CMDBuild Newsletter n. 48

March 2015

CMDBuild is a configurable web application to model and manage a database containing assets (CMDB stands for "Configuration and Management Data Base") and handle related workflow operations.

CMDBuild is promoted by the Municipality of Udine and developed by Tecnoteca srl.

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CMDBuild ready2use

As many of you have already tested, the main feature of CMDBuild is the possibility of implementing completely custom solutions, by freely modeling the CMDB and visually drawing workflows and reports according to your needs.

In order to realize in this way a fully custom solution, you need some economic and time resources, which are not always available or at hand.

In order to solve even these situations, we are working on CMDBuild ready2use, a CMDBuild configuration ready to be used in a production environment.

CMDBuild ready2use originates from the experience of several installations realized internationally, it follows the ITIL best practices and includes all necessary features for a medium / large sized organization:

• configuration management of hardware and software items, client and infrastructure area items, physical and virtual ones, services and dependencies, staff and offices, suppliers, locations, etc.
• self-service interface for the users to access the service catalog, open incidents and start new requests
• Incident Management, Request FulFillment, Change Management, Asset Management workflows
• sync connectors with Active Directory (staff data sync), OCS Inventory (sync of physical host data) and VMware VCenter (sync of virtual host data)

CMDBuild ready2use keeps obviously the possibility of reusing CMDBuild base mechanisms to customize or expand the suggested standard configurations.

CMDBuild ready2use will be released in the beginning of May, with features available to everyone and other reserved to the subscribers of the maintenance service.

Further information can be found on this section of the CMDBuild website.

New Version CMDBuild 2.3.1

The new version CMDBuild 2.3.1 is going to be released in the second half of the month of April.

It will include:

• complete revision of the mail management system, as described in the following news
• option to select the subclasses where you want to deactivate a domain defined on a superclass
• refactoring of the second-level localization system (names of classes, attributes, lookup values, direct and inverse relations, menu items, etc.), which will be also available in the SOAP and REST webservice methods and therefore in the external “mobile” and “GUI Framework” interfaces
• improvement of  the workflow API's in order to allow the suspension and the restart of a process
• option to save directly a CSV report as text file
• new APIs to manage in the workflow the attachments stored in the DMS (creating, displaying, updating, deleting, moving, copying)
• new version of the REST webservice with new features that manage reports, workflow widgets, emails, second-level localization
• bug fixing

In the meanwhile we are also working on the new “Relation Graph”, which is going to replace and extend the current one, starting from the version CMDBuild 2.4.

Extension of the e-mail management system

The complete refactoring of the e-mail management system is in progress.

Its impact will occur not only in the workflow implementation but also in other aspects of the interface managing classes and processes.

The new system suggests now, as standard solution to send e-mail, the use of email templates stored into the CMDB (introduced into the recent version 2.1.8), rather than the previous descriptors configured in the workflow XPDL files.

The new features, available with the next version 2.1.3, will include:

• option to send emails – with or without template – not only during the workflow, but also from a data card of an enabled class (suppliers, users, etc.)
• activation of a new TAB “Email”, which will appear in the interface just before the TAB “Attachments” and which will offer all the mail management features already available in the widget “manageEmail”, in addition to some other described below
• introduction of a new component queuing the outgoing emails, with more control of errors in sending the emails
• option to save in a specific folders the sent emails
• option to send emails in “quick mode”, both operating on a class and on a workflow, without waiting for advancement to the next step
• option to send emails with a desired delay you have to specify in the template or in the email itself
• automatic regeneration of emails based on a template for each change of class / process field used as a parameter in the template (controlled by a new parameter “Automatic Sync”, included in the templates)
• automatic notification of the emails that would be sent with not-updated data, in case the control at the previous point is disabled

openMAINT versione 1.0

In a month from now the new release of openMAINT will come out.  This new versione, based on the last CMDBuild release 2.3.1, will include worflows, bug fix and the long awaited mobile module.

The mobile app will allow users to manage "on field" all the aspects of maintenance, giving significant benefits and increasing time efficiency.

Worth mentioning the possibility to take pictures directly sent to the server and matched with the corresponding assets or the possibility to read a QR code and open up the relative asset's card.

The app will work on Android and iOS tablets and smartphones and will only be available to customers who subscribed to the annual maintenance program.

openMAINT webinar

On the 14th of May, a live international webinar will be hold in order to present the new features of the version 1.0 of openMAINT.

The webinar will focus on the new features but mostly on the mobile interface.

At the end of it, you will have the chance to ask our team any commercial/technical questions you may have and receive live answers.

The language of the webinar will be English. Participation is free but registration at this page is mandatory.