The information in this article is the intellectual property of xMatters and is intended only for use with xMatters products by xMatters customers and their employees. Further, this intellectual property is proprietary and must not be reused or resold.
Introduction
We're hard at work on our next quarterly release, Krull, which will be rolling out in the Jan/Feb 2021 timeframe. Please follow this article and its comments to receive updates throughout the quarter about new features and functionality that we're working on for the Krull release.
Customers interested in previewing new features before they're released can opt into our Early Access Program (EAP), which delivers new features into non-production environments as they're rolled off the assembly line.
We'll also use this document to capture highlights of additions and updates to our mobile platforms and the xMatters REST API.
Deployment Details
For more information on how features in this article work, click the online help links embedded in each topic. As with any of our Community articles, you can click any image or animated GIF to see a larger version.
Support Notes
For a list of additional changes made in each deployment that are not covered in the Development Highlights, see the On-Demand support notes included below each highlight. While most features will be added to production environments as part of our quarterly releases, the support notes typically describe fixes, which can sometimes affect product behavior.
January 11-15, 2021
Krull Quarterly Release
Our next quarterly release is coming up fast! Here are the dates you'll want to mark on your calendar:
- Non-production environment access: Tuesday, January 26
- Production environment access: Tuesday, February 9 (enabled between 10:00-10:30 am Pacific)
Keep an eye out for the complete Krull feature overview, coming on Tuesday, January 26!
Support notes (week of January 11-15)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-33838 | Workflows - importing: Fixed an issue where importing a workflow that included a conference bridge within one of its forms caused an error on the Messaging tab in Free instances. |
| COR-33734 | Users page - My Profile: Corrected an issue to ensure that users can't see their profiles and devices if they don't have the appropriate permissions. |
| COR-33733 | Subscriptions: Corrected an issue where the "Subscribed" check box was cleared after the user acknowledged a "Cannot Unsubscribe" error message. |
| COR-33698 | Flow Designer - input fields: Fixed an issue to ensure values retain their formatting if they're used within angle brackets. |
| COR-30224 | Users page - Search results: Corrected an issue where users could see incorrect search results if they request a second search result before the first search has completed. |
| COR-33730 (SUP-22677) |
Device management - email domains: Corrected an issue that prevented users from saving changes when they removed all email domains from the Allowed Domains field. |
| COR-33654 | Workflows - delete xMatters Agent: Modified the "Delete xMatters Agent" confirmation window to ensure relevant information is displayed to the user. |
| COR-33632 (SUP-222644) |
xMatters REST API - POST /devices: Corrected an issue so the correct error message displays when attempting to assign an existing externalKey to another device. |
| COR-33445 (SUP-22628) |
Messaging - Message editor styles: Fixed an issue where preset styles were not applied properly and could cause user-specified styles to break. |
January 4-8, 2021
Incident Management: Resolver roles
The Resolvers section of the Incident Console now lets you add labels to each of your resolvers describing their role or responsibilities in resolving the incident. This makes it easy to see what everyone is working on and why they're included in the incident resolution process:
xMatters REST API: Assign users a phone PIN
When you create or modify users with the xMatters REST API, you have the option to programmatically set their phone PIN – that's a number they can enter into their phone to identify themselves when they call into xMatters to retrieve their messages. To do this, include the new phonePin parameter in your request to Post /people.
Support notes (week of January 4-8)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-33700 | Admin - Device Management: Fixed an issue where the cursor would shift position when attempting to edit a device name. |
| COR-33450 (SUP-22646 |
Web User Interface - Login page - Company logo: Corrected an issue where a company logo appeared properly in the Company Details page, but was distorted on the login page. |
| COR-33440 | Groups - Shifts: Fixed an issue where reverting a modification to a shift occurrence deleted previous occurrences, and applied the modification to the remaining occurrences. |
| COR-32689 | Groups - Shifts: Updated the group calendar page to prevent users from inadvertently moving a shift so it overlaps perfectly with an existing occurrence. |
| COR-30594 | xMatters REST API - POST /events: Corrected an issue so the correct error message displays when submitted events contain a null form ID. |
| COR-33189 | All Events Report - Recipients column: Fixed an issue that caused the All Events reports to repeat user names in the Targeted Recipients column. |
| COR-33184 (SUP-22604) |
Groups - applied filters and file exports: Fixed an issue where filters applied to the Groups page resulted in an empty export file. |
| COR-31690 | Users page - Add Users - Help window: Corrected an issue that caused the xMatters online help to open in a distorted window with no way to maximize it in Internet Explorer 11. |
December 14-18, 2020
Incident Management: Dismiss resolvers
You can now dismiss resolvers from an incident. This is helpful for indicating which resolvers are no longer needed to actively engage in resolving the incident, and for keeping an accurate record of when and how long each resolver was engaged.
