A while back we released a feature that allows certain ActiveCampaign products to authenticate users with an external login source. This feature is currently supported in KnowledgeBuilder 3.x and SupportTrio 2.x, and will soon be included in every ActiveCampaign product.

I wanted to share how dead simple it is to get started creating a new login source using your own authentication system. We’ve included some of the more popular applications like Joomla, PHPBB3, and vBulletin, as default external login sources, which can be enabled at any time.

But you may have your own custom authentication system that you’d like to use. In order to do this, you’ll need familiarity with editing PHP files, as well as a programmatic understanding of how to use PHP to speak to your authentication system.

To get started, open up the ac_global/loginsource/ directory contained within your KnowledgeBuilder 3.x or SupportTrio 2.x installation:

You’ll see a number of individual .php files, each corresponding to a separate login source configuration. For this example, I’ve added the last file, zencart.php, as we will be creating an external login source for Zen Cart.

Set up .php file

Once you create the new .php file in this directory, edit the contents of the file with this:

<?php

$loginident = "zencart";
$loginvars = "host,dbname,user,pass";

?>

Here we specify the name of our new external login source (the $loginident variable), as well as the settings you’d like to specify when setting up this login source (the $loginvars variable).

The $loginident variable will correspond with the name you see listed under the available login sources within the application:

The $loginvars variable will correspond with the available fields that allow you to input specific information pertaining to this login source:

Once you have included those two variables in the new .php file, you should be able to access the login source directly within the application:

Enable and further configure .php file

Once you’ve saved your new login source settings, using the above application pages, you are ready to configure the .php file to speak to your authentication system.

The easiest way to set up the rest of the .php file is to copy an existing source. For example, if you open vbulletin.php, you’ll see the necessary functions that need to reside within the class:

class vBulletinLoginSource extends AC_LoginSource {
....
}

Modify names to match your new login source. For example, vBulletinLoginSource would become zencartLoginSource.

Keep the five core functions in place:

Modify these functions to extract and authenticate a given username/password combination. For more information on what each of these functions should return, please view our detailed help documentation article.

We can also set this up for you, if you provide us the database structure that houses your external user credentials, as well as any specific PHP authentication/validation functions.

Testing out your new login source

If you feel confident that you’ve modified the .php file correctly, the only thing left is to test it out!

Make sure you’ve enabled your new login source, set User Type to Public or Admin, and promote it to be the first login source the system tries to use for authentication:

Then, log out of the application, and try logging in as a user from your external system. If everything is working, you should be able to log straight in to the application as normal!

As we are developing the new versions of both Email Marketing and Help Desk we have put a great amount of detail into usability.  The term usability is often used to simply describe the user interface.  But, the term encompasses a much larger area of software development.

A specific case in our recent development is cron management.  A number of our applications require you to setup a cron job.  In some cases you may need to setup 3 or 4 cronjobs depending on the features you are using.This is something that can be a pain for our users.  Once you setup the application you should not have to do more work when you start using a feature or purchase an add-on.  Thus we are designing our new cron management feature.  Our new cron management feature serves 2 primary purposes:

1. Ability to have a single cron – yet have different timed events.  This means that while you will only have one cron that you have to setup, our software can choose to execute different actions at different time intervals.
2. Improve the process of expanding your application and upgrading.  With this new feature in place you will not need to manually add any crons or events if you wish to use extra features, new add-ons, etc..

Those 2 purposes are the primary objectives of this feature and a great example of improving usability.   This feature will debut in Email Marketing 5 and Help Desk 3.

Help Desk now supports external login sources for both public and admin sections. We included LDAP and vbulletin integration by default. Login sources allow you to connect to external systems, such as vBulletin, LDAP, or virtually any other external source to authenticate your users.

You can configure your login sources by clicking its menu option under the Users menu. First, you choose which login sources are enabled by editing each one you want to use and checking its enabled status. Any login source considered to be enabled will be used to authenticate users. Once you do so, if you have more than one enabled, you can move it up or down the list by clicking the “up” or “down” links respectively on the list screen. The login source at the top represents the first source we’ll try to authenticate a user; the bottom one the last. We try each source until all of them report that they don’t know a user before we state that this user doesn’t exist.

