NetResults Tracker Features

Version 6.0.1

There are no enhancements in this version. For a list of Fixes in this version, please browse to the Version 6.0.1 Fixes list.

Version 6.0.0

Enhancements for this version can be found below. For a list of Fixes in this version, please browse to the Version 6.0.0 Fixes list.

The name of the product ProblemTracker has been changed to "NetResults Tracker".

Alerts

Alerts that are applied to newly added records can now be set differently based on the value of any one pulldown field. Previously they could only be set based on "Product" pulldown field. Alerts are now configured for each form in the Manage Workflows section.

Branding

The following enhancements have been added to allow you to better integrate Tracker with your own web site and its branding.

The web Page Title (which shows up at the top of the browser windows, or for tabbed browsers in the tab, and shows up in bookmarks/favorites) is independently configurable for each workgroup. The Page Titles for the Submit Pages (Submit via Web for Unregistered Users), and the Knowledge Base pages (Search, Results, and Item) are also configurable.
The Header Text at the top of the login box and on the page for Self-registration can be customized.
All references to "ProblemTracker / NetResults Tracker" in Alert and Discussion notification emails are now configurable (they use the Page Title property referenced above).
The ProblemTracker / NetResults Tracker logo has been removed from the Login Page and from the button bar. It has instead been replaced by text which says "Powered by NetResults Tracker".
A customized link can be entered in General Preferences to change what is displayed when a user clicks on the Help icon in the Button Bar. This allows you to provide a link to your own Help documentation or any other URL to guide a user's NetResults Tracker experience. A separate Help link can be entered for standard and restricted users.
New user group privileges have been added to allow users to access Help by clicking the Help icon in the Button Bar (Toolbar Help privilege) vs. clicking the context-sensitive "Help" link in the upper right corner of each page in NetResults Tracker (Context-Sensitive Help Link privilege). These privileges can be granted / removed per user group.

Database Server Software

SQL Server 2005 (with Service Pack 1) is supported for use with NetResults Tracker. Please review the Preparation for Installing NetResults Tracker Help section for details about using NetResults Tracker with SQL Server 2005.
The use of Tablespaces is supported such that a single Oracle database can be used for multiple workgroups. Details for using this configuration are available in the Using Oracle Database section of the Workgroup Management System Help Guide.

Edit Page

Fields on the Edit Page can be configured as read-only for particular user groups.

Email

A Text type field can be designated as the Unregistered User Email field so that users reporting issues using the Submit Page or the Submit via Email feature can receive email notification messages as an issue progresses through the Workflow.
Fields with labels that are longer than 20 characters in length will not be truncated when included in email notification messages.
In previous versions, the Mail Account User Name in the Incoming Mail Configuration was limited to 25 characters. This has been changed such that the Mail Account User Name can accept up to 80 characters.

Fields

Records can be cross-referenced or linked using Link Fields. The linked records may be of the same type (for example, duplicate Records reporting the same issue) o r of different types (for example, if one Form is used for reporting product development issues and another Form is used for reporting support tickets, you may want to associate support tickets to a particular product development issue). Link fields are always "bi-directional" so that you can follow the link from either record (linked-to or linked-from). However, you can choose to hide the link from one (or both) ends based on User Group membership using Field Visibility.
The Annotate operation on TextArea fields is now configurable. For each TextArea field you use, you can specify whether the Annotate button is available on Add, Submit, Edit and/or Task operations. You can also specify whether or not Annotation should automatically be performed (so the user does not need to remember click the Annotate button) on Add, Submit, and Task operations. Additionally, an Append option is now available for you to specify that data which is entered into TextArea Task Fields should be added to the end of the TextArea field (to keep existing information in the field from being altered during the Task operation).
Option menu items can now be marked as obsolete. Obsolete option menu items cannot be used when creating new records or modifying existing records; however, they can still continue to be referenced in old records (those added or modified prior to the item being marked obsolete) and as as search criteria for the Query Page (so you can still search for records which use the obsolete values). The Check DB Values utility has been removed. It is no longer needed since items can now be marked as obsolete. In upgraded workgroups, any option menu items which were deleted, but left in existing records, will be marked as obsolete automatically during the upgrade.
A calendar object has been added for entering dates into Date fields. Previously, all date/time values except for "Now" (the current date/time) had to be typed in. The "Now" operation has been moved into the new calendar object (Now button on the lower left).
Required fields can be displayed on the Add, Submit via Web and Task pages in a particular color, in bold and/or with a special character (based on the settings for the "Required Field Highlights" option in the General Preferences section).
NetResults Tracker pages can be customized in the Define Record section to configure multiple fields per line.
YesNo fields can now have the default value set to "No".
A style option for YesNo fields has been added to allow YesNo fields to be displayed as a pulldown or a checkbox.
A style option for Pulldown and YesNo fields has been added to allow them to be displayed as a pulldown, radio button or vertical radio button.
Options for setting input width, maximum number of characters and whether the field is displayed with a fixed width font have been added for Text and URL fields.
Negative values can now be entered into Floating or Integer fields.

