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title: "LeaseControl v1.8.1 Release Notes"
canonical: "https://servicedesk.maxgeo.com/space/LC/1278443554/LeaseControl%20v1.8.1%20Release%20Notes"
format: markdown
---
Table of Contents
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION
You should always ensure that a backup of your database is held while you thoroughly test all new and changed features. Feedback should be directed to [servicedesk.maxgeo.com ](http://servicedesk.maxgeo.com)or phone us for discussion. Queries regarding compliance, such as Action dates, are of priority as we value user confidence.
Remember that although some of you took up beta testing, fixes and improvements may have been implemented after your beta testing.
While we provide some recommendations on testing throughout, these are not intended to be an exclusive list. Users should always be thorough when testing any new or upgraded software, and place appropriate enquiries where results differ from expectations. Change management workflows should comply with your company’s change management and data recovery procedures.
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Resetting views
With any changes / additions of columns within the newest version of LeaseControl, changes may not take effect until the user re-sets the Grids. (“Grids” are the various tables used within LeaseControl).
To re-set the Grid (refer image *right*), simply right click in the grey area called ‘Group by’ Section and select “reset” from the list.
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Terminology
Leases.
This is reference to you land, mineral and petroleum titles, which may also be referred to in different regions as claims, permits, tenements and many others, which are ordinarily managed in the Leases Module of LeaseControl (rather than the Agreements, Contacts, Projects or Accounts Modules).
Expenditure Commitment.
In most regions, Leases are accompanied by the requirement to spend a minimum value each year, which is referred to in LeaseControl as “Expenditure” commitments.
Rent.
In most regions, Leases are accompanied by an annual payment to the government. LeaseControl refers to this as “Rent”, however it may also be referred to as an annual “Fee”.
Configurations.
Where compliance can be calculated, these can be entered into LeaseControl as “Configurations” enabling automated forecasting of compliance.
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E1: Merging Expenditure and Rent Configurations
We reduced your five Configuration tabs to two (r*efer bottom*) and moved your filtered data into the standardised, advanced and easy-to-use filter window.
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New Configuration Tabs
We removed the need for you to determine which tab was applicable and, while no features were removed, we made ALL features available for ALL Expenditure and Rent Configurations.
Most of you will only use the top grid, remembering that Configurations are entered per Lease Type, and can be copied, deleted and archived.
- Compulsory fields are those noted in red text, AND any one of: “Base Cost”, “Cost per Unit” and “Prescribed Minimum”.
- The unique combination requirement in the top grid is “Effective Date”, “Area Units”, “Time From”, “Time To”, “Area From” and “Area To”.
- (NEW) An empty value in “Time From” or “Area From” will be taken to be zero, while an empty value in “Time To” or “Area To” will be taken to be infinite. Thus if you enter no data into these fields, the Configuration will apply to all Leases of the selected Lease Type and Area Type.
- An empty value in “Round to Multiple (Area)” or “Round to Multiple ($)” will be taken to be ‘1’ (i.e. round to whole number).
- Rounding .5 to the ‘nearest’ will round it up.
As per previous versions, to enter data in the bottom grid (now ONLY required if you need to apply a filter) highlight the relevant row in the top grid, then enter the Overriding Configuration in the bottom grid. Press ENTER then double-click in the filter column of this new row to enter your filter.
- (NEW – for expenditure) Where the filter is TRUE, the Overriding Configuration will apply.
- (NEW – for expenditure) If no filter in the bottom grid is TRUE, the top grid will apply.
o If multiple filters are TRUE, the Overriding Configuration first entered will apply.
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Expansion on Rounding Options
There were some interesting policies globally, which required area to be rounded (Example A: For each ten blocks, or part thereof, a fee of $X is payable annually per exploration permit) or the calculated value to be rounded (e.g. The annual rent payable shall be rounded to the nearest whole dollar). We therefore enabled this rounding, and other combinations, via dynamic rounding (Round Up, Round Down, Round to Nearest).
1. (as per V1.8.0) Where the user has elected to round the “Round Area” or “Round $”, but has not provided the corresponding “Round to Multiple” is, a value of ‘1’ will apply (e.g. a selection of “Round Up” would mean to round up to the nearest whole number unless you specify otherwise).
2. (as per V1.8.0) For avoidance of doubt, rounding of the $ value is applied *before *considering the Prescribed Minimum, as per pre-existing functionality. Column order now reflects this.
*Don’t use the functionality of rounding the calculated value? No worries! Right-click these columns and select “Hide” to simply your view. *
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Migrating Data from V1.8.0
V1.8.1 is designed to hold all Expenditure and Rent Configurations that were effective in V1.8.0 – including superseded Configurations, but excluding archived and invalid Configurations (there were some ‘ghosts’ in some databases that we cleaned out – otherwise these would suddenly become effective). There was also some unreported bugs that prevented some Configurations from being effective, and for which Users had applied a workaround. The workaround is carried over, the ineffective Configurations are not – otherwise you would have received unexpected results.
