What's new in version 8.3

May 2019

Version 8.3 introduces Change Management and provides a number of other new features and enhancements over previous releases.

Handle Change with Ease

Leverage the Change Management functionality to ensure that all required approvals are received before changes are started. Implement a robust approval process for Change Requests, Purchase Orders, and Knowledge Base Articles.

Know Your Process Graphically

Gain a top-down understanding of your lifecycle with a graphical representation of the process that ensures you know where you are at all times. The progress bar at the top of the object form shows all stages of the object lifecycle and indicates the current state.

In addition to out-of-the-box progress bar for Change Requests, you can enable this feature for Tickets and Purchase Orders. For details, see Administration Guide: Managing Lifecycle Stages.

Teams Unite with Group Support

Configure groups for organizing and auto-assigning tasks for teams with specific responsibilities. With groups, you can automate Ticket assignment based on load balance or technician ranks, and set up approval groups for approving changes, purchases, and Knowledge Base articles.

To fine-tune your business logic, go to Workflow Configuration in the Admin Console. For details, see Administration Guide: How to Configure Automatic Assignment of Tickets.

Web Improvements Galore

The Web Console explodes with features like Recurrent Tickets and Batch Update along with performance improvements and fly-out forms.

New Web Console features include:

• Scheduling Recurrent Tickets
• Performing bulk updates
• Merging Computer records
• Merging Person records
• Viewing snapshots for audited computers

Improve Your Knowledge with Every Search

Automatically get notified when Self Service Portal customers fail to find articles in your Knowledge Base and gain a better understanding of how existing knowledge is used.

Stay Updated in Real Time

Dashboard smart refresh ensures you can monitor operations, so you are automatically on top of new developments in real time.

Track IT Assets Changes

Keep an audit trail of all changes made to Computers and Inventory Items. The audit trail is available on the History tab.

License Compliance to the Core

Support your licensing needs for virtual and cloud environments with the ability to track software license compliance based on the number of CPU cores.

Map Your Network with Diagrams

Produce comprehensive network diagrams with automatic mapping of switches right down to the ports so you can understand how devices are connected.

Discover More Apps

Gather information on downloaded Microsoft Store applications for a complete picture of software on your Windows computers.

Recognize What's Running

Detect unwanted or malicious processes such as Trojan, torrents, or mining using information about running processes on audited computers.

Other Enhancements and Resolved Issues

Web Console (former Web Portal for Technicians)

• The Reports command for accessing summary reports is more visible since it has been moved to top level of the main menu.

• When you create a Quick Filter for a view and save it, the Web Console automatically converts your Quick Filter into the Advanced Filter. So, the next time you open this view, only the filtered records will be retrieved from the database, which drastically improves performance of filtered views.

• Quick filter values no longer revert to their initial values on repeat searches in the Select objects from list data grid.

• Narrow the navigation menu to quickly find the module you want. Start typing in the Search all modules text box in the upper right corner. As you type, the menu will show only those items that contain the entered text.

• The Web Console now correctly displays Knowledge Base article attachments and categories.

• The pie chart legend now displays percentage values.

• The capacity of drop-down lists on the Advanced Search panel is no longer limited to 1000 records.

• When working with Tickets, now you can download multiple attachments at once using the Save button available on the Attachments tab.

• Now the Web Console correctly displays inline images when copying and pasting HTML content in such fields as Ticket Description or Activity Details.

• The pop-up calendar for choosing date & time values now positions correctly when used on workflow forms.

• Resolved the issue with the Web Console sometimes not displaying an information message to the user when their session is terminated.

Dashboard

• To improve the dashboard performance, "Latest Activity" widgets now display records only for the last 30 days. If needed, you can change this default time period using the Admin Console. For details, see Administration Guide: Configuring Latest Activity Widgets.

Self Service Portal

• The look-and-feel of the Self Service Portal has been refreshed to provide a modern user experience.

• The Self Service Portal now correctly displays forms containing empty text elements.

Reports

• The availability of reports is now controlled by the View permission on objects those reports contain.

• A new report in the Asset Management category shows the ownership history of IT Assets for a specified period.

• Some titles used in KPI reports have been revised.

Discovery and Audit

• Alloy Navigator Express 2023 includes the latest (6.2.1) version of Alloy Audit Tools, used to detect and identify hardware and computer equipment on the network.

  The latest Alloy Audit Tools improves support for Windows:

  • Implemented proper detection of Windows 10 2019 LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel).
  • Fixed the issue with running the Inventory Analyzer on Windows XP Professional machines.

  • Now Windows service names are captured in the audit snapshot.

• Improved the ability to detect MAC addresses on discovered SNMP devices.

• The Direct Network Scan now works on network segments connected through a router when remote hosts seem to have identical MAC addresses.

Network Inventory Synchronization

• Turning off the Create Persons from Network Inventory option in the Admin Console no longer prevents Computer records from being created or updated.

Email Integration

• Alloy Navigator Express now properly supports the Exchange Autodiscover service when integrated with Microsoft Exchange Server via Exchange Web Services (EWS).

• Resolved the issue with E-mail Notifications sent with an empty message body. Previously, such notifications could contain unexpected text.

• Original e-mail message attachments are no longer counted against the attachment size limit specified on the Notification Settings page of the Admin Console.

• The Mail Connector now correctly retains the alias an email has been sent to for messages received via MAPI or EWS protocols.

HTML Editor

• Implemented proper display of database object links with empty descriptions.

Software License Compliance

• To help you see the overall license allocation picture, all fields from the Discovered Installation form are now available in the Discovered Installations grid.

• Inactive or retired Person records no longer count against "Per User" license allocations.

Workflow Management

• You can configure the system to automatically close Tickets that have been in Resolved state for a specified number of days.

• In addition to three system Person types (Technician, Contact, and Customer), you can create custom Person types, such as Employee, Consultant, or any other.

• Alloy Navigator Express now includes a pack of standard icons, which you can use to customize object statuses and priorities.

Scheduled Tasks

• Added the ability to schedule annual recurring events.

Import Wizard

• The start page of the Import Wizard has been revised to provide a better user experience.

Desktop Console (former Main Console)

• Resolved some issues occurred when switching between display styles and when using the Office 2016 (Dark) style.

• The Tracked Software form has been adjusted to fit common display sizes.

• Fixed the issue with a cursor disappearing in the filter box in the upper right corner above data grids.

• The quick search in grids is always case-insensitive now, regardless of the database collation.

• The Batch Updating of Networks dialog box has been brought in line with the Network form and no longer shows irrelevant fields.

• My Calendar filters now support standard system macros <Current User>, <Current User Organization>, and <Current User Location>.

Network Inventory Console

• The Collections section no longer disappears from the sidebar when rearranging the Task List pane using drag&drop.

Documentation and Terminology

• Now you can quickly access the product documentation or the Support Portal right from the Alloy Control Panel.

• "External Tools" has been renamed Integrations to reflect the intended purpose of the feature.

Installation and Upgrade

• The installer checks for the Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL) driver during the installation or upgrade and installs it if necessary. This driver is required when the SQL Server instance hosting the database uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 for secure communication, as recommended by Microsoft.

• Since uploading the installer for the Automatic Upgrade can take some time to complete, the Customization > General > Upgrade and Migration page now has the progress bar to let you follow the progress.