Absolute 7.15 Release Notes

This topic describes the software changes included in Absolute 7.15. It also describes the changes included in all hotfixes since the release of Absolute 7.14.

This release introduces performance, security, data integrity, and usability improvements that enhance the responsiveness, reliability, and ease of use of the system. It also introduces enhancements, improvements, and fixes to existing features and functionality.

To view the software changes introduced in this release that apply to the Absolute agent, see the Absolute agent release notes: Version 7.15.

NOTE  Depending on the Absolute product licenses associated with your account, some of the following software changes may not be available to you.

Features and enhancements

Custom rules (New!)

In the Policies > Rules area, you can now create a rule to automatically notify you via email when a particular event occurs, so you can promptly take the appropriate action.

You can create a rule based on any of the events logged to the Events page in the History area. For example, you can be notified when:

  • a device's Public IP address changes
  • a disk is removed from a device
  • the version of a device's operating system changes
  • a Reach script successfully runs on a device
  • a user profile is created in your account
  • etc.

You can also add multiple events to the same rule so that you're notified if all selected events occur within a specified number of days.

Learn more

Special considerations if you currently use Alerts

If you currently use the (Classic) Alerts feature to send event-based email notifications, your alerts are still active in the current release. However, you'll notice that the Alerts tab is no longer available in the Policies area. To access your alerts, click the Rules tab and then click the Go to Classic Alerts Page link near the bottom of the page.

IMPORTANT  The Alerts feature will be deprecated in a future release. We strongly encourage you to evaluate your alerts and begin creating custom rules for the alerts that you want to keep. Note that Absolute will automatically migrate your geofence-based alerts when we release a new version of Geolocation in early 2021. At that time, we will also migrate your geofences.

Web usage support

  • Comparing website usage (New!)

    From the Web Usage (Last 7 Days) report, you can now select up to 50 websites and compare their usage over time in a chart. To view the chart, click the new icon in the top right of the Web Usage (Last 7 Days) report.

    The chart shows a timeline for each website that has been added. Initially each timeline shows the past 90 days of weekly usage, averaged across all devices that visited the website, but as users continue to visit the site over the coming year, it will show up to 15 months of usage.

    You can filter the chart's data to show only daytime usage, evening and weekend usage, or all usage during each week. You can also export the chart as an image or a report.

    Learn more

  • Configurable time ranges

    To better suit your business needs, you can now configure the time ranges used in Web Usage reports. Click the icon in the Weekly Usage > Daytime report column to define the days and hours to include in the Daytime time range. The Evenings and weekends time range updates automatically. Learn more

    NOTE  This enhancement will be rolled out to Absolute accounts shortly after the release of Absolute 7.15. If you don’t see the new configuration in Web Usage reports, check back in a few days.

Application Persistence enhancements

  • Application Persistence policies, which collect information about the functional status of third party applications installed on your Windows devices, now support persistence of the following third-party applications:

  • You can now persist the following application versions:

    • ESET® Endpoint Anti-virus version 7.x

Reach scripts enhancements (New!)

  • You can now change the directory the agent uses to download and run Reach scripts. Learn more
  • You can now use the Reach Script API to execute and query Run Script requests, as well as cancel outstanding Run Script requests. Learn more

Accessing Help and Support

The Help and Support area has been moved to the Absolute Resource Center, which you can access by clicking the icon in the bottom right of the console. To open the console Help, user documents, training resources, or authorization forms, click Help Center. To view the Knowledge Base, submit a support case, or chat with a Support specialist, click Support.

New role permissions

To support some of the new features introduced in Absolute 7.15, the following permissions are now available on the Permissions page in the User Management > Roles area:

  • Web Usage - Manage permission
  • Web Usage Site Comparison - View, Manage, and Export permissions

These permissions have been granted to the appropriate default roles. For example, System Administrators are granted Manage capabilities for each permission. To grant these permissions to any custom roles you've created, update each role's permissions.

