WolfePak LandPro

The Oil & Gas and the Coal Mining Industries have experienced a downfall these past few years. Fewer people are responsible to perform jobs that used to be assigned to more employees, especially in land departments.

Critical information, including special obligations, payment obligations, important dates, special provisions, mineral ownership, acreage inventories, revenue distribution, and interest conveyances had gotten out of hand and needed to be streamlined.

Land departments needed a way to facilitate maintenance and reporting of massive amounts of lease and contract data. Due to the complexity of the business, entering data, generating reports and calculating mining royalty checks was too slow and expensive when done manually or when using competitors’ land management systems. Furthermore, the user had to rely either on the software vendor or an in-house software technician to generate custom reports.

WYSIWYG reports were a requirement. End-users not familiar with report generator tools needed to be able to create custom reports based on data displayed in list views, as well as custom reports based on any field in the various tables of the database.

Company-wide access to scanned documents specific to every facet of the land business was also a requirement. This, coupled up with graphical display of tracts of land, would provide anyone in the company with immediate access to essential information.

We developed WolfePak LandPro to provide flexible access to land information, maps, and document images. It is a multi-user, multi-company application, following a document-oriented approach: every entity (such as leases, contracts, and addresses) is seen as a document.

WolfePak LandPro uses a three-tiered architecture to guarantee flexibility and maintainability. It borrows ideas from the Smalltalk community and makes use of a Model-View-Controller-like architecture. It uses data objects rather than accessing views or tables directly, thus allowing us to easily switch data sources since only one set of objects is the mediator between the data behavior and interface objects. These data objects can be sent across OLE connections.

The three-tiered approach is important in order to migrate WolfePak LandPro to the web and to support various data sources like FoxPro DBFs, SQL Server, and more. Using data objects, we are also able to support incompatible data sources (i.e. an address table from another application).

The Internet is very important to WolfePak LandPro, therefore we make extensive use of the Internet Explorer ActiveX control. We use this control and the Dynamic HTML features to provide and add dynamic content to our “Interactive” Desktop, which, in turn, can be customized by the user. Using the Interactive Desktop, we got rid of a huge amount of useless white space and turned it into a highly effective and customizable desktop. We also use the IE4/IE5 ActiveX control to display data in a nice way, to provide online support and more.

WolfePak LandPro also includes a stand-alone System Administrator Tool, which allows for creation of new tables and databases, displays database statistics, indexes and packs files, repairs corrupted data, reviews the error and user activity logs, etc..

In order to make WolfePak LandPro very easy for new users, we have made extensive use of HTML rendering coupled with the familiar Windows ’98 interface, Microsoft Agents, and various speech engines.

To open or create a document, we use an approach similar to Office 2000 by displaying an open/new dialog box that shows all the different kinds of documents and templates.

“Favorites”, as well as “recently opened” documents, can also be easily accessed via our interactive desktop.

WolfePak LandPro has two different views to documents: The list view and the data entry view. The list view is a customizable grid associated with powerful filtering features: a simple, fill-in-the-blank filter mechanism and a more powerful filter wizard that allows the user to create and save any kind of filter. These filters can later be quickly accessed while working in the list view. The user types something in the various filter entry fields, then clicks either the “Show Data” button or the List Tab, and Visual LandPro will display only the requested records. This filtering feature also supports relatively complex filters such as ranges, multiple values, and phonetic search.

Filter “EXCLUSIONS” can also be handled in the regular filter logic. Simply add a “!” symbol in front of the value to be filtered and WolfePak LandPro will automatically “exclude” all records with those values.

Exclusions also work in conjunction with Date Ranges. For example, say you wanted to see all lease records EXCEPT for those with an expiration date of DECEMBER 2006 you would enter the following text in the Expire Date field: !12/1/06~12/31/06. WolfePak LandPro also allows you to filter on EMPTY fields (or ZERO value fields). Simply enter an ASTERIX in that field: WolfePak LandPro will then list only records where that particular field is BLANK or ZERO.

WolfePak LandPro’s entry forms can also display an “all-fields” and/or “user-defined fields” page, allowing the user to quickly edit data.

A very important part of WolfePak LandPro is the print engine. Visual LandPro has a variety of report wizards that create FRX files, using Report Definition Objects and Visual GenRepoX.

