Kollaborate Server 3.8 - Single Sign-On, UI refresh, new permissions, template projects, custom encoding profiles and more

We've just released Kollaborate Server 3.8, a major update to our self-hosted workflow and collaboration platform.

Single-Sign On (Preview)

Kollaborate Server now supports Single-Sign On (SSO), allowing enterprise users to have logins handled by a third-party authentication provider. When logging in with the identity provider, Kollaborate will link the login to any user accounts that already exist with that email address or otherwise create the account transparently in the background.

In order to facilitate this we have completely redesigned the login page. It is now simpler, more consistent and more reliable.

UI Refresh

We've changed the UI theme to be darker and added new icons and fonts. There are far too many changes to document, but some include relocating the user dropdown to the sidebar, new interface controls, and improvements to the layout of the player page.

Higher-quality thumbnails

Thumbnail images are now displayed at a higher resolution. In order to facilitate this we've completely redesigned how we display thumbnails, resulting in numerous improvements including more consistent handling of non-16:9 frame sizes.

To convert your existing thumbnails, use the option to regenerate thumbnails for all files in the Tools page of the Admin Area.

New permissions

We've added two new user permissions: modifying others' files and modifying others' comments. This allows users to interact with others' assets without needing to be an admin.

Saved Searches

Advanced Searches can be saved and will appear as filters on the Files page.

(Note that we recommend saved searches are limited to the current folder in most cases. Searching the entire project should only be used for specific use-cases because it can be confusing to users when the filter is applied while navigating into subfolders.)

Template Projects

Create template projects that can be used to copy settings when creating new projects. The data that can be stored in a template are folder structures, saved searches, departments, team, tasks and workflows.

Custom Encoding Profiles

The encoding settings used by Kollaborate Encoder can be modified, allowing you to change bitrate, frame size and other settings. This requires Kollaborate Encoder 1.8 and can be set from the Admin Area of the webserver.

Note that while you can have Kollaborate Encoder create multiple proxies of different frame sizes, that is of limited utility right now because there is no way to switch between them and Kollaborate will always just play the highest-quality proxy. This will be more useful with features we are planning in future.

Other Changes:

• In-progress uploads are now stored on the storage volume instead of inside the webserver container. This solves issues if the webserver has limited storage space, with the added bonus of making the finishing stage much faster
• Admin - Overhauled the UI of the Tools page
• History is now shown in the project navigation bar to increase accessibility of this feature
• Upgrader - Database tables / columns that already exist are now ignored. This can solve issues where you may have ended up with a partial upgrade
• Admin - Added the ability to hide the Help link at the bottom of the page
• Player - Improved JKL key behavior to be more in line with NLEs
• Files - New filters: Uploaded by Me and Uploaded by Others
• Files - Only allow those with file modification permissions to manually set a file's workflow
• Custom file permissions feature has been removed. Please use departments to manage file access
• File rename events are now stored in history
• File move events for each individual file are stored in history when moving a folder
• History - Better support for accented user names
• Player - Original file extension is shown in the Metadata pane
• Files - Added the ability to import comments, metadata and captions by right-clicking a file on the Files page
• Upload Workflows - Fixed an issue where workflows set to the project root wouldn't apply inside departments
• Files - Fixed an issue where renaming a file and leaving the name unchanged would show an alert that the file already exists
• Files - Fixed an issue where it may exit file renaming unexpectedly if you rename immediately after uploading
• API - Fixed an issue where special characters in a folder name could cause duplicate folders to be created
• API - Fixed a crash when special characters exist in file title
• Advanced Search - Fixed an issue where "has versions" parameter wouldn't return results
• Files - Fixed an issue where version count wouldn't update when combining a new version
• Projects - Fixed controls overlapping long project descriptions
• Tasks - Fixed an issue where history description could be garbled
• Files - Upload speed is now shown in Mb/s
• Many small fixes and tweaks

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).