Firefox

The Expand/Collapse icon for BigText fields is now available when using Firefox.
When exporting a report with a space in the name to a *.csv (comma separated values) file, the full report name will be saved as the exported file name.

General

Interfaces for adding and maintaining multiple Projects, Forms and Workflows within a single workgroup have been added. While you can still use the Workgroup Management System (WMS) to create separate workgroups for projects that are unrelated (or must remain physically independent), you now have the option to also create multiple projects within a single workgroup. Projects that are in the same workgroup can (optionally) share Forms and/or Workflows. And, reports can be created that span multiple Projects and/or multiple Forms with a workgroup.

Each Project makes use of one or more Forms (record types). For each Form within a Project, you can specify which Workflow (states, transitions, etc.) is used as well as which User Groups can access that Form in the Project. You can also specify the set of State Managers for each Form in the Project and (if you have the Submit via Email Add-On) rules for processing Incoming Emails for each Form in the Project.

Each Form is composed of one or more Fields. A Form (record type) can be used in a single Project or shared across multiple Projects. Fields can be used in a single Form or can be shared across multiple Forms.

Each Workflow is composed of States, Transitions between those States, Outgoing Email Rules (email notifications for when records change) and (if using Enterprise Edition) Alert Settings (email notifications for when records don't change by a particulare date/time). A Workflow can be used for a single Form or shared across multiple Forms. Also, the same Form (for example Trouble Ticket) can be used in more than one Project with a different Workflow in each Project (Workflow is specified for each Form in each Project). States can be used in a single Workflow or shared across multiple Workflows.

How much sharing is done among Projects, Forms, Workflows, Fields, and States is configurable by you.

Please review the Getting Started with Tracker section of the Administrative Help Guide for more information about making use of these powerful new features.
Color Preferences can now be customized for all NetResults Tracker pages.
Additional options for permanently deleting records from a workgroup while leaving the configuration intact have been added to the Maintenance section. Records can be permanently deleted based on the form that was used to create the records or based on a History date or PRN within a certain range.
The dates on which Daylight Savings Time begins and ends will change in 2007. Tracker has been updated to use the new dates.

Home Page

A "Home Page Message" message option is available in the General Preferences section for workgroup Admins to enter a message to be displayed for users on the Home Page. A separate message is available for Static/Floating users and Restricted users.

Knowledge Base

Colors for dozens of user interface elements within the Knowledge Base are now configurable from the web interface (there is a new Color button for each option in the Knowledge Base Admin section). Previously this could only be done by editing a style sheet.
The Page Title of each page (Search, Results, Item) in the Knowledge Base can be customized in the Knowledge Base configuration section.

Login Page

Adding custom HTML to the top and bottom of the Login Page can now be done from the web interface (Login Options Admin section) instead of modifying the logintop.inc and loginbottom.inc files.
Additional customization options are available for the Login Page such as setting the Header and Instruction text and customizing the color preferences.

Record Visibility

The Record Visibility options for records submitted by unregistered users (records added via the Submit Page or the Submit via Email feature) are now located in the Record Visibility section of the General Preferences page.