In addition to predefined reports and report wizards, WolfePak LandPro has a powerful feature we call “snapshots“ – reports which look similar to list grids. The user can simply modify the grid (drag or resize columns), apply filters and click on the print button to create a new report according to that grid. SNAPSHOTS can also be exported to EXCEL and MS-WORD (and in various instances also to .DBF and XML files)

Another important part of WolfePak LandPro is the graphical representation of the various land records. We accomplished that by creating our own mapping ActiveX control (Baseline USA) using Microsoft Visual C.

Perhaps the most significant feature offered by WolfePak LandPro is the timesaving. For example, our ability to automatically calculate mining production royalty checks in a matter of seconds. Our data entry and calculation process is completed within a small fraction of the time that it used to take when doing it manually or via a spreadsheet program.

The financial benefits to our clients were tremendous. Using WolfePak LandPro improved productivity and efficiency of practically every member of the company’s land department. Everyone now had immediate access to reports, maps, scanned documents – all with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Anyone familiar with Microsoft Office, Windows 98, and IE5 finds himself or herself right at home when working in WolfePak LandPro - this translates in reduced training time thus decreasing costs.

WolfePak LandPro produces critical real-time reports on a variety of issues, including Acreage Inventories, Payment Obligations, Rental Inquiry Letters, Division of Interest Calculations, Transfers of Interests, and, most importantly, Title History. These reports, if they were to be done manually, would take hours, days, and, in the case of Division Order calculations, perhaps even weeks to complete. WolfePak LandPro reduces this to practically minutes.

Also, end-users want to be able to create their own “custom-reports”, without becoming familiar with 3rd party products such as FoxFire, R&R, or Crystal Reports. We developed the “Snapshot” reports: these report formats are automatically created, and are based on the current layout of the active listview window, specific to the records being displayed based on our data filters, keeping us from to having to write immeasurable number of reports for our clients!

Regarding data entry, we include numerous Data Entry Wizards, greatly expediting the data-entry process. Our goal was to provide for basic lease information to be entered in 3 to 5 minutes.

WolfePak LandPro was originally written in Visual FoxPro, storing its data in VFP9 databases. While most of our clients still use the Visual FoxPro version, we now also have WolfePak LandPro SQL, which stores its data in SQL2012, 2008 databases or newer.

Initially, reliability and performance were two of the main reasons we chose Visual FoxPro over other development environments. Visual FoxPro has a very powerful internal database engine allowing us to create a relatively cheap product version for small to mid-size customers. At the same time, we are able to create a client/server solution for our large customers, without changing the rest of the code.

Visual FoxPro’s powerful object model gives us the ability to create a robust solution relatively quickly without losing the advantage of having good maintainability. The result is a low TCO (total-cost-ofownership), one of the main goals in today’s world of software development.

Also, Visual FoxPro is a great tool to create middle-tier components. Together with Microsoft Transaction Server, this allows us to create scalable components without changing the existing code, breaking the old myth of “starting over from scratch with every new product version”.

  1. Incorporate different business aspects of land documents, including maps, technical data, owner data, lease descriptions, ownership issues, acreage issues, mineral rights by depth, and ownership conveyance issues. VFP allowed us to integrate all the different business aspects (applications) required to have a complete understanding of these land management issues through ActiveX controls, browser interface, and three-tiered design.
  2. Flexibility on the back end (data-tier). In order to access different databases (including VFP Data, SQL Server and Oracle), we use controller objects that talk to data. We designed this similar to the modern ADO technology, using data objects. Controller objects talk to data and hand it over to the middle tier. Since all the modified data is present in the form of objects, it can be handed over to all kinds of interfaces, thus meeting changing customer requirements.
  3. Allow end-users to create reports. We created an OO FRX-creation engine we use in all report wizards and snapshots.
  4. We needed a way to quickly receive error messages from our users. The WolfePak LandPro error-handler uses FoxPro Foundation Classes. It stores comprehensive information about the bug and the environment at the time of the error, then it allows the user to email it to our email address for technical support.
  5. Handling Binary documents. These are usually scanned graphic images. They may be anywhere on the network, or on CD-Roms. The major problem was different workstation drive mappings.
  6. Handling complex grids and filters in a generic fashion. List views are built on the fly. All the columns in grids are subclasses of regular column classes which was a rather large challenge since VFP doesn’t support using different column classes in the Visual Class Designer. Our grids handle standard tasks such as resorting, filtering and alike automatically. Grids (and the attached fill-in-theblank filters) are configured using our special grid-builder.
  7. We needed to provide an easy way for “filters” to be created and accessed at different times. We created a powerful filter wizard system, which automatically gathers information from the database, and grants access to almost all filter options supported by Visual FoxPro.
  8. In many cases, multiple users needed simultaneous access to the same document. We developed an “Automatic Conflict Resolution” engine, where we provide a way to automatically merge changes, in a fashion similar to Visual Sourcesafe. WolfePak LandPro attempts to merge the changes on its own, but if it gets confused, it asks the user to help decide how to proceed.
  9. GENDBC could not handle complex databases. We wrote a OO GenDBC-like class which creates and maintains complex databases. The class is maintained automatically by a builder we created.
  10. The business problem required a very flexible way of viewing and editing data. We achieved this goal by using HTML within our application. The user can modify those HTML screens to set up his/her own views, edit forms and business rules.
  11. Implementing the World Wide Web was very important for our users. We tie into various sources of content including our own web site as well as third party sites such as Microsoft Expedia Maps.

