Just got back off my trip with LogBook Pro..

[SkyBound2000]

I am a Captain for a Commuter Airline. I recently purchased your logbook software, and used it on my last trip via the Pocket PC Companion. It's great being able to enter times/eventsin as they happen, both from an accuracy standpoint and a convenience one, so thanks for coming outwith such agreat program! I considered posting this messagein that forum, but after reviewing things I decided to leave it here.

I do have afew questions and/or possible squawks however:

-How are the entries sorted? Both in the Pocket PC and on the PC Program, when looking back, it seems to naturally want to display in the order the flights were entered under that date, but not by the out-in times, which I'd prefer. I know you can tap the out column to get it organized that way, but is there a way to have it do it by default?

-While on the trip, on two occasions, after entering the latest flight data into the Pocket PC Companion, there'd be an erronious entry (not entered by me) wherethe trip departure and destination airports were thesame as the lastnormal entry, but where the main date in the upper left corner didn't match the date next to the times(which was from 3 days earlier), but the times and everything else were just like the first entry of the entire trip! Even stranger, when deleting this erronious entry, the first flight of the trip dissappeared! Almost like where it took the first flight, mangled it, which I then deleted. This whole scenario happed twice and I had to manually enter the first few flights again.

-After importing from the Pocket PC Companion, I noticed several entries where the MEL time didn't match the total duration, where the total duration was automatically calculated from the out-off-on-in times entered into the Pocket PC Companion, but the MEL and a few other columns didn't match.... IE- Total Duration: 1.4 MEL:.4 Brasilia .4 etc... Seems like the Autofuill feature on the Pocket PC doesn't like to fill the custom fields?

-Is there a way to export data from one column to another? For instance, I imported a .csv file from another logbook program, which tracked approaches diferently. In Logbook Pro, the only appraoches it considers are those newly entered in, but not from the previousv program- Those are shown as just generic counter fields, and I'd like them to be counted into the default LogBook Pro approach field.

Thanks, any help is appreciated.

 

[Neal Culiner]

SkyBound2000 said...


-How are the entries sorted? Both in the Pocket PC and on the PC Program, when looking back, it seems to naturally want to display in the order the flights were entered under that date, but not by the out-in times, which I'd prefer. I know you can tap the out column to get it organized that way, but is there a way to have it do it by default?

-While on the trip, on two occasions, after entering the latest flight data into the Pocket PC Companion, there'd be an erronious entry (not entered by me) wherethe trip departure and destination airports were thesame as the lastnormal entry, but where the main date in the upper left corner didn't match the date next to the times(which was from 3 days earlier), but the times and everything else were just like the first entry of the entire trip! Even stranger, when deleting this erronious entry, the first flight of the trip dissappeared! Almost like where it took the first flight, mangled it, which I then deleted. This whole scenario happed twice and I had to manually enter the first few flights again.

-After importing from the Pocket PC Companion, I noticed several entries where the MEL time didn't match the total duration, where the total duration was automatically calculated from the out-off-on-in times entered into the Pocket PC Companion, but the MEL and a few other columns didn't match.... IE- Total Duration: 1.4 MEL:.4 Brasilia .4 etc... Seems like the Autofuill feature on the Pocket PC doesn't like to fill the custom fields?

-Is there a way to export data from one column to another? For instance, I imported a .csv file from another logbook program, which tracked approaches diferently. In Logbook Pro, the only appraoches it considers are those newly entered in, but not from the previousv program- Those are shown as just generic counter fields, and I'd like them to be counted into the default LogBook Pro approach field.

Thank you for your compliments, here are the answers to your questions.

1) Entries are sorted by the Date of Flight, and for flights with the same date, the order of entry is preserved
2) First heard of this, not sure how it could happen, let me know if you continue to see this. It's always important to verify your data after sync'ing to the PC, so continue to do so
3) I'll look into this
4) No, not at this time.

