diff --git a/src/server/blendjob.h b/src/server/blendjob.h
--- a/src/server/blendjob.h
+++ b/src/server/blendjob.h
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
    This file stores the blendjob and frameset structs and prototypes for some functions to manipulate/use these.
  */
 
-#include <time.h> /* clock_t */
+#include <time.h> /* clock_t, time_t */
 
 typedef unsigned int jobnum_t;
 
@@ -36,16 +36,15 @@ struct blendjob {
   struct blendjob *next; /*< next will be NULL unless if there is another blendjob */
   char *name;
   char *submitter;
-  char *email;
+  char *email; /*< This should be looked up based on the value of submitter, not stored in this struct */
   jobnum_t jobnum;
   int priority;  // 1 is lowest, 10 is highest, 0 means the job is done
-  int percent_done;
+  float percent_done;
   int completed_frames; // number of completed frames for stats/etc
   int assigned_frames; // number of assigned frames (that are not yet completed) for stats/etc
   int total_frames; // how many frames are in the animation for stats/etc (unassigned frames)
-  int avg_render_time; // average seconds it took to render a frame
-  unsigned int time_remaining; // estimated seconds remaining till render is complete (up to 49, 710 days)
-							   // we can have the client computer convert it into days, hours, etc if they wish to view it
+  time_t avg_render_time; // average seconds it took to render a frame
+  time_t time_remaining; /*< estimated seconds remaining till render is complete (up to 49, 710 days) */
   struct frameset *frameset;
 };
 
@@ -63,4 +62,31 @@ struct frameset {
 }; /* Frameset array is generated by status_report_generator() */
 
 
+/*
+related functions 
+*/
+
+/**
+
+   @param distrenjob the address where we will store the pointer of a malloc()ed
+   distrenjob struct.
+   @param pathtoxml filename/pathname of the xml file to be read into a blendjob struct
+ */
+int xml2distrenjob(struct blendjob **distrenjob, char *pathtoxml);
+
+/**
+   support function for xml2distrenjob() to help cleaning up a
+   struct blendjob when it is incompletely initialized.
+   Also acts as a general-purpose struct distrenjob free()er ;-)
+ */
+void distrenjob_free(struct blendjob **distrenjob);
+
+/**
+   initializes an empty, pointless struct distrenjob. This 
+   DOES run malloc() for you. It could return nonzero on error,
+   but there are no errors to have yet (except for nomem). This 
+   sets all char* to NULL.
+ */
+int distrenjob_new(struct blendjob **distrenjob);
+
 #endif