Vector Census README

(build 7.2.0.132.872)

This document contains important information about the release of Vector Census 8. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Census, please read the Upgrade Readme.


Installing the Evaluation Version of Vector Census

To install the evaluation version of Vector Census:

  1. Review the system requirements and supported configurations before you start the Setup program.
  2. Log on to your Web server with a domain account that has Administrator permissions.
  3. Install all Vector Census components on your Web server.
  4. After the installation is completed, a configuration program will automatically start. At the end of this you will be able to use the default Web Views.

Notes

  • The Setup program creates a local user account that is used to access the Vector Census databases and for anonymous access to the Web views. For more information about this Windows user account, please look up "Windows account" in the index of the online help for Census Web Admin, Census Admin, or the Web View Editor.
  • Census Admin requires the Access 2000 Runtime, Access 2000, or Access XP. If you do not have Access 2000 or Access XP installed on your system, the setup program installs the Access 2000 Runtime.
  • Census requires the Microsoft .Net Runtime. If you do not have it installed on your system, the setup program installs it.

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Logging On

Admin and demo have administrative-level permissions and can open any Web view. The other accounts are role-based, and have restricted permissions and access to Web views. Use the role-based accounts to see how permissions and workflow rules control the bug tracking process.

Project / View Logon Accounts
Bugs - Customer View
Allows customers to submit new issues (bugs) and check the status of existing issues. Shows only the information entered by the customer. Notes and information added by development staff is hidden.
Jean Customer
Bugs - Development View (full)
Allows users to log and track development issues such as bugs and enhancement requests. Shows all issues and issue information, and is intended for use by QA, developers, managers and any one else involved in product development. Enforces a bug-tracking workflow.
Jean Manager
Jean Developer
Jean Tester
Support Calls - Support View
Allows users to log and track support issues for external customer support. Enforces a workflow for handling support calls.
Jean Support Analyst
Jean Support Leader
Support Calls and Bugs - Support View
The XSupportBugTrk project allows users to log support calls and development issues (such as bugs) into the same database. The Support view allows users to log and track support issues, and enforces a workflow for handling support calls.
Jean Support Analyst
Jean Support Leader
Support Calls and Bugs - Development View
The Dev view allows users to log and track development issues, and enforces a workflow for handling product development issues.
Jean Tester
Jean Manager
Jean Developer
Weekly Timesheets - Employee View
Allows you to record and track weekly timesheets. You can track employee time by project, holidays, vacation, and sick days.
Any
TestSuite / TestSuite
Allows you to record and track test cases and results.
Jean Tester
Jean Manager

