Net Data Design, LLC Blog

WebMatrix is a stack of tools designed to make web development easy. The stack contains IIS Developer Express web server, SQL Server Compact Edition web database and the ASP.NET “Razor”. Razor is Microsoft’s new view engine for ASP.NET.

WebMatrix was developed to be easy and focus on getting results for your website. It has integrated the code editor, database editor, web server manager, all while focusing on SEO. And as your needs grow, you can seamlessly move to Visual Studio.

There are two ways to get started using WebMatrix once you have it installed (download here). You can start with a your own project from scratch or start with one of the web popular Open Source web applications such as DotNetNuke, Umbraco, WordPress and Joomla!.

After you’ve begun working, because WebMatrix integrates with IIS Developer Express and is tightly linked with the Web server components that your site runs on, you can directly monitor real-time Web requests and responses to track down problems right at the source. You can even resolve the little peeves like images that are missing.

SEO tools, much like those available in IIS 7.5 , make optimizing your web application easy and will even take you to your weak spots with suggested solutions.

WebMatrix is the easiest way to learn standards-based Web development and makes it simple to build and publish Web sites on the internet. Start with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then seamlessly connect to a database or add in dynamic server code using the new ‘Razor’ syntax for ASP.NET Web pages. Your code is easy to read, simple to learn, short to write and works with any text editor. Use built-in helper functions to connect to a database, display a Twitter feed, or embed a video. And with a seamless path to ASP.NET MVC it is now easier than ever to create powerful ASP.NET Web applications.

I’ll provide some feedback as soon as I’ve had the time to fully “kick the tires.” Stay tuned.

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.

I have been asked by a few clients who use vTiger about core features or modules to perform certain tasks that are just not available. While I am a developer, the LAMP stack has never been my preference. Well, vTiger 5.2 is currently in Validation Build 1 stage and they’ve addressed some of these features.

It packs some nice new features such as SMS, ical Import Export and an Assets module. It also appears that some existing third party modules are also being rolled in with tighter integration, those would be the Projects and Mobile modules and API‘s. There are also quite a few bug fixes addressed in this new version, a complete list can be found here.

5.2 Key Features

• SMS Module.
• Mobile API module  (not included in VB1, extension module will be provided in a week’s time).
• Project Management (not included in VB1, extension module will be provided in a week’s time).
• User List view Navigation.
• Calendar ical Import Export.
• Reports Enhancement- Added Line Item Support.
• Assets Module.
• and more – Detailed list can be found in the Release notes,

5.2 Release Plan

Before releasing the final version, we will be releasing a couple of builds of 5.2 to the community to get feedback and fix issues. We plan the following releases before the final version.

• Validation Build1
• Validation Build2 (if necessary – to be determined based on nature of fixes changes made after Validation Build1)
• Release Candidate (RC)
• Final Version

When I start and during testing of this build, I’ll post my findings here. If you are currently testing, please share your comments.

A week ago or so SmarterTools release the first beta of SmarterTrack 5. My main interest was the new webservice methods that have been added and the old methods refined. The reason for this is myself and  a few of my clients use SmarterTrack 4 (ST4) in conjunction with DotNetNuke (DNN) as our main website.

I wrote a web-service that allows a user to login to the DNN site and carry that authorization to the support site (ST4) if needed by the DNN user. ST4 recognizes the authorization fine using the External Provider, but there is a problem. Even though ST4′s External Provider is set to grant authorized users e the ‘Registered User” role, ST4 is not setting it. I have asked ST for a little help, but nothing has materialized. So my hopes where that this was fixed, unfortunately, it’s not yet.

What I did find however are some really nice new features, some would lead you to believe that ST5 is starting down the CRM path. Here are some of the newly added functionality:

• Call logging allows companies to track all incoming and outgoing calls and relate those calls to any tickets or Live Chats in the system, allowing businesses to track all communications regardless of the channel used.
• The task management system allows managers and agents to create tasks and track work associated to a specific ticket, call, or Live Chat, helping them to manage work that may need to be done after the call or Live Chat is completed.
• 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.
• Although not available at the beginning of the BETA, SmarterTrack 5.x will provide managers with the ability to monitor agents’ tickets and allow agents to manage their tickets and Live Chats via mobile devices. The WAP interface uses the new Web services available in SmarterTrack 5.x and will work across all major mobile phones, including iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.  The WAP interface will resemble the phone’s interface, so iPhone users connecting to SmarterTrack will notice the mobile interface has the same feel as an iPhone application.

