Tracker Features

Version 5.5.4

Enhancements

• A change was made to improve the performance of the Workflow Properties page when a large number of users and states are present in a workgroup.

Fixes

• In Version 5.5.3, a system error would occur when trying to add a record when the Product, State, or Assigned To value selected had a name that was 1 or 2 characters long. This has been corrected such that a record can be added without an error when the name of a Product, State, or User ID in the Assigned To list is 1 or 2 characters long.
• In Version 5.5.3, a system error would occur when attempting to add a record where the Product had a name that included "^" or "\". This has been corrected such that a record can be added without an error when "^" or "\" are present in the name of a value in the Product field.
• In Version 5.5.3, duplicate date fields were displayed in the Send Alerts settings when a date field was configured to be visible to more than one group on the View page. This has been corrected to eliminate the duplicate date fields.
• In previous versions, the Daylight Savings Time (DST) calculation assumed the date for DST to change was 10/24/2004 instead of 10/31/2004, resulting in all date/time fields in the date range 10/24/2004 - 10/30/2004 to be displayed incorrectly (off by one hour). This has been corrected so that all date/time fields in this range are displayed correctly.
• In previous versions, Afghanistan Standard Time was listed with the offset UTC+0400. This has been corrected such that Afghanistan Standard Time is now listed with the correct offset, UTC+0430.

• Daylight Savings Time has been added as an option for the following time zones: UTC-0600 Mexico Standard Time (Mexico City), UTC-0400 Atlantic Standard Time (Atlantic Time (Canada)) and UTC+0400 Caucasus Standard Time (Baku, Tbilisi).

• In previous versions, the Workgroup Management System (WMS) Repair Workgroup function would terminate the Copy Web Files operation if it encountered a read only file (tried to overwrite a read only file). It has been updated to repair (overwrite) read only files so that it repairs all files (whether or not they have the read only attribute set).  

Version 5.5.3

Enhancements

• The History function has been enhanced to include: paged query results display with an option to set the number of history entries displayed per page, a sort order option, various report layout options, and the option to include record information (fields of the referenced record) in the query results display.
• A print operation has been added to the History query results page.
• Changes have been made to the Add and Edit pages to improve the performance of these pages when using a large number of Fields and User Groups. Installations of ProblemTracker with more than 50 fields visible on the Add or Edit page and where the database server is on a different machine than ProblemTracker (database server is not on the web server machine) are likely to get the biggest performance improvement from this change.
• Changes have been made to the Add page to improve performance of this page with a large number of option menu items in the Product, Status, and/or Assignee fields. Installations with more than 100 values for Product, Status, and/or Assignee are likely to get the biggest performance improvement from this change.
• The History Comment is now displayed in the View and History query results pages with line breaks as they were originally entered (previously, line breaks were ignored for display purposes).
• The Attachment Type (File or URL) is now displayed in the Attachments section of the View page.
• The use of the Input Records filter in Saved Charts (Metrics) has been enhanced to better support trend analysis. Several options now apply the Input Records filter using data from Record History to filter the data based on the values of fields in the records as they were in the past (on the dates used in the trend analysis) rather than using the current values of the fields. Prior releases always applied the Input Records filter using the current values of fields in the records.
• The year is now always included in exported Metrics data. Previously, the exported data matched the displayed data (some dates were abbreviated by excluding the year).
• Additional information is now displayed in the status bar on many pages. For example, the message "Loading... Please wait." is now displayed on the Home page while the browser is loading and rendering (converting the data for display) the home page reports. On the Add, Edit, and Task pages the status bar displays a message while email notifications are being sent.
• A PDF version of each Help manual is now included (installed) with the product to simplify the process of printing the Help manuals.
• The ability to initialize task fields that are Pulldown, Release Number, and YesNo type fields has been added.
• Members of the Admins user group or members of a user group with the Admin privilege enabled can now modify group Saved Charts and group Chart Layouts for any user group without having to be a member of every user group.
• A new option called "Make Visible to These User Groups" has been added to the Inet Page Options. If you have enabled Record Visibility, this option allows you to specify the User Groups that should be allowed to access records which are created via the Inet Page (Submit via Web for unlicensed users). Prior to this, the record created from the Inet Page (those with "Internet User" as the Reporter) were visible to all users (other than Restricted users who can only view issues which they have reported) because the system always made such records visible to the Admins and Users groups.
• A new option called "Record Visibility for Unmapped Emails" has been added to the Incoming Mail Configuration. If you have enabled Record Visibility, this option allows you to specify the User Groups that should be allowed to access records which are created from emails that are unmapped (do not have a user account associated with them). Prior to this the records created from unmapped emails (those with "Internet User" as the Reporter) were visible to all users (other than Restricted users who can only view issues which they reported) because the system always made such records visible to the Admins and Users groups.
• The Required for Add attribute is not enforced for records added via email.  This is useful with respect to the Product field because it allows you to add records via email for the default option menu item (e.g. "Unknown") while still requiring that a non-default item (e.g. "Product One", "Product Two", etc.) be selected on the Add page within ProblemTracker.
• The text "Failure" or "Success" is now included in the Subject line for incoming email processing status messages to make it easier to create your email filters based on the Subject line. Previously this information was only included in the body of the status email.
• IIS 6.0 (Windows Server 2003) has a default file upload size limit of 200 KB. ProblemTracker can accept file attachments up to 20 MB in size. ProblemTracker 5.5.3 now automatically sets the IIS 6.0 file upload size limit to 20 MB for ProblemTracker workgroup "applications" when upgrading (or repairing) existing workgroups or creating new workgroups.
• The List Users page in the Workgroup Management System (WMS) now has buttons (icons) to view, edit, delete, or set workgroup access privileges for a user. It also includes a table with a summary of user account license information. And, a column has been added to display the Company of each user.
• The ability to select all workgroups in a single operation when blocking or unblocking workgroups in the Workgroup Management System (WMS) has been added.
• A State column has been added to the Home page of the Workgroup Management System (WMS). This displays whether a workgroup is active or blocked.

