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  • Ten Tips for Evolution
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  • Steven on Mobile Computing
  • 5 minutes with Debbie
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  • Supply Chain Management
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Ten Useful Tips for Evolution. Pastel Evolution is big on features that help companies to perform better...

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Cash Manager. Cash Manager tracks what's due & helps you follow the money...

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Pastel Xpress Tips & Tricks.Ten not-so-secret way to xpress your productivity...

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Time to get mobile. Mobile computing works because it’s no trouble...

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Five minutes with...Five minutes with Debbie van der Walt...

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Ask Steven. 60 Seconds with Steven Cohen, managing director of Softline Pastel

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Supply chain management made easy.Now even small businesses can effectively manage their supply chain and optimise with Evolution...

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Contents
[graphic: Pastel Evolution ribbon]
[image: woman typing on keyboard, Pastel Evolution] 

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  1. Login to a company faster
    • Select the company from the menu and then select Utilities > Explorer Options. Click on the Performance tab and check the "Do not Pre-load any Forms" option. This increases the login speed.
  2. Find a source document quickly
    • Select the Enquires feature from the system tree for the relevant module and click on View to see the transactions. e.g. Receivables > Enquiries | select a customer and click on view.
    • By double-clicking on the transaction line, the Audit Trail window appears, displaying all the accounting entries and the relevant General Ledger accounts that have been updated.
    • By clicking on the Source option, you can further drill down to the original Source document. If the Source button is greyed out, there is no source document for this particular transaction, e.g. a journal entry.
  3. Sort and group transactions for easier viewing
    • On any screen where grid columns display information, e.g. Receivables, Item maintenance, Enquiries or Inventory, you can use standard grouping, sorting and filtering functions to arrange the transaction or records in the most suitable sequence.
    • By clicking on a particular column. This will allow the data to be viewed in either ascending or descending order.
    • Group by column or category. Above the column names there is an unused area labelled Drag a Column Header here to Group by that Column.
    • Drag the field name into the empty area.
    • Add more groupings by dragging their names into the grouping area.
    • Change the grouping order by dragging the fields in the grouping area and placing them in the sequence you need.
  4. Customise grid columns
    View data that is relevant to your requirements.
    • Within any screen where the grid columns are displayed, right-click from the menu and select Customise Grid Columns. e.g. Receivables > Enquiries
    • The Customisation menu will appear, allowing you to select from a range of available columns pertinent to the module.
    • Drag the relevant column from the Customisation menu to the column header.
    • Close the Customisation menu to view the data for the column just added.
    • To remove a column, drag the column from the column header into the Customisation menu.
  5. Find data records faster
    • You can customise the fields you wish to search by from anywhere within the program e.g. when searching for item codes on the Invoice screen, you might want to include the "quantity on hand" and inclusive & exclusive selling prices.
    • To do this, right-click on the relevant field - in this instance the "item code" field - within the Invoice screen. A menu will pop up, select Customise or press F12, which will then display a list of available search options for selection.
    • You can enable the field that you wish to search by and then move the field in order of preference, either up or down. These will in turn display the relevant fields when a search is done.
  6. Launch frequently used features quickly
    • Right-click on a commonly used feature, for example, Invoices. Then select Add to Favourites from the menu.
    • Thereafter, to access this option click on the Favorites option from the Evolution toolbar and select the relevant feature.
    • You may also use the CRTL + ? shortcut key (where ? indicates a numeric number) to gain quick access to this feature.
  7. Toggle between Inclusive and Exclusive within an inventory document
    • Toggle the pricing between Inclusive and Exclusive by pressing Ctrl + F5 from within the Inventory document.
    • To have a particular agent always view in a particular mode, open Inventory document, e.g. Sales Order. Then select View from the menu >Options >Price Entry, and select the relevant mode.
  8. Creating accounts, items or assets on the fly
    • To create a master record on the fly from anywhere within Evolution, press F6 to invoke the Create screen.
  9. Avoid duplication when generating a credit note
    When needing to pass a partial or a full credit note on an invoice, the following steps will help to generate the credit note quickly:
    • Open the Credit Note screen
    • Select the Open button at the top of the screen
    • On the top right of the Credit Note Maintenance screen, select "INV", as below:
    • Select the rest of the filters to find a specific invoice and click on the "Find" button.
    • Right click on the relevant document displayed and select either "Load as Linked" or "Load as Template" from the menu.
    • Notice the difference between the two on the open Credit Note main transaction screen: "Load as Linked" limits the editing of the Module, Item, Item description and Warehouse fields, whereas "Load as Template" does not.
  10. Speed up record selection with the Filter Start feature.
    If you have a very large master file, such as a customer, supplier or inventory file, searching and selecting these records can take some time. The reason is that the program will populate the work area with all the records in the file. If you have tens of thousands of these records, this takes time. You can control this by requesting that the user enters a search criterion when a customer, supplier or item code is to be selected. The system then only displays those records that conform to the criteria. For example, if you enter "AB" as the search criteria, then only records starting with "AB" will be displayed, and in much less time. This option can be found in the Defaults screen under the Maintenance section of the respective modules. Here you can enable the "filter start" feature and also specify the minimum number of search characters. Example: Inventory > Maintenance > Inventory Defaults > Inventory tab under the Code Start section as indicated below.
    • Enable the Filter Start by clicking in the checkbox and specify the minimum number of search characters.




      Using this example on an invoice screen, upon selecting the item code the program will prompt the user to specify the search criteria before returning with a search result.

      The same would also apply for customer and supplier lookup fields' on the relevant transaction screens.

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