Hope your all very well.

I'm delighted to finally bring you a small preview in the form of 40 screen shots of InstantKB.NET v2.0. 

Unfortunately the screen grabs don't demonstrate the ajax functionality or performance available within InstantKB.NET. I'm hoping to have a online demo very soon for users to start playing with on our site and hopefully offering feedback. We still don't have everything we would like in place however i really didn't want to delay this update any longer.

Due to the number of screen grabs I'll simply setup the links now and will continue to update this post with information.

Also regardless of what stage we are at i'm confident before the end of this month we'll have a working version (only excluding the ticketing functionality) within My.InstantASP for customers to download and start using locally. I really don't want to officially release until we have our ticketing system complete and we've been through at the very minimum one full public beta.

I'll also be updating this topic with an exact list of the features you can expect to find within v2.0 once i've explained the screen grabs. I'm personally very excited about this release. It's been through so many revisions and it's been some very long hours but hopefully you'll all agree it's been well worth it.

One of my personal favorite features in v2.0 is the ability to create your own knowledgebase, troubleshooter or download tabs. Your custom tabs can act like standard tab and will work with custom fields, field templates or workflows. Your staff members will have the option to manage categories and content within your custom tabs. Custom tabs can also be linked to custom forms for collecting data.

We've worked to make virtually everything optional so if you don't want a feature for a specific member groups or just globally you easily disable this. For example you may not need the ticketing side of things or you may just want to InstantKB.NET to manage your knowledge base articles or track items. Or you may want to disable the knowledge base sde of things and use as a standalone ticketing system.

I've created a forum here to discuss this update.

We would of course certainly welcome any feedback good or bad. Sorry this version is not populated with real-data. Also please remember some pages are not complete and still need some work. Also we are still working to make some of the processes a little easier. For example setting up field templates or custom work flows to require a little thought currently.

InstantKB.NET v2.0 User Interface  

Homepage

W3C validated 100% strict XHTML output. 95% compliant in Bobby for accessibility. We still have some work to do there. You'll notice ajax dotted throughout the application in useful places. For example when searching or paging datagrids. Search engines defined within the SearchEngineSpiders.config file will receive standard HTML output to ensure category and paging links can be followed.

InstantKB.NET has a very similar skinning model to InstantForum.NET and each skin can be completely customized. This includes not only the styling (fonts, colors etc) but also all the mark-up is separate for each skin allowing a completely different layout support between skins. This update also uses stamdard ASP.NET v2.0 master pages making integration into existing ASP.NET v2.0 sites a little easier.

We now also support localization of the UI and will be working to offer additional language packs for both InstantForum.NET and InstantKB.NET over the coming months.

Knowledgebase Home

Here you'll notice right away our new ajax based tree navigation. This allows you to browse your entire category structure with no post backs and a very quick initial load time.

The way data is presented by default within a category can be modified using the "Manage Views" feature within the admin area. This allows you to customize which columns appear (even custom field columns) and in what order and also how results are sorted. You can see the edit view options within the "Editing a DataView" screen grab further below. Dataviews can be applied to any datagrid within any tab allowing you to customize how data is presented within specific datagrids within specific tabs.

 Standard Knowledgebase Category

Again the ajax based treeview control is used to present a list of categories. We are also working on a view for the final release which will allow you to also browse the entire knowledge base or just a specific tab by tags.

 Here you also see some basic category search options. These again are displayed using ajax along with the results allowing you to very quickly search content. Again as with any grid within any tab you can customize the columns and the order the columns appear within the grid for knowledgebase categories.

Submitting Comments As a Staff Member

You can customize the options available to your users similar to InstantForum.NET using permission sets. This allows you to say present your staff members with a rich text box for comments and allows them to skip captcha verification. captcha is only intended to prevent anonymous spam and as such is not required for authenticated members. Also notice all the meta data we can see as a staff member to the right of the article.

Here you can see our staff member has permission to view all article meta data such as percent complete, workflow step, status and priority. 

Submitting Comments As Anonymous

Whilst in the above screen grab we could see all article meta data here you'll notice as an anonymous user we only see a small number of fields to the right of the article. Using the member permission sets similar to the forum you can control which fields are displayed by member group or member. We are also hoping to have the option to customize these fields on a per article basis for final release.

Also notice as an anonymous user we are also forced to provide a valid captcha code.

You can choose to automatically approve user comments or choose to moderate the comments. All comments are added with no postbacks and if you set comments to appear right away it will appear immediately within the comments list again with no postbacks.

