CMS TEN Release Notes

Introduction

CMS version 10.0.14 includes the 2020 USPS shipping rates as well as the UPS and FedEx rates from 10.0.13.

Release Notes from all previous versions can be found on our Release Notes page.

End of Life Announcement - Windows 7 (IMPORTANT)
Microsoft has announced they will no longer provide support or updates for their Windows 7 operating system as of January 14, 2020. After that date Win7 will no longer receive security patches which, aside from the obvious security threats, also means that you cannot be PCI compliant.

We have already seen ramifications at client sites running on other unsupported operating systems. For example, PCI is dictating a shift away from using SSL and TLS 1.0 since they are now considered to be insecure methods of connection. As our partners start to follow this dictate (e.g. Authorize.net and TransFirst) they will remove support for those older forms of secure connection which Windows XP and Server 2003 cannot support, as an example of this shift.

Identify which workstations you may have running Win7 and upgrade them to Windows 10.

For a complete list of operating systems we support for use with CMS, see our System Requirements wiki article.

PCI Compliance - CMS TEN has been successfully validated against the PA-DSS 3.0 specification by Coalfire Systems. Software changes that could affect your compliance would only be included in major CMS versions (e.g. 9.0, 10.0) or minor versions (e.g. 9.2, 10.2) and never in releases (e.g. 9.0.5, 10.0.12) or builds (e.g. 9.0.6.159, 10.0.13.261). You can read more about our versioning methodology at the bottom of our Release Notes page.

CMS 10.0.x is listed on the PCI Council’s directory of Validated Payment Applications. We file updates with the PCI Council annually to maintain our status and demonstrate that changes made to the software each year have not compromised our compliance.

Database and XML Changes:

10.0.12 included a change to the SHIPRATES.MAXWEIGHT field, changing it to a numeric field to support the new zone based charges for First Class Package Services. If you have any custom reports referencing this field (unlikely) they will need to be updated. Otherwise there were no changes in 10.0.14 but there were several database changes in 10.0.1 and 10.0.5 that should be reviewed if updating from 10.0.4 or previous.

Integrations - NOTE AMAZON CHANGES detailed below for 10.0.8. All other integrations will continue to work as they had previously including CommerceV3, Magento, Volusion, UPS Worldship, FedEx Ship Manager, Endicia/DaZzle, ShipRush, Malvern, Worldpay (MPS/Vantiv), TransFirst, and Authorize.net.

 

CMS TEN - ENHANCEMENT DETAILS

  1. USPS - 2020 Rate Changes

    USPS's 2020 rates are effective January 26th, 2020. You can read more about the rate update on Stamps.com (Endicia's parent company.)

    The following changes are from the previous 10.0.13 release:

  2. UPS - 2020 Rate Changes

    UPS's 2020 rates are effective December 29th, 2019 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes. Peak Surcharge rates for Fall 2020 have not been announced yet so those will be updated in a subsequent CMS release as they become available. You can read more about the rate update on UPS's 2020 Rate page.

  3. FedEx - 2020 Rate Changes
    FedEx's 2020 rates are effective January 6th, 2020 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes.

    You can read more about the rate change on FedEx's 2020 Rate page.

  4. Avalara - Avatax Connector
    * Tax commits can now be limited to specific combinations of order sources and states, addressing where marketplaces such as Amazon are considered to be the seller so they have responsibility for tax reporting.

    * Can now define multiple effective nexus dates for each state allowing proper calculations and filing as your nexus changes over the years.

    * Option to only send commits for Nexus states, reducing the number of transactions sent to Avalara and reducing the related fees. This is at the expense of Avalara being able to report non-taxable transactions to each state.

    * Customers and orders flagged as Tax Exempt will no longer be sent to Avalara for tax calls or commits, further reducing the Avalara fees.

    * New option to report the shipped date instead of the invoice date as the committed date. This helps ensure that taxability is based on rates at the time of shipping although it leaves the merchant responsible for any changes in tax amount, should rates change between when the order was fulfilled (invoice date) and when it ships.