Before you use a login source, you’ll need to edit each one to input the connection information, such as its database location.

For people adding new connections: The best way to get into creating connections is to look at an already-existing one that closely matches what you want to do. If your authentication system is another MySQL database, for example, then you might want to check out the vBulletin connection file. For more details on creating your own connection file click here for our documentation or contact support.

We will be adding a long list of external login source connection files for a number of products. If you have a specific product you are looking to integrate with – contact support and we can assist with creating an external login source connection file.

UPDATE: We have just added Joomla and PHPBB3 as external login sources.

Help Desk 3.0 development has begun….

We recently started work on Help Desk 3.0.  Version 3.0 will be a major update to the ActiveCampaign Help Desk Software package.

We will be incorporating hundreds of changes and additions including such things as:

• Rewriting the majority of the backend code
• Improving the speed and responsiveness of the entire application
• Leaving 99% of the source code unencoded
• CSS Based admin/public interfaces
• Escalation system
• SLA Management
• External Login Sources
• Much more….

While we have our development plans – we still want to know what you want to see in Help Desk 3.0.

Let us know what you want changed, what you wish was added, general feedback & comments, etc… Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will be taken into consideration for Help Desk 3.0.

Tell us what you want in the next version of SupportTrio!

The Mambo foundation is a volunteer, non-profit organization charged with the governance of the Mambo open source content management system.  Mambo is free software released under the GNU/General Public license and like all such projects, dealing with emails and organizational issues takes valuable time away from software development.   They use Help Desk to manage both time and resources more effectively.

Mambo developers must work in collaboration from many different locations which makes email key to their communication.   “Email is the key communication tool. The Mambo development team and the members of the Board of the Mambo Foundation are geographically distributed and work in a virtual, online environment.  All email that is not addressed to individuals is managed through the help desk.”  Directing email traffic through a central ticketing system allows multiple members to work together on the same issue if it is not specifically addressed to a particular individual.

Mambo foundation uses the knowledgebase in ActiveCampaign’s Help Desk Software to provide a central location for corporate documents that require routine turn over.  “For the management of Board affairs Help Desk has proven to be an ideal solution.  Previously, corporate documents were kept by officers of the Foundation and handed over to new officers following our annual elections of the Board. This meant that record keeping relied on the diligence of the individuals who handled those documents. Help Desk is used as a central repository and archive. By keeping all documents in the knowledgebase and keeping emails we now have accurate corporate records that are available to future Board members. This gives us confidence that we can not only meet our statutory obligations but also that institutional knowledge is retained for the future – two things that are extremely important and sometimes difficult to achieve in a volunteer environment.”     This improves efficiency and allows accountability that would otherwise be difficult to maintain.

“Volunteer, free software projects tend to have a reasonably high turnover in personnel. People work when they can, in their spare time, and often find it hard to commit their time in advance. By having a central document repository and by handling all email through the ticketing system it does not matter who is around and when. People can come into new roles and read what has happened previously and people can take leave for a few months while knowing that others can step in and take over handling of the enquiries.

“In the past, individuals took responsibility for one or more email accounts. There was no way the rest of the team could be certain that emails were being responded to in a timely manner and no way the team or Board could be certain it was receiving all information. By collecting all emails within the help desk the groups collectively have access to each email and the responses. This has made us more accountable and has improved our responsiveness to enquiries.

“Prior to installing Help Desk we also had issues due to the distributed, virtual team environment we work in. Team and Board members are located all over the world and not everyone has reliable internet connections. Some countries have high fees for bandwidth. This resulted in some Board members being reluctant to take on responsibility for handling email enquiries due to costs – especially as a lot of the email is spam. By using the helpdesk nobody needs to worry about the costs because email goes into the ticket system and is not downloaded to individual’s computers. If someone’s internet connection is down for awhile this is not a problem – responding is a collective responsibility and no longer a burden put on individuals.