To dismiss a resolver, select Dismiss Resolver from the options menu:
And you can optionally add a note explaining why you're dismissing the resolver:
Notes are appended to the timeline record of when the resolver was dismissed:
Dismissed resolvers
You can easily distinguish which resolvers were dismissed because they're greyed out in the console:
Support notes (week of December 14-18)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-33317 (SUP-22432) |
Integration Builder (performance enhancement): Fixed an issue that potentially caused timeout issues on some Integration Builder requests. |
| COR-33210 (SUP-22618) |
Device Management - email domains: Adjusted the web user interface to automatically convert email domains to lower-case. |
| COR-33180 (SUP-22527) |
Workflows - importing flows: Corrected an issue that prevented workflows that included the Merge step from importing successfully. |
| COR-33083 | Incident Console (cosmetic fix): Fixed an issue where extremely long descriptions or timeline entries were not properly word wrapping within their sections. |
| COR-33063 | Groups - Shifts: Corrected an issue where an unused time zone caused an edited shift to appear at the wrong time in the schedule. |
| COR-33200 (SUP-22603) |
User Import: Fixed an issue that caused errors when the user upload file contained custom attributes. |
| COR-32475 (SUP-22497) |
xMatters Mobile App - Android: Corrected an issue where users were repeatedly logged out of the xMatters mobile app. |
| COR-32612 (SUP-22559) |
Flow Designer - email initiation: Fixed an issue that was causing timeouts when attempting to send POST requests to an email trigger. |
| COR-32329 | Integration Builder - xMatters Agent: Corrected an issue where a messaging loop triggered the creation of a large number of events. |
December 7-11, 2020
Incident Management: Add resolvers without sending notifications
You can now immediately add resolvers to an existing incident without sending them a notification. This is useful when you've already got people working the incident and you simply want to add them to the list of engaged resolvers without making them stop what they're doing to acknowledge a message.
To do this, select the new Mark as Engaged option when you're adding resolvers. You'll then be able to select which users to add to the incident (you can't mark groups or dynamic teams as engaged).
To send a notification inviting users, groups, or dynamic teams to engage in the incident, select Notify to Engage.
Incident Management: Resolvers styling updates
We've streamlined the design of the Resolvers section so it's easier to see which groups are represented and what each user's engagement status is. With this cleaner design, actions to 'Notify' and 'Stop notifying' resolvers are available from an options menu, and you can move your cursor over a resolver's status to see the time they were notified or became engaged:
Flow Designer: New custom step image library
The next time you select an image for one of your custom steps or HTTP triggers, you'll notice we've made the following great improvements to the Image Library:
- Modern, streamlined design with a larger drag-and-drop surface for uploading images
- Custom icons at the top of list, with newest images listed first
- Improved resolution of the default images included in the library
Support notes (week of December 7-11)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-33073 (SUP-22585) |
Event Traffic widget - All Events report: Corrected an issue that prevented the display of accurate user data when accessing the All Events report notification statistics from the Event Traffic widget. |
| COR-32842 (SUP-22574) |
xMatters REST API - user deliveries: Fixed an edge case issue where attempting to retrieve user deliveries for an event would fail under specific circumstances. |
| COR-32912 (SUP-22583) |
Messaging Forms: Corrected an issue that prevented the Send Message button from being visible at certain zoom levels. |
November 30 - December 4, 2020
Post-Incident Report is now live in production
Advanced plan customers can create a Post-Incident Report in xMatters as part of their postmortem process. On the Incident Console, click Create a Post-Incident Report on a resolved incident to get started:
For details about what's included, see the related entry in the Joust Release Overview, or consult our online help for complete instructions.
Mobile Incident Management (iOS)
It's essential to stay connected when things go wrong so we're happy to announce that you can now manage incidents on the go! This version of the iOS app gives you the ability to view, update, and resolve incidents right from your iOS device.
Use the mobile incident console to update an incident's details, status, and severity by tapping the field:
The resolvers field shows any groups, users, or dynamic teams that are currently engaged. If you need additional resolvers to help with the incident, you can add them by tapping the field and selecting from the People and Groups contact lists:
Read more about how to use the new mobile features in the online help.
Don't use iOS? Don't worry—Mobile Incident Management for Android is coming soon!
Improving All Events report performance
To better support our customers with extensive historical data, we're making some changes to the All Events report. These enhancements will greatly reduce or even eliminate the timeout issues that some customers were experiencing when retrieving larger results sets.
For the full deployment schedule and an explanation of the potential trade-off in overall response times, see our recent Enhancements to the All Events report article.