ST5 Agent View - Click for Larger Image

These list was taken directly from the SmarterTrack Website:

• ADDED: A call logging system that can be used to track and report on incoming and outgoing phone calls and associate them with tickets and Live Chats.
• ADDED: A new licensing manager for future functionality.
• ADDED: A setting specifying whether the portal loads the Knowledge Base in browse mode or search mode by default.
• ADDED: A task management system that allows employees to track tasks
  associated with tickets, Live Chats, and calls.
• ADDED: Agents can now send files to end users through Live Chat.
• ADDED: Agents can now upload files to a ticket without sending a
  message.
• ADDED: An option to hide specific folders when searching the Knowledge Base via the portal. Searches of parent items will still include articles in child folders.
• ADDED: An user information external provider that allows for custom information to be returned and displayed with tickets. Companies can implement this provider to give agents access to company-specific information or links to internal systems.
• ADDED: Auto-responders now include a link to the Knowledge Base in the body of the responder if no related articles were found during the auto-search.
• ADDED: Bulk operations for managing the privacy and status of news items from the grid.
• ADDED: Bulk operations for managing the privacy, status, and folder of canned replies from the grid.
• ADDED: Bulk operations for managing the privacy, status, and folder of Knowledge Base articles from the grid view.
• ADDED: End users can now send files to agents through Live Chat.
• ADDED: New system-level and agent-level Live Chat events.
• ADDED: New system-level events for POP and SMTP errors.
• ADDED: New Web services for tickets (service2/svcTickets.asmx), organization (service2/svcOrganization.asmx), and the Knowledge Base (service2/svcKB.asmx)  that replace and greatly extend the old Web services.
• ADDED: The ability to configure company holidays to identify days when Live Chat should automatically be disabled.
• ADDED: The ability to configure multiple shifts and business hours for each day of the week.
• ADDED: The ability to create multiple root-level folders in the Knowledge Base.
• ADDED: The ability to make the anchor title of text-based Live Chat links different from the text or description of the link.
• ADDED: The ability to mark a ticket for follow-up, which will allow the ticket to reactivate after a specified time period and prompt the agent to take further action.
• ADDED: To improve usability, attachments and uploaded files for a ticket or live chat are now displayed in a new Files tab in addition to the Communications tab.
• ADDED: To improve usability, various tabs in the management interface now display the total count of items within the tab.
• ADDED: Several enhancements to streamline and improve the organization and navigation of the Knowledge Base in the portal.
• CHANGED: If there are no Knowledge Base articles in the system, the area will no longer display in the portal.
• CHANGED: Knowledge Base articles displayed in the portal now show the total number of times the articles have been viewed.
• CHANGED: Knowledge Base articles now display more consistently throughout the portal.
• CHANGED: Knowledge Base search results are now be grouped by folder and organized by relevancy.
• CHANGED: New social networks have been added for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more. Discontinued social networking sites have also been removed.
• CHANGED: Numerous usability enhancements to the management interface and portal.
• CHANGED: Revised the names of items in the Workspace and Manage tree views for consistency.
• CHANGED: SmarterTrack now asks for confirmation when an agent clicks on the End Chat button.
• CHANGED: The Agents page in the system settings has been renamed to Employees.
• CHANGED: The option to display the agent’s name when a Live Chat invitiation is sent is now on the Live Chat settings page.
• CHANGED: The option to enable an agent to push a webpage to a customer via Live Chat is now on the Groups settings page.
• CHANGED: The options for activating a license or performing a self-diagnostic are now in the Activations folder in system settings.
• CHANGED: The portal now displays Knowledge Base articles on a single page.
• CHANGED: The Spools page is now a root-level item in the Manage tree view.
• CHANGED: The warning message for disabling user logins on the portal settings page no longer applies and has been removed.
• CHANGED: To improve formatting and display of tickets and Live Chats, resolution search results no longer have line breaks.
• CHANGED: To improve usability, Knowledge Base articles displayed in the portal now appear with an icon next to them.
• CHANGED: To improve usability, Knowledge Base searches performed in the portal now display the top 40 relevant results.
• CHANGED: To improve usability, the login form now displays on every page of the portal.
• CHANGED: To improve usability, the related items grid has been redesigned.
• CHANGED: Users can no longer change the sort order of Knowledge Base articles in the portal.
• EFFICIENCY: Various performance enhancements were made to decrease database calls and increase page load speed.
• FIXED: Deleting a Knowledge Base article or news item now immediately invalidates the cache and updates the portal homepage appropriately.
• FIXED: System administrators and agents can now delete Knowledge Base articles from the portal if they are logged in, even if they are not logged in to the management interface.
• FIXED: The details tab of a ticket now loads properly inTturkish installations of SQL server.
• FIXED: Tickets that are deleted or marked as spam now cannot be transferred without first restoring them.
• FIXED: Tickets that are deleted or marked as spam now cannot have their status changed without first restoring them.
• REMOVED: Because active Live Chats now display in popup windows, the setting to control whether Live Chats are managed in the main window or a popup has been removed.
• REMOVED: Because ticket responses now display in a popup window, the reply mode setting that controls whether ticket responses are created in the main window or a popup has been removed.