Minor updates and code changes occur every day. Only significant or noteworthy updates are shown here. Updates shown with a gold background are (or were at the time) only available to Advanced HOPS members.

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Time Date	System Updates
Update 1115 28 December 2024	ENGINEERING POSSESSIONS Further work has taken place to improve the saving of dates and times on engineering possession parts, but it isn't finished yet. A new 'Duplicate' facility has been provided (link at the top of the item page), recognising that many items are duplicates of previous ones. A new concept of 'Draft' and 'Published' has been introduced. Users with permission 163 (view possessions) can only see published items. Users with permission 165 (add/edit possessions) can see draft possessions. If a published possession is edited, an 'Explanation of Change' field has been provided. A new concept of 'Cancelled' has been added. A possession that has been published can be 'cancelled', whereupon it continues to show to all users but with the heading 'Cancelled'. A draft possession cannot be 'cancelled', but it can now be deleted. A published possession can't be deleted.
Update 1114 28 December 2024	VOLUNTEERING FOR VACANT TURNS This function has been updated and now includes a facility to allocate an alternative turn to the one the user orignally volunteered for. If an alternative is selected the user is advised in their email [note this may take some explanation initially if a user is allocated an alternative turn that appears to be identical]. All the 'busy' and 'competence' red notes on the page have been updated to reflect the many and varied options, but please let us know if you find anything amiss.
Update 1113 28 December 2024	The Engineering Possessions section of HOPS has received some improvements to formatting. EDITING possessions now gives the opportunity to select locations from a list, as well as writing in free text, but there is further work to do on editing, particularly relating to entering of dates. Options to delete 'parts' of a possession, and whole possessions, have been added. A new tab has been added to the Daily Calendar page to show possessions that occur on that date. The overall Possessions page (Tools > Engineering > Possessions) is now sorted by month instead of week. Possessions have been added to the Week Calendar (Calendars > This Week). If you find anything new not working please let us know.
Update 1112 13 December 2024	Significant work has taken place in the Purchase Orders system. There should only be minor visible changes, but if you notice anything that looks incorrect please let us know. A noteworthy change to the PO pages is that they will now highlight if the contact details of the supplier have changed since the PO was created and give the opportunity to update the details on the PO to the most recent details or leave the original details.
Update 1108 4 December 2024	There will be some brief periods of downtime on Wednesday 25 December 2024 for back-up restoration drills. The periods of downtime will be brief ( < 1 minute). If HOPS is working when you visit it it is safe to use. There will periods of downtime between 7.30am and 9.30am GMT on Thursday 9 January 2025. The period of downtime is likely to be at least 45 minutes. This is to facilitate server upgrade work which will improve resilience and reduce the requirement for downtime in the future. A two-hour range is being advertised to ensure there is sufficient time to roll-back to the old server if required. If HOPS is working when you visit it it is safe to use. This downtime is being held-over from December to avoid disturbance or risk to Christmas operations at all railways. The two-hour period on 9 January starts at 7.30am GMT, that's: 15:30-17:30 AWST in West Australia 17:00-19:00 ACST in Northern Territory 18:00-20:00 ACDT in South Australia 17:30-19:30 AEST in Queensland 18:30-20:30 AEDT in New South Wales / Victoria / Tazmania 09:30-11:30 in Italy 09:30-11:30 in South Africa If you have any queries please contact your HOPS Admin, or HOPS Admins please contact HOPS HQ via support ticket.
Update 1107 4 December 2024	Sticky column headings on the View Roster page are back again, thanks to the page now being a New HOPS page. There may be different browsers on which the behaviour will be better or worse so please bear with us as we try to cope with them all....!
Update 1106 1 December 2024	A new 'Internal Remarks' facility has been added to turns on rosters. This shows only on Construct Rosters and is intended for the roster clerk to make notes to themselves, eg where a person has been rostered for a specific reason such as to avoid lapsing or following a specific request. The internal remarks can be edited in 'Quick Assign' or 'Edit Turn Details'.
