Absolute 7.17 Release Notes

This topic describes the software changes included in Absolute 7.17. It also describes the changes included in all hotfixes since the release of Absolute 7.16.

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 7.17.

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

Tracking the location of your devices (New!)

This release introduces Absolute 7 Geolocation, Absolute's newest offering of geolocation functionality. Geolocation uses the existing geotechnology on your devices to detect a device's current geographical location and show it in the Absolute console.

With Absolute 7 Geolocation, you can:

Directly access an interactive geolocation map from device reports and the pages in the Assets area. To open the map and view your devices’ location, click the new icon in the top right of the page. Learn more
Use a timeline and map to view recent movements of a device Learn more
Create a rule to alert you if your devices change their location, or exit or enter a defined geofence Learn more

System requirements

To get started, activate the Geolocation Tracking policy in one or more policy groups. The Absolute agent's new GEO component A lightweight software component of the Absolute agent that detects the geographical location of your devices. The GEO component is controlled by the Geolocation Tracking policy. will start to collect location data from your devices. Learn more

IMPORTANT Absolute is rolling out Absolute 7 Geolocation to customer accounts in phases. More information will be provided in the coming weeks. If you are currently using the Classic Geolocation Tracking feature, Absolute will let you know when your account will be migrated to Absolute 7 Geolocation and what to expect after migration is complete.
If you’re not currently collecting the location of your devices, you’ll know when Absolute 7 Geolocation is available in your account when you see the Geolocation Tracking policy on the Settings tab in Policies > Policy Groups, and the icon is available on the All Devices page in the Assets area.

Device Details enhancements

The following enhancements are now available on a device's Device Details page:

Status alert banners (New!)

To alert you to a device's current status, one or more banners may now show in the summary area of a device's Device Details page. Specifically, a banner shows when a device is frozen, unenrolled, or reported missing or stolen. A banner will also show if the device has an outstanding On-demand Freeze request that has a Pending status.

For example:

Note that depending on the banner, the device action buttons may be automatically adjusted. For example, when the Reported missing banner shows, the Report Found device action moves from the option list to an easily accessible button.

Learn more

Custom Data Points page (New!)

The Device Details page now contains a Custom Data Points sub-tab on the Details tab. The new page lets you see the data points enabled for the device, the value for the data point, and any errors that occurred during data collection. Learn more

Events page enhancements

The following enhancements are now available on the Events page in the History area:

The following events are now logged to the Events page:
- Device became encrypted
- Device became unencrypted
- Device encryption product changed
- Refurbishment The process by which a device is refurbished by an Absolute Authorized Refurbishment Center. This process removes the Absolute agent from the device, which unenrolls it from your account and sets its status to Disabled. A Refurbishment event is also logged to the Events page. Note that if a device is reported stolen in the console, the device can't be refurbished. successful
- Refurbishment unsuccessful
You can now work with the Events page in the following ways:
- If you're an Administrator, export the Events page and download the resulting report to your computer by clicking > Export. Learn more
- Save the Events page as a custom report by clicking > Save As. You can access your new report under Custom in the Reports area.
- Add the page to the Favorites section of the Reports area by clicking > Add to Favorites.
- Refresh the page’s data by clicking the icon in the result grid footer. The date and time when the data was last updated shows next to the icon.
- The following enhancements have been added to improve the performance of the Events page:
  - Filtering events by user: you can now begin entering the user's name, username, or user account status and then select the user from a selection list.
  - Filtering events by device: you can now begin entering the device's device name, serial number, or Absolute Identifier and then select the device from a selection list.
Learn more

Applications page enhancements

The following enhancements are now available on the Applications page in the Assets area:
- To improve the accuracy of the reported data and make it easier for you to search, filter, and sort the Applications page, publisher and application names are now normalized The process employed by Absolute to provide more accurate reporting of the applications installed on your devices. Specifically, publisher names are normalized to make them consistent across applications, and application names are normalized to make them consistent across versions.. For example, if the detected publisher of an installed Windows application is Microsoft Corporation, while another Windows application is Microsoft Corp., the normalized publisher name Microsoft is used for both applications.
  
  Note that this enhancement also applies to a device's Applications tab in Device Details.
  
  Learn more
- Application versions are now aggregated under the normalized application name. As a result, the Application column now shows each normalized application name and the total number of unique versions detected on your devices.
  
