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Topics started by Phil Seifert

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Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Alliance Email Listener - not identifying inbound email sender

Alliance has functionality to receive inbound emails. It is possible to configure the application to identify the customer if the email address of the sender is a known address in the profile database or if the email contains a structured API where there are login credentials as part of the API. This is documented in the following to PDF’s supplied with Alliance:Email Listener Configuration Guide.pdfEmail Listener User Guide.pdfIn the event where the email is not a structured API, Alliance tries to find the sender’s email address anywhere in the database. This could be an address on the Customer, contact or even a labor activity row.When a non-structured email is received, it is initially viewed in the Multi Channel List module. If the customer information is not populated and you are confident this is a known email address than there is likely more than one row returned in the search for the email address.For example, the Customer has an email address on the company record but rec

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Define Default View in v15 Web Employee Modules

The Alliance v15 application has the ability to define views for common searches. The view can contain search criteria or even refresh rate setting. This allows the user to quickly switch between different search sets with just a couple clicks instead of updating all the criteria etc.Once you have searched with your criteria and accept the search is correct, you can save the view (option is in the upper left corner):Give it a name:After this, you can define the view that should be the default view each time you enter the module. Most people set this to Last View but it is also possible to set a different view as the default:The difference between the Last View is that this view always contains the search critera that you last searched by which is dynamic in that you can change the search and Last View is always updated with the change. Most users should keep the Last View as the DEFAULT so if they are working on several documents grouped by the search, they will go back to the same

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Upgrading Alliance to SU5 - Update WebBrowserMapKey

When upgrading Alliance to SU5 and still using the Employee Portal (Astea Browser) for the Dispatch Console, please do not forget to update the key for the WebBrowserMapKey. This is documented in the Release Notes for SU5 (page 18) but if you are an experienced system admin doing installations, having done many installations it is easy to not notice this step and you get license errors against the DLL.System.Exception: License '42709258016' is not valid for this build or this product. Each version uses a different license key. Please make sure your license key version matches your DLL version. If you are testing a new version with an old license key, please remove your old license key to avoid this exception. This is only required if using the Dispatch Console still via the Astea Browser. There is no impact on the Web Employee Portal Dispatch Console via the agnostic browsers (Chrome, Edge).

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Corrupted Display Alliance scroller Inbound Data Audit

We had a customer who reported an issue with the display in the Inbound Data Audit module where the scroller results were corrupted:This only occurred for them when they had the API Result column enabled in the results. Removing it, the display was normal.Upon further testing, MS Edge did not exhibit this same problem. As both browsers are using the Chromium web engine it seemed logical to update the Chrome version: Once this was done on the client I was using, the display worked properly also in the Chrome browser.Advice is to keep the browsers up to date with latest versions.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Google Chrome - V112 - Mobile Edge white screen

Google has updated their browser again to v112 and at this time, Mobile Edge is not accessible in via Google Chrome. This is using HTTP protocol.We are investigating to see if there is a solution.Symptom - with v111 it is possible to get to the login screen of Mobile Edge with Chrome, after today’s update to v112 (6-Apr-2023), it is no longer possible and you will see a white screen.At this time, if you need to use Mobile Edge via a computer client, you will need to deploy the native Windows app for Mobile Edge instead of using Chrome.To deploy the native app for Windows, use this URL accordingly.http://<your mobile edge domain>/asteamobileedge/install.htmlhttps://<your mobile edge domain>/asteamobileedge/install.html Please note, Chrome is not officially used for Edge acceptance testing which should only really be done with the native apps.Please also keep in mind you can only have one Windows Astea Mobile client deployed per Windows Client. Please how to switch environm

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

sp_application_views_culturefix Error upgrading from 15.3HF5 to v15.4SU4

We found an issue when a customer upgrades from an existing v15.3 HF5 (or HF6) environment the v15.4 database utility is adding a duplicate global parameter which causes an error in a later SU update, in this case SU4.Use this script to see the problem after running the upgrade to SP4 and then updating to SU4.SELECT * FROM ap_glb_param WHERE ap_glb_param_code = 'glb_views_ignore_culture'Two rows will be returned for id 305166 and 305167. The 305167 row should be removed before running the db upgrade for SU4 on the database as there should only be one row and the param_id should be 305166. This caused the error in the SU4 upgrade and was found specifically by reviewing the results.log: 29/03/2023 11:33:43 Script: exec sp_application_views_culturefix29/03/2023 11:33:43 Status: Error, Error Message: Subquery returned more than 1 value. This is not permitted when the subquery follows =, !=, <, <= , >, >= or when the subquery is used as an expression. Error number:

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Billing contract monthly seems to bill two periods

A customer recently experienced an issue where they created a customer contract with the coverage starting the last day of a month and the billing set up is monthly. This creates billing dates on the last day of each month if the coverage starts from 31-Mar: When they run their monthly billing, they are selecting the Due Date To of 30-Apr if they are billing for contract coverage in April in advance. Intention was to get all billing period for the single month invoiced for all their contracts where they need payment in April.However, they found that it billed both 31-Mar and 30-Apr periods when they only wanted to bill the 31-Mar period. This is because the selection is based on the Due Date to <= 30-Apr so would include both the 31-Mar billing date AND the 30-Apr billing date.The simplest solution to this was create the contract with the 1st Invoice date being the first day of the following month when you create a contract that starts the last day of the month. When you do this

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Added Profile - error message - Error in GetAccountsState:

A customer reached out when adding a second profile along side another profile in their environment setup getting the following error message:Error in GetAccountsState:Account must be defined for each profile or not be defined for any profile.INCONSISTENT_EMPTY_ACCOUNTThis is due to defining an account for a profile while there is another profile which does not have an account just as the error message indicates. From the Configuration Editor Utility Guide.pdf, the following except:In this specific case, there appears to be an account defined on one of the two profiles. Solution is either remove the account definition from all the profiles or add one to all the profiles.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Tip for On Premise Alliance Customers Importing to v15

For our customers who previously used older versions such as v12.5 or v10 and have now upgraded to v15, a small tip.In the past it was handy to use the import utility on the server itself rather than the doing imports from the Astea Browser client. Reason, the import from the client relied on the client connection to manage the import process. If the connection was lost (say after no activity from the user for an hour), the import also stopped. Long running imports were affected.With v15 and the new Import process moving to the Web Employee Portal, when initiating the import from the Web Employee Portal using a data file for import, this file is now uploaded to the server and the server manages the import process from there. It is no longer necessary to be connected with the client once the import starts.This also allows you to use the Import Export Audit module to retrieve the data source file or the ITF used for the Import. Please use the import module available in the Web Emplo

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

MS Windows Server Updates 14 Feb 2023 - breaks IIS for Alliance

On 14 Feb 2023, the following two MS updates for Windows Server have caused issues with Alliance and IIS.Windows 2016 KB5022838Windows 2019 KB5022840Users reported seeing IIS internal error messages, blank screens, etc. after these were deployed. This was reported impacting Astea Browser, Publisher website and Mobile Edge by our customers. We found a solution to the issue with the Windows Updates pushed last night. The fix is to:On the affected server go to C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\Config Open applicationHost.config Search for .msu Find this: <system.webServer> <webSocket enabled="false" receiveBufferLimit="4194304" pingInterval="00:00:10" /> <staticContent> <mimeMap fileExtension=".msp" mimeType="application/octet-stream" /> <mimeMap fileExtension=".msu" mimeType="application/octet-stream" /> <mimeMap fileExtension=".apk" mimeType="application/octet-stream" />

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

How to Move Retired Items back to inventory

Question came up how to move items with status Retired in Alliance back into warehouse inventory. Some basic understanding, a retired item is one which was formerly located on a site and then was uninstalled but without a return to inventory. Thus technically the item still with/owned by the customer but not linked to the site and not to Alliance inventory.To return this item to inventory, it is necessary to find the item (use Item Locator) and open the item record which will be you to the Removed Item module.From here, you can reactivate the item which will change the status back to Installed Item against the former site it was located. Now the item is at the site and can be returned to inventory using either of the following methods:Service order - Uninstall with material return Customer ReturnDuring these processes you can change the item type status from bad to good if this suits your requirements.Please note, this status is NOT the same as Removed/Scrapped which another process w

