Governance

In the coming week there will be the next update of Delegate rolled out. This will be Delegate version 2.9 which includes these updates: New Synchronization: We improved the sync processes (for domains, security groups, distribution lists and user and licenses) which now are combined in one simple step. The user import now can be configured with rules for putting users in specific OU´s depending on special properties (country, security groups, AAD properties…) ...

In Delegate365 version 2.8 there´s a new setup wizard included (as announced here). With this function companies no longer need to create a (temporary) administrator user for doing the setup process of Delegate365 but instead can setup their Azure Active Directory on their own for working with Delegate365. Prerequisites To configure your real company AAD with Delegate365 you get two access information by atwork: The Setup-URL (which usually goes like https://[yourcompany].azurewebsites.net/setup) and a configuration password (which is in fact a code) to give you the access for the setup process. This code is important and valid for this specific Delegate365 appliance. With that code you can setup the service accounts till the code is changed. More about that later. ...

Next week there will Delegate version 2.8 rolled out to all appliances. There will be new features included: Setup-Wizard: There´s a new setup wizard included, so that each customer can do the configuration (and renewal of the service account) of his D365 version on his own. New Synchronization: moved to version 2.9 (updated) More to come in the next version(s)… BTW: We added the update date information and bullets in the style sheet (which was missing) in the changelog on https://delegate365.com/changelog. ...

In Delegate365 version 2.7 there were some minor fixes rolled out. Style Sheets and client messages were updated. The user import with an CSV file had a problem with updating the new imported users in the users list. Since D365 uses a cache layer for user objects to improve performance since version 2.3 the new users didn´t show up immediately after the file import but after the automatic sync task (which runs in the background in a predefined time frame). With this fix the new importet users now show up immediately in the users list. ...

Delegate365 changelog version 2.6. We internally changed the encryption of stored credentials and extended it to protect all custom values. D365 uses an own Service Account for accessing and transferring user data to Azure Active Directory. For Exchange functionality like Alias email addresses or distribution lists as well as reporting data D365 needs additional credentials. These essential data must be stored in a secure way. To ensure safety in D365 we changed the encryption and extended it to all properties stored in the D365 database with version 2.6. Now all custom config values (even fields like company name, address, phone number, etc.) are encrypted with an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. ...

Delegate365 changelog version 2.5. There´s a new feature concerning distribution lists built in. We got the request that it would be useful to integrate existing distribution lists into other distribution lists (DL) in D365, so that all members of a DL automatically receive emails if their DL is member of one or more other DL(´s). So now in D365 v2.5 it is possible to put existing DL´s as member into another DL. This feature is handy and reduces potential synchronization steps and eases the organizational tasks for the admins. ...

Delegate365 changelog version 2.4. We optimized some changes in the SMS notification service. New feature SMS-notification. Each customer can define if he wants to use SMS notifications in D365 or not. With SMS there are additional costs for the SMS provider. To ensure that a customer is aware of that function we can completely switch the SMS sending on or off. Admins: If yes, admins can define if they want to receive a notification via email and/or SMS: When editing the admin you can define each channel: email and/or SMS. The format of the phone number must be like this sample: ...

Delegate365 changelog version 2.3. This version is a major release. We made some changes in the time consuming tasks and optimized them. Performance Improvements in all user lists: If an AAD or Office 365 tenant has many thousand users loading the list of all users was time consuming. The reason is that the Microsoft GraphAPI delivers objects in slices (we take about 200 users per call to ensure there are no timeout errors) but has no filter functions we need for separating our domains and OU´s in D365. The result have been some wait time in some cases if many thousand users are existing. So we decided to improve that mechanism and add a cache layer between the AAD and our D365 client. With version 2.3 there´s an extra service added which synchronizes all new, updated and deleted user objects in our own cache. This service runs in the background and takes care of all changes in AAD. The D365 client now uses that cache and has a completely new logic with async calls and organizies the requested data page per page. So – depending on the individual page size – the client at runtime requests only the data page which is rendered. The benefit is that all user list operations like searching and paging are happening instantly in less than one second, regardless of the number of users to be shown. This performance improvement delivers a great user experience even with ten thousands of users in the user list! ...

Delegate365 changelog version 2.2. This was an internal version only for testing some new features… We rolled out that version on some of our demo clients and did some heavy testing of the performance with many thousand users and tested SMS notifications. We built in some new features which will be integrated in the next official release 2.3.

April/May 2014 Added User Self Password Reset (SPR): Now users (not only admins) can login into D365. If the admin had deposited a notification for the specific user (email or SMS), the user can perform a self password reset. When resetting the password the user can decide if he wants to receive the necessary security-code via email or SMS (depending on the settings made by the admins). Then he receives the code and gets a temporary password on the website. With that he can login and now has to change the password to his own, individual password. This function simplifies the administrative effort when users can use this reset on their own. This feature is integrated in D365. *So IT departements have no need to buy Azure premium licenses just for their users to perform self service password reset when using D365! * SMS is a preview function. If used, additional costs for the SMS provider will be added – depending on the location (country) and the amount of SMS messages which is usually about 10 Cent per SMS. ...