Version 6.6 of Smartabase is on its way to your site. This release combines valuable updates to existing tools with user experience improvements for everyone, but especially administrators and builders. Here’s a short list of what’s new:

  • Send daily reminders according to the recipient’s time zone.
  • Reference more information from Smartabase accounts in event forms.
  • Download files in bulk from the reports module.
  • Disable PIN use as a password policy option.
  • Improvements to the handling of multi-factor authentication codes via SMS.
  • Built dashboards can now be exported and imported.
  • New workflows for enterprise servers to improve switching between sites.
  • Internationalisation enhancements for Dutch, Spanish and French languages.
  • Ongoing improvements and bug fixes.

Send daily reminders according to the recipient’s time zone

Daily reminders can be set up to prompt people to record their event data. Previously, a default time zone needed to be chosen, which would not update if a reminded user travelled to a different time zone. Now, an administrator can set the time zone to Local Device Time, so the alerts will be sent based on the time zone that the recipient’s device is in. The device time zone will update whenever someone logs into any Smartabase desktop or phone application.

A screenshot showing the new Timezone option of local timezone for daily reminders

Reference more information from Smartabase accounts in event forms

Event forms and profile forms can include personal details from the account the data is being entered against, such as name, date of birth, sex and email address. We’ve now added the ability to reference information from the middle name, known as and language fields as well as whether the account is active or not. Specifically, there are five new options you can choose to link into a form:

  • Middle Name
  • Known As
  • Full Name with Middle Name
  • First Character Middle Name
  • Language
  • Active

Download files in bulk from the reports module

Up until now, there has been no way to download multiple files at once from one or more records of an event form – each file had to be selected and downloaded individually. To streamline this behaviour and save time for our customers, we’ve added a feature to the reports module (under the export button) and the user history page. The download files feature allows you to download all of (or a custom selection of) the files contained in any of the records included within your report filtering. This includes files stored in file upload fields (single file uploads and multiple file uploads) and form attachments. The files are exported as a .zip folder, allowing you to review them externally and share with others.

A screenshot showing the ability to select some or all files from a collection of records for download, using the Download All Files feature.

To access the download files feature, you will need a role with the new download all files system permission. You can speak to your site administrator or your Smartabase consultant to have this permission applied. The feature must also be enabled via your Smartabase consultant in your site’s application details.

There is a limit to the number of files, as well as to the size of the overall download, to mitigate any risks to Smartabase’s performance. This simply means that collections of files which exceed this limit will need to be downloaded in separate actions.

Disable PIN use as a password policy option

As part of ongoing enhancements to help our customers configure their security based on unique requirements, it’s now possible to prevent people from using a PIN to log into the Smartabase mobile application. In future releases, this feature will also be applied for the Smartabase Athlete and Kiosk apps, but currently only relates to the Smartabase app.

This setting can be adjusted in the password policy set up for your site by your Smartabase consultant or within a role-specific password policy via the administration interface. Password policies will allow PIN log-ins by default.

Screenshot showing all options available when setting up a password policy.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) code SMS delivery enhancements

For people who receive MFA codes via SMS, we’ve made an adjustment to how and when these messages are sent. Specifically, MFA text messages will now bypass the message queue, which will result in quicker delivery times overall. This enhancement was made as a result of reports that MFA codes were taking longer than expected to be received.

While this will improve the speed of MFA code delivery on the Smartabase side, we cannot guarantee specific delivery times as this will also depend on the person’s phone/network provider.

Export and import your dashboards

This exciting new feature allows you to export a dashboard you’ve created on a Smartabase site, and import it into a different site. This enhancement will be a big time-saver, in particular for our enterprise customers sharing dashboards across different child sites. For more information on how you can import and export your dashboards, check out the dashboard builder version 2.36 release notes.

