Applixure release notes for 2017-11-10

Since the last release notes, we have brought to you the following new features, changes and enhancements to existing functionality:

  • Applixure Agent for Apple Mac OS X/macOS.

    In addition to Windows PCs, Applixure Agent is now supported on Apple Mac computer platform.

    At initial phase, Applixure Agent for Mac does not have the feature parity with Windows Agent. Currently supported Applixure features for Mac Agent are:

    • Hardware and operating system inventory
    • Software inventory
    • Software usage tracking
    • Security readiness items, where applicable to Mac platform
    • Computer startup time measurement

    Unlike Windows Agent which monitors all user runnable executables on the system, Applixure in Mac computers will track only those applications that has been deployed to the system as Application Bundles in typical directories where such bundles are commonly stored (system-wide Applications, each user's Applications, Desktop and Downloads directories).

    With subsequent updates to Mac Agent, currently missing features compared to the Windows Agent will be added to the product. To account for the reduced number of features, device view for Mac computers in Applixure UI will also show those pieces of information that are available.

    mac-computer-view.png

    You can read more about deploying Applixure Agent for Mac from our Helpcenter article. Installed for Mac Agent is downloadble from the Web UI from the same page as Windows Agents.

  • ServiceNow ITSM connectivity for Applixure.

    Our partner, Symfoni ESM (a Fujitsu company), has created a readily-available ServiceNow connector for Applixure which allows transfer of Applixure's asset and alerting data into ServiceNow for asset enrichment in CMDB and creating advanced workflows based on Applixure's alerts and warnings.

    If you are interested in hearing more about ServiceNow connector, please be in contact with Applixure Sales for more information.

  • Applixure Connect REST API and Developers Site.

    Previously the only way to access Applixure -gathered data was to use the Web UI, export Devices and Software lists as CSV or use ready-made integration such as the Microsoft Power BI Content Pack. We are now happy to announce the availability of the first public API for Applixure, Applixure Connect.

    Using this new REST -based API you can access all of the information in the Applixure environment from your own client application using environment -specific API credentials. You can generate Connect API credential keypairs (up to 10 per environment) from the same Integrations and API access page as you have used previously for Power BI.

    api-credentials-generation.png

    To learn more, please refer to all API related documentation in our new Developers Site.

  • Applixure User Suggestions site.

    To be able to get important user feedback and suggestions on the technical features in Applixure from you, we have lauched a new site, Applixure User Suggestions.

    Using this site you can both create new suggestions for features that you feel would be important in the Applixure product, or upvote existing suggestions created by others. From the most upvoted suggestions we can easily see which of the features and functionalities would be important in context of our product, and can take into our future roadmap.

  • Main dashboard now shows alerts trend changes.

    There is now affected assets display in the main dashboard for all four areas (Devices, Software, Performance & Issues and User) under the alerts listed for that area (if any).

    This display shows amount of devices or software products (for Software area) that have no warnings or alerts in green, devices or software that have only warnings in orange, and devices or software that has at least one alert in red. The category with largest number of devices or software is shown in full color background (i.e. the most prominent category), and others in faded background color.

    alert-asset-counts.png

    Using this display you can get quick overview which percentage of your devices are actually affected by any of the issues reported by the Applixure. Furthermore, the up/down arrows for each category, along with the tooltip when placing the mouse cursor over the category, provides information into how the situation has changed for that category since a week ago. While general Applixure scoring generally follows corrective actions based on the some of the alerts in an environment with a little delay, this trend information gives quicker insight to the short-term improvements.

    alert-asset-trend.png

  • New graphs for software dashboard.

    Main software dashboard now shows two new graphs.

    Product use -graph gives a breakdown of how recently each of the software product listed by Applixure has been used in active manner (i.e. with application having visible UI for user). With this information, you can find software that may be listed as occasionally used but has not actually been used for a long time (but also taking into consideration that background usage may also be important for some types of applications).

    product-use-graph.png
    Deployment plaforms -graph gives a breakdown of OS platforms where each software has been deployed to.

    deployment-platforms-graph.png

  • Product versions now show user-installed instances.

    Versions display on individual software product's details view now marks all user-installed copies of the product with little green icon.

    product-version-userinstalled.png

    For software products that has multiple installations, both machine deployments and user-installed instances, this makes it possible to see exactly on which devices that product has been installed by the user in the user-specific location (such as %APPDATA% on Windows).

    Please note that Applixure Agent usually consideres the Windows Universal applications installed from Windows Store as user-installed. This is by design; while technically Store -originated apps are both machine and user installed at the same time (physical copy is in c:\Program Files\WindowsApps which is a shared location, but registration is in user profile), they are typically installed by the user themselves.

  • Most recent active and background usage date now shown for Product versions.

    Versions display on individual software product's details view now also shows the most recent date the said product version has been seen used either active (i.e. with visible UI for user) manner and/or running in background.

    product-most-recent-use.png

    Especially with products which has multiple detected version deployed across all devices, this allows of getting better understanding when each of the versions has actually been used the last time (if ever) when preparing to remove outdated versions.

  • Automatic reset for forgotten Applixure login password is now possible.

    Previously if you forgot the password for your Applixure user account, or the user account became locked due to too many consecutive failed password tries, user account had to be opened by contacting Applixure support.

    Now doing self-service automatic password reset is possible. If no password is entered into login screen after few seconds, or login failed due to invalid credentials, option to reset the password is offered. Following the steps allows non-attended reset of the password using the email address associated with the user account.

  • Improvements to warranty -related data.

    We have improved the end-of-warranty information retrieval for Dell and Lenovo computers, and will be doing so with HP computers next. For other manufacturers end-of-warranty information is currently not retrieved but Applixure will be researching the possibility to widen the coverage where possible.

  • Improvements to Applixure Agent's startup reliability.

    Number of found issues has been fixed for Applixure Agent related to failure to start the service and general reliability.

    While Applixure Agent normally self-updates, some of the fixes regarding the startup path for the service can only be applied by installing the latest version using the installer downloaded from the Applixure Web UI. For this reason the download of the latest installer, and upgrade of existing installer deployment in an organisation, is highly encouraged if your Applixure environment is not recent or you have not kept deployed installers up to date.

  • Fixes for miscellaneous technical issues and minor functionality improvements.

 

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