Combine Pirform's automatic backup with an online backup service like Dropbox or SkyDrive to keep your valuable certificate data safe.  That way you will never lose your certificates even if your computer is lost, damaged or stolen.

www.pirform.co.uk/onlinebackup

If you need any more advice or assistance, just contact us at support@pirform.co.uk

There is no limit to the number of boards that you can have in a certificate in Pirform.  We get to see quite a lot of real life certificates that our customers have issued, and we regularly see certificates with between 100 and 200 boards.

Recently we saw a certificate with just under 430 boards. Wow, that's a whopper!

This got us wondering what the largest certificate that has been issued by Pirform was. How big was the biggest certificate you have issued using Pirform?  We’d be interested to hear what the largest certificate that you have issued using Pirform was.  Let us know by leaving a comment on our forums here.

We’re pleased to say that version Pirform 2013.1 is now available now from our website.  Pirform is the only electrical testing software on the market today with the relevant regulations from BS7671 built into the program – these include both the changes from Amendment 1 in 2011 as well as the 2008 version of the regulations.

Whist we’ve called this release 2013.1, the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that we have in fact been releasing a number of updated throughout 2013.  In fact, we have issued 5 updates with new features already this year, and more with minor fixes (if you want to see what was in these, go and read this article).  So, what’s have we been doing since then?

Copying boards between certificates

Ever wanted to copy a board from one certificate to another?  Well, now you can! 

The Certificate Merging feature in the Premium Edition allows you to take boards and board observations from one or more other certificates and copy them into a main certificate.  Useful when you need to a break larger job up between different engineers. 

We’ve now added a stage that let’s you choose which boards you want to bring across.  You can choose all boards, a single board or any number in between.

Of course, as well as merging into a larger certificate, you can also use this feature to copy boards from one job into another.  You can read more about how to use this really powerful feature in our Help Desk.

Using drag and drop to reorder boards and circuits

Reordering your boards and circuits just got easier with the new drag and drop features.  To reorder, just click on the indicator at the left of the row, then drag and drop on the new location.  This works wherever you can see a list of boards or circuits:

In the board manager:

The board selector in the circuits and test results:

And also on the circuits grid:

 

Observations in Electrical Installation Certificates

Some customers have asked to be able to include observations along with their EICs.  There is now a setting that allows you to do that.  Open the EIC and go to the certificate options

 

More control over the spell checker

Pirform has a built-in spell checker that helps to make sure all your reports and certificates are correct and professional.  We’ve added a number options to help you control the way the spelling checker works.  Just open Pirform Options and go to the General section:

Pirform works best on a reasonably modern computer (read our system requirements in our Help Desk here).  However, some customers like to use Pirform on a much lower powered computers such as netbooks.  To help reduce the load on these sort of computers, you can turn off the spell checking during typing from the same section shown above.

Other changes and fixes

We’ve also made the following changes and fixes:

Change: circuit designation now shown against the board supply.
Change: find feature now available in Board Manager.
Change: no additional page in minor works with long comments.
Change: intelligence update checking now records the last intelligence version that was used when checking the certificate.
Change: can now specify synching of Zs values at circuit level and force updating from cert options.
Change: suppressed errors loading start page control.
Change: now checks for updated licences each time the app starts.
Change: copied boards are now positioned under the board being copied.
Change: updated image next to the board selection control.

Fix: removing board from large certificates (over 300 boards) was quite slow.
Fix: export observations now disabled when no observations.
Fix: installation extent overflow in EIC was not correct.
Fix: comments on the installation not overflowing correctly in MW report.
Fix: crash when refreshing export of multiple certs.
Fix: circuit Zs values now carry through to supplied board.
Fix: engineer controls showed the wrong engineer until focused or the mouse was hovered (print was okay).
Fix: export observations now preserves full file name when cert number contains not permitted characters.
Fix: certs were being marked as changed when after opening and viewing boards when no changes had been made.
Fix: crash when opening an imported certificate that contained an engineer with a blank name.
Fix: circuit numbering was incorrect after merging, moving and unmerging.
Fix: three phase merged circuits were not split after changing to single phase.
Fix: could not select using space bar in export, import and merge wizard when selection column was focussed.
Fix: watermark now defaults to show in front so that it shows on all pages.
Fix: intelligence manager locations were not correctly shown in the controls when the same statement applied to multiple locations.
Fix: circuits incorrectly numbered after importing a cert with merged circuits and un-merging the circuit.
Fix: spelling checker was highlighting correct words as incorrect.
Fix: spelling error in inspection schedule item 4.6.
Fix: EICR Page 1 was missing review engineer position from printed report.

