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 1150 3 April 2025	Retail Sales Updates: Emails sent in connection with Retail Sales orders now have more comprehensive reporting of status of delivery and, where available, when it was opened and links clicked. Note it is not always possible to report this, so the absense of a report does not guarantee that the email wasn't opened or clicked. Membership Updates: Interlocking between 'date of birth' and 'membership types' is now available, to enforce minimum and maximum age of members purchasing specific membership types. A new attribute is available on each membership type to control how far in advance a member can renew their membership. Default is no constraint, which was what it was previously so no action = no change. Custom checkout questions can now be asked on a per-membership-type basis. POS Updates: Shelf-edge labels / product barcode labels can now be printed from POS.
Update 1148 20 February 2025	The discount 'items required in basket' system has been significantly upgraded and now gives the option of selecting any ticket type / journey type / fares scheme / session in any combination. This makes it a lot easier to create discounts such as 'child goes free with every adult' on a SESSION (previously easy on travel but difficult on sessions), and all permutations of 'buy one get one free' and 'buy X get Y free'. These facilities can be accessed via the overall discounts list, when 'Require other items in basket' is set to 'yes'.
Update 1138 12 February 2025	The stock system is now in and working. The stock quantities shown in the system should now be accurate, and increment/de-increment in line with sales. All railways have been started at 0 stock today. Incoming stock should now use the 'Re-Stock' facility in POS. (This is also temporary, until the PO system is finished.) Wasted stock should be disposed of via the 'Waste' facility in POS. The purchase prices of items are calculated in accordance with: https://www.hops.org.uk/help/inventory-stock-value-calculation The current values for cost and latest cost can be seen in the Product Details page in HOPS. This will be re-calculated every time new stock is added via the Re-Stock (and later PO) facility. Adjusting quantities of stock controlled items on existing orders, eg when a customer changes their mind, can now only be done in POS, not HOPS. (This is to ensure the stock levels are updated after saving). The 'Transfer' facility in POS now works, for transferring stock between Stock Locations. Unfortunately it only copes with one product at a time at present (multiple quantities are handled). Stock Locations can also be used for things like 'The back of Fred's car' when he takes stuff to trade shows, etc (Hence we used the term 'Stock Location' rather than 'Branch'). A special stock location of 'In Transit' is used when items are transferred between Stock Locations. The item is sent from one Stock Location, and lands in the In Transit location, until it is checked-in at the receiving location by means of the 'Delivery' tab in POS. The number of each item in stock at each Stock Location can be viewed in HOPS > Shop System in the 'Inventory' tab, and in POS in Stock > Stock Levels. When an item is refunded, and POS gives an option for whether it will be returned to stock or not. If it is damaged, so not being returned to stock, it will go Customer > Stock Location > Waste in one movement. If it is being returned to stock it will go Customer > Stock Location. Please let us know if you find any anomalies.
Update 1123 6 January 2025	POINT OF SALE A 'reason' field has now been added when a supervisor adjusts the price of an item at the point of sale.
Update 1118 31 December 2024	POINT OF SALE Further to update 1117, new tabs for 'Adjusted Prices' have been added to: - Retail Sales (all items) - Ticket System (travel and events only) - Shop System (products only) showing items where the price has been changed, values, and reason. This is to help keep visibility of prices being changed by clerks.
Update 1117 31 December 2024	POINT OF SALE A facility to adjust prices of items in an order has been provided. This is guarded by permission 538. This is ideal for us in shops, where a customer might receive a one-off discount for a slightly-damaged or ex-display item. It is necessary to re-enter the clerk's PIN number when using this facility (to make sure that they are still really there and haven't walked away from the till leaving it logged in). It isn't necessary to give all clerks this new facility if that isn't desired - the new 'supervisor' facility can be used, and a clerk can call the supervisor for the price adjustment if that is the preferred method of working.
