Collaborator Release Notifications

Welcome to Collaborator v9.3.0!

 Collaborator 9.3 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s peer review team.  This new version is introducing several great capabilities including:

Numbered Pushpins

One of the challenges of document reviews is clearly indicating what comment is associated to a specific pushpin on a document.  With Collaborator 9.3 we’ve introduced numbered pushpins.  Each conversation now includes a specific page number and pushpin number to assist in easily finding the pushpin that is related to the conversation in question.

 

Review Details PDF

The Review Details report can now be saved as a pdf file from the CLI.  This is extremely helpful for customers that want a report of every review that has been completed.  Many customers like to store this report on shared drive for reference.  Now, that process can be automated via a script and Collaborator’s cmd line client.

 

Archive to Zip

Many regulated industries are required to retain data for long periods of time.  Because of this, we’ve added an Archive to Zip feature which allows a review and all of its contents, including the Review Detail report, to be archived to zip file that can be stored in an approved repository location for future reference.

In addition to data retention, this feature can also be used during audits.  If an internal or external audit is occurring, the review can be archived to a zip.  This saves the team time since they will not need to gather all of the information together.  They can simply click the ‘Save to Zip’ button and email the auditor the required data.

 

GitHub Name Mapping

Building upon the GitHub integration released in Collaborator 9.2, we have added automatic user name mapping.  If a user name in GitHub is the same as a user name in Collaborator, an automatic mapping occurs.  If they don’t match up, the name mapping can occur manually under the individual users’ settings.

 

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 
Best Wishes,

Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v9.4.0!

 Collaborator 9.4 - the latest release from SmartBear Software’s peer review team.  This new version continues to improve upon our GitHub integration.

 

It is also important to note that we will be deprecating several features with this release.

 

GitHub

We continue to improve our GitHub integration with this new release.  Since we introduced our GitHub integration in Collaborator 9.2, we’ve received plenty of great feedback about how to improve the experience.  One suggestion that has been included in the 9.4 release is the ability to add GitHub repositories via the CLI.  This allows Collaborator administrators to quickly and easily add GitHub repositories in bulk.

 

Deprecation

There are a number of items that are being deprecated and are no longer needed within Collaborator because of improvements to the product.  Here is the full list:

 

• Print-to-review: This capability was introduced so that MS Word documents could easily be added to a review. This is no longer need because a Collaborator MS Word add-in is now available.

 

• SOAP API: We transitioned to our JSON API, which provides significantly more capabilities.

 

• XML RPC: This is the protocol that was used within the Collaborator Client. In Collaborator 9.2 the XML RPC calls were completely transitioned to use the new more efficient JSON API.

 

• Visual Studio add-in: We are currently building a new VS add-in to support VS 2013 & 2015. The add-in will be similar to our more fully featured Eclipse plug-in.

 

To learn more about Collaborator 9.4, please check out the links below.

 

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 
Best Wishes,

Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v9.5.0!

Collaborator 9.5 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team.  This new version introduces enhanced security for our customers and easier trial experiences.   

 

Security Improvements

 

• SSO: Collaborator’s initial offering for Single Sign On adds support for jasig CAS and other SSO implementations that support Apache Tomcat 8. With SSO being the single source of authentication, users can access all web applications including Collaborator without having to log in to each one separately.  In addition to convenience, having a single end point for authentication allows for increased security and a smaller attack surface for things like phishing attacks against your organization.  Users logging into Collaborator can feel confident that they are providing their credentials to a trusted source.

 

• General: Collaborator 9.5 includes many security fixes and patches to ensure that Collaborator is using the most secure and stable versions of web components available.

 

Trial Experience

• Hosted trial option: You can now try Collaborator for 14 days in the cloud. If you decide to move forward, the data can be easily transferred into a production environment.

 

• Improved installer: The Collaborator server installer has been improved to make the install process easier than ever before. In less than 5 minutes, Collaborator can be up and running with its basic configuration.

 

To learn more about Collaborator 9.5, please check out the links below.

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v10.0!

Collaborator 10.0 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team.  This new version introduces a lot of fantastic new features!   