Update 1104 27 November 2024	There will be a brief period of downtime on Friday 29 November, between 0730 and 0800 GMT. This is to enable server upgrade work. That's.... 15:30 AWST in West Australia 18:00 ACDT in South Australia 18:30 AEDT in New South Wales / Victoria / Tasmania Part of this work includes changes to reduce or eliminate the need for downtime in the future, which has become all the more important now that HOPS deals with sales transactions. Time Register devices will be unaffected and will store up transactions until HOPS comes back online. POS devices will display a prompt inviting the operator to 'work offline', after which they will work normally and upload transactions when HOPS comes back online. Card payments are unaffected. For confidence, there will be a brief test period after the site is taken offline to prove the POS devices before work starts, during which time the work can be aborted if necessary. Public ticket sales websites will be offline. We apologise for any inconvenience. If you have any queries please contact your HOPS Admin, or HOPS Admins contact HOPS HQ.
Update 1102 17 November 2024	As part of development of the Asset Management system, we invite railways to send in details of specific measurements they record when conducting maintenance tasks on S&T assets, eg, track circuits and FPLs. This is with a view to establishing common and diverse practices among railways. If you are happy to send in details of your S&T maintenance task measurement requirements please send to danny.scroggins@hops.org.uk (The items sent in will not be shared with other railways.) Thank you
Update 1101 16 November 2024	Details of Timesheets have been added to the 'Time' tab on the user details page. Timesheet info is shown in addition to the existing information about Time Register records. The date range filtering facility has also been improved and is available for both Time Register and Timesheet lists.
Update 1100 15 November 2024	The menu option for Custom Calendars has now been integrated in to the 'Today', 'This Week', 'This Month' menu options. There's no difference to functionality at this stage. This is part of our work to enable more than one timetable/modifier to be used on the same day.
Update 1099 13 November 2024	Additional Columns have been added to the Employee Leave Allowance table to show the number of AL days taken and remaining in the current year.
Update 1097 13 November 2024	The employee annual leave response form has been updated to show the working pattern of other staff during the time the person has requested off. This will help to manage leave where there are expectations that only N people will be on leave at the same time.
Update 1093 6 November 2024	It's time for the annual reminder of the URL for users to confirm their details are up to date: https://www.hops.org.uk/user/confirm This is a useful process in the renewal of ID cards, and also useful for railways that don't use the ID card system to be in a strong position to demonstrate they have taken reasonable steps to make sure information needed in an emergency, especially medical and emergency contact, is up to date.
Update 1089 30 October 2024	The order of the role columns on rosters has been standardised. Previously it was: 1st - Order (specified in the Roles editing page) 2nd - the order in which the roles were added to HOPS Now it is: 1st - Order (specified in the Roles editing page) 2nd - Alphabetical. The order can always be set by the railway (via the role editing page), but if no order is set or if two roles have the same sort order, the next sort is now alphabetical rather than just 'the order they were entered in to HOPS'.
Update 1084 20 October 2024	There will be some periods of downtime on Tuesday 22 October, between 7.30 and 8.30am BST. This is to enable server upgrade work. That's.... 15:30-16:30 AWST in West Australia 17:00-18:00 ACST in North Australia 18:00-19:00 ACDT in South Australia 17:30-18:30 AEST in Queensland 18:30-19:30 AEDT in New South Wales / Victoria / Tazmania 09:30-10:30 in Italy 09:30-10:30 in South Africa Part of this work includes changes to reduce or eliminate the need for downtime in the future, which has become all the more important now that HOPS deals with sales transactions. Time Register devices will be unaffected and will store up transactions until HOPS comes back online. POS devices will display a prompt inviting the operator to 'work offline', after which they will work normally and upload transactions when HOPS comes back online. Card payments are unaffected. For confidence, there will be a brief test period after the site is taken offline to prove the POS devices before work starts, during which time the work can be aborted if necessary. Public ticket sales websites will be offline. We apologise for any inconvenience. If you have any queries please contact your HOPS Admin, or HOPS Admins contact HOPS HQ. Thank you.
Update 1083 7 October 2024	'Next Turn' date has been added to the Competence Lapsing and Cometence Expiring pages.
Update 1082 7 October 2024	We have spent some time re-working the system for merging accounts, and cleared the backlog of previously un-mergeable ones. If you have a HOPS account at more than one heritage railway, you can merge them together to avoid the need to hold two sets of login credentials. Here is a video that explains how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfqhvAmIJ2I
Update 1079 1 October 2024	It is now possible for an Asset Manager to log a task that they are responsible for via the Asset Managers page. This will help where an asset manager is responsble for assets across a range of registers.