Fixes

• In version 5.5.2, a system error would occur when running an advanced saved query with the clause "is empty" for a BigText field. This has been corrected such that the "is empty" clause can be applied to a BigText field without generating an error.
• In version 5.5.2, when pushing default workflow properties to more than one product, only the properties for the first (top-most) selected product were actually updated. This has been corrected such that the properties for all selected products are updated.
• In versions 5.5 - 5.5.2, browsing to URL attachments that started with file://, news:, and mailto: would fail because "http://" was automatically inserted at the beginning of a URL that did not start with http, https, or ftp. This has been changed so that "http://" is not inserted into any URL attachments.
• In versions 5.5 - 5.5.2, a JavaScript error would occur when attempting to remove fields from being displayed in the Summary and Body sections of the Knowledge Base Item Page.This has been corrected such that the fields can be removed without the JavaScript error being displayed.
• In versions 5.5 - 5.5.2, the label of a pulldown field was truncated at 22 characters when it was displayed as a read-only task field This has been corrected such that the label of the pulldown field is not truncated.
• In versions 5.5 - 5.5.2 when using Oracle as the database, submitting a record via an email which had an email body containing more characters than can fit in a ProblemTracker BigText field would fail. This has been corrected such that the body of the email will be truncated and the record will be successfully added to the Oracle workgroup. To get the full email contents, you can use the Save Raw Email as an Attachment option in the Incoming Mail configuration.
• In previous versions, when exporting data from the Query or Metrics pages, if the name of the Saved Query or Saved Chart used a character that was not allowed in a Windows file name, Internet Explorer replaced the file name generated by ProblemTracker with one that was randomly generated and did not include the original file extension (file type). This has been corrected by replacing characters that can not be used in a Windows file name with "-" (hyphen).
• In previous versions, a system error due to a timeout could occur when attempting some operations that resulted in a large number of records (at least 1000) being changed at once (e.g. deleting a user which resulted in re-assigning a large number of records, or performing Edit Results operation on more than 1000 records at once). The performance of these operations have been significantly improved so that the timeout can be avoided.
• In previous versions, in some instances a system error would occur when attempting to remove a user with a personal Saved Chart displayed on the Home page from a user group. This has been corrected such that the system error does not occur when trying to remove the user from a user group.
• In previous versions, when a comma was present in a pulldown option menu item that was included in a chart, incorrect data values would be displayed and a run time error would occur when exporting the chart. This has been corrected such that the charts display the correct data values and can be exported when pulldown option menus contain a comma.
• In previous versions, a chart with the option "For every in " selected in the "Perform calculations..." section would generate a system error if Access was used as the database type and during an Edit operation an attempt was made to select a different option in the "Perform calculations..." section. This has been corrected such that the chart can be edited without generating an error. 

