Welcome to the first edition of the Alcea FastChat eNewsletter, your source for the latest information on Alcea's issue management solutions.

1. News: MedAssist Reduces Bottom Line By 30% Using Alcea Fast BugTrack
2. Buy: Upgrade to Our Database Model at an Introductory Price
3. Learn: Working with Groups in Alcea Fast BugTrack
4. Win: Fill Out Our Customer Survey and Receive a 10% Discount on Extended Support
5. Team: New Communications and Marketing Manager Joins Alcea
6. Upgrade: Alcea Fast BugTrack Version 4.16 Now Available

1. News: MedAssist Reduces Bottom Line By 30% Using Alcea Fast BugTrack

MedAssist, a U.S. company that provides accounting services to healthcare providers, has reduced crucial project management time by more than 30% since purchasing Alcea Fast BugTrack in December 2003.

“For the money I wanted to spend, Alcea Fast BugTrack is perfect,” said David Perry, Director of MIS and IT for MedAssist. “It doesn't have a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles and the product support is excellent.”

MedAssist uses Alcea Fast BugTrack to consolidate and track interdependent project tasks from three key departments - MIS, IT, and Security. Each department is responsible for different aspects of client/mainframe database setup and integration.

“Before Alcea Fast BugTrack, our departments were tracking all of their tasks separately and I spent hours formatting different status reports and updating our executives,” said Mr. Perry. “With Alcea Fast BugTrack, each project's details are entered in the system and an email automatically notifies key departments so everyone is kept informed. I don't even have to pick up the phone.”

Alcea Fast BugTrack's integrated project management functionality allows MedAssist to efficiently perform a variety of project management functions, which include: tracking project due dates and completion dates, tracking elapsed project time, comparing estimated and actual project time, keeping staff (read-only users) informed of a project's status, maintaining a history of all projects and related tasks, and generating Excel reports.

“We also keep executive management informed of project status using the data export function into Excel,” said Mr. Perry. “Alcea Fast BugTrack allows us to keep our MIS and IT resources focused on those projects that impact our business most.”

Alcea Technologies Inc. plans to begin releasing a multi-discipline issue management suite by summer 2004. The suite will offer streamlined versions of our powerful flagship product, Alcea Fast BugTrack.

2. Buy: Upgrade to Our Database Model at an Introductory Price

Alcea Fast BugTrack Enterprise Solution is a database model of Alcea Fast BugTrack with the added ability to store more than 50,000 issues through full database integration. The Enterprise Solution retails for the introductory price of $3199 (until June 30) and $4999 thereafter. As a current user, you can upgrade to the Enterprise Solution for the difference in price (the delta between your original purchase and this one). More information is available at: http://www.fastbugtrack.com/pricing/licensing.html.

TOP

3. Learn: Working with Groups in Alcea Fast BugTrack

Creating a group is a common task performed by many Alcea Fast BugTrack administrators but one that is occasionally misunderstood. Below are a few tips for working with groups.

Use groups to separate users that work on different tasks or projects. When users are grouped, you can target or restrict the information they view. Groups are also used for securing data between users and separating customers. Please note that an Alcea Fast BugTrack user can exist in only one group at a time.

What is the Master List?

By default, all users are placed in a permanent Master List until they are grouped. Users within the Master List have an unrestricted view of the Alcea Fast BugTrack database, similar to Alcea Fast BugTrack administrators.

Where Do I Find the Group Options?

Set up a group by navigating to the Admin Menu page and clicking the Groups link, which appears in the General list. The Group Administration page appears. Click on the thumbnail below to access key set up steps.

What Is A Complex Group?

Complex groups let you and other administrators define the groups and projects that Alcea Fast BugTrack users can see and access.

How Do I Set Up A Complex Group?

The following diagram shows you how Alcea Fast BugTrack can be partitioned to create subgroups.

In this example, a Manager oversees three partitioned subgroups: Customer A, Customer B, and Developers. The diagram also outlines a scenario in which a customer issue is resolved. Follow the steps on the right-hand side of the diagram to see how resolution is reached without the Customer A subgroup having knowledge of the Customer B subgroup. Please note that the Developers subgroup is also partitioned from the customer subgroups and can only deal directly with the Manager.

Click on the thumbnail below to see the diagram.

What Projects Are Visible to the Complex Group?

You can configure Alcea Fast BugTrack so that each subgroup has access to a specific project (or projects). The diagram below outlines a configuration in which Project A and Project B are visible to the subgroups highlighted in our previous example.

Click the thumbnail below to see the diagram.

How Would This Example Appear in Alcea Fast BugTrack?

Click the thumbnail below to see how our sample complex group configuration appears on the Alcea Fast BugTrack Group page.

Things to Remember When Creating Groups!

*Multi-select by pressing the CTRL key and selecting items within various lists.

*Issues are restricted from a group if the proper project is not selected.

*New projects must be added manually before you can assign groups to them.

*If you cannot see specific issues, then you probably cannot see their associated project.

TOP

4. Win: Fill Out Our Customer Survey and Receive a 10% Discount on Extended Support

Your feedback is important to us. Click here to fill out our customer survey.

TOP

5. Team: New Communications and Marketing Manager Joins Alcea

Alcea Technologies Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Jodie Morley to the position of Manager, Communications and Marketing. Jodie is focused on raising the profile of Alcea Fast BugTrack and strengthening our user community by keeping you informed of new products and services. Please email Jodie at jmorley@alceatech.com with feedback on our first eNewsletter and fill out our customer survey by clicking here.

TOP

6. Upgrade: Alcea Fast BugTrack Version 4.16 Now Available

The Alcea Fast BugTrack Version 4.16 upgrade is now available. The upgrade introduces the following changes:

* Fixed issue in which multiple embedded user ids within email address profiles were not converting to email addresses for notification. For example, multiple addresses and user ids can now be used in a user profile.

* Fixed the port override functionality outlined in the corporate FAQ sheet available at: http://www.fastbugtrack.com/support/misc/faq.shtml

* Updated search logic functionality to include historical status and Assigned To fields.

* Fixed the group edit page so that you can return to no projects selected, which defaults to no security on projects (all projects).

* Fixed nullptr problem for saved filters, which contained a searchString value.

* Fixed ordering for user fields used as children in field hierarchies.

* Added new rejectedCount feature that shows the number of times an issue was in the rejected state. (Note: This was a custom feature for a specific customer.)

* Fixed the sort order of the Main Menu page after charts are created. Previously, the sort order was impacted by chart creation.

* Completed minor SOAP changes.

The upgrade is available at: http://www.fastbugtrack.com/support/upgrades.html.