The Edge of Empty

I'm sure that most readers understand by now that I spend a lot of time using CryWolf® to do my job. Without this tool, my job would be infinitely more time consuming and a lot more difficult. I am always thrilled to learn how I can use CryWolf® to be more efficient--especially when I don't have to teach myself how to do it. Needless to say, the annual CryWolf® users conference has become one of the highlights of the year for me. I truly appreciate that Public Safety Corporation (PSC) has chosen to have this training in conjunction with the False Alarm Reduction Association's (FARA) annual symposium. I have met individuals from several jurisdictions that are introduced to FARA because of this scheduling choice. It also allows jurisdictions to gain more value for the money. But enough about that, I know that you are reading to find out what is new and exciting in the world of CryWolf®. PSC announced last year that a new client section of their website would allo...

It is 6:45 am on the first day of the 2013 FARA Symposium. The schedule for this year is jam packed with sessions that sound fantastic, so I know it is going to be a good week. Yesterday, I attended the Board Meeting and the CryWolf® Users Conference which I will describe for you later. I will be heading down soon to sign in and take my contributions for the silent auction. I love this part--it is always so much fun to see what people donate. This year, I brought a Longaberger® tissue basket set and a set of wine glasses with a vacuum seal top with the county seal of my jurisdiction embossed on them. (The picture of the wine glasses was unusable and showed a bit too much of my jurisdiction and the basket picture isn't great--I will redo it later if I have a chance). I am hoping that there will be some fun stuff to bid on--the money all goes to support the FARA Institute so I will bid on something, but I prefer to buy something that I really want as opposed to just bidding on r...

Depending on how your auto process is set up in CryWolf®, it is possible under certain conditions for a process to not work exactly as planned.   This is usually because somehow we humans goof it up by not doing what we are supposed to do.   For example, when I was away for this year’s FARA symposium , the auto process routine was not run daily since my assistant was also out of the office.   This by itself was not enough to upset the auto process since we have a 7 day period to cover absences.  However, the days that it took to get caught back up on our return did exceed that limit.  (In my unit, we don't process alarms or send delinquent notices until payments and new registrations are entered).  Because auto process wasn't run, t his meant that a group of permits that should have received renewal letters, did not receive those letters. Unfortunately, since only permits that expired on one day were affected, we didn't notice immediate...

One of the great features of CryWolf® is the hints and tips that are available right in the software.  Going other places to get information and help is nice (and I do appreciate that you are stopping by my little blog), but don’t neglect the helps that are available right on your desktop.   For example, when you click the “Search” box to find an account (red arrow below),the “Search Options” pop up window opens. Two oft overlooked buttons in this window are the “Options” button (pink circle below) and the “Instructions” button (aqua circle below). When the options button is clicked, the additional search options of “Where” to search and “Type” of search appear.   As shown below, the “where” (brown box) option allows the user to search the “Main Account”, the “Responsible Party”, and “All Related Records”.   The “type” search (green box) allows a default, Soundex, or MetaPhone search.   ( The Soundex or MetaPh...

The other day, a member of my staff came upon two accounts that appeared to have the same permit number.   After review, it was discovered that one number differed by a comma--and that the permit number just happened to be the same as the house number for the alarm site.   We decided that someone must have attempted to do a search by entering the house number in the account number spot instead of the search box.   We came to this conclusion because of the comma—as you know, an address search using the house number requires that pesky comma.   Obviously, we couldn’t have two accounts with the same permit number so it was necessary to change the account number on one of the accounts. The easiest way to do this is using the “Change Account Number” option on the "Options" tab. Once in the "Change Account Number" screen, it is simple to enter the number to be changed.   CryWolf®  allows you to assign the new number or use the “Assign Next Account...

I can't  believe that two weeks have gone by without a new CryWolf® tip.  I do my best to post a new tip each week, but if work is crazy, as it has been lately,  I sometimes don't get the chance.  If you are unfamiliar with the world of blogs, it is possible to subscribe to my blog so that you are notified when something new is posted.  Using the tab on the right hand side will allow you to choose which option suits you best.  My personal preference is to use Google Reader.  This way, all the new posts from the blogs I follow are collected in one place for me to read when I have a chance. This also saves the frustration from checking a blog when nothing new is posted. Here is a simple video from Google explaining Google Reader. The other option is to use the RSS (sometimes referred to as R eally S imple   S yndication, but is technically an R DF S ite S ummary) feed which will send new posts to your email inbox. However you choose to find this ...