Version 5.5.2

Enhancements

• An Add Similar operation has been added to the View page. If you click the Add Similar button on the View page, you will be brought to the Add page with all fields on the Add page filled in with the values from the record you were previously viewing. You can then modify the fields as necessary and click the Add button to create a new record that is similar to an existing one.
• A clone (duplicate record) operation has been added to the View page and the Task operation. The clone operation will create a new record whose fields have the same values as an existing record. Unlike Add Similar, all fields will be copied (not just those set on the Add page). A link is also kept between the two records (parent and child record) so that you can maintain a relationship between the two records. For example, you can have several issues share a common workflow (parent record) up to a certain point (step where the child records were created) or you can create (child) records to represent "subtasks" of the parent record (so, for instance, you could delegate parts of a larger task to other individuals and keep track of the status of the subtasks independently). New privileges, (Task) Transition properties, Task Field properties, Query options, and Report Layout options have been added to allow you to configure when, how, and by whom cloning can be used and to generate Queries and Metrics that include/exclude cloned records. By default, this feature is disabled (no users will have the privilege to clone records) in all workgroups.
• A new privilege has been added to allow those without the general Metrics privilege to still view Metrics on their Home page (this limits them to only running Metrics that have been created for their User Group(s)).
• The entries in the User Sessions page can now be dynamically sorted (by User ID, Last Login Time, or License Type).
• A print button has been added to the Metrics page (to directly print the chart without any other parts of the web page).
• All active fields except BigText and Date type fields can now be included as variables (actual values will be substituted when the email is generated) in the email notification message properties (Subject, Greeting, Introduction, Operation Description, and Signature).
• A new email notification message variable () has been added which represents the person who performed the action that triggered the email.
• The record number in the History query results page is now a clickable link (takes you to the View page for the record).
• ProblemTracker now supports the use of either Sun Java (Sun JRE 1.3.1+) or Microsoft Java Virtual Machine on the web server on which ProblemTracker is installed (Sun Java was previously supported only on the client/browser machine).
• The Netscape 7.1 browser is now supported.
• ProblemTracker now supports Windows Server 2003 (IIS 6.0).
• The Block Workgroup feature in the Workgroup Management System (WMS) has been enhanced to allow you to specify a custom message to be displayed to users who attempt to access a blocked workgroup and to allow you to block and unblock multiple workgroups in a single operation.
• The Edit Workgroup Access List and Edit User's Access to Workgroups features in the Workgroup Management System (WMS) have been enhanced to allow you to give a user access rights to a workgroup and make them a member of (add them to) the workgroup(s) in a single operation.
• When an Administrator adds fields (Define Records admin function), the changes are visible immediately. The Admin user no longer has to logoff and then login again to see the newly added fields.
• The New Assignee property of a Task Transition can now be set to the most recent assignee for any state. For example, if a bug is in the "In Development" state when a developer is working on it, gets moved to the Fixed state when a developer finishes, and will be moved to the "Returned to Development" state (rather than being moved back to "In Development") if a QA person rejects the fix, the new "Last Assignee for <State>" option can be used to automatically reassign back to the developer when the record status is changed to "Returned to Development". Previously it was only possible to reassign back to the developer if the status changed back to "In Development" (the status it had when the developer last worked on it).
• When editing email notification rules, the rules which have been edited or added during the current session (but not yet saved) are highlighted with a different color background (until the changes are saved).
• The "N records are assigned to you" message on the home page is no longer displayed for External users (users with the External property can not have records assigned to them, so N is always 0).
• The four sorting options on the Query page are now aligned vertically rather than horizontally to allow better display of the Query page on narrow monitors.
• The Default Workflow Properties can now be used to update Workflow Properties for some or all Products in a single operation.
• The Default Alert Settings can now be used to update the Alert Settings for some or all Products in a single operation.
• A History Comment has been added for Add, Edit, and Delete Attachment operations that includes the attachment description (so you can identify which attachment was modified by the operation).
• A History Comment has been added for Add, Edit, and Delete Source Code File Association operations that includes the source code file name (so you can identify which source code file association was modified by the operation).
• In the Workgroup Management System for the Users, Admin, and Move operations, the selection you made on the first page is saved so that you can easily repeat multiple similar operations (e.g. Edit User). The selection will be reset to the default when you logoff.
• Text, TextArea, Url, Integer, and Float fields can now be reset to blank (or zero) as a part of the Task operation.
• If an email is sent with multiple alternative versions of its content (MIME multipart/alternative is used for the email body), the Add Record via Email processor now stores alternative versions as file attachments so that you can view all versions of the email content.
• A new "is empty" predicate can be used in Advanced Queries to search for Text, BigText, Url, and Date fields that are empty (no user has entered a value in the field).
• Default Alert Settings for the Add operation can be configured. These will automatically be used for new products which are added to a workgroup.

