Shrunken Head Software

Everything BlackBerry

April 8th, 2009

Workaround in BizTrackIt to RIM BIS 2.6 “empty file attachment” bug

RIM has introduced a serious bug in their recent release of BIS 2.6  (BlackBerry Internet Service; see http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/internet/ for general information regarding BIS) with respect to delivery of email file attachments. If you run a BizTrackIt email report and the report email is sent via BIS (i.e. your default email service is BIS) then although the email appears to be sent successfully, when it arrives the .csv file attachment, which is supposed to contain the relevant time record information, is empty. If prior to noticing this you delete the time records in BizTrackIt then you are in trouble as the time records are gone (unless you happen to have a backup that can be restored).

Unfortunately it is not clear which wireless carriers have rolled out BIS 2.6 to date. The easiest way to determine whether this problem affects you is to create a test project with a single time record and then run an email report for the test project only; select No when asked by BizTrackIt whether to mark the time record reported or to delete it. If the .csv file attachment in the received report email does not contain the single time record then it is likely your default email service is BIS 2.6. Make sure you try this test again after implementing the workaround described in the next paragraph to confirm it works.

To workaround this bug you should check the Use Alternate Attachment Method box on the Configure Report screen available in BizTrackIt 1.8 or above. If you are using an older version of BizTrackIt then you should upgrade to the latest release that supports your BlackBerry OS version (at the time of this publication BizTrackIt 2.0.1 supports OS 4.2.1-4.7; BizTrackIt 1.8.0.3 supports OS 4.0-4.5). For instructions on how to upgrade see How to upgrade our products to the latest release.

RIM is investigating this issue and at some point may provide a fix at which time you may need to uncheck the Use Alternate Attachment Method box for email reports to continue to work properly. Be aware that new versions of BIS are not typically rolled out to all carriers at the same time and the roll out schedule is not publicly available, so it may take some time for your carrier to receive the fix.

It is because of these sorts of problems that we published the article How to run BizTrackIt email reports safely and we recommend you don’t delete time records until you confirm successful receipt of the report containing them, which in the case of email reports includes confirming that the received email file attachment contains data. Please follow these precautions always, even when using this workaround.

August 25th, 2008

How to manually create/edit BizTrackIt time records?

To manually create time records:

  1. Go to the date to which you want to add a time record (if it’s not the current date). To do this, click the trackball and select Go to Date.
  2. Move the input focus to the Project field on the main screen and click the trackball, select Change Option and choose the correct project.
  3. Roll the trackball until the highlight is in the time record area of the screen (i.e. either highlight an existing time record or if there are no time records, highlight the No Time Records item).
  4. Click the trackball and select New to add a new time record. Fill out the time record information. When the input focus is at the In or Out field you can press the trackball and set the respective time to the current date/time by selecting the Paste Current Time item. Click the trackball and select Save.
  5. To go back to the records for the current date & project click the Today button at the top of the screen.

To edit a time record:

  1. Select the time record (see above).
  2. Click the trackball and select Edit.
August 25th, 2008

How to run BizTrackIt time reports?

You can run BizTrackIt time reports in the following ways:

Via email - for more information see “How to run BizTrackIt email reports“.

Using Desktop Manager synchronization - for more information see “BizTrackIt reports using Desktop Manager synchronization“.

August 25th, 2008

How to run BizTrackIt email reports?

1) Run BizTrackIt, display its menu by pressing the trackball and select Configure Reports
2) Set the Destination field to Email
3) Check either All Projects or the specific projects whose time records you want to include
4) Filter the time records to be included in the report according to the following criteria:
Date Range = All Dates, From/To, Today, This Week, This Month, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month
Status = Unreported, Unreported or Reported
Billable/Unbillable =  Billable Only, Unbillable Only, Both. This field is only available if the Allow Unbillable Time field is checked on the Options screen.
5)  Check Include Description and Notes to include this information for each time record
6)  Only check Use Alternate Attachment Method if the email account used to send the report uses BlackBerry Enterprise Server for IBM Lotus Domino.
7)  Specify an Email address to which to send the report. To specify more than one email address press the trackball and select the Add Email Address menu item to add another Email field. To delete an email address field if there is more than one such field, position the cursor in the field you’d like to delete, press the trackball and select the Delete Field menu item.
8) Press the trackball and select Run to execute the report immediately or Save to store the report definition
9) See “How to run BizTrackIt email reports safely

April 20th, 2007

BizTrackIt 1.8.0.3 Released

Install

PC-Based Desktop Manager Install
Over-The-Air Install

Important Notes:

Changes:

  • Only show whether in/out time is Daylight Saving Time (DST) on day where we are transitioning to/from DST.
  • Fix: sometimes restoring a backup failed and “Cannot restore or backup the following database: BizTrackIt. The data was not recognized by the device.” or “NullPointerException message was displayed.
  • Fix: backup bug introduced in version 1.8 resulted in “NullPointerException”
March 20th, 2007

BizTrackIt 1.8 Released

Install

PC-Based Desktop Manager Install
Over-The-Air Install

Important Notes:

Read the rest of this entry »

March 20th, 2007

How to upgrade to the latest product release

  1. Review Release Notes - review the release notes published on this site to see What’s New in the release.
  1. Perform a complete backup - prior to upgrading any software on your BlackBerry you MUST perform a complete backup just in case disaster strikes. You can almost be sure that if you don’t perform a backup disaster will strike and if you do then it won’t, so DO NOT skip this step.

