June 18, 2009

RTFM 2.4.2 Now Available!

We are happy to announce that RTFM 2.4.2 is now ready for download!

It includes a number of bugfixes and an important compatibility fix
which you need to use RTFM with RT 3.8.3 or greater.

You can download it from:

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/RTFM-2.4.2.tar.gz
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/RTFM-2.4.2.tar.gz.sig

SHA1 sums

d96b0cd58d983098e4543143aef06b351fdd4a84  RTFM-2.4.2.tar.gz
bbdf23e5da00e6b464f15d72adfe16f43e70837b  RTFM-2.4.2.tar.gz.sig

A changelog can be found after the cut:

Continue reading "RTFM 2.4.2 Now Available!" »

RT 3.8.4 Now Available!

We are happy to announce that RT 3.8.4 is now available. You can
download it from:

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.4.tar.gz
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.4.tar.gz.sig

SHA1 sums
c786eb78dd6c8374da3bc0dd10414e040d69864f  rt-3.8.4.tar.gz
7af1be26513b2b26390a456a3360e5cda7d63008  rt-3.8.4.tar.gz.sig

This is primarily a bugfix and security release of RT.

The most important fix is that RT now requires the SuperUser right to edit global RT at a Glance.  In all previous 3.8 releases, the "ShowConfigTab" right unintentionally enabled this. If you have not granted this right to any non-administrative user, then this issue should not affect you.

Alternatively, you can download and install the patch that resolves this issue without requiring an upgrade to 3.8.4.

A more complete list of bugs and features can be found after the cut.
Please note that there is a change to database content in this release; see UPGRADING for more.

Continue reading "RT 3.8.4 Now Available!" »

RT 3.6.8 Now Available!

We are happy to announce that RT 3.6.8 is now available. You can
download it from:

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.6.8.tar.gz
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.6.8.tar.gz.sig

SHA1 sums
c7b4fac30b5b91a1c7f64bc05ecf63f40aaec50d  rt-3.6.8.tar.gz
cb80cca50254127362a8ff8d9af71ff66881f300  rt-3.6.8.tar.gz.sig

This is a bugfix and security release of RT.

The most important fix is that RT now requires the SuperUser right to edit global RT at a Glance.  In all versions since 3.6.2, the "ShowConfigTab" right unintentionally enabled this. If you have not granted this right to any non-administrative user, then this issue should not affect you.

Please download and install the patch that resolves this issue without requiring an upgrade to 3.6.8.

A more complete list of fixes can be found below.

Fixes & Cleanups

  • Updated italian translation (Thanks to Nicola Murino)
  • validate CFs in SelfService
  • Fix: On comment/correspond, attached files are not recorded if comment/response content is empty.
  • Add HasAttribute and HasNoAttribute to the tisql
  • Allow only SuperUser to edit RT at a Glance
  • Copyright updates

June 03, 2009

Use Hiveminder on your iPhone with iMinder!

A while back, we released a web services API for Hiveminder.  The Hiveminder API powers todo.pl as well as a host of other small tools.

Kris Arnold, a Hiveminder user and  software developer has created iMinder, a nifty (and free) Hiveminder client for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

If you're an iPhone or iPod Touch user, you can download iMinder 1.0.1 the App Store. Built on the Hiveminder API, iMinder lets you access your tasks using an intuitive iPhone interface and transparently keeps your iPhone in sync with Hiveminder. (It does a bunch of other cool stuff too.) 

When you start up iMinder, you'll see something like this:

Main screen


iMinder lets you make changes to a task via your phone:
Quick changes

Read more at iMinder's website, or follow iMinder development on Twitter.

Thanks, Kris!

(More screenshots after the cut)

Continue reading "Use Hiveminder on your iPhone with iMinder!" »

February 25, 2009

RT Training Announcement - April 27 & 28, 2009

Best Practical Solutions provides unparalleled instruction in how to get the most out of RT. We've been teaching users and administrators how to get the most out of RT since 2001. Since 2003, we've offered intensive one-day RT administrator training sessions to the general public.