:

In April, new measures come in that will allow DIYers to make simple electrical improvements to their home, without having to spend hundreds of pounds on getting the council’s approval.

Communities Minster Don Fosters says:
"Safety remains the number one concern. The message to people thinking of doing electrical work themselves is if you are not sure, use a competent registered electrician. It’s vital government and industry keep working together to get this message out, and I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak at the Electrical Industry Summit to reinforce this."

We’d be interested to hear your feedback on this, and whether you feel the changes are good or bad.

In a move which will bring the electrical contracting industry together as never before, the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA) and the Electrical Safety Council (ESC) have announced the creation of the Electrical Safety Register.

Consequently from April 1st 2013, the NICEIC and ELECSA will be operated by a brand new organisation called Certsure. The move is designed to give the industry a stronger voice to government and major stakeholders on relevant issues.

The partnership should bring many benefits to NICEIC and ELECSA registrants. The first is the creation of the Register, which the organisations hope will become the definitive searchable database of NICEIC and ELECSA registered contractors, as well as ECA members. It will be promoted to hundreds of thousands of specifiers by the trade association and the charity.

Certsure will also make major customer commitments to NICEIC and ELECSA customers. These include:

   Customers are able to display the Electrical Safety Register banner
   NICEIC, ELECSA and ECA customers will be included on the Electrical Safety Register
   Certsure will provide excellent customer service and actively promote its contractors in the marketplace

“With this partnership, the benefits to the consumer and electrician are significant,” comments Charles Tanswell, chair of the ESC. “In particular, for the consumer it means more can be done to raise awareness of the benefits of using registered electricians and we’re delighted that this partnership ensures solid industry support for the charity and its work.”  

“This partnership marks a new beginning for the electrical contracting industry.” explains Paul McNaughton, President of the ECA. “There is strength in unity and this alliance unites the key electrical industry players: The sector trade association, the electrical consumer charity and the leading certification body, while providing clarity to the consumer and a consolidated voice to government on common issues.” 

“We will act as the sole registration, certification and assessment body for not only NICEIC’s current customer base, but for those under the ELECSA and ECA brands too,” explains Emma Clancy, CEO of Certsure. “Over time significant cost and commercial benefits will be available to those electrical contractors registered with ELECSA and NICEIC, thanks to this partnership and we will be communicating with all our customers about the joint venture.”

 

To view the Electrical Safety Register log onto www.electricalsafetyregister.com

Since we released the new version, we’ve released regular updates and made a couple of changes that are worth talking about. 

If you haven't already, you can read the full release notes for version 2012.2 here.

Export observations to a spreadsheet

You can now export all the observations in a certificate to a spreadsheet.  This gives you access to the observations for things like preparing a schedule of works or to use when costing remedial works.  Just click the button marked Export Observations in the ribbon:

This will create a .CSV file that you can then open in your favourite spreadsheet software.  Note that this feature requires the Premium Edition or the Certificate Sharing bolt on.

Notification of intelligence changes

If the intelligence is updated between version of the program, then it may happen that either new intelligence applies to a certificate or intelligence that used to apply no longer applies.  When you open a certificate, Pirform now checks to see if there are any intelligence statements that are added or removed and if there are it will show you a summary of the changes.

If you want to accept the changes, then just clock OK and they will be applied to the certificate.  If you want to keep the certificate as it was, then just cancel and nothing will be changed.