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

How to move scrapped/missing item from Removed Item to Inventory

Case: Someone has indicated an item is no longer available (undelivered and not expecting to receive the item later) and now the item is in the Removed Items with a status of Scrapped/Missing.Later, this item is found and you want to bring it back into inventory.Solution: Create a Miscellaneous Receive for the warehouse/bin you want to have it and on the product line use the same serial number as the removed item. The application will inform you this serialized item is a removed item and ask if you want to move it back to inventory. Answer yes and save the Miscellaneous Receive document.The item will now appear in the warehouse and bin you requested with history linked to the item prior to the removal.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Alliance Customizer - Computed Columns - Require Underlying Field for Batch

Case Scenario:Customer modified the Customer Support - Resolve Page so when the order is flagged as Resolved, the Problem, Cause and Repair codes were mandatory.[Mimics the functionality for Workflow (Service) of setting these codes mandatory when resolved which Workflow (Cust. Support) does not have the same functionality.]This was working in the UI properly for the Customer Support module however when the same orders were to be invoiced by a batch via Audit Queue they did not invoice and event log errors appeared such as ‘Problem Code Description is mandatory’. It was not possible to invoice the orders from the queue in the batch but was possible to invoice from within the customer support order itself.The setup of the mandatory condition by the customer was as below: While this works in the UI for the resolve page, it does not work for other batch processes not using the page.Solution:Note the red text in the dialog window which warns that you must add the underlying column with a

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Mobile Edge - Can't See Receive Lists

We recently had a case where a field engineer was not seeing receiving lists which are sent down to his Alliance Mobile Edge client. The receiving documents existed but just was not visible.Issue resolved by removing the filter that was used in the module. If you are not seeing documents that should be there, please check if the filter is enabled (it would be Blue in the case below) and remove the filter. This may seem obvious but can be overlooked.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Alliance Google Maps not functioning (17-Feb 2022)

Service BulletinAs of 17-Feb 2022 - Google maps is not functioning with the Alliance products for many customers. The user will encounter the following error in most cases: In v14, the error is:This is already with our R&D team to analyze and when we know more, this topic will be updated.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Bulletin: Internet Explorer EOL June 2022

Bulletin involving IE EOL Support in IFS Alliance Summary:EOL of IE 11 is planned to be in June 2022. That means that users won’t be able to launch IE application, but its engine, used by Astea Browser, will continue working. DC and other functionality within Astea Browser will continue working smoothly.Impact: After EOL of IE 11, Astea Browser cannot be installed for new clients using IE and therefore in our latest HFs we added possibility to install Astea Browser from MS Edge.There are some places in the application that opens IE windows to display some information. For example, when SSRS report is lunched, the system opened an additional IE window to display the report. This won’t be allowed after EOL of IE 11.Therefore, in the latest HFs instead of IE, the system opens the SSRS reports within default browser defined for the client. The default browser replaces IE when a user opens User Guide PDFs files (Help), BI graphs, OLAP reports and OLAP scorecards, like in Customer Health Das

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Windows Server 2016 and TLS 1.0, 1.1 removal

Many companies are removing support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 from their servers, usually to enhance security.It has been seen when using Windows Server 2016 there are issues when disabling these TLS versions and only TLS 1.2 is enabled. This is encountered when using Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server and using the DB connection dialog from Configuration Editor to the profile database.To remedy this, it is necessary to deploy a new driver from Microsoft on the servers: Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL ServerThis driver is needed for Alliance v14 HF24 (& higher) or Alliance v15.1 (& higher) when running on Windows Server 2016 to support TLS 1.2.Earlier versions of Alliance do not support TLS 1.2 in the Astea Browser (Publisher)Windows Server 2019 already supports this DB driver with TLS 1.2 and is not necessary to install.There is an installation package supplied with Alliance v15.4:\Setup\Tools\TLS-SQL-Provider\msoledbsql_18.1.0.0_x64.msi

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Cannot Edit My Dispatch Console Settings Alliance v15.4

Question came in asking how to allow editing of the My Dispatch Console Settings in Alliance 15.4 today. By default, you would see a screen like below where all the options are locked. To edit these settings, you must click the Personalize button in the upper left. Otherwise you will be using the default settings. To revert back to default, click the … and choose Restore Default.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Alliance v15 views are browser culture dependent.