Windows support

To improve the performance and stability of the Absolute agent for Windows, the (classic) Windows agent has been upgraded. The new agent (version 978) is included in version 7.15 of the Absolute agent. If your account is configured to receive automatic upgrades, your Windows devices will automatically upgrade to version 7.15. You can also download this new agent version from the Agent Management page in the Settings area.

Improvements and fixes

Absolute 7.15 introduces the following improvements and fixes:

Feature/Area

Improvements and fixes
Applications
  • When you're viewing details for an individual application from the Assets > Applications page, clicking a linked identifier in the Identifier column now opens the device's Device Details page.
Chromebook support
  • Previously, in some cases, you may have been unable to edit some organization units (OUs) in Settings > Classic Account Settings > Chromebook - Google Accounts after you reorganized or deleted OUs in the Google Admin console. This issue is now fixed.
Data Delete
  • Due to a server configuration change, TLS protocol 1.2 now needs to be enabled before you submit an End of Life Data Delete request for a Windows device. This option is enabled by default on Windows 10 devices, but not on Window 7 or 8.1 devices. For more information about enabling the TLS 1.2 protocol in Internet Options, see Microsoft documentation.
Dashboard
  • For all widgets that provide a Detailed view, column labels that exceed 45 characters are now truncated.

Device groups

  • Previously, if an account had only one Classic device group, that device group was not available for selection in report or page filters. This issue is now fixed.
  • You can now successfully filter a report or page by a Roll Up folder.
Device Usage
  • If a Windows device's screensaver is controlled by a group policy, device usage tracking is now halted when the screensaver is triggered.
Email services
  • In the Missing Device Checked In email notification, the Absolute logo has been changed to an image format that is supported on all email clients.
  • Email notifications for Freeze and Remove Freeze requests now include the name of the request.
Endpoint Data Discovery (EDD)
  • On a device's Endpoint Data Discovery Summary page, the Last scan date field now shows the date when the scan was completed on the device. Previously, this field showed the date when the scan results were uploaded to the server.
  • The following changes apply to the Reporting Data report and the Devices with At-Risk Files in Cloud report:
    • After you apply a Rule filter to a report, you can now schedule or export the report.
    • Previously, to successfully filter a report by Rule, you could only use the contains operator. This issue is now fixed. You can now use any of the supported operators to filter the report.
    • The Excluded from reports filter has been removed from the default view of the report.
Freeze
(Classic version)
  • If you submit a Device Freeze request for a synced Chromebook device when the Absolute for Chromebooks extension is not yet deployed (device shows agent version of 2200), you are now notified that the device is ineligible to be frozen.
Freeze

(Absolute 7 version)

  • The content in the Device Freeze conditions report column is now formatted correctly.
  • In the Settings > Device Freeze Messages area, Unidentified User now shows if the user who created a message has been deleted from the Absolute console.
  • If you submit a Freeze request for a synced Chromebook device when the Absolute for Chromebooks extension is not yet deployed, Unsupported Agent Version now shows on the Eligibility for Freeze dialog.
Full-Disk Encryption
  • When FileVault is enabled on a macOS 11 device, the device's detected encryption status is now reported in the Absolute console.
  • When version 6.x of Trend Micro Full Disk Encryption is installed on a Windows device, it is now detected and shown in the Full-Disk Encryption Status report.

Hardware data collection

  • For Mac devices, the device user's domain is now reported correctly in the console, in all cases.

History

On the History > Events page:

  • The following events are now logged:
    • Device freeze requested
    • Device frozen
    • Device freeze failed
    • Remove freeze requested
    • Device freeze removed
    • Remove device freeze failed
  • The data type format for the following events has been updated to enable filters to be applied correctly:
    • System information updated > Public IP address
    • System information updated > Local IP address
    • Network adapter updated > Default gateway
    • Network adapter updated > DHCP server
  • A Network adapter updated event is no longer triggered when any of the following network adapter attributes change:
    • Name
    • Type
    • Speed
    • Manufacturer
    • Installed
    • Product type

    Also note that these items are no longer available in filters on the Events page.

