Release notes
Updates on our latest improvements to ToolBox
Last updated
Updates on our latest improvements to ToolBox
Last updated
ToolBox's shipping feature has been fully released!
Based on feedback, we have added detail to the settings and names of shipping options to increase clarity.
When shipping is set to Delivery you have multiple options for choosing how delivery is charged, which can be different between internal quotes and Web Store orders.
ToolBox's smart shipping calculator will take your pricing rules and automatically calculate a price for delivery in your quote, and for your customers in their Web Store orders.
With this new capability, you can now lock the rotation of parts during nesting to ensure consistent grain direction. This is ideal for materials where grain orientation impacts the aesthetics, strength, or performance of the final product.
Here’s how it works:
Specify grain orientation: Choose whether a part’s grain direction should be horizontal or vertical. This ensures the software uses the specified nesting options when calculating material pricing.
Leave it unset for efficiency: If grain direction isn’t critical, leave it as "None" to maximise nesting efficiency and achieve higher parts-per-sheet counts.
Locking the grain direction ensures your parts are nested exactly as required, delivering precision and consistency across every sheet.
Using the 'remove open inners' button in Drawing Doctor will no longer remove lines set to Folding.
The nest view now shows the scrap difference between Nest Bounds and Whole Sheet correctly. It used to only show the largest of the two strips of scrap.
ToolBox can now accept very large numbers in the 'next number' for quotes, work orders, and tax invoices.
No more error messages appearing just for adding a 3D model or tube part into a quote.
Inconsistent currency formatting on documents has been fixed.
Success/error messages appear for longer, particularly in cases where there might be more text to read than usual.
Miscellaneous items on work orders were showing in kg and mm for organisations using pounds and inches. This has been fixed.
Quote data will reflect the latest customer and contact names now.
Fixed an issue with the dashboard page not sorting quotes by status or work order number correctly.
Request early access to the shipping and delivery charge features here.
Add automatic delivery charges to your Web Store, closing the loop for payments-enabled ToolBox accounts.
Choose how to charge for delivery within internal quotes, whether it's by using your delivery pricing rules, or by specifying that your customer pays the delivery provider directly.
Delivery pricing (see Shipping above).
Customers now have the option to manually specify their billing and delivery addresses if the Google Maps search result doesn't include their full address details.
Tax and delivery pricing are calculated at the order review page, before the customer chooses whether to place the order.
Work order summary documents now include information on the miscellaneous items in the order.
Delivery dockets now include summary information of order weight and part & item count.
The Quick Part module now shows thumbnails of each part in the library, for easier navigation and search.
Organisations based in Canada can now specify tax rates for specific jurisdictions inside Canada, not just a country-wide rate.
Your organisation's pickup address now has individual address components so that you can specify your exact address when it is not in the Google Maps search result.
Some quote details weren't visible on duplicated quotes until the screen was refreshed. This has been fixed.
The "Lifting Lug with flats" Quick Part wasn't correctly generating one of the vertical dimensions. This has been fixed.
The currency format shown on the payment success page wasn't always correct. This has been fixed.
Including part notes on a calculated Web Store quote would cause the order placement to fail. This has been fixed.
Thumbnails for some parts from PDF were incorrectly generated. This has been fixed.
When creating a customer from Customer Central, they are now automatically selected.
A customer no longer needs to have an address before their other fields can be updated.
Dashed lines inside parts were always displayed as yellow in the part's thumbnail. This has been fixed so that the colour matches the type of line.
Cutting technologies can now have their maximum constraints cleared back to "no maximum".
File names of parts in 3D models with characters that aren't allowed on Windows machines now have those characters substituted so that they export successfully.
As we prepare for the upcoming delivery charge features, all existing shipping-related settings have been moved to a new Shipping section. This includes your organisation's pickup address and your Web Store delivery settings. Stay tuned for more shipping features to be released here soon!
When a drawing file is exported out of ToolBox, it will contain up to 4 layers of paths - one layer for each line type that was specified in the Drawing Doctor:
"Cutting", coloured white
"Etching", coloured green
"Folding", coloured blue
"Information", coloured yellow
Example 1:
Load into ToolBox a drawing with all paths on 1 layer called "0", manually set a line to the folding line type, then export. The exported file will contain 2 layers: a white layer called "Cutting" and a blue layer called "Folding".
Example 2:
Load into ToolBox a drawing with 8 different layers all with different types of paths on them, in different colours and with different names. Assign the folding layers to the folding line type, and the etching layers to the etching line type, keep the cutting layers, and delete the information layers, then export. The exported file will contain 3 layers: a white layer called "Cutting", a green layer called "Etching" and a blue layer called "Folding".
If the contact assigned to your quote has a phone number saved in Customer Central, that phone number will appear on all accounting and production documents, next to the contact's email address.
Now you can open a quote, work order or invoice in a separate tab with a right-click or you favourite shortcut.
The toggles on the payment settings page (for organisations who have enabled the payments feature) will now read "Payment buttons show on document pages and PDFs" and "Payment checkout page is enabled for the Web Store" to more clearly explain what enabling them does.
