Webcrossing server update – Unified Digests!

We are very excited about this new feature for the Webcrossing server.

People familiar with Webcrossing over the years already know that each folder (forum) can be used as a separate email list. You can post to discussions in a folder by email, and each folder can send out messages to subscribers.

Members can subscribe to each forum area in different ways: they can receive immediate notifications of new posts, they can receive daily digests, or they can receive a single notification with no new messages until they return to the site and catch up.

For digests, some sites have wanted a unified email digest feature. In other words, instead of a separate daily digest sent from each forum area, there have been requests for a single daily digest, customized for each user, for those areas where members are subscribed to receive digests.

With this new version of Webcrossing, now you can provide unified digests to such users!

Notes:

  • The default is unchanged. Unless you set up your Webcrossing server to provide unified digests, nothing will change. Your digest subscribers will still receive separate digests from each forum/folder.
  • In addition to the new server, the unified digest feature requires a customized digest filter. We can provide a sample one, which creates HTML email digests, with a Table of Contents, like the one in the screenshot snippet. If you know how, you can modify the template to meet your special needs. Or you can contact us to request our professional services staff to create a more customized digest for you.
unified-digest-sample2
Unified Digest snippet

 

The latest release version is now Webcrossing 6.4 source: 1678 2014-12-02.

We will be upgrading all hosted customers, and coordinate the upgrade timing as needed to make the new server feature available to customers who want to make use of it. Remember, nothing will change unless unified digests are enabled at your site. The upgrade itself only requires a few minutes of site downtime.

All self-hosted customers with valid support and maintenance contracts can download this new version at no cost.

We recommend upgrading to the new version. If you are a self-hosted customer and have a valid support and maintenance contract, please contact support for access to the new server. If your support and maintenance contract has expired, please contact us to renew so we can provide you with this important update.

Also a reminder about our previous recent upgrades: Version 1675 2014-09-27 was released on October 8 with enclosure reference count fixes. Version 1673 2014-08-31 was released on September 8 and fixed attachment deletion and cluster attachment propagation issues. Version 1670 2014-04-25 was released on May 7, 2014 and fixed an important stability issue which, under certain circumstances, could cause a Webcrossing server process to silently quit, leaving the site unresponsive, and also added a new feature to allow guest users to visit sites licensed for a limited number of users (a so-called “seat license”).

The latest release includes all those fixes and enhancements.