The Heropa team has been super busy of late. Here's some of the highlights we've been working on over the last little while:

✨ Features

• Events: Add time to an event using the 'Add time' feature. This adds time to all environments in the event and updates the event's end time. See: Running an event.
  
• Events: Save time and effort by configuring an event so that both the event and its participants are automatically deleted when the event finishes. See: Creating an event.
• Templates, Environments: Set one or more secondary IPs on VMs within a template or environment. See: Creating a template.

🌱 Enhancements

• Environments: We previously shared that environments can be protected from deletion. Now, you can also protect individual VMs inside an environment from deletion. See: Managing an environment's VMs.
• Environments: Easily see when environments are due to be deleted via the new 'Deletes on' column on the Environments List screen.
• Templates: When deleting templates, we now show you the template names prior to confirming their deletion.
• LTI: Admins can now configure whether users see an intermediary confirmation screen when joining Heropa from an LMS. Go to Administration / Company Details / LTI to manage this setting.

🔧 Bugfixes

• Events: User initials were displaying in the workspace when their session was idle. This has now been fixed, and they no longer display.
• Environments, Templates: When editing VM networks within an environment or template, we had a bug which was allowing a duplicate IP to be assigned to a VM. This is no longer possible.

We've made some improvements to how role permissions are managed, and hope you like them! 

1. Changes to infrastructure permissions

In the Role / Permissions tab, role permissions can now be set on different infrastructure components in Heropa. Previously, this was managed by an overarching category called 'Infrastructure'. 

This has been replaced by new separate permission categories for Environments, Templates, VM Images, Policies, and Public IPs, example below:

2. A new way to manage what's visible in the left navigation

The new 'Left nav' permission is what determines whether the category is visible in the left navigation menu in Heropa. This can be used to control what screens users with different roles see. Note that there may some roles where permissions to a category might need to be granted, even if seeing the screens in the category is not required for the role. 

For example: You might want to give a role left nav visibility of Courses. If the role also requires visibility of the Environments, Templates and VM images in courses, then a 'View' permission should be set on each of these categories, even if the 'Left nav' permission for these categories is not set. 

Learn more in our knowledge base article: Using roles and permissions.

When creating and editing content to display in the environment workspace, it's now easier for content editors to manage the editing process. A single user can now check out content, effectively locking it for editing. Once their edits are completed and saved, the content can be checked back in. 

If content is checked out to someone who is no longer editing it, there is also the ability to override the check out. 

If you're collaborating on content, be sure to check with the other user before overriding their check out.  

Learn more in our knowledge base article: Editing content.

Admins can now configure their company portal to show up to 4 buttons on the top navigation panel of the portal. 

These can be used to add quick links to other sites such as a knowledge base or support website.  

In Company Details, Configuration tab: 

Once created, the quick link button will be displayed on the top navigation panel of the portal for both admins and end users. 

When multiple versions of an environment are saved as templates, it can be difficult to determine from the VM images list page which images belong to which template. 

We have now added a new feature to allow an admin to add a prefix or suffix to the newly created VM images that are saved back to the VM images collection. 

This should make it easier to manage VM images in different templates.

In Environment Details, select Save as template.

In the Create new template modal, custom VM image names can be created by adding a prefix or suffix, for example:

Original VM image name = DB001
Prefix = V2-
Suffix = -2021
New VM image name = V2-DB001-2021

Adding a custom prefix or suffix is optional. If the fields are left blank, there will be no change to the VM image names.

If there are multiple VMs, then all VM Images created will have the updated names.

Note: The prefix and suffix is only visible in the new VM images collection - the original names are retained inside the new template.

One features our customers like when using our Events for classroom training is the ability to set environments to pre-launch, so that participants can instantly access their environments.  

We're excited to let you know that this feature is now also available in Courses for self-paced training. 🎉 

Admins can create an unallocated pool of pre-provisioned environments within a course. When a user enrols in a self-paced course, instead of having to wait for the environment to build, they are given an environment from the unallocated pool, allowing for instant access.

In Course Details, Configuration tab, specify how many environments to add to the unallocated pool. The unallocated pool level is maintained so that if a user enrols and is issued with an environment from the unallocated pool, the pool balance tops up to the specified amount.

We've launched a new feature that gives admins the ability to protect a standard environment. This can be used to protect an environment from being modified or deleted. Once an environment is protected, any user who attempts to modify or delete it will be notified that this is not possible. 

In Environment Details:

If protection is no longer required, the environment can be unprotected.

Big news today! We've started a What's new changelog, so we can keep you informed about product updates and changes in Heropa.

Access the changelog at any time from What's new in the left hand panel. You can also subscribe to receive email updates when new posts are published.

We look forward to your feedback!