Using Built-in Automation Features of IssueNet

This month’s Tech Tip focuses on the use of IssueNet Monitor jobs to run scheduled jobs such as sending email notifications based on a set of criteria. The Tech Tip explains how to configure a monitor job using an XML file and how to schedule the job using Windows Scheduler.  Monitor jobs are one of the many useful features designed to help you manage projects more proactively and help you manage your issues instead of the issues managing you.

Using monitor jobs will cut down on the drudgery of repetitive tasks, though we admit it may not entertain the cat.

Tech Tip 74 - Running Scheduled Monitor Jobs (elsitech.com)

What is ScreenConnect?

ScreenConnect is the upcoming remote assistance/screen sharing product from Elsinore Technologies.  The product is a slim and effective remote assistance product that is easily self-hosted and will be priced to disrupt the current marketplace.  The product is targeted at both customer support operations, as well as internal employee desktop support. 

ScreenConnect Applications

1. Remote Technical Assistance
2. Help Desk 1 to 1 Support
3. Screen-sharing Presentations
4. Product Technical Support
5. Ad-hoc Screensharing

How does ScreenConnect work?

ScreenConnect is hosted in your own environment.  All operations are browser-based.  Individuals needing support are provided a link by a technician in order to initiate a session.  Once accepted a straightforward screen sharing session where the technician is granted remote control is initiated. 

Is ScreenConnect part of IssueNet?

ScreenConnect is not a part of IssueNet.  It is a separate product with a completely separate code base.  However, Elsinore Technologies will be providing ScreenConnect free of charge to all IssueNet customers on active support and maintenance!  We appreciate our loyal customers and want to put this valuable tool in their hands as soon as possible.  This should allow many of our customers to discontinue monthly subscriptions to services like GoToAssist and Webex, saving several thousand dollars a year for their departments.

ScreenConnect is an extremely complimentary product to IssueNet.  IssueNet is widely used by customer support departments and help desks for computer software - the same place that remote support/screen sharing tools are typically found.

When can I start using ScreenConnect?

ScreenConnect is NOW available as a Technical Preview release.  This is a fully functioning release that we are actively using internally at Elsinore.  It is not a final commerical release, so there are still bugs to be resolved and features to polish, but we are very excited about the current state of the product.  To receive a copy of the technical preview release please contact sean.white@elsitech.com . 

The official commerical release will go live in Q1 2009.  An exact date has not yet been set. 

ScreenConnect Mentions/Articles

ScreenConnect Remote Assistance - Tech Preview Available - 11/18/2008

ScreenConnect Remote Assistance Product Announced - 10/17/2008

This month's tech tip is an indispensable one - be sure to have a look! 

Over the years Elsinore has built into its products a number of features designed to streamline common tasks and enhance your productivity. Many of these features have been included in Elsinore products for years while a few new ones have been introduced as of the IssueNet 5.0 release. Because many of these features are so tightly integrated into the product, some go unnoticed by even highly experienced users. In this month’s tech tip we will review the Top 10 IssueNet productivity features.

1. Quick Edit Window
2. Bookmarks
3. New Item Context Menus
4. Save Search as Query
5. Mass Update
6. Window Docking and Pinning
7. Save, Restore, and Reset Workspace
8. Spell Check on Update
9. Update on Form Close
10. Column Layout Options 

This announcement has been covered in several other mediums over on elsitech.com and through the official press release, but I did want to cover it at least briefly over here on blogs.elsitech.com.

Relevant Links:

• Elsinore Technologies Release Version 5.0 of IssueNet Enterprise Issue Management Software - Elsitech.com
• Official Press Release on PRWEB
• IssueNet 5.0 Release Notes
• Download IssueNet 5.0 from support.elsitech.com
• IssueNet 5.0 Online Demo Environment
• Live Webinar Sign-Up Form

We're certainly excited to have this release completed and available to the users. As a reminder, both major and minor releases are freely available for download to IssueNet customers on active support and maintenance. (Does not apply to VI to IssueNet upgrades.) The 5.0 release can be downloaded from support.elsitech.com.

Congratulations IssueNet for reaching the big five-O!

Jake Morgan recently submitted an article to Codeproject.com detailing how to deploy zip files to a web application and serve uncompressed files directly out of the zip file. We use this technique on Elsitech.com for our Developer Labs section. The full Codeproject.com article contains implementation discussion and the sample code needed.

From the article:

The ZipEntryHandler enumerates and serves files out of static zip files deployed in your web space. The handler is implemented as a simple ASP.NET IHttpHandler deployed with a code file in the App_Code directory on your website and configured with a line in the web.config file. The handler is very useful for several purposes:

• Serving otherwise prohibited files - Code files with extensions that have special meaning to the web application ("cs", "vb", "aspx") can be served statically.
• Storage Space - Very compressible content often consumes large amounts of web space. This handler allows content to be stored compressed without special access to the file system on a web server.
• Maintainability - Often a zip file and the contents of the zip file should both be downloadable and browsable. This pattern allows solely the zip file to be deployed without having to synchronize other downloads.

As the developers of IssueNet, we are often asked how we use the product internally. There are two answers to that question, the operational answer and the practical day-to-day answer. Operationally we use IssueNet for many core functions: software defect tracking, external customer support, internal IT help desk, CRM, and miscellaneous issue tracking. But what people are usually asking is: in the practical course of our days, how do we interface with the system most? It varies some from department to department, but our favorite interface is the Microsoft Outlook integration.

Let's face it, these days, we all spend a great deal of time in our email, so working directly in that environment makes us more productive. How you might ask?