 

[SkyBound2000]

Thanks again, and I look forward to hearing the answer regarding the third point. As far as the forth point goes, I just set up a counter column for the pre-existing approach entries prior to import. Last, I really like your Jepp print out feature, however, it seems to be chaning the total ASEL time in the "Explorer" under "Grand Totals" from 673.1, to 676.9 in the Jepp print out! Same for AMEL, off by .2... Any suggestions???

 

[Neal Culiner]

Point 3 has been resolved, we found the issue. In the current release of the Pocket PC companion, the autofill is not filling in the custom fields unless you view the custom page. When you fill in takeoff/landing times, or the Duration, whenever the Duration value changes, it is supposed to fire the autofill routine and propagate the times. It's not doing that for fields not in view. This has been corrected and will be available in the next maintenance release, which we are hoping to have soon, as soon as the issue with point 4 is resolved. The Palm product is not affected with issue 3, it is functioning properly.

Point 4 is a bug we just identified a few days ago. It is related to changing the page setup and adjusting the margins. The totals at the bottom of the report printouts may be adding the value from the first row of the following page. It may also appear to the user that the first row is not accounted for in the page total at the bottom. This is a bug in the report engine which is external to Logbook Pro. As soon as the developers of the report engine provide me the fix, I will release the maintenance update that fixes the report issue (critical) and the Pocket PC (Medium Priority).

Thanks for reporting the issues, and thanks to the others that wrote in helping to pin down the report issue.

 

[SkyBound2000]

JUST BACK FROM SECOND TRIP WITH LOGBOOK PRO AND....

Things went much better this time. I don't know if it was me getting to know the program a little better or if it was the program getting to know my IPAQ a little better. In either case, The only squawk this week is still the entry order being off. It does sort by date, but on the second, third, and forth days of the trip it sorted the flights according to the schedule below:

DAY 2
FLIGHT 1

FLIGHT 6
FLIGHT 5
FLIGHT 4

FLIGHT 3
FLIGHT 2


DAY 3
FLIGHT 1


FLIGHT 4

FLIGHT 3
FLIGHT 2



DAY 4
FLIGHT 1

FLIGHT 6
FLIGHT 5
FLIGHT 4

FLIGHT 3
FLIGHT 2



Any suggestions? This is also the way the main program displays the flights now too. I just want to say thanks again for developing this program Neal. It has made my life SO much easier. Last, I think I may not keep a written log any longer, due to the print out features of LBP. I can just print the log prior to my interview with the majors in 10 years and sign the pages. I am looking forward to that reporting bug getting fixed before I do that though! Any ideas on how long that will take?

Thanks
Chris

 

[Neal Culiner]

Hi Chris,

The good news is, the reporting bug has been clearly identified, so that was a great find! There have other similar reports but were too vague to pin down the issue, I'm happy this has now been identified to fix!

I'll look into the PDA sorting. The key is to input the data for sync'ing, not necessarily for viewing on the PDA, so the importance is data collecting on the road, sync to the PC which is handling the data in the proper order. Hopefully I can pin this down for the 1.9.6 release when the reporting bug is resolved and resolve this one as well, if it's possible. There have been some known display order issues over the period of the PDA's but are considered non-critical since they in no way affect the PC data as it is ordered properly on the PDA database and the PC.

 

[SkyBound2000]

Again Neal, thanks for developing this software, I have been waiting sooo long for something like this come along. I will continue to explore it's every function and if I find anything else I'll let you know.

 

[DaveyDave]

Too bad you don't use a Palm. Airline Pilots Daily Logbook is an awesome program that syncs directly to LBPro. Also it handles your required rest, 30/7, perdiem & expenses, etc. Plus you can download and import your airlines pairings directly into it so as long as your schedule doesn't change too much, all you do is tap the out and in times. You can find it here: http://airlinelogbook.net.

I fly for a regional as well. Cheers!

Dave

 

[Neal Culiner]

Yes, APDL is a great product for the corporate/airline folks. Here is information on it:


http://www.logbookpro.com/ThirdParty.aspx?t=2


And we sell it here:


http://secure.nc-software.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=35