It’s time for the first Spiceworks 7.5 Beta, and they’ve put me “in charge” of the blog post. That doesn’t necessarily strike me as the best idea, but I have to admit that Brian G and I are really excited about the features we’re working on for 7.5 – things that people have been asking for and things that are going to help make your job easier. So please check out the beta , give us your feedback, and help us find those elusive bugs.
And now for what’s new! First, let’s start with the Help Desk:
We introduced the ticket dashboard with 7.4 and it was a big success. Now we’re adding information about individual techs on the dashboard so you can see how you compare to your peers based on tickets worked and time spent. Bring on the competition!
You can also see breakdowns based on ticket category so you can figure out where you’re spending the majority of your time and do something about it. (Does equipment need replacing? Do users need training?) We’re also adding the ability to create custom graphs in 7.5 to track the data that matters to you most (not in the first beta, but coming soon™).
We’ve also enhanced the “Waiting on user” ticket state so tickets automatically go back into the “Open” state when a user replies. There are new reports and alerts to help you keep on top of tickets in the “Waiting on user” state.
Attachments got a boost in 7.5, as well. Images and PDFs now display in your browser when you click on them so you can be more efficient. We’ve also added in-line thumbnails so you can more easily find images in the ticket.
The Knowledge Base now allows you to move articles from the cloud to your local install and vice versa. Share your knowledge with other SpiceHeads and help keep the Spice flowing!
Last but not least, the Help Desk now supports a new #notify “ticket anywhere” command for one-time email notification.
For Inventory we’ve got a couple of cool new things:
From talking to you guys, we’ve realized that you like to see data in table form (think spreadsheets). Thus, we have a new table view to allow you to more easily view your devices. You can choose the properties of a device that are most important for you to display, and then organize them however you wish. We’ve also included a wicked-fast search for device properties within the table.
You’ve asked to be able to use your own images for devices. With new custom device icons, instead of staring at printers and switches, you can now upload your own images so you can personalize the device view in a way that’s meaningful to you (or have your kid or cat smiling back at you).
Finally, we’ve made it easier to delete unknown devices that you don’t want cluttering up your inventory. That functionality now appears on the scan page, and you can even take it one step further by excluding the unwanted device from future scans.
And for 7.5 as a whole:
Our settings were admittedly a bit difficult to navigate, and the UI needed some updating. With new and improved settings, we’ve modernized things and made them more intuitive. Please note – this is really a Beta version of settings, and we know it’s going to be buggy. We have a list of 2, but we really wanted to get this out there for you to try – both to give us your thoughts on the new design and to help us verify that we didn’t miss any backend functionality.
That’s what we have so far. We’ve got a few more things coming in the next beta, but we wanted to get this version out to you sooner as opposed to later so you can get started and we can start making improvements based on your findings. So join the beta group , help us out by actively testing the beta, and earn yourself a fine-looking Spiceworks 7.5 Beta badge in the process!
Jackie.
