Kollaborate Server 3.7 is a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform with thousands of code changes, mainly on the backend, to modernize and improve reliability. It also contains many new features, bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

PHP 8.1 and MariaDB

This version updates PHP to version 8.1 and uses MariaDB instead of MySQL, both of which improve performance.

Trash

Deleting a file now moves it to the Trash, which can be accessed at the bottom of the screen.

Project admins can restore or empty the trash, otherwise those files will be removed automatically after 30 days.

User interface improvements

New controls for entering timecode and copying text.

Color and theme changes

Many optimizations to theming, including better support for light-colored interfaces. (You may need to rebuild your custom theme from the Tools section of the Admin Area for it to display correctly in this version.)

User administration

View stats for a user, such as the projects they are part of and how many files they have uploaded.

You can now suspend users, preventing them from using the site but keeping their files, comments, etc, intact.

Comment importing improvements

You can now map timecode, author and comment to specific columns within a CSV, as well as getting the author name from the file if the format supports it.

Comments can be imported and exported as TSV (Tab-Separated Values).

Require MFA

You can now require the user to have Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) activated before they can access a project. Edit a project to switch this option on.

There are many more changes and fixes; view the full list here.

Updated pricing

We've overhauled our pricing. Kollaborate Encoder is significantly cheaper and we've added new low-end packages with lower user counts to reduce the barrier to entry for smaller companies. (Existing customers are grandfathered into their old packages.)

At the current time of writing, we're offering a Black Friday Sale with 30% off all packages. This sale lasts through Cyber Monday (November 27th 2023).

If you'd like to try out Kollaborate Server before buying, please contact us for a trial.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview, register for the free cloud trial or contact us for a server trial.

Kollaborate Server 3.7 Beta 1 is now out. This version has a few new user-facing features but the biggest change is a signficant architectural overhaul. It has thousands of backend improvements and several key components have been rewritten. These changes improve reliability, customization and performance.

This version has been well tested and we're not aware of any issues, but we've given it a beta label due to the sheer number of changes that occurred.

We now support PHP 8.1 which provides performance improvements. The Docker images now use MariaDB instead of MySQL, which also improves database performance. Please note that the Docker image is configured to convert the database to your MariaDB version automatically. As such, we would recommend backing up the database before upgrading as you may be unable to downgrade otherwise.

On the feature side of things, link recipients can now view captions, while history can be filtered and exported to a CSV file from the History page for a project.

We've also made numerous small UI changes including new interface controls for interacting with timecode, copying links and displaying thumbnails.

Some deprecated features have now been removed from the site: namely the App Storage section and Python scripting.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We've just released Kollaborate Server 3.6.2, a minor update to our self-hosted file sharing and workflow management system.

The main features in this update are batch exporting of comments and captions, downloading of the current playback frame as an image, the option to import folder structures from an existing project when creating a new one, the option to search for a file by its age, and various user interface improvements.

Server-Specific Changes

• Added LimitRequestBody to .htaccess file for compatibility with recent versions of Apache
• Fixed an issue where avatars could not be uploaded
• Admin - Workflows - Fixed an issue where file workflows may not be editable
• Admin - Roles - Fixed a crash when deleting a role

Other Changes

• Comments - New comment design that is more space-efficient on narrower screens
• Files - Support for batch exporting captions and comments
• Player - Allow downloading the current frame as an image
• Projects - Added the ability to import folder structures from an existing project when creating a new one
• Advanced Search - Add option to search by age in days
• Preview - Remember previous volume setting for quick look previews
• Share - Added 21 day expiration option
• Metadata - Add extra frame rates to list on Edit Metadata page
• Transcript - Made caption overlap checking less strict
• Player - Show Actions button on mobile
• Player - Prompt before deleting comment annotations and attachments
• UI - Better support for popups on mobile screens
• Player - Comments and transcripts are no longer refreshed when the browser tab is not visible
• Files - Limit number of emails sent when a batch of files is moved at once
• Files - Prevent text box clicks from navigating to files/ folders when renaming
• Files - Prevent the rename textbox from appearing multiple times if the file is already being renamed
• Player - Improved the accuracy of timecode shown when hovering above play bar
• Captions - Fixed an issue where Premiere couldn't import SRTs and improved caption timing accuracy in general
• Comments - Fixed an issue where the first Davinci Resolve marker wouldn't be imported
• Download Folder - Fixed an issue preventing link recipients from downloading folders
• Files - Better logic for detecting the correct frame rate of a video if multiple frame rates are returned
• Files - Fixed an issue where renaming a version in a version stack would not reload the file correctly
• Files - Fixed an issue where a numeric filename like "1.20" could be shortened to "1.2"
• Player - Fixed a crash if reviewers are not accessible
• Player - Fixed a crash if user tries to view a file after the project has been deleted
• Adobe Panel - Various bug fixes and changes to how information is displayed
• UI - Various minor interface tweaks
• Various small bug fixes, optimizations and code modernizations

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We've just released Kollaborate Server 3.6.1, a minor update to our self-hosted file sharing and workflow management system.