 

New Collaborator Versions: Community, Team and Enterprise

In this release we are introducing 3 products that share the name Collaborator.  Our previously free CodeReviewer offering is still free and is now called Collaborator Community.  In 10.0, Collaborator has become Collaborator Enterprise and we have added a brand new mid-tier offering, Collaborator Team.  Collaborator Team is a perfect blend between our Community offering and Collaborator Enterprise.  It is designed for those organizations that do not need document review or the rich customizations that are currently offered in Collaborator Enterprise.  We are really excited about being able to meet the needs of more teams!

 

Visual Studio add-in

Create and participate in reviews all while staying in Visual Studio.  That was the focus of our Visual Studio add-in.  In Collaborator 10.0, we have release this new add-in!  It supports any of the SCM’s that Collaborator already supports.

 

Download the Visual Studio add-in

 

Configuration instructions

 

Team Foundation Server

Collaborator has supported Team Foundation Server for a long time, but we’ve improved support in version 10.0.  We have added gated check-ins.  This ensures that files cannot be checked into TFS unless they have been through a Collaborator review.

 

TFS Triggers Documentation

 

RTC Improvements

More quickly and easily add changesets to Collaborator reviews.  Here are the details:

• Right click on a workitem (workitems view in Eclipse) and see two menu options: “Add to Review” and “Add to Review with Children”. These menu option adds changesets from the workitem to a new or existing review
• Right click on a changeset (links tab of an RTC workitem) and see a new menu option: “Add to Review”. This option adds the selected changeset to a new or existing review.
• Right click on a workitem (links tab of an RTC workitem) and see a new menu option: “Add to Review”. Choosing this option will add the selected changesets from the workitem and add them to a new or existing review.

RTC Integration

 

Document Review

Users can now use the scroll wheel of their mouse to navigate from one page of the document to the next.  Moving the mouse cursor over the diff view of the document will allow the mouse wheel to scroll to the next or previous page.  This change makes document navigation more intuitive than the current next and previous buttons.

 

COBOL Support

Collaborator 10.0 now supports .cbl and .cob file extensions.  In addition to those extensions, there is now an “Ignore Sequence Number” option in the diff viewer display settings.

 

GitHub

We’ve continued to improve our GitHub support in Collaborator 10.0.  We have added the ability to configure the polling interval at which Collaborator checks for changes on the GitHub server.  Additionally, we add links back to the GitHub commit or pull request.  These links can be found in the Chat section of Collaborator’s Review Summary screen.

 

Version Support

With the release of Collaborator 10.0, we will no longer be support Collaborator versions 8.x and older.  Also, we have deprecated our legacy API (--legacy-api) and will be removing it in a future release.

 

 

To learn more about Collaborator 10.0, please check out the links below.

 

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

 

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Collaborator 10.0.10001 and 9.5.9502 Patch Release

 

Recently, a security vulnerability was discovered that was introduced in our 9.5.9500 build of Collaborator.  

 

To address this issue, we are releasing a 9.5.9502 patch as well as a patch to Collaborator 10.0.  In addition to this fix, we are also providing a fix to allow GitHub connections via SSL in the 10.0 patch.

 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this patch, please contact SmartBear support.

 

To download these patches, visit the Collaborator Installers page.

Welcome to Collaborator v11.0!

Collaborator 11.0 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team.  This new version introduces a lot of fantastic new features!   

 

GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket Integrations

In this release we are introducing support for GitLab and have enhanced our support for GitHub, and Bitbucket.  Our integration allows users to easily create Collaborator reviews whenever a pull request is initiated.  In addition to creating the review, Collaborator can merge the pull request or close its branch once the Collaborator review is completed.  Finally, we’ve made it easier to add repositories by basing their management off of webhooks.

 

Repository Management

 

Custom Syntax Highlighting Schemes

Collaborator has always supported syntax highlighting for a number of languages.  However, this latest release adds the ability to create custom syntax highlighting schemes.  This change now allows Collaborator to support syntax highlighting for any language.

