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Version: 11.5

DeskAlerts 11.5 Release Notes

11.5.0.22 Maintenance Release Notes​

The present release 11.5.0.22 focuses on resolving critical authentication and synchronization issues, improving agent stability, and eliminating database performance bottlenecks. Several defects affecting Azure AD synchronization, user registration, desktop agent deployment, and emergency alert execution have been addressed. Minor usability improvements and content corrections have also been included to ensure a smoother and more reliable user experience across the platform.

Issues Resolved

  • Azure AD Sync Conflict. Azure AD synchronization was incorrectly creating new user records and marking existing users as deleted, resulting in authentication failures for seamless SSO users on Desktop Agents.
  • Duplicate Agent Launch via CLI Installation. Installing the Windows Desktop Agent via command line launched two instances of the application, causing registration conflicts.
  • Deleted Emergency Alerts Triggered by Shortcuts. Desktop shortcuts were still capable of activating previously deleted emergency alerts.
  • Quiz Completion Typo. A minor typo in the quiz completion pop-up was corrected to improve professionalism and clarity in the user interface.
  • Database Deadlock Performance Issue. Removed a performance bottleneck caused by database deadlocks when agent IP addresses were updated frequently.

Enhancements

  • Updated Knowledge Base Links. All knowledge management site links embedded in Desktop Agent applications have been updated to point to the latest support and documentation resources.
  • Updated Microsoft Teams Bot Installation Template. The MS Teams bot installation template has been revised to reflect updated deployment requirements and improve ease of setup for administrators.

11.5.0.21 Release Notes​

The present release 11.5.0.21 focuses on strengthening authentication, improving reliability of emergency communication features, and enhancing system security and audit readiness. It introduces seamless Azure AD sign-in for Desktop Agents, expanded audit logging for hospital alert templates, and administrative controls for the Panic Button. Additional improvements reduce reconnection load on networks, and new license-expiry notifications help prevent unexpected service downtime. Several high-impact defects have also been resolved to support greater accuracy, stability, and user confidence.

New Features & Enhancements

  • Seamless SSO on Azure AD–Joined PCs

Desktop Agent now supports Seamless SSO for cloud-native Azure AD users on Azure AD–joined Windows machines. Users signed into Windows are authenticated automatically—no prompts—reducing login friction and support load.

  • Audit Log for Hospital Template Changes

The User Action Log now records all changes to Hospital Color-Coded templates (who/when/what). This provides audit-ready traceability and speeds troubleshooting by showing exactly what changed.

  • Server Control to Hide Panic Button

Added a server-side setting to hide the default S.O.S. Panic Button in Agent apps. This gives organizations more control over when the Panic Button is visible, supporting environments where the feature must be disabled for policy or security reasons.

  • License Expiry/Expired Admin Notifications

Added floating in-app notifications to inform admins when the Server License is about to expire or has expired, ensuring timely renewal and preventing service disruption.

  • Adaptive Reconnect Timing

Desktop Agent now reconnects more intelligently — increasing the wait time between retries to avoid rapid bursts, then holding at a safe maximum. This reduces network load and makes the agent less likely to be flagged or disrupted by DNS issues, firewalls, or timeouts.

Issues Resolved

  • Saving a new emergency alert template with Auxiliary Channels (Email/SMS) enabled unintentionally sent messages to pre-set recipients.
  • Desktop Agent authentication was blocked for Seamless AzureAD and standard AzureAD — users saw “Ability to perform this type of registration is disabled,” which prevented sign-in/registration.
  • An emergency alert auto-closed after a few seconds, ignoring the preset Auto-Close alert timeout.
  • In the Dashboard’s Alert Statistics widget, the Engagement Rate was calculated incorrectly and could exceed 100%.
  • Removed a misleading “Download failed …” message shown on the desktop app during continuous server connectivity loss.
  • In the policy list view, the “Publishers” count included deleted users, causing a mismatch with the actual number of assigned publishers shown elsewhere.

11.5.0.20 Release Notes​

The present release delivers significant updates to improve usability, international support, and system performance. Version 11.5.0.20 introduces expanded Microsoft Teams integration, enhancements to hospital alert functionality, and extended Entra ID synchronization capabilities. This release also resolves several critical issues to ensure greater stability and user experience.