If you create views or favorites and then change the language culture of your Chrome or Edge browser (normally done to change the formatting on the screen like date or time) you will lose access to any previously saved views (organizational included) in the drop down selection as they are currently culture dependent.For example, you create a view while using English United States (en-us) as the language of the browser but then switch to Dutch (nl-nl), the views & favorites will no longer be in the drop down selection appearing they are removed.You can restore them by selecting the previous language.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Mobile Edge 15.4 & Higher - log files moved

This is topic is for customers who have upgraded their Mobile Edge to 15.4 or higher from older versions.Prior to Edge 15.4, log files for Mobile were captured in the following event logs.After Edge 15.4, the logs are moved to:For Mobile logs - Program Files\Alliance Mobile Edge\AsteaMobileEdgeServices\LogsFor transaction failures - check the Alliance profile event log as you would for the backend application.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Installing Mobile Edge 15.4 Full - bad company or license file

For our on-premise customers.When installing Alliance Mobile Edge 15.4 and receiving this message: While you are sure the company name and license file is the latest or correct one, please confirm the LastInstallationDate within the license file. Usually the license files are restricted to allow installations for a single year after issuing. Note, you cannot modify this license and must request a new file from your local Alliance support team.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

After new Deployments - please check for Customizer Conflicts

After deploying a new release such as a hotfix release, sometimes overlooked is whether there are Customizer changes that are now in conflict with the new release. This can be identified by logging into the Alliance Browser as a customizer, going to the Customer menu and using the Conflict Resolver.If there are conflicts, they will be listed and you can select which conflicts to resolve. When this is completed, the resolved conflicts are placed into the DEV branch (not Public) for you to review and accept.When the changes are accepted in the Dev branch, publish the Customizer changes again to make them available for other users.This should be done every time after a deployment of new releases to avoid issues caused by missing Customizer customizations.

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Meter Billing does not generate invoices

When doing meter billing from customer contracts and there does not appear to be any invoices generated, please check what the setup is for Bill Only Validate Readings in the Workflow (contract) module. If it is enabled, you need to validate the readings first which can normally be done by using the Trial Run functionality of the billing module involved (e.g. Consolidated Billing Batch, Contract Billing Batch).When the meter is validated, you will see that in the readings as shown below by the check mark under the Is Validated column: If you don’t need to validate, disable the parameter in the Workflow (contracts)

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

Moble Customizer - cannot connect to AsteaMobileCustomizer website

We recently had a customer who deployed a new UAT environment as a single server deployment where it was not possible to connect to the AsteaMobileCustomizer website. The error they were seeing in Chrome was a 404 error and also:Using this topic as a basis for troubleshooting written by Andrew d’Antonio:We found there were references to other servers in the redis-windows.conf and redis-sentinel.conf files than the single server. The global.xml was set up correctly, the mobilecustomizer config.json also was correct.The problem was how redis functions with master, slave relationships. One server serves as a master and other redis servers act as slaves & fallback retaining the server information for each server that was part of the redis configuration.Changing only the two redis configuration on the single server environment was not sufficient to disconnect the external servers from the other environments as at one point in time in the past, they all were connected in a multi-serve

Phil SeifertUltimate Hero (Employee)

posted in Alliance

State is invalid / session timeout unexpectedly

I have encountered a situation when logging in as a user into the Employee Portal but after a few minutes, my session was no longer valid or state invalid.In this case, it turned out there were multiple environments connecting to the same database profile. This causes an issue as each environment maintains its own timers for managing the connection and they are usually conflicting with each other.To determine if there are multiple environments connecting to the same database profile, run the following query:SELECT last_updated, server_name, server_aliasFROM ap_appservers;If you see multiple rows, look at the server names and see if they are from the same environment. In the case shown below, the two servers were not from the same environment and the user was constantly being thrown out.This really becomes an issue when the two environments are in completely different time zones so the session timers evaluating the last access datetime may appear longer than the allowed

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