 

Syntax Highlighting

 

Document Review Improvements

In Collaborator 11.0, users can now Pan, Zoom and Scroll using their mouse.  The addition of these features makes reviewing both documents and images easier and more intuitive. 

 

Document Review

 

Hide Files Under Review

Often times changelists include files that don’t necessarily need to be reviewed.  Though they don’t need to be reviewed, they are still part of an atomic changlist and cannot be deleted from the review.  Hide Files allows users to selectively determine which files are displayed on the Review Summary screen.

 

Hide Files

 

Collaborator 10.2

Collaborator 10.2 was released during the holiday season and you may have missed it.  Here’s what you missed:

 

• Custom Logos – You can now add a company logo to the Login screen and the Home screen.
• iCal Invites – If you would like to schedule a meeting as part of your peer review process, there is now an iCal Everyone option located in the participant section of every review.

 

 

To learn more about Collaborator 11.0, please check out the links below.

 

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 

Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v11.1!

Collaborator 11.1 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team.  This new version introduces enhanced support for JIRA Issue linking.  In addition to JIRA linking, we have added the ability to copy reviews and archive the content cache.

 

 

Remote System Links

In this release we have introduced a new section to the Review Summary screen labeled Remote System Links.  Remote System Links allow you to have quick and easy reference to JIRA as well as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. 

 

Configuring JIRA Integration

 

Remote System Links

 

 

Copy Previous Review

Many Collaborator users create multiple reviews at the start of a project.  This ensures that all artifacts are reviewed by the appropriate people at the right time.  To make this process easier, we have added a Copy button to the Review Summary screen.  You can title the review as well as copy participants, custom fields, and review materials.

 

Copy Previous Review

 

 

Archive the Content Cache

This feature has been added for the Collaborator administrators.  As you know, the Collaborator content cache is growing as reviews are taking place.  To help free up space on your storage device, you can now archive the files from older reviews.  The reviews stay in Collaborator’s database and all of the review details are still stored.  Only the files will be removed.  Users will see a message letting them know that the files have been archived by an administrator.

 

Content Cache

 

 

Review Subscriptions

Collaborator 11.1 now supports Review Subscriptions for Templates as well as Review Pool Subscriptions.  This capability makes it easier to ensure that the correct people are participating in reviews.  To learn more about these subscription types, follow the links.

 

Template Subscriptions

 

Group Subscriptions

 

 

Other Improvements

Additional features and improvements include:

 

• Support for VS 2017
• TFS Changeset selection
• Custom Field Due By phases

 

 

To learn more about Collaborator 11.1, please check out the links below.

 

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 

Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v11.2!

Collaborator 11.2 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team.  This new version introduces an improved Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server support as well and SSO support vis SAML.

 

Visual Studio & TFS

Collaborator 11.2 improves upon our existing Visual Studio and TFS integration by making it easier to use and secure.   With Collaborator’s Visual Studio plug-in, it is easy to create reviews with changesets and shelvesets as well as link TFS Work Items to Collaborator.  Additionally, we’ve added Single Sign On support for VS online and the Collaborator VS plug-in.

The Collaborator VS plug-in also supports participating in reviews directly from Visual Studio.  Users can open reviews, add comments and file defects without leaving Visual Studio.  Finally, review creation with other SCMs including Git, Subversion and Mercurial is supported.

 

Visual Studio plug-in

 

TFS Work Item Links

 

SAML Support

Collaborator now supports Single Sign On via SAML.  With SAML, users no longer need to remember a separate user name and password for their access to their domain and to Collaborator.  Administrators can easily configure Collaborator to work with SSO by providing provider and certificate information in the Administration section of the Collaborator WebUI.

 

Configuring SAML

 

 

To learn more about Collaborator 11.2, please check out the links below.

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

 

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

A 10.2.10203 patch has also been made available on the Installers page.  The patch is to address UI issues with the latest release of Google Chrome.

 

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v11.3!

