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Earlier Releases

This section of the online help contains details of previous releases of vFire Core and Officer & Portal.

New Features and Changes in vFire 9.9

vFire 9.9 does not support Oracle installations. You should not install or upgrade to 9.9 if you are running an Oracle system.

The key new features in this release include:

Nano is now GA. Nano has passed its beta phase of development, and is now GA status. See Introduction to Nano to learn more about Nano, and Nano Feature List to find out about functionality that is added in this release.
Alemba API is now GA. The RestFUL Alemba API has passed its beta phase of development, and is now GA status. The Alemba API is documented via a wiki within the product. See Alemba API to find out more about this API and how you can use it.
vRO7.0 is now supported. See Connector for vRO for more details on how to install and use this connector.
Call Scheduling has been introduced, allowing analysts with the correct permissions to schedule calls, in much the same way as requests can be scheduled. See Scheduling Calls to find out more.
Proactive Analysis has been renamed to AI Ops, in keeping with industry familiar terminology.
Service Actions can now be configured to launch URLs or download objects from the Service Catalog in vFire Self Service. You can set up your Service Hub in a day using the Integration module to instantly create URL Service Actions for all your external digital forms and other web accessible services and resources. See Defining the Outcome of Selecting a Service Action for more details.

New Features and Changes in vFire 9.8

The key new features in this release include:

Configurable Portal tables. You can now configure almost all of the tables in vFire Self Service, adding and removing columns, choosing the order in which they are displayed, and sorting by any available column. For more details, see Configuring Portal Tables.
Suggested Knowledge. This feature allows users to view relevant knowledge articles while they complete call submission forms in the Self Service Portal. For more details, see Suggested Knowledge in the Self Service Portal.
Call Auto Close. You can use this feature to define parameters to identify aged calls, notify specified recipients of impending closure, and automatically close those calls if no action is taken. Multiple auto close rules can be configured, each with different call matching criteria, notification intervals, notification recipients, and call closure field settings to apply on closed calls. For more details, see Configuring Call Auto Close Rules.
Jira Connector, enabling the creation of issues in Jira triggered by actions sent from vFire. Once an issue is created in Jira, updates can be passed between the issue and the call or task in vFire that created it. For more details, see Connector for Jira.
Stored Procedures connector, allowing you to build custom logic into a workflow without customizing SQL files or building javascript logic. You simply write one maintainable stored procedure that is installed in the database. For more details, see Connector for Stored Procedure.
External Process connector, which can run an external process as part of an Outbound Action task. It allows values to be passed between a workflow in vFire and an external process, such as PowerShell, or other executable. Communication is two-way; meaning that it can pass and receive values. For more details, see Connector for External Process.
CSV connector enhancements, which include a new feature to allow upload of files from local locations, and relabeling an existing feature to clarify functionality. See Connector for CSV File for more details.
Nano. We have continued developing our new browser-agnostic interface, and it is now available as a beta release for managing tasks and incidents.
The vFire Statistics Tool now saves the HTML report locally on the server as well as emailing the report. The report can be found in the "Log" folder inside the vFire system folder.
From 9.8.1, the vFire app is available on Windows, Android and iOS phones.
We are continuing to develop the RESTful Alemba API. It is in the alpha phase of development, and details of the enhancements are available in the wiki and API Explorer.

New Features in vFire 9.7

The key new features in this release include:

Virtualization Workflow Automation. We have enhanced the Self Service portal and service requests to deliver a full Cloud Management Portal (CMP) within the portal. This allows us to deliver a self service, auto-provisioning infrastructure cloud that is integrated with your vFire system. See Virtualization Workflow Automation for more details.
Matching Panel provides an at-a-glance list of Calls and Knowledge Articles related to the current call. The list of related items is based on values in the call fields and dynamically updates as the Analyst enters or changes data, or changes the filter options within the panel. See About the Matching Panel for more details.
Configurable Labels. You can now use Designer to rename fields and buttons that are displayed in vFire Self Service, making your Self Service portal even more configurable to meet your organization's needs. See Change Labels for more details.
The ability to filter CMDB items, including services and service actions in vFire Self Service by stakeholder role as well as subscriber group. You can now set visibility on the portal based on stakeholder role. This includes the ability to review configuration items and order services and service actions from the service catalog. See Filtering by Stakeholder for more details.
Styling. We have introduced several new features that improve and enhance the screen display in vFire Core, making it more usable and easier to configure for personal preference and accessibility:
- A new portal-like menu display. See The vFire Core Window for more details.
- Additional configurable display settings for your login. See Personal Settings for more details.
- The gray background on many of the windows has also been replaced with white, to provide a cleaner, fresher working screen.

The new styling is installed as standard. As soon as you upgrade, you will see the new menu.

A new vFire App allows users of windows phones to access their outstanding calls and requests, and monitor and update them. This is in addition to the existing vFire Officer app, which can be used by analysts to manage calls and requests from mobile devices.

To view a PDF version of the 9.7 release notes, select the following link .

New Features and Changes in vFire 9.6

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
Minor feature enhancements

To view a PDF version of the 9.6 release notes, select the following link .

New Features and Changes in vFire 9.5

The key new features in this release include:

Location, Organization, Contract, Knowledge Article, Subscriber Group, and Cost Center are now available as import options through the Integration module. See Defining a Resource Mapping for more details.
A suite of new connectors have been introduced to deliver integration with MS SQL Server. See Connector Suite for MS SQL Server Tables for more details.
Connector for Resource Databases - a new connector in 9.5 which is highly configurable to allow integration with SQL Server or Oracle databases.
The online help is now available through our alemba help self service portal, by selecting vFire Help & Documentation Site from the My Options menu.
A new Learn section has been added to the online help, containing video tutorials which will help you get the best from your system.
Screen Maximization and Display are now available in vFire Officer. System administrators can now configure vFire Officer so that the screen can be maximized, the menu can be pinned/unpinned, and positioned at the top or the left hand side of the screen.