Fixes

• When using previous versions of ProblemTracker with Netscape 7.1, a "cookies are not enabled" error would be displayed even if cookies were enabled. This issue has been fixed.
• In previous versions, when using the Add & Copy operation with dependent pulldowns present on the Add page and not all pulldowns involved in the dependency were set to be copied, it was possible to copy values to dependent pulldowns that are not consistent with the dependent relationships. This has been fixed such that child pulldown field values are not copied when a parent pulldown is set with Copy Field Value For Next Add = No.
• In previous 5.x versions of ProblemTracker Enterprise Edition, when replying to a discussion with autologin option enabled, an error would be displayed. This has been corrected so that replying to a discussion while autologin option is enabled will not generate an error.
• In previous versions, when the label of a pulldown option menu item contained a [, ], _, or % (left bracket, right bracket, underscore, or percent symbol) and was selected as criteria when running a Query, the incorrect results were displayed. This has been corrected such that the appropriate query results are displayed when pulldown option menu items contain the characters [, ], _, or %.
• In previous versions when using SQL Server or Access as the database, certain character sequences of [ and ] (left bracket and right bracket) in a Query were not always treated as literals (could be interpreted as a regular expression in some cases). This could result in incorrect results when executing a Query. For example, if the string "[12]Item Twelve" was entered for a text (Text, TextArea, or URL) field on the Query page, the search for matching records would only return records where the field contained "1Item Twelve" or "2Item Twelve". The Query page now properly treats these as literal characters so you can search for records that contain them.
• In previous versions, the characters % (percent) and _ (underscore) were not always treated as literals (could be interpreted as wildcard characters in some cases). This could result in incorrect results (typically too many matching records) when executing a Query. For example, if the string "returned 10% per year" was entered for a text (Text, TextArea, or URL) field on the Query page, the search for matching records would not only return records where the field contained "returned 10% per year" but also those that contained "returned 105% per year", "returned 1000 items to the store in addition to one per year", etc. The Query page now properly treats these as literal characters so you can search for records that contain them.
• The Add Record via Email processor can now process emails that do not have text as the body (e.g. an email that is only an image or audio file).
• In previous versions, when using the Preview operation in Query, the wrong title (the title of the Saved Query that was initially previewed) was sometimes displayed. This could lead to the mistaken conclusion that the Saved Query had been run (when it actually was just previewed and the query criteria was then most likely modified prior to running the Query). Now the proper title for an "ad hoc" query is displayed (Product: <product name>).
• In previous versions, email notifications that were sent on record Delete contained a "Link" back to the (deleted) record. This has been changed so that the "Link" section is not included in an email notification triggered by a record delete operation.
• In previous 5.x versions of ProblemTracker Enterprise Edition, an error could occur and no record would be added for incoming email if Alerts was enabled and the Alert Settings for a product were configured to only notify a single User Group (no individual users). If this happened, the error log would include "AlertNotify.IsGroup cannot be a zero-length string". This has been fixed so that the record is properly added for the product when an incoming email is processed by the Add Record via Email module.

Version 5.5.1

Enhancements

• There are no enhancements in Version 5.5.1, only fixes.