New Features & Enhancements

  • Microsoft Teams Integration.
    • Introduced a new version of integration with Microsoft Teams to reflect breaking and structural changes Microsoft implemented for Teams bots in June–July 2025.
  • Fonts and Internationalization.
    • Added a variation of the Al-Mohanad font to support customers in the Middle East.
  • Entra ID Synchronization.
    • Added support for synchronizing with two or more Azure authorities, an instrumental feature for international companies that utilize both regular commercial Azure AD and GCC (Government Community Cloud).
  • Color-Coded Alerts for Hospitals.
    • Ability to set alert height, width, and position on screen.
    • Buttons inside the alert body with custom labels tied to standard alert actions (acknowledge, close, postpone, etc.).
    • Added alert skins to ensure backward compatibility with pop-up alerts.
    • Link to a graph report for individual alerts in the module dashboard.
    • Simplified and improved user experience.
  • Privacy Lock Server Deployment Mode.
    • Disabled “Change Password” action for web application users (publishers, managers, administrators).
  • Performance & Usability Improvements.
    • Pruned redundant data in agent connection and re-connection requests, reducing network traffic by more than 50%.
    • Alert preview format and look now fully match the actual alert sent.

Issues Resolved

  • Some IP Group names were missing in the “All IP Groups” list in the Select Recipient pop-up and only appeared when filtered by name.

  • Print/feedback/acknowledgment buttons were shown in alert preview even when disabled.

  • Self-destructing alerts remained visible in the agent app history view.

  • AD groups with names written in Arabic rendered with incorrect characters.

  • Entra ID synchronization attempts failed with an error.

    note

    Domains with the onmicrosoft.com suffix are created by default in Entra ID, and currently all domains are synchronized. A feature to allow filtering out default and custom domains will be delivered in one of the upcoming releases.

  • Only the first 100 users were shown in groups created by Entra ID sync.

  • Sending a scrolling ticker with increasing font size made the ticker partially visible on recipient screens.

11.5.0.19 Release Notes​

New Features

  • Azure AD Sync. Introduced a new seamless registration type for Hybrid Azure AD joined users in the DeskAlerts desktop agent applications. Designed to support the most common enterprise AzureAD/AD configuration, it gives recipients an automatic login experience.
  • Color-Coded Hospital Alerts. Added a capability of adding and changing a logo to the color-coded hospital alert template. Removed table headers from the plain-text version of hospital color-coded alerts to reduce information overload.
  • Privacy Lock Server Deployment. This new feature for privacy-conscious customers permanently blocks the synchronization of user email and phone number fields from Azure AD and prevents the creation of users accounts with locally stored passwords within DeskAlerts.

Resolved Issues

  • DeskAlerts Desktop Agent fails to register users when multiple AzureAD syncs exist with the same TenantId and AppId.
  • AzureAD sync includes redundant domains, such as the Initial Domain and Exchange Online Mail Routing Domain, along with the primary domain.
  • Azure sync creates duplicate users when those users are members of groups selected for synchronization.
  • The EnableAzureAdSyncGroups = false setting in AzureAD sync is ignored, and groups are still synchronized.
  • Notifications fail to reach all recipients if they belong to nested organizational units (OUs) in synced Active Directory (AD).
  • The OU hierarchy in DeskAlerts is only created after the second AD sync attempt.
  • The initial AD sync fails to recognize parent-child relationships between OUs, preventing the proper building of the OU tree.
  • Administrators cannot soft-delete user policies.
  • Users with "View" and "Approve" permissions, but without "Create Alert," cannot approve alert publishing in the workflow.
  • User account lockout after multiple failed login attempts blocks access for other users logging in from the same desktop.
  • Enabling the “Enforce Password Complexity” flag in Password Policy settings prevents user policy updates for existing users.
  • The "Alert Acknowledgement = Off" setting in Default Alert Settings is not working as expected; the acknowledgement button still appears on all alerts.
  • The "Survey Details" dashboard widget intermittently shows an "Alerts fetching" error and displays no data.
  • Recurring alerts (like RSVP and Survey) incorrectly show a 0% open rate in reports when the most recent active instance receives no responses.
  • Pop-up alerts fail to display clipboard-pasted images that were inserted directly into the alert body.
  • Adding special characters in a scrolling ticker causes all following text to disappear from the alert as seen by recipients.

11.5.0.18 Feature Release Notes​

New features

  • OU-based audience segmentation for Entra ID hybrid users – During sync, DeskAlerts now stores each hybrid user’s OU path (e.g., Sales/Europe), letting publishers target audiences by OU instantly.
  • Multi-tenant Entra ID sync & domain-aware SSO – Link multiple Entra ID tenants, sync their users into DeskAlerts, and let each tenant’s users sign in via SSO with their own domain.
  • Color-coded hospital alerts with fillable forms (Beta) – Hospitals can build color-coded templates (Code Blue, Code Red, etc.) with required fields, enabling staff to trigger consistent emergency alerts in seconds.
  • Duplicate-survey protection – If recipients have already completed a survey (quiz, poll, RSVP, or questionnaire), they now see “You completed this survey on [Date]” plus a Close button to dismiss the alert without re-answering.
  • Auto-closing survey confirmation – After submitting any survey, users see a confirmation screen: “Thank you for completing ‘[Title]’ — closing in 5 s.” The screen includes a functional Close button and disappears automatically after five seconds.