Update 1074 5 September 2024	Update reporting on ticket system developments commenced. These can be found in a new tab in System > System Updates.
Update 1072 4 September 2024	A sort order field has been added to Stock Diagrams.
Update 1068 4 September 2024	Adjustments have taken place in connection with gradual conversion of Rosters to New HOPS format - User Roster and My Roster are in the new format. Improvements have been made to ensure these pages reflect Railway Time (regardless of the physical location of the viewer). At the same time, improvements were made to the Next Operating Days widget on the home page to ensure that respects Railway Time correctly.
Update 1067 24 August 2024	The diagrams, locos and staff working each train is now shown on train list tab of the daily page, with links to the appropriate roster and the user details page (for obtaining phone numbers etc) Eg https://www.hops.org.uk/operations_date.php?d=2024-08-22&t=t
Update 1066 5 August 2024	The Competence Element Requirements section of the Role Editing page has been overhauled to make it easier to search and find the desired element, especially where the number of elements on the railway is very large.
Update 1065 5 August 2024	The 'Save as Draft', 'Publish' etc buttons at the top of Members' News have been separated out to make their operation clearer.
Update 1064 5 August 2024	A warning has been added in the 'Add New User' page if a user with the same firstname and surname already exists. This will hopefully reduce the volume of duplicated users being added.
Update 1063 30 July 2024	An 'Unattribute' button has been added to Spot Reports to enable attribution errors to be undone.
Update 1062 30 July 2024	A tooltip has been provided on the Accommodation Bookings chart to enable the full details of very short bookings to be seen at-a-glance.
Update 1061 30 July 2024	Various updates to My Roster and User Roster have taken place. Please let us know if you find any issues.
Update 1060 6 May 2024	There will be two HOPS Annual General Forums for HOPS Admins and senior managers at Advanced HOPS Subscribers this year. Event 1 and Event 2 are identical. There are two events to offer maximum flexibility to 9-5 staff and volunteer staff with day jobs, UK staff and Australian staff. Staff from either country may attend either event. The meeting will be via MS Teams. There will be: - a presentation about the developments of HOPS in the last year - plans for the coming year and future developments - changes in the heritage railway landscape - HOPS staffing arrangements - fees and costs - long-term plans - an opportunity for questions and comments. This is (one of) your opportunities to steer the future development of the program. Attendees need to please register to gain access to the meeting. Please email alan.johnson@hops.org.uk to register. More than one attendee per organisation is permitted.... but please not hundreds! * EVENT 1 The first is on Tuesday 11 June 2023 at 9.30am (British Summer Time), and is timed for the convenience of UK employed staff for whom it is during work time, and volunteer Australian staff for whom it is in the evening. This meeting is at 9.30am UK time. The UK will be on British Summer Time at the date of the meeting. 0900 BST is: 1100 SAST in South Africa 1100 CEST in Italy 1830 ACST in South Australia 1900 AEST in Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales Attendees from the UK or Australia are welcome to attend. * EVENT 2 The second AGF event is on Thursday 20 June 2023 at 7pm, is timed for the convenience of volunteer staff in the UK who have day job during the day. Event 2 is at 7pm (UK time). The UK will be on British Summer Time at the date of the meeting. 1900 BST is: 2100 SAST in South Africa 2100 CEST in Italy 0330 (21/6/24) ACST in South Australia 0400 (21/6/24) AEST in Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales Event 1 and 2 are identical, and staff from any country may attend either event, but Australian staff may prefer to attend Event 1 which is at a more convenient Australian time.
Update 1058 25 April 2024	SPOT REPORTS The attribution of Spot Reports to NMIs, Function Logs and Asset Defects is now controlled by new permission 523. Everyone and every group that has 437 has been allocated 523 so no action = no change. The separation of these permissions enables users to be able to view Spot Reports without having access to the Update and Attribute facilities. This can be achieved by allocating only 437 and not 523 (or by removing 523) to the groups for which it is required. Thank you to the Llangollen Railway for the suggestion.
Update 1059 25 April 2024	SPOT REPORTS A Spot Report widget is now on the Home page for easy overview access. It is shown for users with P437.
