Revision as of 09:10, 22 November 2011

General Information

The SmartSimple platform is upgraded with new features and enhancements approximately every 2 to 3 months.

This page will provide a general overview of each upgrade, with links to the Wiki articles describing the new or updated features and how to use them. You can also subscribe to the Technical Journal that is sent out prior to each upgrade on the Newsletter Signup Page. (Unsubscribe here).

System Upgrade Process

The objective of the System Upgrade Process is to ensure that customers have a chance to review, without compromising the integrity of their production system, how their applications and information will work following the upgrade. In order to take advantage of this you will need to know how to access your backup instance of SmartSimple. If you need assistance with this either refer to the Backup Server and Testing Instances Wiki article, or contact the SmartSimple support desk.

Backup Server Update

• Each backup server will be updated to the "release candidate" one week prior to the upgrade date.
• This update will provide for instance specific testing of release candidate, as you can log into your respective backup server and test the the changes against your most current data and configuration.
• Internal staff will also be using these servers to perform instance specific testing.

Update Go/No-Go

• Subject to satisfactory testing on both the pre-production server and the production backup servers, the go/no go decision will be made on Wednesday at 12:00pm.

WebEx

• There will be a Pre-Release WebEx session the week prior to each upgrade that will provide technical details on how to implement and use the new features and enhancements.
  
• Topic: SmartSimple November 2011 Upgrade
• Date: Tuesday, November 22nd 2011
• Time: 10am E.S.T.
• Meeting Number: 572 937 737
• Meeting Password: Welcome1

• We have arranged a toll-free teleconference using the following numbers:

• 416-343-4997 (Local dial-in)
• 1-866-440-4486 (Toll free dial-in)
• 800-2355-0000 (Global dial-in)

• Teleconference ID: 8914632
• Webex Link: https://smartsimple.webex.com

Next Upgrade: November 2011

The following server will be upgraded on Thursday 17 November, 2011 at 10pm EST:

• smartsimple3.biz

The backup server (*.smartsimple3bk.biz) will be upgraded on Thursday November 10th for testing.

The following servers will be upgraded on Thursday 24 November, 2011 at 10pm EST.

• smartsimple.com
• smartsimple.us
• smartsimple2.biz

The associated backup servers will be upgraded on Thursday November 17th for testing.

The following servers will be upgraded on Thursday 01 December, 2011 at 10pm EST.

• smartsimple.ca
• smartsimple.biz
• smartsimple4.biz
• smartsimple.ie (after 10pm GMT)
• factorial.ca

The associated backup servers will be upgraded on Thursday November 24th for testing.

Important: The upgrade will be applied to your backup server 1 week prior to the scheduled upgrade date for your production server. You are encouraged to log into your backup server during this period to test the changes against your most recent data and configuration. Backup Server and Testing Instances

If your organization has a dedicated SmartSimple server or you host in-house SmartSimple will be in contact with your system administrator to schedule the upgrade of your server after December 12th.

The following is a list of the features included in the upgrade.

Security

• The maximum number of password changes a user can make within a 24 hour period can be defined. This is to prevent users bypassing the password history restriction by changing their password repeatedly to return to a previously used password.
• A new Global Setting to prevent use of the exlogin external login short-cut.

General

• Advanced Search: A more powerful search facility can now be enabled to replace the right-hand search panel within Contacts, Companies and the Universal Tracking Application. The Advanced search enables quick and easy input of multiple criteria including AND, OR and NOT operands.
• XML Field Section Builder: An automated tool to facilitate creation of XML tables such as budget templates etc.
• Auto-close on set password page: after setting a password for a contact the confirmation window will auto-close in 3 seconds
• Language Library: Labels within the system can be custom translated using the Language Library, accessible from Global Settings. The same label can be given different translations for each specific page within the system

Contacts and Accounts

• A new setting to flag a role as a UTA Role only. Enabling the setting will hide the role from Able to Set and Roles & Access page where it is not required.
• New variable syntax to use role name instead of roleid to determine if a contact has a given role: @object.inRole("Rolename")@

Example: @owner.inRole(Researcher)@

• Ability to initiate a duplicate check while viewing a contact or company record. This can be enabled via Advanced Logic
• Group e-mail Ad hoc e-mail broadcasts can be sent from the contact search list view using this feature, enabled via Advanced Logic
• Sign-up pages can be configured to Use Internal Formatting, so the formatting and functionality of the sign-up page will reflect the display and operation of the internal pages.
• The pipe (|) can now be used as a column delimiter when importing contact or accounts.

