AUP Informant 2.1 Preview

[bizzel]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to give you an idea of where we're going with AUP Informant in the next few months and what you can expect from the upcoming 2.1 release.

First of all, I'm thrilled with the response I've had since the initial release this summer - overwhelmingly positive and with only a handful of issues cropping up across the massive variety of networks that you all maintain. As a developer there's nothing better than seeing a plan come together.

I also hear a lot of feedback and feature requests and I've been tallying these up over the past month so that I have a clear idea where to go next. That's one of the reasons that I haven't made a release since the start of the new term (the other being general degree workload). I believe I have a fairly clear picture now that I'd like to share with you.

I'd love to give you an idea of how long this release will take but it's too early right now to make an accurate guess. I'll be writing more about this nearer the time. So, here's what you'll (probably) find in 2.1:

Service Mode
Let's start off with a big one and a very common request. Lots of you want AUP Informant to run as a Windows service so that you don't need to keep an account logged in. This requires a large amount of restructuring work since the server wasn't designed to run in service mode - up until recently I didn't have Visual Studio, which makes creating services much easier.

I think it's a change worth making, however. The decoupling of the user interface from the server will allow me to add several cool features, a couple of which I touch upon below.

Direct Connect
If you manage multiple subnets then you'll have noticed that the current client application can only talk to a server on its own subnet. 2.1 will allow you to provide clients with an IP address that they can talk to directly.

Active Directory Integration
Another big hitter and one that I'm keen to pursue. AUP Informant will be able to integrate with AD and allow for policies to be assigned to user groups or individual users as needed. The existing "policy + alternate policy" mode will remain available for smaller networks.

More Policy Display Intervals
Would you like to show the policy once a week or maybe once a month? No problem!

Smaller Footprint
Ongoing optimisations remove a number of dependencies for the server process as well as improving handling of "peak-time bursts" of activity that occur when pupils move between classrooms.