Enabling the 'show acceleration settings' toggle in the organisation settings was not displaying the acceleration settings. This has been fixed.
Clicking the Recalculate button in the quote's price adjustment popup was removing the quote's tax rate and some date fields. This has been fixed.
Changing the default material consumption mode for a sheet on the Materials page wasn't updating the consumption mode within the bulk edit popup unless the page was refreshed. This has been fixed.
Using the bulk edit feature to turn off customer-supplied material for parts in a quote wasn't working. This has been fixed.
Assigning a newly-created customer to a quote that already had a customer assigned would throw an error. This has been fixed.
Bulk editing parts in a quote with different manual folding settings was throwing an error. This has been fixed.
Using the 'Resend invoice data' action within an invoiced quote was updating the invoice number on that quote. The invoice number now stays constant.
A warning for an 'open inner' line will now only appear if the line is set as a Cutting type line.
Default status on cutting technologies is maintained: Archiving a default cutting technology will move the default status to a different cutting technology, if available. If all cutting technologies of a particular type are archived, creating a new one or unarchiving an archived one will make it the new default.
The delivery address wasn't showing on production documents for orders marked for delivery. This has been fixed.
Address search results for delivery addresses on the Web Store and for pickup addresses in organisation settings now show the same results as Google Maps would show. Previously, the search results were very restricted.
Filtering quote status to 'Pending confirmation' wasn't working on the dashboard. This has been fixed.
The Web Store now considers the web in addition to the part dimensions when determining which sheet to assign a part to. Previously, it was possible for the Web Store to assign a part to a sheet that could fit if the web was ignored, which would result in a calculation error.
Our big project of implementing a payments feature is ready for early access! The full release will come later in August.
Have your customers pay for their orders through your Web Store.
Send your customers quotes, order confirmations, proforma invoices, or tax invoices for payment.
Manage the unpaid/paid status of all orders inside ToolBox.
All payments are handled securely by Stripe.
Handle your payment settings and branding via your linked Stripe account.
Your ToolBox tax rates are synced with your Stripe tax rates.
A customer's billing and shipping address will be saved to the quote, so even if the customer's addresses change in the future, the old quote will retain the addresses that were assigned at the time of calculation. This ensures quotes don't change over time, even if customer details get updated.
The largest fold length measurement used to determine the folding price used to always be in the units of the organisation (millimetres or inches). Now the units will match the part:
If the part is set to millimetres, the largest fold length will be measured in millimetres.
If the part is set to inches, the largest fold length will be measured in inches.
Session login times were timing out too frequently. This has been improved to only ask you to login again when needed.
The Purchase Order Number value was missing from quote CSV exports. This has been fixed.
The date-time values in quote CSV exports were not consistently formatted. This has been fixed.
Saving updated addresses in Customer Central wasn't showing the change until the screen was refreshed. This has been fixed.
The folding calculation for metric parts in an imperial organisation was incorrectly calculating the number of operators required. This has been fixed.
Creating a quote and adding a Quick Part now always update the Last Modified date.
You now have the option to resend quote data to Xero and QuickBooks, if the original attempt at creating a Xero or QuickBooks invoice failed. This saves having to duplicate the ToolBox quote if there was nothing wrong with the quote.
The folding algorithm now considers the length of a part when determining how many people are needed to fold it. Previously, only the area and the weight of the part were considered (i.e. whether it is too heavy or too large). Now, there’s a third check: whether it is too long.
Your organisation logo now appears at the top of every email that is sent to your customers, to enhance your branding.
This includes:
Emailing customers directly from the quote screen.
Web Store order receipts.
Web Store verification code emails.
Also, customers replying to your Web Store verification code emails will now see your organisation name as the recipient's name, and the To email address is your Web Store support email address.
Now you have the option to populate your QuickBooks invoices with the quote's Purchase Order Number and/or the quote's Quote Number. They need to be setup as custom fields in your QuickBooks account, and then those exact custom field names need to be set in your ToolBox QuickBooks integration settings.
Now you have the option to populate your Xero invoices' Reference field with the quote's Purchase Order Number or the quote's Quote Number. Simply choose "Yes" or "No" in your ToolBox Xero integration settings to choose which reference data to send.
It wasn't possible to clear dates on the quote after setting them. The 'clear' button now works as expected.
Creating a quote for a customer directly from Customer Central was failing. This has been fixed.
A fix for a rare case of rectangular bounds nesting with Minimum Bounds boxes.
Secondary processes with a measure type of Quantity were not letting negative numbers be entered, or decimals between 0 and 1. This has been fixed.
