What's New in MainBoss 3.3, Update 1

The following lists changes between MainBoss Advanced 3.3, Update 1 and the previous release.

Major Changes

1. In previous releases, requestors could submit requests by e-mail or through a Web Requests web page. However, once the request was submitted, the requestors became passive observers: they received notifications about the request's progress, but couldn't do more. In particular, requestors couldn't directly add information to the request, even if the maintenance department asked for more details.
   
   In the new release, every notification e-mailed to requestors will contain a URL link to a web page that requestors can use to add comments to their original request. (To add a comment, requestors may have to type in the e-mail address from which they submitted the original request.) In this way, additional information provided by the requestors is kept as part of the request's history, making it available for present and future reference.

Minor Changes

1. All MainBossRemote web pages now have a Logout button that lets you end your MainBossRemote session. The next time you want to use MainBossRemote, you will have to login again.
2. In State History reports (for requests, work orders, and purchase orders), it is now possible to filter by the effective date of state history records.
3. Because of user requests, many reports now have a "No Grouping" option. The effect of this option varies somewhat in different reports, but in general, it means that reports are not grouped according to any of the other available grouping options.
4. In the previous release, a problem in Microsoft's ReportViewer resulted in some work orders being poorly formatted. We have introduced a workaround that improves the situation.
5. In previous releases, MainBoss documentation recommended that "Return E-mail Address" in the "Outgoing Mail" section of Administration | MainBoss Service should be different from the e-mail address for submitting requests; this is important to avoid infinite loops of sending auto-replies to auto-replies. The new release makes this mandatory. If "Return E-mail Address" is the same as the submission address, MainBoss gives you an error message and will not accept the value.
6. In previous releases, ClickOnce deployment had a facility for installing prerequisite software (e.g. Microsoft ReportViewer) if the user's computer didn't have it. However, a user had to have Windows Administrator privileges to use this facility. Therefore, the facility has been removed; we now recommend that users obtain the prerequisite software through the normal Windows Update facilities.
7. The installation process for MainBoss Service has been changed so that a new version of MainBoss Service will not be installed if an older version is still installed. Uninstall the old version first, then install the new software.
8. A number of bugs have been fixed in MBUtility, improving the ability to import and export data from the MainBoss database.