Last updated on September 27, 2019

7.1 Release Notes

Release Information

Important

All Appspace Release Notes have been moved to: https://docs.appspace.com/release-notes/

Please visit the new site for the latest updates on Appspace releases. This page will no longer be updated, and would be deprecated soon.

The Appspace 7.1 build is for the cloud only.


Cloud Releases

7.1-ac.1

This build includes a new feature to the Announcement card, and focuses on bug fixes, escalations and general platform stability.

Enhancements

  • The Announcement card has been updated to include the following enhancements and features:

    • The Headline and Summary fields’ text layouts can now be aligned to the “Top, Bottom, Middle, 50-50 Middle”.
    • Feature media’s new aspect ratio option, “None”, allows uploaded media to be displayed at it’s actual size.
    • Images can now be positioned easily via a new anchoring option available when users select “None”, “Fit”, or “Fill”.
    • Transitions for layout and text are now separated into individual drop-down menus, each having its own set of transition options. A new text animation is available in the text transition drop-down menu.
    • All card themes have been updated to include the additional features, and color schemes that are aligned to the Appspace branding guideline.


Refer to Create announcement cards for more information.


Resolved Bugs

  • AP-18076 - List of users not displayed after clicking Find users in the Publish tab.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-4347 - Network link or network selection window in user profile does not appear intermittently for certain accounts.
  • AE-4819 - Playout metrics reporting has stopped functioning.
  • AE-4965 - Error occurs when inviting large number of users, and upon retry system displays that users exist.
  • AE-4994 - Browser times out when user without Account Owner privileges makes network changes on devices.
  • AE-5009 - Advanced Device Tasks deployed to a device group, is not executed on devices within the sub-group.
  • AE-5024 - Channel layout does not load on the advanced channel editor in Chrome and Firefox browsers.
  • AE-5102 - Performing a user search in root network, does not display users within subnetwork.
  • AE-5105 - User still receives invitation email, even after error occurs stating that invited user was unsuccessful.

7.1-ac.2

This build focuses on bug fixes, escalations and general platform stability.

Resolved Bugs

  • AP-18119 - Event Calendar widget in an advanced channel (sign) containing large data triggers an error message.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5104 - Account Owner unable to edit users listed in the network.
  • AE-5109 - When an advanced channel is exported and then imported, the channel Overview tab is displayed incorrectly.

7.1-ac.3

This build includes a new card, and focuses on bug fixes, and escalations.

Enhancements

  • Introducing the Schedule Board card, which is designed for viewing the schedule of multiple meeting spaces, on larger displays placed in common areas with many nearby meeting spaces. The card retrieves and displays multiple meeting schedules from multiple rooms and integrates them in one single display for an integrated viewing and booking experience.

    Interactivity for the Schedule Board card is currently supported on iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and LG based devices only.

    Similar to the Room Schedule card (which is ideal for single room booking), the Schedule Board card is compatible with the following calendar data providers:

    • Google G Suite

    • Microsoft Office 365

      • Application authentication, ideal for viewing multiple rooms in organizations that do not allow user based logins, an account with administrator privileges can book all rooms in the organization.
      • User authentication, similar to the Room Schedule card authentication, an account with this permission can only book rooms that have been assigned to the user.

    The Schedule Board card also includes the following features:

    • Booking options

      Users have the option to book instantly or in advance, up to a maximum of four 30-minute blocks (2 hours), depending on the start of the next scheduled meeting. Similar to the Room Schedule card, users are able to check-in, extend, and end meetings, directly from the Schedule Board card.

      The check-in feature is enabled by default, and allows users to check-in a meeting 10 minutes before a meeting starts. The meeting auto-cancels if the meeting is not checked-in 10 minutes after the meeting starts.


    • Viewing options

      At a glance, users are able to view multiple meeting rooms, and the respective meetings in a single view, allowing users to quickly identify which rooms are available or occupied.

      There are two viewing options available, each with its own uniqueness:

      • Current meeting view This simplified view of room schedules, displays only the current and next upcoming meeting, for multiple rooms. Users can also filter this view by status: Available, Check-in, Occupied.