Change between enterprise sites more easily with enhanced site switching

This is another feature that’s been added for enterprise customers and simplifies navigation across sites. Previously, to change site you would need to manually change the web URL to the correct site. Now, if your account has access across multiple sites, you’ll see a new item at the top of your builder, administrator and main interface homepage that will allow you to directly choose the site you’d like to navigate to. To use this feature, you will also need to be assigned to a role which provides the system permission to Allow Site Switching.

A screenshot of the the site switching dropdowns for the Administrator, Builder and Main interfaces of Smartabase.

Internationalisation enhancements for Dutch, French and Spanish

We’ve made some further improvements to how we handle and support languages other than English. This is part of a large ongoing project to make Smartabase more accessible in different languages, with Dutch, French and Spanish now approaching completion. These updates are specifically related to ensuring all remaining aspects of Smartabase have their own localisation. Updates will be applied for Dutch translations with the initial release of version 6.6, and the French and Spanish updates will be added soon after via a patch release.

General improvements and bug fixes

  • We’ve fixed an issue where push notifications weren’t being received on iOS devices.
  • We’ve addressed an issue resulting in people getting an authorisation warning message on the main interface, directly after opening the administrator interface in a separate tab.
  • We identified and rectified an issue that affected people who tried to upload files following a change to their IP address during a session.
  • We’ve resolved an issue where videos would not upload to multi-file upload fields for some macOS users.
  • We received feedback that some user account fields were being removed when the account was deactivated due to too many failed log-in attempts, specifically when using single sign-on to log in. This has now been resolved.
  • A recent update resulted in some minor inconsistencies when setting filters in the reports module. The Include all option now displays correctly for all filtering selections.
  • For some clients using external video functionality, we’ve resolved a couple of issues related to setting up new video repositories via the administrator interface and saving new entries into the repository.
  • We’ve fixed some minor styling issues which appeared when creating history calculations in the builder interface.
  • We’ve added a new error message which displays in the builder interface when building event forms. Now you’ll be warned if you add Historical to the beginning of a field name, which interferes with the syntax used by history calculations.
  • In some cases, the selected expiry time for password reset links wasn’t applied. We’ve resolved this issue, so now the time chosen by an administrator when resetting a password will be adhered to.
  • We’ve addressed an issue where files that had been exported from Smartabase via CSV could not be re-imported by the person who hadn’t exported the data.
  • Some administrators experienced issues when viewing user accounts that included profile images. We’ve made some updates so you won’t see a ‘not authorised’ error when accessing these accounts.
  • Previously, the Sidebar system permission was needed to show critical information in the athlete (right) sidebar. Now, you only need the Athlete Sidebar system permission for this to display.
  • We’ve resolved an issue resulting in an unexpected error appearing in group entry mode when clicking in a cell of the table that cannot be edited, in particular with forms that contained multiple table rows.
  • Image type fields were not adhering to their default to last value settings, which we’ve resolved in this release.
  • In certain text summary calculations, raw HTML tags were incorrectly displaying in the sidebar history. This has now been resolved.
  • We’ve resolved an issue where the profile data button didn’t show if the person had no permission to any profile forms. Now this button will display, so you can edit user account details from this module (if you have the required permissions).
  • We’ve resolved an issue where data permissions weren’t behaving correctly for some people with more than one role assigned to their account.
  • We’ve removed the restrictions on commercial sites so that repeated failed log-in attempts do not deactivate users.
  • Within the Smartabase mobile application, we’ve resolved an issue where the athlete count shown on the athlete selection screen was incorrect.

 

Highlights from your last Smartabase release notes

In the last release notes, for Smartabase version 6.5, we announced:

  • More configuration options for password criteria.
  • Applying password policies to roles.
  • Explicit control for how multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes are communicated (SMS, email and/or authenticator application).
  • Collapsible sidebars in the Smartabase administrator, builder and main interfaces.
  • Improved user experience when accessing the data specification tool.
  • A new tool for whitelisting IP addresses to reduce unnecessary multi-factor authentication (MFA) firing.
  • Expanded configuration options for connections between enterprise sites.

If you missed those release notes, you can read them here.