NEWS: Engagement 6.1.2 Released

This is a bit late but better than never. I've included the text of an e-fxNews news letter discussing the release of version 6.1.2 which is supposed to be compatible with Windows 7. Since Busy Season is now over, my IT group and I will be testing it out over the next few weeks. I'd love to hear if anyone is already using this version and if you are experiencing any major problems.

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Dear ProSystem fx Engagement Customer:

Based on your current e-fxNews profile, below is an item you may find of interest.

For more information about e-fxNews, or to update your profile, visit our web site at http://support.cch.com/notes/efxnews.aspx.

Online self-service help is now available. Find answers to your CCH questions in our knowledge base at http://support.cch.com.

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Engagement v. 6.1.2 is now available. Your DVD should be arriving at your office next week. This release provides critical updates to the Engagement and Knowledge Coach application.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 6.X CUSTOMERS: We recommend that all customers using Engagement or Knowledge Coach v. 6.0 or v. 6.1 upgrade to v. 6.1.2 to take advantage of updates implemented since those releases. This also applies to customers who have installed a patch to address lock-up or other issues.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR KNOWLEDGE COACH CUSTOMERS: ProSystem fx Engagement v. 6.1.2 MUST be installed prior to you installing the 2010 Knowledge-Based Audits of Employee Benefit Plans for Knowledge Coach or any future Knowledge Coach titles. You will receive a separate e-fx News regarding the Employee Benefit Plans title.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 5.X CUSTOMERS: Customers currently using any 5.x version may upgrade at their discretion. Version 6.1.2 includes Windows 7 compatibility as well as integration with ProSystem fx Portal and ProSystem fx Tax (SaaS) products which may be needed by some customers. However, as there is always a risk associated with a software change, customers on 5.x should carefully consider these risks before upgrading during the busy season.

This Engagement v. 6.1.2 release resolves the following issues reported by 6.0 and 6.1 users:

• Issues related to the Engagement application locking-up upon open or close of binders are fixed where attributable to the Engagement software.
• Prior period balances will now update when workpaper reference columns are selected for the subsidiary trial balance column of a consolidated trial balance.
• Performance is improved when consolidating several trial balances that include a large number of accounts.
• Data conversion errors will no longer occur when consolidating trial balances.
• Time out failures no longer occur when using the Import from Engagement TB function.
• Trial balance links now display the correct balances when the same workpaper is open in more than one binder and the dual monitors option is not selected.
• Trial balance links to accounts over 32 characters and all variance column links now display correct values.
• Trial balance report workpaper references now display with the correct account if you re-imported and regrouped the accounts.
• Rounding account balances in consolidated trial balances are now accurate.
• Performance is improved when saving journal entries with a large number of lines.
• Doubling or quadrupling of trial balance link values in trial balances converted from Engagement v. 5.x no longer occurs.
• Edits made to “significant change description” fields in Knowledge Coach workpapers now flow to other staff members via synchronization, regardless of which user initiates the synchronization process.
• Problems with Excel will no longer occur when a non-Engagement Excel workbook is open and you close a Knowledge Coach Excel workbook.

NOTE REGARDING UPCOMING RELEASES: Starting with our version 6.5 release of Engagement this summer, we will no longer be supporting direct upgrade from Engagement versions prior to v. 5.5. If you are using version 5.0 or earlier, we strongly recommend you upgrade to the latest version by July 2010 in order to support direct upgrade in the future.

If you have any questions or require assistance, please contact Technical Support at 1-800-739-9998, option 4.

Sincerely,

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
Find answers to your CCH questions in our knowledge base at http://support.cch.com/answers/

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CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
Attention: Customer Service
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NEWS: Windows 7 Compatibility Center

Just checked the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and it indicated that Engagement 6.1 (listed as a Wolters Kluwer product) is compatible with Windows 7. However, after reading a bit more on the compatibility levels (see "What do the different compatibility icons mean?" on this page), it appears that CCH just told Microsoft that it's compatible. It has not undergone testing by Microsoft (no Windows 7 compatibility logo).

NEWS: Windows 7 Compatibility Testing

I've been testing Engagement 5.7 on Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit with Office Professional Plus 2007 (32-Bit), Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro (32-Bit), and Internet Explorer 8 (there is a 64-Bit version installed with Windows 7 64-Bit but I use the 32-Bit most of the time). I setup the Windows 7 in a virtual machine using VMplayer 3.0 beta (supports Windows 7 as a Guest OS and multiple display support; the RTM has been released so I would recommend using that one) with Windows XP Pro SP3 32-Bit as the Host OS. I'm using two monitors with 2 GB of RAM allocated to the virtual machine (I'm running 3.5 GB of RAM in my Host) and my Windows 7 virtual was added to our domain. Basically, I tried to setup and use the virtual Windows 7 as my main machine during the testing period.