Easier management of backup and export locations

You can now move your your backup and export folders to be under a single root folder in one go.  This makes it easier to set up Pirform to use cloud services like Dropbox or SkyDrive with Pirform for free online certificate storage or for free online based certificate sharing.

Three phase handling improvements

We’ve polished the way Pirform handles three phase circuits.  Adding a circuit now adds a group of three, and copying a circuit now copies the whole group.  If you have a board where all the circuits are merged and you add a circuit, Pirform now keeps the circuits merged (they used to become un-merged). 

We’ve also fixed a couple of problems where the names of circuits were not correctly set after deleting merged circuits.  The new behaviour is that Pirform renumbers the circuits.  So, if you have 1TP - Hall, 2TP - Kitchen and you delete 1TP – Hall, you’ll be left with 1TP – Kitchen.

Other changes and fixes

These are the other changes and fixes we have made since we released 2012.2.

Version 746 and after

New: added shortcut key for moving boards up and down.
New: now shows current licence information in Home Screen.

Change: better handling of errors when import fails to read the import file.
Change: new board manager icon.
Change: focus now set to first control when page first shown.
Change: fixed failure writing error reports when no log file present.
Change: BS 88-2 Zs values changed for 125A and 160A.
Change: improved logging of id failures when composing certificates from export.
Change: improved error message importing a cert and the export version is not recognised.
Change: updated DX components to v12.2.
Change: can now cancel out of a spelling check.
Change: now removes spaces from licence code before applying.
Change: can now open .pirform file directly from the application.
Change: removed old licence information section in options.

Fix: spelling checker was highlighting correct words as incorrect.
Fix: spelling error in inspection schedule item 4.6.
Fix: EICR Page 1 was missing review engineer position from printed report.
Fix: autosave was failing after copying board with circuit intelligence related to circuit parameters. 
Fix: pages now scrolled to top when first shown (was showing scrolled part way down).
Fix: board Idn values were carrying through to new boards.
Fix: spell check form was showing when entering grid cells.
Fix: disk size calculation was failing for large disks.
Fix: move board/circuit up/down controls were not greying out when on first/last item.
Fix: was not correctly creating export folders before auto export.
Fix: some pages were starting up scrolled half way down (MW, EIC).
Fix: handled intelligence control index out of range exceptions when opening tests page.
Fix: fixed typo in deactivation message.
Fix: date of next inspection now defaults to blank, not 01/01/0001.Fix: could not select a file other than default when exporting.
Fix: improved experience when program has been deactivated on the computer.

Version 743 - 746

New: can now collapse and expand any section when creating certificates.
New: reminders of licence expiries now built into the application.

Change: removed additional expandable sections in EIC/PIR schedules.
Change: all sections are now collapsible.
Change: rearranged EICR agreed limitations to follow standard layout.
Change: adjusted column widths in board manager.
Change: adjusted continuation size for EICR operational limitations and MW installation extent.

Fix: start page now shows the certificates in the order they were most recently saved.
Fix: if the company name was not set then other company details would not be saved.
Fix: start page now shows the certificates in the order they were most recently saved.
Fix: if the company name was not set then other details would not be saved.
Fix: sizing of EICR limitations on page 1 was bad on low resolution screens.
Fix: copied circuits did not show values after using copy to blanks.
Fix: circuit conductor live column was rounding to 1 decimal place.
Fix: error when re-opening the same certificate after an auto export.
Fix: board manager wasn't showing scroll bars properly.

Earlier Updates

New: added ability to reset the circuit numbers in a board back to defaults.