Update 1057 17 April 2024	COMPETENCE EVIDENCE ASSURANCE This is now available to all. An option has been added for each individual element to be included/excluded in the assurance process. If not included, a box is given for the rationale to be recorded, eg for elements relating to ID Cards, issue of items such as keys, or where assurance will be conducted via another element. Where an element is included, a start date can be recorded. This is designed to help 'start off' the assurance process, so that thousands of existing awards don't immediately show as 'overdue' for assurance. The date can be set to the future or the past, depending on how the implementation of assurance goes. Note that the system still does not take any action when an UNSATISFACTORY result is recorded. This will follow. Those conducting assurance should take the appropriate action when unsatisfactory evidence of competence is discovered. Permission 496 is required to conduct assurance. The 'Assurance' tab is available on each element, and on the element list page for 'all' elements (P497 required). YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlHuK3Yn4c8
Update 1054 11 April 2024	SYSTEM DOWNTIME 10 April 2024: We apologise for the recent system downtime, which was caused by a Denial of Service (DOS). HOPS received several million connection requests from a single location within a 24-hour period which overwhelmed the web server. Overnight the HOPS program team have configured a DOS protection system which will limit the number of connections that can be made from one IP address. Any IP address which triggers a limit will be blocked for a short period of time. We believe the configured limits to be very reasonable and we anticipate that there will be no disruption to legitimate uses of HOPS. For security reasons we are not publicising these limits but will continue to monitor and adjust them to reduce any user impact. Please open a helpdesk ticket if you believe you have been blocked and we will investigate this for you. We appreciate your patience while we investigated this problem.
Update 1053 8 April 2024	PDF CREATOR: Considerable progress has been made today on the issue of the PDF creator. Instead of working to reinstate the PDF creator we have been working to improve the formatting of pages that are printed using native browser printing, saving to PDF, and printing to PDF. This reduces the risk to HOPS that the PDF creator has always posed, in terms of reliability and resource consumption. In the place of the old 'Download as PDF' option is now a 'Print this page' option which triggers the native Print dialogue box, with improved formatting styles applies. [Note in pages that still use old HOPS body text, the 'Print this page' like is required to be used to obtain the appropriate formatting. Ctrl+P / Cmd+P / other methods of calling the print dialogue won't work the same. In New HOPS pages Ctrl+P etc will work fine and therefore there is no yellow 'Print this page' link.] Table rows now no longer break across pages. We are working to remove the green 'department' header that prints on the first page of department-based pages such as rosters before the 'real' content starts on page 2. Where table cells are merged the behaviour can be less predictable. If you find places where the 'Print this Page' link still allows content to be mis-formed or inaccurately split across pages please let us know and (as long as there's not thousands of them) we will try to fix them. Thank you
Update 1052 3 April 2024	TEMPORARY ID CARDS: A 'print locally' facility has been introduced for temporary ID cards, enabling them to be printed on A4 paper by the issuing railways. This reduces/removes the need for temporary ID card stationery, and enables tempoarary ID cards to work with Time Register for the first time. Temporary ID cards can be printed immediately after they are created using the download link, or at any time later by browsing to the card via Services > ID Cards > Temporary ID Cards. The details for completing the business card style ID card stationery are still in place, so railways wishing to use up stock or needing time to brief the new arrangements can do so. The temporary ID card is much larger than the normal ID card. For railways that use Time Register, users are recommended to fold it around the QR code to avoid the QR code becoming damaged by the fold lines. There is no current stock of blank temporary ID cards at HOPS HQ. If any railway wishes to continue using the old stationery until the end of the year please let us know and we will make arrangements. We will make one further order at the end of April for any railways that require it. The temporary ID cards state that they are valid for internal use only, as it seems to be the policy at most railways that new staff obtain their discount on food and drink etc from their first day of volunteering, but not the reciprocal travel etc until they have obtained their full ID card. The printed temporary ID cards are intended to be signed or stamped or embossed by the railway when they are issued.
Update 1051 2 April 2024	SERVICE STATUS: PDFs have been reinstated for: * E-learning completion certificates * Function Log email attachments * Group Booking confirmation email attachments * Shop order confirmation email attachments The 'Download as PDF' button on each page has not yet been reinstated. E-learning has been reinstated. Please do keep an eye on System Updates and here in this group and avoid raising support tickets related to this if you can. We have spent a lot of work time over the weekend in endless arguments with people about it, but it is being investigated and returned to use as soon as possible. The PDF creator has always been ropey at best. We will be doing some work today to see if we can address some of the original issues that make the HOPS PDF creator required over the brower's Save as PDF facility, and the OS's Print to PDF facility, eg breaking text across lines etc. If we can improve the behaviour of those to match what the HOPS PDF creator does then that will be a much less risky way to proceed. It will also reduce a maintenance burden for HOPS and allow us to devote that time to other developments. Thank you to the HOPS program team who have done a great job in responding to Thursday's disruption, including over the bank holiday weekend to ensure unninterrupted service. Once we have been able to fully reinstate our normal service we will be doing some further work in to the original cause and what technology is available to reduce likelihood of a reoccurrence.
