Tools > eCommerce Options > ShopRW.com Settings, is where you will enable the ShopRW.com Marketplace. Once checked/enabled, you will need to enter your Resaleworld Registration Information. This information will be sent to you via email once you have registered at http://resaleworld.com/recommerce.  Once you have entered this information, click "Validate Account" to make sure your information is correct.

How do I get my items up to my online storefront? Once your Registration Information has been entered and validated, you are ready to start uploading items to the store. You will enter items just as you normally would except now, there is a "Marketplace" you can select on each item entitled "ShopRW.com." If this is set, that item will automatically appear under the "Ready" tab within Liberty under "Storefront Items." If you want every single new item to be set to this without having to choose this option, set the Online Marketplace to "ShopRW.com" under Tools > Options > Account. Keep in mind though, this item is now going up to your Web site without any pictures or shipping information. While this isn't necessary, prospective buyers like to see pictures of what they are about to spend money on. Also, you probably won't be shipping items for free. =) So, under Tools > eCommerce Options > ShopRW.com Settings you might want to consider checking these options under the "Before Uploading Items..." section. You have 4 choices here:

- Confirm Each Item
- Require at least one Image
- Require Shipping Amount
- Require Shipping Weight

The "Confirm Each Item" option makes it so you will have to set each item to "Ready" before it will go up to the Web. This can be a double-edged sword. Do you want to have to manually check each item or do you just want it to upload (pending any other "Require" options you have selected) to your storefront? Keep in mind that you can always change/update the item in Liberty and it will upload these changes to ShopRW.com for you! So if you want to quickly get new items entered and uploaded, you can always go back and add photos later.

Now, on to your actual online storefront. There are myriad features on your storefront you can customize, including the colors, a store logo, etc. In the email you received when you registered, you will be sent an "admin" link." So, if you registered a store named "mystore," your URL would be http://mystore.shoprw.com. Your "admin" page would be http://mystore.shoprw.com/admin. The email you received during registration will also include your username and password. Use this to login to your "admin" site.

Three things you will probably want to modify right away - the color/look of your site, your store/invoice logo and your "Welcome" text.  All of these settings (except for the "Welcome Message") are managed by clicking on the "Configurations" link on the left-hand side of your admin site.  The "Welcome Message" is handled under the "Site Messages" link.

To upload a new store logo, click the "Upload Store Logo" link.  You will need to click "Browse" to find the image on your computer that you would like to upload.  Images must be in either "JPG" or "GIF" format.  You will not be able to upload files such as BMP, PNG, etc.

To upload a new invoice logo (the logo that will be included on invoices sent to your buyers), follow the same steps above after clicking on the "Upload Invoice Logo" link.

To change the color/look of your store, click the "Site Templates" link.  Simply click the "Select" button to choose whichever color/look you would like for your store.

To change your "Welcome" text (the text your shoppers will see as soon as they reach your store), click on the "Site Messages" link and then click "Welcome Message."  Enter any text you would like your shoppers to see.  If you don't know HTML, no problem!  Simply click on the "WYSIWYG editor" link to bring up the intuitive editor (like a word processor).  You can insert links, change the font sizes, colors, etc.

For setting up payment types such as Credit Cards and/or PayPal, please contact Resaleworld at (800) 785-4800.
5311 New "Demo" versions of Liberty now have an expiration period. After 180 days, the Liberty application will no longer function until a legitimate Serial Number is entered into the product.
5312 The "sort order" in Inventory is now "sticky." If you sort by "Item #" or "Date," this sorting will be the same when you come back to any account and view the Inventory tab. This provides for quicker location of items and provides the user with more control over how they want to see items displayed. Many stores want to see the newest items first, not the oldest.

Click here to view the 2.6b Release Notes
Click here to view the 2.6a Release Notes
Click here to view the 2.5c Release Notes
Click here to view the 2.5b Release Notes
Click here to view the 2.5a Release Notes
Click here to view the 2.4b Release Notes