I'm not in the office this week because I have been at the FARA Symposium in Albuquerque.  In preparation for being away, I wrote the post below and had it queued up to automatically go live at the appropriate time. On Monday, Public Safety Corporation(PSC) held their annual Users Conference and let me tell you that some brilliant things are on the way. If you missed the conference, you can read about some of the exciting news  here . During the meeting, they asked if there were things that users would like to see added to CryWolf®.  Of course, I have a list at the office of things I would like to see, but one thing that has been weighing heavy on my mind is how to reduce our postage costs.  This is especially critical for my unit since we have already exceeded our postage budget and there are still a few months to go this fiscal year.  In pursuit of a solution, I have been examining ways to do more correspondence through e-mail, but was in a dilemma because n...

One of the advantages of using the CryWolf® alarm billing software is the excellent customer service that they provide. This customer service is available on a daily basis through our rep. However, the company also extends that service with a   User's Conference held each year in conjunction with the FARA symposium .  This demonstrates their commitment to long term relationships with their customers. It also shows their commitment to FARA's mission also. At this meeting, PSC often reveals exciting updates to CryWolf® and shares tips and tricks to make using the system easier. Today's conference was no exception and there are some exciting features already available with more coming soon.  I don't want to steal their thunder, but I was told that I could mention some things. (And just between you and me, it was exciting to have PSC mention my blog and say that they liked it), One of the big changes coming this year is the new website that they will be revealing. Som...

After a recent update to the .Net version of CryWolf®, I noticed what I believe is a new option to send  invoices and account histories by email while in the history of an account.  Before noticing this option, my staff was opening the history, clicking on the invoice, saving it as a pdf file, and then attaching the file to an email.  Now, a simple right click on the invoice number opens the options window where it is possible to send a pdf of the invoice directly to the email addresses on file in the account.  Simply click on the option  and slide over to the right to select an email address.  As can be seen in the sample, the account holder's address appears on top and the responsible party's  email address is below.  It is also possible to send the item to an email address not on the account by choosing the "Other Email" option.  After clicking the selection, a "Quick Email window" opens and a subject line and message may be added...

Occasionally, it has been helpful to send a letter to a group of registered alarm users. If this sounds like something that would be helpful,  scroll down to "Process Bulk Letters" on the File menu in CryWolf®. In the "Bulk Letters" window, there are 3 tabs that can help refine the account selection process: General Search, Based on Outstanding Amounts, and Letter Received. The General Search tab offers options to choose the accounts to send letters.  If the letter needs to be sent to an alarm company, choosing the "Alarm Company" radio button allows the registered Alarm Companies to be searched. The default "Accounts" radio button searches registered users.  The pull down menu to the right of the radio buttons allows the  search to be refined by 7 parameters. The "Based on Outstanding Amounts" tab, allows a search of accounts by the amounts owed and date notification was sent. My favorite tab "Letter Received" allows a ...

Have you ever wished to clear a letter from the print queue in CryWolf® without actually printing it? I can’t tell you how many times a letter with a “bad address” has cluttered up our queue.  It is so frustrating to select that letter only to realize it is “that” letter that we have clicked on several times already. Today, I accidentally right-clicked on the queue and a window popped up with the question “Who are these assigned to?” and the option “Remove from Print Queue”. After a bit of experimentation, I realized that it is possible to remove the offending letter from the queue without wasting paper by printing it.  Simply right click on the offending letter and choose “Remove from Print Queue”.  Be warned that this does not remove the letter from the account history though.  Also, if there multiple copies of the letter in the queue, all of the letters of that type will be removed. My advice would be to print all of the good letters and then delete the...