• IssueNet integration to Microsoft Outlook is achieved via an unobtrusive toolbar
• Quick access to creating all types of issues and viewing existing issues and tasks
• Special functionality to easily create issues from mail messages and append messages to existing issues.

The ability to quickly create issues from email messages is extremely important, because invariably, most issues are first reported through email. The quick ability to turn those random emails into trackable, actionable issues in the issue management system means less issues fall through the cracks.

We love the integration because it is easy to use on a daily basis, but that ease of use also serves a very important role in user acceptance during a new deployment. Making issue tracking available via the user's email application dramatically increases uptake for new deployments. Email clients are typically open all day so elminating the need to launch a separate application or browser tightly integrates IssueNet into the daily routine. All this adds up to an easy, low-overhead way to manage issues.

Additional Information on Outlook Integration

• Short Video Demonstration (Elsitech.com How-To Videos Section - Video titled: "Workspace Integration to Microsoft Outlook")
• Detailed Feature-by-Feature Documentation of Outlook Integration (help.elsitech.com)

Elsinore is pleased to announce that the second quarter of 2008 will see the release of IssueNet 5.0! With the 5.0 release, we have placed a dedicated focus on improvements and simplifications, while resisting the temptation to simply tack on features.

Major IssueNet 5.0 Improvements

1. UI Overhaul - Toolbars and Preview Pane
2. Workflow and Notifications
3. Wiki-based Web Help System
4. Updates to the Intercept, Assist, and Oversight Solutions

The main emphasis has been on distilling and perfecting core parts of the user experience over “checkbox” feature adding.  IssueNet is an extremely powerful product and has only become more so over the 2 years since it replaced Visual Intercept as the flagship.  Simplifying the user experience to best facilitate the use of all that power represents the essense of the 5.0 release.  We certainly kept the dreaded "Featuritis" curve in mind with this one:

The most visible changes in IssueNet 5.0 are to the toolbars and standard views - creating a familar MS Outlook-style view. Simplifications to certain aspects of workflow and notifications have been implemented based on specific user feedback, while updates to the main solutions reflect our continued commitment to provide best practice configurations out-of-box. 

Stay tuned to this space and www.elsitech.com for the official beta schedule, release date, screenshots, and comprehensive release notes!

Elsinore made the decision to switch from Compiled HTML Help edited with RoboHelp to a wiki-based help system using Screwturn Wiki.  The following is a look into the decision making process that ultimately lead to replacing RoboHelp with a Wiki.

Issues with RoboHelp

In general, we were very frustrated with RoboHelp.  After using it for many years and through several versions of our product, we had assembled a critical mass of grievances.

• Lack of flexibility around updates which were not tied to releases
• Rigidness of source code control and upgrade pains
• Web Help required rebuild of the entire project to generate .htm files, which took 10-15 minutes and required additional files to be checked into source control and then picked up by the Product build system.  This often resulted in internal builds not having updated Help files installed. 
• Updates simply took too much time, effort, and planning.  When a new help resource is available, we want to make it available quickly and effortlessly. 

Advantages of Wiki for Product Help

• Updates made in real-time
• Ability to easily link to other sources of rich content (tech tips, how-to videos, blog entries, developer labs articles, etc.)
• No need for product to "phone home" for help updates
• Source code available so customers can deploy on own network
• Extremely easy for staff to update
• Freedom from RoboHelp compatibility issues
• Free to near-free

Disadvantages of Wiki for Product Help

• Difficult to compile for a printed manual
• Difficult to implement context-sensitive help
• Conversion of existing data from RoboHelp into new format takes time
• Traditional version control approaches must be rethought

The idea of converting a large existing documentation base from RoboHelp to wiki format can be daunting.  In the end we found that it would be easier to manually convert from RoboHelp to wiki than to convert from our older RoboHelp version to newer versions.  The manual conversion also dovetailed nicely with a comprehensive review and update of the documentation.  There are also some conversion tools out there such as the RoboHelp2Wiki tool, which may be useful in the right situations.

We went with Screwturn Wiki over the other available variants for the following reasons:

• ASP.NET
• File-based
• Easy Xcopy deployment, with no need to configure outside dependencies

Summary

In the end, the ease of use and extensive flexibility of the wiki format made this an easy decision.  Our priority was to update our help on a real-time basis with a minimum of frustration for our internal staff, and those goals were best achieved by converting our help from RoboHelp to a wiki. 

Version 4.8 of IssueNet is now available for download through support.elsitech.com by all customers with active support and maintenance. This is a relatively light release that focuses on bug fixes and improvements to drag and drop capabilities on forms. Full details can be found in the Release Notes on elsitech.com. As you may have noticed, we have picked up the pace on releases, with two in the last two months, and three over the past five months. This is a result of two factors:

1. A commitment to quickly addressing any pain points encountered by users
2. The shift to a more agile approach in our own development process

The Elsinore product team is committed to this more frequent release cycle, as we feel it ultimately raises the quality of the product and incorporates customer feedback at a more rapid rate.

Email Integration

IssueNet 4.7 has been released and is now available for immediate download. [Press Release]

The latest IssueNet release is headlined by integration to Exchange Server, which allows issues and tickets to be created or updated via email messages. The message syntax is simple enough to be implemented in a simple link or command typed into the email subject, which allows Blackberry® and other mobile device users to submit, close, and approve issues on the go.

The release also includes several other bug fixes and product enhancements which are detailed in the 4.7 Release Notes, and is available for download from support.elsitech.com for all customers with current support agreements.  Questions regarding the release or current support status should be directed to support@elsitech.com or the support line at 866.866.0034.