      • Room schedule view

        This view displays a comprehensive schedule of current and all upcoming meetings for multiple rooms enabling the user to make a booking instantly, or in advance up-to three days. Users can also filter this view by status: Available, Check-in, Occupied.


    • Theme customizations

      The Schedule Board card offers a variety of customization options and settings such as the default view of the card, display options, custom logo and logo positioning, custom header, interactivity, background color or image, meeting status color, and many more.


      Refer to View and manage multiple room schedules (Schedule Board card) for more information.


  • A maintenance update to the YouTube card resolves an audio issue where audio from video content is muted by default even when the Media Zone widget audio checkbox has been checked.

  • An update to the Announcement card, ensures that margins applied to a feature media with positions anchored, respect the set aspect ratio.

  • An minor update to the Room Schedule card, enabling support for application authentication on Microsoft Office 365, which is ideal for viewing multiple rooms in organizations that do not allow user based logins, an account with administrator privileges can book all rooms in the organization.


Resolved Bugs

  • AP-16904 - Clicking Users from the Appspace menu, displays “The server has encountered an unexpected error” error message.
  • AP-18133 - Clicking Alerts from the Appspace menu, displays a “Whoops” error page. Clicking the “I want to reconnect again” link on the page redirects to an old Appspace UI page.
  • AP-18136 - When channels are assigned to a channel group and published to a user, the “Published To” field in the channel listing page is empty.
  • CT-898 - Margins and position of the Feature Media in Announcement card does not display correctly.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5102 - Unable to search for users residing in a sub-network, from the root network.
  • AE-5138 - Unable to search for users who are yet to accept user invitations (with a Pending status) from the root network.
  • AE-5068 - Audio on YouTube card is muted by default, when played on BrightSign devices.

7.1-ac.4

This build includes a new scheduling feature to Appspace, and focuses on escalations, and general platform stability.

Enhancements

  • Playlist channels can now be scheduled via the Dayparting feature added to a content’s playout properties, which allows users to publish content on one or more specific dayparts, ideal to reach a certain target demographic:

    • The daypart schedule can be applied to a single content or a folder with multiple content. Daypart schedules can be configured on a daily basis, or weekly, with adjustable durations for each time slot. The daypart schedule can run independently from the normal schedule.

    • Frequency restrictions can be applied together with the daypart schedule, allowing content to be displayed more frequently within it’s schedule time slot based on the following options:

      • Play exactly x number of time per (min, hour, day)
      • Play at most x number of time per (min, hour, day)
      • Play every x time per playout loop
      • Play % of air time


    For configuration information, please refer to the Create a playlist channel article.


  • Updates to the Data Visualization card include:

    • The option to align text to the top, middle, or bottom, of a layout.
    • The option to display or hide axis lines on the Line chart card.
    • New fonts have been added to the font list, while font size values are displayed in ascending order.
    • A smaller logo placeholder.
    • The default color for gridlines has been updated.
    • Chart options have been renamed for a better user experience.
    • Data visualization themes have been updated to be inline with current Appspace branding guidelines.

    Refer to Create data visualization cards for more information.


Resolved Escalations

  • AE-4995 - After inviting a user or creating a network, user needs to logout and re-login to the Appspace console, to be able to perform other actions.
  • AE-5070 - Content update when using the LocalKit API triggers a 500 Internal Server Error in Appspace.
  • AE-5168 - A duplicate of the selected folder is displayed when adding content in Channels.
  • AE-5171 - When logged in as a Network Administrator, where the role was inherited from a user group, unable to edit, add, or delete users in a subnetwork.

7.1-ac.5

This build focuses on bug fixes, escalations and general platform stability.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5132 - User is unable to move to another user group; the “500” error is returned.
  • AE-5197 - User is unable to access the Users page, change to a subnetwork, or click on a specific user to add roles; the “500” error is returned.
  • AE-5202 - User is unable to add or remove user group for a user; a “500” error is returned.
  • AE-5214 - Content is duplicated in the Media Zone widget, when two users with the Network Administrator role, approve the same content via email.

7.1-ac.6

This build focuses on a new Appspace supported card, bug fixes, and escalations.