Supporting MTS, Web version of the full product, offline views, printing reports in Word and Excel format.

WolfePak LandPro (www.landpro.com) has a simple, yet intuitive Desktop Main Window. We modeled our software after Microsoft Office.

Data is stored in popular Visual FoxPro tables, and it is easily "exportable" into other Microsoft data formats (such as MS-Excel and MS-Word).

Questions? Please call us at 325.677.1543 / you can even order a FREE DEMO PACKAGE online! (See "Order Demo" below)

Displaying Lease Lists is extremely flexible with WolfePak LandPro. You can even use our Field Chooser utility to specify your own Custom Lists. Then, you can activate/deactivate our HTML Preview List logic in order to view MORE data on individual lease records as you quickly scroll up & down the list page!

Acreage Calculations is perhaps WolfePak LandPro's best attribute. Net Acres, Gross Acres, Entity Share, HBP Acres, Developed acres, Undeveloped, Mineral Acres, Surface Acreage, and much more.

See why so many land owners and Oil & Gas Exploration companies have chosen WolfePak LandPro! Call us for a FREE DEMO MOVIES CD at 325.677.1543.

This image lists the extensive lease "toolbar" menu-items available in WolfePak LandPro.

The 2nd row of buttons (Tracts, Roy/ORRI, W.I. Decks, etc...) opens various grids with data specific to your lease. Same for the "Other X-Ref" Menu.

Example of LandPro's Lease View/Edit Window (Page 1 only) .

(Note: this is NOT where you enter data for New Leases / this is where you can VIEW or EDIT data on existing leases).

To add new leases in WolfePak LandPro, you can use our Lease Wizard by Tract

Example of another lease edit page (acreage page)

Acreage calculations are done easily and correctly in WolfePak LandPro, since it is a true "Tract-based" land system. Tracts can have an unlimited number of ownership records (minerals / surface), which in turn get associated with leases. Your tract data is quickly created using our Tract-Add Wizard.

This wizard is truly remarkable, as it automatically creates your legal descriptions, sub-tracts (which get linked to your wells), and ownership detail records. Lease acreage is then automatically calculated for you. And so is Prospect Acreage, and acreage by state, by county, by survey, and more...

Oil & Gas Exploration Companies and Coal Mining Companies can setup tracts and appropriate surface and mineral ownership interests. The owners' interest is then cross-referenced to the lease.

WolfePak LandPro's NAME & ADDRESS entry form was modeled after Microsoft Outlook's "Contacts" entry window.

We automatically "parse" your Name & Address data so that it is stored in such a way to facilitate mail merges you may wish to do in the future.

More on the latest PRINT Dialog windows below under "Reports".

WolfePak LandPro is ideal for companies that want to have a good handle on lease and contract records, yet want to continue using their accounting software of choice. Why be limited by feature-lacking “add-on” lease modules, created primarily to provide a sense of “security” when it comes to the wonderful concept of integration of land with accounting. The bottom line is that if the land “add-on” modules don’t do the things you need in your land department, then you cannot get your job done most efficiently.

There is truly no comparison between most accounting software “add-on” land modules and a full-land system such as ours. Accounting software companies are primarily concerned with marketing their applications to accounting departments, as that’s who keeps them in business. Satisfying land-departments it not their top-priority job.

The subject of “true integration” between lease records and accounting is an important issue. Although some integration will exist in land add-on modules to accounting systems, this is oftentimes outweighed by their lack in functionality from the land system’s prospective. In order to operate most effectively, the land department needs a good land management program.

Here at WolfePak Software we have been working for over 20 years with people like you: land managers, lease analysts, division order analysts, field brokers. We take pride in our software and services. Our main focus is land management software development, and that is what we do best. Over the years, we have seen dozens of companies come and go, but even more, we’ve seen land professionals coming back to LandPro for all their land management needs, especially after they’ve tried other “interesting sounding” land add-on programs, that unfortunately simply did not meet their requirements.

