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 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 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 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 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.
Update 986 21 April 2023	MICROSOFT E-MAIL ACCOUNTS (HOTMAIL, OUTLOOK, MSN, LIVE, ETC) We have received a sudden spike in the number of bounced emails from Microsoft email accounts (hotmail, outlook, msn, etc). As you know, the HOPS Email Watchdog closely monitors email sending and, wherever possible, identifies email addresses that are no longer working. As part of this, we often investigate patterns or trends in HOPS email deliverability behaviour, and in doing this we have identified that in February Microsoft changed the way their storage is allocated to include email attachments in users' storage capacity limit. Where this change puts users above the max level of storage they may stop receiving emails, not just from HOPS, but from anyone. Statement from Microsoft: "Starting February 1, 2023, cloud storage used across Microsoft 365 apps and services will include Outlook.com attachments data and OneDrive data. All data will continue to be protected with Microsoft’s comprehensive set of security features. This update may reduce how much cloud storage you have available to use with your OneDrive. If you reach your cloud storage quota, your ability to send and receive emails in Outlook.com will be disrupted." More information about these changes can be found - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/changes-to-microsoft-365-email-features-and-storage-637e353b-87b8-40d4-aa3f-a269bb9dfeb6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- New Microsoft Free (no subscription account) Storage Limits - One drive storage = 5 GB (email attachments and inline images are now included in this) - Outlook storage = 15 GB (emails, text only components) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More information can be found here: Storage limits in Outlook - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/storage-limits-in-outlook-com-7ac99134-69e5-4619-ac0b-2d313bba5e9e How Microsoft storage works - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-does-microsoft-storage-work-2a261b34-421c-4a47-9901-74ef5bd0c426 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Due to the large numbers of bounces received, we have not immediately started suspending these email accounts, but are now alerting HOPS admins and providing you with the information for you to assist your affected users. From WEDNESDAY 26 APRIL we will have to start suspending the email addresses, as to continue sending emails to addresses that bounce them reduces HOPS's email "reputation" which is detremental to the sending of all emails to all railways. Please could admins contact their users by alternative email addresses (as emailing them on their Microsoft ones won't get through!) or by alternative means to resolve this. Users will need to either clear some space from the storage or email, or upgrade to a higher capacity product/service. Unfortunately this isn't a HOPS issue or something that we can affect in any way.
Update 983 6 April 2023	HOPS ANNUAL GENERAL FORUM 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 - 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@heritage-ops.org.uk to register. More than one attendee per organisation is permitted.... but please not hundreds! EVENT 1 The first is on Tuesday 6 June 2023 at 7pm (UK time), and is timed for the convenience of UK volunteer staff who have day jobs during the day. This meeting is at 7pm UK time. The UK will be on BST at the date of the meeting. 1900 BST is: 0330 ACST in South Australia 0400 AEST in Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales Attendees from the UK or Australia are welcome to attend, but Australian users but may prefer Event 2 which is at a more convenient Australian time. EVENT 2 The second AGF event is at 9am on Wednesday 7 June 2023, is timed for the convenience of employed 9-5 staff in the UK, and volunteer staff in Australia. Event 2 is at 9am (UK time). The UK will be on BST at the date of the meeting. 0900 BST is: 1730 ACST in South Australia 1800 AEST in Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales Event 1 and 2 are identical, and staff from any country may attend either event.
Update 950 7 January 2023	ROSTER DIAGRAMS References to 'Diagrams' on rosters have been replaced with the term 'Roster Lines' without change to functionality. [Note this was originally advertised as 'Custom Rows'. Thanks for all your feedback on a suitable name!] This releases the term 'Diagram' to be used with the new train crew diagrams tools. Train crew diagrams will not be inextricably linked to roster lines, as it will often be required to show more than one diagram in each line on the roster - eg Traincrew diagrams 'Driver 1' and 'Fireman 1' will probably want to both be shown in the 'Train 1' roster line. It might also be a requirement to show 'Driver 1' and 'Driver 2' in the same 'Train 1' roster line, if that is for example the early and late turn for the same train, etc. In most cases this will only affect roster clerks. In many other places around the system the label Diagram has been retained, as it will contain the current info (roster line) AND the /new/ diagram info in the future. Eg "Diagram: DS640 (Train 1)" where "DS604" is the diagram and "Train 1" is the roster line.