Enhancements

  • The Google Slides card has been improved with the following features:

    • Improved security via card authentication.
    • Ability to customize the slide duration.
    • New custom template and themes.

    This card was previously a community card. However, with this new enhancement, the card is now officially an Appspace supported card that will continuously be improved by us.

    The Google Slides card is currently not supported on iOS based devices due to bug, which would be resolved in an upcoming update of the Google Slides card.

    Refer to Create Google Slides cards for more information.


Resolved Bugs

  • AP-18441 - Unable to save authentication settings in private cloud, once the SSL certificate has been uploaded.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5254 - The advanced channel (sign) editor does not display widgets until the layout is saved.
  • AE-5265 - Unable to login with SSO credentials, after enabling SSO in Appspace private cloud.
  • AE-5271 - SSO does not function correctly in private cloud.

7.1-ac.7

This build focuses on an updated Room Schedule card, and includes backend optimizations to the Appspace console.

Enhancements

  • The Room Schedule card now supports Crestron’s Room Availability Indicator for Crestron TSS devices, which allows users to quickly identify if a room is available or occupied through the LED light indicators that are mounted above meeting rooms.

    This feature is only supported on Appspace App 1.47 and above.


7.1-ac.8

This build focuses on new features and enhancements, and includes backend optimizations to the Appspace console.

Enhancements

  • An all new Google Sheets card that allows to retrieve and present information from a Google Sheets document is now available. The card can be configured with a public sharing link without authentication, or a private sharing link with authentication, and can display Google Sheets information with the ability to zoom to specific cells on the spreadsheet.

    Refer to Create Google Slides/Google Sheets cards for more information.


  • A new feature with a simple high-level checklist for key tasks is displayed over the dashboard, for first time account owners who sign-in to the Appspace console.

    After all items are completed or the user dismisses the checklist, the system will display the usual dashboard with the standard widgets. If an action button is selected, the system will trigger the appropriate action, while the info icon directs users to articles on the Appspace Knowledge Center.

    Refer to Navigating around the Appspace console for more information.


  • Improved BrightSign timezone configuration, which now includes timezones other than GMT. This enables users with daylight savings to adjust the time accordingly.

    Below is the list of timezones added:

    • EST: US Eastern Time
    • CST: US Central Time
    • MST: US Mountain Time
    • PST: US Pacific Time
    • AKST: Alaska Time (Alaska)
    • HST: Hawaii-Aleutian Time with no Daylight Savings (Hawaii)
    • HST1: Hawaii-Aleutian Time with Daylight Saving (Aleutian Islands West)
    • MST1: US MT without Daylight Saving Time (Arizona)
    • EST1: US ET without Daylight Saving Time (Indiana (East))
    • AST: Atlantic Time
    • CST2: Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey)
    • MST2: Mexico (Chihuahua, La Paz, Mazatlan)
    • PST2: Mexico (Tijuana, Baja California)
    • BRT: Brazil Time (Brasilia)
    • NST: Newfoundland Time
    • AZOT: Azores Time
    • GMTBST: London/Dublin Time (Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London)
    • WET: Western European Time
    • CET: Central European Time
    • EET: Eastern European Time
    • MSK: Moscow Time
    • SAMT: Delta Time Zone (Samara)
    • YEKT: Echo Time Zone (Yekaterinburg)
    • IST: Indian Standard Time
    • NPT: Nepal Time (Kathmandu)
    • OMST: Foxtrot Time Zone (Omsk)
    • JST: Japanese Standard Time (Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo)
    • CXT: Christmas Island Time (Australia)
    • AWST: Australian Western Time
    • AWST1: Australian Western Time without Daylight Saving Time
    • ACST: Australian Central Standard Time (CST) with Daylight Saving Time (Adelaide)
    • ACST1: Australia/Darwin, and Australian Central Standard Time (CST) without Daylight Saving Time (Darwin)
    • AEST: Australian Eastern Time with Daylight Saving Time (Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney)
    • AEST1: Australian Eastern Time without Daylight Saving Time (Brisbane)
    • NFT: Norfolk (Island) Time (Australia)
    • NZST: New Zealand Time (Auckland)
    • CHAST: Fiji Time, Fiji, Pacific/Fiji, Yankee Time Zone (Chatham Islands)
    • SST: X-ray Time Zone (Midway Island)

    Refer to Install Appspace App on BrightSign for more information.


