The May 2009 update was a major upgrade.

May 2009 will see the next major upgrade to Blaq.

There have been major rewrites of the coding behind Blaq to make it both faster and use less memory, thus improving performance particularly on older computers. However, as always we recommend (and only support) the latest browsers. As of May 2009 we'll be supporting Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 7+ and Safari 3+. We are also looking at supporting Google's Chrome browser and will be progressively increasing our testing on this browser. So far our testing of it has been very positive. If you use Chrome and come across any problems using it with Blaq please let us know.

Appearance

Upon using the updated Blaq, users will immediately notice it has been given a fresher look. Some buttons have been moved to more logical positions, however most menus and buttons can still be found in the same positions in order to minimise the disruption in adapting to the new version. The drop-down "View" menu has been removed from the main view section and is now found on the sidebar on the left. Likewise, switching between planner views (day, month, week & year) is also done from the sidebar.

More styles have also been added in the Preferences section.

Dashboard & Widgets

On the main menu at the top of the window is a new "Dashboard" link - this will take users directly to their Dashboard, an improved version of the previous "Week Ahead" planner view. Both the existing sidebar and the Dashboard can be customised by users in their Preferences section and the number of columns in the Dashboard can also be set there. There is an increased range of "widgets" available which can be added to either the sidebar or Dashboard section. Both sidebar and Dashboard allow widgets to be dragged around and resized.

Products

Each product can currently have a minimum sell price set - the minimum nett price for that product. Now, each product can also have a minimum charge set per unit. Once set, neither of these can be overridden within a transaction.

Job "Log"

A new "Log" tab has been added in the Jobs section. The Log shows a history of a job including details such as when and by whom it was created, modified and printed.

Templates

The Templates section has been moved to the Sales menu. Templates can be used as a base for creating a job or quote - if you are frequently doing the same type of quote or job you can create it as a template then use the template and copy it to the jobs or quotes section when needed, and then modify it once copied. You can also copy and existing job or quote to the templates section instead of creating one from new.

Imports

The Import section has been revised to greatly simplify the import of customers, suppliers, contacts or products. As well as importing most MYOB files, text files generated from other programs can be imported. The process is now simplified and the fields required in the text files a lot more logical.

Planner

You can now use 'drag-n-drop' with planner items (other than recurring items) to easily and quickly reschedule them to another time or date in the planner views.