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HelpManual
Yes, we most certainly have covered functionality in the HelpManual – located from the LeaseControl main application > Help > Help.
1. For a guided tour of the new tabs (including how the calculations are made, and how the Configurations are prioritised), refer: Customising LeaseControl > Configuring Compliance > Navigating Configuration Settings > Tabs and Main Screen > Rent and Expenditure.
2. For guidance on what order to do things in, refer: Customising LeaseControl > Configuring Compliance > Expenditure Configuration *or *Rent Configuration.
3. For information on the benefits of use the Expenditure and Rent Configuration features, refer: Leases Module > Lease Functionality > Financial Functionality.
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E2: HelpManual Enhancements
Improving on the V1.8.0 rebuild of the HelpManual, we have re-structured an area that didn’t follow a logical user workflow – specifically, Customising LeaseControl: Configuring Compliance. Some of the key content are as follows:
1. Navigating Configuration Settings: This is guided tour of this advanced area of LeaseControl.
2. Bulk Updating: Not everyone is aware of the functionality of the Related Leases tab in the Leases Module, so this may be worth a look.
3. The various types of Configurations: Some practical and useful tips, links to other pages and overview of feature capacity.
Importantly, the parent page “Configuring Compliance” walks you through a logical workflow on setting up Configurations for a new installation, changes of government policy, or where you expand into new regions or new Lease Types. A good brush-up!
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E3: Calculation of Rent and Expenditure Periods
We’ve improved the intelligence of the calculations, to reduce manual changes and reduce data discrepancies in forecasts.
To determine the next report/rent period (End Date), and thus determine the year to display against the $value, LeaseControl will (in order of priority):
- (As per V1.8.0 functionality) Where forward data is provided, the earliest period will be used (*applicable to expenditure only*).
- (NEW) Where the title is not granted, display “This Year” and “Next Year” above the Commitment and Rent fields.
- (NEW) Where there is only reported/paid data in the Expenditure/Rent tabs, LeaseControl will look to the highest ‘Date To’ and add 12mths to this date.
- (NEW) Where there is no data in the in the Expenditure/Rent tabs, the next occurring anniversary of Expiry (or Grant, where there is no Expiry date). In the case of rent: 12months is added to this date to acknowledge it being paid in advance.
To determine the age of the title, and thus determine the appropriate Expenditure/Rent configuration, LeaseControl will (in order of priority):
- (As per V1.8.0 functionality) Where the above End Date is NULL (i.e. stated as “This Year” and “Next Year”) or there is no Grant date, the Lease will be considered to be 0 years old.
- (NEW) Otherwise, it will take the End Date, and calculate the number of months between that and the date of Grant, and round the value to the nearest 12month period. This aided clients who, in some African and Canadian regions, recorded the Expiry date but not Grant date, and corrected functionality for some Australian and other titles aligning expiry to 31-Dec (or similar) regardless the date of grant.
In determining the appropriate Expenditure/Rent configuration, LeaseControl will use the End Date to determine the Start Date (being a year prior to the End Date, plus 1 day) and compare this to the Effective Date, rather than the date the action is completed. This addressed circumstances where the rent was paid after the start of the Rent period, and complied with Expenditure commitments not being affected until the period commencing after the rate change. This aided clients predominantly in Western Australia who paid rent after the commencement of the rent period.
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E4: Smaller Enhancements
We made a number of smaller changes to comply with user workflow and improve your experiences with LeaseControl:
1. We removed the notice of no Rent / Expenditure configurations when clicking the [$] buttons but retained notifying you of the forecasted value. This improved experiences for a majority of regions, as calculation of expenditure (or benchmarks) is not as common as you may think.
2. LeaseControl wasn’t always fantastic with calculating the year and $value of rent and expenditure in regions where the user recorded the Expiry Date, but not the Grant Date. This is now accommodated.
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Maintenance Fixes
Notably, bugs were found during development (included below) that had not been reported by users. We would like to request that users report all bugs to [support@maxgeo.com, ](mailto:support@maxgeo.com)to ensure: they are addressed in a timely manner, prioritized by their impact on compliance forecasting, and that we understand how you expected the system to operate to reduce the amount of assumptions we make.
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Expenditure and Rent Calculations
1. Configurations in the “Expenditure Time and Area” tab that were a subset of the other (e.g. time of 2-99 is a subset of time 0-99) and the subset was entered last, the subset was ignored. These subsets are now recognised, and prioritised over the other.
2. When a Lease relied on Configurations in the “Expenditure Time and Area” tab, the right-hand field thought the Lease was a year older than it really was, resulting in an incorrect Configuration being used. This has now being corrected, noting (15) and (16) above regarding method for calculating the age of the title.
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Expenditure and Rent Workflow
1. (Bugzilla#4326) Upon clicking [Apply] the Commitment and Rent fields will no longer recalculate without user intervention being available (this affected most regions where users manually overrode the calculated value). It meant we had to sacrifice auto-update when Critical Dates were changed, however as this functionality was intermittent at best, further work is required to restore and complete this functionality (Bugzilla#4328).