  For example:
- The Publisher column now shows the normalized publisher name, such as Microsoft or Cisco.
- When you click an application name to view its device list, you'll see that the page has been simplified and enhanced:
  - The page header now shows the normalized application name, the publisher, and the total number of unique versions detected on your devices.
  - Redundant columns and filters (Publisher and Application) have been removed from the default view of page.
  - The Version filter now lets you select from a list of detected versions instead of entering the version number.
  NOTE The following report options have been temporarily removed from the device list view of the Applications page: Schedule, Add to Favorites, and Save As. They will be made available again in an upcoming release.
  In the meantime, you can access these report options in a new report that is now available on the Reports page. The Installed Applications report shows up-to-date information about the individual applications installed on each active Windows and Mac device in your account. Learn more

Actions page enhancements

Unenroll Device requests have been added to the Actions page in the History area. View the progress of a Unenroll Device request as a whole or the Action status for an individual device. New Unenroll Devices events show in the Events page. You can still find events from Unenroll Device requests created prior to this release in the Event History report.

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 BeyondTrust Jump™ Client. Learn more

You can now persist the following application versions:

F5 BIG-IP Edge Client version 72.2020 and higher
McAfee® ePolicy Orchestrator® version 5.7 and higher

Script Library enhancements

The following Absolute script, which you can run on your Windows devices, is now available in the Script Library in the Settings area:

Create or change the value of a Windows registry key

For more information about running Absolute Reach scripts, see Running scripts on devices.

Improvements and fixes

Absolute 7.17 introduces the following improvements and fixes:

Feature/Area	Improvements and fixes
Absolute agent	Absolute agent upgrades are no longer blocked by Crowdstrike. The Classic feature, Agent Removal Requests, has been deprecated. To track the removal of the Absolute agent, go to the Actions page in the History area and monitor the Unenroll actions that are in progress. Previously, the agent's Component Manager (CTES) may have failed to be downloaded to newly activated devices, in some rare cases. This issue is now fixed. Absolute is preparing to end support for Software Persistence. As a result, if Persistence Absolute Persistence® technology is embedded in the BIOS of most Windows devices, and the firmware of some Android devices, during the manufacturing process. The Persistence module is activated during the Absolute agent’s first connection to the Absolute Monitoring Center. This software checks the status of the agent and initiates self-healing to restore the agent if it's missing, damaged, or tampered with. is not embedded in the BIOS of a Windows device, the Software Persistence module is no longer deployed during device activation.
Anti-Malware	In addition to a daily scan, devices are now scanned for new anti-malware information on an hourly basis. If a change is detected, the new information is uploaded on the device's next agent connection, which is typically within the next 15 minutes for online devices.
Application Persistence	The Installation Token field in Configure Application Persistence: Netskope was marked as [Required] even though the field is not required for some Netskope configurations. This field has now been updated and shows the correct [Optional] label. When creating an Application Persistence policy for F5 BIG-IP Client version 71.2020.x or higher, you can now select the services that you want to include in the health check. When the Report, repair, and reinstall option was selected for an Application Persistence policy for Citrix Workspace 21.x, and the RAR component of the agent attempted to reinstall the Citrix Workspace, the installation failed. This issue is now fixed. The Application Persistence policy for CrowdStrike Falcon version 6.21 reported a status of Not compliant for all devices. This issue is now fixed.
Applications	In addition to a daily scan, devices are now scanned for new application information at 5 minute intervals. If a change is detected, the new information is uploaded on the device's next agent connection, which is typically within the next 15 minutes for online devices. Power Users and Guest Users can now view a device's Applications page.
Assets	The default sort order for the Devices page in the Assets area is now Last connected, with the devices that connected most recently appearing at the top of the page. In some cases, resizing the browser window while viewing the Devices page in the Assets area caused the scroll bars to disappear. This issue is now fixed.
Bulk actions	When a bulk device action request is made for an action that is supported by the Actions page (Run Script, Unenroll, and Wipe) and a device in the request has a non-unique serial number, Identifier, or IMEI, request handling has been improved. If the request contains a device with a non-unique Identifier, the request fails for the device and shows a Failure reason of Internal Error on the Actions page. If the request contains a device with a non-unique serial number or IMEI, and only one device is Active, the request is made for the Active device. If the request contains a device with a non-unique serial number or IMEI, and more that one device is Active, the request fails and shows a Failure reason of Internal Error on the Actions page.
Chromebooks	Previously, Chromebooks being managed using Absolute 7 were only visible in the Absolute console after an authorized user logged in to the device. Now, Chromebook data appears in the Absolute console after your Google account has synced. This only applies to those accounts that are upgraded to Absolute 7 Chromebooks. You'll know that your account is upgraded if the Settings menu includes Chromebook Settings. For those customers using the Classic Chromebooks, Absolute is in the process of upgrading your account to the new Absolute 7 feature. Descriptive tooltips have been added to the Chromebook < Extension column.
Custom Data collection	Default data points have been added to Custom Data collection. The data points are disabled by default and can be enabled in Policies > Custom Data. The new data points are: Chrome extensions Firewall status Wi-Fi authentication protocol OU - organizational unit DNS servers Learn more When you make edits to more than one data point and click Save on each data point, the changes to all data points are now saved.
Dashboards	Previously, when you clicked the data in the Application Health widget, the Application Persistence report opened showing details for BitLocker and SCCM. Now, the Application Persistence report shows details for the application that you clicked. Previously, if you had more than one license type and one of the licenses included the Manage Supervisor Password feature, the dashboard only showed information on Manage Supervisor Password. Now, the regular dashboard is available. Previously, if you searched for and viewed a device from the Dashboard and then navigated to the Devices page in the Assets area to view another device's Details > Overview page, the Overview page may have failed to load. This issue is now fixed.
Device Details	To improve the usability of the Device Details page, some minor styling and text updates have been added to the page's summary information area. When the Device Details page was opened while Notifications were expanded, the Notifications were displayed behind the Device Details page. This issue is now fixed. Previously, when you viewed any sub-tab on the Hardware page of Device Details, and then clicked Hardware, the Hardware page didn't load. This issue is now fixed. Previously, if you searched for and viewed a device from the Dashboard and then navigated to the Devices page in the Assets area to view another device's Details > Overview page, the Overview page may have failed to load. This issue is now fixed. When you use the Dashboard's Search Devices field to find a device, the field is no longer available for additional searches from the Device Details page. To search for another device, close the Device Details page and perform another search from the Dashboard.
Endpoint Data Discovery (EDD)	Leading and trailing spaces are now automatically trimmed from the rule name when you create a new rule. On a device's EDD Summary page, the following message now shows if a device's deactivated EDD policy was previously active: The Endpoint Data Discovery policy is no longer active on this device. Go to Policies to reactivate it. You can now add the new All drives encrypted column to an EDD report. For more information about this column, see Full-Disk Encryption. The Match Score Summary report now loads more quickly.
Freeze (Absolute 7 version)	Previously, when a Freeze message included an image, the image was not displayed on a frozen Android device. This issue is now fixed. A user can no longer navigate away from the full-screen Freeze message displayed on a frozen Chromebook to continue using an open Android app. Security improvements have been added to the Freeze security action.