7.1-ac.9

This build focuses on new features and enhancements, and includes backend optimizations to the Appspace console.

Enhancements

  • A new feature to import or export any channel type (playlist, live, advanced) from the Appspace console is added. You may share or export these channels or channel groups using an export code (URL).

    Similarly, to import, you can include the URL to upload the channel to the console. As the import/export functionality for advanced channels existed prior to Appspace 7.1, you can only import an advanced channel within the same Appspace version, or from an older version to a new version. The import function is not backward compatible between major releases.

    Refer to Import or export a channel or channel group for more information.


Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5315 - Newly registered devices are not showing up on the user activity report.
  • AE-5340 - Cards with schedules in a playlist do not play on schedule; they are incorrectly playing according due to the UTC timezone rather than the set timezone.

7.1-ac.10

This build focuses on a new feature on a card, UI improvements, bug fixes, and escalations.


Enhancements

  • The Data Visualization card has been updated to include another chart type, the Donut chart (the previous Donut chart has been renamed as Progress Donut chart), and a minor update to the Line chart that is now capable of displaying the point labels.

    This new Donut chart brings the following features:

    • Able to include up to 8 items in the data series.
    • A legend.
    • A custom color palette that allows users to select the color of the chart slice.

  • The Schedule Board card is updated to include a simple way-finding feature, enabling users to configure the locations of the room relative to the device.

    This is achieved by specifying:

    • A list of Schedule Board device locations.
    • A list of directions of the room’s relative position to the Schedule Board’s location.
    • The Schedule Board device is assigned a location via device property.

  • The following UI improvements have been made in the console:

    • Placeholder text has been changed for the channel group field in the Device Registration window.
    • “Sign” has been changed to “Advanced” in the channel filter inline with current Appspace terminology.

  • Support for users to customize their landing page by allowing their custom extension to display first when the user logs in. This can be managed via the extension management page, by moving the custom extension to the top of the list, above the Dashboard feature.


Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5237 - The Network Administrator should only be able to invite users into user groups within the same network.

7.1-ac.11

This build focuses on a card update, and internal bug fixes.


Enhancements

  • A minor update to the Room Schedule card allows the rooms list and room info to be retrieved when authenticating with User Authentication that does not have administrative privileges.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5349 - Appspace API GET calls fail to return a response.

7.1-ac.12

This build focuses on enhancements, UX improvements to the console, and escalations.

Enhancements

  • The import/export channel feature has been updated with the following:

    • Users can now set an expiry limit to the export URL link.

  • The following UX improvements have been made in the console:

    • Once a card is created via the Quick Actions menu, the page auto-refreshes to display the card in the library.

    • A ‘Publish’ filter has been added to Channels and Channel Group listings, which quickly allows users to identify channels that are published.

    • An option to select or upload a custom thumbnail, when creating a new channel, or channel group.

    • Improved the channels UI to indicate scheduled content by utilizing the playout properties icons to quickly identify if a schedule is currently being played, expired, or for the future.

      • Scheduled content

        • Expired schedule = Red
        • Future schedule = Yellow
        • Current playing = Blue (default)

      • Inherited scheduled content

        • Expired schedule = Red
        • Future schedule = Yellow
        • Current playing = Grey (default)



  • The Data Visualization card has been updated to include another chart type, the Bar chart, which contains the following features:

    • Able to display animated vertical or horizontal bars.
    • Able to include up to 8 items in the data series.
    • A legend, gridlines, and labels.
    • A custom color palette that allows users to select the color of the bars in the Bar chart.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5296 - Navigation and the search function in the Widget Library is missing when “Widget from other layouts” is selected.

7.1-ac.13

This build focuses on card improvements, and escalations.

Enhancements

RSS Card

Introducing an improved RSS card that now supports private RSS feeds, and allows users to quickly and easily customize how RSS feeds are displayed on screen.

