Over the past several weeks, I’ve been privileged to describe our latest 2018 features, and today I’m sharing some “Other Goodies” in the latest release. These features may not warrant their own dedicated blog post but we believe they’re still just as exciting!

Here’s what we’ve added:

• Automatic Disaster Recovery – For myStratus clients, did you know we automatically replicate your database to a second datacenter at least 500 miles away from your primary datacenter? This replication is real-time, so a separate copy of your database is maintained in a completely different datacenter. We’ve now implemented a new feature in myStratus 2018 called Automatic Disaster Recovery (ADR). In the event of a major disaster which causes a full datacenter outage, our systems will automatically discover that your database is no longer reachable by your business. In that unlikely event, the system will automatically reconnect your business to the secondary datacenter within 20-60 minutes. Night or day, rest assured you’ll have access to your data!
• myStratus Mobile App – The myStratus Mobile App has been improved with the addition of the Time Clock, and Appointment Statuses have now been added to the Appointment Record.
• Item Maintenance – A new option, Require Image Selection, has been added to force the user to select an image for this item prior to being able to save the invoice. Also, Promotion not allowed to be entered directly has been created to ensure that a promotional item cannot be added to an invoice as a standalone item. Instead, it can only be used as part of a Combination Promotion Type.
• New Custom Fields – A new Custom tab has been added to both the Invoice form and Appointments form. These tabs can be made visible or invisible in your Company Preferences. Use these tabs to create additional fields to track on Invoices and Appointments.
• Divorced/Single Parents – New checkboxes have been added to the Client Organization tab to indicate whether a student’s parents are Divorced or Single.
• Family Member Ages – A new option in the Company Preferences allows you to define at what age the software should stop displaying the actual age of family members. Secondly, if a family member is less than one month old, the software will now display their age in terms of “days”.
• Merge Fields – Many new merge fields have been added to the HTML and Form Letter Builder, including: Referred By, Today’s Date Plus__ Days, Today’s Date Less__Days, Session/Appointment Time Less__Minutes, Session/Appointment Date Less__Days, and more! We’ve also added the ability to insert a data merge field directly into the subject line of any preset email.
• 64 Bit Render Jobs – For users who rely on Spectra/myStratus Desktop to render out image, a new, more powerful, 64-bit rendering engine has been built, allowing you to render larger images.
• Trigger Enhancements – All Trigger Types now have the ability to run for All Types or All Statuses of a record type. This feature removes the necessity to set up the same trigger repeatedly for multiple types or multiple statuses.
• Search By Email Subject – A new option added to the Messages Hub allows you to search for an email based on the Email Subject line. Simply type in one or more words as your search criteria, and the software will search for any emails containing the word or phrase in the subject line.
• Default Primary and Secondary Users – For each Session Type, you may now select if you want a Default Primary and Secondary User (like a Photographer or Assistant) to be automatically assigned when creating these types of sessions.
• Hide Invoice Level Discounts – An option’s been added to the Company Preferences > Invoicing tab, allowing you to choose whether to allow your employees to issue an Invoice Level Discount.
• Other Enhancements – Read the Release Notes for 2018 to see a list of other enhancements added to this new version.

Many of the new features added in the 2018 Version came directly from our StudioPlus User Voice page. Please, continue to use this page to submit new feature requests that you’d appreciate being added to an upcoming release, or simply cast your vote for someone else’s suggestion. The more votes a suggestion receives, the more likely it will show up in a future release. Help customize both StudioPlus Spectra and myStratus for years to come!!

Click here to visit the StudioPlus User Voice

Click here for the complete list of What’s New in 2018 Volume 1

Click here for the complete Release Notes for 2018 Volume 1