Update 1116 31 December 2024	A new concept of a 'supervisor' has been implemented in POS. As all actions are controlled by permissions, a "supervisor" is any user who can do something that the current user can't. Ie, there is no single attribute that makes someone a 'supervisor'. This is to facilitate the different policies on different railways, eg some railways allow all clerks to do refunds, and some require a manager. In the former case, the refund facility will be (and is already) available without supervisor intervention, in the latter case a supervisor (someone with refunds permission) would be required to log in to do the action. The following permissions relate to POS actions, which can now be done by a supervisor if the clerk doesn't have permission. 524 - Conduct refunds in POS via Recall Method 525 - Conduct refunds in POS via Quick method 526 - Create Provisional Orders 527 - Create Deposit Orders 528 - Collect payments by MOTO Method 538 - Adjust Prices on the fly The supervisor can log in using the orange button in the 'Supervisor' menu on the right hand side. When logged in, the top of the screen goes orange as a visual reminder (similar to when Admin-logging-in to HOPS). When the supervisor has completed their action, they can press 'log out', and the POS will be returned to the original user. All this can take place while an order is in progress, the basket etc is unaffected.
Update 1111 10 December 2024	The Gift Cards system has been fully implemented. It is now possible to sell Gift Cards for specific Events/Sessions via the online method, and via POS, and for the receipient to redeem them via the online method or via POS.
Update 1110 10 December 2024	The Stock Items sales tools are being upgraded to facilitate use of Retail Systems in shop environments. A new 'Shop System' menu item under Retail Systems which contains all the relevant facilities relating to Stock Items. New permission 536 applies to Shop System. All users and groups with existing permission 474 have been allocated 536. The Stock Items List and Stock Items Sales List have moved from Retail Systems to Shop System. The Stock Items list is now sorted by Cost (Revenue) Centre (to avoid issues with a single list containing thousands of items). A new Stock Item Search tab has been provided. A Detail page has been provided for each product (as the amount of detail stored is too great to show all on the overview list). The detail page includes all the existing deatils, plus a tab for Sales of that item, and a new tab for Barcodes. POS has been updated to accept barcode scanning of products. A product can have multiple barcodes. More than one product can have the same barcode (eg for products that are customised on-site). When a barcode is scanned that applies to more than one product, the POS shows images of the products to the clerk so that they can pick the appropriate one. Further work will take place over the next few weeks in response to demand from railways to expand this part of the Retail System. Thank you to everyone who gives feedback to HOPS to steer its development for the benefit of all railways.
Update 1109 8 December 2024	Marking off Cheques sent by post and BACS payments is now in the system. This can be accessed from the sales order details page (unsuccessful payments section), or via the Unsettled Orders tab, then Payments Expected tab in Retail Systems. Permission 535 required.
Update 1105 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 1103 22 November 2024	There is now a facility to archive events. A link to the 'archive' is present at the top of the list. (If you find archived events showing in other parts of the system please let me know) Thanks Danny S.
Update 1098 13 November 2024	Discounts on EVENTS now have additional options for: - Redeemable between dates (Eg "buy your Santa ticket during the month of August and get a discount") - Redeemable X days before event (Eg "buy your Santa ticket at least 7 days in advance and get a discount") - Redeemable for sessions between dates (Eg Where a dining train has sessions throughout the year "buy a ticket for a dining train that runs in September and get a discount").
Update 1096 7 November 2024	A route map has been added to the top of the 'Travel' page in the public tickets website, to assist passengers understanding the layout of stations. (We are aware that, for some railways, the stations have been 'fiddled' to provide the desired result, and in these cases the route map won't be suitable for public display. If this applies to you please let us know and we can hide it on a railway-by-railway basis.) We intend to develop this further to provide information about the stations, such as toilets, cafe, etc, in the future.
Update 1095 7 November 2024	A clock has been added to the POS interface. This is in response to feedback as the Start bar is normally hidden on POS machines, so the clerk can't look in the bottom right corner to see the time. We hope it helps.
Update 1094 7 November 2024	A new 'Offers & Discounts' card is available for the Tickets home page. It leads to a page that lists discounts that are 'Automatically Apply' and 'Show Decoration' in the settings of the Discount Code. This is ideal for 'Earlybird' discounts. The settings for the card on the Home page can be edited in Ticket System Settings > Discounts > Discount Settings Tab.
Update 1092 6 November 2024	The Feedback system has now been commissioned for customers who have made online orders. The system can be accessed via https://www.raildays.org/feedback This will be developed for walk-up customers next.