  5. Import/Export changes
    * New option for logging all text shown in the status window from manual and automated imports

    * Inactive price categories are no longer included in product uploads

    * Product uploads to CommerceV3 (CV3) now include the Brand and Manufacture fields

    * Order Exports - Exporting using the XML format can now be used for unlimited date ranges. Separate files will be created as size thresholds are reached.

  6. Report Modifications
    The following reports have had been enhanced (changes described in bug fix list below):
    * InvoiceTemplate - Email
    * Invoice Detail Report
    * Operator and Salesperson Statistics
    * Receiving Report
    * Credit Card Transaction Report
    * Product Sales Breakdown

    The following changes are from the previous 10.0.12 release:

  7. USPS - 2019 Rate Changes
    New USPS rates are effective January 27th, 2019 and CMS has been updated to include these new rates. A notable change in 2019 is the move to zone based pricing for First Class Package Services which was previously purely based on weight.

    Both Endicia and Stamps.com have informative articles explaining these changes in further detail.


    The following changes are from the previous 10.0.11 release:

  8. UPS - 2019 Rate Changes

    UPS's 2019 rates are effective December 26th, 2018 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes. Peak Surcharge rates for Fall 2019 have not been announced yet so those will be updated in a subsequent CMS release as they become available. You can read more about the rate update on UPS's 2019 Rate page.

  9. FedEx - 2019 Rate Changes

  10. FedEx's 2019 rates are effective December 31st, 2018 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes.

    You can read more about the rate change on FedEx's 2019 Rate page.


    The following changes are from the previous 10.0.10 release:

  11. 2018 USPS Rates

  12. Effective January 21st, 2018 the US Postal Service will have new rates. These rate changes effect both market dominant (mailing services) and competitive (shipping services) classes which, in the past, have often been updated on different schedules.

    You can read more about the rate changes on Endicia's site, Stamps.com, or on the USPS site.

  13. Priority Mail Express Flat Rate Padded Envelope

    We've added support for Priority Mail Express Flat Rate Padded Envelope so you'll have the proper rate in CMS and our integration with Endicia/Dazzle will print the appropriate labels.
  14. Reprocessing a Package

    On occasion you may create an incorrect label for a package, needing to change its service level, weight, etc, We have simplified the process of clearing a shipped date on a package to allow it to allow a new label to be generated (via the Manifest or the shipping integrations.)

    A new Clear button has been added to Order Entry's Shipping tab. This will remove the shipped date and clear the package's shipped status. This Clear button can be clicked by anyone with the employee permission to edit shipped orders only. It does not, however, require the order to be edited, similar to how you can set/remove/change an invoice shipped date through the Options menu on View Invoice without being in Edit mode. Editing orders can always be dangerous so this should help reduce the frequency those edits are required.

    To facilitate the use of Clear, the Shipping tab of Order Entry now allows packages to be selected/highlighted. Clear only works for the selected package (multi-select not supported). It does not also clear the shipped date from the invoice but that is not necessary for reprocessing the label for the package. Invoice shipped dates can still be modified if needed for other reasons through View Invoice>Options.
  15. The following changes are from the recent 10.0.9 release:


  16. 2018 UPS Rates and Surcharges

    UPS's 2018 rates are effective December 24th, 2017 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes. They have announced the Peak Surcharge rates and dates for 2018 so those have been included in this update as well. You can read more about the rate update on UPS's 2018 Rate page.
  17. 2018 FedEx Rates and Surcharges


  18. FedEx's 2018 rates are effective December 31st, 2017 with all of the traditional increases and no service changes.

    FedEx has explicitly stated they will not introduce a Peak Surcharge so, for the moment, those remain UPS only. CMS has been designed to accommodate them in the future, expecting FedEx to follow UPS's lead at some point.

    You can read more about the rate change on FedEx's 2018 Rate page.