If you have not worked with WolfePak LandPro in the past but would like to do so, here’s how you can try it FREE OF CHARGE: call us and let’s setup a 1-day training class for you, “INTRODUCTION TO WolfePak LandPro", here at our training facility in SPRING, TX. We’ll then give you a FREE 30-DAY FULLY-WORKING LICENSE of WolfePak LandPro for you to take back and setup your own leases, minerals, contracts, document images, division orders, etc.

Some of our competitors try to sell you on the “most” important features in land management: “integration to accounting”. However, keep in mind that integration is meaningless if what they’re integrating is a feature-challenged land module instead than a complete land & contract management system such as WolfePak LandPro.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for a list of our clients, especially those that have had the opportunity of working with their accounting land modules also, and compared them to Visual: see for yourself why they chose to stick with WolfePak LandPro - you’ll be glad you did!

WolfePak LandPro exports its data to EXCEL WORKSHEETS. Chances are that your accounting software can read from Excel. We can always modify our code so that our Excel worksheets automatically come out the way you want them. LANDPRO such as NAME & ADDRESSES, REVENUE DECKS (DOI’s), and PAYMENT HISTORY should not be a problem. Call us and we can discuss this with you in more detail.

We take pride particularly in the following 2 items: our lease setup process (via our “Lease Wizard By Tract”), and our data sheets (unsurpassed by any other software competitor in the industry). Also, we offer over 250 “pre-defined”-reports. Plus, you can also copy and modify most of these yourself. And even add your own thanks to our DILMAD REPORT WRITER program.

Installing WolfePak LandPro is EASY. We quickly walk you thru this, or even do it for you if you have an internet connection! Data backups are also very quick and easy: no need to be a computer guru to safely backup your data in LandPro. We provide unlimited technical support to companies subscribing to our annual subscription plan. We promptly return phone calls and emails: you even get my home phone number and cellular number, in case you have a question after-hours or on weekends! Can’t beat that.

Still, don’t take my word for it. TALK TO OUR CLIENTS. Ask us for our latest client list. E-mail or call these people, and ask them questions. See if they’re happy with WolfePak LandPro. Ask them whether WolfePak LandPro is getting the job done for them! Then come and take one of our INTRO TO WolfePak LandPro courses, and try out software FREE of charge for up to 30 days. It is a WIN-WIN situation. You will be glad you did.

WolfePak Software
325.677.1543

Our List of Leases window allows you to quickly find, sort, edit, duplicate, export, print, and perform a number of other operations on your lease records. Shown here is the List of Leases, with the GIS option turned on (VLP-GIS)

Quickly and easily list your LEASE RECORDS using our user-friendly FILTER windows.

We even have "Advanced Filters" which can be SAVED for later usage. Searches can be based on any words contained within your search fields, date ranges, special provisions, and much more.

Leases have multiple entry pages. The layout of the 1st page flows basically similar to most O&G Leases. Lease entry pages have been laid out in an "importance" scale, with the most important fields starting on page 1.

Important dates, Related Parties, and Lease Codes.

You can use our pre-defined codes, or create your own! You can then set FILTERS based on your various codes.

Quickly view a summary of YOUR COMPANY's Working Interest decks. You can have unlimited number of "decks".

For example, Working Interest, Expense Interest, Record Title, Operator Rights, Revenue Interest, etc...

You can specify which deck is to be used in calculations for Payment Obligations, Division Order calculations, and Acreage calculations!

You can also specify your W.I. Decks to specific Tracts & Subtract within each Lease.

WolfePak LandPro allows you to QUICKLY setup your lease special provisions! Each provision can have unlimited length text associated with it.

You can batch-add them and/or "import" them from other leases. But - best of all - these get "imported" automatically from your Lease Form when you first create your lease using our Lease Wizard by Tract tool.

You can setup unlimited number of Payment Obligation records for each lease (either "recurring" or specific to a certain date).

In the example below, we have a lease with two payment obligations: a monthly recurring Right of Way payment, and an Annual recurring rental payment.

Watch video on Payment: Click Here

Payment Obligation records are created for you AUTOMATICALLY when you first enter your lease data using any one of our Lease Add Wizards.