Change: added option to turn off checking for intelligence updates.
Change: added ability to check for intelligence updates from certificate options.
Change: activation/deactivation codes now only show if licence is in appropriate state.
Change: now resets supply text when a circuit or board is removed.
Change: now reassigns board supplies when a supplying circuit or board is removed.
Change: moved extent of limitations in EICR to the correct location.
Change: improved the way the selections are handled in the circuits grid.
Change: now takes a backup of the current certificates before restoring.
Change: added option to turn off the spell checker.
Change: improved performance for when the exported file location is on a network that is not connected.
Change: BS 3871 Type 3 5A MCB max Zs rated corrected in accordance with errata from BS 7671 Amendment One.
Change: improved logging during database restore.
Change: improved the way export grid shows selected certificates after opening.
Change: does not show activation code when there is no licence.
Change: now detects statements that have been added or removed as a result of intelligence changes.
Change: increased logging for certificate form.
Change: update company details now also updates review engineer.
Change: removed old insulation resistance fields from MW 2011.
Change: removed redundant Circuit Insulation Resistance Neutral Earth and Circuit Insulation Resistance Phase Neutral from MW 2011.
Change: renamed P/P to L/L and P/E to L/E in MW 2011.
Change: now only creates save locations if they are under the user profile.
Change: adjusted layout of error dialog.
Change: simplified automated creation of backup and save locations.
Change: automated creation of backup and save locations.

Fix: copying three phase merged boards removed circuits in the copy and did not set ways correctly.
Fix: boards remained attached to supply circuits after deletion.  Added support command to update affected data.
Fix: updated intelligence detection was falsely detecting updates.
Fix: copying and deleting circuits was acting on three circuits even in single phase.
Fix: can now delete values in the r1,rn,r2,r1+r2 and r2 when focus is inside the control.
Fix: intelligence updated to fix string matching on numeric fields.
Fix: migration was firing more than once for some users.
Fix: auto save was firing too often.
Fix: auto save was not correctly clearing up discarded auto saves.
Fix: installation extent on minor works was not overflowing correctly.
Fix: fixed spurious format exception when opening new MW.
Fix: possible fix for image in use errors when auto saving with preview open.
Fix: would crash when clicking new certificate when emergency lighting node was selected (format error converting to decimal).
Fix: company logos changes not preserved after closing and reopening.
Fix: was not able to save changes to design and construction engineers in EIC.
Fix: possible fix for image errors after first cert save.
Fix: now removes characters that are not allowed from the names of output files.
Fix: multiple files were not shown in the import wizard.

Want to read your Pirform certificates on your iPad, iPhone or Android tablet or phone?  The powerful new features in the latest version of Pirform make this easy to do.  Read on for more details.

The latest version of Pirform now lets you automatically backup your certificates to popular online “Cloud” storage and sharing services like Dropbox and SkyDrive.  You can, of course, also use any similar Cloud backup service, or even use your own company network instead.

The Premium Edition of Pirform will also automatically export individual certificates after each change.  Not only does it export the certificate as a Pirform Export File (.pex), but it will also save the certificate as a PDF.  If you want, you can also go to the PDF or Pirform Export File directly from the Home Screen by clicking Show PDF Report or Show Export File in the Certificate Actions section of the ribbon.  These buttons will be greyed out if the export or PDF files is not there, in which case you can just click Refresh Exports to recreate them.

This is a really powerful and useful feature that opens the door not only to having safe, secure backups of your certificates stored on the internet, but also to having access to your certificates anywhere you are and just about whatever device you’re using. 

SkyDrive is available for the iPad, iPhone, the Mac, your Android tablet and phone, as well as for your PC or Windows Phone.  Dropbox is also available for the iPad, iPhone, the Mac, your Android tablet and phone, as well as for your PC (but not yet for your Windows Phone as an app, so you’ll have to use the website or an unofficial app).

So, if you’re out on site and you need to read one of your recent certificates, just open up your iPad and go to your Dropbox or SkyDrive folder where you Pirform exports the certs and open up the PDF.  You can then email it to your client, print off a copy or anything else you want to do.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that that at the moment you can only use the main Pirform program to create certificates.  We are going to be releasing tablet versions of Pirform next year that will allow you to create Pirform certificates using tablet devices like the iPad.  Watch this space for more information.

We are pleased to announce a  the release of a new version of Pirform - the best electrical testing and certification software has just got a whole lot better!  Read on for details of what’s changed and click on the images to view an enlarged version.