    The following changes are from the 10.0.8 release:


  19. CommerceV3 (CV3) Plug-In Changes

    1. Product uploads start and end date for discounts - CV3 supports a date and time for the start and end of when a product's discount apply. CMS only has a date so the date was defaulting to midnight for both causing one day to be trimmed off the effective date range. We've altered this so the starting time is 12:01am and the ending time is 12:00pm including a time zone offset to better ensure the intended dates are honored.
    2. Weights for SKU's - Product uploads to CV3 will now include weights for products with attributes (sizes/colors).
  20. Amazon Changes (beta) - IMPORTANT

    1. Support for gift notes - CMS now supports gift messages for orders coming from Amazon. To support this though, we've had to alter our import layout which in turn means you must change your order report columns to include Gift Wrap, even if you do not expect to receive orders with gift notes or wrap. Note we do not support gift wrap yet.
    2. International ship methods - Support has been added for international shipping options. You can map these to your selected shipping methods as described in the Amazon Setup Guide.
  21. Do Not Print Billing Invoice

    All orders imported for Amazon end up attached to your customer record for Amazon. These are multi-ship invoices (those were the buyer is not the recipient) for which CMS would normally print both a billing invoice and packing slips for each recipient. Amazon does not need to receive these invoices so we've implemented a new checkbox option on the customer record for 'Do Not Print Billing Invoice'. When checked only the recipient packing slips will print. This is not an Amazon specific solution and may be useful for any relationship you have where your open accounts do not require invoices for billing (e.g. EDI.)

    The initial implementation of the feature is for CMS forms. As of CMS 10.0.10.231 this solution will also work for certain supported Crystal invoice forms as well.

  22. Order Import Verify - Support for Use Across Time Zones

    We're seeing more use of CMS via remote connections including across time zones. This presented a problem where the server was on the day ahead of the workstation during certain times of the day (e.g. the workstation was 11pm Monday and the server was 1am Tuesday). The date is one aspect of our elaborate credit card encryption scheme and this difference in dates wouldn't allow someone in a different time zone to work with that payment since it would not decrypt. We have now built in support for this cross time zone use of CMS to allow our decryption scheme to operate normally.
  23. Apply Payments - Exposure of Invoices with Bad Payments

    Now when using Apply Payments, you can see which of the customer's invoices have bad payments applied to them, typically those which you may want to pay off first. These invoice numbers are now highlighted in red (invoice column only). Color coding is still used separately in the Amount column to indicate which invoices are fully paid (green), partially paid (yellow), or red for balance less than zero (which shouldn't happen normally.)

  24. MasterCards Starting with a 2

    MasterCard is now issuing cards that start with a 2. CMS has been modified to support this in all areas where credit card numbers are used. Our payment partners and their gateways also support these new card numbers.
  25. Future Ships - No Date Limits

    Future ship orders, those you schedule to ship at some date in the future, were previously limited to scheduling two years out. This limitation has been removed enabling you to schedule shipments as far into the future as desired.

  26. Operator for Invoice

    When viewing an order or one of its invoices, you'd only see the operator that originally placed the order. We are now saving the operator who processed a return/exchange and it will be displayed when viewing that invoice.
  27. Form Printing Sequence

    When printing from Form Printing, the invoices will print in the order displayed, from the top down in the grid. The sort on the grid has been changed to Invoice Date ascending so the oldest invoices are at the top of the list. This better supports first in first out (FIFO) printing although if you ship all of the printed orders in the same day anyway this may have little impact on you.
  28. New Print Task: Invoice - Tracking Numbers (All)

    For CMS invoice forms (not Crystal) we've introduced a new print task to print all of the tracking numbers for an invoice. The previous print task of this name, used in email confirmations for its tracking URL's, has been renamed to Invoice - Tracking URL's All.
  29. Invoice and Mail Filter Enhancements