Resolved Issues

  • Secret double-encryption on sync record save – Editing and re-saving an existing AD/Entra ID sync record no longer re-encrypts the stored secret, eliminating the resulting sync error.

11.5.0.17 Maintenance Release Notes​

Resolved Issues

  • Changes to content-view permissions for pop-up alerts in a user policy are not saved.
  • Changes to Content Access Scope permissions in a user policy are not saved.
  • Organizational Units (OUs) cannot be expanded when a filter is applied in the recipient-selection pop-up.
  • Lockscreen/screensaver/wallpaper files whose filenames contain spaces are delivered but are not installed.
  • The Desktop Agent app fails to register via the ComputerName authentication method.
  • Active Directory sync fails with an “Invalid client secret provided” error after synchronization settings are saved repeatedly.
  • The template image does not appear when creating an alert from a message template. Scheduled alerts show a 0 % open rate in the alerts list view.
  • Data is missing in the User Details and Survey Details widgets on the dashboard.
  • The Al-Mohanad font is missing from the list of available fonts in the pop-up alert editor.

Enhancements

  • Windows Desktop Agent: Do Not Disturb (DnD) mode while sharing a screen during conference calls (Teams, Zoom, etc.).

11.5.0.16 Maintenance Release Notes​

Resolved Issues

  • Selecting and saving changes in the Organisational Units section of the AD synchronisation settings failed to save some objects to the database.
  • An intermittent issue where services block each other while reading product license data, causing service interruptions and preventing agent apps from connecting to the serThis requires administrators to restart IIS.
  • Importing files containing user groups with more than one thousand members fails to upload the users.
  • A localisation issue where the acknowledgement message in surveys appears in English instead of Arabic, and the layout does not follow the expected right-to-left (RTL) pattern.
  • An error message appears when a publisher previews an intermediary step in a survey.

11.5.0.15 Hot Fix Release Notes​

Resolved Issues

  • On shared desktops, recipient data tokens (i.e. UserDisplayName) showed a cached value which didn't belong to an actual recipient
  • After submitting answers to a quiz with interim questions in a desktop agent app, the quiz statistic shows loading... message instead of quiz statistic data

11.5.0.14 Maintenance Release Notes​

We are pleased to introduce DeskAlerts maintenance release 11.5.014, featuring key enhancements and defect fixes for an improved notification experience.

Enhancements

  • Introduced a “Select All” recipients option in the select-audience pop-up, streamlining the process of sending alerts to large groups and eliminating repeated and tedious manual selections.
  • Expanded user policy functionality to control visibility and access for content created by members of other user policies/roles. This supports organizational hierarchies by giving individual departments comprehensive control over the content they create.
  • Enhanced the desktop agent for Mac to support seamless Active Directory authentication, simplifying the login process and boosting productivity for Mac users.
  • Added the ability to set horizontal alignment (left, center, right) in Alert Skins, allowing greater customization for alert titles.
  • Introduced German localization for the web application, enhancing the user experience and accessibility for German-speaking users.
  • Changed the default screensaver timeout value from 60 seconds to 300 seconds, reducing interruptions for users.
  • Added protection against deleting any Alert Skins flagged as “Default,” ensuring crucial default skins remain intact.
  • Refined the skin deletion process by introducing a soft-delete for skins. In previous versions, skins used even once to send alerts could not be deleted.
  • Restored the option for quizzes, polls, and questionnaires to collect anonymous responses, reinforcing confidentiality where needed.
  • Brought back the "a user must complete" checkbox to ensure recipients fully complete quizzes, polls, or questionnaires before being able to close them.

Resolved Issues

  • Corrected an issue where computer's online status was not displayed on the server side after successful seamless AD authentication.
  • Fixed a defect that replaced names of deleted publishers with “Sender is deleted” in the alerts grid. Deleted publishers now retain their original names.
  • Resolved an issue where the default acknowledgment flag didn't apply when a user created a new pop-up alert.
  • Addressed an intermittent issue that caused some users’ wallpapers to revert to a black background.
  • Restored functionality for Do Not Disturb (DND) buttons in the Windows Desktop Client, which were previously inactive.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented SMTP logs from being recorded when SMTP logging was enabled, improving mail-related transparency and troubleshooting.
  • Addressed an intermittent issue where a skin was not applied to a scrolling ticker.
  • Fixed an issue where the selected skin was not displayed in a drop-down in the scrolling ticker details view.

11.5.0.13 Hotfix Release Notes​

  • In the “Synchronize users and groups without OU’s” option for AD Sync, group searches returned no results even when valid groups existed. This hotfix corrects the LDAP query logic so that groups can be properly found and selected without relying on OU-based searches.