Update 940 9 December 2022	Possible TIMETABLE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTS are on the cards thanks to interest from a couple of railways. If your railway is interested in feeding ideas and suggestions into the development of the timetable system in HOPS please let us know all your wonderful ideas, and whether they are nice-to-have or are important enough to you for you to be interested in sharing the development sponsorship cost. Responses via a support ticket for those organisations that are able to please, and emails for those that aren't.
Update 892 30 August 2022	DATA RETENTION IN HOPS HOPS is again looking at the policy for data retention and deletion in HOPS. This consultation replaces the 2019 consultation on the same matter. * Overview 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. The previous consultation on this matter listed many types of data and became swamped in discussions and was ultimately lost to Covid disruption. To resurrect the discussion, this consultation describes a planned change to the retention period for three initial types of data that it hopefully might be easier to reach agreement on: turn history, roster availability and user login data. All three of these are large in volume so of benefit to all HOPS users to resolve. Please see the consultation document here: http://www.heritage-ops.org.uk/public_docs/HOPS_Data_Retention_2022.pdf
Update 890 17 August 2022	HOPS VACANCY: HERITAGE RAILWAY SAFETY SERVICE DIRECTOR &pound40,000 - £50,000 depending on experience and qualifications. We are are looking to recruit a person with heritage railway operations and safety management experience to assist in the development, rollout and support of the Safety Service and associated Safety Management Systems and materials. If you are enthusiastic about heritage railways, safety systems, and keen to help support heritage railways through development of the Safety Service, please get in touch! Applicants are required to have experience of building, developing or auditing railway safety management systems in a heritage or main line context, and have experience in the management of general occupational health and safety. The successful applicant will take the lead on: - Providing operations and safety input into the development of Safety Service tools, systems, training and assessing materials - Facilitate appropriate workshops and consultation with railways regarding drafting and development of the universal SMS structure and system - Engage with railways on developments and updates to the SMS, e-learning and other safety resources - Provide the point of contact for railways in the development of the Safety Service and systems - Engage with staff from railways that contribute or query Safety Service policies and templates - Lead the construction of policies for railways that enable the enacting and adherence to the SMS, eg competence management, etc. - Lead the construction of risk assessment templates to underpin SMS documents - Assist railways in migrating onto the SMS system, ensuring a smooth transition and robust evidence of diligence in the changeover - Manage system development to maximise efficiency for railways by recycling SMS content but ensuring local risks to individual undertakings are accommodated. - Manage the Safety Enquiry Bureau To suit the successful candidate's situation the role can be either fully remote working from home, or from a fully-accessible office at HOPS HQ in Totnes in South Devon (right next to Totnes railway station). We welcome applicants wishing to work part-time or full-time, and from freelancers/contractors. (The salary shown above is based on a full-time employee.) Flexible working hours can be accommodated. Travel to heritage railway and other company sites will be required with some overnight stays. Applications are welcome via email, accompanied by a CV, telephone number, and if possible some examples of previous work, to admin@heritage-ops.org.uk We're looking forward to hearing from you! --- About HOPS: HOPS has developed over the last 13 years to become one of the primary support organisations for heritage railways in the UK, and now has a rapidly-growing customer base in Australia. We also support some other, non-railway but primarily education-based, heritage organisations. HOPS delivers a wide range of online ERP tools, including operational, management and compliance support tools to its customers, as well as providing consultancy support in their implementation and other matters of railway compliance, safety and risk-management. Project: The HOPS Safety Service aims to support heritage railways and improvement of safety maturity across the industry by providing tools, systems, resources, training and assessing materials and working standards. The Service will save time and cost for heritage railways by removing duplication of work and development, as well as providing SMS and procedure templates, a universal SMS structure, and safety support to heritage railways. ---