Now you can create multiple tax rates, and pick which one you want to use on a quote! Add tax rates in Settings > Organisation > taxes:
The default tax rate is automatically selected for new quotes, and you can change it with the tax rate selector in the quote editing page:
Set a tax rate that should apply by default when this customer is assigned to a quote. When a new quote is created, the organisation default tax rate is selected for the quote. However, when the customer is changed to customer that has their own default tax rate, the customer's tax rate is applied to the quote automatically. Set the customer's tax rate in Customer Central > Pricing:
New quotes for this customer will automatically use the customer's tax rate:
There are now two types of bounding box dimensions:
The Display bounding box is what is displayed on all quote, document and part library screens. These are the dimensions of the bounding box of the part in the orientation it was uploaded in.
The Minimum bounding box is what is used in calculations for area-based secondary processes, longest part dimensions in the quote summary cards, for nesting of large parts, and in the CSV export. These are the dimensions of the bounding box of the part in the orientation that creates the smallest bounding box area.
Entering new inputs to a quote that was already calculated was resulting in those numbers not being saved, requiring them to be entered a second time. This has been fixed.
Backspacing or deleting number inputs on some quote item fields was resulting in a "0" in the field instead of an empty field. Now, deleting the existing number and typing "1" will result in "1" instead of "10" as the input.
Duplicating materials was resulting in a new material with no sheets or sheets with a 'last used' date. This has been fixed.
QuickBooks integration: Invoices no longer fail to be created when the assigned customer has special characters in their name.
Tax rate percentage is now on the exported CSV.
Large quotes were taking a long time to load when opened, and editing a single part within a large quote was laggy.
A new method of displaying elements on the screen has been implemented that has sped up load time and removes the lag for editing parts, regardless of the quote size.
Heaps of fields have been added to the quote CSV, including customer address details, contact details, more quote item information, shipping option, document numbers, note fields, and date fields.
Note that the folding time and price CSV columns have been aligned with the structure of the cutting time and price columns: a column for setup time, processing time, and total price.
Various dates on the quote, such as the quote issue date, were being presented in UTC time instead of local time. This has been fixed.
The quote item price adjustment field had issues when the performance improvements were brought in earlier this month. This has been fixed. The delay for auto-calculation has also been extended so that you are less likely to be stopped from typing mid-entry.
The contact email address wasn't being added to QuickBooks invoices during the integration's invoice creation workflow. The address was only being added to the customer entry. This has been fixed.
The rectangular bounds displayed for a part now represent the bounds of the part if it was rotated to be aligned to the x-axis. Previously, the bounds were those of the unrotated part.
The rectangular bounds now more accurately represent the size of each part.
Long parts that would only fit on a sheet if they were rotated are now rotated to fit, regardless of their initial upload orientation.
Long parts that are rotated in this manner have an improved nesting algorithm.
In addition to showing the estimated number of sheets needed for a job based on the Whole Sheet material consumption mode, the summary card now also shows the estimate if the Nest Bounds consumption mode was used.
This gives you a range to work with. It also give you more pricing information for the quote:
Quotes with all parts set to Whole Sheet: the amount of material charged for will be the Whole Sheet number in the summary card.
Quotes with all parts set to Nest Bounds: the amount of material charged for will be the Nest Bounds number in the summary card.
Quotes with parts set to a mixture of consumption modes: the amount of material charged for will be somewhere in between the two numbers.
Click the info icon (ℹ️) to open up more details:
Now users of the Web Store can backspace or delete the default quantity of "1" and type in their own number, instead of having to highlight the number first and then override it.
Note: The quote can't be calculated if a part is left with a quantity of "0".
Paths in drawing files are now joined together more intelligently.
If a path can join to more than one other path, it will prioritise paths that are:
On the same layer; then those that are
The same colour; then those that are
The same line type (solid, non-solid, etc)
What does this mean for you?
More drawing files will be processed into clean parts for you to quote from (less parts needing to be tweaked in CAD before loading into ToolBox).
Example
Below is a part that used to have its fold line joined with its outer profile cut path, even when they were on different layers. Now, even a single-layer version of this part will be handled appropriately, because they have been drawn with different colours:
If the rectangular bounds of unrotated parts are too big for the sheet, ToolBox will attempt to rotate that rectangle to see if it can fit diagonally.
Coming soon: ToolBox will rotate the uploaded part to get a small bounding box before performing this step. This will correct for most rotational issues.
In the example part below, ToolBox would previously say it's too big to fit on the sheet. Now, it will rotate the part to fit.
The part price details modal will now have "Loading" time for rotary parts, not "Sheet change" time.
Bulk deleting parts from a quote will no longer trigger a calculation.
With this new Scale button, you can resize the whole part to the desired dimensions with a scale factor.
Select the outer bounds of a part or any of its internal geometries to view the current dimensions of the selection, and preview the scaled dimensions before confirming the change.
If you need to undo the scaling, the new Reset Drawing button will revert the part to its original state.
As part of this change, we've consolidated the two 'show path legend' and 'show shortcuts' options under one Help button, and we took the opportunity to rename the Line Entity button to Modify Path Type so that it is easier to understand what it does.
Exporting the CSV of a quote will now show columns for part dimensions, not just sheet size dimensions. For rotary, the profile dimensions, wall thickness, part length, and tube material record length are also included in the output.