Fixes

• In Version 5.5, attempting to set the incoming email configuration for workgroups created with template set to helpdesk or support would result in a system error. Customers with workgroups created in Version 5.5 with helpdesk or support selected as the template should upgrade to 5.5.1 and perform the additional maintenance steps specified for these workgroups in the upgrade instructions.
• In Version 5.5 when installing on a new server, the installation setup program did not provide the option to select UTF-8 as the character set for the Workgroup Management System (WMS), preventing UTF-8 characters from being used in user account information.  This issue did not affect installations that were upgraded to 5.5 (the WMS character set is not changed by an upgrade), it only affected new installations.  This has been corrected to allow UTF-8 to be selected as the character set during installation.
• In previous versions of ProblemTracker, the Workgroup Database Operations for a SQL Server or Oracle workgroup would fail if the workgroup was installed on a different virtual web site from the Workgroup Management System (WMS). This has been corrected to allow Workgroup Database Operations as expected for SQL Server or Oracle workgroups.
• In previous versions of ProblemTracker, if a Saved Query was deleted it was possible that the Default Saved Query setting for some users, the Default Saved Chart setting for some users, and the Default Input Records setting of some Saved Charts could be incorrectly changed to "Default [Users]" (the default Saved Query). This was more likely if an Advanced Saved Query was deleted than if a Standard Saved Query was deleted. In both cases, what could happen was that when a Saved Query of one type (e.g. Standard) was deleted, any use of a Saved Query with the same database ID but a different type (e.g. Advanced) would be (incorrectly) changed to use "Default [Users]". Any Saved Query which uses <All Records> as its Default Input Records setting (the default) as well as any users who already use "Default [Users]" as their Default Saved Query (the default) would not be affected by this. This has been corrected. The only settings that are updated (changed to "Default [Users]") on Saved Query delete are those that use the Saved Query being deleted.
• In Version 5.5, a system error would result when a 2nd "Add & Copy" operation was attempted after using Add & Copy operation to add a record with Attachments added, an Alert set, and/or a Discussion started. This has been corrected such that the subsequent Add & Copy will be completed successfully.
• In Version 5.5 when the Product field was not visible on the Add page and the Alerts feature was enabled, an error would result on the Add page. This has been corrected such that no error will be generated on the Add page when Product is not visible and Alerts are enabled for the workgroup.
• In Version 5.5, users with Admin privilege were not able to select their personal Report Layouts when using Preview on a group Saved Query. This has been corrected, such that users with Admin privilege can always use their personal Report Layouts with any Saved Query in Preview mode.

Version 5.5

Enhancements

• Home Page

  • Saved Charts (Metrics) can now be displayed as Home Page reports (by users with the Metrics privilege). The Home Page Saved Chart reports can also be printed and exported (as CSV files) directly from the Home Page.
  • A third report can now be displayed on the Home Page.
  • Paging has been added to Home Page text reports (Saved Queries).
  • Home Page reports (both Saved Queries & Saved Charts) can be dynamically selected without leaving the Home Page. For each of the (up to) three reports on the Home Page, a pulldown is now displayed with a list of available reports. By simply selecting a new report from the pulldown, it will automatically be run & displayed on the Home Page in place of the previously selected report.
  • For more information about the Home Page, please review the Logging In section of the User Guide.

• Personal Preferences

  • Users can now select the characters to be used as the field (value) separator and row (record) separator when exporting data from the Query, Home, or Metrics sections to a CSV (comma separated values) file. This can be useful when exporting data to MacOS or Unix (where the row separator may need to be a single CR or LF rather than the Windows CR+LF) or when exporting data in a country that uses a comma in floating point numbers (in which case semicolon may need to be used as the field separator rather than comma). Users can also select a file extension of .csv, a file extension of .txt, or no file extension at all.
  • Users can decide whether or not to view the new Field Help on the Add, Edit, and Task pages.
  • User can specify the size for Saved Charts on their Home Page.
  • The link to personal preferences has been shortened to just the word Preferences to make room for the new user account info update from the Home Page (see User Account Management enhancements below).
  • For more information about Personal Preferences, please review the Logging In section of the User Guide.

• User Account Management

  • Users can create their own user accounts using the Self Registration feature. Self Registration can be enabled in the General Preferences section of the Admin page. For more detail, please review the Self Registration section of the Administration Guide.
  • Users with the appropriate privilege enabled can edit their own user account information such as email address, phone number, and street address. Members of user groups with this privilege enabled will have a link called Account Info displayed in the upper right corner of the Home Page. For more information on the Account Info option from the Home Page, please review the Logging In section of the User Guide.
  • An option to allow workgroup Administrators to edit user account (profile) information has been added to the Workgroup Management System. When enabled, the workgroup Administrator can update a user's account information from within the User Administration section of the workgroup. There is no need for the "global" administrator (ptadmin) to login to the Workgroup Management System to make such changes. For more information, please review the Administration Options section in the License Administration part of the Workgroup Management Guide.
  • In previous versions of ProblemTracker, the user type Customer was available to denote external partners, vendors or customers. This user type is now called External user type in all areas of ProblemTracker. For more information, please review the Adding a User section of the Workgroup Management Guide.