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What's New in this Release

  • Service Level Agreements
    Define service level agreements that specify required response and resolution times based for different users, departments, and companies. Define hours of operation and holiday support schedules for each service level. Create escalation rules to automatically escalate priority issues. Measure service-level compliance with SLA violation reports.
  • E-mail Signatures
    An e-mail signature consists of text that is automatically added to the end of all outgoing e-mail messages.
    Each user can create his or her own custom signature, which allows for a more personal communication when working with the end users, while keeping the advantages of having a single e-mail address for Census.
    The e-mail signature can be rich in formatting, too. Use the E-mail Signature Editor for changing colors, fonts, adding hyperlinks and images.
  • New Remote Control Master from the Web
    Connect to a remote computer with a single click and resolve the incident. The new Remote Control Master is embedded within Census, it has a simple, user-friendly interface and it supports Viewing, Controlling, using the remote Clipboard and transferring files.
  • Spell-checker in Firefox
    Census fully supports the spellchecker functionality in Firefox, even for e-mail messages that are in HTML format. Simply hold CTRL, and right-click an underlined word for suggestions.
  • Show/Hide Search in Firefox
    Support for showing/hiding the Search area of the Web view in Firefox.
  • New E-mail Notifications
    Census can now send automatic e-mail notifications to the owner of a ticket when a non-owner user makes a change to the issue (i.e. updates the ticket).
  • Adding Child Issues
    Adding child issues is now easier with the enhanced dialog that uses a summary-list type of selection where the user can run a query and view additional details before adding the link.
  • E-mail / SLA ‘Run Program’ actions
    Improved support for command line arguments in E-mail/SLA ‘Run Program’ actions. Census now supports multiple arguments and macros. For example: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\externalApp.exe" .
  • License Management
    Enhanced license management of the Census sessions with the ability to reuse previous floating-licenses.
  • Improved Performance for Web views
    Improved performance when using regular Web views, especially with projects that have many issues and choice lists with many possible values.
  • New optional Single-choice and Multi-choice list
    Single-choice and multi-choice fields now have the option to display the list of possible values or choices in a dialog that supports searching and paging, which significantly benefits fields that have many choices.
  • More Languages Supported
    Enhanced support for non-English languages, especially in Web views, E-mail Integration and E-mail Notifications.
  • Keep the e-mail conversation with the associated issue
    Automatically add e-mails replied back from Users or Contacts to an existing issue or ticket. Automatically or manually create tickets from new e-mails that arrive into the POP3 mailbox.
  • Mailbox Workflow
    Define rules for automatically creating issues, linking e-mails to issues, sending automatic e-mail responses, etc. Automatically assign, set status and more from incoming e-mails. Set priority automatically to Highest for specific VIP senders. Create rules for ignoring specific e-mails or SPAM messages so they are not converted to issues.
  • Search issues based on e-mail content
    Increase productivity exponentially by unlocking the knowledge held in other issues, using text search of issues or tickets based on text that was included in related e-mails.
  • Self-service View for users
    Provide your customers or end users with the power to submit new issues, check the status of pending issues and append new information. Do all this from the Web, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, allowing you to save on expensive support calls. Combine Self-service with Knowledgebase Views for the most efficient Service Desk.
  • Web based E-mail configuration
    Web based interface for managing incoming e-mails from different accounts, rules and actions. Remotely configure your mail settings. Integrate with POP3 mail servers. Create rules and actions for getting incoming e-mail from POP servers, convert messages to issues, link messages to issues, send automatic replies, read receipts and more. Work with mail servers even if they are not in the same local network.
  • Automatically create new Contacts from the e-mail
    If your Census or Service Desk allows users to submit issues without previous registration in the system or in an Active Directory, you can take advantage of the automatic creation of contacts from e-mails. Automatically or manually create tickets from new e-mails that arrive into the POP3 mail box.
  • E-mail Templates
    Set standard responses and canned text for rapid responses to common questions. Create your HTML or text templates and save time.
  • Switch Web views
    Switch Web views without having to log off and log on again.
  • Activity Log
    The Activity Log provides all the information about the actions taken to solve the issue in a comprehensive and simple way, automatically keeping track of all the e-mail communication. Readily available and conveniently displayed in an integrated timeline, the Activity Log increases efficiency and reduces the time spent in solving incidents and problems. The Activity Log eliminates the highly inefficient task of going back and forth between applications to check information about the issue and the correspondence with the customer or end user (contact). With Vector Census, you have complete and simple access to all the information about the issue, the contact and the correspondence in chronological order, regardless of whether it was exchanged with you or with other employees.
  • Get Status Report by E-mail
    Built-in auto-reply e-mail allows Users or Contacts to quickly check the status of their issues in a simple way and without the assistance of support personnel.
  • Web views - Select choice list values from dialog
    Single- or multi-choice fields populated from the tblUser table can now be displayed in a searchable dialog. This is controlled by the Select from dialog attribute of the single- and multi-choice fields in the Web View Editor.

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Supported Configurations

Vector Census supports two possible configurations: Standard and Distributed. In both configurations, all Census components are installed on the Web server. The difference between the two configurations is the location of the databases.

Standard Configuration

  • All Census components are installed on the Web server.
  • All databases are located on the Web server. By default, the databases are Microsoft Access databases, but you can migrate them to SQL Server (if you have a license for Census SQL-Enabled).

Distributed Configuration

  • All Census components are installed on the Web server.
  • All databases are SQL Server, and are located on a separate SQL Server computer.

Both configurations allow you to install additional copies of Census Admin and the Web View Editor on other computers. For example, you may want to install a copy of the Web View Editor on your computer, so you can edit and regenerate existing Web views from your desk (to create new Web views, you must run the Web View Editor on the Web server).

Note The distributed configuration is available only with Census SQL Enabled.

