JOB PRIORITY

Each job may be given a priority. You can set up your list of priorities in a table. Priorities may be given to all types of job, but for planned and shutdown jobs each job (1 to 10) in a maintenance plan may be given a priority which is carried into the job list when planned or shutdown jobs are added.

Giving a priority to a job is optional - you may wish to leave the priority blank for most jobs and just use it for a few jobs (such as Safety critical jobs) to emphasise their importance.

Shutdown work may be subdivided by entering your set of priorities for different types of shutdown.

You can add planned or shutdown jobs for one priority or for all priorities.

You can issue jobs for one priority or for all priorities.

You can view a list of jobs having one priority.

The priority is shown on jobsheets generated by the new standard jobsheet layout or you can set up your own layouts using the new report-generator instructions:

A new sample report has been added to give you an idea how the PRIORITY instruction works.

DO BY DATE ON JOBSHEETS

The new standard jobsheet layout includes the Do By date in the job header.

ADDING PLANNED JOBS

If adding planned jobs is not done for a while a backlog of scheduled jobs builds up. Mantra now automatically suppresses the backlog.

Problems fixed: in some circumstances adding planned jobs required manual intervention after jobs had been added and the resource filter did not operate - adding planned jobs now completes without intervention and the resource filter is corrected.

MINOR CHANGES

The checking of network and local paths and drives is improved.

Adding an unplanned job with a null item is prevented.

Minor layout improvements, more messages & help added plus changes to manual.

MANTRA KEY FILE

The name of the registration file has been changed from Mantra.inf to Mantra.key as some e-mail servers block attachments ending ".inf" - remember to register for your Mantra key file when you upgrade.

SORTING ITEMS

You can now sort on user-defined fields when you are viewing items.

CREATE NEW DIRECTORIES

When you set up a new file group you can create new directory paths from within Mantra.

SETTING SEASONS

You may wish some planned jobs to be issued only in some seasons of the year - you decide this when setting a schedule for each planned job. Now, when setting the seasons you can alter the dates of each season to suit your local needs. This feature was previously in a separate utility program.

JOB SCHEDULES

More checks have been added when editing job schedules, and additional descriptive text has been added to the "Next Due" date.

Problem fixed: if only a start date was set, the next due date did not display.

NEW REPORTS

Mantra is shipped with a selection of sample reports. A new report has been added which issues the job history for one selected item. Other new sample reports show how to use the report generator instructions below.

New instructions:

A bug has been fixed in the instructions "if plan_1" to "if plan_10" - the instructions had no effect in versions 4.00 and 4.01.

SORT JOBS ISSUED - MORE CHOICES

You can choose which order to issue or reissue your jobs - more options have been added:

ISSUE A RANGE OF JOB NUMBERS

When you issue or reissue jobs you can restrict which jobs appear by entering a range of job numbers - only jobs within range are issued or reissued.

ISSUE JOBS BY TYPE

When you issue or reissue jobs you can restrict the types of jobs which appear; for instance, you may wish to issue just shutdown jobs, or reissue just breakdown and damage jobs.

ISSUE JOBS FOR A FAMILY OF ITEMS

A new choice is available when issuing jobs - if the item you are looking at is in a family, you can issue or reissue jobs for all the items in that family.

JOBSHEET HEADERS

An unwanted underline sometimes appeared in jobsheet headers - this has been fixed.

DATE FORMAT - WINDOWS 95/98/ME

The date format used by Mantra is determined by the operating system. In some cases the result is not the date format normally used in your country. You can now select the date format and override the operating system.

ONE-TOUCH ADD & ISSUE JOBS

You can add planned jobs and issue all jobs from the job summary by pressing one button.

SEARCH FOR A NUMBER

The "quick search" method has been extended throughout Mantra. This will be especially useful when looking for a job - just tap in its job number when viewing the job list.

FASTER JOB FILTERING

Filtering jobs is now much quicker for those of you with thousands and thousands of jobs. For instance, if you want a list of "just issued jobs" the Filter key will respond a lot faster.