The article “Backing up and restoring your BizTrackIt data” contains step-by-step instructions on how to perform a complete backup and restore it if needed (as well as information on performing a selective backup of BizTrackIt which you can ignore for our purposes).

  1. Desktop Manager or Over-The-Air Install - decide whether you are going to upgrade our product using Desktop Manager or over-the-air - it’s probably best to upgrade in the same manner that you originally installed the application.
  1. Important Do not disconnect your BlackBerry while installing - if you install using Desktop Manager then do not disconnect the BlackBerry during the process (or during an uninstall for that matter) as this may cause serious problems and leave your BlackBerry unusable (or so we’ve heard; in case you’re wondering this problem is not specific to our products).
  1. Install over existing version - install the latest version of our product over your current version. Don’t worry, you won’t lose your data, but in case you do you have the backup you created in step 1, right? Do not uninstall prior to upgrading or you will lose your data and need to restore it from your backup.

The Windows installation files (for Desktop Manager-based installation) and the over-the-air installation links corresponding to the latest versions of our products are available at: http://www.shrunkenhead.biz/downloads.html.

For installation instructions see http://www.shrunkenhead.biz/installation.html.

  1. Reset your BlackBerry - if at the end of the installation process you are asked for permission to reset your BlackBerry immediately or defer it until later, go ahead and give permission to reset immediately. If you don’t then you’ll be using the old version of the product until you reset and the only way to reset, other than giving permission when you are asked (and you may not be asked again), is to pull and re-insert the battery - cycling the power to your BlackBerry is not sufficient.
  1. Provide feedback - Try out the new version and email us your feedback to let us know what you think. Finally don’t forget to recommend our products to others - referrals are important to our success.
February 14th, 2007

How to run BizTrackIt email reports safely

After you run an email report BizTrackIt asks you the following questions (assuming at least 1 time record was included in the report):

1. “Mark time records included in this report as reported so they will be excluded from future reports?”

We highly recommend that you answer Yes (the default choice) so that if your report is configured to only include Unreported time records then the same time record will not be reported more than once, no matter how many times you run the report.

2. “Would you like to delete reported time records for the projects and dates specified in this report?”

We highly recommend that you answer No (the default choice). Once you confirm that the report email has been successfully received (see below for how to confirm this) by at least one recipient then you can use the Delete Reported menu item to delete all reported time records in all projects. If you have run more than one email report then you should confirm that ALL have been received by at least one recipient prior to selecting the Delete Reported menu item.

IMPORTANT: To confirm successful receipt open the report email attachment and verify it contains the correct number of time records as noted in the message body of the email. If for some reason the attached file is empty or does not contain the correct number of time records then contact technical support for assistance.

IMPORTANT: If you do not follow the above recommendation and instead delete the reported time records without confirming their successful receipt then if the unexpected happens you WILL LOSE those time records as they are unrecoverable, unless you have a recent backup that contains them. For information on how to perform backups and restores see “Backing up and restoring your BizTrackIt data”.

February 13th, 2007

Backing up and restoring your BizTrackIt data

Prerequisites:

  • BizTrackIt 1.5 or higher installed on your BlackBerry
  • Desktop Manager 4.x installed on your PC. Desktop Manager is included in the BlackBerry Desktop software available at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/desktop/. You should only use a version of the BlackBerry Desktop Software authorized by your service provider.

To perform a backup do the following:

  1. Attach your BlackBerry to your PC USB port
  2. Run Desktop Manager
  3. Double-click Backup and Restore
  4. You can perform a complete backup by clicking Backup… or a selective backup by clicking Advanced…
  5. If you click Backup… then
    • Specify a name for the backup file or accept the default
  6. If you click Advanced… then
    • Select the device database named BizTrackIt
    • Press and hold the Ctrl key while you click the device database named BizTrackIt Options
    • Click the button whose arrow points left
    • Click Close and save the backup
  7. Exit Desktop Manager

Read the rest of this entry »

February 13th, 2007

BizTrackIt reports using Desktop Manager synchronization

Prerequisites:

  • BizTrackIt 1.7 or higher installed on your BlackBerry
  • Desktop Manager 4.x installed on your Windows PC. Desktop Manager is included in the BlackBerry Desktop software available at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/desktop/. You should only use a version of the BlackBerry Desktop Software authorized by your service provider.

To run BizTrackIt reports using Desktop Manager synchronization do the following:

Read the rest of this entry »