What's New/Coming (Updated 07-01-09):

Below are the enhancements in the current release (May) and some of the enhancements currently in development, which we plan to ship in future releases. The estimated release provided is our best approximation of when the enhancement will ship and is subject to change. Please check back the week prior to a release for updates. Also please attend Free Weekly training for details.

The enhancement process we use is as follows: a partner/customer must submit an enhancement request via the support center (it should be noted that a tech support issue can result in an enhancement request); all new enhancement requests are reviewed in a weekly Friday meeting; if the enhancement request is rejected the request is closed, otherwise the request is left in an open status; after each product release the enhancement list is reviewed for prioritization and if selected for the next release, is placed into a pending status and assigned change request for development; the end user associated with the enhancement request will be notified of the pending status and target date; after the enhancement request is delivered the request is closed and the end user is invited to provide survey feedback. There are three priorities of enhancement requests: single/few customer(s); all customers; and urgent (meaning the enhancement will fix an important issue that affects the service and all customers). The SLA for enhancement requests is 14 days for urgent requests and 30 days for all other requests. We prioritize enhancement requests that address all customers over ones that come from a few. We appreciate all your feedback.

Release	Browser Support
May/July	We've made a number of changes in May to support IE8. We're making a number of changes to the help desk ticket UI in July and will formally support IE8 after the July release. Prior to reporting issues, please review the known issues document posted on the Support Center at the following link: Known Issues. NOTE: As we add product support for IE8, we will be discontinuing bug fixes for IE6. Please feel free to contact customer support if you have concerns about this.
Nov	If you have not tried it, over 90% of the Systems Manager portal works with the iPhone. We will formerly support the iPhone browser and will create a help desk ticket display that is optimized for the iPhone.
Nov	Safari 3 is not officially supported, but works well. We will formally support Safari 4 later this year after its release.
Nov	We will formally support Google Chrome 2 later this year.

Release	Database
June	We added another database to the infrastructure and have started partitioning customers to improve performance, in particular help desk.
Aug	We will be adding another database to the infrastructure and will partition APAC and EMEA customers to facilitate a better maintenance window time that is outside business hours.
Oct	We will be doing additional load balancing for better overall performance.

Release	Help Desk / Customer Service Center (CSC)
May	We have overhauled Service Level Agreement (SLA) reporting. SLA is still considered beta. If you are a heavy user of resolved status or stop the clock when status is pending you should wait for a patch or the July release. Attend FREE weekly training to learn more. The administrator must opt-in to enable SLA and is able to define two SLAs: 1) initial response and 2) resolution for severity and/or priority. The help desk UI will display a SLA status [dual] icon in the header and a new SLA tab has been added to the right hand display. The SLA status [dual] icon is displayed in my tickets, etc. The SLA information is available in ticket reports and a new SLA Summary report has been added under Help Desk >> Ticket menu.
May	We require specialist to specify /addhistory or /ah to address out-of-office email loop condition.
May	End users can now collapse 'Contact Information' in the CSC to regain real-estate (space).
May	We added additional macros for email templates: specialist contact info, etc.
May	We allow for an "OR" search in the Subject and Description fields on Advanced Search.
May	We increased the text box size for Subject and Description in the CSC.
May	We support making a sub-category (level) mandatory for the CSC and help desk ticket UI.
Jul	We will enable the administrator to specify what categories and sub-categories are displayed in the CSC.
Jul	We will add an option to allow the end user to close [their] ticket in the CSC.
Jul	We will add an email macros for explanation, solution, full work history to (appropriate) email templates.
Jul	We will add an email template and End User Survey template.
Jul	We will add email template for Escalation Rule notifications.
Jul	We will make KB Article Textboxes Bigger/Re-sizeable & View Attachment
Jul	The administrator will be able to select the option to change ticket status from pending to open when work history is added to the ticket, i.e., when an end user replies to the ticket the status of the ticket will change from pending to open making the ticket more visible to the specialist. The administrator must opt-in for this feature.
Jul	The administrator will be able to suppress sending an end user survey when the end user associated with a ticket is a specialist. The administrator must opt-in for this feature.
Jul	The administrator will be able to control add work history via email reply as follows: end user only; any end user; anyone with email domain; and anyone. The default value is any end user (the current behavior). The administrator must opt-in for this feature.
Jul	When you forget to (select the) 'add' work history (button) before saving a ticket you will be prompted (reminded) to add the work history.
Jul	Several ticket UI performance enhancements are planned for the July release. Some will eliminate the repainting of the ticket (in the left window) when the right window is being updated.
Jul	We will eliminate incidents and incorporate the feature set in tickets. Specifically, a specialist will be able to associate tickets with one another in a parent-child relationship. The specialist will have the option of copying the work history to any associated tickets. For example, if a parent ticket has 20 child tickets and work history and email notification (if enabled) will go to all the end users associated with the child tickets. If a parent ticket is closed, all associated child tickets will be closed and the solution copied to the ticket. We will add parent ticket to the ticket report, which will allow the specialist to hyperlink to the ticket. This will help specialist view and update parent-child relationships.
Jul	The ticket report will support batch operations, i.e., you can select multiple tickets in from a report result and perform the [same] operation across the selected tickets. Add work history, close ticket, and associate tickets will be the first operations to be supported.
Jul	Administrators and specialists will be able to create their own custom my ticket reports and make it the default report when they select the help desk tab.
Jul	We will support cc-list for end users and specialists. A specialist can optionally add a cc-list for end users and another one for specialist, which will effectively add the cc-list to the email notification. This will make it easier for specialist to keep other interested parties apprised of status without having to explicitly send email with each update of the ticket.
Jul	We will add Quick Search (expand text box to search ticket number or subject and description) to help desk toolbar.
Jul	We will add the ability to select the top level category for summary ticket report.
Jul	We will add more custom fields to help desk for tickets.
Jul	We will add Specialist, Pager, API, Chat, and IM to the Ticket Source dropdown list. We will add/include Chat and IM sourced tickets to the First Call Resolution report.
Jul	We will extend the size of work history entries from 1900 bytes to unlimited.
Jul/Sep	We will normalize the font used for bulletins and KB articles in the CSC.
Jul/Sep	We will extend the size of subject from 50 bytes to 100 bytes.
Jul/Sep	We will automatically search for an asset or end user when one or the other association with a ticket is changed.
Jul/Sep	We will allow you to control when/how resolution time is calculated, in particular when status is set to resolved and/or closed.
Jul/Sep	We will automate asset search (option to bypassing) after associating an end user with a ticket.
Jul/Sep	We will add the option to disable Incorrect User in the CSC.
Sep	We will provide the ability to create tickets (and associated tasks) on a schedule-basis. The schedule will reference a template ticket with the ability to control the assignee. FWIW, today administrators are using the email interface to create tickets on a schedule and/or in bulk.
Sep	We will refresh approval workflow process and add options for requesting comments, sending status messages, and if no response how long to wait before sending a reminder and how long to wait before giving up and setting the state to not approved, and the action to take when a request is not approved.
Sep	We will add email template for Workflow notifications.
Sep	We will add SLA status in the aggregate help desk view in partner portal.
Sep	We will add the option to control whether a ticket should be closed with open tasks or not.
Nov	Add the ability for the administrator to customize 'Ticket Source' and indicate whether the source should be included in the First Call Resolution report.
Sep/Nov	We will support associating SLA with a service calendar.