Reports (History, Home, Query, Metrics Pages)

A knowledge base style search of all text fields is now available in for use in Standard and Advanced Queries.
An option to search within a date range relative to the current date and time is now available for use in Standard and Advanced Queries.
Pulldown option menu items are now sorted by order and label in Query and Advanced Query operations.
A table layout option has been added to the Metrics, allowing chart data to be viewed as text instead of a chart.
Whether the Status, Assigned To or Product was changed, unchanged or changed to/from particular values can now be used as search criteria, columns in the search results and sorting criteria in History reports.
Sorting has been added to the History reports.
A preference to exclude time information from being displayed in date fields on reports (Home, Query, History) has been added.
A preference to choose whether User Group names are included in report names in the pulldowns on the Home Page has been added.
A general preference to choose how report names are sorted in the report pulldowns on the Home, Query, Metrics and Preferences pages has been added.

Restricted Users

The privileges available to Restricted Users has been expanded to include ability to edit fields and attachments for records in particular states, task records, and participate in discussions.

Submit via Web for Unregistered Users

The Submit via Web feature was known as the Inet Page in previous versions. This feature is now called Submit via Web for Unregistered Users or the Submit Page.
Previously, only the top, bottom and background of the Submit Page could be customized. Now, virtually all aspects of the Submit Page can be customized such as the date settings, page header, page title, submit button label and action, confirmation page message and confirmation page button action, among others. These options allow the Submit Page to be more seamlessly integrated with your web site. More information can be found in the Submit Page Help section.

Users and User Management System

The User Management System (UMS), a new interface for adding and maintaining user accounts, has been added. All operations for adding and maintaining user accounts have been moved from the Workgroup Management System (WMS) to UMS. UMS can be accessed on the NetResults Tracker server machine by going to "Start > Programs > NetResults Tracker > User Management System".
Local Workgroup Administrators can now Add and Delete user accounts from the workgroup's User Administration section when allowed per the settings of the UMS Administrative Options.
User group privileges are now classified as "global" or "non-global" privileges. Non-global privileges are privileges that are applied based on the Projects and Forms to which a user group has access. Meaning, that users will only be able to utilize the privileges they are granted for the Projects and Forms to which they have access. Global privileges are privileges that are applied irrespective of the Projects and Forms that are visible to a user group.
Privileges for restricted user accounts have been expanded to allow them to Task, Edit, and participate in Discussions for records they have submitted.
Default User Preferences can now be pushed to selected user groups using the Update & Push to Selected User Groups operation.
A feature has been added to allow users to reset their password without the intervention of an Administrator.
User history information such as Last Login Time, Last Login Workgroup and the dates when a user was added, deleted and restored to a workgroup are available using the View operation in UMS.
Edit Visibility privileges have been added to allow user groups to be given the ability to edit records where they are the assignee, reporter or state manager.
The privilege "Can Be Assignee for Edit" has been added to allow user groups to be granted / denied the ability to be listed in the Assigned To field when the Edit operation is used to modify a record.
The user that represents unregistered users for records added using the Submit via Web and Submit via Email features was known as "Internet User" in previous versions. This user is now called "Unregistered User".
The Self Registration options have been moved to the Login Options Admin section.
Paging has been added to the User Administration section of a workgroup when there are more than 50 users in the workgroup.
An option to enable/disable the User Type property for user accounts has been added. For upgraded installations, this option is enabled by default. The User Type property, which allows users to be marked as "External" to exclude them from the Assigned To list, has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. The Can Be Assignee for Add and Can Be Assignee for Edit privileges can be used to achieve the same result of excluding users from being listed on the Assigned To field on the Add and Edit pages.

Workflow

Transitions can now be configured to be visible to particular user roles (Assignee, Reporter, State Manager) or user groups.
Transitions can now be configured to allow users to add attachments or associate source code files to a record during the Task operation.
In previous versions, states were listed alphabetically in the State Managers section. This has been changed such that the states are listed in the order specified in the workflow.

Workgroup Management System

New templates have been added to the Workgroup Management System: Base and Change Management
Active Directory integration has been added. Workgroups can now be set to use Integrated Windows or Basic and Integrated Windows authentication from the Workgroup Management System (WMS). These options can be enabled when creating new workgroups or by modifying existing workgroups.
When using NetResults Tracker with IIS 6.0, the Workgroup Management System (WMS) will check whether the workgroups have the proper Application pool recycling settings. If the settings are not as expected, an error will be displayed at the top of the WMS Home Page. To resolve the error, run the Repair operation for the workgroups listed in the error message.

To read about the features (enhancements and fixes) in Versions 5.5 - 5.5.4, click here.