In response to your requests, we've extended our RT training program to cover additional material targeted at beginning to advanced RT users.  We've split training across two days.  The first day starts off with a tour of RT's web interface and continues with a detailed exploration and explanation of RT's functionality, workflows and configurability. We'll touch on basic administration, but concentrate largely on helping you and your team get the most out of your RT instance.

The second day of training picks up with basic RT administration and covers everything from point-and-click configuration to installation of RT, development best practices and database tuning.

It goes without saying that you'll get the most out of training if you attend both days of the course, but we've designed the material so that you can step out after the first day with a dramatically improved understanding of how to use RT or show up on the second day and get quickly up to speed on how to make RT do your bidding.

A spot at either day costs $995 USD. You can save 25% if you attend both days of training. That's just $1495.

If you reserve your seat before March 15th, you can save an additional 20% by mentioning the discount code BLOG09.

Each class includes breakfast, coffee/tea, and an afternoon snack, as well as all training materials.

Day 1 - RT User Training - April 27th 2009
This intensive day-long tutorial about RT starts with basic day-to-day use and continues with detailed training about advanced RT features including saved searches, dashboards, data analysis and options for automating your workflow.

This session will cover:

  • The purpose and general use of RT
  • New features in RT 3.8
  • Saved Searches and customizing searches
  • RT's Dashboards feature
  • Customizing RT's workflow to match your own, with examples of workflow optimization
  • Automating common procedures
  • How to make simple custom reports based on RT's data
  • A short intro to RTFM, the RT FAQ Manager
  • General Q&A Session


Day 2 - RT Administration and Development – April 28th 2009

 This intensive day-long session aimed at RT administrators and developers covers everything from installation to backups, interface and backend customizations. You'll learn how to customize RT to meet your organization's unique needs and how to make sure that RT stays fast, reliable and flexible.

This session will cover:

  • New features in RT 3.8 RT's system architecture
  • A guided tour of the RT source code
  • Extension mechanisms you can use to customize RT
  • RT Installation, including the basics of Tarballs, and Configuration
  • Examples of how to optimize RT for your organization
  • How to tie RT into your existing authentication infrastructure
  • Building your own tools that talk to the RT backend
  • Customizing RT's workflow to match your own
  • Automating common procedures
  • How to write custom reports based on RT's data
  • Custom coding, modifications, and callback creation
  • A brief preview of RT4
  • General Q&A Session

This spring, these sessions will be only be offered in Boston, MA. If you can't make it to Boston this April, please drop us a line to request a public training in your area. We haven't yet scheduled training for Summer/Fall 2009 yet – your feedback will help us decide where to offer additional sessions.

RT User Training – Monday April 27th 2009
RT Administrator/Developer Training – Tuesday April 28th 2009

When you register, please tell us whether you'd like to register for the whole training session or only for a single day.

To reserve your seat, please email training@bestpractical.com.  We like to keep class sizes relatively intimate. Please register soon or we may not be able to guarantee you a seat.

Private Training
Additionally, we offer private training sessions for organizations. If you would like to schedule a private training session, please drop us a line at training@bestpractical.com.

Reservations
To reserve your seat, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of all attendees.

In the case of credit card payments, a receipt from the credit card payment constitutes your reservation.

A copy of our payment and cancellation policies will be emailed to you upon receipt of a reservation. 

Payment Policy
The cost of training includes all necessary materials. We accept payments by check or wire transfer. Discounts may be available for organizations sending more than one participant and for academic institutions.

If you wish to pay via check or wire transfer, we will email you an invoice upon receipt of your reservation. If your company requires a printed invoice, please provide us with your accounts-payable contact and address.

If payment is not received two weeks prior to the class date, we may be forced to release your reserved seat. Unless you notify us that you will not be attending the session at least two weeks in advance,  you will still be responsible for some or all of the cost of the session. For more information, please see the cancellation policy below.

Cancellation Policy
To cancel your reservation, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of those who wish to cancel.

If you notify us that you will not be attending training at least two weeks prior to the class date, the entire class fee will be refunded.

If you notify us that you will not be attending training less than two weeks before the class date, Best Practical will charge a $250 USD cancellation fee.

If you notify us that you will not be attending training less than 72 hours prior to the start time of the class, the entire fee is non-refundable.