Release	Remote Control
May	We have improved the initial response time and success rate when using Web remote control with mobile systems.
May	Remote control automatically adjusts resolution size.
Sep	We will modify LAN remote control to not require a delegate.
May	We have released the initial Intel vPro/AMT functionality. Contact tech support to enable Intel vPro for your Systems Manager portal.
May	Distribution and on-demand requests will utilize Intel vPro/AMT to power on sleeping systems.
Sep	We will enhance the Intel vPro out-of-band management UI for such functions: power on, power off, and reboot to BIOS.
Sep	We will collect additional hardware inventory detail from Intel vPro.
Sep	We will support specifying an exclusion group for remote control.
Nov	We will link PC Recovery with Intel vPro.

Release	Custom Fields
Jul/Sep	We will be adding many customizable fields to numerous parts of the product. Areas of the product that will get additional customizable fields include; End-Users, Specialists, Assets, Fixed Assets, Asset Groups, and Help Desk.
Sep/Nov	Scheduled Active Directory (AD) import for end users and systems.
Nov	Automatically update fixed asset records from network discovery.

Release	Reports
May	We added new SLA Summary report under Help Desk >> Ticket menu.
May	We added new SLA fields for status, elapsed time, remaining time, etc. to help desk report wizard.
May	We added several patch-related reports to the Community to help you track patch distribution and compliance.
Sep	We will be adding Department and Location to the Duplicate Installs by Title report and the Software Title data type.
Sep	We will be adding Hard Drive Model and Size to the Computer data type.
Sep	We will be adding Domain and Namespace to the Computer data type.

Release	Software & Patch Distribution
May	We increased the NOC distribution package size to 1GB.
May	We enhanced checkpoint recovery and retry for DCS 2.0 environments.
May	For DCS 2.0 environments we improved responsiveness by 2000% percent for on-demand distribution to mobile PCs and remote offices (including SOHO).
May	We improved WAN bandwidth utilization for environments with a large number of remote sites.
May	We support multiple delegates with DCS 2.0 for distribution to partition the load in large campus environments, improve fan-out, and provide redundancy/higher availability in the customer environment.
May	Changed "Not Applicable" message to "Patch Already Installed" when appropriate.
May	We added several patch-related reports to the Community to help you track patch distribution and compliance.
May	We introduced a new optional component called PC Recovery that captures the personality of a PC (user and system settings and personal files), which can then later be restored to the same PC.
Sep	We will add MS bulletin name to the patch KB software title name to make it easier to report on installed patches.
Sep	We will support specifying an exclusion group for software distribution, patch distribution, and patch auto-apply.
Sep	We will be adding a "Run As" capability to software packages. This will give an install the ability to populate necessary data in areas of the registry currently unavailable.
Sep	We will support uploading the snapshot to the NOC, which can later be restored to another replacement PC.
Sep/Nov	We are working with Microsoft to address anomalies with certain Windows Vista and Server 2008 patches.

Release	Internationalization
May	We localized the MicroAgent dialogs and CSC for Italian.
May	We localized the MicroAgent dialogs and CSC for Portuguese.
Sep	We will localize the MicroAgent dialogs and CSC for Russian.
Nov	We will localize the MicroAgent dialogs and CSC for Japanese.

Release	Apple Macintosh Agent
Sep	We will add support to batch install the MicroAgent from the System Manager portal.
Sep	We will add support for [Web] Remote Control.
Sep	We will add a tray icon to access the Customer Support Center.

Release	Linux MicroAgent
Sep	We will release a MicroAgent for Unbuntu and Redhat.
Sep	We will release hardware and software inventory collectors.
Nov	We will add support to batch install the MicroAgent from the System Manager portal.
Nov	We will add support for [Web] Remote Control.
Nov	We will add a tray icon to access the Customer Support Center.