The quantity input inside the Drawing Doctor® wasn't accepting inputs. This has been fixed.
It was temporarily possible to edit parts from the Part Library with the new keyboard shortcuts. This has been blocked.
Now if you make an unwanted change in the Drawing Doctor®, or if an action has an unexpected outcome, you can reset a drawing back to its original state instead of having to delete the part and upload it again.
Previously, any drawings with a Z-coordinate value were prevented from being processed, with a red error explaining that an entity in the drawing was found to be not on the X-axis or Y-axis. See the old screenshot below.
Now, Z-coordinates on drawings will not prevent processing:
If the drawing has Z-coordinates that are all of the same value, the Z-coordinates are ignored and the part is given a green "good" status.
If the drawing has Z-coordinates that are of different values, the part is given an orange "warning" status with the usual "Found drawing entity not on the XY plane" tooltip. The part will be calculated as if it has no Z-coordinate values, but you should check that this hasn't distorted the part.
Use the Delete key to delete the selected path(s).
Use Alt key shortcuts to assign line types.
Show/hide the shortcuts legend so you can see all shortcuts available to you.
Now you can open the flat pattern of a tube part in the Drawing Doctor® and select the paths to change from Cutting to Etching or Information. This lets you control how many holes to price into the quote, if any.
After performing an action in the Drawing Doctor® on one or more selected paths, other paths would be selected. Now, path selections clear after the action is performed.
The quote issue date on public documents would sometimes show today's date instead of the issue date. This is fixed.
Double-click the mouse wheel (middle button) to change the Drawing Doctor® zoom to fit the parts to the screen.
Existing subscribers can now manage their subscription within Stripe's customer portal:
Manage card details: add a new card, set a default card, or delete expired extra cards.
Update your billing details: billing address, email address for invoices, and tax ID.
View and download historical invoices.
View your current subscription amount and renewal date.
Parts with long names no longer wrap over two production part labels. The part labels adjust in size to accommodate the additional text.
Miscellaneous Items are now part of a quote's CSV export. Each line is differentiated by a new Type field (Part or Item), and all pricing, weight and time data is included.
More types of splines in drawing files are better handled, resulting is more parts that are automatically cleaned for quoting.
Parts in the quote editing screen that have had their material or sheet archived have the material information unset, preventing calculation until an unarchived material is assigned.
Part library parts in the quote editing screen that have had their material or sheet archived now show an informative tooltip explaining why the part can't be calculated.
Archived materials and sheets appear in reviewed quotes with their name instead of "undefined".
Web Store delivery address regions no longer disappear from the settings page or prevent Web Store settings from being saved.
Fixed an issue where changing the order of custom secondary processes on the Processes page wasn't saving.
Fixed an issue where metric parts in an imperial organisation's quote could show the wrong units.
Some tube parts would not get added into the quote from the Add Rotary Parts screen if a material was assigned to them before the 'Send to quote' button was pressed. This is now fixed so that the problem parts now get sent to the quote, whether or not a material was pre-selected.
Adding a new customer and contact from the quote screen is successful.
The subscription settings page opens without error.
Creating Web Store quotes increments the next quote number correctly.
Web Store orders can be placed without guest mode being turned on.
ToolBox has a new Settings page that consolidates all organisation, subscription and Web Store settings into a single, simplified screen. All the settings are the same, it's just easier to find them and manage them.
At a glance, you can see all the major categories of settings with a matching icon on a permanent navigation panel. Headings group the settings categories by topic.
Clicking on a settings category will navigate you to that page and scroll down to that section, saving you time.
Each setting's style has been updated to match the modern look of the rest of ToolBox.
The "Search quote" field now filters the list of quotes for customer name, in addition to the document numbers.
The full list of properties searched for are:
Quote number
Work order number
Invoice number
Customer name
New filter options include:
User who last modified a quote
Date range for when the quote was last modified
Coming soon: Quote source
Users with access to the Part Library feature now have the option to lock the unit price of a part to a fixed value, for a determined amount of time.
This holds the price constant regardless of the quantity or other price factors, allowing for a predictable price output for the customers you offer this to.
Open a customer's Part Library via Customer Central.
Locate the part you want to lock the price for.
Set the fixed price. This is the unit price the part will be quoted at.
Optional: Set the expiry date of the price. After this date, the price will no longer be locked. Parts will show a warning saying the price has expired, and the price will calculate at the latest prices and price rules.
In a new quote for that customer, select 'Add from Part Library'.
Set the quantity of the part you would like to add to the quote, then click 'Add x parts to quote'.
Click the Calculate button. The price will calculate as normal, and then the Adjustment field will automatically calculate what it needs to be to change the normal price to the fixed price. This gives you visibility over the effect the fixed price is having on the final quoted price.
There is a new field in the CSV export: net part weight.
There is now a second CSV that contains a summary of the net weight of all parts, by material group.
Quickly add a new material or rate table directly from the search bar:
Customer Central gets the same interface and 'Add new customer' button for consistency and ease of use:
Quick Part occasionally errored. This is fixed.