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System Requirements

Web Server

  • Operating System

    SQL Enabled Windows 2000, XP, or Server 2003
    Access Enabled Windows 2000, XP, or Server 2003
  • Internet Information Server (IIS)

    Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Internet Information Server (IIS) 6.0
    Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, or Datacenter Server

    Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional should be used only for evaluation and testing, because they support a maximum of ten concurrent connections to IIS.
    Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0
  • Database

    SQL Enabled

    SQL Server 7, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 (SQL Server licenses must be purchased separately).

    Note that SQL Server does not have to be installed on the Web server; another computer may be used as the SQL Server computer.

    The following documents from Microsoft will help you decide what type of licenses are best for you.

    SQL Server Processor Licensing Clarification March 02, 2003
    Choosing How to License SQL Server July 22, 2003
    How to Buy SQL Server July 02, 2003

    Access Enabled

    Microsoft Access database is included

    - or -

    Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (tuned to deliver the same performance as SQL Server for up to five concurrent users. MSDE 2000 supports up to 2GB per database while SQL Server Express supports up to 4GB per database).

  • Browser Internet Explorer v5.01 to v8.0.

  • Cookies, Java, and Javascript must be enabled.

    The Sun Java Runtime Environment is installed on the Web server.

  • Disk space requirements depends on database size (minimum of 270 MB).

  • E-mail System Census e-mail notifications require an SMTP e-mail server.

  • Crystal Reports

    • For custom reports, Census uses the Crystal Reports v9.0 Runtime Software, which is included with the Vector Census.
    • Crystal Reports v9, 10 or 11 is needed if you want to build your own custom reports.
    • A license for the Crystal Reports Creation API is needed if you want to use Crystal Reports for auto-generated listing reports.
      By default, Census uses HTML-based reports for listing reports, printing issues, and formatting e-mail notification messages.
  • Microsoft Access Census Admin requires Microsoft Access 2000 Runtime (included with Vector Census), Access 2000, or Access XP.

Web Admin

  • Java Runtime Environment from Sun v1.4.2 or higher
  • Browser Microsoft Internet Explorer v5.01 to v8.0

E-mail Integration

  • POP3 and SMTP compliant e-mail server

Web views

  • Windows
    • Microsoft Internet Explorer v5.01 to v8.0
    • Netscape Navigator v6.0 to v7.0
    • Mozilla Firefox, all versions up to v2.0
  • Macintosh
    • Netscape Navigator v6.2.x
  • Cookies, Java, and Javascript must be enabled.

    If you need Java Runtime Environment for the clients accessing the Web views, you can download it from Sun Java software.

  • In Internet Explorer, Web views support v1.4.1.x and higher of the Sun Java Runtime Environment.

Additional copies of Census Admin and Web View Editor

This section specifies the minimum requirements for installing Census Admin and the Web View Editor on other computers.

Census Admin
  • Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP, or Server 2003.

  • Requires Microsoft Access 2000 Runtime (included with Vector Census), Access 2000, or Access XP.

  • Pentium 166 MHz processor or higher is recommended.

  • Requires minimum of 70 MB of hard disk space (additional 60 MB for MS Access Runtime).

  • Requires minimum of 64 MB of RAM. (Additional memory will significantly improve performance).

  • Internet Explorer v5.0 to v8.0.

Web View Editor
  • Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP, or Server 2003.

  • Pentium 166 MHz processor or higher is recommended.

  • Requires minimum of 70 MB of hard disk space.

  • Requires minimum of 64 MB of RAM. (Additional memory significantly improves performance).

  • Internet Explorer v5.0 to v8.0.

Power Customizations

Power customizations involve using the Microsoft Access/SQL Server development environment, Visual Basic, Javascript, and other advanced techniques to customize Vector Census.

  • If you have Vector Census Access Enabled, you need a Microsoft Access 2000 or Access XP license.
  • If you have Vector Census SQL Enabled and migrate the global databases to SQL Server, you'll need a license for SQL Server or a third-party tool for editing the data in SQL Server database tables.

Custom Reports

Vector Census includes the Crystal Reports v9.0 Runtime Software. The Setup program installs the Runtime Software on your Web server. This allows users to view custom reports with Crystal Reports.

To build additional custom reports, you need:

Crystal Reports v8.5, 9.x, 10.x or 11.x (Standard, Professional, Developer, or Advanced edition).

Crystal Reports must be purchased separately from Business Objects or another supplier.

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Vector Census Components

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