haydens

About Hayden Schuch

Software Developer at Powercode.

Release 17.05.22 [Stable]

This will potentially be the last stable release with minor bug fixes from the major 17.05.10 release.  If there are outstanding bugs that you are affected by, please contact support and there may be patch available.

The next release will be in the beta channel and will introduce the long awaited Option 66 templating and provisioning.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed error caused by loading a web user when none exists while downloading work orders.
  • Fixed call log showing incorrect date/time.
  • Fixed not being able to apply multiple taxes to a charge.
  • Fixed issue with Canopy Speed Updater queue overloading.

Miscellaneous

  • Removed deprecated “Download BMU Firmware” link in preparation for new BMU upgrade system.
  • Migrated old Inventory Item Logs to into new Inventory Item History.
  • Added check for automatically updating portal username when editing a contact.
  • Added “%%INSTALLTYPE%%” variable to “Installer – Install/Service Call Scheduled” system email.
  • Added pdf export button to “Summarized Daily Deposits” report.
  • Added expanding customer notes while hovered over and focused.
By |2017-06-26T16:36:07-05:002017 May 22nd|Changelog, News|Comments Off on Release 17.05.22 [Stable]

Updates To SSL For PCI

We have been working with a few customers and the PCI scanning companies that are used by payment gateways to make sure your billing server will pass scans.  The next update early next week will contain some changes to the Apache configuration and some other areas of the server to pass PCI scans.

The changes required for this will mean that older browsers, computers, and other devices that do not support the stronger ciphers and protocols required to pass the scan may stop working when trying to access Powercode.  We don’t anticipate this actually affecting any of our users, but a note just the same.

After the 17.05.23, if your PCI scan does not pass, please send us your entire PCI report as things are added and changed in the scanning process quite frequently.  Our test customers have been passing, and if you have not you’ll definitely notice the number of errors in the report decrease significantly and we will knock out the rest for you if you send us the latest report.  This is an area we will be staying on top of moving forward.

By |2017-05-19T05:40:39-05:002017 May 19th|News|Comments Off on Updates To SSL For PCI

Release 17.05.17 [Stable]

This release fixes a few regressions introduced in Release 17.05.10.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed ACH bank export permissions.
  • Fixed bank transaction import description.
  • Fixed issue with assigning multiple inventory items.
  • Fixed payment amount not showing trailing 0 while making cash/check payment.
  • Fixed custom tab showing when no custom fields available for equipment.
  • Fixed error with permissions display on the weather widget.
  • Fixed Procera bandwidth data not being saved.

Miscellaneous

  • Added validation to contact call logs.
  • Added backup of bandwidth data on upgrade.
By |2017-05-17T15:27:34-05:002017 May 15th|Changelog, News|Comments Off on Release 17.05.17 [Stable]

Bank Transaction Import Errors After 17.05.10

If you upgraded to 17.05.10 and find that your bank transaction imports are throwing an error, follow the steps below and you’ll be back on track.

This issue was introduced because we added a new description field along with credits added via the bank transaction import feature (a long requested feature).  Unfortunately, this does break if the import format you are using does not have any description, which would be the case for any formats created prior to this update.  Here is how you add a description to your bank transaction formats to fix the issue.

From within Powercode, go to Items Bank Transaction Formats.  On the format you are trying to use, select Edit from the action menu.  Enter your desired description in the Description field on the form.  This description field will be shown on the credits imported using this feature.  By default, we recommend something like ‘Bank Payment’.

If you have a number of bank transaction formats, editing each one can be tedious.  If that is the case, please open a ticket or contact support and we will run a script to quickly add a basic description to all of your formats in one go.

 

By |2017-05-15T08:51:40-05:002017 May 11th|News|Comments Off on Bank Transaction Import Errors After 17.05.10

Amended Release 17.05.10 [Stable]

Yesterday’s release of 17.05.10 went out with one bug that has already been resolved.  Temporary grace dates being set on customers that were already delinquent and another combination of settings would not save properly.

The first person to upgrade reported this, and the upgrade files were patched along with that customer before anyone else upgraded within minutes.  If you were waiting to upgrade to 17.05.10 due to this bug report, you can safely update now or wait for the next build.

By |2017-05-15T09:58:02-05:002017 May 10th|Changelog, News|Comments Off on Amended Release 17.05.10 [Stable]

Release 17.05.10 [Stable]

Release 17.05.10 is the first stable release going out to every Powercode customer since 17.01.26. Review all of the release notes about these releases before upgrading.

This stable release contains the following beta releases:

For all future upgrades, your Powercode will be set to upgrade to the latest stable release. To receive the beta releases, go to Config -> System Configuration -> System. Under the “Powercode Settings” there will be a “Powercode Release Type” drop down. There you can switch to Beta Releases. See “A Change To Update Mentality” for more details.

If there are questions about these releases or anything else that has changed, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team, and they will happily assist you.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed case where tax calculation would incorrectly round the wrong way.
  • Fixed case where credit would apply tax as a debit.
  • Fixed label with the Daily Deposit Graph.
  • Fixed case where customer password wouldn’t save properly.
  • Fixed permissions for Report Dashboard to include all groups by default.
  • Fixed file not found error when saving customer information.

Miscellaneous

  • Optimized hundreds of pages where user data was being loaded twice.
  • Restricts only RNControl compatible routers from loading into the RNControl/Readynet tab.
  • Updated API calls to log verbosely (successful and failed API calls) if setting is activated.
By |2017-05-11T09:18:55-05:002017 May 10th|Changelog, News|Comments Off on Release 17.05.10 [Stable]

A Push For MySQL Optimization

You’ve seen the release notes for our last few builds and it’s obvious we were focusing on bug fixes and feature completion. We’re waiting on two big features to go through our testing process; Web hooks and Option 66 Provisioning. In the meantime, we’re focusing on optimizing all of Powercode for the next couple weeks. With a large, organized push, we should be able to tackle some known performance issues throughout the software and increase responsiveness and scalability. There are some low hanging fruit for us to focus on that should make a big dent in any performance issues.