No more infinity symbols with $0 quotes.
Cutting technology is now displayed on the Review view of the quote.
Providing you with increased flexibility, the ability to add miscellaneous items to your quotes is now available for all Regular and Advanced subscribers.
To add a miscellaneous item, simply select it from the Add Parts menu:
Miscellaneous Items are displayed in their own list, separate from the Parts list. The only mandatory fields are Quantity and Price, meaning they can be used for anything from nuts and bolts, right through to delivery and freight charges. Simply change the name of the part to stipulate what the charge is for:
Miscellaneous Items information will be visible in the quote summary, as well as in all relevant documents:
· After activating, invoices are created within your linked QuickBooks Online account as soon as you mark a ToolBox quote as Invoiced.
· Your quote data is copied across seamlessly. No risk of human error, and no delay.
· Speak to our sales team about activating it for your account.
· Refer to our support article for special setup instructions.
· Improved the behaviour of the adjustment field to make data entry easier.
· Removed the ability to scroll in numerical fields to ensure errors are not made accidentally.
· Resolved an issue preventing a Webstore order to be placed when multiple delivery options exist.
· Resolved an issue with the “Powered by Tempus Tools” image floating in the middle of the quote document.
· Resolved an issue with he Drawing Doctor cutting parts of a drawing when zooming in and out.
· Resolved an issue with imperial organisations showing less than 4 decimal places in some fields.
Admins now have the ability to allow users to set the following attributes in the Processes section of ToolBox settings:
· Linear acceleration (mm/s2)
· Radial acceleration (mm/s2)
· Rapid acceleration (mm/s2)
· Rapid traverse rate (mm/min)
Admins can toggle the visibility of the settings on and off in the Organisation settings:
This will enable users to edit the settings in the Processes section of ToolBox settings:
Important notice regarding acceleration rates:
Existing organisations with existing Processes were setup with the following acceleration rates:
· Linear acceleration: 5,000 mm/s2
· Radial acceleration 5,000 mm/s2
· Rapid acceleration 5,000 mm/s2
· Rapid traverse rate 50,000 mm/min
To reflect the increased power of more modern laser machines, any new processes will be setup with the following rates:
· Linear acceleration: 25,000 mm/s2
· Radial acceleration 10,000 mm/s2
· Rapid acceleration 15,000 mm/s2
· Rapid traverse rate 175,000 mm/min
Admins have the choice of adopting the new rates or editing them to maintain consistency.
· Clearer error messaging when no etching rate is set.
· Resolved issues with display of customer supplied material information in part price details.
· Restricted the ability to edit part library parts when bulk editing.
· Restricted the ability to move into Review Quote stage before calculations are completed.
· Enabled org users to edit quotes generated through the Web Store.
In this release we resolved the following bugs:
• Issue with every second time the Calculate button is pressed
• Issues when parts are adjusted to $0.
• Issue with % adjustment field. When an adjustment is entered, the quote will now automatically calculate.
• Issue with the input field for secondary processes with a quantity input.
• Issue when trying to export a quote in Firefox
• Provided visual warnings on mandatory fields to users placing order in Web Store
Parts that have been added to a quote from the part library are now easily identifiable. When a part is expanded, a message is displayed to show that it is from the part library:
When a part is collapsed, the part library’s Part ID will be visible:
It is now easier to locate and switch between different materials and rate tables. Available Materials and Rate Tables are now displayed on a secondary side panel, rather than having to search for them in the search field:
· Improvements to back-end calculations.
· Improvements to the responsiveness of the user interface.
· Vendor quote notes and part notes are now displayed on the Quote and Order confirmation documents.
· Part and Quote notes are now displayed on the Delivery docket, Work order and Work order Summary documents.
· Added primary actions to the top of the Actions dropdown.
· Ability to generate a quote document on an uncalculated quote resulting in $0 totals.
· Issue with % Adjustment field.
· Issue with viewing draft quotes in old quoting experience.
· Issue when trying to duplicate a quote.
· Issues with updating values when changing folding source to Drawing.
· Inability to change sort order of secondary processes on the Processes page.
· Issue causing duplicate quote numbers.
· Issue with bulk deletion of thicknesses in the rate table.
· Issue with the display of accented characters in ToolBox part names.
· Issue with the default material consumption mode being ignored.
· Issue with price adjustments modal displaying incorrect values.
· Issue with assigning material to multi part drawings.
· Issue with bulk changes to secondary processes not saving.
· Issue with Web Store logo upload and drag & drop functionality.
As quotes get filled with 10s or 100s of parts, performance issues with automatic calculations are slowing down the quoting experience.
While we work hard to improve the speed of updating quote items and calculating prices, automatic calculations have been turned off and replaced with a Calculate button.
After any change has been made to the quote that will affect the price, prices are cleared and the Review Quote button becomes a Calculate button. Pressing the Calculate button will calculate prices as normal.
This lets you load in your parts and set all the material and process information with speed, and then calculate at the end to get a price.