11.5.0.12 Maintenance Release Notes​

We’ve addressed numerous issues and introduced a variety of enhancements across the DeskAlerts platform.

Users’ synchronisation & authentication

  • Fixed synchronisation issues so that with Openwork Groups ensuring complete data fetching.
  • Resolved intermittent issues with missing users in groups synchronised with AD.
  • Added advanced logging for capturing Microsoft Entra ID synchronisation errors and corrected a typo in the completion notification.
  • Addressed a brief flashing authorisation error window during user login, improving the overall sign-in experience.
  • Improved an agent registration flow by replacing a somehow misleading “Try again” button with a read-only “Please wait” indicator.
  • Improved the password change process for web application users, so that the password change timestamp updates with correct date/timestamp during the process.

Streamlined alert delivery to ensure alerts reach recipients

  • Resolved White Box Issues causing alerts to appear as white, unresponsive boxes—ensuring alerts are properly displayed and can be dismissed.
  • Resolved an issue where alerts were not sent when selecting Organisational Units (OUs) as recipients.

Refined user experience for web and agent applications

  • Fixed the issue where the “Submit” button was incorrectly displayed during survey transitions. The “Next” button now appears appropriately except on the final submission step.
  • Resolved an issue where information windows in quizzes featured an empty (unlabeled) notification button, ensuring proper labeling is displayed.
  • Added validation in Survey/Quiz/Poll for multiple-choice questions to ensure that at least one answer is selected before submission, preventing errors in response statistic reports.
  • Expanded image upload support for Surveys/Quizzes/Polls to allow uploading images from external sources.
  • Fixed the vote count display in duplicate polls so that repeated Survey/RSVP Alerts Vote count shows correct vote percentage.
  • Enhanced the submission logic for surveys with intermediate steps, allowing users to proceed without encountering somehow annoying “select at least one answer” popup in agent apps.
  • Fixed an “Internal server error” that occurred during creation of RSVP and Surveys in a web application.
  • Corrected the logic to display quiz results (percentage of correct answers) after survey completion on desktop agents.
  • Revised the SQL query to correctly calculate the “Total Sent” counter in Alert Statistics Widget by counting unique user instances, fixing abnormal increments.
  • Resolved issues where Alert Statistics widget data failed to load on page refresh, ensuring consistent and accurate statistics display.
  • User Details Widget Sorting - Fixed a bug preventing sorting by Name, ensuring that user lists can be accurately sorted.
  • User Details Widget - Updated search functionality to exclude deleted users, ensuring cleaner and more accurate user listings.
  • Eliminated the appearance of random artefacts in Desktop Agents (e.g., stray menu drop-down or white rectangles) after version upgrades.
  • Resolved UI errors when accessing the Panic Button Alert History section, ensuring smooth navigation.
  • Added actual product license expiration date to a web application for customer administrator convenience.
  • Optimised the method for fetching alerts in Alerts List View for better performance and resolved “Error fetching alerts list” issue.
  • Refactored open rate calculation logic ensuring accurate percentages and stable sorting without page crashes in surveys.

Enforcing role-based permissions in a web application

  • Enforced user policy restrictions so that only users with reports permission can access detailed reports or download them.
  • Fixed an error that allowed sending alerts to “Everyone” to publisher users with audience constraints in Publisher Policy.

Enhanced localisation

  • Corrected punctuation placement in scrolling tickers in Arabic so that punctuation marks display in the proper order.
  • Fixed display issues in a ticker body text for RTL languages by adjusting text formatting and element wrapping.
  • Addressed minor gaps and errors in Spanish translations to enhance localisation accuracy.

11.5.0.11 Hotfix Notes​

Resolved Issues

  • Azure AD synchronization brings a timeout error
  • Company logo in alerts appears with a delay for large audiences
  • Company logo thumbnails are missing in the ticker skins collection section
  • For quizzes and polls, answers statistics showed 100% for all answer options (intermittent)
  • Getting a generic error while editing a skin for a scrolling ticker
  • License expiry date is showing "Invalid date" error
  • Postpone button position is slightly shifted in desktop agents on macOS
  • Queued videos (except the first one) in Digital Signage lose audio and don’t scale to full screen
  • White text on grey background is shown in a label of a postpone time button in agents running on macOS 12 Known Issues
  • Compressing an animated company logo in GIF format turns it into a static image (known issue)

11.5.0.10 Maintenance Release Notes​

Maintenance Release 11.5.0.10 for DeskAlerts resolves major issues impacting alert delivery and system performance, including preventing blank alerts during high server load, optimizing Azure AD sync for large audiences, and enhancing reconnection mechanisms for consistent alert and survey delivery. Additionally, issues with stopped alerts being delivered and incorrect recipient statistics have been addressed.