  • You can create a RSS card with the following options:

    • Unauthenticated RSS card using valid public RSS feeds.
    • RSS card using authenticated RSS feeds.
    • RSS card using a private URL.
  • The following customizations are available on the RSS card:

    • Display RSS feed summary and media.
    • Configure RSS media aspect ratio.
    • Disable low resolution media on RSS feeds.
    • Upload a custom font.
    • Configure text colour.
    • Configure feed duration.
    • Configure date format.
    • Upload custom logo.
    • Enable transitions between RSS feeds.
    • Configure transition effects and colours.

This card was previously a community card, however with this new enhancement, the card is now officially an Appspace supported card. Thus, the previous RSS card template will be removed from the Appspace platform, however, cards which are in use will not be affected.


Data Visualization Card

The Data Visualization card has been updated to fix a schema error that breaks the UI. The card is also enhanced to accept datasets that include commas, abbreviations, symbol prefixes, and the zero numeric when plotting a chart.


Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5422 - Unable to import or export channels in private cloud.
  • AE-5433 - Unable to import advanced channels from public cloud to private cloud.
  • AE-5447 - Appspace notifications unreadable when using Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10.
  • AE-5464 - Entering data manually into the card table may cause the Data Visualization card to be unresponsive.
  • AE-5482 - Unable to create card from the advanced channel slideshow widget.

7.1-ac.14

This build focuses on escalations.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5416 - The Subscription Overview widget on the Appspace dashboard does not reflect the correct usages as displayed in the Account Management Portal.
  • AE-5459 - Intermittent login issues when logging in from the Admin Center in a multi-tenant account.
  • AE-5513 - The Data Provider frequency duration on the Table widget in an advanced channel (sign) does not function.

7.1-ac.15

This build focuses on platform improvements, and escalations.

Enhancements

Account Authentication

The Account Authentication tab where SSO settings are configured in the Appspace console, has been moved to the Settings page in the Account Management Portal. This change allows Account Owners to configure various Appspace platform settings from a single location.

The following SSO authentication changes have been made:

  • When accessing the Account Authentication tab on the Appspace console Account Owners will be automatically redirected to the new Account Authentication tab in the Account Management Portal.
  • Deleting a user, user group, or network does not prompt for a password.

Resolved Escalations

  • AE-5465 - Unable to upload video file larger than 2GB.


7.1-ac.16

This build focuses on platform improvements, and escalations.

Enhancements

Device Registration via QR Code

This feature allows users to quickly register their Appspace App 2.0 devices via a QR code, directly from their mobile devices.

When viewing from a mobile device, users would be able to click the camera icon on the device registration page to trigger the QR code popover. Once the camera is enabled, the user can just scan the QR code displayed on the Appspace App 2.0 splash screen to initiate the registration process, which is similar to registering via the 6-digit registration code.

During the registration process, the following fields will be pre-filled so that the registration process can be completed without having to enter in these details on the mobile device.

  • Device name
  • Channel selection mode
  • Description
  • Device groups
  • Device tags

Note

The Appspace App 2.0 is scheduled to be released on October 4th, 2019.


RSS Card

The RSS card has been updated to allow RSS feed images to be parsed out of the feed content description HTML tags, ensuring images within the content are displayed on the RSS card.


Table Card

Important

This build is scheduled for release on 4th Oct. All bug fixes and escalations listed are subject to change, pending final QA verification.

  • Introducing the Table card, where users may enter in data manually, or upload a spreadsheet to display data in a table format.

    The following features are available in the Table card:

    • Enable or disable word wrap.

    • Position the logo on the top left, top right, bottom left, or bottom right.

    • Configure the row and column width of the table as ‘fixed’ or ‘auto’.

      • Fixed - First column / Header is automatically set, while the body width is distributed equally.
      • Auto - The row height takes up the natural height of the content. Pagination is turned on by default if rows are set to Auto.

    • Configure the pagination row height of the table as ‘fixed’ or ‘auto’.

      • Fixed - Allows the user to determine the number of rows to be displayed in a page.
      • Auto - Entire table would be displayed, and content will automatically scroll based on the set duration.


Resolved Bugs

  • AP-19414 - Unable to display content on the Calendar widget, after configuring it with Google Calendar.