Now you can add quote-level notes, instead of just part notes. In the top-right of the quote page, there is a Quote Notes button that lets you add vendor notes that appear on the Work Order, Work Order Summary and Delivery Docket documents, as well as private notes that only appear on the Work Order and Word Order Summary.
A future enhancement will be to show vendor notes on the Quote and Order Confirmation as well.
Parts loaded into a quote from a customer's part library are locked from having their physical properties edited, to ensure the customer receives what they received last time. Price-only properties can still be changed, and if you need to adjust the physical properties, you can download the DXF and upload it again as a new part.
Navigate between parts without having to close the Drawing Doctor with new arrow navigation and a drop-down selector.
In the Drawing Doctor's Cut Path view, hovering your mouse over a path will highlight that path before you click on it, indicating what path will be selected if you click.
If you have a combination of flat and rotary cutting technologies, they are now grouped separated on the Processes page.
Duplicating a quote no longer counts as a modification of that quote, for the purposes of 'last modified' name and date.
If two tabs are open and a new quote is created from each tab, the next quote number now increments without creating a duplicate quote number.
The new quoting experience has arrived!
The new Toolbox quoting experience has arrived! Based on our customer's continued feedback and with the help of our designers and developers, the new quoting experience will help you to deliver faster, more accurate quotes in an improved and more user-friendly interface.
Some of the new features include:
Collapsible and expandable part details with live calculation
Custom and pre-set sorting options
Time and price views
Parts notes that can be displayed or hidden from customer documentation
Improved drawing doctor layout
Sheets, time and parts quote summaries
An active header with additional fields, that will change depending on the quote’s status
Please watch our demonstration video for a complete overview of the new functionality:
Our development team has been focussing on the development of the new quote experience, which will be launched in August 2023. The new experience will enable ToolBox users to deliver accurate, detailed quotes in even less time!
Some of the new features will include, collapsible and expandable part details with live calculation, time and price views, and an issues summary. An active header will change depending on the quote’s status and consolidated quote summaries will enable the user to understand the quote’s dimensions in a simplified view. To give you even more control over the quote, various sorting options will be available for you to set out the quote in the order you would like your customers to view it.
To facilitate the transition of a quote through various statuses in the upcoming new quote page, two new quote statuses have been introduced, Voided and Issued. The new status flow of a quote is shown below, with changes marked in yellow:
We now persist prefixes and numbers, so that all relevant quote, order and invoice numbers can be seen against a quote in the quote list.
Additional selection options have been added to assist with the selection of multiple paths in the Drawing Doctor. The selection options now include:
To select path(s) and discard all other selections, click or drag on one or more paths that are not yet selected.
To add additional paths to currently selected paths, hold shift and click or drag on an unselected path(s)
To deselect multiple paths, hold shift and click or drag on selected path(s)
To deselect all paths, click outside of any path.
For Chrome and Edge users, each Production label is now printed on a separate page, so that you can lay out how they are printed on the labels that you are using. To manipulate the layout of the labels, follow these steps:
1. Generate the Production labels report from a quote that has been ordered,
2. Select Print and Print to PDF (or Save as PDF),
3. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat or whichever PDF viewer you are using,
4. Select Print,
5. Select Multiple to print multiple labels on a page and select the layout of your labels (1x5 is show as an example below):
The following minor enhancements have been made:
Improvement to the layout of parts on the work order, so that when there is a long list of parts with the same material and thickness, the first page of the work order does not appear blank.
Enhancement to the default calculation of the formula that produces the rate cutting speeds for Mild Steel for new users.
Various performance improvements to the fetching of quote and organisation data
The following bugs were resolved:
Rate tables unable to be unassigned from a material.
Certain labels were not being translated for customers with different language settings.
Correction to the measurement of a Tube’s dimensions.
Correction to the measurement of a Rotary material’s dimensions.
Improvement to the interpretation of drawings with elliptical arcs.
Issue with the validation of certain UK addresses in the Web Store.
Issue causing inconsistencies quoted and displayed thickness for Web Store orders.
The new production documents are already making an impact to ToolBox-enabled laser job shops. We’ve received fantastic feedback and many customers are starting to use these documents in their production process. We’ve continued to enhance these documents to take them to the next level!
The documents now have an additional protection layer so that they cannot be accessed by external parties that should not have access to them.
There is no longer a limit to the number of secondary processes a user can detail on a production label.
Our users have told us that it is more useful to see who last modified a quote, rather than who quoted it originally. All documents in ToolBox now show who last modified a quote.
A tax invoice can now only be downloaded if the quote has been invoiced.
Part icons now have a grey fill on screen and in all documents to help distinguish various elements in the part.
To make identification of documents easier and more accessible, the quote list now provides the work order number and invoice number (where available) of each quote on the quote list.
In the organisation settings, a user can now define the next work order number, similar to next quote number and next invoice number.
Removed Order confirmation number from the Organisation settings and the Order Confirmation document. It now shows the Quote number and Work Order number.
Improvements to the handling of the Work order in web view and print.
