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Version history

The latest version is version 5.0. It includes a number of improvements over version 4.0...

Intranet version

The major changes in this version are:

• There is a new access control system that allows you to restrict people's access to:
  • Individual entries in the database
  • Sections of an entry's text
• The access control system creates groups of users so you don't have to specify the access granted to individual users. It also allows you to assign a group to users that access the system without a user id and password (anonymous users). It can assign different groups to different sets of anonymous users by detecting differences in the web address used to access the database.
• You can also use groups to control how the system appears to each group. You can specify:
  • The help text that appears immediately below the search buttons on the main search page
  • The help text that appears when you click the 'Help' button
  • The splash text that appears when you first load the main search page
  • Whether they see the 'More' button (which gives access to more esoteric search options)
  • Whether they see any soft keys you have defined
  • Whether they see the Login button
  • Whether they see the 'Change password' button.
• A new setting allows you to support anonymous users as well as web users. Previously, if you set up web users everyone had to log on to access the system.
• You can now store documents in the Local Information System database (provided you use SQL Server to store data rather than Access). That means you can:
  • upload documents using a simple form built in to the Local Information System rather than a separate 'FTP' program
  • control access to documents in the library
  • control the size and type of documents that can be uploaded to the library.

As well as enhancing the Local Information System for use by your administrators and advisers, the above changes also make it more practical to:

• Share the database across multiple CABx with the system suppressing entries, and parts of entries, that are irrelevant to each CAB
• Share the database with other agencies that you might partner with
• Open the database to access by the public.

This version also includes the following changes:

• A new 'Less' button allows you to hide the additional search buttons revealed when you click the 'More' button. The system now 'remembers' the state of the More and Less buttons and reinstates them when you return to the search page.
• Admin users now see a 'Save results' button at the bottom of each set of search results. This downloads a comma-separated values (CSV) file containing basic details of the matches found by your search (and a search for *all lists all entries). CSV files can be opened by Excel and other spreadsheet programs so you can work with the data.
• When editing an entry, a new section allows you to specify which groups of users cannot see the entry (provided you have defined at least one group).
• The Maintain users page now allows you to allocate users to groups (provided you have defined at least one group).
• The new Maintain groups page allows you to:
  • Add, change and delete user groups
  • List all users belonging to a given group
  • List all database entries hidden from a given group.
• When working with an entry's web links, the system no longer forces you to add http:// or https:// at the beginning of link addresses. Instead you can use a shortcut like DocLib:filename to link to a file in the document library. Otherwise, the system will add http:// if necessary to web addresses.
• The usage log produced by the system now records the group of each user so you can produce group-based statistics.
• You can now suppress the 'Change password' button for all users of the system - useful if you allow people to share ids and passwords (although that's not a practice we recommend) - this change was implemented in version 4.01.
• When using the standard splash text, adding a trailing "-" to a bureau name suppresses the "Citizens Advice Bureau" text allowing you more flexibility in specifying your organisation's name.
• We've enhanced the Show configuration values page. It now shows:
  • The user groups available in the system
  • The default user groups for anonymous users
  • The alternate help pages for each group
  • The alternate search page text for each group
  • The alternate splash page text for each group
  • Whether people are allowed to change their own passwords.
• We've improved the protection provided against someone using a browser 'Back' button to gain access to the system once you have logged off. Closing the browser down is still the best protection and you now see a notice explaining that when you log off.
• The user id and password form includes a 'Continue anonymously' button if your system can be used without a user id and password. It takes you to the main search page in a logged-out state.
• Version 5.0 requires an update to SQL server and Access databases. The database updater page allows you to implement that change automatically for intranet versions of the system. The Network Install program does the same for desktop versions of the system.
• The remote system backup tool BackupLIDate comes with a new template allowing it to backup version 5 databases.

Version 5.0 also fixes the following bugs:

• The CheckLIWebLinks utility overcomes a problem created by Microsoft that meant the utility reported problems with all https web links - fixed in version 4.01.
• We've fixed a bug that caused a system error if you modified a URL used to edit an item to change the item id to one that doesn't exist in the system. You now see an error page explaining the problem.

Desktop version

Version 5 includes the following changes:

• The enquiry program suppresses (and ignores) the [HideFrom] tags used by the intranet version to hide sections of text from specified user groups.
• We've improved the way the synchronisation utility (LISynch) tests for:
  • valid user ids and passwords
  • a synchronisable target database
• We've included utility CABLISBrowserFix in the release package. By default Internet Explorer when encapsulated in another program (like the Local Information System enquiry program) emulates IE7. Even if you've installed IE11 it will behave like IE7. IE7 is now a very old version and many sites no longer support it. As a result you might see issues when using the enquiry program to browse the internet. The CABLISBrowserFix utility allows you to change the behaviour of Internet Explorer so you are always working with the latest version.
• We've also upgraded CABLISBrowserFix to allow you to specify the User Agent used by the CheckLIWebLinks utility and the maintenance program's link checking tool. You might find this feature useful if you are getting odd results from link checking.
• The Network Install program automatically converts the database used by the desktop system to the version 5 specification.

Version 5.0 also fixes the following bugs:

• The link checking tool in the Maintenance program overcomes a problem created by Microsoft that meant the utility reported problems with all https web links - fixed in version 4.01.

Click here to see what changed in previous versions.

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