Server-Specific Changes

• Hardened default security settings
• The default installer password has been changed (only affects new installations)
• Admin Dashboard - An encoding job is now considered unassigned if the server has been removed or is offline
• Admin - Number of available encoding licenses is now shown on Servers page

Other Changes

• Player - All admins can now remove original files / proxies, not just the file's owner
• Comments - Right-click a comment and choose Copy Direct Link to copy a direct link to that comment. To send to someone outside the project, create a shared link as normal, then visit that link and copy the comment link from the player.
• Comments - Markers can now be imported from a CSV file (Timecode, Author, Comment format)
• Player - The maximum height of a vertical video is now dependent upon your screen size, to ensure it's always visible
• Files - Even though it is valid for a URL to contain an exclamation mark, some email apps interpret it as punctuation and mangle pasted folder URLs. This has now been prevented.
• Sharing - The default link name is now the title of the file
• Tasks - Various fixes for importing tasks from a CSV file
• Password Reset - Fixed an incompatibility with users with special characters in their email addresses
• Sharing - Fixed an issue where share link connection could be lost when an error appears on the screen
• Encoding Servers - Follow redirects when communicating with servers
• Files - More robust support for getting a file's frame rate
• Player - Ensured download info box is still visible on small size videos
• Various small bug fixes, optimizations and code modernizations

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We've had some enquiries from customers about the Log4j vulnerability currently causing havoc across the internet. Log4j is a Java library and none of our products or backend processes use Java. Therefore, none of our products, including customers' self-hosted Kollaborate Server installations, are affected by this security flaw. (Self-hosted customers could still be vulnerable if they run other software on their servers that uses Log4j.)

Kollaborate Server 3.6 is out now - a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform.

Direct SMTP email sending

Kollaborate Server can now send emails directly using a user-supplied SMTP server, which is much more user-friendly than the old system utilizing Postfix. If you were using Postfix with a previous version, you will need to add your SMTP server information in the Configure page of the Admin Area to resume sending emails with version 3.6.

Your email provider will be able to supply information about connecting to their SMTP servers, or alternatively you can use Gmail or Amazon SES. Note that if you have two-factor authentication switched on with your email provider, you will likely need to set up an App-Specific Password for Kollaborate Server; your provider will be able to provide more details on this if it is necessary.

This is now our recommended way of sending emails from Kollaborate Server so we are also deprecating the Email Routing subscription service. This service will shut down in March 2022 (the exact date depends on your billing renewal date) and we have contacted affected customers about this directly. To avoid disruption, customers should upgrade to 3.6 and setup their SMTP information before the shutdown date.

Customize Default Workflows

The default workflows added automatically when creating a new project can now be customized from the Admin Area. Setup rules for automatically color coding files or complex approval chains that will be applied when the project is created.

(It should be noted that actions requiring specific files (such as adding a watermark image) cannot be set in default workflows as those files won't exist in new projects.)

Codec and track information in player

The Metadata tab in the player now shows information about the video codec of the original file and the audio track configuration. This information will not show for older files but will be gathered for all files uploaded from now on.

Set language on a per-file basis

The audio language setting is used to determine which caption language to show by default. Previously this could only be set on a project-wide basis but now can be overriden for specific files. This can be done from the Edit Metadata page.

Other Changes

• Admin Dashboard - Only calculate average encoding time for files from the last 24 hours
• Admin Dashboard - Fixed an issue where clearing the render queue doesn't requeue jobs correctly
• Admin Dashboard - Added the ability to clear failed encoding jobs only
• Fixed an issue where errors wouldn't be shown when creating a new user from the Admin interface
• Roles has been moved to the main navigation bar in the Admin Area
• You can now override the "From" name shown in emails from the Configure page (by default it is the site's name)
• Uploads - Show remaining upload count in page title
• History - Show file move events on the History page
• Share - Show the file upload link's description to users when uploading
• Player - Added n / p shortcut keys to go to next / previous file
• Fixed an issue causing potential conflicts with similar folder names
• Files - Various page performance improvements when navigating and uploading files
• Files - Fixed strange behavior when interacting with a file immediately after upload (e.g. favoriting or Quick Look)
• Player - Disabled browser player download button on mobile
• Files - Fixed page scrolling unnecessarily when dragging in files to upload
• Player - Fixed an error when subscribing / unsubscribing to a file
• Various minor fixes, code modernizations and refactorings

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

Kollaborate Server 3.5 was released last week - a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform.