Update 870 15 June 2022	The availability matrix in HOPS has a new 'white stripe' added when a person is fully utilised. A person is considered fully utilised when they have been allocated the number of turns they asked for or, if they indicated 'unlimited', when they have been allocated a turn on every day they are available. This makes it easy to visually distinguish a 'Yes' that is able to be used (green) from a 'Yes' that can't be used as the person is already working their max amount (green with white stripe). If all Ys are green/white, the max utilisation has been reached and therefore the best efficiency from the roster availability. Link to examples: https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps/photos/a.274448152666082/5101371096640406/
Update 847 25 February 2022	HOPS VACANCY: DEVELOPER £40,000 - £55,000 depending on experience. We are are looking to recruit one or more React developers to assist in meeting the growing demand for HOPS's online systems. If you are enthusiastic about web development, and keen to help HOPS grow and support heritage railways thrive for the future, please get in touch! Applicants are required to have experience of React development, Material UI, and a strong knowledge of modern-day JavaScript, CSS layout engines, and browser technologies. Ideally also acquainted with Redux, and familiarity with Docker would be useful. Railway interest / background / experience (heritage or main line) is an advantage but not a requirement. To suit the successful candidate's situation the role can be either fully remote working from home, or from a fully-accessible office at HOPS HQ in Totnes in South Devon (right next to Totnes railway station). We welcome applicants wishing to work part-time or full-time, and from freelancers/contractors. (The salary shown above is based on a full-time employee.) Flexible working hours can be accommodated. Applications are welcome via email, accompanied by a CV, telephone number, and if possible some examples of previous work, to admin@heritage-ops.org.uk We're looking forward to hearing from you! --- About HOPS: HOPS has developed over the last 13 years to become one of the primary support organisations for heritage railways in the UK, and now has a rapidly-growing customer base in Australia. We also support some other, non-railway but primarily education-based, heritage organisations. HOPS delivers a wide range of online ERP tools, including operational, management and compliance support tools to its customers, as well as providing consultancy support in their implementation and other matters of railway compliance, safety and risk-management. Technical: HOPS is a JavaScript application created with the React framework; Redux is used in a limited way for state management; Axios is used for HTTP requests. Material UI v4 is used as the basic UI framework; many custom UI components have also been written to either abstract Material implementation details or implement advanced custom controls. Virtually all React components are currently written in the class-based approach. A mixture of styling approaches are used, including JavaScript style objects, CSS/SCSS modules, Material UI's styling framework, and custom layout/styling container components. Virtually all layout is handled using CSS Grid / Flexbox. ---
Update 840 22 January 2022	A 'Work Record' tab has been added in the Asset Register Index page for each asset type showing a summary of all the work activities on all assets of the type. (This is equivalent to existing the Work Done tab in the Asset Detail page, but showing the data for all assets of the type.) There wasn't an equivalent for all work activities on all assets across the whole railway. This is a bit big for a pretty page in the Asset Management system itself, and I suspect will lend itself to local analysis/sorting etc. So I have put this in System > Reports & Export and broken it down by year. You can export from this as a CSV, for example, and then filter it however you like in Excel/etc. Thank you to the Talyllyn Railway for this suggestion.