• Add

  • "AutoFill" is a feature that has been added to allow information about the Reporter's machine, such as operating system, browser type and version, and IP address, to be automatically filled in for fields on the Add and / or Inet pages. For more information about AutoFill, please review the Customizing the Data Record section of the Administration Guide.
  • The states available for selection on the Add page can now be restricted on a per-product basis using the Allowed Add States option in the Workflow Properties section of Define Workflow. Please review the Workflow Properties section of the Administration Guide for further details.
  • The option to include or exclude State Manager in the list of available users in the Assigned To field on the Add and / or Inet pages can be set in the General Preferences section using the preference Include 'State Manager' on the Assignee List on Add operation. Rather than the single special value State Manager being displayed, the system will instead dynamically change the Assigned To field value to the State Manager for the currently selected Product and Status (so as a user changes the Product and/or Status fields, the value of the Assigned To field will change to the appropriate State Manager).
  • Product, Integer, and Floating type fields can now be set to require a selection to be made or a value to be entered on the Add page (they can be Required fields). See the Customizing the Data Record section of the Administration Guide for additional information.
  • Field Help can now be configured for each individual field in ProblemTracker. The field help will be displayed to users (as "tool tip" text) when moving the cursor over the field help icon (a yellow question mark) next to each field label. This field help is visible in the Add, Edit, Task, and Inet pages. Advanced users who no longer wish to view field help can set a personal preference to exclude the display of the field help icons. More information about this feature can be found in the Customizing the Data Record section of the Administration Guide.

• Query

  • Divider entries have been added to the Saved Queries pulldown to clearly separate Standard Saved Queries from Advanced Saved Queries.
  • When a Saved Query is selected (in the Saved Queries bar), the pulldown in the Report Layouts bar (just below the Saved Queries bar) automatically changes to the Report Layout which is associated with the (newly selected) Saved Query. This allows you to quickly find and Edit the Report Layout for a particular Saved Query.
  • The Report Layout selection for an ad hoc query (one specified on the Query page itself) has been moved to the top of the Query for Records dialog for easy access. The Report Layout property of a Standard Saved Query has also been moved to the top of page for the Add & Edit (standard) Saved Query operations.
  • When a Saved Query is run, the name of the Saved Query is displayed at the top of the Query results page.
  • Printing can be done directly from the Query results page (no need to perform a Print Preview/Format for Printing first).
  • A second set of paging options has been added at the bottom of the Query results page.
  • Record Visibility for a group of records can now be changed using the Edit Results operation from the Query results page.
  • Workgroup Administrators are now allowed to create Saved Queries and Report Layouts for any user group without having to be a member of the user group.

• Task

  • In versions 4.0 - 5.0.2, the General Preference option Restrict Task Operation to Current Assignee was available to restrict the users allowed to task records. However, it applied to all users or none at all. This option has been changed to a user group privilege called Task Assigned Records so that you can extend this privilege only to members of select user groups. Members of user groups with this privilege enabled may perform the Task operation on any records to which he or she is assigned.
  • The user group privilege Task Records in State(s) has been added to you to restrict use of the Task operation to records in certain states by user group. Members of user groups with this privilege are only allowed to perform the Task operation on records with the Status field set to be the state(s) selected for this privilege. For example, the Development user group could be given the Task privilege, but only for records in the In Development state.
  • The user group privilege Task All Records has been added to allow members of user groups with this privilege enabled to perform the Task operation on any record in ProblemTracker irrespective of the current Assignee and current State of the record. For further information on the new Task related User Group privileges, please review the Privileges section in the Administration Guide.
  • When creating or editing a workflow transition, the New Assignee can be set to the value LoginUser, which will assign the record to the user performing the Task operation. This option is useful in situations where records are assigned to TBD or another user meant as a placeholder and the user needs to assign a record to his or her self. For further information on this and other Transition properties, please review the Workflow Transitions section of the Administration Guide.

• Edit

  • The Edit Attachments, Edit Source Code List, and Edit Alert buttons have been replaced with icons that have more complete descriptions of each operation as tool tip text (help text that pops up when the mouse is moved over the icon). These same icons are used on the View page when displaying lists of Attachments, Source Code File Associations, and Alert Settings.
  • The OK button on the Edit page has been renamed to Update Fields (OK) to more clearly describe what is done when that button is clicked (the fields in the record are updated with the values displayed on the Edit page). Only the button label has been changed, the operation that is performed when the button is clicked remains the same.

• Discussion

  • The Discussion feature allows a user to reply with the original thread or message content included in the new reply. This can be done by using the Reply with Original icon available in the Discussion section.