User Comments (an idea in progress)

Here you can see something we've been working on but i'm not to sure at this stage if this will make it into the final release. The idea behind marking comments or content as helpful to encourage and reward participation within InstantKB.NET. We've been playing with a few ideas for a user points / ranking system. We didn't want this just based off say the number of comments or visits but want others to determine the most helpful members. 

Ajax Callout Extenders

We've implemented these little things all over. We actually created a composite control so you could fall back to the traditional validation controls if you wish. This is simply an application setting. The advantage of the callout extenders if we can provide server side validation with no postback and immediate feedback.

InstantKB.NET Admin Control Panel

This [age is not complete. This page has actually been through a number of revisions. Really to try and make it easy to get started if it's your first time using the software. We didn't want to scare admin's away with to much information so you'll need to dig a little before revealing some of the advanced metrics and/or functionality. We've took this approach throughout and tried to keep things simple with the more powerful options a few clicks away.

Manage Knowledgebase Article Types

Just a basic listing of article types. Shows the standard ajax sorting options. You can sort items within our datagrids with no postback's. Similar you can delete multiple items with no postback's.

Edit Knowledgebase Article Priority

Just shows some of the very basic options available when creating priorities.

Manage Knowledgebase Views

Views allow you to customize how data is presented within the various datagrids within InstantKB.NET tabs. For each tab you create you'll have the option to modify that tabs views. You could for example create a "Todo" list tab and wish to customize views to how due dates, priorities etc.

Each tab has four standard views. You can create additional public or private views. Public views are available to all your staff members whilst private views are only available to the creator.

Editing a DataView

Shows the options available when editing a view. You can see you can completely rearrange the grid columns and the default sort options. We are also hoping to extend this to integrate with our filters feature so you can apply filters and views simultaneously.

Managing Tabs

One of my personal favorite features of this update. The ability to customize the existing or create your completely new tabs. As you can see InstantKB.NET comes with 4 built-in tabs. Knowledgebase, Troubleshooter, Downloads and Tickets. You can rearrange these tabs or hide them completely based on member group.

 

You can create your own knowledgebase, troubleshooter or download tab. For example you may want a dedicated knowledge base to store specific product information or have separate twos available to two different member groups. If you choose to create a knowledgebase, troubleshooter or downloads tab all the default fields for that tab will be copied and you have the option within the staff control panel to manage that tab just like a built-in tab.

You can create categories within your custom tab, customize views, create filters  & templates. Manage types, statuses, priorities, levels etc. You can add your own custom fields to your tab to customize the standard form further. You can even create workflow for your custom tab to ensure you can apply processes to the content within your custom tab. This make the idea of custom tabs quite powerful and you'll see use extend this over future releases. IT would be nice for example if you could create a ca lander tab or even a shared ca lander tab.

One other feature when creating custom tabs. You can also link custom forms directly to custom tabs for collecting any data you may required from your users. This could be a simple feedback form or a simple bug report form. You can turn content submitted through custom forms into content within any knowledgebase, troubleshooter or download tabs.  

Our New Tab Added

Notice now we've added the feature requests tab with is a type of "Knowledgebase" we now have all the options within the admin area on the left to edit information for the "Feature Requests " tab. We can edit the default views (or add custom views), priorities, statuses, levels, types, attachment types and attachments.

Also as the feature requests tab is a "Knowledgebase" tab type your staff members will have new options appear within the staff CP to edit the categories, articles, article templates for the Feature Requests tab.

Custom Fields

Here you can see the standard page for managing custom fields. Custom fields can be applied to the registration process or any tab within InstantKB.NET v2.0. They can even be used to build custom forms for collecting data within a specific tab or for customizing an existing form at a specific workflow step.

Adding a Custom Field

Here you can see some of the field types available. We have all the standard field types supported (textbox, select list, radio button list, checkbox list, select multiple, Alongside the standard field types you'll also find rich text fields, datepicker field and numeric only fields. We'll be extending the types of fields you can use within InstantKB.NET with future releases. There are a number of controls within the AjaxControlToolKit it would be nice to offer as a custom field control. For example the slider control or the mutually exclusive checkbox.

Custom Field Details

Here you can see us adding a multiple select drop down list for products to our custom bug tracker tab. This will allow use to select a product a bug relates to when adding a article to the custom bug tracker tab.

Custom fields can be displayed alongside articles within the front-end and you can control which custom fields are presented to your users with permission sets.