Hotel Information
There will be a limited number of discounted hotel rooms available at the training venue for attendees. More information regarding transportation options and parking will be provided when you register for a class.

January 09, 2009

RT 3.8.2 Now Available

We're pleased to announce the release of RT 3.8.2. You can download it from:

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.2.tar.gz
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-3.8.2.tar.gz.sig

SHA1 sums

e5e17464849ec040b7b1d6d14f456a2e64871848  rt-3.8.2.tar.gz
b6c1d165af056d21b2ddfb7ac018a1812f928e87  rt-3.8.2.tar.gz.sig

A changelog follows after the jump.

Highlights

  • Approvals System Overhaul
  • Dashboards Overhaul, including the ability to include more types of portlets and a new subscription type
  • Upgrades to the mysql schema upgrade script, now named upgrade-mysql-schema.pl  If you're planning an upgrade from a version of RT prior to 3.8, please read UPGRADING.mysql
  • Many localization cleanups
  • Fixes to HTML mail generation and the handling of mixed/alternative messages.  The WYSIWYG editor was also upgraded.  See docs/templates.pod for more about generating HTML mail.
  • Complete reimplementation of sbin/rt-validator for checking integrity of the DB

If you are using RT::Authen::ExternalAuth with RT 3.8.1, please be sure to upgrade to RT-Authen-ExternalAuth-0.07_02 (available on CPAN) with 3.8.2.

Continue reading "RT 3.8.2 Now Available" »

August 29, 2008

RTFM 2.4.0 Announced

Following the release of RT 3.8.1, Best Practical is happy to announce a new version of RTFM.  This version of RTFM is compatible with RT 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8.1 and higher.  It contains a number of integration fixes for 3.8.   

You can download the release from:

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/RTFM-2.4.0.tar.gz

http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/RTFM-2.4.0.tar.gz.siz

Please note that RTFM 2.4 is not compatible with RT 3.8.0. If you are using RT 3.8.0, please upgrade to RT 3.8.1.

Updated Translation Templates

  • This release includes newly updated translation templates.
  • Patches are welcome to fill these in and update the existing translation for future releases.
  • There are directions in po/README.

New Features and Changes

  •   SelfService users can search for Articles
  •   Global Topics
    • Queue specific article lists using Topics
  •   Integration with 3.8
  •   RTFM UI is now available during Ticket Creation (in 3.8.1 or higher only)

Corrected Bugs

  •   Fixed cases where "Refers To" links were not correctly created when using an Article while Replying to Tickets
  •   Better error handling in the display and creation of Links
  •   Fixed sorting of Topics in the different views of Articles
  •   Fixed display of Topics and Articles in the Topic view of the system
  •   Many more cleanups

We're excited to be able to bring you the new features and improvements in this version of RTFM. If you need help deploying or upgrading RTFM, please don't hesitate to contact us at sales@bestpractical.com.

August 21, 2008

RT Training Announcement - November 24, 2008

Due to popular demand, we're holding a second European RT training session in 2008! Come and join us!

2008 RT Fall Training

We provide unparalleled instruction in how to get the most out of RT.   On November 24, we will be offering an intensive one-day developer and administrator training session taught by the developers who built RT. This is the first European training session where we will present new features and changes in RT 3.8.

This comprehensive session will cover:

  •     New features in RT 3.8
  •     RT's system architecture
  •     A guided tour of the RT source code
  •     Extension mechanisms you can use to customize RT
  •     How to tie RT into your existing authentication infrastructure
  •     Building your own tools that talk to the RT backend
  •     Automating common procedures
  •     Customizing RT's workflow to match your own
  •     How to write custom reports based on RT's data

This session will be offered in:

Madrid, Spain on Monday, November 24th, 2008

Register now to reserve your seat!  Space is limited.

Reservations

To reserve your seat, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of all attendees.

Private Training

Additionally, we offer private training sessions for organizations. If you would like to schedule a private training session, please drop us a line at training@bestpractical.com.

Payment Policy

The cost of training is € 695 and includes all necessary materials.
Discounts are available for organizations sending more than one participant and for academic institutions.
Upon receipt of your reservation we will email you an invoice. Hardcopies of your invoices will be given to you at the training session. If your company requires a hardcopy prior to that, please notify us and provide us with the contact and address and we will mail it.