    1. Invoice filter by Order Source - New filter option to target orders by their order source.
    2. Invoice filters now include a View SQL button - The power of the filters in CMS is that you can do most anything with them. Like Mail Filters, you can now create your own filter and then click the new View SQL button that you may then copy and modify to use in a custom invoice filter.
    3. Invoice filters for shipping method or service level - You can now filter by either the shipping method you've set up to use or you can filter by the underlying shipping service level. To be clear, CMS allows you to set up multiple shipping methods that all use the same service level (e.g. UPS Ground) so the new filters allow you to target either.
    4. State filters for International and Canada changed/moved - The previous implementation of the International and Canada options in the State filter map was found to be problematic so they have been removed. These options are now available via the Countries filter option which has also been reworked to make it easier to choose International, Canada, and/or USA.
    5. Selection Improvements - The filters for ad codes, source codes, and price categories have been converted to a grid of checkboxes to improve usability.
  30. Worldship XML - Changing Shipper Profile

    CMS can now tell Worldship which shipper profile to use when processing a package via XML. This can be particularly useful for printing SurePost labels which, due to their combination of UPS and USPS information on it, may not have room for additional fields or logos. Using a different shipper profile dedicated to a new label layout just for SurePost can help. You can add a Profile Name to any shipping method in Setup.
  31. UPS Holiday Surcharges

    UPS has announced peak surcharges that are effective around the Thanksgiving weekend (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) as well as the week before Christmas. These have been built into CMS to allow for proper rate calculations during those times. By default these surcharges are enabled but you can disable or alter them if your charges differ from published daily rates.

    There are cases where the shipping date is not known, such as unfulfilled back orders. In those cases the surcharge is never applied.

    Note that Fuel Surcharges are calculated before these peak surcharges are added, not after.
  32. Stock Manager Changes

    1. Support for lookup at the SKU level with a barcode scan - Scanning the SKU-specific UPC code in Stock Manager for product with sizes/colors will now bring up that specific SKU. If instead a scan is done of the product code only, Stock Manager will retrieve the first SKU for that product.
    2. Lot Expiration now displayed and is editable - During PO receiving CMS provided a field for the lot's Expiration (date) but that was the only place it could be set. It is now may be viewed and edited in Stock Manager. Expirations dates presently are for reference only and will not affect the lots that CMS pulls from or in what sequence. |
  33. Physical Inventory Report

    This report has been completely rewritten to improve performance and fitness as well as introduce some new functionality. Changes include:
    1. Vendor Selection - The report can now be run for all vendors or a single vendor. The latter providing utility when wanting to do counts for a specific vendor, potentially before ordering. The option to sort the report by vendor has been removed now that you can run it for a single vendor.
    2. Starting Allocation Date - When including Allocation Details, earlier versions of this report would include all unshipped allocations for all orders. You may now limit this by specifying a starting allocation date in a new parameter of the same name so the report will only account for allocations since that time. This can be useful if you have old/bad data to ignore or had a physical inventory count on X date so want to only look at open orders since that time.
    3. Hide Zero Stock - Similar to the option that has been added to other inventory reports, this new parameter allows you to exclude all items with no stock available or just those that are also discontinued.
    4. Warehouse parameters combined - Instead of having one parameter for 'All Warehouses' and another to select which warehouse, these have now been combined into a single parameter.
    5. Removed Event Dependency - The previous version of this report relied on a database event to gather allocation data as a means of improving performance. It was found to increase database log file size at an unacceptable rate so it has been disabled in favor of other approaches of performance gains.
  34. Product Sales Detail Report - Exclude zero dollar sales

    A new Parameter has been added that would exclude items sold for a net of $0.00 (freebie). This includes both items sold for $0.00 and those with 100% line item discount.
  35. Ex Employees - No more ToDo

    Once you've set a Last Date on an employee (indicating they are no longer working for you) they will be removed from list of employees selectable in ToDo's.
  36. MPS --> Vantiv

    MPS (Mercury Payment Systems) has been acquired by Vantiv. References in CMS to MPS have been updated to now read Vantiv.
  37. Backup Conflicts

    When backups are created by the database's scheduled event (vs. clicking the button for Create Immediate Backup) that database will have its backup event disabled. When these backups were restored for use as training databases, which was by far more common than restoring for recovery, that backup event would conflict with the backup event form the production database causing the backup to become corrupt. If a backup is restored into production, the backup settings will need to be re-selected in PCI Admin.
  38. Bug Fixes and modifications

See Release Notes