Update 1050 28 March 2024	SERVICE STATUS Downloading page as PDF, and Working at Height e-learning have been made temporarily unavailable as part of ongoing resolution of this morning's server issues.
Update 1049 17 March 2024	PROFILE PHOTOS The Profile Photo information has been reviewed and updated. The only material change is a line to dissuade users from wearing hats or sunglasses for their photo. https://www.hops.org.uk/help/profile-photos I know that profile photos are a pain sometimes, but the requirements are to ensure that a good quality outcome is achieved, both in terms of the quality of photo and the technical constraints of printing the image onto the cards. It also manages user's expectations in terms of how seriously the railway treats its compliance processes. A user's willingess to engage in producing a good photo might also sometimes be a good indicator of their willingess to engage in compliance processes in general...
Update 1048 17 March 2024	EMPLOYEE SHIFTS The totals at the bottom of the Employee Shifts 'Totals' tab, and the values in the table in Employee Report, have been turned in to hyperlinks. The links lead to a new detail page that shows a list of all the shifts contributing to the total. At the top of the new page is a calendar showing where all the relevant shifts fall. Underneath this is a list of dates, including rostered shifts and time register info. It is possible to set the 'Shift Type' to 'All' to obtain a list of all shifts (very colourful). Thank to the our friends at the North Norfolk Railway for the suggestion.
Update 1047 14 March 2024	A facility to archive disused Roster Rows has been added.
Update 1046 11 March 2024	We have launched two new HOPS facilities: STOLEN ITEMS REGISTER: Services menu > Stolen Items https://www.hops.org.uk/stolen-items Intended to provide an opportunity for heritage organisations to permanently list stolen items in order that potential buyers can identify them, viewings of the items can be reported to the railway, and hopefully more items recovered. Permission 519 is required to add new listings on behalf of the organisation (which has been added to all users and groups with 015 [generally indicative of HOPS Admins] to start with). --- DISPOSALS GAZETTE: Services menu > Disposals Gazette https://www.hops.org.uk/disposals There have been a number of cases recently where historical items have been disposed of to other collections or scrap, and there has subsequently been criticism of that action. The Disposals Gazette is designed to provide organisations an opportunity to demonstrate having taken reasonable steps to advertise to advertise the assets to other preservation organisations before they are sold or scrapped. Full details of what we hope will become the 'standard' accepted disposal advertising process are shown on the page. (Feedback welcome) Permission 518 is required to add new listings on behalf of the organisation (which has been added to all users and groups with 015 [generally indicative of HOPS Admins] to start with). --- In both of the above, it is intended for use by organisations rather than individuals. We may provide a mechanism for individuals to post personal items in the future. All new listings are 'accepted' centrally before becoming public. Once accepted, the listing is public. A link will be added to the HOPS home page in due course. HOPS Users can subscribe to (and unsubscribe from) notifications from one or both systems via the 'Subscribe' tab and new entries will be emailed to subscribers, as well as posted on X etc. A mechanism for non-HOPS users to subscribe may be added in future. All users with 015 have been subscribed to both registers, feel free to offer/encourage other users to do so. It is in everyone's interest to promote the use of these tools, and definitely in railway's interest to show disposals are being managed appropriately, so when posting in your own media outlets about items for disposal or stolen items please do share a link to the item's page in the Stolen Items Register or Disposals Gazette. The lists are separate by coutnry, for each country with railways that use HOPS. Viewing the list of another country is fine, but we thought it would be more focussed to separate them out as most readers will only be interested in their own country. Thank you to the railways who have requested these features over the years, we hope they are useful. Your feedback is welcome as always!