Generally, I've found Engagement 5.7 to work well in Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit. One item to note is that I didn't get the SQL SP2 incompatibility message that I got while installing on Windows 7 64-Bit beta. Other items I've found are below.

1) While the 2003 add-ins for Word and Excel work (displayed in the Add-ins tab), the add-ins for the Ribbon functionality (displayed in the Engagement tab) don't run properly. My guess is that something isn't working well with the 64-Bit OS.

2) I've found everything to work within Acrobat except when I try to close a PDF from the Engagement binder (right-click and select "Close workpaper"). It appears that the command is lost and nothing happens. So I'm forced to close PDFs through Acrobat instead of the Engagement binder.

3) I've had one instance where the "Pfx Engagement PDF Converter" (available from the print menu) didn't work. I think this was an isolated instance becasue I've gotten it to work several times since.

4) We upgraded our office server and workstations from Engagement 5.0 to Engagement 5.7 while I was testing on Windows 7. So, as a good Administrator I tried to convert the 5.0 binder templates to 5.7 but no luck. I had to do it on a colleague's XP machine.

So my findings were rather positive over the testing period (about 3 weeks). Next week I'm going to move to a new machine with Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit as the Host OS (no more playing around in a virtual world). What issues have others seen when moving Engagement to Windows 7? Anyone out there tested Engagement with Windows 7 32-Bit?

NEWS: Windows 7 Certification

I'm at the CCH User Conference 2009 and this morning I attended a session entitled "Microsoft's New Windows 7 - Considerations". The best piece of information was given at the end. A Windows 7 certification chart was shown which stated the compatibility (or planned compatibility) of each CCH product. Engagement's was slated for 12/9/2009 when version 6.1 is to be released.

NEWS: Windows 7 Compatibility, Again

I just checked out the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and saw that Microsoft is saying that the ProSystem fx Suite is compatible with the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows 7 (the links will also show other CCH products compatible with Windows 7). I haven't had a chance to test this out myself with the released/retail version but I'll get back to you soon.

NEWS: Windows 7 Compatibility

The other day I drug out the install media for previous versions of Engagement and looked up when Engagement was compatible with Vista (June 2007). That was about 5 months behind the world-wide release of Vista (January 30, 2007). If Windows 7 compatibility is anything like it was for Vista, we can expect CCH to unveil a version of Engagement no earlier than the end of March 2010 (approximately 5 months from the Oct 22, 2009 release date of Windows 7).

Issue: Engagement won't install on Windows 7

Issue: When trying to install Engagement on Windows 7 RC (32 or 64-bit) you receive an error similar to "You do not have administrative rights on this computer."

Cause: The possible cause of this error message is the installer files for Engagement may not be compatible with Windows 7 (I have not verified this).

Resolution: After many attempts and different steps, I settled on the following. At least one other person on a completely different system used these steps to successfully install Engagement.

1. 1. Using the Engagement install media, I installed the prerequisites. One prerequisite, SQL 2005 Express (SP2 is included on the install media), is of particular note. During its install, a message will pop up stating that the version being installed has known compatibility issues with Windows 7 and must be upgraded to SP3. I have never tested Engagement with SQL 2005 Express SP3 with Engagement so I clicked through the message.
   
   
2. 2. I then right-clicked on the .msi file and selected "Determine compatibility." I defaulted to using Windows XP SP2 settings to install which seemed to work. After the install finished, I was able to connect to our office server and successfully login.

NOTE: There is another possibility which I haven't had time to explore called Windows XP Mode. Essentially it's a virtual machine (using Microsoft's Virtual PC of course) of Windows XP through which Windows 7 can run applications. Here's the main site and here's the support information (install requirements). If any of you successfully install Engagement using XP Mode I'd love to here back about your experience.

NEWS: Engagement and Windows 7

I recently downloaded Windows 7 RC (64-bit) and started testing Engagement's (version 5.0.1026) compatibility with Windows 7. There were some issues with the install but I finally got it to work. I contacted Engagement support and was told that they expect Engagement to be compatible with Windows 7 when it's finalized and said the general time line for Windows 7 compatibility is sometime in 2010.

However, they did not state whether a 64-bit version of Engagement was in the works or that SQL 64-bit would be supported for the 2010 release. Here's to hoping CCH develops a true 64-bit option and not just one that runs on a 64-bit OS.