We´re back with another update. REI3.9 addresses two major pain points we´ve had our eyes on for a while, makes large user bases more affordable and introduces some admin tools. Let´s have a look.

Redesigning the REI3 user management

Providing user management for a platform where authors can build applications with very different requirements, was never an easy task. The solution we´ve had so far, login forms, allowed varied user records to be created and managed in multiple applications at the same time - but it also required REI3 admins to manually connect these to logins in the system. This was tedious and a hurdle for new admins.

Not any more. With REI3.9 we simplified the whole thing. Admins can now simply create users in REI3, with applications now able to automatically create or update any user related records they need. Manual assignment no longer required.

The neat part

REI3.9 introduces the user sync. A new optional function that will allow authors to update their user records, whenever a REI3 user is changed. The user sync can also handle additional user data like organization or contact details, which can be entered in the admin panel or imported via LDAP.

And don´t worry, the user sync is only there for authors that need to deal with their own user records. If you build on other apps, like REI3 Organizations, you do not need to do anything. Even if you want to implement your own user sync, we´ve prepared a template with an example implementation for you.

User sync!

The old login forms are still available. But authors switching to the user sync, will make REI3 admins much happier. Especially with larger user numbers.

The complicated user management was the most commonly shared complaint from organisations using REI3. It took a good amount of work to address and we are very happy with the result. We hope you will be too.

*** Note: If you are running apps from Lean Softworks, like REI3 Tickets, Password Safe or Time Tracking, please upgrade to 'Organizations v169' to enable the user sync. ***

Variables - more flexibility in the frontend

With more and more people building REI3 applications, the scenarios and use cases continously expand. For some of these cases, we had to find workarounds. Now with REI3.9, we are happy to announce a powerful new feature - variables!

Variables can do many useful things:

They can be used as additional inputs on forms; these are then not connected to any relation or attribute. Very useful for pre-filtering inputs or implementing custom multi-field inputs.
Variables store data either globally or within the context of a form. Meaning you can use variables to store contextual data from within one form, to supply default values on another. Or proceed with a workflow on the same form.
Form states and filters can access variables to adjust fields or visible data based on previous events.

By being accessible as input fields, filters in queries, conditions in form states and as value stores in frontend functions, variables can serve many purposes.

Variables

Variables also replace the current value store functions; these will continue to work but should be replaced with variables going forward.

We are aware that there always more use cases to address and variables will not make everything possible. But it is a major step and will help us address even more scenarios in future releases.

Limited users - better support for large user bases

A common scenario: An organization wants to use REI3 for request handling or for simple workflows based on some form submission. You have a handful of people daily working in REI3 - and hundreds more just accessing REI3 sometimes to check on their tickets or other submissions.

This is a scenario, that many of our customers have, but our licensing model was ill equipped to address. Until now, you had to have 1 license per user, concurrently logging into REI3; regardless of whether they work with all the applications every day, or just need to access the public user portal of one app. With large user bases, this could become expensive fast.

We had to address this - but did not want to make our licensing more complicated or expensive. We think we found a good solution with our new feature: Limited users.

With every REI3 Professional license, organizations now receives 3 additional, limited users - free of charge. This means that if an organization has 20 licensed users, 60 additional users can log into REI3 concurrently to check their tickets or whatever they need to do. Even if 60 concurrent users are not enough, it is now much cheaper to solve, as every license now covers 3 additional, limited users.

There are some restrictions for limited users: They cannot be admins and can only have a single role assigned. As soon as a user needs to work in multiple applications or needs to be a REI3 admin, they count as a full user.

Limited users

Limited users are meant to make REI3 Professional more affordable. They do not affect anyone choosing to run REI3 without support services.

System wide messages for admins

Another, often requested feature: Admins can now schedule messages, to be shown to their users. This can be helpful for scheduled maintenance or for informing users about important changes.

System messages

It can also be configured to automatically switch REI3 to maintenance mode when the schedule expires.

User session view

REI3.9 introduces a new user session view in the admin panel, showing who is logged in from where.

User sessions

Useful, especially in larger instances.

More smaller features and improvements

The user management interface has been redesigned to better handle large user numbers.
Column and field setting UIs were cleaned up in the form editor.
The backend function editor now shows attribute content icons next to the relevant placeholders.
Number field inputs will now force the number keypad to open on mobile devices, instead of the full text keyboard.

Upgrade notes

As always, these are the general upgrade steps:

On Windows: Run the installer.
On Linux systems: Stop the service, extract the latest release, replace the r3 binary, start the service.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback. For the full list of changes, take a look at the technical change log.