Update 1045 3 March 2024	ALLOCATION OF CARRIAGE SETS TO TRAINS The concept of 'sets' has previously been driven by an asset type that recognises it contains assets that are actually 'sets', with each having children of the actual carriages. This has proved unsatisfactory for a number of reasons so has been replaced this evening with a new system. A new specific concept of 'Carriage Sets' has been introduced, visible in Base Timetables > 'Carriage Sets and Stock Diagrams' tab. https://www.hops.org.uk/carriage_asset_diagrams.php The new Carriage Sets concept is much less rigid than the previous Asset Management System-driven arrangement. Permission 517 is required to edit. Carriage sets are used to identify groups of carriage assets or vehicles. Eg a carriage set "Blood & custard set" might include five blood and custard mk1s. A vehicle is added by means of giving it an order number and a letter. It is no longer necessary to use the fields in the asset management system, which was previously the cause of a lot of confusion. A vehicle can belong to more than one set. Previously a carriage could only belong to one set as an asset can only have one parent, but now a carriage can belong to multiple sets. Sets can then be easily allocated as a group to a specific train, a specific stock diagram (eg "Train 1" or "Train 2") in the same way as previously (via an individual train, the daily train list, or the monthly train calendar). A set is only used in the process of allocating vehicles, once allocated, the train recognises the individual vehicles and not the set they belonged to at the time. This is the same as before. Note a carriage will not be duplicated on the same train, even if it is commanded to be added as part of a set. To save data re-entry, all existing 'set' assets from the Asset Management System that contained at least one legitimate vehicle have been copied to a new Carriage Set, and all the vehicles that were its children have been copied in to the set. The old parent/children relationships in the Asset Mangement System can be safely removed, the 'set' assets archived, and the asset register in which they lived archived. If this will be an onerous task for you due to the volume of assets please let us know and we will remove them en-mass. Note that this does not replace the concept of Stock DIAGRAM. Stock DIAGRAMS are used to identify the same "train" each day, even if it is formed of different carriages. Eg the 10:00 train is always "Train 1" and the 11:00 is "Train 2", even though they may formed of different carriages each day. The new Carriage SETS are for identifying the specific carriages in each set. There was a lot of re-working involved in all the above, so please let us know if you find any problems. The 'HOPS Error' screen is a pretty good indication that we've been working hard on things... (the day you stop getting errors we've probably stopped working!)
Update 1044 27 February 2024	LOCO ALLOCATIONS ON ROSTERS To make better use of space, there is now an option in roster settings to determine whether loco allocations are shown in their own separate column, or under the date and timetable in that column. This will hopefully help show the loco allocations nicely on rosters that already have a lot of columns.
Update 1043 26 February 2024	HOPS-COMMS MESSAGES A new tab has been added to user profiles - 'Comms Acks'. Permission 515 required. The new tab shows all the messages the user has received that required acknowledgement, and when they (first) opened them and when they acknowledged them. Messages that didn't require an acknowledgement are not shown. This is to help identify if a specific user has any messages requiring acknowledging outstanding. Note we don't, at present, record when a user reads the message if they read it by email. We may be able to achieve this in future if it becomes useful. Acknowledging can only be done in the system, not by email, so there's no ambiguity there. The same tab also shows all the messages that the user has sent that required acknowledgement. Note this is currently only available if you navigate to it via the department staff list. It doesn't yet work if you browse to the user via the search box at the top or the 'All Staff' list.
Update 1042 16 February 2024	Editing Custom Columns on Base Rosters has returned, I'm sorry it was away for so long - thanks to Zig-Zag Railway for the reminder! ( https://zigzagrailway.com.au/location/ - look at that location!)