Updating both the server and agent applications to version 11.5.0.10 is required to implement these fixes and ensure system reliability.

Enhancement

  • Sender Display Name for SMTP integration settings
  • Added the ability to set the sender's Display Name in SMTP integration settings, allowing email alert recipients to see a customized sender name.

Resolved Issues

  • Alerts appeared as a white screen during extreme server loads. Alerts are now downloaded and verified before being displayed, preventing this issue.
  • Server crashes occurred when broadcasting content to audiences of over 15,000 users due to unbalanced load distribution among connection services. As a result, some connection services got overloaded with connection requests from the agent apps. A maximum connection cap was introduced for connection services to prevent occurrence of such scenarios.
  • Optimized Azure AD Sync process, which previously completed successfully but resulted in 0 objects being added to the audience if the tenant contained over 15,000 objects.
  • [Intermittent] Alerts and surveys were delivered twice to some machines due to a loss of the first delivery confirmation caused by the communication interruption between the main and connection services.
  • When the main service was not responding to a connection service for over one minute, the connection service switched to "Disconnected" mode. Enhanced a reconnection mechanism to ensure continuous and reliable connectivity between DeskAlerts main and connection services.
  • [Intermittent] Some surveys were delivered only after restarting the connection service. Enhanced a reconnection mechanism to ensure continuous and reliable connectivity between DeskAlerts connection and the main services.
  • Logging details of all AD/Azure AD sync events caused database performance bottle necks.
  • Stopped scheduled alerts appeared in the History section of the agent app.
  • Stopped scheduled alerts were delivered to the audience after an agent app reconnected to a ser
  • Stopping alerts targeting recipients by IP addresses or IP address ranges did not work as intended, causing stopped alerts to be delivered to the audience.
  • [Intermittent] A "Can’t connect to client service" error appeared on some machines when stopping a lockscreen due to a failed update of the lockscreen service.
  • In version 11.5.0.9, scheduled alerts with additional channels (email, SMS, and text-to-call) were only delivered to the agent application and not to the additional channels.
  • Pop-up alert acknowledgement statistics only displayed the first 20 users when switching to subsequent pages.
  • When the "acknowledgement" setting was enabled in default alert settings, RSVP alerts were sent with "Acknowledge" and "Postpone" buttons, which are not part of the RSVP module functionality.
  • Free text answer option remains visible to the audience in cloned RSVP alerts, even after being disabled in the alert settings.
  • Deleted users and their agent apps were displayed in dashboard widgets as users with active accounts.
  • Emergency alerts appeared in the Pop-up Alerts list with the creation date of the Emergency Alert template instead of the actual emergency alert send date.
  • Users, groups, and domains were not imported via CSV files.

Known Issues

  • [Intermittent] The DeskAlerts agent app may intermittently display outdated or missing response statistics after completing a quiz or poll. This occurs due to delayed server responses.

11.5.0.9 Hotfix Notes​

Hotfix 11.5.0.9 for DeskAlerts resolves key issues related to SMS alert delivery and MS Teams bot initialization, ensuring smoother recipient handling and improved system reliability.

Resolving these issues requires updating the server to version 11.5.0.9.

Resolved Issues

  • In version 11.5.0.8, SMS alerts were sent to users as many times as the number of devices on which the user had historically logged in.
  • The MS Teams bot failed to initialize due to incomplete recipient data retrieval, specifically missing status information for deleted users.

11.5.0.8 Hotfix Notes​

Hotfix 11.5.0.8 for DeskAlerts resolves key issues with recipient selection, IP Group targeting, and scheduled broadcast delivery. CSV/XLSX reports now accurately show the alert statistics, including not recieved alerts, and desktop agent launch errors related to lock screen services have been fixed.

Resolving these issues requires updating both the server and agent to version 11.5.0.8.

Improvements

  • Enhanced User Lookup for High-Volume API Alerts

    A new API method /api/organization/user was added to allow retrieving a specific user by their exact username. This method accepts parameters { "UserName": "SomeUserName", "DomainName": "SomeDomainName" }, enabling precise targeting even in cases where users with the same name exist in different domains.

Resolved Issues

  • Agents registered by Computer Name outside the specified IP range were still receiving alerts intended for the IP Group.
  • The desktop agent version 11.5.0.7 failed to launch with the error "Can't connect to client service" due to a startup issue in the service managing lock screens.
  • Scheduled broadcast alerts were not delivered to recipients unless the agents were restarted.
  • Unselecting a previously selected nested OU (Organizational Unit) still displayed it in the list of selected recipients.
  • CSV/XLSX reports in server version 11.5.0.7 only showed statistics for the latest recurring alert, without records of users who didn’t receive it.
  • The "Online" status of an AD computer is not displayed in the audience list.