Full-Disk Encryption	In addition to a daily full scan, devices are now scanned for new encryption status information on an hourly basis. If a change is detected, the new information is uploaded on the device's next agent connection, which is typically within the next 15 minutes for online devices. The following column is now available in the default view of the Full-Disk Encryption Status report: All drives encrypted. Note that this column reports on the status of BitLocker Drive Encryption and FileVault only. Possible status are: All Drives Encrypted With Locked Drives, All Drives Encrypted With No Locked Drives, No Drives Encrypted, Some Drives Encrypted, and Unknown.
Geolocation (Classic version)	Previously, the Chromebook extension sometimes reported a device's location using IP Georesolution even when Geolocation API, which is more accurate, was available. This issue is now fixed. After a Chromebook device is restarted, all Geolocation API locations that were collected prior to the restart, but not yet uploaded, are no longer lost. NOTE These fixes will be available after the most recent version of the Chromebook extension is deployed to your devices.
History	Previously, when a Run Script or Wipe request was deployed to a device, the status of the request was not updated from Pending to the applicable status on the Actions page in the History area, in some cases. This issue is now fixed. On the Events page, the requester associated with a Remove Freeze event is now reported correctly. Previously, the requester of the original Freeze request was shown. This fix also applies to the device's Event History page in Device Details.
Language support	When you view the Absolute console in a language other than English, the names of the predefined EDD rules are now shown in the correct language.
Network Diagnostics Tool	The Network Diagnostics Tool has been improved: The tool now tests agent connectivity over fallback port 11364. When deep packet inspection is detected, the tool now shows more descriptive error messages. The tool no longer attempts to test connectivity to Absolute URLs that are deprecated or require user authentication. Previously, connections to these URLs consistently failed. To download the latest version of the Network Diagnostics tool, go to the Download Packages page in the Settings area of the Absolute console.
Reach	Following the release of Absolute 7.16, Cancel All Scripts was missing from the Device Details page. This issue is now fixed. You can now cancel all outstanding Run Script requests for a single device from the Device Details page. Previously, when running the Add or Remove Domain User/Group to Local Group Reach script, the script may have failed with Internal Error listed as the failure reason. This issue is now fixed.
Report filters	A crash occurred when the between or not between filter was used with a memory or speed related data point. This issue is now fixed. The within last date filter now uses fixed start or end time so report data is updated consistently. The Reset filters option now remains disabled until a report's filters are edited. After you click Reset filters and the filters are reverted to their default values, the option is once again disabled, in all cases. Previously, if you scheduled a report that used the within last or not within last date filter, the emailed report may have been empty. This issue is now fixed. Updating the filters for a scheduled custom report no longer prevents the report from being sent out in scheduled emails. If you update the filters for a custom report that has been scheduled, the new filters are now applied to the scheduled report.
Reports	The following interface elements have been moved from the top right of the page to the bottom left of the result grid footer: device/item count Last updated date and time Refresh the page icon . Click the icon to refresh the report's data. This improvement also applies to the pages in the Assets area. When you sort a report using a date or date/time column, the most recent entries are now displayed on the first click. You can now save custom reports that use speed and size data points with a value measured in GB or TB. For example, you can save a report that uses the filter Disk size is 1TB. Previously, if you exported a large device report (>10,000 devices) in Excel (.xlsx) format, and the report included a date-based column, you received an error when you tried to open the report in Excel. This issue is now fixed. To improve performance, any custom sorting applied to a report is discarded when the report is exported. An error no longer occurs when you add a Device Group filter to the Software Licenses on Windows Devices report. In the Software Overview report, an application's device list is now sorted by the Username column. This change was introduced to reduce the time it takes to load the report's data, and to avoid timeouts. In some cases, the Unfreeze code column couldn't be added to device reports in the Assets area. This issue is now fixed.
Rules	When you click Go to Classic Alerts Page on the Rules page, and then click an alert on the sidebar to view it, the alert's Create and Edit Alerts page now opens, as expected. When you create or edit a rule, you can now edit the Send email field by selecting email addresses from a selection list. The list contains the email addresses associated your account's user profiles.
SIEM integration (Absolute 7 version)	The Absolute SIEM Connector now sends Rule triggered events to a SIEM application. The certificate associated with the Absolute SIEM Connector installer (AbsoluteSiemConnector2.0.msi) is now signed.
Unenroll Device	Unenroll Device requests have been integrated with the Actions page in the History area. When you create an Unenroll Device request: you can now choose to exclude missing devices from the request the eligibility test is performed after you submit the request Unlike other types of requests in the Actions page, you cannot cancel an unenroll request. All Absolute agent-related files are now removed from a device when the device is unenrolled from an Absolute account. When you submit a request to Support to unenroll a device, a status of Disabled is now consistently applied to the device across the system and the console.
Web Usage	The y-axis of the Web Usage chart now consistently shows the same unit of time for each value. Previously, minutes (m) may have been interspersed with hours (h). In Web Usage reports, the start and end times for a 23 hour time range are now displayed correctly in the Daytime column's tooltip. Previously, if you added websites to the Web Usage chart and then immediately removed them, the chart may have failed to reload after you selected a new usage option, such as Evenings and weekends. This issue is now fixed. In the Web Usage (Trending) report, webpage titles that contain unicode characters in hexadecimal format are now displayed correctly. In the Web Usage (Last 7 Days) report, when you export the results for an individual website, the correct data is now always included in the exported report.
Wipe	Wipe requests are now supported on Mac devices running macOS 11. To reduce the impact of a Wipe request submitted in error or with malicious intent, the maximum devices allowed in a single request has been reduced from 10,000 to 100. To wipe additional devices, submit another Wipe request. Following the release of Absolute 7.16, a Wipe request may have failed to be processed on a fully encrypted device if its current encryption status was not yet available in the Absolute console. The failure reason was reported as Device is not fully encrypted. This issue is now fixed. The Wipe request is processed successfully.