Update 835 12 January 2022	There will be a period of downtime for maintenance and upgrade work for approximately 60-90 minutes, commencing at 1400 GMT on Monday 17 January. For Australian HOPS, that's Tuesday 18 January at 0001 AEST, 0030 ACDT, 0100 AEDT. 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. In an emergency only, please contact Danny Scroggins at HOPS HQ via your HOPS Admin. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Update 766 19 May 2021	HOPS FREE Virtual Workshops No 14, via Facebook Live screencast, continues our 2021 series of Safety Management System workshops, this Tuesday at 7pm. https://www.heritage-ops.org.uk/workshops This workshop concentrates on the management and recording of Competence, in the context of a heritage railway. Following an excellent suggestion after the first workshop, we invite all participants who wish to to sent in their current SMS policy relating to Competence Management. This will enable us to read all of them before the Workshop and combine all the best practices. Thank you for this great idea which will help make the workshop even more widely-considered and demonstrate inclusion of input from a wider range of railways! All content will be anonymised before inclusion, so please don't worry that you're exposing yourself or your company to liability. --- HOPS has been involved in writing, reviewing or updating Safety Management Systems on a number of railways and is often asked for help on the subject, so we have arranged to continue our successful live online workshops programme in 2021 with the series of SMS Best Practice workshops. The Workshops take place at six-week intervals at 7pm on Tuesday nights. They are live discussion videos, freely available to everyone to attend and ask questions live which we will try our best to answer as we go along based on our experience of SMSs and the management in general of heritage and main line railways. The videos will also be available to watch again later on YouTube. While all railways are different, there are many opportunities for overlap in SMS wording and a majority of overlapping SMS principles that can be applied. The six-week interval between workshops gives time in between each session for the local review and, where railways wish to, adaptation of the output to suit their local needs, before moving on to the next subject. Whatever the strength of your current SMS, it is always good to review it, and good to be able to demonstrate you've reviewed it and engaged with the peer-reviewed best practice. So please do join in the HOPS workshops, share your knowledge, and see what you can learn from other organisations too! --- HOPS has a great many tools to assist in the management of volunteer and employed staff at heritage and volunteer organisations. Previous HOPS Workshops are available to view on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps/videos/ and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRu_xPovYjpBegbwS-89jUg EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO JOIN IN. We will respond to comments and queries raised via the comments section during the live video. The video will start at 7pm and last approximately 90-120 minutes. Please let us know if you plan to join in via the "Going" button! https://www.facebook.com/events/2874032796147231
Update 740 16 February 2021	Thank you to everyone who has embraced 'Migrating the Management of Competence to Elements' since our video the other day - it's great to see so much migration taking place and the management of competence becoming stronger as a result! We have been asked by a number of railways "Are our roles already ok?" To help with this we have added a few red/green light indications: - In the department > Competence > Competence Structure > Roles tab there is now a red/green light that shows whether the role meets the 'perfect' settings. - For Admins, we have produced this temporary page https://www.heritage-ops.org.uk/perfect_roles_list.php which shows ALL the roles in the organisation and their red/green status for each of the key settings (visible only to HOPS Admins (tacked on to permission 015)). Many of the settings, we have observed, will just be set that way because 'it's always been like that', but the actual facility isn't used, so can be turned to green by just changing the setting. Ie where "allow files to be uploaded" is set to 'yes' for a role where competence isn't managed, such as shop staff, so there will be no impact from changing this to 'no' to obtain a green. In other cases, where it is your current policy to store files on the role, a change of policy and some conversion of data (which we can automate as shown in the video) might be required. Here is a link to the video in case you want to watch again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3p7lHpxdUA More than happy to talk through each 'red' by phone if it helps. This support is extended to Basic HOPS members in this case.
Update 700 12 December 2020	We recently undertook development work to make the VIEW permissions of user details more configurable, to meet the growing granularity with which clients want to control access. We have now deployed equivalent development to the EDIT permissions. The large, coloured numbers in the table below are the new permissions, and the colours indicate the former equivalent permissions. 068, 069 and 405 have been split into 17 new permissions (407-423). We have altered all existing permissions allocations to groups and individuals so that everyone who had the old permissions has now obtained all the new ones. Ie, everyone who had 069 for a particular department has obtained 411, 412, 413, 414, 416, 420 for that department. So, in the majority of cases, if you take no action there will be no change. EXCEPT..... we have straightened out some anomalies in permissions relating to viewing and editing custom fields and users' HOPS Account data. This may have introduced some non-backwards-sympathetic changes, ie, users who could previously edit a custom field or HOPS Account field might now not be able to. If this occurs, please either consult the table to see the new permission number required, or contact us if you have any problems. The number of grey tabs on a user's profile has been reduced by one, with the removal of the tab with the client company's initials. The information on this tab has been moved to the 'General' tab where it relates to the user at the organisation and the 'HOPS Account' tab where it relates to the user's HOPS Account. We will, next, tackle the permissions for users editing their own details. Please let us know if you find any problems.