As well as a massive under-the-hood overhaul, it introduces the following new features:

Security improvements

For improved security and privacy, we're now encrypting parts of the database. This happens automatically when running the upgrader for this release. Encryption keys are stored in config/keys.php and you will need to backup this file if you reinstall or move to a different server otherwise the database will be unreadable.

New admin tools

We've added new tools to the Admin Area to easily export a backup of the database, manage the number of days files remain in the trash and regenerate thumbnails if they are missing.

Project tags

You can now add tags to projects to categorize them, such as "in-progress" or tagging them with the name of the client. Clicking on a tag shows you other projects with that tag.

Multi-speed fast forward and rewind

Press J, K or L multiple times to increase or decrease rewind / fast forward speeds.

Edit custom department names

Department names can now be edited after they are created. Previously you would have to remove and re-add the department under a different name.

More export options

Captions can now be exported to CSV and comments can be exported to Reaper.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We recently released Kollaborate 3.5, a major update to our cloud workflow platform.

Major overhaul

While the site may look largely the same as before, under-the-hood it's actually a massive rewrite of large parts of the code, with a focus on improving performance and reliability.

There are over 4000 changes in this update, which amounts to about a two-thirds rewrite of the entire backend. The remaining third will be taken care of in future updates. This version improves performance, but we'll be able to take performance improvements even further once that final third is rewritten.

New features

While this version was primarily intended as an infrastructure update, not a feature update, there are a few small new features:

Project tags

You can now add tags to projects to categorize them, such as "in-progress" or tagging them with the name of the client. Clicking on a tag shows you other projects with that tag.

Multi-speed fast forward and rewind

Press J, K or L multiple times to increase or decrease rewind / fast forward speeds.

Edit custom department names

Department names can now be edited after they are created. Previously you would have to remove and re-add the department under a different name.

Auto-transcription for French

French-language audio can now be automatically transcribed from the Transcript tab of the player.

More export options

Captions can now be exported to CSV and comments can be exported to Reaper.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. To find out more, see the overview or register for the free trial.

Last week we released Kollaborate Server 3.1, a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform for creatives.

Edit default roles

You can now modify the default roles for projects server-wide from the Tools page of the Admin Area.

Installer passwords

The installer and upgrader are now password protected for added security on Docker installations by default. You can find the password inside the config.env file.

Non-Docker manual installations do not have the password set by default but it can be set through the environment variable KOLLAB_INSTALLER_PASSWORD.

Folder downloading

The contents of folders, departments or entire projects can now be downloaded all at once as a single zip file.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps show how a video has been viewed - where people skipped ahead and where they watched more than once. Click the Heatmap button in the player for all results combined, or go to the Users tab to view heatmaps for individual users.

Currently heatmaps are recorded only for team members but we plan to record them for link recipients in future.

Quick Share

Clicking the Share button on the player or Files page now generates a link that you can copy and paste immediately, which can dramatically speed up the process if you need to generate lots of links at once. You can edit the link options in the dialog and they will be remembered for future links.

If you clicked the button by mistake, you can also delete the link from that dialog.

Task tags

You can now add tags to tasks. Some uses for this could be:

• To segment tasks into categories such as "sound" and "VFX"
• To tag tasks with milestones such as "v3.0"
• To convey a task's status - e.g. "Needs verification" or "Successfully reproduced"
• To add additional context or information to a task - such as "5.1 mix" if the issue only appears in a particular mix

Keyboard shortcut overhaul

While Kollaborate has supported keyboard shortcuts for a long time, these weren't easily discoverable. Now whenever a page has available shortcuts, a keyboard icon will appear at the bottom of the screen that will show you shortcuts available for that page. This update also added lots of new shortcuts for things like image zooming and PDF page navigation.

Other changes

• Import / export metadata to CSV files
• Pin important tasks to the top of the Tasks view
• Improved icons
• You can now add captions in languages other than English
• Language can now be specified when creating a project - this controls which caption language displays by default
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We've made big improvements to the automatic transcription feature of our Kollaborate cloud workflow platform.

English transcription is now more accurate and we're offering support for Russian, Chinese and German too. We expect to add additional languages in future as speech models become available.

Automatic transcription is free and unlimited for all Team accounts.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. To find out more, see the overview or register for the free trial.