“The Mambo Foundation has used SupportTrio for nine months now. The improvements in our responsiveness and productivity have been significant. Best of all, we now have more time to devote to developing the software.”

SupportTrio provides a central framework to allow Mambo Foundation address the challenge of working in an environment that requires the collaboration of volunteers working in different locations.  It also provides a means for maintaining efficiency and accountability in an environment that necessitates a high turnover rate.

Click here for more information about ActiveCampaign Help Desk Software.

If you could change one thing about ActiveCampaign Help Desk Software what would it be?  Think about the public side, admin side, features, work-flow, license options, or anything else.

Let us know what you would change…

As many of you may be aware – we have talked a lot about opening up some areas to allow for easier customizations along with the ability to retain certain customizations with upgrades. We have some exciting features and options coming in the future. The ability to easily upgrade without losing style and code changes is yet to come – but now you can access the majority of the source code for the public sections of Email Marketing, Help Desk, and Live Chat.

What does this mean? You now have access to the source code of the public pages / functions. You can now directly modify the subscriber add/edit functions, or work on the archive page for Email Marketing. Or you can adjust the ticket submit code in Help Desk. Or change how the Live Chat chat code works to authenticate and authorize a chat. The possibilities for customizations are endless.

To view a specific list of files/folders that have been unencoded click on one of the following links:

• Unencoded files in Email Marketing
• Unencoded files in Help Desk
• Unencoded files in Live Chat

As mentioned above – this is only the start of a number of new changes coming to our entire product line. Just let us know if you have any questions, comments, or feedback along the way!

visualEdit Work

We have continued finishing up work on visualEdit and have a couple of small items left. We adjusted how we were going to manage users and what not which caused a small delay in preparing for the beta. You can still signup at http://www.activecampaign.com/visualedit/ to be notified when the public beta is ready.

New Software Updates

• Email Marketing 4.61.2 was released with a number of bug fixes
• Live Chat Software 1.56.1 and Live Chat Desktop 1.16 was released with some new features and lots of speed enhancements.

Recently Added/Updated KB Articles

Syncing from custom fields
Customizing the way your name looks
What are Tasks? What are Time Entries?
POP Account Settings
POP3.php PEAR problems
Quick Start Guide
Viewing project time estimates versus actual time spent
Setting Up a New Project
Creating User Groups and Using Project Permissions
Integrating SwiftTraction With Help Desk Software
Custom Fields for Actions
Email Marketing A/B Split Module
Flash forms
Auto Remind Add On
EmailCheck Add On

What is it?

SwiftTraction is a new time management and tracking application. Developed using a detailed API – SwiftTraction makes time tracking in any environment easy to setup. SupportTrio & TrioLive installs (from any server, any domain) will be able to easily connect to any SwiftTraction install for tracking.

SwiftTraction can be used as a general timesheet managment program and/or integrated with SupportTrio to gain time based reporting capabilites for your SupportTrio install(s)

How To Download

You can download the latest version of the SwiftTraction beta at:
http://www.activecampaign.com/swifttraction/beta.php

This page will also include the serial required for install.

Feedback & Support

• Quick Start Guide
• Forum – For Support, Questions, Comments, Feedback
  

Currently all of our products have a base requirement of PHP 4.3+ and MySQL 3.23+

You may have noticed recently that PHP.net declared that they will no longer be supporting PHP 4 as of December 31st 2007. Also there has been a widely publicized project called GoPHP5. The idea behind GoPHP5 is to get as many applications to back the PHP5 only development status.

While we do agree that it is time for hosts to make a final switch to PHP5 we will not stop supporting PHP 4.3+ anytime soon. We strive to ensure our product line works from PHP 4.3 to the latest version of PHP5. And we will ensure compatibility with PHP6 when it is closer to release.

Keeping that in mind we are currently testing increasing the MySQL version requirement to MySQL 4.1+ for TrioLive, SupportTrio, and SwiftTraction. We have found the vast majority of our client base to be utilizing MySQL 4.1 or above for some time now.

We won’t be rushing any of these changes out. If you should have any feedback during this time just let us know!