Update 06-Nov-2012: as well as the changes below, read about our recent update to this release here.

Performance Improvements

This new version is a lot faster than the last one! 

We have done a lot of work on the performance of the program for this release.  This involved some significant structural changes along with a number of smaller changes to make the whole program work much faster.  You will notice the changes most if you have a large number of certificates in the program at any one time.

Remember too that the program works best on a computer with a dual core processor and over 2GB of RAM, Windows 7 (or 8) is recommended.

Windows 8

Pirform works fine on Windows 8.  You may notice that the screenshots below are taken on Windows 8.

Certificate Merging

You can now bring boards and observations from one or more other certificates into a master certificate.

On larger installations there will often be more than one engineer doing the inspection.  Pirform now fully supports this way of working and allows you to split the work up among one or more other engineers.  You then just merge their work back into a single main certificate after they have completed.

So how does this work?  To start off, you need to have imported the certificates from the other engineers and have saved a main certificate into which you want to bring their boards.  It may be that you have done half of the job and another engineer has done the other half and sent you their work at the end of the day.  You now want to finish off the certificate and send it to the customer. 

You would first select the certificate in the Home Screen that you are going to merge the boards into, then click the merge feature under Create Certificate.

Pirform will lead you through the process, the next being to select one or more certificates to bring
boards and observations in from:

When you click next, Pirform looks at the boards that you are going to merge and makes sure that board designations will be unique after the merge.  Pirform also remembers boards and observations that were previously merged and replaces the board or observation if you merge the
same certificates again.  If anything is going to be changed, you will see these on the next page in the merge wizard:

Notice that Pirform automatically gives boards a new designation, but you can change that in the Merge Wizard if you need to.  If there is nothing to show you, that page will be skipped.  After that, Pirform lets you check what it is going to do:

After you click Merge Certificates, the Merge Wizard does the merging and finishes. 

The changes are still not saved at this point.  Clicking Finish opens the certificate with the new boards and board observations merged in for you to review.  When you’re happy with that, just click save to make the changes permanent.

Please note that this feature is not available in the Lite Edition, you need to have the Premium Edition or the Certificate Sharing bolt on. 

Automatic Backup, Automatic Save and Automatic Export

Pirform has always let you take backups of your certificate data.  In this version we’ve made keeping your data safe and secure even easier than before. 

Pirform now takes backups of your certificates automatically.  Even better, we’ve made this work seamlessly with the most popular online backup facilities, such as Dropbox and SkyDrive.  As both Dropbox and SkyDrive have plans that give you free storage, this means that you can now take advantage of this free online cloud storage in Pirform. 

We’ve also added an automatic export feature that means that Pirform will create both a PDF and an export file every time you save it.  You can set this up to use Dropbox or SkyDrive and so you’ll always have access to your certificates when you’re away from your PC.  So, when you’re on a client’s site you can access your latest certificates by just logging into your Dropbox or SkyDrive account on your iPad and open up the latest certificate there and then.

We’ve also added an auto-save feature to make sure you don’t lose any work if your computer shuts down for any reason whilst you’re working on a certificate.  Read more about each feature below.

Automatic Backup

Pirform has always had a backup facility, helping you to keep you valuable certificate safe and sound. 
In the past, you had to remember to take a backup and save the file somewhere.  From now you can let the program do that for you every time you close the program.

How it works is that Pirform watches you work and if you have made any changes to a certificate then Pirform will take a backup for you when you close it down.  Not only that, but Pirform keeps up to 6 months of backups for you.  You just tell it the folder in which to save then Pirform will keep the last 14 days’ worth of backups, the end of week backup from the last 6 weeks, and the end of month backups from the last 6 months.

Automatic Save

We also don’t want you to lose any work if your computer unexpectedly shuts down, so we’ve added an auto-save feature.  Every 30 seconds Pirform checks whether you’ve made any changes and saves them to a safe area until you decide to save them yourself.  You can see when the certificate was last saved at the bottom left of the certificate:

If your computer closes down for any reason before you get a chance to save your work, Pirform will
ask if you want to open the automatically saved version the next time you open the certificate:

Auto-save doesn’t get in your way and you can carry on working while Pirform saves in the background.  This doesn’t replace the need to save and the program still expects you to save as you go along, it just now watches your back in case you forget to do that! 