Update 1041 11 February 2024	HOPS ACCOUNT JOINS The long-outstanding list of HOPS accounts waiting to be joined has been cleared. All users have been notified that their accounts have now been joined. If your accounts have been joined and you find any problems please let us know. DO YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE HOPS ACCOUNT? You can join them together to remove the need for multiple usernames and passwords. The data at each railway you work on is not affected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfqhvAmIJ2I
Update 1040 10 February 2024	ENQUIRIES ABOUT UK DEPARTURE BOARDS We have received a number of questions relating to our exciting collaboration with UK Departure Boards. Here are some of the FAQs and answers: - Where can we buy a Departure Board? You can buy the boards, in various sizes, from https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/ HOPS does not sell the boards, it is only providing the data. - How do we get our times on to the boards? Just enter the appropriate timetable in to HOPS and publish the day and the trains. - Do goods trains and secret trains show? No. Only published, non-secret passenger trains show at present. - Do working times get shown or public times? Only public times are shown, and only at stations. Passing times, working times and times at locations which aren't stations are not shown. - How do we get the locos to show up? Allocate the appropriate trains to a diagram and allocate the traction type and/or specific loco to the diagram. - What drives the steam/diesel/DMU symbol? If a specific loco is allocated to the diagram, the symbol for that traction type will be shown. If no loco is allocated, the symbol of the 'required traction' will be shown, apart from that diagrams that demand 'Any Traction' will not get a symbol until a loco is allocated. - Can we customise the text that is shown about locos? Yes. There is a new 'Public Name' field in the asset management system which can be used to set the public name. Eg the internal name might be "4472" and the public name might be "LNER class A3 number 4472 Flying Scotsman". - Is this intended for use at heritage stations? It is intended primarily for enthusiasts, but heritage railways can also purchase the boards and use them, especially in non-heritage areas such as shops and cafes. We recognise that these non-heritage items are unlikely to be used on heritage platforms. - Is HOPS paying UKDB for this, or is UKDB paying HOPS? No payments are being made by either side for this collaboration. It is being done by UKDB and HOPS in the spirit of working together for the promotion of heritage railways.
Update 1039 9 February 2024	COMPETENCE ELEMENTS The Element Expiries list in Department Competence has been separated in to two lists, one showing currently non-competent awards and one showing currently competent awards. This is to help ensure that users awarded a status such as 'Awaiting QP' remain at the top of the page. In addition, element awards for Not Competent, Awaiting EL, Awaiting SD, Awaiting QP, and Not Required are now forced to 'Does not expire'.
Update 1038 5 February 2024	"WORK DONE" DURING ASSET MAINTENANCE TASKS A "Work Done Recorded" section has been added when viewing a record of a task already carried out. A new link has also been provided on the Work Done Record to get straight to the relevant maintenance task record. Thanks to the NYMR for this suggestion.
Update 1037 5 February 2024	CREW DIAGRAMS Mileages are now shown on crew diagrams.
Update 1036 4 February 2024	DIAGRAMS A lot of tidying up work has taken place today around the new diagrams and loco allocations tools. A tab has been added to Asset Usage and Asset Type Usage showing the diagrams to which the asset has been allocated. These new pages will probably be sorted into months and years in future, but this is in pursuit of integrating diagram allocations with mileage accumulation so I don't fully know how it will all play out. Additional information has been added to crew diagrams following feedback from Admins. Staff are now shown on diagrams (where the viewer has permission 043). The information shown where additional locomotives join/leave each other has also been improved. Thank you to everyone for all your feedback on these new tools. We will continue to try to develop them as soon as possible.
Update 1035 4 February 2024	CREW DIAGRAMS It looks like you have all been having some great fun with the new crew diagrams tools and allocating turns to them! Some early signs have come up of good ways and bad ways to use this, so I have added some notes to the editing page on good and bad naming conventions.
Update 1034 2 February 2024	LOCOMOTIVE ALLOCATIONS ON ROSTERS Locomotive allocations can now be shown on Construct Rosters. New settings are in Roster Settings for each type of traction: Steam, Diesel, DMU and "any". This enables, eg, showing only diesel allocations on diesel rosters and steam allocations on steam rosters. View Rosters to follow...
Update 1033 1 February 2024	Locomotive allocations are now shown on station workings.
Update 1032 31 January 2024	LOCOMOTIVE DIAGRAMS & ALLOCATIONS Here is a video that describes the latest method of managing locomotive diagrams and loco allocations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTPMLH5iiIg This is hopefully useful for reducing the amount of time spent by railways, especially in the lead-up to galas etc, manually writing out diagrams for every driver etc.
Update 1031 31 January 2024	ASSET CHECKLISTS / MILEAGES The usage options in the drop-down list when constructing a Checklist have been simplified, and are now drawn from a single list in Asset Management System Settings > Checklist Usage Suggestions tab. They are no longer asset-type-specific. PLANNED ASSET USAGE This has now been removed, as previously advertised, and replaced with the Diagrams tool in timetables. Diagrams can be created on base timetables [Base WTT Trains tab, then Crew/Stock Diagrams tab on the base timetable detail page] and on individual days [Crew/Stock Diagrams tab on the calendar page for that day]. Each diagram can be set to require a specific type of traction if desired. Daily diagrams can have specific traction units allocated. The loco diagrams appear in the heading of the daily calendar pages (visible on all tabs), on the 'Rolling Stock' tab of the daily calendar page, and can be set to show on availability collection sheets in Roster Settings.
