PerfectTablePlan newsletter 26

Upgrade to PerfectTablePlan v4.1 Home Edition now

Today PerfectTablePlan became PerfectTablePlan Home Edition. We have also released two new products: PerfectTablePlan Advanced Edition and PerfectTablePlan Professional Edition. Having 3 products will allow us to cater better for our 'power users' without overwhelming more casual users.

The v4.1 Home Edition contains over 40 new features and enhancements, including:

• Windows 7 support (32 and 64 bit)
• Mac OS X 10.6 support
• multiple select in the 'Floor plan' pane :  easier interaction with tables and guests in the 'Floor plan' pane (watch video clip)
• search in the 'Floor plan' pane : type "Smith" to select everyone with the name Smith (watch video clip)
• improved navigation between panes: e.g. select Mr Smith in the 'Guests' pane and show where he is in the 'Floor plan' pane (watch video clip)
• column splitting and joining during import : easy manipulation of import data into  columns appropriate for PerfectTablePlan, no more fiddling with Excel text functions (watch video clip)
• anonymous guests : improved handling of guests without known names (watch video clip)
• the ability to change words inside panes : e.g. change the column headers inside the 'Guest chart' pane from English to Spanish (watch video clip)

Click on the video links to see brief videos illustrating the new features. Apologies for the amateur voiceover - we did it ourselves rather than delay the release days to get it done professionally.

We have made a few changes to existing features to improve the usability, including:

• the 'More'/'Reveal' buttons at the top of panes have moved from right to left to improve their visibility
• the 'Statistics' pane has been renamed 'Report' pane
• the 'Insert guests scratch pad' window has been renamed to 'Quick add guests' window

Note that we that we haven't removed any features between v4.0.3 and v4.1 Home Edition (just a few bugs).

You can find out more and download v4.1 from:

versions

Any version 4 key issued before today will work with PerfectTablePlan v4.1 Home Edition. If you already added a version 4 key on your computer it should be picked up when you install v4.1.  If you have lost your key you can retrieve it online.

If you have a v1, 2 or 3 licence key you can upgrade to v4 Home Edition for a small fee. 

Upgrading to PerfectTablePlan Advanced or Professional Edition

The 3 Editions of PerfectTablePlan are aimed at 3 different types of customer:

• Home Edition: people organizing their own wedding reception, party or event
• Advanced Edition: charity organizers, club secretaries and other frequent users
• Professional Edition: professional event planners

The Advanced Edition adds the following new features:

• graphics in the floor plan : add crests and logos to your floor plan (watch video clip)
• background image: use a scale plan or photo as a background to your floor plan (watch video clip)
• graphics in stationery : add crests and logos to your place cards (watch video clip)
• up to 2 custom guest fields : store additional custom data about your guests, fully integrated into importing, visualisation, reporting and every other aspect of PerfectTablePlan (watch video clip)
• customisable import mappings : save time by re-using previous import mappings

The Professional Edition includes all the above, plus:

• custom field maximum increased to 20 : highly customisable guest data
• custom automatic seat assignment : set proximity according to custom fields (e.g. keep smokers and non-smokers apart) (watch video clip)
• importing of guest table and seat data : assign guests to tables (and optionally seats) during import (watch video clip)
• detailed reporting : create reports such as meal by group or custom field by table (watch video clip)
• unique record IDs : useful for reliably tracking guests written to a PerfectTablePlan plan file from another application then read back later

All 3 Editions are contained within the same program. You can even switch between Editions while PerfectTablePlan is running and the relevant features will appear/disappear. To try a different Edition just go to the 'Editions' tab of the 'Preferences' window and select the Edition you want to try.

Note that you won't be able to save, print or export with more than 30 guests if you don't have the correct key for the selected Edition. You can switch back at any time, but you may lose data you added while in trial mode.

If you currently have a valid version 4 key you can upgrade to PerfectTablePlan Advanced Edition or Professional Edition by paying the difference in price between the Home Edition and the Edition you want (plus a small administration fee). But we are offering a discount of 30% off Edition upgrades until the 23rd September to existing customers.  That is a saving of approximately $18/£10/€13 on the Advanced Edition and $91/£55/€64 on the Professional Edition! But it is for a limited time only.

Upgrade from PerfectTablePlan v4 Home to the Advanced or Professional Edition

Our usual 14-day money-back guarantee applies to Edition upgrades, so there is no risk involved in upgrading. Email sales if you have any questions or would like a quote for upgrading to an Advanced or Professional Edition organizational licence.