Automatic Export

If you make any changes to a certificate, then when you close it the program will automatically save an export file containing the latest version of the certificate along with a PDF of the certificate.  These are saved to folders of your choice, the default being a folder under your Documents folder.  Pirform tells you when it auto-exports a file at the bottom left of the Home Screen:

Please note that auto-export is only available in the Premium Edition or with the Certificate Sharing bolt on (but auto-backup and auto-save area available in the Lite Edition).

Ease of Access

You can easily access the exported PDF and export files from the Home Screen.  Click on show PDF Report and Show Export File buttons and Pirform will take you straight to the file in Windows.  If these buttons are greyed out, then just click on Refresh Exports and the files will be created. 

You can also access any of the data folders easily by using the Data Folders menu at the right of the ribbon.

Restore from Backup

Pirform has always let you take a backup of your certificate data for safe keeping.  You can now restore that backup to get all your certificates back from that file.  When you restore from a backup it will replace all your current data, so you should make sure that is what you want to do before proceeding.

There are some limitations: you can only restore backups that were taken from this version (or later) and you can only restore backups onto the same computer that they were taken on.

Pirform Lite Edition users will be pleased to hear that this feature is available in the Lite Edition.

Free Online Backup with Dropbox and SkyDrive

One of the really exciting thing that you can do with the new automatic backup feature in Pirform is use it to back up your valuable certificate data online.  Saving backups to a folder makes Pirform compatible with online backup and sharing services like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.  In fact, Pirform is now compatible with any online backup and sharing service that uses folders on your PC.  All you do is to tell Pirform to use a folder under your Dropbox folder of under your SkyDrive folder for its auto-backups and auto-exports.  Job done!

Both Dropbox and SkyDrive have a free plan that gives you a good amount of storage space, so you can back up your valuable certificates securely online for free.  That means that even if your computer is stolen or your hard disk crashes and the data is lost, then your Pirform certificate data is completely safe online and you can get it back just by signing into your Dropbox or SkyDrive account from another computer.

Please visit the Dropbox and SkyDrive websites for more details:

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/

SkyDrive: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/skydrive/home

Free Online Certificate Sharing with Dropbox and SkyDrive

If you have a Premium Edition licence or the Certificate Sharing bolt on, then you can use the automatic export feature to automatically make certificates available across your company using the sharing features of an online storage provider that works from folders on your computer, such as Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive. 

All you do is to set the automatic export folders to a folder under your Dropbox or SkyDrive folder.  If you have a single top level folder for your company data, then give each engineer a folder under that, then use the sharing features of Dropbox or SkyDrive to give the other people in your company read access to the engineer’s folder.  It’s best to only allow the engineer themself to write to that folder that engineer, that way you know the data has only been changed by them. 

This same technique also works on a company network, but you will need to ask your network administrator to set up read and write permissions to prevent one engineer’s data from being changed by others.

Improved Inspection Schedule

We’ve made some improvements to the inspection schedule.  You can now edit the text of
observations without leaving the inspection schedule:

You can suppress the built-in observation text so you have complete control over what is printed in
the report:

Ticking Suppress Details means that only your text shows in the printed version:

If you are working in the Observations and Recommendations section then you can suppress the
details from there too.

As you’d expect, this all works just the same for limitations.

TIP: If you suppress the text and leave the comment blank then Pirform will not print anything on the report.

Speaking of limitations - we now add limitations for the schedule items that you code as LIM.  You can work with the limitation without leaving the inspection schedule and adjust the text that appears
on the report same way you can with an observation:

Lastly, you may have noticed in the screenshots above, the column headings now also stay in place when you scroll down the schedule items.  They used to scroll out of view, which made it difficult to keep track of where you were.