11.5.0.7 Maintenance Release Notes​

We’re releasing 11.5.0.7 for DeskAlerts, focusing on key improvements and fixes. This update enhances email alerts with embedded images, improves AD sync performance, and introduces new Arabic fonts. Several issues affecting alerts, UI stability, and reporting have also been resolved.

We recommend updating both server and client components to version 11.5.0.7 for optimal performance.

Improvements

  • Email Alerts with Embedded Images: Email alerts can now include images embedded directly within the HTML page, enhancing the visual presentation of email alerts.
  • Enhanced Personalization Feature: The Personalization feature has been improved to support attributes for both the sender and the recipient of an alert. These attributes now include First Name, Last Name, Display Name, Email, and Phone Number. Previously, these attributes were only available for recipients.
  • New Arabic Fonts: We have added several Arabic fonts, including Al-Jazeera Arabic (Regular, Bold), Royal Arabic, and The Sans Arabic (Light, Regular, Bold, Black), providing more customization options for alerts in Arabic.
  • Optimized AD Synchronization: The performance of Active Directory synchronization has been significantly improved, resulting in a 4x faster sync for large domains.

Resolved Issues

  • An emergency alert using the attribute #UserFirstName# displayed the recipient's information instead of the sender's.
  • The scrollbar in the audience search for sending content did not appear when there were additional results available.
  • [Intermittent] A "503 Service Unavailable" error appeared in alerts when the server was busy at the time the alert was received.
  • CSV/XLSX reports for recurring alerts only included information for the most recent alert in the series, instead of cumulative data.
  • If the connection was lost for 3 hours or more, the Mac agent remained in a "Reconnecting" status indefinitely.
  • Alerts were not displaying on the main screen of Windows.
  • The "Postpone" option was shown in alert and emergency alert previews, even when disabled in the alert settings.
  • A "500.37" error message appeared after an on-premises deployment when attempting to open a dashboard URL due to a failed connection to the Azure SQL PaaS database.
  • Skin lists did not display all available skins for a publisher.
  • Preview functions for RSVP, Survey, Quiz, and Poll were not working in the Arabic language.
  • The password change timestamp for publishers did not match the device time.
  • The sync start time did not match the device time.
  • Simple AD registration in the desktop agent failed with a "Value cannot be null" error due to an incorrect encryption key.
  • Changed registry type from REG_SZ to REG_RWORD in the NoChangingLockScreen field, which improved the stability of lock screen configuration.
  • The license trend chart widget was difficult to read due to overlapping digits.
  • Start, stop, and delete alert actions failed when the agent was in a "Disconnected" state.
  • Users from individual Organizational Units (OUs) were not syncing until the entire domain sync was completed.
  • The "Fullscreen" option was not applied to Emergency alerts, RSVP, and Surveys created from templates that had this option enabled.
  • In the mobile app, the QR code reader failed to scan the server QR code, requiring manual input of the server URL.
  • Lock screens sent to devices were not being applied or stopped due to improper DeskAlerts Client Service functionality.
  • Each click on "Acknowledge" in an alert and scrolling of the ticker was counted as a separate acknowledgment in statistics.
  • A blank scrolling ticker and the error "The request was canceled due to the configured HttpClient.Timeout of 600 seconds elapsing" occurred due to an outdated token.
  • The alert send time in CSV/XLSX reports did not align with the publisher's browser time.
  • A "Forbidden" error was shown in a received blank alert due to missing cookies.
  • Synchronization of large Active Directories was halted due to enabled Trace and Debug logs causing an error.
  • QR code reader in DeskAlerts 11 Mobile App did not scan server information during user authentication.

11.5.0.6 Release Notes​

We’re releasing Hotfix 11.5.0.6 for DeskAlerts to address major issues related to alert customization, user interface, and system stability. This update ensures improved performance and reliability across key functionalities. Additionally, logging related to the Lockscreen functionality has been enhanced on the client side to provide better troubleshooting capabilities.