2. (Bugzilla#4326) Upon clicking [apply] the right-hand Commitment field will no longer default to one year following the left-hand field and override the forward expenditure entries (this affected users where forward expenditure periods overlapped, or otherwise fell in due in the same year, such as petroleum titles, South Australian titles, and some other). Please note the above sacrifice and further work required.
3. The Rent year now acknowledges rent being paid in advance (refer E3) (this affected most regions excepting where rent is paid only at grant).
4. (Bugzilla#4329) Configurations based on the Time Expenditure and Rental Rates Time and Area tab did not function without a Maximum Time, despite this field not being compulsory. This is no longer a required field, and users should note that such configurations will be used in V1.8.1 calculations.
1. Expenditure configurations were not looking to the start of the reporting period to determine the relevant configuration (i.e. compare to effective date) and would therefore use an incorrect configurations. This affected very few users due to the consistency of configurations from year to year.
2. Subsets of expenditure and rent configurations (e.g. 4 through to 7 is a subset of 0 through to 99) would be ignored in some cases, but not all. We do not like inconsistency any more than you do. The subsets are now recognized, as you would not have entered them if they were not relevant!
3. Where a Lease was 0 years old (not granted), and there were configurations for 0 years old, these was inconsistency between rent (configuration was usually ignored) and expenditure (configuration would usually be used). We opted for consistency and enabled configurations of this type to always be used.
4. Where the $value for the rent or expenditure was recalculated and found to be the same as before the calculation, the year wasn’t always updating. This now updates regardless of whether or not the $value has changed.
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Entering New Leases
1. (Bugzilla#4215) There were some issues with being able to enter new Leases while the Lease Browser was open – this has been resolved.
2. (Bugzilla#4216) Sometimes the form wasn’t loaded correctly, and users experienced issues with entering new Leases – this has been resolved.
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V1.8.0 Patches
Patches issued while V1.8.0 is on issue have been included. Please note that our patches are designed to not cause error when run multiple times on a database, therefore we anticipate no issues for those who may have implemented some, or all, of these patches including beta test fixes and fixes for pre-
1.8.0 issues. Not all issues listed affected all clients, but highlights the importance of reporting bugs, and applying patches and upgrades as they are issued.
1. (Jun-2017) Action grid wasn’t always loading correctly.
2. (Jul-2017) Clients with a database collation different from the SQL Server collation (*not *recommended) would experience issues (‘collation’ controls format validation, such as date formats).
3. (Jul-2017) Query Builder was faulting when loading the new hierarchy structure.
4. (Jul-2017) Resolved instances of a pre-existing ‘Legal’ tab (applied to some modifications conducted for clients).
5. (Jul-2017) Resolved legacy issue of an empty Action Description field.
6. (Jul-2017) The newly introduced Agreement Alerts had some trouble populating data correctly.
7. (Aug-2017) Fix loading of miscellaneous Actions.
8. (Aug-2017) Resolve legacy issue of Group Reports without name and number.
9. (Oct-2017) Correct calculation of new introduced expenditure override.
10. (Jan-2018) Resolve legacy issue of numeric Lease IDs carrying forward Actions.
11. (Mar-2018) ‘Overflow’ error was resolved.
12. (May-2018) Correct Group Report data in Query Builder (outdated table being used).
13. (Aug-2018) Resolve error in bulk update of rent.
14. (Mar-2019) Importer compatibility with V1.8.0.
15. (Oct-2019) Follow-on Action due date edit (now uses the date entered by the user as the date compliance was met, rather than the date the user completes the Action in LeaseControl).
16. (Dec-2019) Corrected fields missing from tables used by the Importer.
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Database Changes
Release Notes: Version 1.8.1
For those of you that have integrated LeaseControl with other systems, or otherwise use modified Reporter or Importer templates, you may wish to note the following changes and test your integrations/modifications accordingly. Not all new database objects are listed as they are predominantly administrative, however system tables are listed for ease of identification.
Modifications to system objects (not limited to those herein) are not designed to be modified, noting modifications other than by maxgeo approved scripts are not covered by technical support, and may have material impact on correct operation of the LeaseControl system.
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Change | Table or View | Notes |
| Retired | LMS_CFGATM_ConfigurationAreaTime |
| Retired | LMS_EXARTM_ExpenditureAreaTime | |
| Retired | LMS_MNEXAR_MinimumExpenditureByArea |
| Retired | LMS_MNEXTM_MinimumExpenditureByTime |
| Changed | LMS_LOCLTY_Locality | Retired field
LOCLTY_MinimumCommitMethod |
| New | LMS_RNDTYP_RoundType | SYSTEM TABLE – DO NOT MODIFY |
Additional database objects were included in the test release of V1.8.1 to assist with troubleshooting. These were not carried forward to the final V1.8.1 release, nor listed above.