12.1.09: Service Pack 9
This topic contains information about fixes and enhancements in the FootPrints 12.1.09 release, and provides instructions for downloading and installing or upgrading to 12.1.09 version. For information about the issues that are corrected in this service pack, see Known and corrected issues.
Notes
- If you use FootPrints with Microsoft SQL Server, a database conversion takes place during the upgrade to FootPrints version 12.1.09. If you have large volumes of data, the upgrade takes around 40% more time than earlier upgrades. Also, the database file size increases by 40-80% and the transaction log file size increase by 300%. For more information, see Impact on the Microsoft SQL Server during upgrade.
- After upgrading to FootPrints version 12.1.09, some Service Analytics reports created before the upgrade might not display correctly. You must change your server configurations to ensure that the reports are displayed correctly. To resolve this issue, follow the instructions in the support article.
The following topics are provided:
Video overview
The following video (14:44) presentation provides an overview of enhancements in version 12.1.09.
Enhancements and changes
The following table lists items that are new or have changed in FootPrints version 12.1.09:
| Enhancement | Description | Topics updated | Community idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ability to search for records assigned to your team | You can now create a search to view records that are assigned to your team. Administrators can create a single search for all teams instead of a separate search for each team, which saves significant time. | ||
| Ability to search for records that need approval | You can now create a search to view records that need approval from the specified user and the user who runs the search. This feature makes it easy to run a single search for all users to view records that require their approvals. | ||
| Discard unpublished changes of a container | You can now discard any configuration changes made to the container to the last published state of the container and revert to start a new configuration from a stable state. The administrator can make changes to the templates, fields, forms, and so on, and save the changes. If they do not need the previously made modifications, this feature allows the administrator to revert the container to the last published state. It also reduces the time taken to troubleshoot any configuration issues and allows the administrators to start the configuration from scratch. For example, the administrator can make a quick change for a short term (such as adding a new field) without committing to all the other changes that might have been for a long term change (such as creating a new business rule). | ||
| Ability to add a column to reports without losing filters | You can now add a new column to reports without losing existing filters that were already saved with the report. Additionally, when a user clicks Apply Changes after removing a column from a report, a message is displayed, warning that if the user proceeds, the already applied filters on the report will be reset. Instead, the user can choose to hide the columns rather than them from the report. The user can then make an informed decision about whether to remove the column and will save time spent on configuring the filters again later. This warning message is displayed only for the following report types:
| ||
| Time-based rule with the Set color of record action is not considered as a record update | A Time-based business rule with a Set color of record action does not cause updates to a record. If a user is editing a ticket when a time-based rule is executed for the Set color of record action, the user does not receive a message that the ticket has been updated and the user can continue to save the work. This enhancement improves the agent's user experience when working on important tickets. | NA | |
| Broadcast messages sent on every rule update | Broadcast messages are sent each time a business rule specific to a broadcast message is triggered. If the business rule is configured to trigger on every update of a record, a broadcast message will be sent on every record update. | NA | |
Ability to select the workspaces to migrate from FootPrints version 11 to version 12 | When administrators use the migration tools to move the configuration and data from FootPrints version 11 to version 12, they can now select the workspaces that they want to migrate. Earlier, all data was migrated at once, but now they can migrate in stages according to the business needs. | NA | |
Support for CentOS Linux 6 and 7 | FootPrints now officially supports CentOS Linux versions 6 and 7. | NA | NA |
| Change of database columns from varchar (256) to nvarchar (4000) | To support all characters that can be saved in the ticket fields on the Microsoft SQL Server, the database columns for the fields are now larger. After the upgrade, this change affects all systems and a conversion takes place. You can now save the double-byte characters, but the use of double-byte languages for MS SQL Server is still not supported. | NA | |
Email message sent to email addresses associated with known users will use user’s role and authentication method | Email messages sent to email addresses of known users now use the user’s role to determine the permissions for the email address content. Also, the link in the email message provides the correct base URL based on authentication method of that user's email address. Earlier, this was done only when an email was sent to a user directly, and not to an email address associated with a user. | NA | NA |
Email rules no longer add to ticket save time | A record is now saved before an email message is generated and sent. This feature improves performance because users can continue working without waiting for the email generation process. Earlier, the user had to wait until the email message was generated before the record was saved. | NA | NA |
Impact on the Microsoft SQL Server during upgrade
If you use FootPrints with Microsoft SQL Server, the version 12.1.09 includes a fix that correctly displays the data in any language including special characters. The SQL server data types for a few system fields and all dynamically published fields are altered from single-byte ANSI to double-byte Unicode format. After the upgrade to FootPrints version 12.1.09, if you have large data volumes, the indexes are dropped and added again automatically. This process causes the upgrade to version 12.1.09 to take 40% more time than the earlier upgrades.
Also, the data type is changed from single-byte data to double-byte international data for many columns. To accommodate the international characters stored, the character fields that store user entered data doubles in size. The result is an increase in the database file size (.mdf) by 40-80%. The database transaction log file (.ldf) increases by 300% of the data file size assuming that the database is in Full Recovery Mode. Before you upgrade to version 12.1.09, ensure that you have adequate space on your database for the increased MDF and LDF file size.
Avoiding an increase in the database transaction log file size
Before upgrading, free up the required space by reducing the database transaction log file size after you create a backup.
- Stop the automatic schedule of normal log backup and full backup.
- Before the upgrade of FootPrints, perform the full database backup.
- Set the database to Simple Recovery Mode.
- Upgrade to FootPrints version 12.1.09.
- Set the database back to Full Recovery Mode.
- After the upgrade, to enable the transaction log files to recover the database again, perform a full database backup.
- Start the normal automatic schedule of the normal log backup and full backup.
Known and corrected issues
For the information about the issues that are corrected in these service pack, see Known and corrected issues.
Downloading the service pack
For download instructions, see Downloading the installation files.
Installing the service pack
For more information about installing the service pack, see Installing.
Upgrading to the service pack
For information about upgrading the service pack, see Upgrading.
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