Remove duplicate processing of database items

Yes… on just about every page load of Powercode, the same information is being pulled from and processed by the database server multiple times. Systematically going through and removing these will help quite a bit, as each query locks the tables it touches. Are we embarrassed? A little, but the developers that thought it was a good idea are no longer here and we’re going to fix it.

Converting to a new database driver for PHP

It’s no real secret what Powercode’s technology stack looks like. The MySQL driver for PHP that Powercode uses is a little outdated. Again, we are making an organized push to replace it all.

Strategic caching

Most information about the customer isn’t going to change. We shouldn’t need to process all that info every time you load a customer overview. We’re going to intelligently cache different items throughout Powercode and purge them when information is updated. Unfortunately, this piece isn’t entirely a part of our 2 week push, but is in progress.

Explore the replacement of MySQL with Percona

What is interesting about this is that our exploration alone is forcing us to make necessary optimizations as they are required by Percona. Percona is fantastic for increasing throughput over MySQL given it is configured properly, and even if we don’t make the switch, Percona is a little less forgiving which is helping us optimize.

We have gone through and documented over 90% of pages in Powercode and their load times, query times, and other request profile attributes for more long-term optimization targeting.

Beyond the MySQL database optimizations, we’re auditing the server as a whole and changing some things on the install/update process. Before I started working here, while doing some research about Powercode I came across a post by one of our customers comically questioning the addition of Ruby to PHP and tcl. Being here for several months now, I’m questioning the same.

As amazing as Powercode is for our customer base, there are a ton of obvious things that need just a little love. I’ll keep you guys updated on what we’re working on.

By |2017-04-25T11:10:57-05:002017 April 25th|News|Comments Off on A Push For MySQL Optimization

BMU and IPv6 Update

This particular update may come more from me personally, rather than from Powercode as a whole, as it relates to one of the first things I was thrust into when I started at Powercode in November 2016. In case you don’t know, and for those that may have doubt, there are many major things on the board that Powercode needs to implement, re-implement, fix, or enhance. However, there are two things that truly overshadow just about everything else on that list; BMU and IPv6. So where are we on those?

BMU

The BMU is one of the strongest features Powercode offers. Having a device like this cohesively integrated with your billing system offers automation on delinquency, repayment, and traffic enforcement. In fact, when the BMU was originally designed, it was genuinely novel in this market.

Over time as new features were added and new developers were brought on for different tasks, the Powercode firmware that ships with the BMU has gone through some rich history. Some of this development over the past several years has led to a small percentage of our users having issues.

Having a network device like that positioned where it is in your topology requires rock solid reliability, and the BMU fell short of that for some users.

It became clear after a couple weeks of developing on the BMU that it would probably require the same amount of time to hunt down and fix the issues as it would take to simply start from scratch.

Starting from scratch allows us to utilize new technologies, firmware and drivers, and implement a true development methodology that I feel this product has been missing for years.

Over the past 4 months we have worked with a number of people who specialize in this field to help us develop a new, optimized firmware for this device with the core of Powercode functionality in mind.

We are getting very close to making this release publicly available. You might have noticed a few weeks ago, your Powercode instances reporting the BMU firmware as being “out of date.” That means we’re getting ready to release this soon.

IPv6

So, how does that tie in with IPv6?

Unfortunately, IPv6 management in Powercode requires the BMU to be able to handle the sync process with IPv6 components. When I inherited the project there was progress with IPv6, but unfortunately, it needed to be redone with our larger vision in mind. Once the new BMU firmware is made generally available, we’ll be able to finally complete development on IPv6.

However, the difficulties with IPv6 don’t end with the software development. There are real deployment decisions that need to be taken into account, and we have to be able to support a variety of deployment paths for our customers.

The BMU is close and IPv6 isn’t far behind. Once the new BMU firmware is released, I will update you with our IPv6 implementation milestones and release a hard timeline.

One thing lacking on Powercode’s side is updates on feature development. We are working hard to ramp up this blog as a space for us to show you our progress on future features. There will no longer be silence on these matters. We will develop these larger items in the public eye and shape things using your feedback.

By |2017-04-25T10:44:45-05:002017 April 25th|News|Comments Off on BMU and IPv6 Update

Release 17.04.24 [Beta]

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue where tax credits would not apply.
  • Fixed issue where taxes associated with services would sometimes not load.
  • Fixed issue where one-time service charges would not load properly.
  • Fixed case where text would not translate in the Customer Portal.
  • Fixed issue where updating inventory would not work properly.

Miscellaneous

  • Removed old links from navigation menu.
  • Updated customer notes to save without page reload.

By |2017-05-10T10:38:14-05:002017 April 24th|Changelog|Comments Off on Release 17.04.24 [Beta]

Phone Support Hours Update

Beginning April 25th, 2017, our phone support hours on Tuesdays will open at 10AM instead of 9AM.  All other days in the week will remain the same.

We are taking this hour for internal meetings between the development and support teams.  There is a unique benefit from having our entire staff together that we will take advantage of.

Our meetings will be focused on transferring knowledge between the departments to re-prioritize tasks, update demands, and digest new data to shape our development of Powercode.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.  If you have an emergency during this time, please call in and leave a voice message.  On call charges will be waived during this time.

By |2017-04-20T15:22:35-05:002017 April 20th|News|Comments Off on Phone Support Hours Update
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