UTA Enhancements

• Track Changes setting on the Contacts standard field to audit addition and removal of contacts on a Level 1 record.
• Level 1 Statuses can now be limited to show only the Submit button.
• When copying a Level 2 the contacts and/or companies in the multiple contact/company lists (if enabled) can now be copied with the record.
• Deleted Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 records can be restored by Global User Administrators
• Batch Update can now be used to remove contacts or companies by role. Additionally a given contact (or company) can be replaced in batches with a new contact (or company).

This will allows reassignment of records from one contact to another if a team or staff member changes.

• Disable Default Date setting at Level 1 so the startdate, starttime, enddate and endtime will be blank on new records
• Level 1 branch standard field can be configured to manifest as an Ajax search with a lookup button instead of a combo box.
• Open Level 1 records in Edit mode: When defining the List View at Level 1 there is a new setting to determine whether the Level 1 records should open in Edit mode rather than View Mode.
• UTA Consumer/Provider Enhancements

• Level 2 records can act as Providers
• UTA Consumer records can be accessed as variables
• When adding a UTA Provider to a Level 1 record, the Provider can be associated with a defined Role, in the same manner as Contacts and Companies are assigned to a Level 1 record. Similarly custom fields can be added to record the properties specific to the association of the Provider and Consumer.

Workflows

• Branching Workflows. A logical statement can be added to workflow connectors. This will enable workflows to branch based on conditional statements. For example: if a workflow request is triggered for a request exceeding $100,000 it will be sent to Senior Management for approval, while requests under $100,000 will take a different path.
• Workflow History: a Manager Permission will enable a tab on Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 to display the history of workflows triggered on the entity.
• Workflow Request re-assignment: workflow requests (Request for Approval or Request for Comment) can be reassigned on the Pending Task list view.

Reports

• Global Report Template can be defined to automatically add headers and footers to all reports
• Advanced Excel Export settings allow you to use an Excel file in a SmartFolder as a template
• An HTML template can be custom defined for reports that prompt for criteria using the ??? syntax. @arg1.label@, @arg1.id@, @submitbutton@ and @exportbutton@ can be used on this page.
• Setting to mark a report as Do Not Rebuild to prevent accidentally overwriting customized report template settings. This setting causes a pop-up confirmation when you open report builder.
• For reports that prompt for criteria, the criteria entered can be referenced in customized report templates using this syntax: @args[field id]@
• Confirm on delete of a report.

Misc

• Last Search option for Contact search, Company search and Level 2 / Level 3 searches
• The Applicant Tracking built-in application can now be renamed. This will facilitate its use as a Volunteer tracking system.
• Workflow IDs will be shown in the list of workflows to facilitate configuration
• Global Advanced Logic to control View/Edit on contact records
• Global Advanced Logic to hide the Organization Chart on company records
• Global Advanced Logic to remove the hyperlinks on the e-mail field and phone number field on contacts and account
• The access level a contact has been given (No Access, User Centric Interface, Administrator or Portal Interface) can be accessed using variables @accesstypeid@ and @accesstype@
• Autoloader Encoding When autoloading from CSV files you can now specify if the CSV file is encoded as UTF-8 or UTF-16 to facilitate special characters.

Previous Upgrades

Click on the links below to find detailed information on previous upgrades.

• The date listed indicates when the upgrade cycle commenced. Not all servers were upgraded on that date.

Previous Upgrade: May 19th 2011

Previous Upgrade: October 1st 2010

Previous Upgrade: May 13th 2010

Previous Upgrade: October 1st 2009

Previous Upgrade: July 30th 2009

Previous Upgrade: May 28th 2009