Resolved Issues

  • Lockscreens were received, but not installed on the recipients’ desktops and laptops.
  • A Stop Wallpaper button was not visible for publisher users with a corresponding permission enabled in the user policy.
  • Alerts delivery to all devices was delayed, when the publisher's time was running ahead of the server time.
  • Saving an alert as a draft resulted in the error "date value is not finite in DateTimeFormatformatToParts()" appearing in a draft and sent list views in the tablet version of DeskAlerts.
  • A recurring alert scheduled with a frequency expressed in minutes (2 or more minutes) was sent every minute.
  • Downgrading from server version 11.5.0.3 to version 11.5.0.1 resulted in an error "Unexpected character encountered while parsing value" in the alert body.
  • Alerts preview in the RSVP/Survey/Quiz/Pool editor was not shown when the UI language was set to Arabic. After completing Quizzes and Polls, the error "Exception of type 'DeskAlerts.Core.Exceptions.ProxyBadStatusCodeResponseException' was thrown" appeared instead of the quiz or poll results.
  • Refactored the “License Usage Trend chart” for better user experience.
  • Intermittent issue: a logout action was delayed, causing the dashboard page to appear with a pseudo-active interface.
  • Saving a content draft redirected users to "Sent" page instead of "Drafts"
  • The latest created skin did not appear in the "Publisher can use only specified skins" option when creating a policy for the publisher.

11.5.0.5 Release Notes​

We’re releasing Hotfix 11.5.0.5 for DeskAlerts to address issues related to alert scheduling, delivery timing, and accuracy. Please note that this update requires only a server-side update.

Resolved Issues

  • Saving a lock screen to drafts resulted in it being sent to the specified audience without appearing in the sent items.
  • Resending an alert caused the start, end dates, and lifetime to display incorrect data that did not match the original alert.
  • Alerts configured for Instant delivery were not sent immediately due to a slight server time offset.

Known Issues

  • When the publisher's time is ahead of the server time, alerts sent to all devices arrive to the mobile app equal to the time difference between the publisher and the serIf the publisher's time is behind, the alert is sent correctly.
  • The "sent" and "drafts" tables on the pop-up alerts page display the error "date value is not finite in DateTimeFormat formatT oParts()" when the DeskAlerts console is viewed on tablets and phone devices. The laptop view is not impacted.
  • CSV/XLSX report exports for recurring alerts show recipient responses to the last alert only. Note that this issue doesn’t impact surveys.
  • Emergency alerts initiated from client apps show the name and contacts of the person who created the emergency alert template, not the person who initiated the alert.
  • We are actively working on resolving the known issues. Please contact our support team if you experience any additional problems.

11.5.0.4 Release Notes​

We're excited to announce a hotfix for DeskAlerts version 11.5.0.4. The issue can be resolved with a server-side update only.

Resolved Issues

  • A temporary connection loss causes all types of content to be delivered only after the client restarts.

11.5.0.3 Release Notes​

We announce a hotfix for DeskAlerts version 11.5.0.3. The issue can be resolved with a server-side update only.

Resolved Issues

  • Content was being broadcasted even when selecting delivery to a single user, multiple users, or groups.
  • The "View Graph" report displayed an incorrect list of recipients of alerts and other content due to the issue with content being broadcasted.
  • Duplicate users from the same domain appeared when both AD and Azure AD synchronizations were enabled.

11.5.0.2 Official Release​

We are excited to announce the official production release 11.5.0.2 of DeskAlerts! Following a beta phase, we gathered valuable feedback from our beta users, allowing us to make targeted improvements and ensure a more stable and efficient experience. This release incorporates these enhancements to address the insights and suggestions provided, improving both functionality and the user interface. We appreciate the active participation of our beta customers, whose contributions have been instrumental in refining our product to better meet your needs.

New Features

Enhanced User Experience for Scheduling Wallpaper, Screensaver, and Lockscreen Delivery

Version 11.5.0.2 introduces an updated UI for scheduling Wallpaper, Screensaver, and Lockscreen. You can set start and end times separately or choose "Display continuously" if unsure when to stop. This enhancement offers more flexibility and ease of use.

Added Azure AD (Entra ID) Method to Mixed Devices with AD Credentials Only

Administrators can now specify that end-users outside the domain can register using Entra ID (Azure AD) credentials in addition to AD credentials, without enabling other authentication methods. This enhancement provides greater flexibility in user authentication while maintaining security protocols.

Increased Default IIS Limits on Concurrent Connections and Request Queue Length in DeskAlerts Server Installer

This change reduces the time it takes to successfully roll out DeskAlerts for customers with large audiences.

