FrameFlow v2018.4 has entered the final phases of testing and is due for release in the third week of June. This new version includes many new sets of major functionality that have been in development for some time. In this newsletter we’ll go over some of the new features that are coming your way.
One major new addition is the ability to assign properties to device groups and have the devices in the group automatically inherit those properties. For example, you might have a device group that holds all of your database servers. Now you can set properties on that device group, choosing an icon, an authentication profile, and one or more maintenance windows. Now when you drag a device into the group it will automatically pick up those properties.
Learn more about device property inheritance in our aptly-named tech resource page called "Device Property Inheritance".
In FrameFlow 2018.4 you can define user groups and set the permissions that will be granted to the users in those groups. In organizations with multiple FrameFlow users, it’s now easier than ever to manage roles and responsibilities. But not only that, user groups play an important role in the next new feature we would like to tell you about.
In any organization that has multiple FrameFlow users, there will be different people with different areas of responsibility. Everyone wants to make sure that critical IT systems are up and running but it usually makes sense to split up that responsibility into well-defined areas. Perhaps one admin is responsible for monitoring networking equipment, another is responsible for servers, etc. With v2018.4 you can set ownership for dashboards, devices, event monitors and reports.
In v2018.4 the abilities of managers and administrators remain the same. Ownership comes into play for users with more restricted roles. For example, if you assign a user to the View Only role then that user has the ability to see the settings for devices, event monitors and other elements. Now, with the new ownership option, you can also set that user (or a group of users) as owners of one or more devices. This will let the user make changes to the items that they own but not to any other items. Like any security model, it’s tricky to explain succinctly but we’re working on a tutorial which will explain ownership in more detail and give you some real-world examples on how to use it.
What we’ve described so far is only scratching the surface of what is coming your way in v2018.4. There are also new dashboard panel types, new monitoring options, new notification options and lots more. Version v2018.4 is scheduled for release in the third week of June.
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