In addition to having the ability to setup single "recurring" payment obligation record per payee, you can also specify various additional settings, including:

  1. Recurring Payment?
  2. Pay Regardless of Suspense Code?
  3. Pay Regardless of Lease OK to Pay Status?
  4. Include notes on checks?
  5. Recoupable type payment? (for ex, in the case of "advance royalty" payments)
  6. Multiply Amount Due by PPI? (Producer's Price Index / see PPI table)

Here you can see your Mineral and Surface Ownership in each of your lease tracts.

Outstanding Mineral & Surface Ownership specific to your lease tracts. If the tract(s) that this lease covers have additional mineral and/or surface owners (which may be linked to other leases), here you will see these "oustanding" ownership records.

Tracts are made up of at least ONE subtract. Subtracts basically specify the "type of acreage" (whether it is "developed" - thus associated with a well or unit), or "undeveloped").

WolfePak LandPro automatically creates subtracts when you use the Tract Add Wizard to create new tracts.

WolfePak LandPro also provides the ability to setup royalty-specific data for MINING COMPANIES. Each lease can have unlimited number of "royalty obligations".

A special Mining Revenue Distribution Module is available for those Mining Companies needing the ability to pay royalties on production such as COAL PRODUCTION. See our PRODUCTS page and our SCHEDULE OF FEES page for more information.

This image shows the ROYALTY OBLIGATION data entry screen (for Mining companies)

Mining Companies (coal mining and other hard-minerals) can quickly setup Monthly Production worksheets thanks to our Mining Revenue Distribution Module.

LandPro will then automatically "split" your production to the various royalty owners, and calculate what payments should be done.

Please CALL US for more information on our Mining Revenue Distribution Module. This add-on module is ideal for COAL COMPANIES needing a flexible royalty distribution software system.

This is an example of what your Coal Mining Royalty Checks will look like. Checks can be easily modified to fit practically any 8.5 x 11 sheet. See other images regarding our Coal Mining Software module for Visual Landpro 2000!

WolfePak LandPro allows you to setup a LOT of information specific to your wells. This includes location information, royalty and ORRI burdens, Working Interest decks, Special Provisions, Special Obligations, Payment Obligations, Tracts, Contracts, Payment History, Production Purchasers and their Well Id's and Interest that you should be receiving, API, Title History, and more...

WolfePak LandPro allows you to setup a LOT of information specific to your wells. This includes location information, royalty and ORRI burdens, Working Interest decks, Special Provisions, Special Obligations, Payment Obligations, Tracts, Contracts, Payment History, Production Purchasers and their Well Id's and Interest that you should be receiving, API, Title History, and more...

Our Document Imaging System allows you to link unlimited number of Images (JPG, BMP's, TIFF, etc..) practically with any LandPro records (leases, tracts, contracts, owners, etc...).

Without "reinventing the wheel", we basically provide you with a simple mechanism with which you can cross-reference your records with external IMAGE files.

Baseline example 1. Baseline is an affordable deed plotter program, which can be used as a stand-alone application or be incorporated within VLP.

Baseline example 2. Example of Township-Range-Section call map.

WolfePak LandPro can quickly generate Data Sheet reports for all your properties, including Leases, Contracts, Owners, Tracts, Wells, Prospect, and many more!

You can specify the Printint Order of each "band" of data. And also whether you want to show or hide each band.

Data Sheet "Status" Reports can also be generated / here you would basically see multiple leases (but a few data bands at the most) on single reports pages.

When you generate data sheet reports, you have the option of printing MULTIPLE LEASES on the same page, and selecting just a few "data bands" to show up in your report.

The result is our "Lease Data Sheet Status Report", a very "flexible" type of report where the end-user basically specifies what data to display, without "page ejects" between each lease record!

In the image below, we selected only the Lease Burdens data band. Result: a report showing only Lease Burdens, sorted by Lease Id (you can sort this in a number of ways...)

Snapshot reports are EASY to generate! You can re-arrange the display of your data, then simply RIGHT-CLICK on your List Window, and select the Preview / Snapshot report option. Also... very similar logic to export your List records to Excel..

This is what LandPro actually "builds" in the background for you... and you DO NOT need to know "how" this was built - it is all done "automatically" for you before the report is generated

WolfePak LandPro has access to various tools that will facilitate your data maintenance as well as help tremendously in "exporting" your land data in formats that other software systems can understand.

  • The Database Export / Import function allows you to quickly export and import your LandPro data to/from Excel worksheets.
  • The Lease Mass Update Wizard provides quick updates of numerous lease fields.
  • The Tract Deletion Wizard quickly help you remove old tracts (no longer in use).