Welcome back for another new release! We have quite a few new things this time, and it’s nice to have a few new toys to talk about. Nothing major, but several things you the customers have asked for! So let’s get to it:
Enhanced JAVA Detection
Turns out there are a lot of “flavors” of JAVA! No surprise to baristas, but it’s caused some challenges for IT staff recently. 7.8.0.6 client (update required) enhances detection of JAVA executables to more clearly show if they are from Oracle or OpenJDK. Furthermore, if an executable is not clearly marked as OpenJDK and has a publisher *other* than Oracle in file properties, that program will be identified separately from the Oracle and OpenJDK editions.
Generally, the question around Java comes down to whether or not a paid license is required. This enhancement should help separate out cases where it’s clearly not (OpenJDK), but note that even within Oracle Java there are a lot of subtle details. Different versions may be handled differently, bundled software can be licensed by a third party, and it might even matter what purpose an installed executable is being used for. Because of this, our standard definitions do not include Java exes as applications – and therefore will not appear in audit or usage reports. We simply don’t want customers to see Java installed and jump to a conclusion without further research, so you will in some cases need to make your own Products. If you are tracking and reporting on Java, update your clients to 7.8.0.6, check what Programs and Products show in your audits, verify your licensing and expectations against the results, and contact us if you need assistance!
More Clickable Widgets
As you’re hopefully aware, the Dashboard Widgets in the Web UI are very powerful. Many of these pie and bar charts are clickable. Want to see which computers have that old OS? Click the slice! Now you can do this with a few more, like the Computer Type and Current Utilization widgets. Handy if you want that easy to save out list of Laptops or Offline systems.
Retain Collapse Status of Divisions
We’ve heard this a few times from customers that have a LOT of Divisions. The Web UI is great, but man, that list in the Computers window can get loooong. Yes there is the Scope to filter down to what you want, and the Search to find a computer, but… Ok, we heard you! Now when you collapse Divisions (and Sections) in the sidebar they will retain that state between page loads instead of resetting to open. No more tired clicking to re-collapse them again!
Loaner Extra Enhancements
The reception of our Loaner Extra in the Web for handling checkout equipment has gotten a lot of positive response. For the keen eye and departmentally minded, one field wasn’t present on the User page of the checkout form. So, now along with email and phone you can verify and change the User’s Department. Remember, if you have Active Directory and want to pull in extra data from there, we have a Script for that!
But the bigger news is the addition of two new configuration options. On the E-mail tab you’ll now see sliders to turn on Reminder and Overdue emails! These notices are sent at 7, 4, and 1 day before the due date, and then 1, 4, and 7 days after.
User Aliases in the Web
Another small improvement is that if you go in to edit a User record in the Web, you can now edit the Aliases. If you hadn’t caught it, we added the idea of aliases in 7.8 so if a User shows up more than once (say ID vs full name), you can merge the records. This solved the old question of two users that are one person due to Mac vs Windows or similar situations. Nice clean reports. And, the AD User script can automatically set up these aliases for you based on the Active Directory record information.
Admin Account Status
Quick and simple, the Admin Access Window in KeyConfigure has a new column. You can now quickly see which accounts are disabled without opening each one!
New Asset Fields in Computer Report
Ok this is almost an oversight to be fair. We added all these great new Asset fields in 7.8 for Building, Room, etc, but they didn’t get added to the Computer report. Consider the report newly enhanced! Now all that great new Asset info is available in your computer reports, and can be easily scheduled and emailed to whoever needs it!
And of course there are a variety of other performance and experience improvements as well. As always you can read all the details in the History.
Enjoy and see you next time!
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