 

Field Templates

Field templates are a very powerful feature of InstantKB.NET. They allow you to customize all the built-in forms for creating articles, guides or downloads within tabs. They also allow you to build your own custom forms for collecting data within tabs. You can apply specific field templates to workflow steps within any tab to customize how a form should appear at a specific workflow step.

For example if you setup a workflow for approval of knowledge base articles you may want to provide additional fields for reviewer comments and hide or even just disable other fields at say the "In Review" workflow step. Using field templates you can customize forms at any workflow step in any tab.

Once other very nice thing about this. When you do change the workflow step to lets say "In Review" when editing or creating articles within your Knowledgebase tab the form will update on the fly using Ajax and will completely change based on the field template you associated with the workflow step selected.

This really needs a video or a online demo to show this feature in action but it's very powerful and a neat use of ajax.

Edit Field Template

Here you can see how we edit a field template. You can re

Edit Workflow

Here you can see the default screen for a workflow within InstantKB.NET. A workflow typically consists of a series of steps. At each workflow step you can setup notifications, customize field templates, setup change actions for field values, tag content, set which next workflow steps are allowed and even run custom code from tasks.

You can associate workflows with departments so they are only available to the correct staff members.

New Workflow Step

Here you can see the workflow step wizard. This shows the options creating a workflow step.

Edit Workflow Step Change Actiions

Edit Workflow Step Field Template

Staff Permissions

As an administrator you organize your staff members into departments. Staff members must have a primary department and can have any number of secondary departments. The permission set associated with the staff members primary department is used by default. You can override this for specific staff members and associate a specific permission set with that staff member.

Staff members will only have access to workflows within the same departments they belong to. For example you could create separate approval workflows for your sales and support departments. Staff members within the sales department would only have access to the workflows associated with the sales department and similar for the support department.

Reports

Reports are available for all knowledgebase, troubleshooter, downloads and ticket tabs, even custom tabs.

We already have 6 standard reports for each tab amd we'll be working on more. For example the ability to export line-item list or detailed list as PDF and filter this for any tab by category or workflow step. Also support for custom comparison reports. Where you can manually compare the status of content any tab over a defined time frame. For example you could show all Open v Resolved in the last 30 days. Or all Suggested v Published in the last 6 months.

InstantKB.NET Staff Control Panel

A new dedicated staff control panel. Completely separate from the admin control panel. Administrators can now setup permissions for staff members within the Staff Control PAnel.

Manage Articles

All paging, sorting, mass-edits, filters & searching here is ajaxed based for any knowledge base tab.

Customizing View for Manage Articles

Based on permission set some staff members may have the ability to edit content outside of workflow. This is shown below...

Edit Article

Notice the options in the left navigation have updated to provide article specific editing options.

We now support tagging of any content within InstantKB.NET. This allows your users to browse content by tags and also helps rank the content within search results. You'll also notice new options such as History (optional audit log of changes) and revisions is available if you've enabled versioning of your content. This will maintain a each version of the content and increment the version number for content. The increment is configurable.

All the opens on the left here are Ajax based so when editing a article a postback never occurs until you save the article. Not only does this provide a very experience when editing content but it also allows our code to genuinely determine when you navigated away from editing the content to unlock the content for editing by others.

Add Article

This shows some of the new cross-browser WYSIWYG editor capabilities. We did look at developing our own WYSIWYG editor for InstantKB.NET v2.0 but in the end opted to use telerik radeditor. This is wonderful editor and offers some very nice features such as a Ajax based spell checking.

Manage Categories

This shows the default view for managing categories within a tab. The treeview provides a much clearer visual indication of your category structure. You can actually build your category structure all within treeview and add and remove nodes on the fly using Ajax. This makes building your category structure much quicker and simpler than in v1.3.

For a little more control you can edit the category information and other details such as specific permissions for the category from a useful little context menu. The options available within the context menu are determined by the permissions granted by the administrator.

Here you can see we are adding a category inline within the tree. No postbacks are required when building a tabs category structure. You can also do this from the front-end if you have sufficient permissions.

Hopefully these screen shots will give you some idea of the features we are looking to include within v2.0. I will have a complete final feature list as requested by several users here ASAP.

As always I sincerely appreciate all your all support. I'm really looking forward to making InstantKB.NET v2.0 available and focusing on frequent smaller updates and spending a little more time here within the forums.

We look forward to bringing you InstantKB.NET v2.0


Kindest Regards,

Ryan Healey
Director / Developer

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