JOBSHEET LAYOUT

As before you can change jobsheet layouts to suit individual requirements. The standard jobsheet layout supplied with Mantra remains and a new example of an abbreviated jobsheet is provided - the shortened jobsheet example issues jobs for many items on a single sheet for each resource.

ITEM & JOB FILES

All items in a group of areas are held in one unified file which is created automatically the first time you run the new version of Mantra. Your existing jobs history will also be converted to the new structure which allows extra features and faster performance.

CHANGING ITEM NAMES

Each item's name and/or area may be edited; any related data (such as jobs and child items) are changed automatically.

PARENT ITEMS

Parent items may be in any area in the same file group. Displays and reports show the parent area and item.

MINOR MENU MODIFICATIONS

You may notice a few changes - or you may not, you will find them all quite familiar.

For instance, the first item on the Main Menu is now called "Files" and remains the place where you select your files and preferences. But a new function has appeared here: "Reindex". Some of you will have reindexed your data once in a while, and this can now be done much more easily from within Mantra.

Also, if when opening a file Mantra spots that an index is missing or damaged you are automatically prompted to reindex it.

SETTING USERS & PASSWORDS

The Manager companion program is now used to set up users and passwords. Other functions (such as reindexing) in the old Mandata program have disappeared - they are built into Mantra itself.

PLANNED JOBS

When you are looking at the details of a planned job in the job list, you can now see the scheduled interval, the kit and the tasks. You can also edit the kit and tasks for a planned (or shutdown) job. When you issue the job, any changes you have made to the kit and task list will be shown on the jobsheet - but only for that one job; the item's maintenance plan is not affected.

You can also edit the kit and task lists when you complete a job. This means that you can keep a record of the actual kit used to do a job.

TRACING

You can trace which jobs use a particular task or kit. Just go to the Jobs Menu, select Kit or Tasks then press the Jobs function key to see all jobs which use the highlighted kit or task. You can see which breakdown jobs have a specific fault in a similar way.

LINKING KIT TO ITEMS

Sometimes we want to keep detailed records of kit used to do a job. And sometimes the kit must itself be subject to routine maintenance.

An example of this is a calibrator. A calibrator must be calibrated at regular intervals. The calibrator is an item in the item list - so it can have a maintenance plan to ensure it is regularly recalibrated.

The calibrator is also an entry in the kit table. The kit table entry can be linked to the calibrator's entry in the item list. This means that you can trace jobs which used one bit of kit, and hence you know the calibration history of the calibrator. If, for instance, the calibrator is found to have drifted, you can easily find out which jobs need to be repeated.

In the real world, the pre-ordained calibrator may not be available, and another calibrator would be used. Mantra allows for this: the expected calibrator's details are shown on the jobsheet and there is space to note the actual calibrator used if different. When you complete the job you can edit it to show the actual kit used.

Mantra includes safeguards to prevent accidental changing of the kit-item link.

SHOWING KIT DETAILS ON JOBSHEETS

You can design the jobsheet layout to suit your needs. Here is an example of what kit details may appear on a jobsheet when you link kit to an item:

The Input Calibrator and the Output Calibrator are each bits of kit. Note that the kit details may include any details of the item to which it is linked.

RUN TIME ERROR

We have had a reported instance of Mantra refusing to run, giving an error instead. The problem can occur on some Intel-based machines but not on others.

Reports of similar symptoms may be found on the Internet - but...

Please make sure you upgrade to Mantra version 4. The error documented on the Internet applies to computers running at about 200MHz or faster and Mantra has been running happily on very much faster computers. The problem reported is different and the patches available on the Internet do not work; if they do it is a coincidence not a cure.

If you want to know more, here goes:

A run time error 200 indicates a "divide by zero" operation. This error message crops up when a program is started - and is the same message issued by Mantra and the problem reported on the web. It is a misleading message since there is no divide by zero in either case. The widely reported problem is triggered by system code which is not included in Mantra so applying one of the downloadable patches makes no difference. The error in Mantra also arises in system code written by others. In both cases the issuer has not fixed the problem: one could not be bothered (shame on them) and the other is no longer in the same business (a shame for us). Fortunately we have the source code and were able to rewrite it ourselves. Problem solved!