Collaborator 11.3 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team. This new version introduces an improved UI including themes such as ‘light mode’ and ‘dark mode’, as well as support for Microsoft PowerPoint and Visio. Additionally, we’ve extended the JIRA integration to make it easier to transition Collaborator defects to JIRA. Read below for a full list of improvements.

 

UI Improvements

The Collaborator UI has been modified to make navigation through the UI easier. Themes have also been added to improve the experience for users, including a ‘Dark Mode’. Themes can be configured at the admin level - to set defaults and at the individual level - for personal preference.

Web UI Changes

 

Improved Diff Viewer Display Mode

Collaborator’s Before and After diff viewer selection has been improved with the addition of a ‘Simple’ mode that can be toggled on and off from the Diff Viewer. The Simple mode makes the diff selection process more intuitive by providing commit messages and creation time information. Users can also configure which items to display via their personal user settings.

Diff Viewer

 

Enhanced Participant Custom Fields

Participant custom fields can now be edited by Authors, Moderators, and individual participants. This makes setting the field values an option for other review participants instead of just the assigned participant. As an example, many customers like to use a participant custom field to flag the Review Lead. This field can now be assigned by the Author or Moderator at the start of the review.

Custom Fields

 

Visual Studio plugin – RTC

With Collaborator 11.3, RTC version control users can now create Collaborator reviews based on RTC changesets and work items through a new Visual Studio add-in.

Visual Studio add-in

 

JIRA Issue Creation

When users want to transition a Collaborator defect to a JIRA ticket, they can now do so from the Diff Viewer. Clicking Track External will popup a new window with the required JIRA fields for a specific project. Once filled in, a new JIRA ticket will be created and the Collaborator defect will be marked as External with a link to the JIRA ticket.

JIRA Issue Tracking

 

LDAP/AD User and Group Sync

Collaborator administrators can now configure User and Group sync for LDAP/AD. This makes adding users to Collaborator, with all of their personal information, quick and easy. In addition to adding users, they can now be assigned to Collaborator groups based off of the groups that are defined in LDAP/AD.

Sync Capabilities

 

Microsoft PowerPoint and Visio

Collaborator 11.3 introduces the ability to review both Microsoft PowerPoint and Visio files without having to first convert/save the file to Adobe PDF. Now users can simply upload a PowerPoint or Visio file directly to Collaborator and that file will be displayed in the Diff Viewer for review.

PowerPoint Support

Visio Support

 

To learn more about Collaborator 11.3, please check out the links below.

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

 

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 

Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team

Welcome to Collaborator v11.4!

Collaborator 11.4 is the latest release from SmartBear Software’s dev collaboration team. This new version adds Checklist custom fields, Git improvements for submodules as well as rebased or squashed commits. Additionally, Collaborator now integrates with Bitbucket Server via Atlassian’s recently released webhooks capability.

 

Checklist Custom Fields

Collaborator now provides configurable custom fields for review Checklists. This new capability extends checklists to ensure that additional information can be captured as part of the review process.

Review Checklists

 

Bitbucket Server

Collaborator has supported Bitbucket server for quite a while via a plug-in. However, Atlassian recently added similar webhooks to their on-prem offering that they have had in their hosted version. Users can now integrate Collaborator and Bitbucket without needing to install a plug-in.

Bitbucket Server

 

Git Submodules for Repository Management Solutions

Customers that utilize solutions such as GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab can now see the changes in submodules of tracked repositories within Collaborator. 

Submodules

 

Rebased or Squashed Commits

If your Git workflow involves rebasing or squashing commits, Collaborator will now display information related to those commits within the Review Summary screen.

 

Group Importing from LDAP/AD Servers with SSO

Collaborator now allows admins to import user groups from LDAP/AD servers when using SSO for authentication. The user groups can automatically be added to Collaborator based on the new user that is logging into Collaborator.

LDAP/AD Group Sync

 

 

To learn more about Collaborator 11.4, please check out the links below.

Download the latest release of Collaborator.

You can view the full list of fixes and improvements here.

 

If you have any questions about licensing, please contact sales. If you have any technical support questions, please contact SmartBear Support.

 

Best Wishes,
Justin Collier & The SmartBear Team