For customers using our Xero integration, we now trigger the creation of an invoice in Xero when the quote status changes to Invoiced instead of when it is marked as Ordered.
Enhancements to handling of Tube files.
Implemented graceful handling of CAD files with no resulting paths.
Restored drag and drop functionality for parts in Web Store.
Restored drag and drop functionality for secondary processes in organisation settings.
We've got some exciting news for you! Toolbox just got even better with a brand new feature that'll take your productivity to the next level. Introducing our latest game changer - the ability to produce a Work Order, Work Order Summary, Delivery Docket and Production Labels, all in one easy-to-use platform. This feature will help you save time, reduce errors, and boost your profitability. Check out the new feature and move your production to the next level!
Printable work order and summary enhances your production process by giving your team the information they need to produce an order.
No more missed steps or short counts. With a comprehensive checklist and production part tickets, you have everything you need to track parts and ensure quality and completeness.
To make all documents more accessible, you can now download your documents directly from the Quote list, using the new download document button. The available documents will depend on the status of the quote.
The download button is also available from within each quote:
Within the Organisation Settings, you now have the ability to define the prefixes you wish to use for your Quotes, Tax Invoices and Work Orders:
To provide you with added flexibility, you can now also define the next tax invoice number to increment by in the Organisation Settings:
Added “Quoted By” to quote PDF document.
For rotary parts, displaying the material’s profile dimensions on PDF reports, not the part’s profile dimensions
Resolved an issue relating to the conversion of Tube Splines
Resolved zoom and rendering issues with the Cad View of some large multi part files
Corrected an issue whereby flat patterns that the tube module was exporting didn’t have the correct size, so the cutting distance and the cutting time was wrong directly affecting customers quote
New AI assistant based on ChatGPT
Introducing our very own AI assistant!
Access the ToolBox AI from the Help widget in the right-hand corner and type in any ToolBox question you might have.
New accounting documents
Go beyond the quote with new accounting documents accessible from the download icon for quotes in the dashboard, as well as the download button within each quote:
Order confirmation: send your customers a record of order acceptance.
Proforma invoice: for if you require payment upfront.
Tax invoice: send a professional tax invoice that matches the branding of your quote and order documentation.
Bug fixes
We fixed a part importing issue for 3D and rotary files that were failing if they contained some special characters.
Summary of feature releases prior to this date:
Quote document improvements
New information can be displayed on quote documentation in a new footer:
Company details (e.g. name, tax ID, address)
Details for payment (bank details or other payment options)
Speed improvements
Very complicated parts are now loaded into ToolBox much faster.
Quote document improvements
Improved quote document styling to match the modern look and feel of the newer parts of ToolBox.
Drawing Doctor improvements
The lasso selection tool has been brought back, new and improved. Left-click and drag while in the Drawing Doctor to select multiple paths of a part at once.
Email customers from within ToolBox
If a quote has a customer assigned to it, and it is calculated, you can now send an email to the customer with a link to the quote.
Use the drop down option next to 'Open quote' to select 'Email customer', modify the templated email text if needed, and send to your customer.
New nesting option
Previously, all parts in ToolBox are single-part nested as a true shape. Now, you have the option to single-part nest with rectangular bounds. This is useful for some quoting scenarios, particularly if your customer is requesting a single quantity of a particular part.
Use the Organisation Management page to choose whether to nest with:
True shape all the time;
Rectangular bounds all the time; or
Rectangular bounds for a single quantity and true shape at all other times.
Note, if rectangular bounds nesting is used, the nest view icon on the Calculator tab is disabled.
Improved drawing handling
Parts with a very small z-axis coordinate (3D entity on a 2D part) will be ignored and processed without error.
Usability enhancements
Various improvements for creating a new ToolBox account, including providing a default quote, customer and contact, and populating initial rate table speeds based on machine power.
Tooltips have been added throughout ToolBox to explain what each element does. You can toggle these on or off from the left hand menu.
Part price details popup
Access the price and time breakdown for each part by clicking a new icon next to the part on the quote tab. It displays the inputs and outputs used to calculate the cutting price, material price, and other price components.
Use this to understand how the price is calculated, and whether you want to tweak your pricing rules.
ToolBox Web Store
Sell online and offer your customers the means to produce their own quote from your website!
Add a link on your website to take customers to your own branded web store where customers can load their parts and calculate a price before placing an order.
Find out more and read about planned features such as adding a payment portal for online purchases.
Xero integration
If you use Xero as your accounting software, ToolBox now integrates with it, saving you time and reducing the risk of manual entry errors.
Marking a quote as Ordered (soon: Invoiced) will automatically create a matching invoice in Xero for you.
Find out pricing and learn how the integration is setup.
Tube quoting
Load tube or pipe part files into a quote through the new 'Add rotary parts' option on the quote page.
Accepted part types include rectangular, circular or oval profiles. Parts must be sheet metal based (not extrusions) and can't be folded. Learn more about file requirements.
