Net Data Design, LLC Blog

Perhaps I was a little quick in singing praises about the way DotNetNuke (DNN) is handling releases. I posted a blog not long ago about this subject, and at the time it seemed true, but not so fast my friend.

In the last two or three releases there have been some major issues, one that directly effects me is a missing method from the DataProvider in 5.4.3. What’s makes it slightly more strange is a very similar issue was found in the previous release (5.4.2). Two other “showstopper” issues that also appeared in recent builds are DNN -12501 and DNN-12412.

In DNN 5.4.0 a change to the PageBase class in DNN has caused aspx pages to break in 3rd party modules. Meaning scripts wouldn’t run, RSS and some AJAX callbacks where broken. The problem was fixed, but a game of Jenga has begun.

When it was first announced the rigid release times sounded like a good idea. Every quarter there is a minor release, every Month a bugfix release. The dates for these releases cannot be missed. And to the Core Teams credit, they haven’t missed a date yet. That said, perhaps DNN needs to find a way to detect breaking issues before RTM, beta has always been an expensive way to do so, but one that DNN seems to avoid.

Of course, you’re going to get the people who press a beta into production, but the beta releases would certain produce a better production build to the DNN community.

WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard).

New Features
Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies. (Twenty Ten theme shows all of that off.) Developers and network admins will appreciate the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress, creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation. As a user, you will love the new lighter interface, the contextual help on every screen, the 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, bulk updates so you can upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click, and blah blah blah just watch the video.

This is a fine product getting better. SmarterTrack Version 5 has so many new features that will help your company be more productive in the support/help desk area. Here is what SmarterTools has published on this releases new features.

New Features:

Call Logging
SmarterTrack’s ability to track customer communications across all channels is complete with the addition of call logging. Agents and managers can track both incoming and outgoing phone calls; associate tasks, tickets, and live chats to calls; and view detailed call reports that track call volume and duration for inbound and outbound calls.

Task Management System
Help agents stay on top of their workflow with a new task management system that allows agents and managers to create tasks and track work associated to a specific ticket, call, or live chat.

Mobile Interface Functionality(Free and Enterprise Version only)
SmarterTrack 5.x provides managers with the ability to monitor agents’ tickets and allows agents to manage their tickets and live chats via mobile devices. This functionality is made possible through a WAP interface that works across all major mobile phones, including Android, iPhone, and Windows Mobile devices.

Enhanced Ticket Management
SmarterTrack 5.x includes several enhancements to its ticket system, including the ability to add attachments to tickets without sending a response, the ability to modify an auto-responder’s subject format, and the ability to mark a ticket for follow-up.

Follow-ups
With follow-ups, companies can keep in constant contact with both existing and new customers. Integrated with the events system, follow-ups notify agents when customers haven’t responded or need additional service.

Live Chat Attachments
SmarterTrack 5.x improves the level of communication between employees and customers with the ability to send and receive files via live chat.

Additional Event Categories
Configure notifications based on even more agent-level and system-level events, including task events, live chat events, call log events, POP events, and SMTP events.

Knowledge Base Enhancements
Several enhancements to the knowledge base improve article organization and navigation. Agents will also benefit from the ability to perform bulk operations on news items, canned replies, and knowledge base articles.

Updated Web Services
New Web services available for SmarterTrack 5.x include the ability to query tickets based on a wide variety of search criteria and the ability to retrieve brand information. In addition, existing Web services were updated to enhance functionality and make them easier to use.

A few weeks back I started testing and evaluating SmarterTrack 5 and I’ve been pleased with what I’ve found. And not just with the software, but SmarterTools themselves. First my finding with the newest (soon to be released) SmarterTrack 5 (ST5).

ST5 has, as I’ve mentioned previously, some welcomed new features. SmarterTools says they’re moving toward making ST a CRM application. The new set of features certainly put it on that path. The Call Log feature is a great addition allowing for other forms of communication besides email. Although the Call Log feature is a great asset to the application, the big one for me is the Follow-Up feature.

The Follow-Up as implemented in ST5 allows for agents and admins to place follow-ups on tickets. Follow-ups are incorporated with the system events allowing notifications to be sent to the agent as well as admins. These can be (and should be) assigned at the ticket level, not the agent themselves. Should a ticket be transferred, so is the follow-up.

Even though beta, other than a few bugs the application worked as expected. ST has never been the most intuitive software, but once you start working in it it becomes very clear. The newly added features fit directly into the ST interface, making them easy to deploy and use for agents.

Now, on a more personal note and an observation about SmarterTools employees. I mentioned in my last post I was having difficulty with a web service for single sign-on (SSO). This web service was to integrate DNN and ST logins. Shortly after the beta was released, I was contacted by SmarterTools. They wanted to assist in getting the web service issue resolved so that they where confident in the new web services in ST5. They even went as far as looking at my source code to verify it was not there service (it was my error).

Andrew handled my ticket, he was professional and did a complete analysis, for free!  And yes, he followed-up too. You don’t find many companies willing to spend time and resources on an issue raised in the self-help forum.

They’ve one me over and I highly recommend ST5. And by the way the new ST5 Web Service document can be found here.