Payment or purchase order must be received on or before the date two weeks prior to the class date. We accept payments by check or wire transfer.

If payment is not received, your seat will be released.  Please note that without a cancellation notification, you will still be responsible for the cost of the training class even if you do not attend.

Cancellation Policy

To cancel your reservation, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of those who wish to cancel.

  • For any cancellations received on or before the date two weeks prior to the class date, the entire class fee will be refundable.
  • For any cancellations received after the date two weeks prior to the class date, Best Practical will charge a € 150 cancellation fee.
  • For any cancellations received 72 hours prior to the start time of the class, the entire fee is non-refundable.

July 22, 2008

RT Training Announcement - October 24, 2008

We're excited about the recent release of RT 3.8.0, and we're excited about the first training session to present new features and changes in 3.8. Come and join us!

2008 RT Fall Training

We provide unparalleled instruction in how to get the most out of RT.   On October 24, we will be offering an intensive one-day developer and administrator training session taught by the developers who built RT. This is the first training session where we will present new features and changes in RT 3.8.

This comprehensive session will cover:

  •     New features in RT 3.8
  •     RT's system architecture
  •     A guided tour of the RT source code
  •     Extension mechanisms you can use to customize RT
  •     How to tie RT into your existing authentication infrastructure
  •     Building your own tools that talk to the RT backend
  •     Automating common procedures
  •     Customizing RT's workflow to match your own
  •     How to write custom reports based on RT's data

This session will be only be offered in:

San Francisco, CA on Friday, October 24th, 2008

Register now to reserve your seat!  Space is limited.

Reservations

To reserve your seat, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of all attendees.

Private Training

Additionally, we offer private training sessions for organizations. If you would like to schedule a private training session, please drop us a line at training@bestpractical.com.

Payment Policy

The cost of training is $995 USD and includes all necessary materials.
Discounts are available for organizations sending more than one participant and for academic institutions.
Upon receipt of your reservation we will email you an invoice. Hardcopies of your invoices will be given to you at the training session. If your company requires a hardcopy prior to that, please provide us with the contact and address and we will mail it.

Payment or purchase order must be received on or before the date two weeks prior to the class date. We accept payments by check or wire transfer.

If payment is not received, your seat will be released.  Please note that without a cancellation notification, you will still be responsible for the cost of the training class even if you do not attend.

Cancellation Policy

To cancel your reservation, please send mail to training@bestpractical.com with the names and email addresses of those who wish to cancel.

  • For any cancellations received on or before the date two weeks prior to the class date, the entire class fee will be refundable.
  • For any cancellations received after the date two weeks prior to the class date, Best Practical will charge a $250 USD cancellation fee.
  • For any cancellations received 72 hours prior to the start time of the class, the entire fee is non-refundable.

June 16, 2008

Time tracking (beta) with Hiveminder

Today we're releasing time tracking as a new Hiveminder Pro beta feature.  (If you read to the end of this post, you can save a few bucks when you sign up for Pro.)

Time tracking in Hiveminder lets you estimate the time left for a task and record when and how long you work on it.  These numbers are useful as a measure of completion and for tracking billable hours.  Once you've started using time tracking, Hiveminder can generate reports that show how well you track time.

Handy stopwatches for each task make it easy to keep track of your time as you work.

Screenshot of the stopwatch for time tracking

Reports per task and for any tasklist provide a way to see how much time is left and who has worked on the task.

Screenshot of time tracking reports

Learn more about how to use time tracking in our online help.

Time tracking is a new feature for us that hasn't seen a lot of usage yet, so we're not sure how it'll work for everyone.  (This is why we're calling it a beta feature.)  We'll be improving and refining it as time goes on and we use it more, but we also want your feedback.  As always, we're very open to all comments and suggestions for improvement.  Let us know using the feedback box on every page what parts of time tracking work for you and what parts don't.

If you decide to sign up for Hiveminder Pro to try out this beta feature in the next month, use the coupon TIMETRACKINGBETA to get 10$ off!