Improved PDF Export

Pirform has always allowed you to save your certificate to a PDF file which you could email to your customer.  Pirform now protects these PDF files from being changed by anybody with PDF editing software by adding a password that prevents editing.

Pirform now names the PDF file the same as the certificate number and we have also taken away the detailed export options that used to appear when you saved the PDF.

If you want to allow the file to be edited or you want to see the detailed file options when exporting,
then you can adjust the PDF Export settings in Pirform options:

Import and Export Improvements

We’ve made some improvements to the import and export.  Although these changes are small, they make it a lot easier for people who do a lot of importing and exporting.

The Import Wizard now automatically changes page after file selection and defaults to selecting all certificates in the file. 

When you want to export a certificate, Pirform now automatically selects the certificate selected in
the Home Screen for export in the export Wizard (that also works for multiple selections):

We’ve added buttons to the Export and Import Wizards that let you select all or select none, and to toggle the selection (unselect all selected and select all that are not selected).

We’ve improved the visual appearance of the list of certificates.  Each line become selected when you click on it (or unselected if it was already selected), or if you prefer to use the keyboard then you can press the spacebar to select or unselect.

If you are importing a number of files, Pirform will remember the location of the last file you opened and let you select a file from there when you next import (although that location is reset again when you close Pirform).

Simplified Administration Experience

Previously, you needed to copy and paste your licence codes from an email.  We have made this easier and the licences can now be sent out as files attached to an email.  Save these files to either the standard download folder or your desktop and Pirform will find them when it next starts up and automatically apply the licence without you having to do anything else.

If you licence has expired, then Pirform will now check on the internet for any licence updates when it starts up.  So, when you have upgraded your licence this will be applied automatically (if there is an internet connection available).  You can also ask Pirform to check for updated licences at any time from Pirform Options:

We have also made the process of moving a Pirform from one PC to another easier.  You just need to export your data on one PC, then contact us and we will send you a file that will allow you to restore the data from your other PC on your new PC.  Previously, this process meant that you had to upload your certificate data to our website for processing.

You can also now send log files and error reports directly to our help desk from inside the program.

New Home Screen Buttons

There is a new Create Certificate button on the Home Screen that gives you access to the merge, copy and create from features.  There is also a button that lets you quickly open the folders that you have configured for backups, exports and certificate sharing.

More Flexible “Create From” Features

We’ve added more ways to create one certificate from another.  You can now create a Minor Works and Electrical Installation Condition Reports from any Electrical Installation and Visual Condition Certificates (2008 and 2011).  To access these features, select the certificate you want to copy or create another type of certificate from, then click the Create Certificate button in the ribbon:

Individual Certificate Numbering

You can now change the way Pirform generates certificate numbers and you can do this individually for each certificate type.

This quite flexible and can generate numbers in a variety of formats.  More details on how this works can be found in this article on our Help Desk:

https://pirform.zendesk.com/entries/22186227-changing-how-certificate-numbers-are-generated

Change Logos for Individual Certificates

If you want to use a company or association logo for just one certificate, then now you can.  In the Logos section at the bottom of the Certificate Options screen, there are buttons that allow you to select the company and association logos for just that certificate.  You can also update an individual certificate to the latest company details after changes are made to company and engineer signatures from that section.

When you’re updating certificate details in bulk from the Company and Instruments section of the
Home Screen, you can now select whether to update only completed certificates or all certificates.

Other Changes and Fixes

Changes

·         Can now select more than one certificate at a time in the Home Screen.

·         Associated certificate number now automatically populated when creating a Minor Works from another certificate.

·         Circuit conductor live now allows 2 decimal places.

·         The tab key now sets value and moves to next cell in all circuit cells (this wasn’t happening previously in decimal value cells).

·         Improved handling of errors during backup.

·         Improved warning dialogs.

·         Changed backup file naming convention from Pirform-Data-Backup-* to Pirform-Backup-*.

·         Removed unused fields from G6.

·         Evaluation version now includes the ECA and ELECSA packs.