Update 693 20 November 2020	Further to Update 691, it has become apparent that permissions 403 and 404 were not moved across correctly. This would have resulted in some users not being able to view postal addresses where they previously could. I have run the process again so everyone who used to have 091 has now been given 404 again (if they didn't already have it) and everyone who used to have 090 has now been given 403 again (if they didn't already have it).
Update 691 18 November 2020	The permissions for viewing user details have been separated out in order to facilitate more granular control over viewing different elements of a user's personal details. Permission 091, to view user contact details on (and from) the railway staff list has been replaced with new permissions: 379 - view photos (existing) 404 - view postal address 398 - view email addresses 153 - view telephone numbers 399 - view DOBs Everyone and every group who had 091 has been automatically allocated the new permissions that directly replace 091 so no action = no change. Permission 090 (per department), to view user contact details on (and from) the department staff list has been replaced with new permissions: 378 - view photos (existing) 403 - view postal addresses 400 - view email addresses 154 - view telephone numbers 401 - view DOBs In both cases, 405 - view HOPS User Account Details. Everyone and every group who had 090 has been automatically allocated the new permissions that directly replace 090 so no action = no change. The permissions for editing details will be separated out in future. Also, the organisation staff list permissions no longer apply to the department staff lists. It used to be the case that if you had 'view contact details' for the org staff list, it automatically showed it all to you on all the dept staff lists as well. This no longer applies and the specific permissions for the department(s) are required. Everyone who used to have permissions for the org staff list now has the new equivalent permissions for 'all' depts so no action = no change.
Update 690 17 November 2020	Permission to mark and review Question Papers is now 406 (was 238). Everyone and every group that has 238 has automatically inherited 406 so no action = no change.
Update 640 1 January 2020	FUNCTION LOGS It is now possible to delete a Function Log Item. Permission 373 is required.
Update 601 3 July 2019	There is a new setting in Roster Settings "highlight non-competent staff" and a new permission 340 "View highlighting of non-competent staff on rosters" Highlighting is only visible to those with permission 340. This hopefully helps to address the issue of rostering staff when they are due to expire between now and the turn but it is believed they will be re-certified in the meantime.
Update 540 7 February 2019	Links sent in HOPS-Comms messages are generally clickable in the recipients' email programs, either because they are sent in that format by HOPS or because the email program in which they are viewed recognises that they're a link and makes them 'clickable'. We became aware that Office365 - don't you just love it - didn't recognise the links, but we have managed to now fix this, so hopefully links are clickable again in Office365.
Update 440 27 February 2017	Unfortunately I have not been able to complete the planned upgrade work on the question papers system in the advertised time. This part of the system will remain unavailable until the work is complete, which I expect will be in the next 2-3 days. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.
Update 409 9 November 2016	It is now possible to set a new user's privacy settings when creating the user (permission 231 required). This is designed to help in administering offline users who can't change their own settings.
Update 408 9 November 2016	The colour of "Expired" competences is now shown in light purple instead of light blue. This is to make "Expired" distinct from "Lapsed". "No record" is now shown as white instead of red.
Update 407 3 November 2016	Apologies the monthly Competence Expiry emails didn't work as planned on 1st November. These emails were upgraded to include more information about competence elements causing competences to expire during October and and error there caused them to not be sent at all! They were all sent on 2nd November. Some users may have received two copies of the same email, apologies for this. Just in case you're ever stuck, the list of competences expiring is always available as a list in a tab of the Competence Matrix. (The email is only really a prompt and, like any email, shouldn't be relied on.)
Update 405 27 October 2016	ROSTER SETTINGS This is a FINAL CALL for HOPS Admins to allocate new permission 246 to those users who require to access and configure the Roster Settings page (currently accessed via permission 94). The system will be updated to require this new permission imminently. (Previously advertised on 18 Oct.)