Update 1091 5 November 2024	A 'Location' tab has been added to the Retail Sales Order Details page showing a map of the customer's location (based on their post code).
Update 1090 4 November 2024	Some tidying-up of some tick system back office pages has taken place: ORDER DETAILS PAGE This was getting too large and becoming slow to load, so has now been separated into tabs. Two commonly-used links from the top that have been moved in to tabs are: 'Refund Options' and 'Issue Credit Note' are in the 'Items & Payments' tab; 'Re-send Confirmation Email' is in the 'Comms & Emails' tab. SESSION DETAILS PAGE A new page has been added for this, with tabs for 'Bookings', 'Questions' and 'Feedback'. This has made the event overview page a but less cluttered. FEEDBACK Is reflected: - in Ticket System (feedback for all orders) [this has been moved from the Retail Systems section] - in the Order Details page (feedback for that order) - in the Event pages (feedback for all sessions on that event) - in the Session pages (feedback for that session)
Update 1088 26 October 2024	"Reminder Emails" have been introduced. These are emails that are sent at a time relative to when the customer will be visiting. They can be set for any number of days up to 30 before the date of visit, and can help to prepare the customer for their visit (eg what to bring) or create excitement in the lead up to a visit (eg 'Santa is looking forward to seeing you!') Reminder emails can be set for events in the event settings and for travel in the Travel settings. Former email facilities are unaffected - the order confirmation email and "additional" email are unchanged. These are sent when the customer makes their booking.
Update 1087 25 October 2024	Settings related to "Normal Travel" have been moved into a common tab in the Ticket System Settings area. The tab is named as whatever your railway called "Normal Travel" (default = "Heritage Travel"). This now houses: - General Travel Settings - Travel Options (List) - Travel Options (Matrix) - Fares - Stations - Emails (inc Reminder Emails)
Update 1086 25 October 2024	It is now possible to set a discount code to automatically apply. When selected, the code will attempt to apply every time the user adds an item to their basket. Additional fields are provided for the next development of this facility, to decorate the pages with the discounted price, eg "£20 £15 Earlybird offer". These will be implemented later. This is a solution to the "Buy tickets up to the day before to get 10% off" requirement, using the attribute of a discount code 'valid X days before travel'.
Update 1085 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 1081 7 October 2024	When taking a telephone order it is no longer necessary to have the two-part process of recording the order in POS and then coming to HOPS to take the payment. The MOTO payment can now be conducted in POS via the three-dots near the CASH and CARD options. Permission 528 required.
Update 1080 1 October 2024	A 'Template' system has been added to the Discount Codes section to enable easy creation of 'Community Donations'. Eg raffle prizes etc. Any number of templates can be created and then these can be copied easily for deployment as donations etc.
Update 1078 22 September 2024	We are aware of an issue in displaying membership details for users at some railways. The issue arises when viewing a user with NO membership cards issued via HOPS. We believe it is fine where a user DOES have membership cards issued via HOPS. This will be repaired on Monday (23 Sept) morning. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Update 1077 16 September 2024	It was previously possible to select whether a products should be up-sold to customers who had membership/travel/events in their basket, but not narrowed down to one or more specific events. It is now possible to specific specific, individual events, eg, 'Bottle of Champagne' with Evening Dining, 'Breakfast Roll' with Diesel Gala.
Update 1076 13 September 2024	A facility for adding short 'Remarks' to a carriage on a public seating plan, eg for clearly indicating to customers which are open coaches and which are enclosed.
Update 1075 13 September 2024	It is now possible to enforce seating rules, such as avoiding strangers sitting around the same table or in the same compartment. The range and complexity of these means it isn't possible to program them locally until we understand more about what the common use-cases might be. Please contact us if you wish to discuss rule options.
Update 1073 4 September 2024	Seat Reservation details have been added to individual booking items in the Retail Sales Order page. Details of which line a seat reservation applies to have been added to the seat reservation items in the Retail Sales Order page.
Update 1070 4 September 2024	It is now possible to upload an image to Voucher products. The image will shown Online and in POS.
Update 1069 3 September 2024	Update reporting on ticket system developments commenced.