·         Evaluation version now includes import and export features (export files from an evaluation version can only be imported by another evaluation version).

·         Improved activation/deactivation code dialog.

·         Licence entry dialog now has link to licence manager.

·         Removed popup notifications when changing schedule item values.

·         Schedule items coded by intelligence can be up-coded (C3 to C2), but not down-coded (C2 to C3).

·         When the intelligence changes a schedule item and is then reverted, the user’s originally entered value is now restored.

·         Schedule manager can now sets blank only values in a section or all the values.

·         Schedule item observations now only added for codes C1 - C3.

·         Now sets the name of the exported PDF files to be certificate type and number.

·         Removed the need for an evaluation licence.

·         Error reporting now creates a single error report file.

·         Max Zs settings in options now state that they apply to the EICR and Visual Condition.

·         Removed the configuration option to pre-load reports.

·         Now properly reports import/export errors to the user.

·         Certificate status now set to current after import.

·         Improved naming when copying boards or circuits multiple times.

·         Now shows the time of the last save when editing certificates.

·         Installer no longer requires service packs on Windows Server 2003 and 2008.

Fixes

·         Removed additional supply confirmation field from page 3 of the printed reports.

·         Description of the minor works is now set to blank when creating a Minor Works from another certificate.

·         Corrected spelling for R1, Rn, R2 intelligence statements.

·         Corrected spelling on Electrical Installation Condition Report Page 1.

·         Fixed incorrect caption in Minor Works 2008.

·         Merged three phase boards can now be un-merged after being imported.

·         Spell checker now checks as you type in observations, limitation and circuits.

·         Improved the visual appearance whilst spell checking very large certificates.

·         Spell checking large certificates could cause a board’s number of ways to be reset during spelling check.

·         Pasted values in some circuit grid columns (wiring type) were not showing on the printed report.

·         Tab moved two spaces in the circuit grid, now moves one.

·         Electrical Installation Condition Report and Electrical Installation Certificate 2011 were printing continuation pages when not needed.

·         Program crashed when using keyboard to enter observation outcome codes.

·         Instruments were not changing when the engineer changed in Minor Works.

·         Instrument changes not being saved properly or reflected in the printed reports.

·         More than one company was shown when importing certificate with multiple external engineers.

·         Enabled overall assessment of the installation in Visual Condition 2008 & 2011.

·         Moving a user defined lookup item down now keeps the lookup item selected.

·         Worked around a common reason for upgrade failures.

·         Design 1 company enrolment number, telephone and engineer position were being set to the design 2 values.

·         Can now delete text values from controls that allow both text and numeric values e.g. MW insulation resistance P/P.

·         MW installation fields now show values correctly on printed certificate.

·         Keyboard shortcuts were not always setting PASS/FAIL/etc. values.

·         Ordering of user defined lookups was not correct after saving.

·         Corrected bad formatting for some first page text fields that have continuation pages.

·         Electrical installation page 3 multiple telephone numbers which caused extra page to be printed.

·         Clear circuit data now clears all values.

·         Removed association logo still appeared in report until application is restarted.

We have a had reports from some users who are experiencing unusual behaviour with the latest upgrade (2012.2.6*).  This includes not correctly showing occupier details or the program failing to start.  

Until we have identified the causes of this behaviour we have reverted the download to be the previous version.  

If you are affected, then please contact our help desk (details on this page: www.pirform.co.uk/support) and we will help you through.  Alternatively, just go ahead and download the installer for the previous version and you will be able to carry on exactly where you left off before the upgrade.  You can download the installer from here: www.pirform.co.uk/download

Update: I forgot to mention that users who have upgraded without any problems should carry on using the new version!

We are pleased to announce we will be attending ELEX Manchester on Thursday 21st June and Friday 22nd June. If you would like tickets, please email us at sales@pirfom.co.uk and we’ll be happy to send you some.

Looking forward to seeing you there, where we will be demonstrating all the features of PIRform Premium.

For more information on the show, and how to get there, go here.

Rob