• Metrics

  • The data generated for a Saved Chart in the Metrics section can now be exported as a CSV (comma separated values) file for use in third party tools such as Excel, Crystal Reports, etc. In Excel, you can create a graph from the data by simply selecting the data cells (and, optionally, the label cells just above and/or to the left of the data cells) and clicking on the Excel Chart Wizard icon (or selecting Insert>Chart...). After selecting Chart Type in the first page of the Excel chart wizard, you can click Finish to generate a Chart or click Next to step through the wizard and customize your Excel chart. You can then save the chart in Excel or cut & paste it into other documents.
  • Saved Charts can limit calculations to only those states in a particular State Group and/or only those users in a particular User Group. For example, this can be used to limit a workload chart to only users in the QA group or a project status chart to only active states (e.g. exclude Closed issues).
  • The option to exclude option menu items with zero values has been added to the "Perform calculations for..." section of the Saved Chart parameters.
  • For information on the Metrics feature, please review the Metrics section of the User Guide.

• Email Notification Enhancements

  • Two new sections have been added to emails which are sent based on the email notification rules: Introduction and Signature. These can be used to provide general information about ProblemTracker, your product, links to an FAQ, etc. in the beginning and at the end of each email notification. The Introduction and Signature sections are configurable per product. Additionally, the Greeting (e.g. "Hello User,") is now configurable per product.
  • The content of the Subject and Operation Description sections of an email can now be customized for each individual email notification rule.
  • Inclusion (or exclusion) of email notification content can be done by User Group. For each User Group, you can select whether or not to include the Greeting, Introduction, Operation Description, Link, History Comment, Fields, and Signature.
  • In previous versions, the option whether to include a hyperlink in the email notification messages was set globally (for all products and users) in the Email Configuration section. This has been changed to be a user group privilege called "Link" in the Email privileges so that you can include or exclude this email content based on user group. Please review the Privileges section of the Administration Guide for more information.
  • In previous versions, if a TextArea/BigText field was empty, an email that contained the field still included two lines of hyphens (with no text in between). Now, the two lines are only included if there is some text in the TextArea/BigText field.
  • The default email preferences can now be pushed to all products in a single operation. If you use the same email rules for all products, you can use this feature to easily update the rules for all products with a single operation rather than updating each product's email rules individually.
  • When constructing the URL Link to the login page in email notification messages, the workgroup's host name and IP settings as configured in the Workgroup Management System (WMS) will be applied. A new option to account for workgroups where SSL is enabled has also been added to the workgroup settings in WMS (the URL Link to the login page for such workgroups will now begin with https: instead of http:).
  • Additional SMTP (email) authentication methods have been added to ProblemTracker to allow stronger authentication at your mail server when ProblemTracker sends email notifications.
  • The From and Reply-To Email Account fields in the Outgoing Email Configuration have been changed to allow descriptive names or other information in addition to an email address to be entered (e.g. "Our Cmpany Technical Support" <Support@OurCompany.com> can be used as the From & Reply-To rather than just Support@OurCompany.com). Note: Mail servers and readers have very specific format requirements for these fields. You must use a double quote around the descriptive text and less than and greater than characters around the actual email address as in the above example. Otherwise, the email may not be sent or received properly.
  • The Send Email utility in a workgroup's Administration section now has the ability to send an email message to any user group in the workgroup (in addition to sending to individual users). You may wish to use this to notify some or all users of an upcoming scheduled maintenance operation, for instance.
  • For further information on Email configuration, please review the Email Configuration section of the Administration Guide.

• General Preferences

  • The ability to start the automatic numbering of records from a number other than 0 (zero) has been added in the General Preferences section. The starting number can only be changed in workgroups that do not have existing records.
  • The Inet Page (add operation for anonymous users) can now be enabled / disabled via the General Preferences section. If you are not using the Inet Page, it is recommended that you disable the Inet Page.
  • For additional details on these and other General Preference settings, please review the General Preferences section of the Administration Guide.

• Workgroup Management System

  • Three new workgroup templates have been added: Support, Help Desk, and Knowledge Base. These provide an initial ProblemTracker configuration, complete with record definition, pulldown menu values, workflow, email notifications, and sample users, for use as a Support Portal, Help Desk Operation, or Knowledge Base. Note: Use of the Knowledge Base template requires the purchase of the Knowledge Base Add-on (see below).
  • The workgroup repair operation in WMS now has the option to repair individual aspects of the workgroup: Web Files, File Permissions, and IIS Application Settings. Please review the Repair Workgroups section of the Workgroup Management Guide for more information.
  • The Workgroup Management System Repair operation (available from the Repair-Uninstall ProblemTracker Program Folder entry) now optionally repairs the IIS Application Settings and File System Permissions for the Workgroup Management System in addition to replacing any missing or outdated files. If you first run the full Workgroup Management System Repair operation, then login to WMS and perform a workgroup repair operation on each workgroup, you will restore the full IIS configuration and file system permission for your ProblemTracker installation. This can be useful if another program (or Windows Update operation) overwrites the IIS configuration or file system permissions for your ProblemTracker installation.