Update 406 27 October 2016	A third option has been added to the options for how to display competences in the Department Competence Matrix. The full name of competences, rather than the abbreviated name, can now be displayed. Only recommended for departments that don't have a huge number of positions.
Update 404 27 October 2016	A new permission 251 is available to allow users to see a summary of Group Bookings information on the Daily Operations page but without being able to drill down into all the detail visible by permission 180. This might be appropriate for guards or station staff, etc.
Update 403 25 October 2016	New options "Set Priority" and "Set Remarks" have been added to the tickbox selection actions on the roster construction page.
Update 402 25 October 2016	A new report has been added to the Reports & Export part of HOPS, report number 48 shows users who don't belong to any departments. This will hopefully help with identifying any 'orphaned' users who no longer require access to the system.
Update 401 25 October 2016	Some while ago the "Employed" status on a user's details was upgraded to show other options than "Volunteer" or "Employed" such as "Contractor" etc. I forgot to mention it in these Updates at the time. Please let me know if you require any other options in that list.
Update 400 24 October 2016	There is now a 'Tick Box mode' on roster construction for selecting multiple turns simultaneously. Only a small number of options are currently available but with the structure in place others can be added in future.
Update 340 15 August 2016	[Fixed - 2345 15/8/16] There has recently been an issue with emails sent to users with BT Internet accounts being bounced (by BT Internet). We have done some considerable work to get round this issue, and hope to complete a fix tonight. Some emails have been being queued while we have been working this, but all are being sent as the queue clears out after a few hours. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Update 240 26 October 2013	The Billing Name on Purchase Orders has now been made configurable in System > Railway Details. The Billing Name can either be: - The name of a person at the railway, or - A generic string, ie, 'Finance Manager'.
Update 232 20 October 2013	'Next Medical Exam Due' list pages have been added. These are in the Community menu for the whole railway (existing permission 144) and in the Departments menu for individual departments (existing permission 140). Thanks to Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway for requesting this.
Update 142 31 July 2012	View and Edit permissions for user's details will be separated down soon. The current ADMIN VIEW permission (91 for the railway and 90 for individual departments) and ADMIN EDIT permission (68 for the railway and 69 for individual departments) will no longer permit access to emergency contact details or medical information. New permissions have been created for these: View Medical details for a specific department: 140 Edit Medical details for a specific department: 142 View Medical details for the whole railway: 144 Edit Medical details for the whole railway: 146 View Emergency Contact details for a specific department: 141 Edit Emergency Contact details for a specific department: 143 View Emergency Contact details for the whole railway: 145 Edit Emergency Contact details for the whole railway: 147 ADMINS: Normally when permissions are altered we edit the system to make sure that service is continuous for those with the affected permissions, however, on this occasion, to ensure we err on the side of caution, we will NOT allocate these permissions to users who already have view/edit access by virtue of the current permissions (68/69/90/91). So, to ensure continuity of service these permissions have been created in the system now, in advance of the change, so that you can add them to the required users in readiness. The permissions have been prefixed 'FUTURE' to make clear that they are not yet in effect. When they come into effect I'll remove the FUTURE prefix.
Update 140 28 July 2012	Railways where the rosters are synchronised across the departments, and hence the availability opens in all departments on the same night, have pointed out that their users who belong to several departments receive several emails, one for each department, saying essentially the same thing. To counter this, if a user belongs to more than one department with availability opening at the same time, both messages will now be combined into the same, single, e-mail. I hope that helps. (Thanks to Sam, KWVR)
Update 40 1 January 2011	A lot of changes are about to take place to the way HOPS manages rostering. We have tried to make the parts of the website involved in rostering easier to navigate by grouping them together. Firstly, when inputting availability, there is now an 'Unlimited' box underneath the 'Number of Turns' box. Experience has shown that some users have been using '0' to mean 'unlimited' and some have been using '100' or '999', etc. While both methods are equally valid, the inconsistency causes problems for HOPS so now we have a consistent method of indicating 'Unlimited'.