Release notes/9.0.0

< Release notes

NOTE: This page contains release notes for a past release of Convention Master. The current version is 10.1.7.

Released May 09, 2016

Today, we are excited to release Convention Master 9.0.0, the first supported version in the Convention Master 9.0 series. This release builds on previous versions of Convention Master to add new features and bug fixes. We are now confident in recommending customers to upgrade their production websites to 9.0.0. Please see upgrade information below.

Major System Change – 9.x

This release introduces a major change to the way Convention Master interacts with databases accomplishing two goals: prevention of SQL injection attacks, and removing the limitation that prevented Convention Master from running on PHP 5.5 or newer. This also allows customers to move away from the Ubuntu 12.04 OS and to Ubuntu 14.04.

The recommended and tested OS platform is now Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS.

New Features:

• Improved usage of cURL in the PayPal processor to ensure that requests are still successful before the TLS 1.2 transition is required.
• Added support for all PayPal supported currencies.
• New AUP generation system that outputs AUPs in PDF format. You can set your system to use PDF format by setting “GLOBAL_PrintedAupFile” to “aup_pdf.php” in the Global Variable Editor.
• Mass Mailer can now send fully HTML emails.
• Mass Mailer can now attach the AUP PDF to emails sent with it.
• New global setting: “GLOBAL_MinimumUid” to set the integer at which new UID's will start from.
• Added CKEditor for better formatting of HTML emails in Mass Mailer.
• New data import script for migrating to Convention Master from CONGO Event Management System
• Characters such as '/' are now allowed in the address field.
• New AUP Barcode formatting "EventID - UID" to prevent confusion between current event registration and next year preregistration. The cashier will be notified if the barcode does not match the currently selected event.
• New replacement tag system for Mass Mailer that allows even more user specific data to be inserted into individual emails dynamically.
• Quick Print AUP now shows you the result before printing.
• Added "Hidden" boolean field to the Edit Registrant screen, for use as method of managing duplicates. Setting “hidden” to true will hide the account from the kiosk system when a registrant searches for their name.
• Added "Duplicate of UID" integer field to the Edit Registrant screen, for use as method of managing duplicates. Setting this field to the UID it is a duplicate of will allow this account to be shown on a kiosk, but when selected it will send them to the specified UID instead.
• Added "Purge After" date field to the Edit Registrant screen, for future use as method of deleting duplicates. This field is intended to be used by the account merge and deletion tool planned in a later release.
• Add support for GLOBAL UDF types to kiosk UDF step

Some of the minor improvements and bugs fixed in 9.0.0 include:

• Fixed column names in the edit cart tool.
• Corrected bug in 541 Database update, which causes failure if there's a null or empty string value of an email address in a art show somewhere.
• Corrected bug that sometimes prevented selection of the default email sender.
• Changed default mail sending from Sendmail() to Mail() for better compatibility.
• Updated the order in which the event pull-down is generated to match start date.
• Updated list registrations to not update account balances on READ-ONLY events, otherwise it will do it once every 2 hours.
• Corrected bug with the cashier barcode field that confused longer badge numbers with products.
• Made some security improvements to AUP link.
• Reset Timeout and Time Limit on PHPMailer SMTP handling to 300 (RFC Standards) - having smaller numbers resulted in automatic failure (server rejection).
• Updated PHPMailer lib to 5.2.14 - includes general fixes as well as security patches.
• Updated CSS styles of Redmond kiosk theme
• Upgraded main search function of console to handle the new "duplicate_of_uid" flag.
• Fixed an issue with password hashing that sometimes caused a message that says "Hash algorithm failed" when setting your console password.

Special Upgrade Instructions: Upgrading Convention Master from 8.x to 9.0.0

Before you upgrade, you must download and place a new version of your license files into your installation of Convention Master. Your license files can be downloaded anytime from our new Customer License Center - https://civetsolutions.com/license-center/licensing/

If we haven’t already contacted you with your account information, please email us at support@civetsolutions.com. New System Requirement (if you use PayPal):

OpenSSL 1.0.1 or newer is required for PayPal API to function. If your version of OpenSSL is older than 1.0.1 AND the use of PayPal is configured in your installation of Convention Master, you will see a warning message displayed in console.

You can check your current version (on Ubuntu) using the following command:

$ apt-cache policy openssl

openssl: Installed: xxx

"Installed: xxx" shows the currently installed version of openssl.

Upgrading

Before starting an upgrade, we recommend that you backup your Convention Master database and files.

To perform the upgrade, run a Subversion update in the folder that contains your Convention Master installation:

$ svn up /path/to/convention_master

When this has completed, log in to the staff console [yoursite.com/console] with an account that has the "Perform DB and System Upgrades" permission to automatically trigger any pending schema updates. DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP, otherwise it will leave your install in a locked upgrade state.

For fuller/more complete information on upgrading your Convention Master installation, please see our upgrade documentation.

If you have any questions or comments, please email us at support@civetsolutions.com.