• Add-ons

  • You can now use ProblemTracker to create a Knowledge Base of articles about known issues, frequently asked questions, tech notes, etc. These Knowledge Base articles may be searched and read by your users via a customizable web interface which includes search parameters that you have configured. The Knowledge Base can either be created as its own standalone workgroup or you can enable the Knowledge Base feature in an existing workgroup to automatically create a Knowledge Base from your existing data. For all Knowledge Base articles, you can configure exactly which information is visible to end users and which is only visible internally (such as internal notes, review comments, etc.). You can also configure which records in your workgroup are visible as Knowledge Base articles (thus allowing you to store draft and/or obsolete Knowledge Base articles in the same workgroup). The full set of ProblemTracker workflow features can be used with the Knowledge Base so that that your process of creating, reviewing, and updating Knowledge Base articles can be automated and enforced by ProblemTracker. The Knowledge Base add-on is an optional, separately purchased feature. It requires a separate license key to enable it. Details of this new feature are available in the Knowledge Base section of the Administration Guide.
  • The Add Record via Email add-on allows users to submit issues (add new records) to ProblemTracker by sending an email. You may wish to use this if ProblemTracker is installed on an internal web server which cannot be browsed to by external users (a web server behind your corporate firewall). Users who are out of the office (outside the firewall) can still submit new issues by sending email to a standard POP3 or IMAP email account on your corporate mail server. ProblemTracker can then read the email by connecting to your corporate mail server and Add a new record with the email content (including, optionally, any email attachments). The Add Record via Email add-on is an optional, separately purchased feature. It requires a separate license key to enable it. For more detail, please review the Add Records via Email section of the Administration Guide.
  • The ProblemTracker Application Programming Interface (API) allows you to add records to ProblemTracker from an external application. For example, you can use this feature to create a gateway between a legacy system and your ProblemTracker installation. To use the ProblemTracker API you will need to purchase the ProblemTracker Software Development Kit (SDK) and install it on the computer with the external application. Use of the API (SDK) requires a separate license key.

Fixes

• In previous 5.x versions, when the Save Group Queries privilege was denied to particular user groups, the members of these user groups still were able to save group queries. This has been corrected to disable the ability to save group queries when this privilege is not granted to a user group.
• In previous versions, when the Product field was configured to be dependent on another field and was visible on the Add page, the Status field was not properly updated to select the default state based on the value of the Product field. This has been corrected such that the value of the Status field corresponds to the default state of the Product selected irrespective of the Product field's dependency on another field.
• In previous 5.x versions, when the Add & Copy operation was used to copy a pulldown field that is dependent on another pulldown and the copied pulldown field has the field property "Copy Value for Next Add" set to "No", an invalid value could be saved for the field. This has been corrected such that the correct default value is used for the copied pulldown field.
• In previous 5.x versions, when a value larger than 2147483647 was entered into an Integer field, a system error was displayed. This has been changed such that the user will be prompted to select a value that is lower than the 2147483647 limit for the Integer field.
• In previous 5.x versions, removing the Help privilege from a user group still allowed members of that group to access the context sensitive help links (the small help icon in the right corner below the status field). This has been corrected to remove the context sensitive help links (icon) when a user group does not have the Help privilege.
• In previous versions of 5.x, the IIS virtual directory "ptcgi4" was created even though it is no longer used. This has been corrected so that this virtual directory is no longer created by ProblemTracker.
• In previous versions of 5.x, when certain forms of Advanced Saved Query were associated with a Saved Chart that displayed historical data (statistics for previous dates), a script timeout could occur when running the Saved Chart if Access was the database (this did not occur with Oracle or SQL Server as the database). This has been corrected.
• In previous versions, if the Reporter for a record was deleted any subsequent emails with the Reporter field would leave the Reporter field blank. The Reporter is now included in email notifications, even if the user account for the Reporter has been deleted.
• In previous versions, if more than 36 characters were entered as the Label property for a RelNum type field, a system error was displayed. Now, the full 40 characters may be used in a RelNum field Label (the same number of characters allowed for other field types).

To read about the features in Version 5.0 - 5.0.2, click here.