New Features and Changes in vFire 9.6
This topic relates to vFire 9.6, released in September 2016. You may also wish to view other new features or the release notes in full.
The key new features in this release include:
- Chat. Users can now chat online with analysts. Calls are automatically logged when a Chat request is submitted and analysts can link chats to several calls. See About Chat for more details.
- Repeat Reminders. Analysts can configure reminders on calls, requests, and tasks. This will send reminder notifications by email or pager at a specified date and time to themselves or a specified recipient. Reminders can be configured to send one reminder notification, or to repeatedly send notifications at specified intervals for a specified number of repeats. Single Reminders are configurable on the Defer, Forward Internal, and Forward External screens of active/submitted calls, requests, and tasks. Repeat Reminders are configurable for active calls, requests, and tasks, and also from call templates, workflow templates, and tasks in workflow templates. See About Reminders for more details.
- Approval Summary. A summary of all approval tasks is now visible on vFire Self Service for those users with permissions to view it. See Viewing an Approval Summary for more details.
- Single Sign-On. vFire Core Analysts and Users typically need access to a large number of internally and externally hosted (Cloud) applications, each requiring usernames and passwords. vFire Core can be configured for Single Sign-On (SSO) using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), providing a secure mechanism for sharing identities and therefore removing the need to maintain a separate user profile for vFire Core. See Single Sign-On using SAML for more details. You can also view or download the Technical Guide.
This feature is only available on SQL systems.
Click here to watch a video giving you an overview of Chat, and here for a video tutorial on how to set up your system for Chat.
This feature is only available on SQL systems.
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of vFire and are currently using Reminder columns or search criteria, you will need to remove them and add them again after upgrade. See the Installation Guide for more details.
This feature is only available on SQL systems.
Minor Features
The following features have also been introduced in this release.
| You can now... | Description | SD/Ref number |
|---|---|---|
| Configure the appearance of the service catalog tiles in the vFire Self Service portal | You can now change the width, title font size and color, and tile description font size and color of the tiles that display service catalog items in the vFire Self Service portal. Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose the Service Catalog Tiles option from the Global Styles list in the search pane. | (10734) |
| Change the color of the counts widgets on the vFire Self Service home screen | Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose the Counts Widget option from the Global Styles list in the search pane. Then select the background color for your incidents, requests, approvals, CIs, contract incidents, contract tasks, company incidents and company tasks. | (10736) |
| Select the font, font size and font color for counts widgets in the vFire Self Service portal | Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose the Counts Widgets option from the Global Styles list in the search pane. | (11035) |
| Change the background color of your vFire Self Service portal screen | You can now change the color of the background in the vFire Self Service portal. Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose Page background Color from the list in the search pane. | (10954) |
| Adjust the height of the banner, and the padding for the logo image in the vFire Self Service portal | You can now adjust the height of the banner in the vFire Self Service portal, and make the padding (or spacing) above and below the logo image. Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose the Page Header option from the list in the search pane. | (11036) |
| Extend your vFire Core session when you are approaching timeout | When you are approaching the timeout set by your system administrator, the warning window now gives you the option to extend your session. If no reply is given, the session will time out as normal. If you extend the session, the timeout period will start again. | 20007, 20685, 16217
(11025) |
| Configure the browse button color in vFire Self Service portal | You can now change the color of the browse button in the same way as you configure the colors of other buttons in the vFire Self Service portal. Display the Designer window, select the Skins tab, and choose the Buttons style from the list in the search pane. Then select the required color as normal. | 21147
(11082) |
| Amend the web page title | The web page title is now configurable from within system administration. Select Self Service Portal Systems and then define the page title you want in the Display Name column. | 21276
(11084) |
| See an updated message if there are no matching service actions/bundles in the service catalog | In vFire Self Service, when you run a search for specified service actions or service bundles, and none are found matching the criteria, the message has been updated to read "There are no items defined in this category." This is more helpful and informative than the previous message. | 21291
(11085) |
| Upload multiple files from the vFire Self Service portal |
You can now upload more than one file attachment when logging calls, requests and so on in vFire Self Service. When you select the Browse button, you can select several files, which are displayed in a list for you to review if necessary. This feature is only available on SQL systems. |
(11309) |
To view a PDF version of the 9.6 release notes, select the following link 
.