To facilitate quoting of tube, there is now a "rotary" type of cutting technology and material. Find out pricing, and reach out to sales for a demo or for assistance with setting things up.
Part Library
Advanced plan users now have access to a part library. Parts ordered by a customer are stored in a library for that customer, ready for re-ordering in the future.
View the parts in the customer's Customer Central file, and add them to a quote via the 'Add from Part Library' option in the quote. The library shows the part's definition (material and secondary processes), last quoted price, and a history of all quotes the part has been used it.
Optionally send parts to the part library before the quote is marked as ordered by using the new Actions option of 'Send to Part Library'.
PDF part extractor
Now you can load vector-based PDF files into ToolBox for one-click part extraction of parts into your quote, ready for pricing or exporting as CAD files.
The PDF part extractor will ignore all other lines in the document. Just select the outer path of the part and the parvt and all internal geometries are ready to be sent to the quote after you scale the part to the required size.
Optionally set the material and thickness while you have the PDF open, and change the internal geometries to line types of folding, etching, or information.
Find out pricing and learn more about how PDF part extraction works.
Export and import material sheets and rates
Use the new import and export buttons on the Materials page to export the sheets of a material as a CSV, make changes to the spreadsheet, and then re-import them for bulk changes.
Do the same on the Rate Tables page for the rates of the selected rate table for faster editing of rate table speeds.
Various improvements and bug fixes, plus work on upcoming new features.
Price adjustments after calculation
After a quote has been calculated, there is now a Price Adjustments button that lets you modify the cutting rate and the material prices for the parts in the selected quote.
Bulk edit sheets on the Materials page
After selecting two or more sheets of a material, you can :
Set the expiry date
Set the $/kg cost
Apply a +/- percentage change to the sheet cost (e.g. increase all sheet costs by 10%)
Archive
Bulk edit rates on the Rate Tables page
After selecting two or more thicknesses of a rate table, you can :
Alter the hourly rate multiplier
Delete
New version of ToolBox with advanced materials structure
A new version of ToolBox has been released, with a big upgrade to the materials and rate tables structure. New users get this by default, and existing users should reach out to us to start the process of migrating to the new version (it's free to migrate).
Instead of a flat table with a sheet of material in each row and all properties for that sheet in different columns, there is now more structure:
Materials: Sheets are now gathered into material groups (e.g. material, grade and finish) where all the sheets for that group sit.
Cutting technologies: Define the machine you are cutting your parts with. Users on the new Advanced plan can add multiple cutting technologies for quoting with different machines.
Rate tables: Each cutting technology has its own set of speeds. Define a table of cutting and piercing speeds and then assign this rate table to one or more materials (e.g. define a Mild Steel rate table once, and assign it to all your mild steel material groups).
With this upgrade comes a bunch of new material and rates capabilities:
Price sheets by weight.
Bulk edit sheet prices by percentage (increase/decrease).
Customer-supplied material.
Fine cutting speed rates.
Small hole limit warnings.
Non-stock extra markup %.
Material sheet expiry.
Customer Central
View all customers in a central place with tabs for different aspects of that customer:
Summary: account code, address information.
Contacts: the contacts linked to this customer.
Pricing: discounts for this customer.
Quote history: all quotes created for this customer.
Nest view
On the Calculator tab after calculating a quote, you can now click on the nest icon to open up a view of the nest ToolBox calculated when determining the 'parts per sheet' output.
Various improvements and bug fixes, plus work on upcoming new features.
Material consumption mode per part
The material consumption mode for a part loaded into a quote defaults to the value set on the material, which can now be overridden on a per-part basis.
Improved error and warning handling
All parts are shown on all screens now (even if there is a red error), and parts are sorted with errors at the top:
Parts with errors (red).
Parts with warnings (yellow).
Parts that are fine but won’t calculate because there’s no material selected, or the part is too big for the sheet.
Parts that are fine and have no calculation/material issues.
Parts that have warnings are now calculated instead of preventing calculation. If a part has an open outer path, ToolBox will revert to using rectangular bounds for nesting.
Highlight the ends of open paths
You can now see the end points of open inners and open outers, and you can toggle these highlights on and off.
Auto-healing of gaps in parts
Gaps up to 0.1mm (instead of 0.01mm) are now healed automatically, saving you time from fixing parts manually in CAD programs.
CAD view
Toggle from the part's cut path view to the new Original CAD view while quoting. Read valuable information like the material and quantity requirements straight from the original file instead of having to open up the original in a CAD program.
Duplicate a quote
You can now duplicate a quote from the quotes list or from the Actions button inside the quote.
New area-based secondary processes
Now you have three options for your area-based secondary processes:
Rectangular area - 1 side no edges
Surface area - 1 side no edges
Surface area - 2 sides plus edges
New default quote names
There is now a setting for a quote prefix and an incrementing number for each new quote created. Set the prefix and the next number in your sequence from the Organisation Management settings.
Customer assignment
Assign a customer and contact to a quote from within the quote page.
View the assigned customer name and quote amount of each quote in the quotes list.
No release notes before 2022