  • To improve the performance of the page when there are a very large number of events, the Search field has been removed from the Events page.
  • If the Events page's filter area contains more filters than it can show on one line, you can now click the icon to view the additional filters.

On the History > Actions page:

  • The Actions drop down now lists only those actions that your account is licensed for.
  • You can now search for a device by its Absolute Identifier (ESN).
Missing Devices
  • Previously, a user who is assigned to a custom role with Manage permissions for Missing Device was unable to use bulk upload to report devices missing. This issue is now fixed.
Report filters
  • The usability of page and report filters has been improved. You can now:
    • Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move to the next item in a field's list.
    • Press Enter on your keyboard to select an item in a list.
    • Press Esc on your keyboard to close the list without making a selection.
  • When filtering using a data point that measures memory size or clock speed, you can now select the unit. Memory size data point filters use bytes, MB, GB, TB and PB. Clock speed data points filters use Hz, MHz, and GHz.
  • When using the between operator to filter reports and pages, the filter results now include data points with both beginning and end values.
  • You can now filter reports and pages by all available BIOS fields.
  • To improve the usability of the Average daily usage filter, you now use Hours and Minutes fields to enter the usage duration that you want to filter by.
  • When you apply the within last operator to the Warranty End Date filter, future dates are no longer included in the filtered results.

Reports

 

  • A number of improvements have been introduced to improve scrolling on reports and pages, including:

    • Report and pages with the icon include a row number to indicate the scroll position within a list.
    • Previously, if you repeatedly scrolled a report that contained a very large number of records, the page may have gone blank. This issue is now fixed.
  • Previously, when the total device count couldn't be retrieved for a report or page, the entire report or page failed to load. Now, the report loads the first page of results and shows a partial device count, such as 100+ devices or 1000+ devices. As you scroll through the report, the device count updates incrementally as new results are loaded. Once you reach the end of the report, the full device count is calculated and shown.
  • You can now use Unicode characters when searching for a device name.
  • The OS Product Key field is no longer available on the Software Summary tab of the Classic Device Summary page. You can find this field by adding the OS Product key column to most pages or reports that show devices in the results grid, or in the Operating System section of the Device Details page.
  • When an error occurs and a device is unable to send the status of its Hardware policy , a icon now shows in the Hardware > Status report column instead of "No Data".
  • General performance and usability improvements.
Rules
  • All newly created or updated freeze messages are now available for selection when you create a new Offline Freeze rule.
  • If your account's Device Freeze Offline Policies were migrated to Rules, the policy group configuration is now available when you create a new Offline Freeze rule.
  • Updating the system date and time of an offline device no longer impacts the device’s Offline Freeze timer.
  • When you deactivate or delete an active Offline Freeze rule when no devices are frozen, you are no longer presented with the following prompt: What do you want to do with any devices frozen by this rule?.
  • General usability improvements.
Unenroll Device
  • The following text has been removed from the Unenroll Device dialog because you can now successfully re-enroll a device by reinstalling the Absolute agent:

    • If you want to re-enroll the device at a later date, you'll need to contact Absolute Technical Support.

Web Usage

  • The Web Usage columns in all reports are now labeled Weekly Usage.
  • The performance of the Web Usage > Device Details report has been improved. The report is no longer temporarily empty while it regenerates its data.
  • Previously, the number of devices that showed on a website's Web Usage - Device Details report may have been incorrect, in some cases. This issue is now fixed.
  • The Device Group filter is now applied correctly to a website's Web Usage - Device Details report, in all instances.
  • Previously, in the Web Usage (Trending) report, a website's full name may have been truncated in its tooltip, in some instances. This issue is now fixed.
  • In the Web Usage (Last 7 Days) report, the tooltip for the Weekly Usage > Total column is now more descriptive. It has been updated from Total to Average usage per device over last 7 days.
Wipe
  • To ensure that the prerequisites are understood before a Wipe request is submitted, the following warning now shows on the Wipe dialog:

    • If a device's encryption key is backed up or stored in escrow outside of the device, it could be used in the future. Use the Wipe feature only if you are confident that externally stored keys are protected or sanitized.