8.8.16 Enhancements
Below is the list of enhancements by program for version 8.8.16
Click Here to go to the Release Notes/Bug Fixes for Version 8.8
SURVENT
Survent now gets the XFORWARDED4 value instead of the IP address
The !SPECIAL, BROWSER_INFOrmation, ADDRESS command now returns the XFORWARDED4 value instead of the IP address so that users who have a proxy server will get the IP address of the respondent and not of the proxy server. If there is no XFORWARDED4 value then it just returns the IP address as it has always done
There is a a new parmfile keyword DIALER_RETRY_OUT_OF_NUMBERS which controls how often the study server will retry for numbers when the dialer is asking for them
The parmfile keyword DIALER_RETRY_OUT_OF_NUMBERS lets users control how often the study server will recheck to see if any numbers are available after it just tried and got an out of numbers message. Previously the system was always trying every second which could cause a a performance issue on large phone files on busy systems. The default was changed to 2 seconds, but more importantly you can set this to much larger values 30 or 60 seconds to significantly slow down the frequency of the retries if this is causing resource issues on your system.
Fonebuld
There is a new phone header option “ABANDON_ONLY_ONCE” which if set to Yes will keep the same number from being abandoned twice in the same study
The phone header option “ABANDON_ONLY_ONCE” if set to Yes will mark any abandoned number as a targeted number so that all future attempts will be dialed in that mode eliminating any chance of it being abandoned a second time. The call will get a status of 867. Note, you must have your questionnaires set up to deal with targeted numbers in a predictive study for this to work correctly.
SURVOX CONSOLE
The portal server log file now automatically rotates after it reaches a specific size.
The portal server log file now automatically rotates on its own keeping it from getting excessively large. Also, some redundant messaging was removed so it does not grow as fast as it was before.
The MarketSights integration is turned on by default now.
The process that allows you to import data from the Console to MarketSights is now available by default under the Data Analysis/Data Visualization Menu. Note, you still have to have a MarketSights license though in order for it to work. The change was is the option is always visible in the menu.
Custom “Shells” are now supported.
You can now upload your own custom front and back end “shell” questionnaires so they can easily be used when starting up new projects. Under Project Setup/Create Questionnaire there is now a sub-option for Questionnaire Shells where you can choose an existing one or upload ones for future use.
Any command line Supervisor command can now be sent from the Console.
You can now send any command line Supervisor command from the Console. Under the Manage/Shop and Server menu there is a new sub option on the left hand side “Supervisor Command” which will prompt you for the command you want to enter. This can be used to do things like clear a station even if the Console does not know anything about it. Notes: This feature is not on by default and has to be allowed to the user by the super admin user before it is available and it should always be used with caution. Also, it should not be used to do any command that produces screen output as it is currently not formatted properly. There is a Bug Report tracking this and it will be addressed in a future release.
When deploying changes, you are now given the option to NOT rename the tr file if the Console detects differences in the chk file.
There is now a third option when deploying a study with changes to keep the existing tr file. Note, you will be given a warning to confirm that you want to continue to be certain your changes are not going to cause data issues later on.
DIALER
You can now control the number of seconds that is used for the ring no answer timeout
There is now a cdiparms keyword LENGTH_OF_RING which takes a number from 5 to 7 and allows up to 2 decimals. The default also has been changed from 6.00 seconds to 5.25. We had hard coded that change for several clients as they reported an improvement in productivity by setting their number of rings to 4 and turning off answering machine detection. This combination then never gets a false positive causing you to hang up on a live respondent and most calls are hung up on after 21 seconds which is usually prior to the answer machine picking up after the actual 4th ring at 24 seconds.
The “seatlog” file which tracks dialer usage now automatically rotates on a monthly basis.
The dialer usage information is now stored in a file called seatlog.<yyyymmdd> where yyyy is the current year, mm the current month, and dd is the last day of the current month which matches what nsnapper is doing. This does mean if you use an automated system to send us the dialer counts, you likely will have to update that script to send the new name that is now used. Contact support if you need help with this.
BETA RELEASES
BETA RELEASE OF CAPI-SURVENT
Contact us if you would like to be a beta tester for the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing component of Survent. This allows you to do interviewing in places that may not have reliable Internet access like a convention hall, subway station, etc.
BETA RELEASE OF INTEGRATION BETWEEN AN EMAIL PROGRAM AND THE PHONE SYSTEM
Contact us if you would like to be a beta tester for a new integration that allows you to update phone files with status codes that have been gotten from an email program such as whether or not the email was opened or it bounced, etc.
BETA RELEASE OF WINDOWS MENTOR FOR VERSION 8.8.
Contact us if you would like to be a beta tester for the new version of Windows Mentor that was previously only available in version 8.6.2