Support notes (week of November 30 - December 4)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-32717 (SUP-22569) |
Users - Add Users: Fixed an issue where users without the ability to add users were seeing the Add User button. |
| COR-32714 | Web User interface - translations: Ensured French translations were available for various sections of the user interface. |
| COR-32668 (SUP-22560) |
Workflows - Incident Management: Corrected an issue where users were unable to add resolvers to an existing incident. |
| COR-32602 | User Import: Mobile devices that are part of an import file are ignored by the upload process. As such, we've adjusted the User Import log to display warnings instead of error messages. |
| COR-32447 (SUP-22541) |
User Export: Corrected an issue where some very large user exports experienced timeouts. |
| COR-32424 (SUP-22531) |
Flow Designer - Integrations: Corrected an issue where flow triggers were removed from the canvas when the flow was saved. |
| COR-32419 (SUP-22524) |
Flow Designer - Create Event step: Fixed an issue where deleting an unconnected Create Event step from the canvas caused validation errors for other flow steps. |
| COR-29892 | Conferences - Related Events: Ensured the links on the Related Events page take the user to the tracking report of the event. |
| COR-22712 | All Events report - User Delivery: Fixed an issue where Who Was On Call was not available if group members did not have devices. |
| COR-32651 (SUP-22534) |
Integrations - Microsoft Teams: Corrected an issue where xMatters was unexpectedly disconnected from Microsoft Teams. |
| COR-32364 (SUP-22515) |
All Events report: Fixed an issue that caused poor performance when retrieving event data via the All Events report |
November 16-20, 2020
Initiate incidents from Slack
Does your team live and breathe in Slack? If so, you'll love to hear you can now use the xMatters bot to initiate incidents in xMatters – without leaving Slack!
Use the /xMatters initiate command to provide basic information about the incident and select which Slack conversation to post details about the incident in after it's created:
Once the incident is initiated in xMatters, the bot posts a message with information about the incident to the conversation you selected:
Add an incident to a Microsoft Teams meeting
We've been working closely with Microsoft as it launches its new meeting extensibility capabilities, which add support for apps in online meetings. You can now add an xMatters tab to your meetings to keep your team up to date on incident details and collaborate on incidents without leaving your online meetings:
Update incidents from meetings
When you update the incident's severity, status, or description from your meeting, this information is automatically updated for the incident in xMatters:
Support notes (week of November 16-20)
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-32256 (SUP-22489) |
xMatters REST API - GET /people: Improved performance when requesting a list of users that contains a large number of supervisors. |
| COR-32189 (SUP-22493) |
Messaging - layout formatting: Fixed an issue that removed user-provided formatting from the message form. |
| COR-31338 (SUP-22313) |
xMatters Mobile App (Android/iOS): Corrected an issue that caused some mobile apps to display notification responses twice. |
| COR-32311 (SUP-22507) |
Flow Designer - Activity Stream: Fixed an issue that prevented some users from accessing and using the Activity Stream. |
| COR-32267 (SUP-22504) |
Users - Add Users - Sites: Corrected an issue where only the first 100 sites were displayed in the list of available sites. |
| COR-32060 | Admin - Sites: Fixed an issue that prevented users from being able to delete some sites in their systems. |
November 9-13, 2020
Support notes
| xMatters Internal Reference No. | Summary |
| COR-32147 | Flow Designer - property menu: Fixed an issue to ensure the property menu contained proper object names for connecting triggers. |
| COR-32051 | Groups - updating group name: Corrected an issue where changing the group name caused prevented shift changes from saving. |
| COR-27924 | Dynamic Teams (cosmetic fix): Fixed an issue that caused text to overlap some fields. |
| COR-32063 | Workflows - importing: Corrected an issue where case-sensitivity mismatches prevented a workflow from importing properly. |
| COR-32015 (SUP-22473) |
Flow Designer - custom steps: Ensured that custom steps will not display the Endpoint tab if the "Include Endpoints" check box is left blank when the step is created. |
| COR-32014 (SUP-22463) |
Logging in via SSO/SAML: Fixed an issue that caused some SAML users to see a "Could not generate SAML metadata" error when they attempted to log on to their xMatters instance. |
|
COR-31711 (SUP-22444) |
Flow Designer - Slack steps: Fixed an issue where inputs in configured fields of connected steps were removed after the steps were disconnected from each other. |
| COR-31648 | Groups - filtering: Updated the "With Any Empty Shifts" filter on the Groups page to ensure it will return the expected search results. |
| COR-31483 | Workflows - Activity Updates (cosmetic fix): Adjusted item spacing to ensure a consistent look and feel of the drop-down menus in the Activity Updates window. |
About the early access delivery process
Customers can choose to opt their non-production environments into an Early Access Program (EAP) to see new functionality before it's released. If you're considering signing up for the early access program, there are a couple of important things to know:
- Enrollment in EAP can be turned on any time through a support request.
- Exiting EAP can only be done on quarterly boundaries (you cannot opt in and out between quarterly releases).
For full details, refer to the official On-Demand Deployment Process & Early Access article.
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