New Features

Azure / App Center Telemetry For Tracking Feature Usages

• Versa now has some additional telemetry for tracking the usage of certain features:
  • When the report designer or reports screen is opened
  • When a theme is changed in Versa
  • When DEEM / the roll up screen is opened
  • When a user enters the PM Data lookup screen
  • When a user clicks the email / notify green button on the ribbon in the Interface Screen
• The main reason this telemetry was added was to determine if specific features are worth being kept in Versa or if we can safely retire them.
• No usernames or any other personal information is collected in this telemetry.

Reserve Calculator (Server Side Program)

• A separate program that uses Versa's Core will now run on a nightly basis (starting 6/16/2023 at the latest) to calculate the reserves and save them to the database.
• The reserve data will be used for reports and/or other client requests
• If you have a specific report you would like to see based on the reserve data, please let IT know via Jira.

Client Customizations Drop Down On Project Overview Screen

• The project overview screen now has a new drop down that lets you select if a project is to be included with any client specific customizations.
• This drop down normally will not be visible to regular users unless they are members of development, revisions, team leads or SLT members.
• For more details, click here to view the updated documentation on the Versa Project Overview Screen.
  • Note: The documentation requires you sign into Sharepoint with your D3G provided Microsoft 365 account

Improvements

General Improvements

Replaced The Marking Project As Updated Hack

• When we initially made PIP (Versa's predecessor), we used a quick and dirty way to mark projects as updated with the username and last edited date/time. This unfortunately caused two issues:
  • The hack caused a bug to occurr on the open project screen (see above).
  • The hack could cause some lag saving changes in Versa.
• With that in mind, we removed the hack and went back and made all of the screens in the Engineering module for Versa explicitly mark the project as updated with the last edited user and date/time.
  • If you notice any screens NOT marking a project as updated, please let Chris and/or IT know via Jira.

HUD API Client Login Error Changes

• We modified the error message you receive if you encounter an error logging into the E-Tool website via Versa. The error message now provides the HUD Tech Assitance Center (TAC) phone number and also points out that you may have logged in too many times with the wrong password and are locked out.
• We also will no longer log these specific errors and send them to Azure / App Center.

Property & Inspection Details

• The "Additional Testing" field has been changed to "Intrusive Testing"
• We updated the tip button to provide new guidance for selecting yes or no and entering in intrusive testing comments.
• Also the intrusive testing comments field now has a drop down that lets you select default / canned language. You can still edit the comments and change them.

Interface Screen

Removed Unused Columns

• We removed the "Custom EUL Elderly", "Custom EUL Family" and "Max Duration" columns. If you had a custom view for the Interface Screen that used these columns, you may need to re-create the view.
  • NOTE: This does NOT APPLY to the Custom EUL values for alternatives.

Custom EULs For Alternatives Should Now Show On The Reserves

• The custom EUL values for Traditional, Green One and Green Two alternatives now will show up on the reserves if they are a value higher than zero.
• We may still have some math problems and/or further tweaking to do with custom EULs. If you use them and notice shortcomings, please let Chris and/or IT know via Jira.
  • NOTE: You have to use the column chooser on the Interface Screen's grid to access these fields. They do NOT show up on the add/edit item form.

Turning Location Factor ON for A Component / Line Item Now Updates All Prices

• If you turn location factor ON for a component / line item on the Interface, Versa will now adjust the price for the component and all its alternatives to their default price (including locaiton factor).

Custom Price Mirroring Now Updates Appropriate Alternative Instead of Always The Traditonal Alternative

• If you enter a custom price into a component on the Interface (while Location factor is OFF), Versa will now mirror the custom price onto alternatives that are the same as the component.
  • In other words:
    • If the traditional alternative is the same component as the component used for the line item, the traditional alternative's price will mirror the custom price of the component.
    • If the green one alternative is the same component, the green one alternative's price will mirror the components.
    • If the green two alternative is the same component, the green two alternative's price will mirror the components.
    • In the unlikely event none of the alternatives are the same component, none of their prices will be adjusted.

Bug Fixes

Energy Audit Segment Two Screen

• The segment two export will now show a more descriptive error message if the Energy Audit Excel file being used is missing the lighting table.
• The segment two export will now show a more descriptive error message if the Energy Audit Excel file being used is missing the "rec_e_tool_start" named range or the entire recommendations sheet.

Deliverable Report Center

• Added a check before running any building type reports that prevents it from throwing an error if a project does not contain any buildings / inspected units / unit types.

  • This applies to export all for building type reports as well. In the case building data is missing for export all, the user will now receive a message telling them what is missing instead of a vague error message.

• Fixed a calculation mistake that could cause the reserve analysis to throw a divide by zero error if all of the units in the project have a quantity of zero.

  • In the case this happens, Versa will now calculate the reserves per unit amounts as zero.

Other Changes

• Updated the documentation on Sharepoint for the Project Overview Screen
• Renamed the documentation for E-Tool Details screen to Property & Inspection Details screen to match Versa
• Updated the report templates stored in the database to ensure compatability with changes made for this update.
• Updated Dot Net to version 7.07; only notable change was a security change for Windows Presentation Foundation
• The Versa Database schema has been updated; previous versions of Versa may experience errors and/or crashes and updating is advised.