Resolved Issues

  • Logging out of the DeskAlerts mobile app skewed statistics for recipient alerts.
  • Deleting a user's history in the DeskAlerts client application triggered a physical removal of alerts in the client application database.
  • The DeskAlerts Client icon in the Windows system tray menu would reappear after being configured as hidden.
  • Default images for emergency buttons were not included in the release packages.
  • Instead of survey content, the client app showed an error: Exception of typeDeskAlerts.Core.Exceptions.ProxyBadStatusCodeResponseExceptionwas thrown in sent surveys.
  • Clicking a preview item in the actions (...) menu in the RSVP alert template list didn’t bring up a template preview.
  • "Free Answer" responses in surveys, quizzes, and polls were missing in exported reports.
  • Voting statistics in surveys were calculated incorrectly.
  • Text in Arabic was displayed in an obscure font in the history view of the client application.
  • The default skin was not available when creating or editing a ticker.
  • The "Enable user feedback" option did not appear in the sent scrolling ticker.
  • Scrolling ticker speed was affected by the alert body text size.
  • The skin search filter did not work on pages beyond the first one.
  • Some alert text formatting was ignored when rendered on client apps.
  • Duplicate user records appeared in exported reports for alerts.
  • Sound in video alerts did not stop when the Acknowledgement option was enabled.
  • The "Alert Statistics" widget displayed incorrect information.
  • Edited pop-up alerts could not be saved as drafts.
  • Sending alerts exclusively to either mobile or desktop devices delivered alerts to all device types.
  • Expired wallpapers continued to be displayed as a solid background.
  • Alert "position" setting for emergency alerts defaulted to the bottom right.
  • A blank alert delivery issue was caused by sub-optimal database queries in dashboard widgets.
  • The “Oops! Something went wrong unexpectedly” error appeared after a successful login to the dashboard with Azure AD credentials.
  • Azure AD sync failed with the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object".
  • Logging into the web interface (dashboard) was interrupted by the “Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'accessToken')” error.
  • Azure AD synchronization didn’t pick up the primary domain for synchronization by default.
  • A domain did not appear in the domain list after a successful synchronization with Azure AD.
  • The open rate shown in the Wallpaper reports section was incorrect when the corresponding alert was sent on a schedule.
  • Exported reports showed UTC server time instead of the user's local time in date/time fields.
  • The Acknowledgement button in alerts brought up a warning "Your Response was Not Recorded.
  • A publisher with a restriction to a specific audience in their user policy could send an alert to "everyone", resulting in a broadcast to the entire connected audience.
  • Resolved some cosmetic UI and localization issues.

System Requirements The minimum requirements are 8GB of memory, followed by an additional 2.6GB for every 10,000 connections.

Number of ConnectionsCPU (cores)RAM (GB)
less than 15,00048
15,000 - 40,000816
40,000 - 100,0001632

CPU requirements Intel Core i5-13400 | AMD Ryzen 5 7600, or an equivalent.

Storage Considerations Application Server Storage Requirement: 300 GB (for the first year)

SQL Database Server Storage Requirement: 200 GB (for the first year)

note

These estimates are based on projected usage for the first year. Storage needs should be reviewed periodically as data grows.

Horizontal scaling considerations While installing the DeskAlerts Server, choose a number of сonnection services followed by an additional connection service for every 7,500 connections.

To ensure secure communication, it is necessary to acquire a valid SSL certificate and subsequently install it on your server.

Internet Information Services (IIS) configuration necessitates a default site binding for HTTPS on port 443, utilizing the installed SSL certificate.

DeskAlerts Application Server requirements

DeskAlerts Desktop Client Applications requirements

DeskAlerts Mobile Client Applications requirements

  • Android: Requires Android 8.0 or later
  • iOS: Requires iOS 14.2 or later

**Known Issues **

  • Intermittent issue with the CEF framework crashing on one of our test Mac machines.
  • When a publisher procrastinates and clicks the send button after the date/time for the first scheduled alert has passed, we send the alert but mark it as not received in the statistics report.
  • CSV/XLSX report exports for recurring alerts show recipient responses to the last alert only. Note that this issue doesn’t impact surveys.
  • Emergency alerts initiated from client apps show the name and contacts of the person who created the emergency alert template, not the person who initiated the alert.

11.5.0.1 Release Notes​

We're excited to announce a hotfix for DeskAlerts version 11.5.0.1, addressing product defects. This update rectifies issues with displaying alert content and enhancing its delivery, ensuring reliable and effective communication across our platform.

Resolved Issues

  • Enable User Feedback setting Causes a "White Screen" Alert

    Enabling the "Enable user feedback" feature causes alerts to display as a white screen. Now, with this fix, the alert content is shown correctly, and the user feedback statistics are displayed accurately.

  • Decouple Content Delivery from Server-Based Connectivity Status When targeted content delivery goes off, the server checks the connectivity status (active/inactive) of the corresponding recipients in DeskAlerts serSuch statuses appear to be not 100% reliable, so some active recipients don’t receive content. Now, we are relying on the status of recipients stored in connection services. Connection services are persistently connected to the recipients and have an accurate connectivity status, thus making targeted content delivery much more reliable.

  • Token Validation Error (intermittent) When token validation fails for incoming alerts, surveys, scrolling tickers, and other content, an error "Exception of typeDeskAlerts.Core.Exceptions.Proxy BadStatusCodeResponseException' was thrown" appears on a white background. In the present version, DeskAlerts server side token validation is removed, ensuring actual content appears in alerts.