ExchangeDefender 9 Launch & Bugfix
ExchangeDefender 9
ExchangeDefender 9 launch has gone very smoothly and in the interest of keeping everyone on top of little bugs that may get reported over the next week we’ll keep this post pinned and updated with new bugs and ongoing fixes. So far all the issues have been minor and addressed within 24 hours of reporting.
PDF Download: New ExchangeDefender 9 User Guide
Bugfix log – Monday, August 6th
Trusted sender button in Quarantine view. Messages were properly processed and email addresses added to Trusted Senders so future messages would not be categorized as SPAM by ExchangeDefender. Unfortunately, messages were never released from the quarantine and delivered to users Inbox, which is the desired outcome. This bug has been fixed on Monday, Aug 6th.
Multiple message action. New ExchangeDefender quarantine allows you to take an action on multiple messages by checking the checkbox next to the message. Unfortunately, ExchangeDefender did not properly grab all messages, only the first one. This bug has been fixed on Monday, Aug 6th.
Full email address preview in Quarantine view. New ExchangeDefender UI has removed hover functionality from the portal entirely. Vlad/CEO Note: “Sorry guys, it’s 2018. Everything is touch enabled and touch devices have a terrible hover gesture, we’re moving to actually tapping the screen for info”; Due to the volume of complaints, we have added the expansion of the email address to the UI temporarily while we think of a better way to display it. The problem is with SPAM and mailing list companies that mask/forge the sender address and embed it in the From line for tracking and bounce purposes. This makes the From line too long to display in the ExchangeDefender quarantine view so we trim it. You can now hover over the email address and see the full address in your desktop browser. This feature has been added on Monday, Aug 6th.
SPAM quarantine message counter on the dashboard displays all messages, not just new/unreviewed messages. This problem has been resolved and the counters on the dashboard now only show messages that are new and haven’t been previously reviewed. This bug has been fixed on Monday, Aug 6th. There is an outstanding feature request tied to this bugfix to have counters update in realtime.
Authentication fails when logging in to admin.exchangedefender.com from the SPAM report. This issue has to do with the change of encryption and password security in XD9. This bug has been fixed on Monday, Aug 6th.
Users login is rejected if they used certain special characters. In prior versions of ExchangeDefender, we simply stripped non-alphanumerical characters. With XD9, we use a hashed password so matching the password is only possible when it’s exactly the same as the one we are expecting. We have implemented an authentication workaround on Monday, August 6th.
Domain login failures. ExchangeDefender 9 features a domain administrator account (simply using domain.com) that gives clients the ability to manage the entire organization centrally. This bug has been fixed on Monday, Aug 6th.
Bugfix log – Tuesday, August 7th
Quarantine message preview fails. Several bugs have been filed regarding the ExchangeDefender CAMP (Compliance Archive Message Preview engine) and how display was either off or mangled messages. This bug has been fixed on Tuesday, Aug 7th.
SPAM Czar is unable to retrieve dangerous attachments. ExchangeDefender 9 and the underlying security infrastructure does not allow dangerous content, no matter how badly you want it and have a business case scenario to support downloading a virus/malware. In order to reconcile the request with legitimate use, we’ve implemented a temporary workaround. This bug/feature was added on Tuesday, Aug 7th.
PDF Download: New ExchangeDefender 9 User Guide
CEO’s Note
Every screen in ExchangeDefender 9 features “Give us feedback” link where every user can provide what they would like to see more/less of. As mentioned in countless blog posts and multiple webinars about ExchangeDefender 9, this is the next generation designed for mobile, for touch, for rapid development and flexibility needed to meet modern regulatory compliance requirements. Well over 90% of our features are direct result of client and partner feedback – so please keep it coming. For our part, this has been the smoothest launch we’ve ever had and we’re aggressively fixing bugs while adding new features that make a ton of sense as fast as we can. ExchangeDefender 9 has been in beta since March so our partners have had plenty of time to check it out and familiarize themselves with the new UI but just about every function in the end-user UI is exactly where it was before – so no retaining is needed and so far we’re not getting reports of users not knowing how to get basic stuff done (either directly through our reporting function or indirectly through partner feedback). Huge thanks to our partners and beta testers for making this a smooth launch, we really appreciate it and are thrilled to show you all the new stuff that will be driven by this new, modern, agile platform. I’ve personally been writing ExchangeDefender since 1999 and this is the first release in nearly 20 years to feature 0 lines of code written by me – so at least we got that!
ExchangeDefender 9 Going Live! July 28th
ExchangeDefender 9
ExchangeDefender is proud to announce that ExchangeDefender 9 will be exiting the beta stage next week and will be in production for all of our clients on Saturday, July 28th, 2018. We want to prepare our partners and clients for our rollout schedule so that everyone is ready to go for what we expect to be a very seamless and effortless transition. You can see the new version at https://admin8.exchangedefender.com and we have written about it extensively here.
ExchangeDefender 9 has been running with new infrastructure since August of 2017, new UI launched earlier in the Spring of 2018 and all the automation and functionality has been tested extensively.
To sum it up:
Brand new outbound network Brand new inbound network
All new infrastructure, network, switching and security workflows
Brand new user interface and user experience
Tons of new features
The best part of it all is that all the functionality that you already use is in the exact same place, behaving the exact same way, and yielding the exact same results. The magic is in everything around it – everything is faster, more accessible, more streamlined and has far more functionality and flexibility than before. Just as a minor example, the new user interface allows you to interact with ExchangeDefender the same way no matter whether you’re at your desktop or on your mobile phone – and you get the full feature set, not just limited mobile experience.
Rollout Schedule
ExchangeDefender infrastructure is already running on the new code and has for months. This piece of our network is under constant maintenance and monitoring and we’re certain about it’s performance. You will not see any changes here.
On Saturday, July 28th, 2018 we will switch https://admin.exchangedefender.com to the new version of the UI/UX. Users will begin to see changes nearly immediately starting with 9AM EST. There may be a period of about an hour during which some users will experience the new UI and old UI – our support desk will be available via phone, chat, Facebook, twitter and support portal at https://support.ownwebnow.com the entire weekend to handle any issues that may come up. End users will also have a direct link to us to resolve any issues so if you’re one of our partners and don’t have a 24/7 support line – consider it covered.
On Sunday, July 29th, 2018 we will conduct a routine maintenance crash test – intentionally taking down random sections of our platform in order to determine resilience. This test will be conducted at random times during the day and we do not expect it to interfere with any operations.
New documention, marketing and collateral will become available the week of July 23rd but most of it is already available at www.exchangedefender.com right now.
Thank you for your business!