Update 1030 26 January 2024	Attaching files to HOPS Comms messages is now back. Permission 508 required. Please use it sparingly (eg only to managers), so that a - it doesn't fill up the HOPS server b - users don't use it for things that should really be files uploaded to the documents area of HOPS (eg WONs etc). We don't guarantee it will be available forever if it becomes too expensive. Thank you Danny S.
Update 1029 22 January 2024	A new "Instructions following expiry of this element" field has been added to the competence element editing page. The text entered here appears on the alert email sent to a user when their competence element expires. The field is required, when the element is next being edited, but it isn't a requirement to populate them all immediately.
Update 1027 25 December 2023	DATA RETENTION IN HOPS Options have been provided for the retention periods of a new round of data types. These can be viewed in System > HOPS Config Settings > Data Retention tab. https://www.hops.org.uk/railway_detail.php?t=2 Permission 358 is required to edit. The HOPS-recommended periods for retention are shown in brackets, which hopefully we will be able to reach consensus on. Each railway is required to opt-in (or open a dialogue with us if there is a reason to not do so). Note, once opted-in it is not possible to opt-out again. This CIPD document was used for inspiration: https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/keeping-records-factsheet - User DOB (40 years) - User postal address (40 years) - User telephone (7 years) - User email (7 years) - User emergency contact (12 months) - User skills & background (12 months) - User values in local fields (12 months) - User permission (3 months) The '40 year' retention periods on DOB and postal address are justified by the potential need to identify members of staff who may, in future, bring legal action against the company for exposure to hazardous substances etc. The '7 year' retention periods are justified by the need to contact former members of staff in the case of a late claim by a member of the public or railway enforcement authority. The emergency contact data has a shorter period as that is also data about another subject who is not a member of the railway's staff, so carries slightly more risk. As the person no longer works for the railway there is limited (but not zero) likelihood that the railway will need to use the data. The 'Continuous Improvement' page has also been updated to show the railway's status, HOPS Admin > Continuous Improvement. https://www.hops.org.uk/continuous_improvement.php * Background Up to now HOPS has generally been considered not old enough to be storing data for which there was no outstanding lawful basis on which to store it, but as HOPS is now over ten years old that is no longer the case. Some data is easier than others to think about retention/deletion. Some is 'nice to have', some is required for useful analysis, and some is vital to maintain for insurance etc purposes (where the record-keeping period can be 40 years or more). Removing old data also helps maintain best use of system-resources and avoids HOPS becoming 'bogged down'. All data must have a lawful basis for being stored (GDPR), so we must act reasonably in how long we store data for, especially after the person to whom it applies no longer works for the organisation. All data stored in HOPS is stored on the legal basis of 'legitimate interest' - ie it's all necessary data for the client organisations to store to run their businesses - it is not stored under the legal basis of 'consent' and therefore the subject user cannot withdraw their consent. It is legitimate for businesses to store information about their former staff for a reasonable period of time, particularly to protect the company against subsequent legal, insurance or employment claims.
Update 1028 25 December 2023	CALENDARS are now shown on Construct Rosters in the same way as they are on View Rosters.
Update 1025 2 December 2023	Passenger Guard, Ticket Collector, and Signalman/Porter/Goods Guard hats are all back in stock! They are available now, visit the HOPS Shop - https://www.heritage-ops.org.uk/product_categories.php - to place your order.
Update 1026 1 December 2023	BACKUP RESTORATION DRILLS There will be some brief periods of downtime on Christmas Day, 25 December 2023, between 1200 and 1600 UTC for backup recovery drills. That's four hours commencing from : 1200 UK GMT 1300 Italy CET 1400 South Africa SAST 2000 Western Australia AWST 2130 Australia Northern Territory ACST 2200 Queensland AEST 2230 South Australia ACDT 2300 ACT, NSW, Victoria & Tasmania AEDT This is an important part of HOPS's resilience and data protection assurance processes. Time Register devices will continue to work as normal and transactions will be stored up on devices and uploaded to HOPS when it comes back online. We apologise for any inconvenience.