Quite often staff members in my unit need to add a document or file to an alarm user's account. CryWolf® makes that task easy.  I am sure that most units are familiar with the upload of multiple scanned documents. However, there are other ways to add documents to user accounts.  One way is to drag the file from your document folder to the "Documents" button on the alarm user account window. This will trigger the Quick Link window to open.Simply click "ok" and the file will be saved to the account. If the file is attached to an email, another way is to "copy" the file and then right click on the Documents button to choose the Paste function. CryWolf® will accept almost any file type from .tif to .pdf.  Once my unit discovered this, we were able to have our fax machine stop printing registration forms and send them directly to email.  From email, it is a simple transfer straight into the account.  This saves several steps and lots of paper.  I hope t...

In the world of false alarm reduction, one of the most common tools used is the printed word.  This can be in many forms, whether it is a brochure, an invoice, or an informational letter.  We send out hundreds of letters on a daily basis. Fortunately, CryWolf ® automates much of this for us. Occasionally, we want to accent certain parts of a letter by changing the font size, the print color, or even adding bullet points. Before I discovered that this was possible within CryWolf®, I was creating the letters in Microsoft Word® and then copying it into CryWolf®.  The discovery of these features within the program itself made creating and editing letters that much easier. If you weren't aware that this was possible, let me show you how easy it is to accomplish. To access these features, go to the maintenance section. Once in Maintenance, choose “Add/Edit” Letters from the Forms menu. Choose the letter that you wish to edit from the pulldown ...

 Last week, we discussed making a duplicate of an alarm system registration.  Another option found by right clicking the tabs in an account is the ability to reorder the keyholder/emergency contacts.  To get there, right click on any of the tabs and scroll down to the "Reorder Accounts" option. This opens a "Reorder Persons" window that lists the keyholders for the account and shows their current priority order. To change the order, simply click in the "new" column and assign the new order numerically.  When finished, click OK and the changes will be made when you click the Update button. If you have any creative uses for these options, please share in the comments so that others can benefit from your knowledge.

If you work in a busy alarm unit, you spend a lot of time working in the alarm site accounts.  If you right click on the tabs in an alarm user’s account, a popup menu appears with lots of fun options. One of these options is the ability to create a copy of an account.  This is useful to create a new account without retyping all of the data.   This is particularly useful if only one or two items have changed.   We have been using this recently to create accounts for landlords when they get a new tenant.  If you haven't tried this feature yet, give it a whirl.  If you use the feature for any other use, share in the comments so others can try it out.

Another Wednesday night and as I turn off my computer at work after another 12+ hour day, I realize that once again I don't have a CryWolf hint ready for Thursday morning.  For the last two weeks, I have managed to post something on Thursday night (so if you checked earlier in the day on Thursday, you might want to go back and check them out).  This week, I was determined to get to it earlier and be prepared but I just haven't been able to squeeze more into my days.  If you are here looking for this week's hint, I will try to have one up at some point tonight.

CryWolf® has a lot of great features to make alarm administrators' jobs easier. One of the great features built in to CryWolf® allows jurisdictions to email reports easily to alarm companies.   If you don’t currently use this feature, here is how to start: From the Reports menu, scroll down to "Alarm Company Related" and then over and down to "PDF creation for eMailing to Alarm companies".   Then over to "Accounts by Alarm Company". In the "Accounts by Alarm Company" pop up, use the pull down menus to control the information that the report will include.   For my office, o ur weekly reports are meant to inform the alarm company of any new permit numbers that were issued that week, so we select the alarm company type   and the date that the account was created.   We  then choose the dates that we want the report to cover. CryWolf® also allows you to click the Email Reports box option to send the reports elec...

My unit has been around for a number of years, so rarely do we create a new alarm company account as a result of receiving an unsolicited registration form.  These days, new alarm company accounts usually result from a citizen registering their alarm system and reporting an alarm company that is not in our database.  Of course, we aren’t going to let that alarm company do business in our county without being registered, so we create an account for the company and place it in pending status until they return all of the required forms.    Occasionally, I have been bothered by the fact that the status for a new alarm company account defaulted to "Registered" status and had to be manually changed to "Pending".  It made more sense to me that the default status should be "Pending". Tonight, I had a few minutes to investigate for a solution. While using  CryWolf®,   I have found solutions to be available if I take the time to look for them.  If you...